Those who can be detached enough to keep their eyes open to all those whom circumstances have placed about them, and see in what way they can be of help to them, it is they who become rich — they inherit the realm of God.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Those who are inclined to do kindness in life must not discriminate among the people around them, between those to whom they must be kind and those to whom they need not be kind. However kind and good people may be to those they like, to those they wish to be kind to, they cannot, for this, be called kind by nature; real Kindness is that which gushes out from the heart to the worthy and to the unworthy. … In the Quran it is said, ‘God alone is rich, and everyone on earth is poor.’ Humans are poor with their myriad needs, their life’s demands, the wants of their nature; and when one keenly observes life, it seems that the whole world is poverty-stricken, everyone struggling for the self. In this struggle of Life, if we can be considerate enough to keep our eyes open to all around us and see in what way we can be of help to them, we become rich; we inherit the realm of God.
The souls of the spiritually inclined people are constantly thirsty, looking for something, seeking for something; and when they think they have found it, the thing turns out to be different; and so life becomes a continual struggle and disappointment. And the result is that instead of taking interest in all things, a kind of indifference is produced; and yet in the real character of this soul there is no indifference, there is only Love.
Although life seems to make these souls indifferent, they cannot really become indifferent. It is this state, working through this Life, that gives people a certain feeling, to which only a Hindu word is applicable, no other language having a word which can render this particular meaning so adequately. The Hindus call it Vairagya from which the term Vairagi has come. Vairagi means those who have become indifferent; and yet indifference is not the word for it. It describes people who have lost the value in their eyes of all that attracts the human being. It is no more attractive to them; it no more enslaves them. They may still be interested in all things of this life, but are not bound to them. … Their connection with people in the world is to serve them, not asking for their service; to love them, not asking for love; to be friends with them, not asking for friendship.
Indifference, however, must be reached after interest has taken its course; before that moment it is a fault. People without an interest in life become exclusive, they become disagreeable. Indifference must come after all experience — interest must end in indifference. We must not take the endless path of interest: the taste of everything in the world becomes flat. We must realize that all we seek in the objects we run after, that all beauty and strength, are in ourselves, and we must be content to feel them all in ourselves. This may be called the kiss of the cross: then our only principle is Love. Vairagya means satisfaction, the feeling that no desire is to be satisfied any more, that nothing on earth is desired. This is a great moment, and then comes that which is the realm of God.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
It is abandonment of the fruits of action which gains control over all action. This is a puzzle which is presented in the Bhagavad Gita, and it remains a puzzle so long as value is placed upon the individual ego. It is true that in a certain sense there is an ego and individuality, but the development of the personality comes not through any stress upon this individual-ego, but from the opposite course. The personality receives its full development from the acquisition of attributes. This faculty is limited by thought-power, which does not add to the faculties one has already although it may strengthen any and all of them. To secure another faculty, one must appeal to the source of all attribution — which is God.
So long as one points to anything — physical possession, intellectual attainment, friends, acquisitions, or attachments of any kind — that means separation also, separation from everything not included in these acquisitions and attachments. When no difference is made between what one has and what one has not, accommodation is created for infinite attainment for then no door is closed upon anything in the universe, and one becomes as the very custodian of God’s gifts.