Where the flame of love rises, the knowledge of God unfolds of itself.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
In love abides all knowledge. It is our love and interest in the things that in time reveals their secret, and then we know how to develop, control, and utilize them. No one can know anybody, however much they may profess to know, except the lover, because in the absence of love the inner eyes are blind. Only the outer eyes are open, which are merely the spectacles of the inner eyes. If the sight is not keen, of what use are the spectacles?
It is for this reason that we admire all those whom we love, and are blind to the good qualities of those whom we do not love. It is not always that these deserve our neglect, but our eyes, without love, cannot see their goodness. Those whom we love may have bad points too, but as love sees beauty, so we see that alone in them. Intelligence itself in its next step towards manifestation is love. When the light of love has been lit, the heart becomes transparent, so that the intelligence of the soul can see through it.
But until the heart is kindled by the flame of love, the intelligence, which is constantly yearning to experience life on the surface, is groping in the dark. … Love is like the fire; its glow is devotion, its flame is wisdom, its smoke is attachment, and its ashes detachment. Flame rises from glow, so it is with wisdom, which rises from devotion. When love’s fire produces its flame it illuminates the devotee’s path in life like a torch, and all darkness vanishes…. if this love expands to embrace the whole creation of the Only Being, it raises us to be among the chosen ones of God.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
As it is evident that human intellect cannot grasp Deity and as it is said that God created the world to become known, there must be some other means of attaining to Divine Knowledge. As has been explained, this means is through love, through the casting away of self. Love has two aspects, the love of the greater for the lesser called ‘compassion’, and the love of the lesser for the greater called ‘adoration’. These are pictured in the six-pointed star.
Compassion is the love which seems to fall like water, or as Shakespeare has beautifully described it, “The quality of Mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven.” The use of the word ‘strained’ is excellent for it describes the passing of the Divine Light-Love down into the sphere of sentient beings. The idea of the god Avalokita or Avalokiteshvara came from that source.
But in us love is like a flame, and in adoration it rises and raises the whole personality. It is the rising flame of love which turns us around to face God, to begin the upward journey until we get above the mind-mesh and karmic activity. Then the knowledge of God unfolds of itself, no effort is needed once we have discarded our lower self.