In the previous post, Hazrat Inayat Khan explains that all that we think and feel and express by word or gesture, has an inevitable effect on those around us and on our progress through life.
But what of those who do not think of all this? Every change of mood or emotion changes their actions, words, and thoughts, and so they can never achieve what they have come to accomplish; all their life is passed in failure and mistakes, and in the end they have gained only what they have made. So it is always true that life is an opportunity; every moment of life is valuable. If one is able to handle oneself one has accomplished a great deal.
The mind has different aspects which are distinguished as different departments, which have their own work to do. First, the heart which feels, and which contains in itself four other aspects of mind; second, the mind which creates thought and imagination; third, memory; fourth, the will which holds the thought; fifth, the ego, that conception of mind which claims to be ‘I’. There is no mind without a body, for the body is a vehicle of the mind; also it is made by the mind, not the same mind, but by other minds. The child does not only inherit the form and feature of his parents and ancestors, but also their nature and character; in other words their mind, which molds its mind and body.
The mind is not only the creator of thought, but it is the receptacle of all that falls upon it. The awakened mind makes the body sensitive to every kind of feeling. The sleeping mind makes the body dull. At the same time the fineness of the body has its influence in making the mind finer, and the denseness of the body makes the mind dense. Therefore the mind and body act and react upon one another. When there is harmony between the mind and the body health is secure, and affairs will come right. It is the disharmony between mind and body which most often causes sickness, and makes affairs go wrong. When the body goes south and the mind north then the soul is pulled asunder, and there is no happiness. The secret of mysticism, therefore, is to feel, think, speak, and act at the same time, for then all that is said, or felt, or done, becomes perfect.
The different minds in the world may be likened to various mirrors, capable of projecting reflections, and reflecting all that falls upon them. No one, however great in wisdom and power, can claim to be free from influences. It is like the mirror claiming, ‘I do not reflect all that falls upon me.’ Only the difference between the wise and the foolish is that the wise man turns his back to what he must not reflect; the foolish not only reflects the undesirable thought, but most proudly owns to it.
The mind is creative and the mind is destructive; it has both powers. No thought ever born of the mind, be it even for a second, is lost. Thought has its birth and death like a living being, but the life of the thought is incomparably longer than that of any living being in the physical body. Therefore man is not only responsible for his action, but also for his thought. Souls would become frightened if they had a glimpse of the record of the thoughts they have created, under the spell of their ever-changing moods. As the prophet has said, this life of the world, which was once so attractive, will one day appear before them as a horrible witch; they will fly from it, and will cry, ‘Peace, peace.’
It would not be an exaggeration if one called the mind a world; it is the world that man makes and in which he will make his life in the hereafter, as a spider weaves his web to live in. Once a person thinks of this problem he begins to see the value of the spiritual path. The soul learns on the path in which it is trained not to be owned by the mind, but to own it; not to become a slave of the mind, but to master it.
To be continued…