The exercises which a mureed practises must be considered as a winding, the winding which keeps the mechanism of the clock going. And when one cannot continue the practices at a regular time that has been appointed to them, one fails to keep the spirit in its right pitch and regular rhythm. Nevertheless, a human being is not only a machine, that is a part of his being. Therefore a thought which is automatically repeated in oneself by a practice, a mureed must continue by his own will, that he does not only practise at the time of doing the exercises, but he continues the thought all along through the day, that the same thought may be continued at night whilst he is asleep, in his subconscious mind. It is this that brings him the real benefit of it.

For instance, combining the rhythm of breath with the steps one takes while walking and continuing mentally the thought of one’s fikar, repeating wazifa with each step one takes while walking, can bring one a thousand times greater benefit than only doing it at an appointed hour. The object is to make oneself one’s thought by repeating it in the breath in the form of a word with every action, with every movement. It is in this way that one gets the full benefit of one’s exercises. Sufis who lived in nature interpreted the sound of the birds in the form of their wazifa. They took it as their zikar. And so sitting in the nature they always heard it. Instead of their repeating the zikar, the birds repeated it for them. So they blessed the birds and awakened themselves.

For a Sufi no sound is without any meaning, for he interprets that sound to himself in the realm of the meaning he wants. Besides, the sound of the nature which is continually heard through the wind and through the running of the water, and through all things that are moving, becomes the greatest meditation there could be if one gave attention to it, which develops wonderful realisation by which one receives the fullest benefit which comes from all the sounds around one.

Q. : The dervish uses the sound of the birds. He does it by hearing another thing in it than the bird says.  The bird makes a noise and he makes something else out of it.  Now, a man living in a town, can he also turn the sound of the town?

A. : Yes, he can make the most inharmonious sounds harmonious.  In Wissous* we had a church bell just near.  Many came and said, “What a nuisance, all the time that bell going on, night and day.” For me that bell was a great blessing.  The way that the bell was ringing, it was saying the zikar in such a clear sound, because it comes from tradition.  They do not consciously know, but they were taught in the past to ring the bell in that particular way. It is clearly the second half of the zikar.  It was so uplifting.  It would make the whole village in an atmosphere of zikar.

*When Hazrat Inayat and his family moved to France, they first lived in Wissous, a village south of Paris, before moving to Suresnes.