In a recent conversation, the theme was the first Sufi thought :There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save He. The ten Sufi thoughts are not dogmas, of course, but guidance, directing us toward realisation. They are like a finger pointing toward the beautiful moon. But the question for the seeker is always the same: how to reconcile our life on earth with this light-filled inspiration.

In his brief exposition of this Sufi thought, Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan says : The Sufi, forgetting the self and aiming at the attainment of the divine ideal, walks constantly all through life in the path of love and light. And he adds, He looks to Him as the lover to his beloved, and takes all things in life as coming from Him, with perfect resignation. 

We may find the image of a path of love and light attractive, but then perhaps pause. The path of being loved certainly sounds heavenly, but life teaches us that the path of loving another is sometimes the opposite; it is filled with challenges and difficulties, and the constantly renewed recognition that the love that is turning us upside down and inside out also asks us to make innumerable sacrifices for the sake of the one we love.

This is why Pir-o-Murshid speaks of ‘perfect resignation.’ If we accept that there is only one Being, then inevitably we must see both the sunshine and the storms of life as having been sent by the One. Complaining and protesting merely distances us from the One we seek to know, and we perhaps miss the opportunity to find in the downpour some message that was meant just for us. ‘Perfect’ resignation is only possible, though, when love really has been kindled in our hearts. With a good blaze warming us from within, we can easily shrug off every kind of bad weather, but if the fire is barely smouldering and throws little heat, we become restless and start to fidget, turning our attention to ‘our comfort’ and ‘our need.’

The lesson of resignation sounds like a hard road to travel, but there is a reward in store for the one who makes the journey. Another word for resignation might be surrender, and in mystical understanding, is connected with selflessness. To act selflessly shows a beautiful fineness of character, the nobility that is willing to put others first – but there is more. In one lecture, Hazrat Inayat Khan says, Selflessness … is a might and it is a pride that no rank of the world can give. To become something is a limitation, whatever one may become: even if a person were to be called the king of the world, still he is not the emperor of the universe. If one is the master of the earth, he is still the slave of Heaven. It is he who is no-one who can be all. 

We do not become less by resignation; we become more, and by perfect resignation, the barriers disappear and we become all. Pir-o-Murshid Inayat often quoted the words of Jesus, “Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven.” As individuals, as limited human beings, we can never become perfect, but when we allow ourselves to dissolve into the One, we experience the divine perfection that was never absent.