None of us should allow our minds to be vehicles for others to use; those who do not direct their own minds lack mastery.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Our minds need to be dusted and swept just as much as our houses, and this we do by meditation and concentration, which wipe away all wrong impressions. We must be directors of our own minds as well as our houses, and not allow them to be like a furniture warehouse with all the furniture mixed up together. We must direct where everything is to be placed, so that complete order may reign therein.
The more the minds are allowed to go on without purpose, the more likely they are to become vehicles or machines, which all manner of influences around them, from other human beings or spirit obsessions, will employ instead of their owners. If the users of those minds are sensible people, then they may perhaps act properly, but otherwise the work of the minds is wasted. In any case there would not be a fulfillment of the purpose of life. This purpose is to learn mastery, not to be vehicles for others to use. Those who do not direct their own minds lack mastery. …
Humanity is its mind, is the product of its mind, and is also the controller of the activity of mind. If we do not control our minds, we are not directors but captives. It lies with our own minds whether we shall be directors, or whether we shall be captives. We are captives when we neglect to be directors; we are directors if we care to be directors. … Those with perfectly stilled, comforted, and rested minds will at once raise up another who is going through distress, or restlessness, or pain, or ill-temper, or worry, or anxiety. The very presence of one whose mind is stilled gives such hope, such inspiration, such sympathy, such power and life. All the heavenly properties flow so smoothly and freely from those whose minds are stilled that their words, their voices, their presence, all react upon the minds of others; and as they still their minds, so their very presence becomes healing.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Stilling the Mind )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This has four aspects, three of which correspond to the three Gunas of the Hindus [ The Gunas are the three primary or fundamental qualities of the Original Unified Energy: which create the essential aspects of all nature – energy, matter, and consciousness. Very briefly these are Tamas (darkness & chaos), Rajas (activity & passion), and Sattva (beingness & harmony) — Muiz ], the fourth of which is the diabolical condition where one controls and uses the mind of another. This is possible through hypnotism, black magic, and other practices.
Some people unknowingly and unwittingly become controlled by others. When there is love it does not matter much, but when there is not love it brings terrible consequences. The Sufis through their spiritual control of breath not only can protect their own minds but can guard the minds and hearts of others. Those who serve the Spiritual Hierarchy in higher capacities can protect even large areas in this way.
Those who are subject to emotional control, who are led by others in the mob, may be considered as tamasic. They are blind, ignorant. The rajasic ones escape the control of others, but their minds direct their will, and thus their real Self is not free. This freedom is only true of the sattvic ones, whose inner spirit guides their vehicles. This means not cessation of thought but mastery of thought, so that one may refrain from or adhere to thinking, just as one partakes of food or drink. The real spiritual fast is to refrain from thinking through concentration upon God; this is called Awe-full Contemplation — Mushahida.