The heart must be empty in order to receive the knowledge of God.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
It is the innocent and pure soul who has a capacity for learning. When people come to take a lesson on any subject, and they bring their own knowledge with them, the teacher has little to teach them, for the doors of their hearts are not open. Their hearts that should be empty in order to receive knowledge are occupied by the knowledge that they already had acquired. In order to know the truth or to know God, earthly qualifications and earthly wisdom or learning are not necessary. What one has to learn is how to become a pupil. …
It is the receptivity of our heart and the passivity of our mind, it is the eagerness, the thirst and hunger after truth, it is the direction of our whole life to that Ideal from who all light and truth come, that alone can bring us truth and the knowledge of God. All knowledge of the earth is as clouds covering the sun. It is the breaking of these clouds and clearness of the sky, or in other words the purity of heart, which give the capacity for the knowledge of God.
The innocence of Jesus has been known through the ages. In his every moment, in his every action, he appeared to be as a child. All the great saints and sages, the great ones who have liberated humanity, have been as innocent as children and at the same time wiser, much more so, than the worldly-wise. And what makes it so? What gives them this balance? It is repose with passiveness. When they stand before God, they stand with their heart as an empty cup; when they stand before God to learn, they unlearn all things that the world has taught them; when they stand before God, their ego, their self, their life, is no more before them. They do not think of themselves in that moment with any desire to be fulfilled, with any motive to be accomplished, with any expression of their own; but as empty cups, that God may fill their being, that they may lose the false self.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
When personality is intrigued by the world it becomes intoxicated by name and form. This produces pleasure and pain. This produces rise and fall and all duality. God is beyond duality, therefore scripture teaches that every valley must be exalted and every mountain brought low. To reach this state, Sufis cultivate indifference — which is really the highest kind of love. When love for one person means not-love for another, then that is passion, not love. The true love, even when thrown upon another will also shine upon everyone, and this is true whether it is thrown upon a personality or upon God.
Human love for human, no matter how great it is, is generally marred by thoughts, which cast shadows upon it. Human love for God, which necessitates ego-sacrifice, permits the light which has always been there to shine through the heart and flood the mind with all knowledge. While it may appear wrong to seek Allah for the sake of knowledge, it is actually impossible to do this, for if one loves knowledge the heart is not empty and so God cannot be the ideal. But when there is no other ideal or love than God, all knowledge and all other desires are attained.