Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message of Oneness

My exploration of – and walking on – the mystical path of love known as the Sufi Way continues with my sharing this evening of an excerpt from Caravan of Souls: An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan, the 2022 updated edition of the 2013 book compiled and edited by Khan’s grandson, Pir Zia Inayat Khan. Caravan of Souls is a guidebook to the Sufi path of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), a spiritual philosophy/school (the Inayatyya) of love, harmony, and beauty. This excerpt is from a foundational writing by Inayat Khan entitled “The Sufi Message.”

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.
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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

Following is a short biographical video about Inayat Khan.





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
• Your True Source

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


Related Off-site Links:
Inayatiyya: “A Global Organization Dedicated to the Sufi Message of Inayat Khan”
Inayatiyya U.K.
Inayatiyya Australia
Recalling Hazrat Inayat Khan and his Universalist Sufism – James Ford (Patheos, February 5, 2022).
Mystic Inayat Khan’s Legacy: Music, Sufism, and a Celebrated Spy Daughter – Nishtha Gautam (The Quint, February 6, 2019).
You know British Spy Noor Inayat Khan Who Hitler Executed. Her Father Has a Story Too – Raghav Bikhchandani (The Print, July 5. 2022).
Remembering Sufi Mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan – Syeda Farida (The Hindu, July 25, 2016).
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).
The Mystic Sound: Hazrat Inayat Khan – Neuralsurfer Audiobooks and Films for Creative Minds (January 8, 2018).
Hazrat Inayat Khan: A Sufi Maestro in Moscow – Ajay Kamalakaran (Open, May 1, 2021).
The Sufi Concept of “Fana” – And Why Modern Psychology Is Only Just Catching Up – Ahmad Fatahillah (Medium, May 22, 2026).


Opening image: A 1916 portrait of Inayat Khan. (Photographer unknown.)

“Like a Stream Running Into the Ocean”

My exploration of – and walking on – the mystical path of love known as the Sufi Way continues with my sharing this evening of a second excerpt from The Inner Life (1997), a collection of three essential writings by the great Sufi musician and teacher Inayat Khan (1882-1927). This excerpt is from the writing entitled “Sufi Mysticism.”

NOTE: For Part 1, click here.

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There is one God and one truth, one religion and one mysticism; call it Sufism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, whatever you wish. As God cannot be divided, so mysticism cannot be divided.

. . . The God of the mystic is to be found in his own heart; the truth of the mystic is beyond words. People argue and debate about things of little importance, but mysticism is not to be discussed. People want to talk in order to know, and then they forget it all. Very often it is not the one who knows who talks so much, but the one who wants to know. The one who knows but does not discuss is the mystic. She knows that happiness is in her own heart; but to put this into words is like putting the ocean into a drop of water.

. . . People strive for many different things in this world and last of all they seek the spiritual path. And there are some indifferent ones who say, “There is a long life before us and when the time comes that I must awake I shall wake up.”

But the mystic knows that the spiritual path [the inner life] is the one thing he must attend to, that all other things come after that. It is of the greatest importance in his life.

Should he, by working for realization of God, neglect his duties in the world? It is not necessary. There is nothing that a mystic need renounce in order to have the realization of life. She only needs to attach the greatest importance to what is most important in life.

The life of a mystic is meditative, but to him meditation is like the winding of a clock. It is wound for a moment, and all day long it goes by itself. He does not have to think about it all day long. He does not trouble about it. . . . The moments of meditation set the whole mechanism in running order, like a stream running into the ocean. They do not in the least keep the mystic from her duty; they only bless every word she speaks with the thought of God.

In all the mystic thinks and does there is the perfume of God, which becomes a healing and a blessing. And if one asks how a mystic, who has become so kind and helpful, gets on among the crowd in everyday life, since the rough edges of everyday life rubbing against him must necessarily make him heartsore, the answer is that they certainly do, and the heart of the mystic is even more sore than that of anybody else. Where there is only kindness and patience all the thorns will come. But just as the diamond by being cut becomes brilliant, so does the heart; and when the heart has been sufficiently cut it becomes a flame which illuminates not only the life of the mystic, but also that of others.

