If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The happiness of this world is something we cannot keep; it is just like the horizon – the nearer you go, the farther it goes. As soon as you get it, you see it is not the thing you wanted. That discontent continues its work till we have found and understood the manifestation of God, in which is hidden the Divine Spirit. God cannot be found in temples, for God is Love; and love does not live in temples, but in the heart of human beings, which is the temple of God. The true religion would be to recognize it is so and to tolerate, to forgive and to love each other.
( from “Supplementary Papers (aka Dutch Papers), Brotherhood I” [unpublished] )
There is a story told of Moses. One day he was passing through a farm, and he saw a peasant boy sitting quietly and talking to himself, saying, ‘O God, I love you so; if I saw you here in these fields I would bring you soft bedding and delicious dishes to eat, I would take care that no wild animals could come near you. You are so dear to me, and I so long to see you; if you only knew how I love you I am sure you would appear to me!’
Moses heard this, and said, ‘Young man, how dare you speak of God in this way? God is formless, and no wild beast or bird could injure That One who guards and protects all.’ The young man bent his head sorrowfully and wept. Something was lost to him, and he felt most unhappy. And then a revelation came to Moses as a voice from within which said, ‘Moses, what have you done? You have separated a sincere lover from Me. What does it matter what I am called or how I am spoken to? Am I not in all forms?’
This story throws a great light on this question, and teaches that it is only the ignorant who accuse one another of a wrong conception of God. It teaches us how gentle we ought to be with the faith of others; as long as they have the spark of the love of God, this spark should be slowly blown upon so that the flame may rise; if not, that spark will be extinguished. How much the spiritual development of humanity in general depends upon religious people! They can either spread the light or diminish it by forcing their belief on others.
Very often a person thinks that other people should believe in and worship their God. But everyone has their own conception of God, and this conception becomes the stepping-stone to the True Ideal of God.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume IX – The Unity of Religious Ideals: Part II, The God-Ideal )
Nature teaches every soul to worship God in some way or other, and often provides that which is suitable for each. Those who want one law to govern all have lost sight of the spirit of their own religion. And it is in people who have not yet learned their own religion that such ideas are commonly found. Did they but know their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others!
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden Nature’s Religion )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
What is this knowledge of religion? In its fullest sense it is nothing but knowledge of God. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of religion. There may be belief in religion but there is not knowledge of religion. Until there has been the personal experience and contact such that the mind has grasped its significance, it cannot be called knowledge. Certainly when another has learned it, it is not one’s knowledge. But when it has become part of one’s own life, it is one’s knowledge. Now this knowledge of God, how does it bring tolerance? It brings tolerance because it makes one see all and know all. If it does not make one see all and know all it is not knowledge of God. The God of popular religion is that name given to the human thought-concept of Divinity, but that human thought-concept is not the Reality. It is the Reality which, when apprehended, causes this condition of universal beneficence and compassion toward all creatures. That is why Allah is called Er-Rahman, Er-Rahim.
[ MUIZ COMMENTARY: Ar-Rahman (ٱلْرَّحْمَـن) and Ar-Rahim (ٱلْرَّحِيْم) are often translated as ‘The Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful’, and sometimes as ‘The Sun and Moon of Compassion and Mercy’. Both Names derive from the root R-H-M meaning ‘to have mercy, to have compassion, for someone’, and are in the intensive grammatical form (ie extremely merciful, extremely compassionate). The Arabic word for womb (rahim, ruh-him, رَحِم) also comes from the same root. There is a tradition that as Allah created the Universe, Ar-Rahman was the first manifestation to arise out of that Great Mystery, and everything else came out of Ar-Rahman. Being the first manifested Quality within which all other the other Qualities arise, it could easily be said that Rahman is the Divine Womb, the Divine Mother who holds the entire manifested Universe and everything within it, spirit, matter, time, space, and all possibilities. ].