Spirit can only love Spirit; in loving form it deludes itself.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Can anyone kill Life? If there is any death, it is that of death itself, for Life will not die. Someone went to a Sufi with a question, saying, ‘I have been puzzling for many, many years and reading books, and I have not been able to find a definite answer. Tell me what happens after death?’ The Sufi replied, ‘Please ask this question of someone who will die. I am going to live.’ The idea is that there is one sky which is our own being; in other words, we can call it an accommodation. What has taken possession of this accommodation? A deluded ego that says, ‘I.’ It is deluded by this body and mind and it has called itself an individual. When someone has a ragged coat they say, ‘I am poor’. In reality their coat is poor, not them. What this capacity or accommodation contains is that which becomes their knowledge, their realization, and it is that which limits them. It forms that limitation which is the tragedy of every soul.
Now, this capacity may be filled with self, or it may be filled with God. There is only room for one. Either we live with our limitation, or we let God reign there in Unlimited Being. In other words, we take away the home which has always belonged to someone else and fill it with delusion and call it our own. We not only call it our own, but we even call it our self. That is our delusion, and all religious and philosophical teachings are given in order to rid us of this delusion that deprives us of our spiritual wealth. Spiritual wealth is the greatest wealth. Spiritual happiness is the only happiness; there is no other.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Now spirit, which is the real existing substance, does not act like the material things, and yet its behavior is reflected in the behavior of all forms of matter. The change from spirit to matter is a process of congealing; in other words, it is a freezing or cooling effect which causes the vibrations to take on a coarser but hardier form. Nevertheless, as soon as they take on that form they are no longer receptive to the more attenuated pulsations of the spirit.
This play and interplay of the spirit sustains the whole universe, and everything, even the thoughts of humanity, and memory, is dependent upon it. Without it nothing would adhere to anything else. Spirit within matter holds particles together and spirit within mind holds thoughts together. That is why in concentration the thought must be held with feeling. By that both matter and mind are spiritualized and God is perceived in God’s Creation.