Hazrat Inayat Khan here concludes this brief lecture on the inherent longing for an ideal towards which we may aspire, an ideal which until the present era, was given to the world by religion. The first portion of the lecture is here.
It is the present age, which objects to believing something which can only be understood in its culmination; and thus it refuses to believe it at all. Belief when developed is faith, and it is in that faith that one will find a seal: through opening it, there comes a revelation of the continuity of life. No one but one’s own self can convince one of the life in the hereafter; but if one can give oneself a belief to begin with, the conviction will come by itself. Many have applied wrong methods in order to convince man of the hereafter, and by trying to play with phenomena, instead of giving a new belief they have taken away the belief of the intelligent people and built a wrong belief in the simple ones.
The work of the Sufi message, therefore, is to use any of the different methods, devotional, religious, spiritual, which will suit the particular grade of a person’s evolution, in order to prepare his heart for that conviction which is called the life immortal.
Man also has a desire of exaltation, the exaltation that is afforded him by cleanliness of body and purity of mind. Man longs to feel exalted both by the power of words and by his surroundings, and strives for exaltation by thought, by action, and by feeling. The nature of life in the world is such that it constantly drags man towards the earth. His senses, and the crudeness of human nature which jars continually, draw man towards the earth, bearing constantly the heavy burden of human responsibilities, and realizing in the end that these responsibilities are not of great importance. And the only change he can bring about to rid himself of material responsibilities is achieved by praying, either alone or joining with others in religious rites and ceremonies that afford him that means of exaltation in answer to his desire.
With the maturity of his soul, a man desires to probe the depths of life. He desires to discover the power latent within him. He longs to know the sources and goal of his life. He yearns to understand the aim and meaning of life. He wishes to understand the inner significance of things, and he wants to uncover all that is covered by form and name. He seeks for insight into cause and effect. He wants to touch the mystery of time and space, and he wishes to find the missing link between God and man – where man ends, where God begins. And this desire also finds its fulfillment in contact with the spirit that religion gives.
Finally it is a most natural desire of the human soul to seek for happiness and comfort. Man desires principles to guide his life, and he wishes for a moral standard to regulate the life of the community. He wishes for a balance of activity and repose; he desires union with the one whom he loves; he wishes for the security of all that belongs to him, a settled reciprocity, a fixed give-and-take, and all things that bring about happiness and peace at home and in the nation.
In the world today many people think that one can do without religion, and that they themselves have outgrown religion by reason of their evolution. Many have no religious belief, and therefore the world has never been in a more chaotic condition. No doubt one finds in tradition and in history that in the name of religion the selfishness and ignorance of mankind have been given free rein. This is the reason why man, revolting against this state of things, has forsaken religion and forgotten that spirit which, in the name of religion, has also played its part in the world. And now, in the absence of religious influence, the selfishness and ignorance, which in the name of religion played a part in history, continue to do so under the name of modernism. In spite of the separation that man tries to make between himself and others, he has always felt something lacking in himself, even at home and in his own country. This can be seen today among materialists, who would not for one moment allow themselves to have a religious belief, but who yet are not satisfied. And the reason is that they lack something very great and important, something which they cannot attain to because they have built a wall around themselves.