– Inayat Khan
From The Inner Life
Shambhala, 1997
pp. 65-69

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message
• 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


MEDITATION
• Meditation and the Life of Nonviolence
• Marianne Williamson on Cultivating Stillness
• Diarmuid O’Murchú on the Human Capacity to Meditate
• 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
• Time to Go Inwards
• 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
• Seven Principles for Living with Deep Intention
• Thoughts on Christian Meditation – Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
• Happy Birthday, Mum! (includes Thích Nhất Hạnh’s thoughts on walking meditation)

Living From the Heart

My exploration of – and walking on – the mystical path known as the Sufi Way continues this evening with my sharing of Living from the Heart: Universalist Sufism in America (2020), a 46-minute documentary film by Chuck Davis and Netanel Miles-Yépez.

In introducing this film on its YouTube page, the Inayati-Maimuni Order notes the following.

Living from the Heart offers an introduction to the mystical path of Sufism as expressed in the universalist Sufi teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan by contemporary Sufi teachers in America. [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. The word literally translates to “presence, appearance.”]

The film contextualizes Sufism as a spiritual path of the heart, addressing the distinction between Islamic Sufism and Universalist Sufism, and introduces viewers to Sufi teachings on Love, Beauty, Music, God, and the Sufi practices of Zikr (remembrance) and Pilgrimage.

Locations in the film include: The Abode of the Message, New Lebanon, New York; The Boulder Dushanbe Tea House, Boulder, Colorado; Lama Foundation, Questa, New Mexico; Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado; The Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California; and Precita Park, San Francisco, California.

Living from the Heart features interviews with: Taj Inayat, Senior Teacher, Inayati Order; Shabda Kahn, Pir of the Sufi Ruhaniat Order; Satya Inayat Khan, Inayati Order; Zia Inayat-Khan, Pir of the Inayati Order; Netanel Miles-Yépez, Pir of the Inayati-Maimuni Order; Deepa Gulrukh Patel, Teacher, Inayati Order; and Jennifer Alia Wittman, Executive Director, Inayati Order. Also featured are: Sukhawat Ali Khan, Traditional Qawwali Singer; Amir Peter O’Laughlin, Sufi Musician; Lucas Kestrel Sego, Coordinator, Lama Foundation; and Aziz Isaiah Abbatiello, Traditional Mevlevi Whirler.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• 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
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on Mysticism
• 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
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything is Possible
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”
• The Soul’s Beloved
• The Gorgeous One
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• New Horizons
• Saaxiib Qurux Badan and the Winged Heart
• Held in the Presence of God
• The Act of Surrender
• The Journey Home

Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message

My exploration of – and walking on – the mystical path known as the Sufi Way continues with my sharing this evening of an excerpt from the foreword of The Inner Life (1997), a collection of three essential writings by the great Sufi musician and teacher Inayat Khan (1882-1927). This foreword is attributed simply to “H.J.W.”

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What is the character of the Sufi message? The core of it, of course, is mysticism. As a realized mystic, looking at Western culture, what Inayat Khan was destined to do was to open a path to inner realization that so many in the West could not find anymore. He was inspired to invoke the mysteries and the beauty of that path in many ways. He described the successive steps the seeker for truth has to go through. And he created the inner school of the Sufi Movement, the Sufi Order, to give personal guidance to sincere seekers. To initiates in this inner school he offered the possibility to develop the discipleship that has always been so important on the mystical path, and a range of spiritual practices that can help to open the heart and the inner senses but are also suitable for Westerners who remain active in worldly life.

For an essential aspect of Inayat Khan’s teaching was balance. He did not advocate withdrawing from the world in order to focus only on the inner life: on prayer, contemplation, and meditation. He shows us a human way, living in the world, meeting our obligations to our fellow human beings with sympathy and understanding – and at the same time learning to turn within and to come in touch with the peace and inspiration of the divine light. Then we discover the fullness of life. We can reach a balance between the inner life, where we open our hearts in surrender to the divine spirit, and the outer life, where we have to work actively to achieve our ideals and meet our obligations. Then our actions can be guided by the inspiration and wisdom we receive in our inner attunement, which will more and more shine through our outer work.

This mystical vision illuminates the whole of life: religion, philosophy, and psychology. The mystical path is also the essence of religion. For the purpose of the inner life – as Inayat Khan puts it – is to make God a reality. Not a theory, a dogma, or an abstraction, but the deepest experience we can have. This vision then leads to understanding the fundamental unity of all the great religions. For these religions have all been brought to humanity by successive messengers in different ages to awaken the feeling and realization of the divine. Inayat Khan shows that the God ideal is a great help for this, but that we have to realize that it can only be a help, a stepping-stone: that the divine Reality is beyond our limited intelligence and can only be experienced in the depths of our being, our soul, which itself is a spark of the divine light. Then we can see all religions as converging ways to the same goal. To express this idea, Inayat Khan created the Universal Worship, in which all religions are brought together in a ritual that shows how they are all kindled from the same divine light.

