One who arrives at the state of indifference without experiencing interest in life is incomplete and apt to be tempted by interest at any moment; but one who arrives at the state of indifference by going through interest really attains the blessed state.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
It is the interest of God which has been the cause of all creation and which keeps the whole universe in harmony; nevertheless one should not be completely immersed in phenomena, but should realize oneself as being independent of interests. … One who arrives at the state of indifference without experiencing interest in life is incomplete, and apt to be tempted by interest at any moment; but one who arrives at the state of indifference by going through interest, really attains the blessed state. Perfection is reached not through interest alone, nor through indifference alone, but through the right experience and understanding of both.
We also see many examples in this world of how interest often limits one’s power, and how indifference makes it greater. But at the same time indifference should not be practiced unless it springs naturally from the heart. There is a saying in the Hindi language, ‘Interest makes rulers, but indifference makes sovereigns.’ … There comes a day in the life of a person, sooner or later, the day when they no longer think about self, how they eat, how they are clothed, how they live, how anybody treats them, if anybody loves or hates them. Every thought that concerns self leaves them. That day comes, and it is a blessed day when it comes to a person. That day the soul begins to live… Indifference is attained by developing interest, and by developing discrimination in our interest. Instead of going backward we should go forward in our interest. Then we will find that a spring will rise naturally in our heart, when the heart has touched the zenith in the path of interest. Then the fountain of interest will break up gradually, and when this happens, we should follow this trend, so that in the end we may know what interest means, and what indifference means.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VI – The Alchemy of Happiness: Interest and Indifference )
Our likes and infatuations have a certain limit; when their time has expired the period of indifference commences. When the water of indifference is drunk, then there is no more wish for anything in the world. The nature of the water we drink in this world is that our thirst is quenched for a certain time and then comes again. When the water of divine knowledge is drunk, then thirst never comes again. … Indifference, however, must be reached after interest has taken its course; before that moment it is a fault. A person without an interest in life becomes exclusive, becomes disagreeable. Indifference must come after all experience – interest must end in indifference. We must not take the endless path of interest: the taste of everything in the world becomes flat. We must realize that all we seek in the objects we run after, that all beauty and strength, are in ourselves, and we must be content to feel them all in ourselves. … Vairagya means satisfaction, the feeling that no desire is to be satisfied any more, that nothing on earth is desired. This is a great moment, and then comes that which is the realm of God.
Vairagi means a person who has become indifferent; and yet indifference is not the word for it. It describes a person who has lost the value in the eyes of all that attracts the human being. It is no more attractive to one; it no more enslaves one. One may still be interested in all things of this life, but is not bound to them. … No affair of this world, no relation, no friendship, no wealth, no rank, position or comfort, nothing holds one. And yet that does not mean that one in any way lacks what is called love or kindness, for if ever one lives in this world it is only out of love. One is not interested in the world and it is only love that keeps one here, the love which does not express itself any more in the way of attachment, but only in the way of kindness, forgiveness, generosity, service, consideration, sympathy, helpfulness, in any way that it can; never expecting a return from the world, but ever doing all that it can, pitying the conditions, knowing the limitations of life and its continual changeability.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This is very important. Sages all extol the value of indifference. This indifference comes with awakened heart. Many people are indifferent in the sense of being callous. Nothing moves them, they are like sticks or stones. That is not indifference, that is sloth; that shows the soul is asleep, there is no love, there is no God-vitality.
Now the sages are very different, who know through their own experience the value and the lack of value in attachment, friendship, emotion and all the vicissitudes of life. They surrender all these forms of clinging, they no longer cling to anything and they make an actual surrender. That shows the Divine Indifference.