As he continues his explanation of the relationship between the soul and the realm of angels, Hazrat Inayat Khan now tells the story of how the angel Iblis, by refusing to bow, became an outcast, and serves as the example of the individual ego. The previous post in the series is here.

There is a very interesting story told in the Arabic scriptures. It is that God made Iblis the chief among the angels, and then told him to bring some clay that he might make out of it an image. The angels, under the direction of Iblis, brought the clay and made an image; then God breathed into that image, and asked the angels to bow before it. All the angels bowed; but Iblis said, ‘Lord, Thou hast made me chief of all angels, and I have brought this clay at Thy command, and made with my own hands this image which Thou commandest me to bow before.’ The displeasure of God arose and fell on his neck as the sign of the outcast.

This story helps us to understand what Jesus Christ meant when He said, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ What Iblis denied was the reflection of God in man; and one can observe the same law in every direction of life. A person may be rich in wealth or high in position, but he still must obey the policeman; it is not the rank and wealth which the latter has, but in him is reflected the power of the government, and when a man takes no heed of the policeman, he refuses to obey the law of the state. In everything small or great it is the same law; and in every person there is a spark of this tendency of Iblis; the tendency which we know as egotism, the tendency to say, ‘No, I will not listen; I will not give in; I will not consider. Because of what? Because of ‘I’; because ‘I am.’ ‘But there is only one ‘I’ – the perfect ‘I’. He is God, whose power is mightier than any power existing in the world, whose position is greater than that of anyone; and He shows it in answer to the egotistic tendency of man, who is limited. This is expressed in the saying, ‘Man proposes, but God disposes.’ It is this thought which teaches man the virtue of resignation, which shows him that the ‘I’ he creates is a much smaller ‘I’, and that there is no comparison between this ‘I’ and the ‘I’ of the great Ego, God.

Another story tells how frightened the soul was when it was commanded to enter the body of clay; it was most unwilling, not from pride, but from fear. The soul, whose nature is freedom, whose dwelling-place is heaven, whose comfort it is to be free and to dwell in all the spheres of existence, for that soul to dwell in a house made of clay, was most terrifying. Then God asked the angels to play and sing, and the ecstasy that was produced in the soul by hearing that music made it enter the body of clay where it became captive to death.

The interpretation of this idea is, that the soul, which is pure intelligence and angelic in its being, had not the least interest in dwelling in the physical plane, which robs it of its freedom and makes it limited. But what interested the soul, and made it come into the body, is what this physical world offers to the senses; and this produces such an intoxication that it takes away for the moment the thought of heaven from the soul and so the soul becomes captive in the physical body. What is Cupid? Is not Cupid the soul? It is the soul; the angel going towards manifestation, the angel which has arrived at its destination, the human plane; and before it manifests there is Cupid.

To be continued…