The philosophical aspect of the Sufi message is also important. The tremendous development of science and technology in the present time has made it difficult for many people to find their way to religion and to the inner life. For traditional religious dogmas and representations are at odds with modern scientific insight. But Inayat Khan’s mystical philosophy is completely in line with the deepening understanding of modern science.

The human way that the Sufi message shows means that through the experience and difficulties of the outer life we can make progress toward the inner goal. This is the psychological aspect of Inayat Kan’s teachings. Here he gives a remarkable insight into the workings of our mind. He shows the importance of the impressions which we receive constantly through the outer world, which will be registered in our memory and become living, influencing our feelings, thoughts, words, and actions. And he explains how we can learn to control our mind, allowing only the positive and desirable impressions to live and work within us. By controlling our mind we can then control our life. But as important as the impressions are in our life, they are still only reflections on the mirror of our soul, our inner consciousness. The soul itself remains always pure. Its nature is divine; and it is that divine nature that we have to discover in life.

In their moral aspect Inayay Khan’s teachings also describe a way of gradual progress, of evolution. He speaks about “moral culture” and “civilization of the heart.” We must learn to understand other people and their points of view, to develop consideration and sympathy for them. That widens our consciousness and helps to overcome the identification with our limited being, the great illusion which blocks our way to the knowledge of God.

– H.J.W.
From the Foreword to The Inner Life
Shambhala, 1997
pp. xi-xiv

In the following video Filip Holm of the Let’s Talk Religion podcast explores the life of Inayat Khan and the universal expression of Sufism he promulgated.





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• 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
• Inayat Khan on Mysticism
• 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
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• The Soul’s Beloved
• The Gorgeous One
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• New Horizons
• Saaxiib Qurux Badan and the Winged Heart
• Held in the Presence of God
• The Act of Surrender
• The Journey Home

Inayat Khan on Mysticism

Mysticism is neither a faith nor a belief, nor is it a principle or a dogma. . . . [B]eing a mysic means having a certain temperament, a certain outlook on life. . . . No one can be a mystic and call himself a Christian mystic, a Jewish mystic, or a Muslim mystic. For what is mysticism? Mysticism is something that erases from one’s mind all idea of separateness, and if a person claims to be this mystic or that mystic they are not a mystic; they are playing with a name.

People think a mystic means a dreamer, an unpractical person who has no knowledge of worldly affairs. But such a mystic I would call half a mystic. A mystic in the full sense of the word must have balance; they must be as wise in worldly matters as in spiritual things. . . . It is not necessary to be unconscious of the world while being conscious of God. With our two eyes we see one vision; so we should see both God and the world as a clear vision at the same time. It is difficult, but not impossible.

Mysticism is an outlook on life. Things which seem real to an average person are unreal in the eyes of the mystic; and the things that seem unreal in the eyes of the average person are real in the eyes of the mystic.

. . . God is not abstract for the mystic; to the mystic God is a reality . . . the stepping-stone to self-realization. God is the gate, the door, the entrance to the heavens. God, for the mystic, is a key with which to open the secret of life, the abode from whence the mystic comes and to which they return and where they find their deepest and truest self to be at home.

– Inayat Khan
Excerpted from Sufi Mysticism
(edited by John Fabian, 1967)

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness
• Inayat Khan and the Fountain of Happiness Within
• 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
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• The Sufi Way
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• Bismillah
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything Is Possible

LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
• Held in the Presence of God
• The Act of Surrender
• The Journey Home

THE DIVINE PRESENCE
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
• Neil Douglas-Klotz: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2011
• Cultivating Stillness
• Thoughts on Transformation | II | III
• Jesus: Mystic and Prophet

Recommended Off-site Links:
Recalling Hazrat Inayat Khan and his Universalist Sufism – James Ford (Patheos, February 5, 2022).
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).

Image: Artist unknown.

Awakening and Turning

The Wild Reed’s 2025 Lenten series concludes with a seventh excerpt from The Awakening of the Human Spirit by Inayat Khan. (For the first installment of this series and an explanation for why I chose this book, click here.)

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What does death mean? Turning. The soul is always awake and therefore it is always living, but it may turn from one side to the other side. If there is some beautiful voice coming from behind to which it wishes to listen, then it turns towards it; and in the same way, when it is attracted to a certain sphere to which it had been asleep before, that is called awakening.

