When one praises the beauty of God, one’s soul is filled with bliss.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
“Why does God need praise from me? Who am I that I should offer God praise?” True, we can never praise God enough; never can our praise be sufficient, but our souls are blessed with the impression of the Glory of God whenever we praise God. The soul could praise God every moment and yet wanting to praise God yet more, it is constantly hungering and thirsting to find the Beauty and Perfection of God. By the praise of God the soul is filled with bliss; even to utter the Name of God is a blessing that can fill the soul with Light, Joy and Happiness as nothing else can do.
( from Unpublished Papers from the Nekbakht Foundation Archives: Prayer, 8 May 1921 and 15 May 1921 )
There is a necessity for praise in prayer, praise of the Peauty of God, for we must learn to recognize and praise the Beauty of God as manifested in all creation. In this way we impress Beauty on our souls, and we are able to manifest it in ourselves, and we become the friend of all and are without prejudice. For this reason the Sufis cultivate their hearts. The emblem of the Sufi is a heart between two wings, meaning that when the heart is cultivated we can soar up into the heights of heaven.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume V – Spiritual Liberty, Part V: Pearls from the Ocean Unseen – Prayer )
The only secret of attaining happiness is to learn how to appreciate our privileges in life. If we cultivate that sense of appreciation we shall be thankful, we shall be contented and every moment we shall offer our thanks to God, for God’s gifts are many and enormous. When we do not see them it is because our wants cover our eyes from seeing all with which we are blessed by Providence. No meditation, no study, nothing can help in that direction, except one thing, and that is to keep our eyes open to appreciate every little privilege in life, to admire every glimpse of Beauty that comes before us, being thankful for every little love, kindness or affection shown to us by young or old, rich or poor, wise or foolish. In this way, continually developing the faculty of appreciating life and devoting it to thanksgiving, we arrive at a bliss which no words can explain, a bliss which is beyond imagination: the bliss that we find ourselves having already entered the Realm of God.
The two important things in life are the praise of God and the pursuit of God. The praise of God is important, and it gives bliss in life, but it is not the real attainment. The all-important work in life is the attainment of God. God cannot be explained. Any attempt to do this always ends in failure. The Knowledge of God can only be attained in the Silence and in Solitude, and how to do this cannot be explained better than in the words of the Urdu poet Zahir, ‘They who attain best the Peace of God, their very selves must lose.’
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Now the condition of soul is Peace, but in its natural, active state soul operates in the sphere of heart where the condition is bliss. That is to say, the soul praises God. This praising God brings bliss and this state of bliss is not connected with any plane. It is our state of mind which determines the plane, not the condition of soul, which is above conditioned existence.
At the same time, whenever the mind permits the praising of God in or out of prayer, it raises the whole pitch of the personality and purifies the breath in the highest manner. This leads to bliss.