Bowl of Saki for April 13

Those who want to understand, will understand.

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net

In India it is considered a great sin to awaken anyone who is asleep. If anyone is asleep, do not wake them; let them sleep; it is the time for them to sleep; it will not do to wake them before their time. Thus a mystic understands also that those who are taking their time to wake up must not be awakened to give them the mystic’s idea. It would be a sin, because they are not prepared to understand it, and their beliefs would be shaken. Let them go on thinking God is in Benares; let them think God is in the temple of Buddha; let them think God is in heaven; let them think God is in the seventh heaven above the sky. It is the beginning; they will evolve in time and arrive at the same stage. The rest they are having just now is good for them. The awakening comes, all in its good time.

This explains what is meant by saying that Sufism is a religious philosophy; the philosophy is clothed with religion, that it may not break the ideals and faiths and beliefs of those who are beginning their journey towards the goal. Externally: the religion, inwardly: the philosophy. The one who wants to understand will understand. ‘They who have ears to hear, let them hear.’

In whatever form, life expresses its meaning, if only we are able to understand it. Those who do not understand this will not understand life’s meaning. Their inner sense is closed; it is just like being deaf. In the same way their sense of communication with things has become dull, they do not understand them. But if people do not hear they may not say that life is not speaking. In the same way, if people cannot sense the meaning of life, they may not say that life has no meaning. The word is everywhere, and the word is continually speaking.

Mystics remove the barrier that stands between them and another person by trying to look at life not only from their own points of view, but also from the point of view of another. All disputes and disagreements arise from people’s misunderstanding of each other. Mostly, people misunderstand each other because they have their fixed points of view and are not willing to move from them. … If we are willing to understand, then understanding is within our reach. Very often, however, we are not willing to understand, and that is why we do not understand. Humankind suffers from a sort of stubbornness. People go against what they think is coming from another person. Yet, everything they have learned has come from others, they have not learned one word from themselves. All the same, they call it their argument, their idea, and their view, although it is no such thing. They have always taken it from somewhere. It is by accepting this fact that mystics understand all, and it is this which makes them friends of all.

Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis

This is the condition of Will leading the mind. The Will, being the efflux of the soul, wants to unite with God. The thought wants to turn the Will toward variety. This brings about the struggle between Peace and Unity on the one hand and intoxication and variety on the other. Understanding comes from the grasping of Unity, which is possible when selfhood is laid aside and the faculty of discrimination is lulled into quiescence.