A gain or a loss which is momentary is not real; if we knew realities we should never grieve over the loss of anything that experience shows to be only transitory.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
In life we discriminate between two things: the real and the false. We think more of the real and less of the false. We discriminate between imitation gold and real gold; we pay more for the real gold because it is more lasting. The two samples of gold may be equally bright; hence it is evident that the value we attach to things is in proportion to their lasting power. Similarly, if we could see what things in life are lasting or passing, we should discriminate between real loss and false loss, real gain and false gain. The gain or loss which is momentary is not real. So, too, joy or sorrow is a momentary state; the joy over a gain today may tomorrow prove to be a sorrow. If we knew the realities, we should never grieve over the loss of things which experience shows to be only of a transient character. … For every gain, however, there is a need for sacrifice. To gain anything we have to sacrifice something; to pursue two gains is to lose both. Therefore it is necessary to decide once and for all what is false, and then to follow the real and leave the false.
If there is such a thing as saintly renunciation, it is renouncing small gains for better gains; not for no gains, but seeing with open eyes what is better and what is inferior. Even if the choice has to lie between two momentary gains, one of these would always be found to be more real and lasting; that is the one that should be followed for the time. When we take the torch of wisdom to show us our path through life, we will end by realizing what is really profitable in life and what is not.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter 15 – Gain and Loss )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The human being is greater than anything in the physical or mental world. One cannot take the wealth of this world into Malakut, and all of Malakut is one’s possession when one enters Djabrut. We understand when leaving this world we cannot carry away its possessions, but we can carry thoughts and these thoughts deter the pilgrim in the higher life.
The human being is a mirror which reflects all things in the worlds above or below. The sahib-i-dil [ صاحب دل Urdu: honorable person/people of awakened heart; in Arabic “sahib” is “owner” and from the Moghul through the colonial period in India it was used as respectful title for those in positions of authority, wealth, or higher class. “Dil” is Urdu for heart. — Muiz ], knowing this, do not have to accumulate knowledge. They see what they need reflected in mind, be that knowledge from the worlds above or below. This is a great wonder incomprehensible to average people. Yet the sage attaches no value to the faculty. Soul sees because it sees and when no longer confined to a narrow sphere by mind, all gains and losses pass away. In the infinite are all things.