As long as in love there is “you” and “me”, love is not fully kindled.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
There are three stages of morals. The first stage is the moral of reciprocity. This moral is natural to the one who sees the difference between self and another, who recognizes every person as such and such.
The second stage is the law of beneficence, where one, recognizing self as an entity separate from others and recognizing others as distinct entities themselves, yet sees a cord of connection running through self and all, and finds self as a dome in which rises an echo of good and evil; and in order to have a good echo, gives good for good and good for evil.
But the third stage is the moral of renunciation, where the difference of “mine” and “thine” and the distinction of “I” and “you” fade away in the realization of the One Life that is within and without, beneath and beyond; and that is the meaning of the verse in the Bible, “In Whom we live, and move, and have our being.”
When we can touch God in everyone then God tells us about That Self, because God sees that we have no hate, no prejudice. We have seen our Beloved, and our Beloved tells us all. Still, realization is difficult, for it involves discerning the difference between you and me. What is this difference? It is a great question, a great problem. Our “I” and “you” are just like a compass with which we draw circles on paper. The one point of the compass is the “I”, the other point is the “you”, and where they join there is no “I-you.” The “I” and “you” only remain as long as we see ourselves; but when we rise above them or beyond them, the thought brings us nearer and nearer to God in that consciousness in which we all unite. … Perfection and annihilation is that stage where there is no longer “I” and no longer “you”, where there is what there IS.
[
Of the religious law, Shari’a, (its truth is): I and Thou
Of the mystic path, Tariqa, (its truth is): I am Thou and Thou art I
Of the Truth Itself, Haqiqa, (is): Not I and not Thou, Only THAT, Huwa
ash-shari’atu: ana wa anta; الشعرية : أنا و أنت
at-tariqatu: ana anta wa anta ana; الطريقة : أنا أنت و أنت أنا
al-haqiqatu: la ana wa la anta, huwa. الحقيقة : لا أنا و لا أنت, هو
– from Abu Bakr Siraj ed-Din, The Book of Certainty
— Muiz ]
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The spreading of atoms and vibrations causes day. The collection of vibrations into bundles, which is the concentration or contraction of their activity, by drawing more of light into one locality, produces shadow in another locality. When shadow is produced, there is no longer Universal Day.
Likewise in the human concept of love, when one includes oneself in the picture one turns love into “my” love; when one distinguishes even unconsciously and subtly “my-love” from “my-not-love” or from “love-other-than-my-love”, there is division, and any division betrays absence of love.