There are two things which cause a person to praise another, and there are two things which make one find fault with another. An idealising tendency and goodwill causes one to look at the good side of people; in the absence of these two tendencies one would not be able to see good in anybody. What makes the diamond valuable? That it is idealised. A crystal with an electric current in it can shine much more than a diamond. It is not always that the value is in things and beings; the value is according to what one makes of them, the way one idealises them. A person without ideal will say, “Every man is the same to me. There is no older or younger, superior or inferior,” but the one with ideal will raise a person in comparison to other persons, will idealise a person.

But it is goodwill which sustains the ideal. In absence of goodwill a person may raise his ideal high and in an instant throw it down from there and break it. In Russia once, the Tsar was adored as a representative of God, not only as a monarch. There was no shop in which the picture of the Tsar and Tsarina was not exhibited in the most prominent place. And then a wave came when endless suffering was caused to someone they all had adored and the crown was taken into the street and was broken with hammers and was carried in the procession. Verily man is a child; in a moment he raises someone and another moment he throws his ideal down. Therefore a truly idealistic person is rarely to be found in the world, and the ideal can only be maintained by the power of will.

When a person finds fault with another, and insults another, he does it for two reasons. One is pride, because it satisfies his pride to know, or for it to be known, that he is better than another. The other thing is that it comes out of cruelty in nature. There is a silent cruelty in the nature of man, the satisfaction of which is in causing hurt to someone in whate­ver form. That person gets a kind of satisfaction out of it. There are some in the world who by causing hurt physically, by seeing a wound, get a satisfaction; there are others who get a satisfaction out of hurting someone’s feelings. And it is not a rare thing, it is so much to be found everywhere.

And it must be known that there is action and reaction. Everything that one does has a reaction, it rebounds. Love brings back love, hate brings back hate, and a thousandfold more. Give one grain and take back a thousand grains! A person, however rich, powerful, highly placed, capable, efficient, supported by many in life – by armies – can be thrown down to the depths of the earth by the smallest hurt he may have caused, which then rebounds. No protection, no support can ward off the blow of the reaction of any hurt a person causes to anybody. But one may say, “There are many people in the world who are quite happy in spite of all the cruelty they have inflicted on their fellowmen.” But it must be remembered that their time comes, it is nothing but a matter of time.

Therefore for the Sufi there is one principle which is most essential to be remembe­red and that is consideration for human feeling. If one prac­tises in his life this one principle he need not learn much more; he need not trouble about philosophy; he need not follow an old or a new religion, for this principle in itself is the essence of all religions. God is love, but where does God dwell? He abides in the heart of man.