We continue with Hazrat Inayat Khan’s talk on mysticism given in San Francisco in 1926. In the first part of the lecture, he explains that the word ‘mystic’ has a much higher meaning than it generally receives. Here, among other points, he frees mysticism from any particular faith or tradition.
God for the mystic is the stepping stone to self-realization. He is the gate, the door, to entering the heavens. God for the mystic is a key with which to open the secret of life. God for a mystic is the abode from where he comes and to where he returns and finds himself at home.
They say a seeker went to a sage of China and told him that, “I have come to learn from you truth.” The sage asked, “Many of your missionaries come to us and teach here about your faith. Why do you come to me?” “Well,” he said, “what they teach is God. What we know is about God. Now I come to ask you about the mystery of life.” The sage said, “If you know God, that is all that there is to be known. There is nothing more. That is all the mystery there is.” For the mystic, therefore, God is all there is.
And now coming to the question of the mystic conception of Christ. Do we not know that there is one person better than another, and is it not true that there is God in man? If that is true, the mystic says, what objection is there if one person calls Christ to be God, and if the other calls Christ to be man? If God is in man, then if Christ is called God, what does it matter? And if Christ is called man, it only raises man to that standard. God has created him. Both have their reason, and both are right. And yet both oppose one another. They say, “But Christ is called divinity!” But if the divinity is not sought in man, in whom do you seek him? Is there divinity to be sought in the tree, in the plant, in the stone? Yes, in all is God. But at the same time, divinity is wakened, God is wakened, God can be seen in man.
But then the tolerance of the mystic is different. He says, “We have taken the names from history, from our ancestors.” The people of one nation or race or religion say, “In Jesus Christ we see the Lord.” Under that name they have seen their ideal. People of other countries say that, “In Buddha we have our God.” They have seen their divine ideal in Buddha. In another historic name they can find for their consolation, the history of someone who has existed once to support their ideal. The Muslim says, “Muhammad,” the Hindu says, “Krishna is the object of our worship.” As long as they have not realized the spirit of their ideal, they will dispute, quarrel and fight and say, “My teacher is great, mine is greater still.” But they do not see that it is one and the same spirit manifesting the greatest excellence. Our comprehension has raised him. We cannot raise him enough if we call him by a certain name and limit him from another part of the world. If we call him Christ, we limit him from all others, if we call him Krishna, we limit him from all others. But when we seek the unlimited of our divine ideal, we can call him by all names, saying that, “You are Krishna, you are Christ, and you are Buddha” as the loving mother can call her child “my emperor”. All beautiful names she can give to the child.
Four little girls were disputing. One said, “My mother is better than yours.” The second girl said, “My mother is better than your mother.” So they were arguing. They were quite disagreeable to one another. And there was one of them, she said, “It is not your mother or their mother; it is the mother who is always the best. It is the mother quality, her love and affection to her children.”
It is this point of view that the mystic takes toward the divine ideal. He says, “It does not matter if you take a historic name, if you make a special name; whether you say, “’Lily’ or ‘rose’ is my divine ideal.” He says, “It is all right. The same is my divine ideal too.” He means, “It makes no difference. If we have devotion, if we have reverence, if we have a high ideal before us, that is all that is needed.”
And then we come to the question of the morals, of the principles of the mystic. The moral principle of the mystic is the love principle. He says, “The greater your love, the greater your moral.” And if you are forced under a certain principle, a certain regulation, certain laws, certain rules, you may show yourself to be virtuous, but that is not a real virtue. It must come out of the bottom of your heart; your own heart must teach you the true moral. And therefore, morality the mystic leaves to the deepening of the heart quality. The mystic says, “The more loving the heart of a person is, the greater moral he has in life. There is no greater teacher of moral than love itself.” Because the first lesson that one learns from love is, “I am not, you are.” This is the self-denial, self-abnegation. You cannot take the first step in the path of love without denying yourself. And as long as you do not deny yourself, you have not taken the step in love’s path. You may claim to be a great lover, to be a great admirer, to be very affectionate, but it all means nothing. As long as the thought of self is there, there is no love. And if the thought of self is removed, then every action, every deed that one performs in life, that is a virtue. It cannot be otherwise. A loving person cannot be unjust; a loving person cannot be cruel. Even if it be wrong in the eyes of thousands of people, it cannot be wrong in reality. In reality, it is right, because it is inspired by love.
And now coming to the religion of the mystic. The religion of the mystic is a steady progress toward unity. And one might say, “How does one make this progress?” In two ways. In one way, he sees himself in another: in the good, in the bad, in all. And so he expands the horizon of his vision. By this study continually made during his lifetime, as he goes on in this study, he is coming closer to the oneness of all things. And the other way of developing is to be conscious of one’s own self in God, and God in one’s self. It is deepening the consciousness of our innermost being. Therefore, the progress is in two directions: outwardly, by being one with all we see; and inwardly, by being in touch with that one life which is everlasting, by dissolving into it, and by being conscious of that one spirit, being the existence, the only existence.
To be continued…
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