At the conclusion of this lecture on the maturity of the soul, Hazrat Inayat Khan makes a statement that is not easy to understand: “And at the end of the journey he always finds that he has traveled because it was his destiny to travel, and he discovers that his starting-point is the same as his final goal.” Setting aside for the moment the question of the traveller arriving where the journey started, we are often puzzled over destiny, which seems opposed to the free will that we believe we exercise. That theme is touched upon in the following talk about the eastern doctrine of karma. It should be remembered that, when this talk was given, ‘karma’ had been seized on by some students in the west as the explanation for every misfortune: ‘Oh, this happened because of an error committed in a previous lifetime!’

In Hindu theology the doctrine of karma is much more emphasized than in the religions of Beni Israel. By Hindu theology I do not mean only the Vedantic or Brahmanic, but also the Buddhistic; by the religion of Beni Israel I do not mean the Judaic only, but also the Christian and Moslem. The whole theory of the Hindu philosophy is based upon the doctrine of karma, the moral of the Beni Israel is also based upon karma; the only difference is that on one side the moral is made on karma, on the other side the philosophy is based on karma.

And now what is the meaning of the word karma? The meaning of the word karma is action. It is quite evident that what one sows one reaps; the present is the echo of the past, the future is the reflection of the present; and therefore it is logical that the past makes the present and the present makes the future. Nevertheless in the Sufi school there is little spoken on this subject. And very often people interested in the doctrine of karma begin to wonder, “Why does Sufism not speak on the subject? Is it opposed to it?” And the answer is that it is not at all opposed to it, but in the way a Sufi looks at it, he cannot help but close his lips. In the first place what a person calls right or wrong is according to his own knowledge. He calls something right which he knows as right, which he has learned to call right; he calls something wrong which he has learned to call wrong. And in this way there may be various nations, communities, races, differing in their conceptions of right and wrong.

A person accuses another of wrongdoing only on the grounds that he knows it as wrong. And how does he know it to be wrong? It is because he has learned it, he has read it in a book, or he has been told so. People have looked with horror, with hatred, with prejudice at the doings of one another – individuals, communities, nations and races. And yet there is no label, there is no stamp, there is no seal upon actions which point them out as being right or wrong. This is the one aspect of the thing.

Now the other way of looking at it: at every step of evolution man’s conception of good and bad, of right and wrong changes. And you might ask me, “How does it change? Does he see more wrong or does he see less wrong as he evolves?” One might naturally think that by virtue of one’s evolution one might see more wrongs. But that is not the case; the more one evolves the less wrong he sees. Then it is not always the action; it is the motive behind it. Sometimes an action apparently right, may be made wrong by the motive behind it. Sometimes an action, apparently wrong, may be right on account of the motive at the back. Therefore the ignorant is ready to form an opinion of another person’s action, but for the wise it is most difficult to form an opinion of the action of another.

Now coming to the religious idea. If a man evolves spiritually he sees less and less wrong at every stage of his evolution. How can God be counting the little faults of human beings, who know so little about life? We read in the Bible, ‘God is love.’ What does love mean? Love means forgiveness, love does not mean judging. When people make of God a cruel judge, sitting in the seat of judgement, getting hold of every person and asking him of his faults, judging him for his actions, sentencing them, to be cast away from the Heavens, then where is the God of Love?

Now leaving the religious idea aside and coming to philosophy. Is man a machine or is man an engineer? If he is a machine, then he must go on for years and years under a kind of mechanical action of his evil actions, and if he is a machine then he is not responsible for his actions. If he is an engineer, then he is responsible for his actions; but if he is responsible for his actions, then he is the master of his actions, the master of his destiny. If he is an engineer he is the master of his destiny, he makes the destiny as he wishes.

Taking this point of view, the Sufi says, “It is true that if things are wrong with me, it is the effect of my actions. But that does not mean that I should submit to it, that I should be resigned to it because it is from my past actions. But I must make my destiny, because I am the engineer.” That is the difference. I have myself heard a person say, “I have been ill for so many years, but I have resigned myself to it. I took it easily because it is my karma, now I am paying back.” By that he may prolong the paying, which was for perhaps ten years, for the whole life. The Sufi in this case, acts not only as a patient but as a doctor at the same time to himself. He says, “Is my condition bad? Is it the effect of the past? I am going to cure it. The past has brought the present, but this, my present I will make the future.” It only means that he does not allow the past influences to overpower his life, he wants to produce just now the influence to make his life better.

But besides that, there is still a more essential subject attached to it. Before a person takes upon himself his responsibility of paying back the past, does he ask himself, “What was I in the past?” If he does not know of it, why must he hold himself responsible for it? You can be only responsible for something with which your conscience is tinted. And that is quite a sufficient load to carry in life. Why add to it a load of the unknown past? But besides, when you look at yourself philosophically, what do you find? The keener your sight becomes the less fragments you can find of yourself. The more conscious of reality you become the less conscious you are of your small self. And all this burden of the past actions, it is taken by man without his being invited to take it up. He could just as well have ignored it. It gives him no benefit, it only gives him a moment’s satisfaction to think that it is just that I am in this trouble, and this justice fortifies his trouble. The pain that could have been finished continues because he has fortified the pain.

The main object of the esoteric work is to put away that thought of oneself: what I was, what I am, and what I shall be. One can be very well occupied if one thought about life as a whole what it is, what it must have been, what it will be. It is this idea which produces a kind of synthetic point of view and unites instead of dispersing. It is constructive, and the secret of spiritual liberation is to be found in this.

The Brahmins, the Vedantists, the Buddhists, who hold the idea of karma as the foremost doctrine, as soon as they touch the idea of the goal that is to be attained by spirituality, which they call mukti or nirvana, they rise above the idea of karma. For it is this condition, that unless a person has risen above that idea he does not touch nirvana. The verbal meaning of nirvana (vana means colour, nir meaning no) is no label, no colour, no division. It is seeing the whole life as one, realizing it. It is this that is the secret of nirvana.