All forms of worship or prayer must draw one closer to God.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Everyone breathes, but they do not breathe rightly. As the rain falls on the ground and matures little plants and makes the soil fertile, so the breath, the essence of all energy, falls as a rain on all parts of the body. This also happens in the case of the mind, but most cannot even perceive that part of the breath that quickens the mind; only that felt in the body is perceptible, and to the average person it is not even perceptible in the body. They know nothing of it, except what appears in the form of inhalation and exhalation through the nostrils. It is this, alone which is generally meant when people speak of breath.
When we study the science of breath, the first thing we notice is that breath is audible; it is a word in itself, for what we call a word is only a more pronounced utterance of breath fashioned by the mouth and tongue. In the capacity of the mouth breath becomes voice, and therefore the original condition of a word is breath. Therefore if we said: ‘First was the breath’, it would be the same as saying; ‘In the beginning was the word’.
The first life that existed was the life of God, and from that all manifestation branched out. It is a manifold expression of One Life: one flower blooming as so many petals, one breath expressing itself as so many words. The sacred idea attached to the lotus flower, is expressive of this same philosophy. It is symbolizing the many lives in the One God, and expressed in the Bible in the words: ‘In God we live and move and have our being’. When we are separated from God in thought, our belief is of no use to us, our worship is but of little use to us; for all forms of worship or belief should draw us closer to God, and that which makes us separate from God has no value.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Because they lead away from self-ness, they proclaim some ideal, and no matter what that state or condition, no matter what the form, meekness — or being “poor in spirit” as Jesus says — always removes obstacles from one’s path. Thus real prayer gives strength, by removing the weakness in one’s own nature, which is the greatest bar to success.
[ MUIZ COMMENTARY: In other places, Murshid SAM also translates being ‘poor in spirit’ as being ‘refined in Breath’ from the same perspective about Breath that Pir-o-Murshid presents in the first two paragraphs, above, and also in the first two paragraphs of the Bowl of Saki for 17 October. ]