“In man’s search for truth, the first lesson and the last is love. There must be no separation, no ‘I am’ and ‘thou art not’. Until man has arrived at that selfless consciousness, he cannot know life and truth.”

“The more elevated the soul, the broader the outlook.”

Interestingly, just after writing the above, I read this quote from Inayat Khan:

“All the beauty that there is in life is after all what we call love. From it all the virtues spring. The whole beauty of life is in it, and it is as the English song says, ‘The light of a whole life dies, when love is done’. Life’s light is love; and when the heart is empty of love, a man is living and yet not living; from a spiritual point of view he is dead. When the heart is asleep, he is as though dead in this life, for one can only love through the heart. But love does not mean give and take. That is only a trade; it’s selfishness. To give sixpence and receive a shilling is not love. Love is when one loves for the sake of love, when one cannot help but love, cannot do anything but love. Then one is not forced to love; there is no virtue in that. One does not love because another does. It is simply there. It cannot be helped. It is the only thing that makes a person alive. If a person loves one and hates another, what can he know of love? Can you love one person fully if at the same time you cannot bestow a kind glance on some other person? Can you say you love one person fully when you cannot bear him to be loved by someone else as well? Can you hate a person when love is sprinkled like water in your heart? Love is like the water of the Ganges. It is itself a purification. As the Bible says, ‘God is love’. When love is awakened in the heart, God is awakened there. When a man has journeyed, he reaches the goal as soon as his heart has reached love.

“The Sufi says, ‘The Kaba, the divine place, paradise, is the heart of the human being’. That is why he has respect for every heart. Every heart is his Kaba, his shrine. The human heart is the place toward which he bows, for in this heart is God.”

“Love is as water of the Ganges; it is in itself a purification.”

That’s another beautiful quote from Inayat Khan. More from the Khan:

“When God’s divine love rises as a wave, it washes away the sins of the whole life in a moment, for law has no power to stand before love: the stream of love sweeps it away.”

“The deeper your prayers echo in your own consciousness, the more audible they are to God.”

Many people repeat prayers daily, or even several times a day, but without any depth in them. What use is that? Prayer can be powerful, or it can be empty. First, decide what to pray for, and then pray with depth, not with a hole in your spirit.

Here’s another quote, & beautiful story, along these lines:

“There is a story of a peasant girl who was passing through a farm while going to another village. There was a Muslim offering his prayers on his prayer-rug in the open. The law is that no one should cross the place where anyone is praying. When this girl returned from the village this man was still sitting there. He said, ‘O girl, now what terrible sin have you committed!’ ‘What did I do?’ asked she. ‘I was offering prayers here, and you passed over this place’. The girl asked, ‘What do you mean by offering prayers?’ ‘Thinking of God’, he replied. The girl said, ‘Yes? Were you thinking of God? I was thinking of my young man whom I was going to meet, and I did not see you. Then how did you see me while you were thinking of God?’”

And one more quote from Inayat Khan:

“Prayer from the depth and prayer from the surface are two prayers. One can utter what Christ has called ‘vain repetitions’, just repeating the prayer; one does not fix one’s mind on the meaning of the prayer. If the depth of one’s heart has heard the prayer, God has heard it.”

By the always eloquent Hazrat Inayat Khan. Here are a few more from him:

“The one thing to rely upon is God’s favor. Do not build either on your study or on your meditation, although they both help you. But you are dependent on God, not even on your murshid. Seek Him, trust Him. In Him lies your life’s purpose, and (in) Him is hidden the rest of your soul.”

“Whom should one love, how should one love? Whatever one loves — whether duty, human beings, art, friends, an ideal, or one’s fellow-creatures — one has certainly opened that door through which to pass in order to reach that love which is God. The beginning of love is an excuse; it leads to that ideal of love which is God alone.”

“We must remember the teaching of Christ, how He says, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that belong to God.’ In other words, give to the world that which belongs to the world, and give to God what belongs to God, namely: love, worship, reverence, devotion, trust, confidence. All those are due to God; so give them to God.”

“Love has the power to open the door of Eternal Life. By contemplation how far can we pierce through life? One, two, or three planes, then we must stop, but the nearest way of all is by Love and Devotion, for it is God’s way, and God is Love. God cannot be deceived — God will not be deceived. When anyone has taken this way it is by the God in him. And as we give all things they come back to us through Love. The more we give, the more comes back. Love has its limitations when it is directed to limited beings, but love that is directed to God has no limitations, God alone deserves all love, and the freedom of Love is in giving it to God.”

