Love alone is the fountain from which all virtues fall as drops of sparkling water.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
What do I mean by love? It is such a word that one cannot give one meaning. All attributes like kindness, gentleness, goodness, humbleness, mildness, fineness, are names of one and the same thing. Love therefore is that stream which when it rises, falls in the form of a fountain, and each stream coming down is a virtue. All virtues taught by books or by a religious person have no strength and life because they have been learned; a virtue that is learned has no power, no life. The virtue that naturally springs from the depth of the heart, the virtue that rises from the love-spring and then falls as many different attributes, that virtue is real. There is a Hindustani saying, ‘No matter how much wealth you have, if you do not have the treasure of virtue, it is of no use’. The true riches is the ever increasing spring of love from which all virtues come.
Purity of mind is the principal thing upon which the health of both body and mind depend. The process of purifying the mind is not much different from the process of cleaning or washing any object. Water poured upon any object washes it, and if there is a spot which cannot be washed away by the water, some substance which can take that spot is applied, to wash it thoroughly. The water which washes the heart is the continual running of the love-stream. When that stream is stopped, when its way is blocked by some object which closes the heart, and when the love-stream is no longer running, then the mind cannot keep pure. … True happiness is in love, which is the stream that springs from one’s soul. Those who will allow this stream to run continually in all conditions of life, in all situations, however difficult, will have a happiness which truly belongs to them.
Human love is given to illuminate, by its sincerity, the heart of another. There is no greater power to inspire than the power of love. The desire for service, gentleness, tolerance, kindness, forgiveness, all come from love. Love alone is a fountain from which all virtues fall as drops of sparkling water.
Love is given to inspire divine love in the heart of humanity, and all the beauty that we see on earth is beauty created by the power of love, and by the power of love we learn to recognize it as a reflection of the beauty of heaven. Thus may earth become heaven, and heaven and earth one single vision of the glory of God.
( from Unpublished Papers from the Nekbakht Foundation Archives: Cupid and Psyche, May 5th 1921 )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
Virtue is life itself as reflected in the human moral nature. By moral nature is meant that which gives qualities to life, speech, thought, and action. This moral nature is connected with essence of mind, and this essence of mind (Citta) really belongs to heart. Every virtue is an outpouring of life — that is to say, of Ishk as Ishk touches the surface of life. In the depths it is Ishk; on the surface it becomes the various moral qualities, or as Shakespeare has beautifully put it, “The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”