Love is the Divine Mother’s arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The Sufis of all ages have been known for their beautiful personality. It does not mean that among them there have not been people with great powers, wonderful powers and wisdom. But beyond all that, what is most known of the Sufis is the human side of their nature: that tact which attuned them to wise and foolish, to poor and rich, to strong and weak — to all. They met everyone on their own plane, they spoke to everyone in their own language [ this is not to mean that they were all polyglots (although some may have been), but that they met people where they were, using vocabularies and metaphors that were appropriate to and in sync with the experiences of their listeners, so those listeners could easily relate to what they were saying — Muiz ]. What did Jesus teach when he said to the fishermen, ‘Come hither, I will make you fishers of humanity?’ It did not mean, ‘I will teach you ways by which you get the best of people.’ It only meant: your tact, your sympathy will spread its arms before every soul who comes, as mother’s arms are spread out for her little ones.
Mystics of all ages have not been known for their miraculous powers or for the doctrines they have taught, but for the devotion they have shown throughout their lives. The Sufis in the East say to themselves, Ishq Allah Ma’bud Allah, which means ‘God is Love, God is the Beloved’, in other words it is God who is Love, Lover, and Beloved. When we hear the stories of the miraculous powers of mystics, of their great insight into the hidden laws of nature, of the qualities which they manifested through their beautiful personalities, we realize that these have all come from one and the same source, whether one calls it devotion or whether one calls it love.
Once four little girls were disputing. One said, ‘My mother is better than yours.’ The second girl said, ‘My mother is better than your mother.’ So, they were arguing and being quite disagreeable to one another. But someone who was passing by said to them, ‘It is not your mother or their mother, it is The Mother who is always the best. It is The Mother Quality, her love and affection for her children.’ This is the point of view of the mystics in regard to the Divine Ideal.
The moral principle of the mystics is the love principle. They say, ‘The greater your love, the greater your moral. If we are forced to be virtuous according to a certain principle, a certain regulation, certain laws or rules, then that is not real virtue. It must come from the depths of our heart; our own heart must teach us the true moral.’ Thus the mystics leave morality to the deepening of the heart quality. The mystics say that the more loving someone’s heart is, the greater is their morality.
There is no greater teacher of morals than love itself, for the first lesson that one learns from love is, ‘I am not, you are.’ This is self-denial, self-abnegation, without which we cannot take the first step on love’s path. One may claim to be a great lover, to be a great admirer, to be very affectionate, but it all means nothing as long as the thought of self is there, for there is no love. But when the thought of self is removed then every action, every deed that one performs in life, becomes a virtue. It cannot be otherwise. A loving person cannot be unjust, a loving person cannot be cruel. Even if what they do seems wrong in the eyes of a thousand people, it cannot be wrong in reality. In reality, it will be right, for it is inspired by love.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume X – Sufi Mysticism: Part I – Sufi Mysticism, Chapter I – Mysticism )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Although the word “fall” is used here, the action is of the contrary nature. That is to say, there is a movement upward, at least in the sense that one is raised above the mind-mesh and freed from the turmoil and complexities resulting from ordinary thought and action. This love is the very essence of the soul and it is the life that makes a soul realize its true nature.