We can learn virtue even from the greatest sinners if we consider them as teachers.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The question now arises how to attain to this prayerful attitude in Life. In the first place, for those whose prayer is one of praise, if their whole life is to assume a prayerful attitude, they must carry this praise and gratitude into the smallest details of Life, and feel grateful for the slightest act of kindness done to them by anybody. Many fall very short of this ideal in Life. They are so stiff, they miss so many of the chances of giving thanks. It is sometimes because of their riches, while at other times they are blinded by their power. All that is done for them they think is their due because of their money or their influence. When we have been able to attain this attitude of praise and thanksgiving for all things in Life, then our lives may indeed be called a prayerful Life.
Those who express a hope when they pray can turn their everyday striving into prayer, providing they maintain this hope in every pursuit of Life, putting their trust in God, and provided they consider all the objects of their desire as coming from one and the same Source when they have gained them.
Those people who glorify God for God’s beauty, should see the beauty of God in all creatures. It is of no use to praise God for Beauty, and then to criticize and find faults in God’s creation. For one’s life to be prayerful one must always seek the good in everyone. Even the worst person has a good spot, and this should be sought and not the bad points. We can learn virtue even from the greatest sinners, if we consider them as teachers. There is a tradition that Moses asked Satan to tell him the secret of Life.
There are many virtues, but there is one principal virtue. Every moment passed outside the presence of God is sin, and every moment in God’s presence is virtue. The whole object of the Sufi, after learning this way of communicating is to arrive at a stage where every moment of our life passes in communion with God, and where our every action is done as if God were before us. Is that within everyone’s reach? We are meant to be so. Just think of those who are in love: when they eat or drink, whatever they do, the image of the beloved is there. In the same way, when the love of God has come, it is natural to think of God in everything we do.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
If one were entirely wicked, one could not live. The poison we send out poisons ourselves also. Just as the radio attuned to a certain pitch sends out vibrations picked up by others while at that pitch, it also picks up its own vibrations. So it is with the heart of humanity. What touches another touches oneself. As long as there is life in another there is some virtue there.
The root of the word “virtue” — vir — as also in “virility”, means life-force, valor, and strength. The idea of goodness attached to “virtue” comes from the activity of the human mind. Yet this was a splendid conception. Since virtue means possession of life-force, and life-force is identical with Divine Power, and Divine Power is goodness, virtue and goodness may therefore be identified. So if we can find some goodness in dark places, we can find it everywhere. God is not only in the heavens, God is in the hells also.