We often speak of ‘the Sufi path,’ suggesting that we are going from one place to another, although we also hear that the goal is right there inside us—we don’t have to go anywhere. The journey is not along a stony trail stretching from one side of the globe to another but only a turning: from the distracting sensations of the outer world to the light and truth of the inner reality. Hazrat Inayat Khan tells us as much in the opening paragraph of his text about heaven on earth, saying that the will of God is in our innermost being, but ‘our’ will, the small, individual will, is on the surface. In other places he uses the metaphor of a mirror covered with rust. The clarity of the mirror is there, but it is obscured by the dark, dense rust. In the same way, the consciousness at our core is capable of reflecting the Infinite, but it is covered over by thoughts of self.

The question, then, is how to reach the depth, where the will of God is found, or how to remove the rust so that the light of the mirror may be revealed. To understand the process, consider this short tale. A certain noble was invited to three different homes. In the first home, the host had scrupulously cleaned his house, and decorated it with all kinds of touches, but it soon became clear that the desire of the host was that the guest should admire his home and praise it; the visit was to feed his pride. In the second home, the host had no housekeeping skills whatsoever; he had not swept, the place was a total disorder. He was very glad to see his guest, but the guest had no place to sit, and the host had nothing to serve him. In the third home, the host had carefully prepared the house for the visit, but when the guest arrived, his attention was on the guest and on nothing else. And of course, it was in this third home that the guest felt most comfortable.

In the spiritual context, what is ‘housekeeping’? Mastering our impulses, trying to overcome such feelings as envy and jealousy, giving consideration to the other person’s point of view, making a habit of generosity, all these and many others are the disciplines that make our inner abode habitable. But it is our happiness to receive the Guest that makes it a true home—or as Hazrat Inayat tells us, heaven on earth.

And that happiness is the fruit of the tree of ‘divine ideal.’ The more we nourish and tend that tree, the more abundant will our happiness be when we recognise the presence of the Guest within.