Hazrat Inayat Khan here continues with his explanation of the power of the word and of vibration. The previous post is here.
You may ask, does language have any relation to the power of the word? Does it matter which language one uses? Must the word be a Latin word, or Hebrew, or Zend, Eastern or Western? The answer to this is that in the East each keeps to his own language. Brahmins offer their prayers in Sanskrit, although this is a language long dead; all the same, they use Sanskrit for their mantras. A Parsi may live outside his original country, but he repeats his mantras according to the tradition of ancient Persia, though his religion became extinct there a thousand years ago. So you see it does not matter to a mystic what language he is using. He sees the source of all languages in the human heart.
Whatever the language – Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi – it is still human. The more you study this subject the more you will see how the source of all languages is one. Even the English language contains Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic words. Many names [i.e. nouns -ed.] would never be suspected of being Persian in origin, and yet they are. So many names are Semitic, so many are Sanskrit. People never suspect how many of their own words belong to other languages.
No language in the world today can claim to be so pure as to have no admixture from others. Any language is really a mixture of many languages. It is unfortunate that every later language is just a corrupted form of a former one. Hardly anyone would understand me if I spoke of Dar-i Salam, but if I say ‘Jerusalem’ everyone can. We see how true this is when we study some words of the Bible. … The order of the letters is changed, and this makes it seem a different word; the spelling is altered because different countries spell their words differently. The vowels and also the vibrations change to a certain extent, and so the mystics prefer, when possible, to adhere to the original form of the word. It is not because it belonged to a certain language of the past, but because there is actually more benefit to be obtained by using the word in its original form.
There are also words which no language can claim for its own. This is true of the word Ism-i Az’m, which means the word of power. No one can claim this word as belonging to his language; it is a word which belongs to no language. Why is this? It is because it is a word of nature. Art has reproduced it, but art has not produced it. All other words have been derived from it, for Ism-i Az’m is the spirit of all words; it is the root of all other words.
While the different schools of Sufism understand all this and use different methods in teaching it, they do not restrict themselves to one particular practice. The Sufi regards practices as prescriptions which are not given indiscriminately to everyone, but are chosen separately, one for this pupil, another for that. These practices are only preparations for receiving the truth. There is no such thing as giving truth to one person, and then his giving it to another, for truth, by its very nature, cannot be uttered, cannot be given. One cannot give that which cannot be put into speech. So the teacher gives a method for finding the truth, for unfolding it, for unlocking that which seems to be in one’s heart. No real teacher, no true mystic, has ever claimed to be able to give one anything like this. It is clearly impossible for anyone to impart his knowledge to another person; he can only show him how to unfold his own knowledge to himself. Everybody possesses a kingdom, but he has to find it. The seeker will find it easy to discover the truth when he has the help of someone who himself has trodden the path towards it.
To be continued…