When you stand with your back to the sun, your shadow is before you; but when you turn and face the sun, then your shadow falls behind you.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The life one recognizes is only the mortal aspect of life. Very few have ever seen or been conscious of the immortal aspect at all. Once one has realized Life, that which one has hitherto called life is found to be only a glimpse or shadow of the Real Life that is beyond comprehension.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Silent Life )
Plato wrote that we live in a shadow world, where we confuse the shadow of ourselves with reality. This is the Nafs, the false ego, which stands in the light before God, causing, so to speak, a spiritual eclipse…. The nafs turns us from the One to the many, enticing us with the things of this world. Then we attach ourselves to one thing after another, which brings, at best, momentary satisfaction. Through their spiritual practices the Sufis learn to chain the nafs, to perceive that it is only a shadow of reality; and finding the Sun of Truth within their Being, looking upon it, they are no longer aware of the shadow.
Then the nafs is not destroyed, but harnessed. The whole of our being is attuned to God and everything within us serves God. This is the work of all on the path of illumination, of whatever school they may be. There is no other obstacle than this false self, and there is no better means of controlling it than by meditation and by practicing the presence of God.
( from Githa Series II – Dhyana 2:, Meditation [unpublished] )
The whole idea of life is to live freely; to look through space freely, having nothing to hide or conceal; allowing the Light of Truth to shine from within and the light of the sun without; Light all around, no shadow of any kind hindering the Light which is the soul of every being.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
This describes the difference between the average people and the illuminated souls. This is primarily a difference of Will, not of capability. The average people, who are under the sway of external influence, permit their Will to be deceived by the mind. They look down from above, like leaning over the wharf and gazing into the depths of the ocean. All they see are reflections and shadows. So they become caught in this web, which is nothing but the shadow of the vibrations interpenetrating in the mind-mesh.
When we turn to the path of God we begin to look upward. Therefore spiritual education is called a turning and a tuning. Then the shadow-thoughts and the shadow-words and the shadow-interests fade into nescience, and the whole attention is focused upon God and Unity. This is the meaning of the Sufi Invocation: “Toward the One, the Perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty, the Only Being; United with All the Illuminated Souls, Who form the Embodiment of the Master, the Spirit of Guidance.”