In this brief passage Hazrat Inayat Khan speaks of inspiration, and also mentions revelation. These can be understood as the most evolved levels of perception of Divine consciousness, the more basic levels being instinct and intuition.

The question where inspiration comes from may be answered that it comes from within. There are some who are said to be inspired by some unseen entities, some receive inspiration from living personalities, but only that inspiration can be called inspiration which comes directly from within.

Now the question is, does inspiration come to a poet in words, to a musician in notes, to a painter in lines and colours? No, although it seems so. The language is one, and in the same language inspiration comes to a poet, a painter and a musician. And yet very often those inspired ones even do not know the mystery and truth about it, except those who have reached to the point of revelation, for the revealed one hears the voice and the inspired one hears the re-echo.

Inspiration is not only the act of the spirit within, it is a mutual action which results in inspiration. It is an action performed by the inspiring spirit within and the soul of the inspired one from without. It is hunger, desire for inspiration and concentration on the part of the inspired one which works; the pouring out of all knowledge concerning it from the divine store, and directing it with a lighted torch, is the work of the inspiring spirit within. If the above said things are not active in the soul desiring inspiration, the inspiring spirit from within becomes helpless, for the inspiring spirit is more willing to inspire than the soul that desires inspiration.

As the sound needs capacity to manifest and become audible, so the inspiring spirit wants capacity to manifest itself. The light comes from the Divine Spirit, and the knowledge comes from the subconscious mind of the universe. These two things together function in the accommodation that the one desiring inspiration offers them. It is thus that inspiration becomes clear and complete.