With this post we conclude this extensive text begun here and continued here and here. In this series of posts, the language approximately corresponds to the natural speaking style of Hazrat Inayat Khan, which many students may appreciate, and while it may pose some problems especially for translators, the general meaning is clear.
Sufis in all ages, mystics of India, Persia, Egypt, have considered the wakening of the heart quality as the principal thing in life. For all virtues that the priest can teach and prescribe, the virtues told to practise in life, they come naturally when the heart becomes open. You need not learn virtue. Then virtue becomes one’s own. All virtues as they are taught by people, how long do they last? If there is any virtue it must come by itself. Therefore, spirituality is natural. And if animals and birds can feel spiritual exaltation, why not we? Except this, we don’t live a natural life. I cannot take time to explain what I mean by natural life. In short, I must say we have tried in civilization, in life, to be as much removed from nature and natural life as possible, breathing artificial atmosphere against climatic influences, eating food which we have made and improvised in making it, turning it quite different from what nature had made it. We made it by cooking, and making it different, quite different from the way nature has given it. Besides that, the deeper we go into the life of the community, the more we find that we are not on the track as we ought to be. We seem to have lost our own individuality. We have called it progress, a progress to a certain condition. And there we begin to feel that we are in a puzzle. And now has come a time, and every day it comes more and more, that there is a realization of this fact, that thinking people and wise people who are just and honest say we are not progressing, but we are in a puzzle. And the door of this puzzle we are looking for. I spoke with a great scientist and in spite of all his knowledge, what did he say? He said we don’t know where we are. This invention we have discovered, but we don’t know how to control it to the best advantage of life.
Inventions apart, the first question is how to make the life as good as we can, how to make the best of this opportunity which is passing from us. Every moment lost, it is not that the money is lost, but a moment lost is incomparably more valuable. As man will realise more and more, so more and more he will come to the conclusion and to the realization that he has gone and gone, thinking that he was progressing, but that he has been moving in the same puzzle. If he only found the door, that door which is called by the wise spiritual attainment. How much educated one may be, how much one has collected, accomplished, how much power and position gained, it will not keep everlasting except one thing, and that is spiritual attainment. Without this there will always be dissatisfaction, uncomfortable feeling.
No knowledge, power, position, no wealth can give that satisfaction which spiritual attainment can give. There is nothing more easy, and nothing more difficult in the world: difficult because we have made it difficult, easy because it is the easiest thing possible. All other things one has to buy and pay. We have even to buy the water. But for spiritual attainment we do not need to pay a tax. It is ours, it is our self. It is discovering our self, finding our self. And yet what one values is what one gets with difficulty. Man loves complexity so much. He makes a thing big and says that is valuable. If it is simple he says it has no value. And ancient people, therefore, knowing human nature, when a person said he wanted spiritual attainment, he was told, “Yes, for ten years go around the temple, walk around it hundred times in the morning and hundred times in the evening, and go to the Ganges and fill your pitcher with the water of the Ganges for five or ten years, then you will get inspiration.” That is what must be done with people who will not be satisfied with a simple explanation of truth, who want complexity.
Very often having been asked, “You must show us a tangible truth,” as they say in American language, “you must show us….” I very often thought how would it be if I wrote on a little brick, “Truth,” and if I gave it to them saying, “Hold it fast! Here is tangible truth.” The fine people, when they write a letter, they expect their friend to read between the lines. Even the subtle feelings of the human heart cannot be expressed in words. How then can anyone expect truth to be spoken in words? That which is spoken in words can never be truth. People do not distinguish the meaning of fact and truth. They always muddle between truth and fact, very often the greatest error one makes. If a person has a crude nature, or insolent nature, or a stone brain, he says, “What do I care? What do I care how anybody takes it? I simply tell the truth. It does not matter if a person is hurt.” But truth is the finest thing and most beautiful. If you tell the truth, must it hurt anyone? If it hurts anyone, can it be the truth? The truth must raise a person, must illuminate a person, must be the most beautiful thing on earth, harmonizing, uplifting, inspiring; it cannot be hurting, it cannot be hurtful. If it is truth, it is the greatest healing there is. Therefore, people interpret truth in the form of facts, and they muddle between the words truth and fact as between pleasure and happiness. When they are pleased they say “I am happy,” and when they are happy they say, “I am pleased.” But pleasure is far from happiness. A small thing can give pleasure, but in order to be happy one ought to get at that pitch where there is the everlasting happiness. Pleasure comes and goes. It is the shadow of happiness. It is not happiness. So people muddle between cleverness and wisdom. Of a wise person they say, “What a clever man!” And of a clever man they say, “How wise he is.” A worldly person is not wise, he is clever. And a wise man is not necessarily clever, although he is perfect wisdom. Cleverness is a shadow of wisdom. Wisdom is the light.
No doubt, in all ages in the East seekers after truth have sought the direction of those who have already acquainted themselves with the path, in order to tread the path they sought their guidance. Today a man comes and says, “I do not wish to follow any guidance or advice. If the book can tell me, I shall read it. Tell me just now. I shall do it.” Imagine! In order to develop your voice you go to the teacher of voice culture and do a thousand practices with open mouth, and make thousand kinds of different grimaces you would never like to make. In order to develop voice you have to do thousand things which sound foolish, in order to sing one day. And what comparison is there between spiritual attainment and singing? If singing rightly takes so many years practice and so much concentration and so much discipline to the orders of a teacher, how can a spiritual teacher tell at the dinner table what spirituality means? They ask, “Will you tell in one word how can one attain spirituality?” Is it such a simple thing?
Besides, who can tell it, and how can it be told? It is something to discover from oneself. The teacher can only put one on the track to attain to that realization which is called spirituality. No doubt, according to the idea of the people of the East, the responsibility of the spiritual teacher is greater still than of parents to their children. From the time of birth their thought is centered in the well-being of the child. Even when he is grown-up, in the heart of the parents the child is the same; they are interested in everything the child does. The child may not care for them, but they will understand. He may be far away, yet the heart of the mother will always be craving for the welfare of her child from the distance. So with the teacher. The spiritual teacher under whose guidance a pupil places himself will be fulfilling to him the place of mother and father both, and even more. Their welfare is his religion. It is his spiritual responsibility. For the spiritual teacher there is no other religion. He is not necessarily a priest. All the duty he has is to be anxious about the welfare and well-being of those who sought his guidance, who go under his direction. It is therefore that the great ones, such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, or any others who come from time to time to serve humanity in a small way or great way, their service has been a service of love and affection to raise humanity by their own example, by their own ideas, by their own love. What they have taught is not so important. It is given beyond words as love and light. That is the sacrament in the church. It is a same in the form of love and wisdom. What has come in words or by the lips is very little.
If you compare the Bible or any spiritual book with a writer of today, there is no comparison, because the value it is not in the capacity of the writer, its value is in the personality of the teacher, the wonderful soul who from time to time served humanity to progress. Whether they are known or unknown, whether mankind has forgotten them or holds them still, they have done their duty and always do. And those who take such an opportunity of benefiting by their teaching, by their thought, are the blessed ones.
God bless you.