The soul brings its light from Heaven; the mind acquires its knowledge from earth. Therefore, when the soul believes readily, the mind may still doubt.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Belief is natural, and disbelief is unnatural, for we are born with belief, and unbelief is acquired. … Every child born on earth is born with a tendency to believe what it is told, but the experience of the individual in this world full of falsehood teaches one to disbelieve. That shows that every soul comes from the world of Truth, and opens the eyes in the world of falsehood. Every child comes into the world with that purity of heart whose natural tendency is to believe and later acquires the tendency to doubt. The Prophet has therefore said: ‘All children are born believers, it is afterwards that they become unbelievers.’ … For doubt is earth-born and belief is heaven-born.
( from Religious Gathekas #42: Belief and Disbelief in God [ unpublished ] )
The tendency to doubt, to be depressed, the tendency towards fear, suspicion and confusion, the tendency to puzzle — where does it all come from? It all comes from the thought of getting something in return: ‘will another give me back what I have given? Shall I get the just portion back, or less?’ if that is the thought behind one’s acts there will be fear, doubt, suspicion, puzzle and confusion. For what is doubt? Doubt is a cloud that stands before the sun, keeping it from shining its light. So is doubt: gathering around the soul, it keeps its light from shining out, and one becomes confused and perplexed. Once selflessness is developed, it breaks through the cloud saying, ‘What do I care whether anyone appreciates it; I only know to give my service, and that is all my satisfaction. I do not look forward to get it back. I have given and it is finished; this is where my duty ends.’ That one is blessed, because one has conquered, one has won.
Understanding does not depend upon the head; it depends upon the heart. By the help of the head one can make it more clear, it becomes intelligible and one can express it better. But to begin with it must come from the heart, not from the head. Besides, a person who only uses the head says, ‘It must be so because I think it is so’, whereas the person who has the heart quality says, ‘It is so because I believe it to be so’. That is the difference. In one person there is a doubt, in the other there is conviction. … Spiritual attainment is nothing but conviction. … When a person arrives at the stage when the knowledge of reality becomes a conviction, then there is nothing in the world that will change it. And if there is anything to attain to, it is that conviction which one can never find in the outside world; it must rise from the depths of one’s own heart.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VIIIa – Sufi Teachings: The Heart Quality )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The soul is always in light, can never be in anything but light because the soul is light. Mind makes accommodation for both light and darkness — light from heaven, darkness from earth. When mind draws its content from earth and picks up shadow-thoughts and shadow-words, instead of the light-substance embodied in those thoughts and words, it cannot have surety. For not only is shadow not light, but the tendency of shadow is to change its shape, to become smaller or larger, dimmer or deeper as light approaches or recedes. Under such circumstances the mind can never be too sure of this earth born intellectual mind-gathering called knowledge, which is nothing but the collection of names and forms and not true knowledge.