As one can see when the eyes are open, so one can understand when the heart is open.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Every name and every form speaks constantly, constantly makes signs for you to hear, for you to respond to, for you to interpret, that you may become a friend of God. The whole purpose of your life is to make yourself ready to understand what God is, what your fellow human is, what the nature of humanity is, what life is.
Now coming to a still greater secret of Life I want to answer the question: how can we grow to read and understand the message that Life speaks through all its names and forms? The answer is that, as by the opening of the eyes you can see things, so by the opening of the heart you can understand things. As long as the heart is closed you cannot understand things. The secret is that, when the ears and eyes of the heart are open, all planes of the world are open, all names are open, all secrets, all mysteries are unfolded.
The question arises: what is the manner of opening the heart? The way to it is a natural life, the life of the child, smiling with the smiling one, praying with the praying one, ready to learn from everyone, ready to love. The child has enmity against no one, has no hatred, no malice, its heart is open. It is in children that you can see the smiles of angels; they can see through life. When grown-up people are made ready, when they have acquired the attributes of the child, then they create heaven within themselves, they understand. The child with its innocence does not understand, but when we with understanding develop the childlike loving tendency, the purity of heart of the child with the desire to be friendly to all — that is the opening of the heart, and it is by that blessing that we can receive all the privileges of human life.
When the spark that is to be found in every heart, the spark that may be called the Divine Spark within, is blown upon and the flame arises, the whole life becomes illuminated and we hear and see and know, and we understand. A Sufi poet says that every leaf of the tree becomes like a page of the sacred book, when the heart is open to read it, and when the soul has opened its eyes.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VI –
The Alchemy of Happiness, The Meaning of Life )
Everything becomes spiritual once this door of the chamber of the heart is open. If we be musicians, then our music is celestial. If we be poets, then our poetry is spiritual. If we be artists, then our art is a spiritual work. Whatever we may do in life that Divine Spirit manifests. We need not be religious people, we need not be philosophers, we need not be mystics. It is simply that what was hidden in us and thereby was keeping our life incomplete begins to manifest to view, and that makes our lives perfect.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VI –
The Alchemy of Happiness, The Inner Life )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This opening of the heart is not physiological, but even in the physical body the heart is affected. When rigor mortis sets in at death, the blood does not flow, the cells are not fed; in other words, the heart is closed and does not show any love to the body. Heart must love body that body live; heart must love mind that mind live. When body and mind keep heart closed, it is body and mind that suffer.
Now the spiritual condition of the opening of heart comes when the Will is no longer dominated by the body and mind. Then the Will-power, which is in reality Love-power, can properly express itself through the heart. When Will-power is in the heart it is at home, and when it is at home it is most powerful and yet most natural.
Sympathy and love expand the heart, enable the blood to flow freely, enable the thought to function actively and clearly, and by removing the concept of self, there is nothing in the Universe which cannot be apprehended.