In his efforts to teach the world Sufi wisdom, Hazrat Inayat Khan gave special attention to the role of symbols.  In The Gathas, subtitled ‘a skeleton outline of Sufi thought,’ symbols are one of the major themes, alongside important topics such as purification, breath and philosophy. The Master’s goal, though, was not to instruct a sort of replacement code (sun equals power, star equals guidance, lotus equals purity, etc.) but to show that a symbol is a seed left for us by the illuminated souls, and when sowing it in our understanding, its life may awaken, put forth roots and flowers, and offer fruits of guidance. This applies not only to the symbols we find in imagery and poetry but also to customs and traditions such as a handshake, the offering of a toast, or the rituals of marriage.

A tradition that is apparently universal in human culture is that of the pilgrimage.  Christians visit the Holy land or tread the Camino de Santiago; Muslims travel to Mecca for the Hajj; Jews pray before the Temple wall in Jerusalem.  Looking far back in history, there is even evidence that neolithic tribes made annual journeys to Stonehenge.  In other words, time and culture matter little; something fundamental impels us to take up our staff and become pilgrims. What is it?

We can find a clue to this impulse if we examine the Hindu religion, and its close cousins Jainism and Buddhism.  Across India and the surrounding lands there are dozens of pilgrimage sites, called ‘tirthas,’ that draw millions of faithful people annually.  The word tirtha means a ford or crossing, and we might assume that this is because these sites are often on the banks of a river or by the seashore.  As rivers are commonly regarded as sacred, a ford allowing one to enter the stream and safely cross to the other side would have special meaning.  In the divine music of wisdom, though, themes can sometimes play backward or turn upside down, and we may be surprised to find that cause can become effect.

The Skanda Purana declares that there are three sorts of tirtha: the movable, the fixed, and the inner.  The movable tirtha is when we visit a person such as a saint, a sage or a sadhu. The fixed tirtha is to a place – a temple where a god or goddess once appeared or a sage once sat in meditation, for example, or a holy city. The inner tirtha, though, requires no travel, for it is to a place of mind, a journey to a point “of truth, charity, patience, compassion, soft speech, soul.”

The fixed pilgrimage, therefore, focused as it is on the external, serves those whose belief may be strong but who perhaps do not yet see beyond the surface.  The movable pilgrimage, to a person, has the possibility of lifting the seeker to a more spiritual realm, for a living heart reflects the Divine more clearly than does a stone temple. The inner tirtha, though, is certainly the essence of pilgrimage. One who fulfils such a pilgrimage has crossed an inner barrier, and it is only our own barriers that keep us from discovering the sacred point within the self.

These three forms of tirtha are not mutually exclusive. One may visit a holy place and there meet a holy person, and it is also possible that by visiting a person or a place one accomplishes an inner crossing.  That is certainly the meaning of the Nature Meditation from Hazrat Inayat Khan, which says, “My holy pilgrimage / is the sacred dwelling of the sage.”

The journey to a fixed or movable pilgrimage site has little value if there is no lasting change within us; that is always the ultimate goal.  It is the inner search that has given birth to the outer form. The word ‘tirtha’ or ‘ford’ is an illustration taken from the outer world, but ‘the meeting place of the three rivers’ (as it is described in a poem by Kabir Das) is never found by treading a long, dusty road; to make the real crossing, we don’t even have to leave our room.