We see that the time for nature to awaken is the spring. It is asleep all winter and it awakens in the spring. And there is a time for the sea to awaken; when the wind blows and brings good tidings as if to awaken it from sleep, then the waves rise. All this shows struggle, shows that something has touched the soul that makes it uneasy, restless, that makes it want liberation, release. Every atom, every object, every condition, and every living being has a time of awakening. Sometimes this is a gradual awakening and sometimes it is sudden. To some people it comes in a moment’s time by some blow or disappointment, or because their heart has broken through something that happened suddenly. It may have appeared cruel, but at the same time the result was a sudden awakening, and this awakening brought a blessing beyond words. The outlook changed, the insight deepened; joy, quiet, and freedom were felt, and compassion showed in the attitude. A person who would never forgive, who liked to take revenge, who was easily displeased, who would measure and weigh everything, when their soul is awakened, becomes in one moment a different person. As Mahmud Ghasnavi, the emperor poet of India, has said in most beautiful words, “I, the emperor, have thousands of slaves awaiting my command, but the moment love had sprung in my heart I considered myself the slave of my servants.”

The whole attitude changes. Only, the question is what one awakens to, in which sphere, in what plane, to which reality. Sometimes, after one has made a mistake, by the loss that mistake has caused the outlook becomes different. In business, in one’s profession, in worldly life, a certain experience, just like a blow, has broken something in someone; and with that breaking a light has come, a new life. But it is not right to awaken someone by mistake. No doubt very often awakening comes by a blow, by great pain; but at the same time it is not necessary to look for a blow. Life has enough blows in store for us; we need not look for them.

. . . [T]he more one happens to glance into the hereafter, the more one will realize that what the hereafter is – what is behind the veil of death – is the awakening to another sphere, a sphere as real as this one or even more real. For what is real? It is the soul, the consciousness itself, that is real. What is past is a dream; what will come is hope. What one experiences seems real, but it is only a suggestion. The soul is real, and its aim is to realize itself; its liberation, its freedom, its harmony, its peace all depend upon its own unfoldment. No outer experience can make soul realize the real.

. . . [A key] form of awakening is the awakening of the real self. Then one begins to see what one’s thoughts and feelings mean, what right and wrong mean. Then a person begins to weigh and measure all that springs up within them. The further one goes, the more one sees behind things, the more one becomes drawn to explore all the planes of existence, not only living on the surface of life. This is a new kind of awakening; then a person has only to be awakened to the other world; they need not go there. They need not experience what death is, for they can bring about a condition where they rise above life. Then they come to the conclusion that there are many worlds in one world; they close their eyes to the dimensions of the outer world and find within their own self, in their own heart, the center of all worlds. And the only thing that is necessary at this point is turning; not awakening, but turning.

– Inayat Khan
Excerpted from The Awakening of the Human Spirit
Omega Press, 1982
p. 136-139

NOTE: Each post in this series is accompanied by Sufi music. Today it is an instrumental piece entitled “Mystical Journey” from the YouTube channel Buddha’s Lounge’s RUMI Spiritual Music Live Stream. I find this music perfect for times of meditation and prayer. Perhaps you will too.





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

SOUL
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
• From the Palliative/Spiritual Care Bookshelf: Parker Palmer
• From the Palliative/Spiritual Care Bookshelf: Jean Shinoda Bolen
• Where Soul Would Have Us Go
• Surrendering in Sacred Trust
• Trust and Surrender
• Thomas Moore on the “Ageless Soul”
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Andrew Harvey
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Caroline Jones
• The Soul Within the Soul
• Your True Source
• The Soul’s Beloved
• My Love, “Return to the Root of the Root of Your Own Soul”
• Soul Deep
• Awakening the Wild Soul

AWAKENING
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Don’t Go Back to Sleep
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Peng Roden Her
• Awakening
• An Extraordinary, Precious Opportunity
• The Task at Hand
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Shining On . . . Into the New Year

THE SUFI PATH
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• The Sufi Way
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• Bismillah
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything Is Possible

INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness

THE DIVINE PRESENCE
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
• Neil Douglas-Klotz: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2011
• Cultivating Stillness
• Thoughts on Transformation | II | III

THE LENTEN JOURNEY
• Blessing the Dust
• “This Beloved Quickened Dust”
• Ash Wednesday Reflections
• The Ashes of Our Martyrs
• Lent: A Season Set Apart
• A Lenten Resolution
• Lent: A Time to Fast and Feast
• “Here I Am!” – The Lenten Response
• Let Today Be the Day
• Pope Francis on Lenten Fasting
• “The Turn”: A Lenten Meditation by Lionel Basney
• Lent: A Summons to Live Anew
• Now Is the Acceptable Time
• Lent With Henri
• Waking Dagobert
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016 (Part 1)
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016 (Part 2)
• Move Us, Loving God

Recommended Off-site Links:
Recalling Hazrat Inayat Khan and his Universalist Sufism – James Ford (Patheos, February 5, 2022).
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).

