It is simpler to find a way to heaven than to find a way on earth.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Those whose souls have awakened become awake to everything they see and hear. … It is this awakening of the soul which is mentioned in the Bible, ‘Unless the soul is born again it will not enter the realm of heaven’. Being born again means that the soul is awakened after having come on earth, and entering the realm of heaven means that this world, the same realm in which we are standing just now, turns into heaven as soon as the point of view has changed. Is it not interesting and most wonderful to think that the same earth we walk on is earth to one person and heaven to another? And it is still more interesting to notice that it is we who change it; we change it from earth into heaven, or we change it otherwise. This change comes not by study, nor by anything else, but only by the changing of our point of view.
The higher life is so much simpler than life on the surface of the earth, but many do not know what they are. They do not know that they are a drop on the surface of the ocean, and yet an ocean themselves in their innermost part; that there is nothing that is not within them. Those who say to themselves, ‘I do not possess this faculty’, ‘I cannot put up with this’, ‘I am sorry but I could not think of such a thing’, and so forth, well, all these ideas are their imaginations, part of the confusion of their thought and lack of understanding of what they are. If we understood what we are we would never say, ‘I cannot do this.’ Instead we would become real human beings, that which human beings ought to be. The mystics only say, ‘I cannot’ or ‘I have not’ very seldom, and they believe these words still less often.
When God is with you everything is with you; when God is in you everything is in you. Inspiration, knowledge, light, all are then within you. But if you find joy in confusion, if you confuse yourself and keep yourself in darkness, you may do so. However, you have inherited from the Eternal Parent Its Inspiration, Its Light, Its Power. You have inherited might from the Almighty; you have inherited light from the Light of the Universe. Therefore you are blessed with all these things, if you can only open your eyes and see the blessing.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
On earth there are so many forces, so many attractions that draw one to the right or to the left, illusions that cast one into misery, enchanting distractions that take one from the path. There is the constant struggle with the idea that success consists in dominating another, exploiting another, conquering another.
All this is the foolish play of the ignorant who in their ignorance cause so much misery. The whole idea of heaven is the existence of a world where there is love, cooperation, and plenty for all, where humanity can escape the limitations with which it is bound upon earth. Yet the ignorant do not know that this is possible of attainment while still upon earth.
When one exploits oneself instead of another, when one dominates oneself instead of another, when one conquers oneself instead of another, heaven will be brought to earth.