We recently posted the story recounted by Hazrat Inayat Khan about the mystic or murshid who saw a mureed in danger while looking in a mirror, and who smashed the mirror in order to rescue him.  One reader quite reasonably asked, ‘what lesson could we draw from this story?’  Should we conclude, for example, that if we follow the right guide, we will be safe from all perils?  We could ask further, would that be a motive for entering the spiritual path, like taking out an insurance policy against the potential dangers of life?  And by extension, if we are on the spiritual path and we nevertheless suffer some misfortune, does it mean that we have put ourselves under the guidance of an inadequate guide?

There are several threads intertwined in this story.  Very clearly, of course,  we can see the thread of sympathy that linked the mureed with the murshid.  Hazrat Inayat Khan often spoke of the link of sympathy, and he used the word sympathy in the broadest possible sense, to mean a compassionate and responsive understanding of the other person.  Of all the possible relationships in life, the link between a spiritual guide and a student offers the widest scope of this link, for it is free from the trace of any worldly agenda.  And related to this in the story is the sincere trust that the mureed felt for his murshid: when he had no one else to turn to, he called upon his murshid for help.  So, one possible lesson we could draw from the story is the living example of sympathy and trust that can unite souls regardless of distance.

Another thread, which might be easily overlooked, has to do with the science of impressions. In certain cultures there is, or was, a tradition that if one is starting out upon some journey or errand and a black cat crosses one’s path, it will bring misfortune upon one’s affair.  The root of this really has to do with the impression that the cat makes upon the mind of the person; it is not that such a cat is ‘unlucky,’ but rather that we allow the impression of darkness cutting across our path to enter into our consciousness, and once it has lodged there then it must have its effect.  In the story, the murshid received an impression while looking in the mirror, and as a way of clearing it from his mind, he smashed the mirror.  We need not always respond so dramatically to unwanted impressions, but it is a useful example.

And a third thread in the story is the power of a realised being – for in casting aside the impression of danger to the mureed, the murshid also cast aside the danger itself. As the soul advances toward perfection, it may be given wider and wider responsibilities – dominion over the elements, the power to foresee dangers, to avert storms and disasters and so on.  For most of us, though, simply to control our own heart and mind would be an accomplishment close to miraculous!