Image 1: Artist unknown.
Image 2: A 1916 portrait of Inayat Khan. (Photographer unknown.)

One Wisdom

The Wild Reed’s 2025 Lenten series continues with a sixth excerpt from The Awakening of the Human Spirit by Inayat Khan. (For the first installment of this series and an explanation for why I chose this book, click here.)

____________________

There are those who see divinity in Christ. They say, “Christ was God, Christ is divine.” And there are others who say, “Christ was a man, one like all of us.” When we come to look at this question, we see that the one who says, “Christ is divine” is not wrong. If there is any divinity shown it is in the human being. And the one who says, “Christ was a man,” is not wrong either. In the garb of humanity, Christ manifested.

Those who do not want Christ to be human drag down the greatness and sacredness of the human being by their argument, by saying that humanity is made of sin and by separating Christ from humanity. But there is nothing wrong in calling Christ human or divine. It is in the human being that divine perfection is to be seen. It is in the human being that divinity is manifested. There are Christ’s own words “I am Alpha and Omega.” Many close their eyes to this, but the one who said, “I am Alpha and Omega” existed also before the coming of Jesus, and the one who says, “first and last,” must exist also after Jesus.

In the words of Christ there is the idea of perfection [or wholeness]. He identified himself with that spirit of which he was conscious. Christ was conscious not of his human part but of his perfect being when he said, “I am Alpha and Omega.” He did not identify himself here with his being known as Jesus. He identified himself with that spirit of perfection that lived before Jesus and will continue to live to the end of the world, for eternity.

If this is so, then what does it matter if some say, “Buddha inspired us,” and millions are inspired by Buddha? It is only a difference of name. It is all Alpha and Omega. If others say Moses, or Muhammad, or Krishna, what difference does it make? Was it not from one and the same spirit? Was it not the same Alpha and Omega of which Jesus Christ was conscious? Whoever gives the message to the world, whatever illuminated human beings have raised thousands and millions of people in the world, they cannot but be that same Christ whom the one calls by this name and the other by another name.

Yet human ignorance always causes wars and disasters on account of different religions, and different communities, because of the importance they give to their own conception, their own corrupted conception, which differs from another. Even now, on the one hand there is materialism and on the other there is bigotry.

What is necessary today is to find the first and last religion, to come to the message of Christ, to divine wisdom, so that we may recognize this wisdom in all its different forms, in whatever form it has been given to humanity. It does not matter if it is Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, or Hinduism. It is one wisdom; that call of the spirit awakens each one of us to rise above limitation and to reach for perfection.

– Inayat Khan
Excerpted from The Awakening of the Human Spirit
Omega Press, 1982
p. 88-89

NEXT:
Awakening and Turning


NOTE: Each post in this series is accompanied by Sufi music. Today it is an instrumental piece called “Dervish Dream ✧ Duduk Meditation Music” from the YouTube channel Blueberry Meditation’s “Sufi Winds” series. I find this music perfect for times of meditation and prayer. Perhaps you will too.





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

UNIVERSALITY
• Douglas Richer: “God is Love and There Is That of God Within Everyone”
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”
• Guidelines for the Advent of a Universal Mysticism: An Introduction | Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
• In Search of a “Global Ethic”
• In the Garden of Spirituality: Richard Rohr – Part 1 | 2
• The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace

AWAKENING
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Don’t Go Back to Sleep
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Peng Roden Her
• Awakening
• An Extraordinary, Precious Opportunity
• The Task at Hand
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Shining On . . . Into the New Year

JESUS
• Jesus: Mystic and Prophet
• Jesus and the Art of Letting Go
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is
• Jesus: Path-Blazer of Radical Transformation
• Jesus: Our Guide to Mystical Love in Action – Part 1 | 2 | 3
• Why Jesus is My Man

THE SUFI PATH
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• The Sufi Way
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• Bismillah
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything Is Possible

INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness

THE DIVINE PRESENCE
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
• Neil Douglas-Klotz: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2011
• Cultivating Stillness
• Thoughts on Transformation | II | III

