All names and forms are the garbs and covers under which the One Life is hidden.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The real understanding of religion is not in disputing over the diversity of the forms, saying ‘Your religion is worse and my religion is better.’ The true religion is in recognizing the One Life in all.
( from “Religious Gathekas, Number 35”, by Hazrat Inayat Khan [unpublished] )
The divisions of one into many are caused by light and shade, and if we looked keenly into life, both within and without, we should realize clearly that it is One Life, One Light, which appears divided and made into many by different shades.
When one observes keenly the nature of this life of variety, one finds that behind the world of variety there is One Life, the source and goal of all things. It is that Life which may be called the Blood of the Universe circulating through the veins of the Universe. [ ie ‘The All-Pervading Life in Space’ —Muiz ] It is Substance or Spirit or Life: something out of which all that is seen and all intelligence is molded, kept alive and in working order. …
This gives a logical explanation of the Law of Cause and Effect. Wrongdoers may escape earthly witness, but they cannot escape this One Life in which they live and move and have their being. People who have done good to others may never see those others again, yet good must return to them because there is One Body and One Life. Just as with the circulation in the physical body all we eat is absorbed as essence in the blood, so our every thought, word and action affects the One Life. …
Real virtue only comes by understanding the Oneness of Life, binding us to friend or enemy. Jesus Christ teaches, ‘Love your enemies’. While it is often difficult to love our friends, we are not able to love our enemies unless we realize the secret of the One Life behind all.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This Universal Life penetrates all things. It has two aspects, a rising and a falling, an expansion and a contraction. Through the heating of expansion in Love the Higher was formed; through the cooling of contraction in Beauty the Lower or external was formed. The waves of vibrations from these met and intermingled forming the mind-mesh where light and darkness both are found. The Universal Light falling between the meshes of mind upon the outer sphere gave rise to the myriad of forms which have been given names by humans to distinguish them, but really the Essence is one and the same. Who understands this understands something of the Nature of Allah.