Do not bemoan the past, do not worry about the future, but try to make the best of today.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
There is not anything one should not be ready to tolerate, and there is nobody whom one should not forgive. Never doubt those whom you trust; never hate those whom you love; never cast down those whom you once raise in your estimation. Wish to make friends with everyone you meet; make an effort to gain the friendship of those you find difficult … [ This is a pretty good description of the Path of the Saint, which Pir-o-Murshid definitely was on. — Muiz ] No one is either higher or lower than oneself. In all sources that fulfill one’s need, one may see one source, God, the Only Source; and in admiring and in bowing before and in loving anyone, one may consider one is doing it to God. In sorrow one may look to God, and in joy one may thank God. One does not bemoan the past, nor worry about the future; one tries only to make the best of today. One should know no failure, for even in a fall there is a stepping-stone to rise.
In Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam: ‘O my Beloved, fill the cup that clears today of past regrets and future fears. Why, tomorrow I may be myself, with yesterday’s sev’n thousand years!’ By this he means: Make the best of this moment; it is now that you can clearly see eternity, if you live in this moment. But if you keep the world of the past or the world of the future before you, you do not live in eternity but in a limited world. In other words, live neither in the past nor in the future, but in eternity. It is now that we should try to discover that happiness which is to be found in the freedom of the soul.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VIIIa: Sufi Teachings – History of the Sufis )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Paul said, “I die daily.” By this one can escape Karma, especially if the heart keeps serene in its attraction toward God. The past that is bemoaned, the past that is prided belongs to the ego, to the nufs, and becomes the source of further misery. Whether it gave joy in the past or sorrow in the past, if it is carried along in the mind it will bring sorrow in the future.
Likewise, no thought should be attached to the future — “Take no heed for the morrow,” as Jesus has beautifully put it. Each day is our great opportunity, each hour, and each breath. One cannot perform Darood with the mind far away in time or space.