All quotes via Wahiduddin.

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

“It is the receptivity of our heart and the passivity of our mind, it is the eagerness, the thirst and hunger after truth, it is the direction of our whole life to that Ideal from who all light and truth come, that alone can bring us truth and the knowledge of God.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

But then the question comes: how do we open our hearts and minds?

Step by step, we require different things. Sometimes pain, sometimes hope, sometimes worldly love, sometimes spiritual desire. In the end, we require meditation as taught by a perfect Master, and His or Her grace.

But in the end, we realize, it was all His or Her grace.

~ “Religious Gatheka #12, How the Wise Live in the World “, by Hazrat Inayat Khan (unpublished)

“Words are but the shells of thoughts and feelings.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

“Wisdom is not in words, it is in understanding.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Going on:

“In point of fact, whatever one makes of oneself, one becomes that. The source of happiness or unhappiness is all in man, himself. When he is unaware of this, he is not able to arrange his life. As he becomes more acquainted with this secret, he gains mastery. The process by which this mastery is attained is the only fulfillment of the purpose of this life.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

“Independence is achieved by indifference. It does not mean that one should take no heed of what anyone does or says; it only means one should discriminate between important and unimportant things of everyday life; that every necessary and unnecessary thing should not demand so much of one’s attention, thought, and feeling. Political economy has become a subject of education, but spiritual economy is the main thing in religion. All one says and does and all that one thinks and feels puts a certain strain upon one’s spirit. It is wise to avoid every risk of losing one’s equilibrium. One must stand peacefully but firmly before all influences that disturb one’s life. The natural inclination is to answer in defense to every offense that comes from outside, but in that way one loses one’s equilibrium. Self-control, therefore, is the key to all success and happiness.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

“Another sign of progress is that, at times, one begins to feel peaceful. This may increase so much that a restful feeling comes in the heart. One might be in the solitude, but even if one is in a crowd, one still feels restful. Life in the world is most exciting; it has a tiring effect upon a sensitive person. When one is restless, the conditions in life can make one experience the greatest discomfort, for there is no greater pain than restlessness. If there is any remedy for the lack of peace, it is spiritual progress. Once peace is developed in a soul, that soul feels such a great power and has such a great influence upon those who approach it and upon all upsetting conditions and jarring influences coming from all sides. Just as water makes the dust settle down, so all jarring influences settle down under the feet of the peaceful.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

There is a story of a dervish who spoke with a young man who was very interested in his words of wisdom. The young man said, ‘If I come to your part of the world, I will come to see you. Will you tell me where you live?’ The dervish replied, ‘I live in the place of the liars’. … When he went to that country and asked for the dervish, the people said, ‘We do not know any place of liars, but there is a dervish living somewhere here’. So they took him near the graveyard where the dervish lived.

The first question the young man asked was, ‘Why did you give me a name which is not the name of the place?’ The dervish replied, ‘Yes, this is a place of liars’. It was the graveyard. He said, ‘Come with me, I shall show you. This here is a tomb, they say, of a general. Where is his sword, where is his power, where is his voice, what is he now? Is he a general? Here, this one was called a prime-minister. Where is his ministry, where is his office, where is his pen, where is his power? In the same ground! This person was called a judge. Whom is he judging now? He is in the ground. Were they not liars? Did they not tell a lie saying I am so and so, and I am such and such?’

— Hazrat Inayat Khan (via wahiduddin)

Image Credit:  Some rights reserved by Stuck in Customs

“If we take this attitude in life, not considering that if yesterday we failed today we shall fail, and if we always hope that some day we shall walk aright, that hour will come. Imagine if the child thought that as he had fallen so often perhaps he would never walk! That would make a mental impression on his soul, and he would never be able to walk. But there is the natural impulse, with the hope, “Next time I shall walk”, that makes him walk. So with us. Our follies, shortcomings, errors, are natural, but when we defend ourselves, hiding our errors from others and making virtues out of our shortcomings, it is then we make a mistake. It is just like nurturing our errors and wanting to err more. We must always develop the sense of justice, and that sense can never be developed if we judge others. The only way of developing that sense is to judge ourselves continually and see where we are in fault, and then in prayer to ask pardon and to ask for right guidance.”