The soul is all light; darkness is caused by the deadness of the heart; pain makes it alive.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Those who have avoided love in Life from fear of its pain have lost more than the lovers, who by losing themselves gain all. The loveless first lose all, until at last their self is also snatched away from their hands. The warmth of the lovers’ atmospheres, the piercing effect of their voices, the appeal of their words, all come from the pain of their hearts. The heart is not living until it has experienced pain. We have not lived if we have lived and worked with our body and mind without heart. The soul is all light, but all darkness is caused by the death of the heart. Pain makes it alive. The same heart that was once full of bitterness, when purified by Love becomes the source of all goodness. All deeds of kindness spring from it.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Soul is the Nuri Mohammed, the Universal Love-Light-Life, which becomes individualized in the heart. The heart covers the soul as a globe and in a certain sense cannot hide the light. But the heart has a movement like the expansion and contraction of a sphere from a point to a universe. It can contract until it is very tiny and expand until it is immeasurable.
Contraction of heart may result from one’s outlook on Life or one’s experience of Life. When the consciousness is attracted to outer things and becomes intoxicated thereby, the heart ceases to expand in its natural manner and this interferes with the light of the soul which cannot then touch the surface.
But the heart cannot forever remain in that state, and if it is not moved naturally to expand, life’s experiences through the law of Karma sooner or later awaken it. In the physical body it is true that when a muscle has not been used for a long time any attempt to move it is accompanied by pain. This is a thousand times more true for any area or portion of mind, and also infinitely more true of the heart.