There is no source of happiness other than that in the heart of humanity.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Humanity seeks happiness in pleasure, in joy, but these are only shadows of happiness. The real happiness is in the heart. But we do not look for it [there]. In order to find happiness, we seek pleasure. Anything that is passing and anything that results in unhappiness is not happiness.
[ MUIZ COMMENTARY: These temporary joys and pleasures are only shadows of True Joy and Happiness because they are temporary. They have beginnings and endings. They depend on, or are the consequence of, external circumstances. Or they arise within our thoughts and feelings about external circumstances and our relationships to them. All of these activities and our experiences of them, plus our assigning of values to them – good-bad; desirable-undesirable; pleasant-unpleasant; joyful-sorrowful; valuable-worthless; mine-not mine; belonging-not belonging; and on and on and on – all of these binary, ‘either/or’ values that we experience and identify with, are rooted below (or within) the mind-mesh, as Murshid SAM calls our ego-consciousness, our nafs.
Nafs believes that it/we are separate individuals disconnected from all others, and from God/Goddess/Source. Nafs believes that God/Godess/Source, if It-She-He-They really exists, is something totally other than what and who we are. Because we don’t know who we truly Are in our awareness within the mind-mesh, we end up identifying with these temporary experiences, believing that they are reality, that they are fundamental qualities and aspects of who we Are, and we feel we need to hang onto them, or need to deny and push them away. This gestalt of misidentifications, misapprehensions, mistaken conclusions, and very limited perspectives leads to all of our clingings and aversions which keep us locked up within the mind-mesh, suffering and feeling alone and disconnected.
The key that unlocks the doors of our mental-emotional prisons, that are overseen and maintained by our jailers, our nafs, is the awakening of our experience of Heart. As Pir-o-Murshid says above ‘The real happiness is in the heart’ because Heart is beyond, above, outside of the mind-mesh. Heart (and Soul which is at the very center of Heart) is our true Home, our true Being, our true Identity. Heart and what we experience in that realm of Awareness aren’t dependent on external conditions and circumstances, they aren’t limited by time and space, by concepts, by hopes and fears about past, present and future. Heart isn’t trapped by our nafs-maintained beliefs about who we are and who we can be. Heart isn’t limited by these beliefs that are anchored in and justified because of this or that experience, because of this or that lack or gain, this or that good or bad fortune. ]
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VI – The Alchemy of Happiness: The Purpose of Life (1) )
In reality very few in this world know what happiness means. Pleasure is the shadow of happiness, for pleasure depends upon things outside ourselves; happiness comes from within ourselves. Happiness belongs to the heart quality; pleasure to the outer world. The distance between pleasure and happiness is as vast as that between earth and heaven. As long as the heart is not tuned to its proper pitch one will not be happy. That inner smile which shows itself in our expression, in our atmosphere, that belongs to happiness. If position were taken away and wealth were lost in the outer life, that inner happiness would not be taken away. And the smiling of the heart depends upon the tuning of the heart, the heart must be tuned to that pitch where it is living.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume Volume VIIIa – Sufi Teachings: The Tuning of the Heart (1) )
There are a thousand excuses for unhappiness that the reasoning mind will make. But is even one of these excuses ever entirely correct? Do you think that if these people gained their desires they would be happy? If they possessed all, would that suffice? No, they would still find some excuse for unhappiness; all these excuses are only like covers over their eyes, for deep within is the yearning for the True Happiness which none of these things can give. Those who are really happy are happy everywhere, in a palace or in a cottage, in riches or in poverty, for they have discovered the fountain of happiness which is situated in their own heart. As long as a person has not found that fountain, nothing will give real happiness.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VI – The Alchemy of Happiness: Chapter I – The Alchemy of Happiness )
If there is any source from where one can get the direction on how to act in life, it is to be found in one’s heart. The exercises of the Sufi help to get to the source where one can get the direction, the right direction, where there is a spark [or a ray] of the Spirit of Guidance. Those who care to be guided by the spirit, they are always guided, but those who know not whether such a spirit exists or does not exist, they wander through life as a wild horse in the woods, not knowing where it goes, why it runs, why it stands. It is a great pity to be thirsty and remain thirsty when the spring of fresh water is within one’s reach. There can be no loss so great in life as having the spark glittering in one’s heart and yet groping in the darkness through life.
[ MUIZ COMMENTARY: The Guidance, is always present, in the space around us, in our inner worlds, everywhere, in all times and places, in all circumstances and situations. Like the sun always radiating light and heat, the only time we don’t perceive it is when something is in the way … clouds, the roof of a structure, the body of the earth, when we’re on the night side. In the same way, mistaken beliefs, limited concepts, distorted perspectives, and our own ego-stubbornness to refuse to open to it, all of these can block our experience of the Ever Present Guidance. We need to consciously invite it in, consciously ask for it, surrender whatever perspectives and viewpoints and fears we’re clinging to that are blocking our awareness of it, our access to it. It is extremely rare for Guidance to force Itself through our refusals. Instead, respecting our Free Will, and the relative autonomy of our nafs, It waits until there is an opening, a softening of the barriers, a request for help, like the Christian image of Christ knocking on the door of the Heart, waiting patiently to be invited in. ]
( from Sangatha, Series II: Saluk (Moral Culture) – The Good Nature [ unpublished ] )
In point of fact, whatever one makes of oneself, one becomes that. The source of happiness or unhappiness is all in us ourselves. When we are unaware of this, we are not able to arrange our life, but as we become more acquainted with this secret, we gain mastery, and the process by which this mastery is attained is the only fulfillment of the purpose of this life.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
All material and mental things are subject to growth, change, and decay. Their nature is transitory and their effects evanescent. That joy which is the joy of the moment is no joy for it is limited. The joy of the Zakir, the one who is flowing in the Divine Remembrance, is not restricted by time, space, or condition. It flows out of the center of Being, and its getting and giving are one.