The soul is either raised or cast down by the power of its own thought, speech and action.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
One should say to the mind, ‘Look here, you are my mind, you are my instrument. … You are here to help me, to work for me in this world. You have to listen to me. You will do whatever I wish. You will think whatever I wish. You will feel whatever I wish. You will not think or feel differently from my wishes, for you are my mind and you must prove in the end to be mine.’ By doing this we begin to analyze our mind. We begin to see where it is wrong and where it is right. What is wrong in it and what is right in it; whether it is clouded, whether it is rusted, whether it has become too cool or whether it has become over-heated. We can train it ourselves, in accordance with its condition, and it is we who are the best trainers of our mind, better than anybody else in the world.
Each individual composes the music of their own life. If we injure another, we bring disharmony. When our sphere is disturbed, we are disturbed ourselves, and there is a discord in the melody of our life. If we can quicken the feeling of another to joy or to gratitude, by that much we add to our own life; we become ourselves by that much more alive. Whether conscious of it or not, our thought is affected for the better by the joy or gratitude of another, and our power and vitality increase thereby, and the music of our life grows more in harmony.
The heart must be tuned to the stage and the pitch where one feels at-one-ment with persons, objects, and conditions. For instance, when one cannot bear the climate, it only means that one is not in harmony with the climate; when one cannot get on with persons, that one is not in harmony with them; when one cannot get on with certain affairs, that one is not in harmony with those affairs. If conditions seem hard, it shows that one is not in harmony with the conditions.
The most important subject to study in this whole life is ourselves. What we generally do is to criticize others, speak ill of them, or dislike them; but we always excuse ourselves. The right idea is to watch our own attitude, our own thought and speech and action, and to examine ourselves to see how we react upon all things in our favor and in our disfavor, to see whether we show wisdom and control in our reactions or whether we are without control and thought. Then we should also study our body, for by this we should learn that the body is not only a means of experiencing life by eating and drinking and making ourselves comfortable, but that it is the sacred temple of God.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Thought, speech, and action are all movements. All depend upon the breath, upon the rising and falling of the life currents which affect the personality through the breath. When there is no thought there is no movement in the ordinary sense, and as the soul is non-spatial it cannot then be raised up or cast down. It is only when acts, words, and thoughts harmonize — either with the upward or downward movements of the breath (Urouj and Nasoul) — that the soul is raised up or cast down. But when the breath is balanced in the Kemal state the effect is totally different.