How can the Unlimited Being be limited? All that seems limited is in its depth beyond all limitations.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
People have respect for their parents or their spousess, or for their superiors; but all these have limited personalities. To whom then shall we give most respect? Only to One Being: to God. We can love another human being, but by the very fact of our loving another human being we have not got the full scope. To express all the love that is there, we must love the Unlimited God. One admires all that is beautiful in color, tone, or form; but everything beautiful has its limitations; it is only when one rises above limitations that one finds that Perfection which is God alone. One may say, ‘Yes, the Perfection of all things, of Love, Harmony, and Beauty, is God; but where is the personality of God?’ This is the difficulty, which some people experience when trying to find something to adore or worship, something different from all they see. In all ages people have worshiped idols or the sun or fire or some other form as God, because they were not able to see further than their eyes could see. Of course, it is easy to criticize this or to look at it with contempt, but in fact it only shows that every soul has a desire to admire, to adore, and to worship someone.
Although no trace of the personality of God can be found on the surface, yet one can see that there is a Source from which all personality comes, and a goal to which all must return. And if there is One Source, what a great Personality that One Source must be! It cannot be understood by great intellect, nor even by the study of metaphysics or comparative religion, but only by a pure and innocent heart full of love.
There is no such thing as impossible. All is possible. Impossible is made by the limitation of our capacity of understanding. Humanity, blinded by the law of nature’s working, by the law of consequences which they have known through their few years life on earth, begin to say, ‘This is possible and that is impossible.’ If they were to rise beyond limitations, their soul would see nothing but possible. And when the soul has risen high enough to see all possibility, that soul certainly has caught a glimpse of God.
They say God is Almighty; and I say, God is All-Possible. Possibility is the nature of God, and impossibility is the art of humanity. People go so far, and cannot go any further. People make a flower out of paper, giving it as natural a color as possible, yet they say it is not possible to make it fragrant, for they have their limitations. But God, Who is the maker of the flower and Who is the Giver of the fragrance, has all power, and we, who are weakened by our limitedness, become more and more limited the more we thinks of it. In this is created the spirit of pessimism. Those who are conscious of God Almighty, and who in the contemplation of God lose the consciousness of their own selves, inherit the power of God, and it is in this power and belief that the spirit of optimism is born.
( from Githas, Series I, Sadhana 3, The Spirit of Attainment [ unpublished ] )
People mostly think that the Spiritual Message must be something concrete and definite in the way of doctrines or principles; but that is a human tendency and does not belong to the Divine Nature, which is Unlimited and Life Itself. The Divine Message is the answer to the cry of souls, individually and collectively; the Divine Message is Life, and it is Light. The sun does not teach anything, but in its light we learn to know all things. The sun does not cultivate the ground nor does it sow seed, but it helps the plant to grow, to flower, and to bear fruit.
( from Religious Gatheka 3: Religion [ unpublished ] )
There is a stage at which, by touching a particular phase of existence, one feels raised above the limitations of life, and is given that Power and Peace and Freedom, that Light and Life, which belong to the Source of All Beings. In other words, in that moment of Supreme Exaltation one is not only united with the Source of all Beings, but dissolved in it … As the great Indian poet Khusrau says, ‘When I become Thou and Thou become me, neither can Thou say that I am different nor can Thou say that Thou are different.’
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
Limitation comes from the examination of mind. Mind by its very nature puts a limit on things. The eye in its measure of space sees only so far to the left and right and only so far in front of the body; from this come the laws of perspective important in mathematics and art. Although the mind can see much further in every direction, still it is limited and subject to laws of perspective from which only the illuminated mind can escape. Existence does not depend upon comprehension by mind, which can only comprehend so far. All essence is beyond conception; search as it may, the mind unaided can never find the thing-in-itself.