Our thoughts have prepared us for the happiness or unhappiness we experience.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
In point of fact, whatever one makes of oneself, one becomes that. The source of happiness or unhappiness is all in humanity, itself. When we are unaware of this, we are not able to arrange our life. As we become more acquainted with this secret, we gain mastery. The process by which this mastery is attained is the only fulfillment of the purpose of this life.
“The present is the reflection of the past, and the future is the re-echo of the present.” Destiny is not what is already made; destiny is what we are making. Very often fatalists think that we are in the hands of destiny, driven in whatever direction in life destiny wills; but in point of fact we are the masters of our destiny, especially from the moment we begin to realize this fact. … Each person is responsible for their success and failure, for their rise and fall. And it is they who bring these about either knowingly or unknowingly.
A person thinks, ‘Some day I should like to build a factory.’ At this time they have no money, no knowledge, no capability; but a thought came, ‘Some day I should like to build a factory.’ Then they think of something else. Perhaps years pass, but that thought has been working constantly through a thousand minds, and a thousand sources prepare for them that which they once desired. If we could look back to all we have thought of at different times, we would find that the line of fate or destiny, Kismet as it is called in the East, is formed by our thought. Thoughts have prepared for us that happiness or unhappiness which we experience. The whole of mysticism is founded on this.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter XVII – Mental Creation )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The average person under the influence of ego casts shadow thoughts over the heart so that the heart does not experience bliss. Happiness is not to be confused with momentary pleasure. One way to distinguish them is this: any act, speech, or thought which, while bringing some pleasant result, also affects one at some point in an unpleasant manner — that is to say, the result is alloyed — is not of the nature of happiness. A happy condition is one unalloyed, when there is nothing to mar it, when it is one whole, complete, and consistent experience of joy.
By repeating “Toward the One” [ ie the practice of Darood — Muiz ] it is possible to get one complete effect from every cause. This makes possible later, when a happy result is either desirable or given one by Divine Grace, that it is a pure state unaffected by mental shadows or thought forces. Purification of heart helps more than anything else in this direction.