At every step of our evolution, our realization of God changes.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
There is a time when toys are treasures. But the child who cries for a toy comes to an age when it gives it away. And at every step in our evolution the values of power and position and wealth change in our eyes. And so as we evolve there arises in us a spirit of renunciation which may be called the Spirit of God. Gradually we recognize the real value of those fair and lovely qualities of the spirit that change not.
Every step in evolution makes life more valuable. The more evolved you are, the more priceless is every moment; it becomes an opportunity for you to do good to others, to serve others, to give love to others, to be gentle to others, to give your sympathy to souls who are longing and hungering for it. Life is miserable when a person is absorbed in self.
In selfishness there is an illusion of profit, but in the end the profit attained by selfishness proves to be worthless. Life is the principal thing to consider, and true life is the inner life, the realization of God, the consciousness of one’s spirit. When the human heart becomes conscious of God, it turns into the sea and it spreads; it extends the waves of its love to friend and foe. Spreading further and further it attains perfection.
Those who in the shrine of their hearts have seen the vision of God, those who have the realization of truth, can only smile, for words can never really explain what Truth means. The nearest explanation we can give is that Truth is realization. At every step of our evolution our realization changes, but there is a stage where we arrive at the true realization, a realization which is a firm conviction that no reason or logic can change or alter. Nothing in the world can change it any more, and that conviction is called by the Sufis, Iman.
The realization which is attained is that there is nothing to realize any more. The process of this attainment is a sincere research into Truth and life, and the understanding of ‘what I am, the other is’, together with the contemplation of God, a selfless consciousness, and a continual pursuit after the receiving of the knowledge of God.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
For the nature of mind is to seek, to move, to change. It may endeavor to enlarge its scope, and this brings change in realization. But Baqa is most wonderful for it includes both the changing and changeless condition at the same time. It brings the celestial music which is one note and all notes. Even discovery of God does not confer divinity. This is never possible in our sense of the term even though we may speak of Parinirvana. For the mind to dwell on such matters is senseless; for the mind to discover itself is all value.