It is better to pay than receive from the vain, for such favors demand ten times their cost.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Do not look for thanks or appreciation for all the good you do to others, nor use it as a means to stimulate your vanity. Do all that you consider good for the sake of goodness, not even for a return of that from God.
( from Sangatha, Series I: Saluk [ unpublished ] )
When we see clearly the roguery and crookedness of another person and yet allow them to take the best, we are the holy beings, we are beyond the regions of humanity, we are beginning to climb the angelic planes, we see all things, understand all things and tolerate all things.
The mystics talk about the innocence of Jesus, and Sufis try to follow it as an example. This innocence is the same, and revelation comes to those who see all the falsehood and treachery of human nature and pity instead of accusing, and forgive because they have reached to that height that no falsehood, roguery, deceit or treachery of an ordinary human being can touch them — they are above it.
( from Githa, Series III: Chapter 5 – Kashf (Insight), Paper 8 – Occultism: Revelation [ unpublished ] )
We must give our services and our time to the deserving and undeserving alike, and we must be thankful to God that we have been enabled to give. For this is the only opportunity we have of giving. This life is short, and we shall never have the same opportunity to give, to serve, to do something for others. … It is said that if a person asks you for your coat, you should give them your cloak also. Why? Because neither the cloak nor the coat are yours. If someone thinks, ‘This is mine, I should keep it, I should guard it’, they will always be watching their goods. If they are yours, whose were they before? Whose will they be after you? Someone will take them after you, and all that you value so much will be in the hands of others.
Then it is said that if someone asks you to go with them one mile, you should go with them two miles. That means, if someone makes use of our services, let us not think, ‘Why should I, such an important person, serve another, give my time to another?’ Let us give our services more liberally than we are asked to do. Let us give service, give our time; but when the time for receiving comes, do not let us expect to receive anything. … We must practice virtue because we like it; do good because we like to do it and not for any return; expect no kindness or appreciation; if we do, it will become a trade. This is the right way for the world in general, and the only way of becoming happy.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VI – The Alchemy of Happiness: Chapter 12 – The Struggle of Life (1) )
For whom shall we build a throne of soft cushions? For our own vanity’s sake, thinking that we are better than others? No, for the pleasure of others, and not for our vanity. As soon as the question arises, ‘Am I not better than others, am I not more spiritual or wiser than others?’ then there is ‘I’. That is wrong. What does it matter what we are as long as we are able to give pleasure to others, to make life easy for others? For this is the world of woes … and if we can be of some little use to anybody, we can more easily learn what mysticism is; for the only real mysticism is when we realize that we please God by pleasing humankind.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter 40 – Human Evolution )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
All praise is due to God. Wishing thanks or appreciation for self is nothing but idolatry and often a most vicious form of idolatry. Sufis do not attack those who worship sticks and stones, but evil are they who, though they enter a thousand temples or churches, demand for themselves what belongs to Allah alone.