Here is the conclusion of this longer text from Hazrat Inayat Khan on the presence of God, begun here.
In all ages the various religions have given different standards of good and evil, calling them virtue and sin. The virtue of one nation has been the sin of another; the virtue of the latter the sin of the former. Travel as we may through the world, or read the histories and traditions of nations as we may, we shall still find that what one calls evil, another calls good. That is why no one can succeed in making a universal standard for good and evil. The discrimination between good and evil is in man’s soul. Every man can judge that for himself, because in every man is the sense of admiration of beauty. But he is not satisfied with what he does himself, he feels a discomfort, a disgust with his own efforts. There are many people who continue some weakness or some mistake, or who are intoxicated by some action which the world calls evil or which they themselves call evil, yet go on doing it; but a day comes when they also are disgusted. Then they wish for suicide. There is no more happiness for them. Happiness only lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful. Such an act becomes a virtue, goodness; that goodness is beauty.
What is beauty? One sees beauty of form, and beauty without form; beauty of thought, beauty of feeling, beauty of ideal. Not only does one see beauty in flowers and fruit and trees, but one sees still greater beauty in imaginations and thoughts. One feels one could give all one’s wealth or life for a beautiful thought or a beautiful dream.
A great many rewards were given in ancient times to the poets, the writers, the thinkers, expressing their beauty in poetry and writing. Yet one comes to the realization that sufficient reward can never be given for beauty of thought or beauty of imagination. But there is a still greater beauty: the feeling of kindness, of self-sacrifice, of devotion, of love. The beauty which has been so impressed upon the world that it never dies, the beauty which is seen in the life of Christ, the forgiveness, the love for humanity, the gentleness, the humility, nothing can be compared with it, it is so great. Therefore it cannot be limited to name or form or to the external world.
There is beauty of thought, and great beauty of feeling, of sentiment, of kindness, of self-sacrifice, of selflessness. And yet there is a still greater progress that a soul can make: the seeking of the source of beauty. It is said, ‘The gift is nothing without the giver’. There is no doubt a beauty in listening to the composition of a great musician, but there is at the same time a desire in the heart to meet that composer and thank him personally. What a satisfaction, when we have not only heard the music but seen the composer! We can say how delighted we are, and how much his music has pleased us. Or there is a very good picture which we have admired; but it would be a still greater delight to be able to tell the painter how much we have enjoyed it. So it is with the love of goodness: that constant gathering of goodness, the constant comfort of looking for goodness in everybody, the constant consciousness of doing good to another, the constant delight in one’s own goodness. There is no limit to such progress. One may say, ‘This goodness belonged to my father, to my mother, to my beloved, to my friend, to my acquaintance, to a stranger’. But when it is all summed up, to whom does it belong? Is there nobody whom one can thank for it?
A person may see different places and palaces, beautiful gardens and museums, and meet people of all kinds; but would that be his final desire? No, it would be to meet the king! ‘If only I could greet him, since all that I have seen and admired makes me wish to see the sovereign!’
One may have corresponded for a long time with someone at a great distance. In every letter one reads delightful things and admires his thoughts. Will not one’s greatest pleasure be to see him, and be face to face with him? So in the end it is the desire of every soul to be face to face with the Owner of beauty, to whom all beauty and goodness belong.
Whether we look at this subject religiously, philosophically, or scientifically, from whichever point there is no difference. There is only one conclusion: that the whole of life, with all its manifestations and variety, is simply the manifestation of one life. The believer and the unbeliever will both agree that there is one life behind it all, one source of all manifestation; one constant life which is a stimulus, a food, a source and goal for the whole of manifestation. No one who sees this with sentiment, thought, feeling, and admiration, could deny that it would be the greatest happiness to discover that source of all beauty and goodness which one has admired and sought for all one’s life in one’s progress along the path.
No doubt there may be some who are so absorbed in their daily wants and pursuits as not to feel inclined to search after this source; yet an unconscious yearning to get to that source is always present. If it is not to be face to face with the Lord, it will be an ideal: if one is fond of music, to see the composer; if fond of painting, to see the artist; if interested in reform, to see the leader of reform; if admiring great people, to see the greatest man there is. Whatever attracts a man, he will always be very glad to see the person whom he can identify with what he admires.
But how can one be face to face with the Deity, the Formless, the Nameless, whom one can never picture, never dream of? This is a question, and unless it is solved, a person who claims to be face to face with his Lord is a pretender. But one can only answer this question after having found out whether the Deity is a separate being, or is formless, nameless, above all limitations.
No doubt it is the desire for the presence of God that accounts for man’s tendency to make idols and worship them. It was the desire to see the Deity and worship Him that made man stand before the sun and worship it, to stand before a tree and worship it. But this could not satisfy, because it was worshipping a limited thing. In reality the first lesson about the presence of God is, as a philosopher says, ‘If you have no god, make one for yourself.’ How true it is that before one comes to the real conception of God, the first thing is to build Him in one’s heart. The word God has the same origin as the word good, but its original in the old Hebrew means ‘ideal’.
What is ideal? Ideal is something we make. When we believe a person is very good we think of that goodness; it surrounds that person, and our artistic and idealistic tendencies help to paint his goodness as beautifully, as well as we can. We can crown it by our artistic faculty; that is called an ideal. When a man wishes somebody to be wicked, he paints his wickedness and all the badness that is there; he makes him an ideal of wickedness. When he thinks of his mother or friend he paints till he makes the ideal of goodness. No one can paint it for you as well as you can for yourself.
There is a saying of Majnun, the great lover of Persia. ‘Oh, Majnun’, they said, ‘your girl is not as beautiful as you think. You are sacrificing your life; you grieve for ages and ages for that girl; but she is not so beautiful.’ Majnun answered, ‘You should see my Leila with my eyes; it is the eyes of my heart you need. My heart has made my Leila.’ That is called an ideal; and the ideal of perfection makes it beauty.
The ideal of perfection is the ideal of God, and we will turn to it in our troubles or worries or fears. If we are afraid of death, yet have that ideal by our side; we feel protected. If we are disappointed in anything, still there is that ideal by our side, to reassure us; we say, ‘I do not mind, I am not really disappointed; for Thou art present in my heart; I feel Thy presence; Thou hast become my ideal’. In trouble, in pain, in poverty, in difficulty, or friendless, in all these things which no one in the world can escape, there He is beside us. The older we grow, the more we feel, ‘As long as I can be of use to the world, so long will the world want me. As soon as I can be of no service, of no use, then the world will get tired of me, it will not want me. The world wants that which is not myself. If I am wealthy, the world is after my wealth, not me; if I am in a high position, the world is after me because of my position, not because of me. The world goes after false things. The world is false. The only protection from it is to have that ideal of God alive and constantly present. With that ideal I can be satisfied, and have rest and peace; not only on earth but even in the hereafter I shall be in the arms of the Divine!’
No one can ever be so dear, so close, neither children, husband, wife, nor friend as that perfect Ideal. That Ideal will never fail. He will always be with us here and hereafter. We belong to Him. From Him we came; to Him we return. By feeling the presence of that Ideal always in our hearts, we feel the springing up of every kind of beauty, of every impulse, thought and imagination, of everything that comes out of ourselves or that we see all round us. We identify it all with God in the end. To the person who creates the presence of God the whole life around becomes one single vision of the Immanence of God.