Our success or failure depends upon the harmony or disharmony of our individual will with the Divine Will.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
It is the Divine Will that is manifested throughout the whole universe, which has created the whole universe; and it is part of the Divine Will that manifests itself through us. Everything we do in life is governed and directed by that power. … Now coming to the question of the will of humanity as opposed to the Will of God: which is which? We understand the difference when we perceive that the nature of will power differs only according to whether it exists in its fullness, or whether it is limited. The Will power in its fullness is Divine power; the will power in its limited state is the individual will.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Will Power )
Resignation is a quality of the saintly souls. It is bitter in taste but sweet in result. Whatever our power and position in life may be, we have always to meet with a more powerful will, in whatever form it may manifest. In truth this is the Divine Will. By opposing the Divine Will we may break ourselves; but by resigning oneself to the Divine Will we open up a way.
[ Until we have journeyed for a while on the Path to Awakening, as human beings we rarely consider that our saying ‘no’ to a particular situation may, at times, be our ego, our nafs attempting to oppose the Divine Will. We need to be able to discern whether the particular situation is merely the limited individual will of the ego/nafs of the other person(s), or whether it is the Divine Will operating through the person or situation. In the process of forgetting our True Natures, we operate in human life as if we were truly separate, disconnected beings. And so we often form the defensive habit patterns of refusing to accept what IS. And so we struggle and suffer within the morass of our graspings and our avoidances, trying to impose our individual wills on Life, insisting that what is “real” is what we want Life to BE, rather than what Life IS. In other words, rather than being anchored in our center, and cooperating with the Flow of Being in the Present Moment, we live in the Past or in the Future, complaining and agonizing about what WAS, or fearing and agonizing about what WILL BE/MIGHT BE. — Muiz ]
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VIIIa – Sufi Teachings: Struggle and Resignation )
We come to understand that there are two aspects of Will working through all things in life. One is the individual will, the other the Divine Will. When people go against the Divine Will, naturally our human will fails and we find difficulties, because we are swimming against the tide. The moment we work in consonance, in harmony with the Divine Will, things become smooth.
Sometimes things are accomplished without the least effort. When it is the Divine Will it is like something floating on water; it advances without effort. Problems and actions may be achieved in a moment then, whilst at other times the smallest problem cannot be solved without great difficulty. One finds that some persons are very clever and experienced in industrial work or in politics; and they have striven very hard to attain their goal, and yet have accomplished nothing; they are always a failure. And there are others who take up a thing, and without much effort, without much worry on their part they complete it and attain their goal.
All this is accounted for by harmony with the Divine Will. Everyone experiences such a thing at some time or other. When things are in harmony with the Divine Will, everything is there; we just glance towards a thing and it is found, as in the saying, ‘Word spoken, action done.’ When we strive with all the material in our hands and yet cannot achieve our desire, that is when the matter is contrary to the Divine Will. Our success or failure all depends upon the harmony or disharmony of our individual will with the Divine Will. … Contentment and perfect resignation open up a harmonious feeling and bring the Divine Will into harmony with our own. Our blessing now becomes a Divine blessing, our words Divine words, our atmosphere a Divine atmosphere, although we seem to be limited beings; for our will becomes absorbed into the whole, and so our will becomes the Will of God.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: The Will, Human and Divine )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
All thought, speech, and action not Divine in its operation causes disturbance. Therefore restraint of thought, speech, and action appears necessary to produce calmness and peace for ourselves or for the universe. But this is the calmness of sleep, not of activity, and approaches Death, not Life, in its principle. The great quest is to find the calmness that is action, the peace that is expressive, the principle which is harmonious in all its operations.
This comes through our union with God, and this in turn is the natural result of spiritual practices, especially Fikr. This permits action, allows the life to touch the surface, and spiritualizes even the dense earth, for as soon as human will touches Divine Will, then that instant the Divine Will is expressed through the human being. And for this purpose humanity was made to appear on the earth.