Hazrat Inayat Khan now gives more description of the world of the mind that awaits the sprit on its return journey. The previous post in the series is here.

Life in the sphere of the jinn is the phenomenon of mind; the mind is not the same there, with all the thoughts and imaginations which it  carries from the earth to this plane. Mind, which is a mind here on earth, is the whole being there on the return journey. Thoughts are imaginations here, but realities there. One thinks here, but the same action there instead of a thought becomes a deed; for action which here depends upon the physical body; there is the act of mind.

There is a story which gives a picture of this idea. A man who had heard of there being a tree of desire was once traveling; and he happened to find himself under the shade of a tree which he felt to be restful and cooling, so he sat there leaning against it. He said to himself, ‘How beautiful is nature; how cooling is the shade of this tree, and the breeze is most exhilarating; but I wish I had a soft carpet to sit on, and some cushions to lean against’ No sooner had he thought about it than he saw himself sitting in the midst of soft cushions. ‘How wonderful,’ he thought, ‘to have got this’; but now he thought, ‘If only I had a glass of cooling drink’ and there came a fairy with a most delicious glass of cold drink. He enjoyed it, but said, ‘I would like a good dinner.’ No sooner had he thought of a dinner than a gold tray was brought to him, with beautifully arranged dishes of all sorts. Now he thought, ‘If only I had a chariot, that I might take a drive into the forest’; and a four-horse chariot was already there, the coachman greeting him with bent head. He thought, ‘Everything I desire comes without any effort. I wonder if it is true, or all a dream.’ No sooner had he thought this than everything disappeared, and he found himself sitting on the same ground leaning against the tree.

This is the picture of the spirit world. It is the world of the optimist. The pessimist has no share in its great glory, because he refuses to accept the possibility which is the nature of life. Thus he denies to himself all he desires, and even the possibility of achieving his desires.

The pessimist stands in his own light, and defeats his own object here, and even more so in the hereafter, where the desire is the seed which is sown in the soil of the spirit world. Optimism is the water which rears the plant; but the intelligence at the same time gives that sunshine which helps the plant to flourish on the earth as well as in the spheres of the jinn.

To be continued…