Our whole conduct in Life depends upon what we hold in our thoughts.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The heart, which is called a mirror in Sufi terms, has two different actions which it performs. Whatever is reflected in the heart does not only remain a reflection but becomes a creative power, productive of a phenomenon of a similar nature. For instance a heart which is holding in itself and reflecting the rose, will find roses everywhere. Roses will be attracted to that heart; roses will be produced from it and for it. As this reflection becomes stronger, so it becomes creative of the phenomenon of roses. The heart that holds and reflects a wound will find wounds everywhere, will attract wounds, will create wounds; for that is the nature of the phenomenon of reflection. … There is another aspect of this reflection, and that is what we think, we become. We become identified with it. Therefore, the object which is in our thought becomes our own property, our own quality.
…
The more we think of this phenomenon, the more we find that if there is anything that is reflected in our mind, we reflect it on the outer life. Every sphere that our heart has touched; it has charged that sphere with that reflection. The best explanation of the word reflection would be in the projection of a picture from a magic lantern upon a curtain [ ie a slide or movie projector upon a screen — Muiz ]. That curtain reflects the picture, which the magic lantern has thrown upon it. And so the whole of life is full of reflections. From morning to evening we are subject to reflections. The association with the restless gives us restlessness. Certain people may not speak to us, but because they are restless, our hearts reflect it. And so the contact with a joyous person makes us reflect joy. The whole day this goes on with us, without our knowing it.
Sometimes the people whom we reflect have gone from our sight, but we are still reflecting them. That is the reason we can give for some tendency to do harm, or laugh, or cry without reason. It is all from reflection. People whose hearts are reflecting joy, wherever they go will make other people happy. The sorrowful, the troubled ones, the disappointed, those heartbroken, they will all begin to feel life. Food will be given to their souls, because these people are reflecting joy. And the one who reflects pain and depression will spread the same in the environment, and will give pain and sorrow to others. Life is such that there is no end of pain and sorrow and trouble. What we need is the souls that will reflect joy in order to liberate those in trouble, sorrow, and pain.
The nature of the memory is to hold an impression, agreeable or disagreeable, and therefore people hold thoughts in mind, whether they are beneficial to them or not, without knowing the result which will come from it. It is like a child who holds a rattle in its hand and hits its head with the rattle and cries with the pain, and yet does not throw the rattle away. There are many who keep in their mind a thought of illness or a thought of unkindness done to them by someone and suffer from it, yet not knowing what it is that makes them suffer so, nor understanding the reason of their suffering. They go on suffering and yet hold on in memory the very source of suffering. Memory must be our obedient servant; when it is a master then life becomes difficult. People who cannot throw away from their memory what they do not desire to keep in mind are like those who have a safe, but the key of that safe they have lost. They can put in money, but they cannot take it out. All our faculties become invaluable when we are able to use them at will, but when the faculties use us, then we are no longer master of ourselves.
Our whole conduct in life depends upon what we hold in our thoughts. The thought of the wicked produces in us wickedness, and the thought of the good creates goodness. The love of Rasul, the Divine Ideal, enables one to concentrate upon this ideal. Since all in the garb of matter are to be separated one day in Life, good or wicked, friends or foes, what alone is reliable is the Ideal which we create within ourselves, call it Christ, Buddha, Krishna or Muhammad [ or equally any of Divine Mother’s many incarnations of the Rasul Ideal: Tara, Qwan Yin, Lakshmi, Mary, Fatima, Yemaya, White Buffalo Calf Woman, etc. — Muiz ]
.
( from Githas Series III, Concentration on Rasul [ unpublished ] )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This has various aspects. For instance the whole material Life is dependent upon mental faculty. This is proven by the fact that without nerve-energy, there could be no muscular motion; it is even clearer when we examine sense-activity and still more when we consider the intellectual aspects of Life.
Concentration is a process by which Will masters mind, and this leads to a greater collectivity of mental power which can be adapted to whatever purposes are necessary or advisable. But there is another stage which comes when one abandons this mastery. Through the abandonment of particular faculties of mind, one may advance into the Buddhic stage. Then the mind becomes as a garden which may be planted and sown, just as a physical garden may be planted and sown. And as one need not identify oneself with matter-stuff, neither is it necessary to identify oneself with mind-stuff, although it may appear to many that the intellectual life is the basic life.
Moral qualities appear when the heart is opened, which comes spontaneously through the abandonment of identity with mind-stuff, which of itself sloughs off the vestiges of the false ego.