The Message to which Hazrat Inayat Khan devoted his life has been called, variously, the Sufi Message, the Message of Love, Harmony and Beauty, and the Message of Spiritual Liberty. Perhaps we take these expressions for granted, but can we learn anything from examining these names?

Each term has its meaning, of course. If we say ‘the Sufi Message,’ we should understand from the start that the Message in no way belongs to the Sufis, for it is the same Divine call that has been sounding since the world began, and which has been expressed by all the masters, saints and prophets through the ages. It belongs to everyone. Then, why ‘Sufi’? Because, as Hazrat Inayat Khan explained, it is the destiny of the Sufis to deliver the Message in this age. That is a change for Sufism, since the Sufis for centuries have preferred to work quietly, helping where they could, but remaining out of the public view when possible. Eight hundred years ago, Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, for example, refused to meet with the king of the day, even saying that if the king came in one door of his cell, he would exit by the other. Therefore, the Sufis of today who are devoted to this work have to manage a combination of on-going inner discipline and outer service.

The ‘Message of Love, Harmony and Beauty’ seems easy to understand, although looking at the state of the world, and even the condition of many spiritual organisations, we might wonder what is really understood by these qualities. But we could say that insofar as the Message, the Sacred Word always singing from the Divine Ocean of Sound, becomes a reality in our life, then love, harmony and beauty become present as well, for they are our spiritual heritage.

But perhaps the term that leads to the most confusion is ‘the Message of Spiritual Liberty.’ To those old enough to have experienced the age of the hippies, it sounds very similar to the permissive, free-love, ‘whatever you want, man!’ attitudes that was popular in those days. And even long before the psychedelic 60’s, Hazrat Inayat noted a very strong tendency in the west for people to want to skip the tedium of being a student in a particular method, preferring to choose a little from this path, a little from another, jumping here and there and in a comfortably short time presenting oneself as a teacher, perhaps of some ‘new’ system altogether

But ‘spiritual liberty’ doesn’t mean letting the ego off the leash to run free; it means liberating the spirit from all that imprisons it–the attachments, the assumptions, the identifications that all together form our ‘me.’ Murshid Hidayat often said that ‘spiritual liberty’ means freedom from dogmas and preconceptions. And as Hazrat Inayat Khan said on many occasions, the path of freedom must begin with discipline; if we begin with ‘freedom,’ we will end in slavery, but if we give ourselves sincerely to the demanding path of self-control, in time the veils will begin to fall away and we will realise–someday–that the spirit was always free.