Following a lecture in Chicago in early May, 1926, Hazrat Inayat Khan answered questions from the audience, among them these three. The questions could as well have been asked today; the puzzles seem to be perennial. Hazrat Inayat’s answers are brief, but very illuminating.
Q.: Is it necessary to become selfless in order to reach divine union?
A.: As I have said in my lectures, there are two aspects of the ego, the false and the true. And to be selfless means to get above the false ego. That does not mean to get away from the true ego. Therefore, in other words, to be selfless means to come to the real self.
Q.: Why must one practise renunciation, self-abnegation, and self-effacement? Why not glorify self-love?
A.: Love has no scope to develop when there is a self-love. It is therefore that the water of the little pool is always dirty, because it has no chance of running. A self-centred person who loves himself has no scope of developing spirituality and always defeats his purpose for the same reason, because he is not living. Loving is living.
Q.: What do you mean by sympathy?
A.: That is the one thing I cannot explain. I think all such words are the different names of the one and same thing. It is love which is called sympathy, kindness, mercy, pity, compassion, appreciation, gratefulness, service, different aspects of the one and same thing known by many names. But if you ask what is love, love is God.