After introducing the theme of symbology, Hazrat Inayat Khan now begins to examine different sacred symbols.
Light has the greatest attraction for the human soul. Man loves it in fire and in things that are bright and shining. That is why he considers gold and jewels to be precious. The cosmos has a greater attraction for him than the earth because of its light. As man evolves, he naturally ceases to look down towards the earth, and instead looks up to the cosmos, the heavens. The most attractive object that he sees is the sun, the sun which is without any support and is more luminous than anything else in the heavens. Therefore, as man is attracted to beauty and surrenders to beauty, he bows to the sun as being the greatest beauty in the heavens, and has taken the sun as nature’s symbol of God.
This symbol he pictures in different forms. In Persia, China, Japan, India, and Egypt, whenever God was pictured, it was in the form of the sun. In all ages man has pictured his prophet, master, or savior with the rays of a sun round his head. In ancient Persia there used to be a golden disc behind the head of the king, representing him as the sun. They used to call this disk zardash. The name of Zarathushtra has the same origin: the word simply meant ‘the golden disc.’ In Hindu and Buddhist temples around the images of different Avatars there is this symbol of the sun, and it was used both in the east and in the west in the form of turbans and hats. There are even now, in India, people who put copper bands on their turbans, for the same reason.
A deeper study of the sun suggests the four directions of lines which are formed around it. It is from this sign that the two sacred weapons were made, Chakra and Trishula*, and it is this sign that is the origin of the symbol of the cross. Ancient traditions show that the symbol of the cross existed in the east long before the coming of Christ, especially among the Brahmins. Islam, the religion which allows no symbols, yet has the same symbolism of the sun in the shape of the mosques. Whether the name of the sun be written in Persian or in Arabic, it takes the form of the mosque.
Men, according to their nature, have condemned and mocked the sun worshippers, but they have never been able to uproot the charm, the attraction for human souls held by the sun.
*’Chakra’ = ‘wheel’, Vishnu had a legendary sharp edged disk that was thrown as a weapon. ‘Trishula’ is the name of the trident of Lord Shiva.