So long as we have a longing to obtain any particular object, we cannot go further than that object.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
As our ideal is, so is our state of evolution. Those who are only interested in themselves are very narrow and limited, whereas those who have expanded their interests to their family and surroundings are greater; while those who expand them still further to their nation are yet greater, and those who extend them to the world at large are the greatest. But in all these cases they are limited. … The highest Ideal of humanity is to realize the Unlimited, the Immortal Self Within. There is no need for any higher ideal, for when we hold this ideal in our vision, we expand and become all we want to be, and in time we attain to that peace which is the longing of every soul.
There is a constant desire of the soul to find its own nature. Until it finds it, it is always looking for something, though what it does not know. Is it not true of every individual in this world that, whatever may be their desire, as long as they have not attained it they are unhappy, and eager and anxious to achieve it? They are longing and suffering and doing all they can to attain it; but when they have succeeded, they do not feel happy. At once a new desire arises; if they have a thousand they want a million; if they have done one duty there is another, and after that another. So it is with love affairs; so it is with paradise. They will never feel contented and satisfied, because fundamentally it is not the desire that they are really concerned with. Though they cross the boundary wall of the desire they find themselves again with a new desire. And this itself proves the fact that there is really only One fundamental Desire underlying all others: the Desire for Spiritual Perfection. …
Motive limits one to certain kinds of accomplishment; and it does not allow one to accomplish anything beyond the scope of that particular motive. As long as people have the desire to attain to something with a particular motive, they cannot go further. That is why the sages have said, ‘Rise above the earthly motives. Accomplish all you wish to accomplish in Life, whatever be the motive, and then that itself will lead you to a stage from which you can rise above them, and above the earthly desires of the body’.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: The Journey to the Goal )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This is not wrong of itself. For instance, that longing leads to concentration — or rather when it does lead to concentration, when it is strong enough to keep one from flitting hither and thither, that longing cannot be called evil. From this point of view not even passion is wrong if it keeps one concentrating on the same point of passion. It becomes wrong when it leads to unsteadiness, to satisfaction of self, and to lack of consideration toward the object desired.
If all objects are considered as living, whether they are the work of human hands or of God’s, already the seed of Unity is sown. It is only after one has come to the realization that any particular object will not bring happiness or satisfaction that one is ready for the next step. Therefore the sage may not oppose that which seems to lead toward vice; it is not vice in itself which is vicious, it is the constant tendency toward diversity, the lack of constancy, the absence of any motive or concentration in life which is wrong.
Therefore Sufis always help others to select some ideal, as the others must choose something they desire or love, so as to form a bond of attachment. Then they can learn concentration, collection of powers, gaining a purpose or motive in life. The highest morality, without this concentration, may lead nowhere. But the simplest undeveloped souls, once gaining a purpose and concentration, will advance far on the journey toward the goal, often unaware that they are traveling.