Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan brought Sufism to the West in the early 1900s. The excerpts below are from The Complete Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Gayan, Vadan, Nirtan, Aphorisms, and The Bowl of Saki (New Lebanon, NY, Sufi Order Publications, 1978). More of the incomparable wisdom of Hazrat Inayat Khan can be accessed at http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/say/sayings.htm.
Hazrat Inayat Khan. (Creative Commons)
1 My life is running towards Thee, O divine Ocean, as the river flows to the sea.
2 Love is the essence of all religion, mysticism, and philosophy.
3 When the soul is attuned to God, every action becomes music.
4 All things in life are materials for wisdom to work with.
5 Life itself becomes a scripture to the kindled soul.
6 When a soul arrives at its full bloom, it begins to show the color and spread the fragrance of the divine Spirit of God.
7 The water that washes the heart is the continual running of the love-stream.
8 The wise see in every form the divine form; in every heart they see the divine light shining.
9 The great teachers of humanity become streams of love.
10 Love is the merchandise which all the world demands; if you store it in your heart, every soul will become your customer.
11 All names and forms are the garbs and covers under which the one life is hidden.
12 The soul of all is one soul, and the truth is one truth under whatever religion it is hidden.
13 To treat every human being as a shrine of God is to fulfill all religion.
14 Every soul has its own way in life; if you wish to follow another’s way, you must borrow his eyes to see it.
15 He who with sincerity seeks his real purpose in life, is himself sought by that purpose.
16 The soul’s true happiness lies in experiencing the inner joy.
17 We are always searching for God afar off, when all the while He is nearer to us than our own soul.
18 Death is a silent voyage to the port of eternity.
NOTES
1. A brief bio of the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan is at: http://wahiduddin.net/hik/hik_origins.htm.
2. The photo of Hazrat Inayat Khan is from commons.wikimedia.org.
3. Here are helpful links (in sidebar) to more information about Universal Sufism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inayat_Khan.
Jan Thomas - SoulandMeaning.com 