Inayat among the Christians

Someone said to Murshid, seeing him to be a religious man from the East, that it is Christianity which is the cause of all the progress that the Western world has made, and it is the absence of Christianity which is the root of the downfall of the East. The Murshid answered, “No; it is the Christ spirit in the East which is keeping us back from material progress and it is the lack of Christianity in the West which has helped you to progress so materially.”

* * *

A Catholic priest met Murshid in a park and asked him if he was Catholic. “Yes,” said Murshid, “by religion, not by the Church.”

* * *

Somebody questioned Murshid: “What do you think of Christ?” “Which one, the historic Christ or the Christ of the ideal? As to the historic Christ even the different traditions say different things, so how are we to know and have a common conception of Christ? And as to the ideal Christ, it depends upon every man ́s ideal and one man ́s ideal cannot be the other man ́s ideal also. Besides, ideal is something that we make ourselves and is always too sacred to put into words!”

* * *

A lady came to see Murshid and said to Murshid, “Now look here, Murshid, I want to speak with you on an important subject, for it is a question of faith. Now I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and our Redeemer and that his religion must be taught to the heathen world. And I hear that you consider all the prophets equal. Now, that I cannot understand.” Murshid answered, “I have never said that all prophets are equal. I only say that I do not feel equal to judge them, following the words of Christ: Judge ye not. So I simply bow my head to all in humility.”

* * *

Someone from the audience asked Murshid after his lecture: “And what do you think of the coming of Christ?” “He has never gone for me,” said Murshid.

from The Biography of Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

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