With this post we begin a series in which Hazrat Inayat Khan helps us to understand what divinity is, and what is a human being.
When we speak of men we all understand this to mean human beings, but of God everyone has his own conception. To one person God is an abstract concept, to another he is a personal God, and again according to others there is no God at all. In this age of ever-increasing materialism the God-ideal has become so obscured that its light is no longer evident. People in the past waged wars and battles, they killed and robbed and in many ways showed a primitive nature, but when it came to the ideal, to God, they all surrendered to it, they all believed in it. Today many people question the idea of God. Among the so-called civilized nations there are some who have erased the word God from the textbooks used in their schools. Children educated in these schools have grown up with the idea that there is no God. And even if it occurs to them that there must be something, or they have become convinced that there is a God, they call him ‘higher powers’, or gods’, putting into the plural that which is singular, bringing the highest nature humanity can conceive of down to the sphere of variety. Many others who have been educated in science and literature think that it is unintelligent to believe in God or to use the word God. They think that as it is used by so many primitive and simple people, who are not intelligent, they had better forget the name of God. And so a path which has been traced for thousands of years by great masters has been blocked by the pride of man.
Once, after I had given a series of lectures, a man came up to me and said, ‘All your lectures appeal to me very much. I think every word is true; I have always thought on those lines. I would be most happy to follow your guidance, but only on one condition: that you not mention the name of God. For a man like you, who can touch the depths of life, a man of high principles and lofty ideals, does not need to use the old name, which every simpleton uses and believes in. We are making a new kind of life today, and we look at it in a different way.’ ‘New?’ I said, ‘there is nothing new under the sun. The newness is only in your conception; it is new to you because you did not know it before. It may be new to you, but to someone else it certainly is not new!’
A material scientist today finds out something and says, ‘Here is a new discovery!’ Another says, ‘No, it is not true; here is another discovery, which proves it wrong.’ And so it goes on; every year there are many new discoveries. Sometimes, too, one scientist does not think like another; they may belong to the same school, and yet each has his own idea, which does not agree with the other man’s. But when we consider the mystics and thinkers who look at life from a spiritual point of view, they all agree, be they Yogis, Sufis, Buddhists, or Christians – it does not matter which. When they arrive at a certain stage of understanding they all agree, they all have the same experiences, they all have the same realization to which they come in spite of all differences. The differences in the dogmas of the various religions are only differences of form: those who look at the surface see variations, but those who look below the surface see one and the same truth hidden beneath all religions, which have been given at different times by different masters. Naturally, therefore, the method of expression is different, but when one comes to the essence it is all one and the same, and those who are spiritually evolved come to the conclusion that they do not differ one from the other in their belief.
One should, of course, understand the real meaning of belief. Very often it is his belief which keeps a man back from spiritual attainment, but more often it is belief which helps him to go forward. Belief is like a staircase. Each step takes one higher, but when one remains standing on a certain step of the staircase one does not progress. Belief may nail the feet to the ground and keep one there where there are millions of believers in God, and thus there are many simple people who do not get the full benefit from belief. But this does not mean that belief has no function. It simply means that these people do not understand the real meaning of belief; they only know how to remain standing on a certain spot on a staircase.
As a person evolves so his belief evolves, until he comes to that stage where he harmonizes with all the different beliefs, where he is no longer against any belief. Then he is not nailed down any more; he is above all the different beliefs. Very often a person says, ‘I cannot understand what God is. Can you explain God to me? But if God were to be explained He would not be God. To explain God is to dethrone God.
To be continued…