Hazrat Inayat Khan now turns his attention to the physical vehicle which is given to the soul, and to the process of evolution, which he stressed applies to the vehicle, and not to the soul. The previous post is here.

When the soul comes into the physical world it receives an offering from the whole universe; and that offering is the body in which to function. It is not offered to the soul only by the parents, but by the ancestors, by the nation and race into which the soul is born, and by the whole human race. This body is not only an offering of the human race, but is an outcome of something that the whole world has produced for ages; a clay which has been kneaded a thousand times over; a clay which has been prepared so that in its very development it has become more intelligent, more radiant, and more living; a clay which appeared first in the mineral kingdom, which developed in the vegetable kingdom, which then appeared as the animal, and which was finished in the making of that body which is offered to the new-coming human soul. One may ask, ‘It is not true then, as some scientists say in their biological study, that man has risen from the animal kingdom?’ Certainly it is true, but true in the sense explained above.

We need not understand by this that every rock turned into a plant, and every plant into an animal, and every animal into a man. The soul is direct from heaven; it functions in a body, and it is this body through which it experiences life on the earth more fully. Rocks, trees and animals, therefore, may not be considered as the ancestors of the soul. It is the body which is the outcome of the activity of all these different kingdoms, which are the development of one another. A question arises, ‘Why must a soul function in a human body? Why not in an animal, bird or insect?’ The answer is that it does so function. Every soul is not the same ray, has not the same illumination, the same far-reaching power, or the same volume of light; and therefore it is true that souls do not only function in a human body, but in all forms, however insignificant and small.

What about rocks, mountains, seas and rivers? Are they not the outcome of the soul? Nature in general in its various aspects is the materialization of that Light which is called divine Spirit; but not everything in nature has what man understands by soul, for he recognizes only that ray which functions in the human body as a soul. He does not recognize the ray which functions in the lower creation to be the same, although it comes from the same source. There are two things: there are the rays, and there is light from which they spring. If the rays are the souls of living beings, then the light of that same divine Sun is the spirit of the whole of nature. It is the same light; but not divided, not distinct, as are the rays which we call souls. Why has nature its different aspects? If the spirit behind it is one, why is everything in nature separate and different? Creation is a gradual evolution of that light which is the source and goal of all beings. For instance, plant life is a development of the mineral kingdom, animal life of the vegetable kingdom, and human life the culmination of this evolution. But this culmination is only the finishing of the vehicle which the soul uses; by this evolution the soul is not evolved. This evolution only means that the soul has adopted a more finished instrument in order to experience life more fully. No doubt the better the instrument the greater the satisfaction of the soul. When one looks from this point of view at the whole creation one feels it to be the truth that not only man, but the whole of manifestation, was created in the image of God.

To be continued…