We continue with the talk given by Hazrat Inayat Khan in Denver in 1926 on the awakening of the soul. The first portion of the talk is found here. The talk will continue with further instalments.
The wakening of the soul in its first condition is nothing but a desire for the knowledge which the soul knows and yet wishes to confirm. Spiritual knowledge is never a new knowledge. It is therefore that a person does not appreciate it enough. All is new, but spiritual knowledge is not new, because everybody knows it. Receiving it is confirming it again, confirming knowledge that already exists in the soul. Therefore, it is called divine knowledge, because it cannot be learned. But one might say, all the knowledge we have ever gained we have learned by learning. My answer is, therefore, it is all different from spiritual knowledge, which is not learned by learning. One has to unlearn. It is a process of unlearning instead of learning. One might think, “It should be something I can learn which I do not know.” But this already exists in the soul; the soul itself is the divine knowledge, only the soul is buried under different conceptions that man has taken from his birth.
If there is any truth, our very self is the truth.
But it can only be discovered,
it cannot be learned.
We always confuse in our daily life between pleasure and happiness; we all use the word pleasure for happiness and happiness for pleasure, two different things. And as always we misuse the words clever and wise. We sometimes call a wise man clever and a clever man wise. And we very often make a mistake in distinguishing between intellect and wisdom. So we make a great mistake, and this mistake keeps our eyes bound, covered; that means we do not distinguish between fact and truth; we always call an incorrect fact untrue, but a fact is not truth. The fact is the suggestion of truth, like pleasure is the suggestion of happiness, like intellect is the suggestion of wisdom. So fact is not truth. Fact, which can be expressed in words, is different from truth, which cannot be expressed in words. Truth is what it is, it cannot be argued, it cannot be rooted out, it cannot be forgotten, memory cannot lose it. All memory of fact will be lost because it is stored in memory. Woman, man, tall, short, horizontal, perpendicular, square, round, all impressions go as far as memory, not further. The knowledge of truth cannot be compared with the knowledge of forms nor ideas. Truth is beyond form and idea. What is it? It is itself, and it is our self. If there is any truth, our very self is the truth. But it can only be discovered, it cannot be learned. It can be discovered by unlearning instead of learning.
I know myself a man who came to me after having read perhaps the whole library of the British Museum. And he said to me, “I have written fifty books myself on metaphysics, and I studied very much. But I have not found truth.” It cannot be told, it is to be discovered, it is to be found. First we must be able to distinguish between pleasure and happiness, intellect and wisdom, and between fact and truth. Then we shall give the right place to the intellectual person and to the wise; we shall not mix them together.
The second stage of awakening is a bewilderment. It is a bewilderment for this reason, that all a person has comprehended about people and things and beings, it all seems to be wrong, and another interpretation comes to it, quite contrary. And therefore all the different claims that people make, “This is my friend, my foe, this one a stranger,” all these claims and all distinctions disappear and another conception comes instead of that. It is a great bewilderment for a person who begins to look in that way.
There is a story of a dervish, that a dervish met with a young man who was journeying along the same road. And this young man was very interested in the talk of the dervish. And the young man said, “I am so enlightened hearing all you said; I would so much like to meet you again. Please tell me your address.” The dervish said, “My address is ‘the place of the liars’.” When the young man came to that place, he thought about the idea, ‘place of liars.’ “This man who has spoken such inspiring words, I think everything he said was true – then he says his house is in the place of liars.” He was very amused about it. He asked people, “Where is the place of liars?” People said, “We do not know any place that is called place of liars.” Well, then in the end, they found the cottage of the dervish. And he asked, “Why did you call it the place of liars? Is it really true?” He said, “Yes,” because the place where he was living was a cemetery. “Come with me. Now look here. Here is the grave of someone, a general. And see this general now. And here is the grave of a king. Look here, a dog is sitting on his tomb. Were they not all liars, lying to others and lying to themselves?” Such is the realization when the soul begins to waken, that behind the facts the soul begins to see something quite different from what he had always understood about it. The distinctions of the people, the meaning of things, the idea of conditions, all changes. It is this that gives man a great bewilderment. It is the same world and the same life, but it begins to interpret itself differently.
Where the soul is not wakened
one may be a stranger in one’s own family,
to those in one’s own house.
And then there is a third stage. In this third stage, sympathy wakens in man. He begins to appreciate beauty, beauty in art, beauty in nature, beauty in poetry. It is a greater appreciation with the wakening of the soul, when one begins to grasp the meaning of all forms of beauty. Besides, one’s personality becomes outgoing, one feels drawn, favourably disposed toward those whom one meets. One becomes naturally the friend of one’s own friends and of all foes. There is no more a stranger, there is no more a barrier, all strangeness finishes. Where the soul is not wakened, one may be a stranger in one’s own family, to those in one’s own house. There is a barrier because there is a lack of the soul’s awakening. But if the soul is wakened, let that person go to any part of the world, however strange the people may be, he will attract their sympathy because his sympathy will go to them. Then a person need not learn the manner of friendliness, because friendliness is not something learned or taught. It is a natural disposition, it is the nature of the soul to become friends. The tendency of the little baby is to smile. When it is grown it begins to look at another person as my own, or as someone else. That comes afterwards. That belongs to the knowledge of this world.
To be continued…