THE LENTEN JOURNEY
• Blessing the Dust
• “This Beloved Quickened Dust”
• Ash Wednesday Reflections
• The Ashes of Our Martyrs
• Lent: A Season Set Apart
• A Lenten Resolution
• Lent: A Time to Fast and Feast
• “Here I Am!” – The Lenten Response
• Let Today Be the Day
• Pope Francis on Lenten Fasting
• “The Turn”: A Lenten Meditation by Lionel Basney
• Lent: A Summons to Live Anew
• Now Is the Acceptable Time
• Lent With Henri
• Waking Dagobert
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016 (Part 1)
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016 (Part 2)
• Move Us, Loving God

Recommended Off-site Links:
Recalling Hazrat Inayat Khan and his Universalist Sufism – James Ford (Patheos, February 5, 2022).
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).

Image: Robby.

A Perpetual Fire Within

The Wild Reed’s 2025 Lenten series continues with a fifth excerpt from The Awakening of the Human Spirit by Inayat Khan. (For the first installment of this series and an explanation for why I chose this book, click here.)

____________________

God is love. If God is love, love is most sacred, and to utter this word without meaning is a vain repetition. The lips of a person to whom it means something are closed; they can say little. For love is a revelation in itself: no study is necessary, no meditation is needed, no piety is required. If love is pure, if the spark of love has begun to glow, then spirituality is within. One must keep blowing the spark until it turns into a perpetual fire.

Where is that perpetual fire to be found? In one’s own heart. The spark that one finds glowing for a moment and that then becomes dim does not belong to heaven, for in heaven all things are lasting; it must belong to some other place.

Love has become a word from the dictionary, a word that is used a thousand times in the day, which means nothing. To the one who knows what it means, love means patience, love means endurance, love means tolerance, love means sacrifice, love means service. All things such as gentleness, humility, modesty, graciousness, kindness; all are the different manifestations of love. It is the same to say, “God is all and all is God,” as to say, “Love is all and all is love.” And it is to find it, to feel it, to experience its warmth, to see in the world the light of love, to keep its glow, and to hold love’s flame high as a sacred torch to guide one in one’s life’s journey to fulfill the purpose of life [which is our spiritual awakening].

– Inayat Khan
Excerpted from The Awakening of the Human Spirit
Omega Press, 1982
p. 80

NEXT:
One Wisdom


NOTE: Each post in this series is accompanied by Sufi music. Today it is an instrumental piece called “Sufi Spirit ✧ Duduk Meditation Music” from the YouTube channel Blueberry Meditation’s “Sufi Winds” series. I find this music perfect for times of meditation and prayer. Perhaps you will too.





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

LOVE
• Douglas Richer: “God is Love and There Is That of God Within Everyone”
• Opening to Love
• With Love Inside
• Love’s the Only Dance
• Trusting the Flow
• Love Is My Guide
• Keeping the Spark Alive
• In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson
• Our Lives as LGBTQI People: “Garments Grown in Love”
• The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace
• Jesus: Our Guide to Mystical Love in Action – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• The Mystic Jesus: “A Name for the Unalterable Love That All of Us Share”

AWAKENING
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Don’t Go Back to Sleep
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Peng Roden Her
• Awakening
• An Extraordinary, Precious Opportunity
• The Task at Hand
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Shining On . . . Into the New Year

THE SUFI PATH
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• The Sufi Way
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• Bismillah
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything Is Possible

INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness

THE DIVINE PRESENCE
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
• Neil Douglas-Klotz: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2011
• Cultivating Stillness
• Thoughts on Transformation | II | III

THE LENTEN JOURNEY
• Blessing the Dust
• “This Beloved Quickened Dust”
• Ash Wednesday Reflections
• The Ashes of Our Martyrs
• Lent: A Season Set Apart
• A Lenten Resolution
• Lent: A Time to Fast and Feast
• “Here I Am!” – The Lenten Response
• Let Today Be the Day
• Pope Francis on Lenten Fasting
• “The Turn”: A Lenten Meditation by Lionel Basney
• Lent: A Summons to Live Anew
• Now Is the Acceptable Time
• Lent With Henri
• Waking Dagobert
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016 (Part 1)
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016 (Part 2)
• Move Us, Loving God

Recommended Off-site Links:
Recalling Hazrat Inayat Khan and his Universalist Sufism – James Ford (Patheos, February 5, 2022).
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).

Image: Alison Goss.