Note: “Hazrat” is an Arabic and Turkish honorific title used to show respect to a righteous person, prophet, and/or teacher. It is commonly used in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. It is comparable to traditional English honorifics addressing high officials, such as “Your Honour” (for judges), “Your Majesty” (for monarchs), or “Your Holiness” (for clerics). “Hazrat,” the Persianate pronunciation of ḥaḍra), is also a common takhallus (pen name) for Muslim poets in the Indian subcontinent. “Pir” is a title for a Sufi spiritual guide.
The Sufi message is not for one nation, race, or community; it is for the whole of humanity. Its one and only object is to bring about a better understanding between the divided sections of humanity by awakening their consciousness to the fact that humanity is one family. . . . The Sufi message, therefore, is a call to unite in wisdom. . . . The Sufi Movement is a movement intended by God to unite humanity in kinship and in wisdom.
The present-day Sufi Movement is a movement of members of different nations and races united together in the ideal of wisdom; they believe that wisdom does not belong to any particular religion or race, but to the human race as a whole. It is a divine property which humankind has inherited; and it is in this realization that the Sufis, in spite of belonging to different nationalities, races, beliefs, and faiths, still unite and work for humanity in the ideal of wisdom.
[. . .] By the process of Sufism one realizes one’s own nature, one’s true nature, and thereby one realizes human nature. And by the study of human nature one realizes the nature of life in general. It is is self-realization that the mystery of the whole of life is centered. It is the remedy of all maladies; it is the secret of success in all walks of life; it is a religion and more than a religion. And at this time when the whole world is upset, the Sufi message conveys to the world the divine message. What is wrong with humanity today is that it is not itself, and all the misery of the world is caused by this. Therefore nothing can answer the need of humanity save this process of the sages and the wise of all ages, which leads to self-realization.
Life, human nature, the nature around us, are all a revelation to a Sufi. This does not mean that a Sufi has no respect for the sacred scriptures revered by humanity. On the contrary, the Sufi holds them as sacred as do the followers of those scriptures; but the Sufi says that all scriptures are only different interpretations of that one scripture which is constantly before us like an open book – if we could only read and understand it.
The Sufi’s object of worship is beauty – not only in form and line and color, but beauty in all its aspects, from gross to fine.
What is the moral of the Sufis? Every religion, every creed, has certain moral teachings: that this particular principle is right, and that particular principle is wrong. No principle is labelled by a Sufi as either; it is its application which makes it right or wrong. The light which guides the Sufi on the path is his or her own conscience, and harmony is the justification which guides the Sufi onward step-by-step to his or her idealized goal. To harmonize with oneself is not sufficient; one must also harmonize with others in thought, speech, and action; that is the attitude of the Sufi.
The highest heaven of the Sufi is his or her own heart, and that which humanity generally knows as love, to a Sufi, is God. Different people have thought of the Deity as the Creator, as the Judge, as the King, as the Supreme Being; but the Sufis call God the Beloved.
[. . .] What Sufis strive for is self-realization, and they arrive at this self-realization by means of their divine ideal, their God. By this they touch that truth which is the ultimate goal and the yearning of every soul. It is not only realization; it is a happiness which words cannot explain. It is that peace which is yearned for by every soul.
And how does one attain it? By practicing the presence of God; by realizing the oneness of the whole being; by continually holding, every moment of the day, consciously or subconsciously, the truth before one’s vision, in spite of the waves of illusion which arise incessantly, diverting one’s glance from absolute truth [i.e., Love]. And no matter what may be the name of any sect, cult, or creed, so long as the souls are striving towatd that object, to a Sufi they are all Sufis. The attitude of the Sufi to all the different religions is one of respect. The Sufi’s religion is the service of humanity, and the Sufi’s only attainment is the realization of truth.
– Inayat Khan
From “The Sufi Message” in Caravan of Souls:
An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Second Edition, Suluk Press, 2022
pp. 5-8
From “The Sufi Message” in Caravan of Souls:
An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Second Edition, Suluk Press, 2022
pp. 5-8
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message
• “Like a Stream Running Into the Ocean”
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan on Mysticism
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan and the Fountain of Happiness Within
• Inayat Khan and the Alchemy of Happiness
• A Light That Will Always Shine
• A Living Light
• A Perpetual Fire Within
• One Wisdom
• Awakening and Turning
THE SUFI PATH
• A Precise Metaphysical Claim
• The Sufi Way
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything is Possible
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• The Gorgeous One
• Saaxiib Qurux Badan and the Winged Heart
• Held in the Presence of God
• The Act of Surrender
• The Journey Home
• Living From the Heart
ONENESS
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence – Part 1 | Part 2
• We Are One
• Jesus: A Revelation of Oneness
• Forever Oneness
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Wendy Benning Swanson
See also the related Wild Reed posts
• Christ Consciousness: The Inner Flame of Divine Self
• Marianne Williamson on Cultivating Stillness
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• A Season of Listening
• Eckhart Tolle on Silence and Stillness
• Eckhart Tolle on Going Beyond the Thinking Mind
• Eckhart Tolle on Being “Conscious Without Thought”
• To Be Still
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Today I Will Be Still
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• Active Waiting: A Radical Attitude Toward Life
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning with the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Keeping the Spark Alive
• Awakenings
• A Course in Miracles: A Gift of Peace
• Seven Principles for Living with Deep Intention
• Thoughts on Christian Meditation – Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Opening image: A 1916 portrait of Inayat Khan. (Photographer unknown.)
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