Inayat Khan sitater

Hvordan kommer man i kontakt med den allmektige kraften? Man vil alltid finne begrensninger så lenge den lille personligheten står i veien, så lenge man ikke blir kvitt den, så lenge ens egen person og alt som er forbundet med den interesserer en. Og den kraften kan bare påvirkes på én måte, og det er ved selvutslettelse, det som i bibelen kalles selvfornektelse. 

Menneskene tolker det på en annen måte: Selvfornektelse betyr å nekte seg selv alle jordens gleder og nytelser, sier de. Hvorfor ble da denne jorden skapt hvis det var for å nekte seg denne jordens glede og nytelse? Bare for å forby? Hvis den ble skapt for å forby er dette veldig nådeløst, siden menneskehetens kontinuerlige søken er etter lykke. 

Selvfornektelse er å si nei til den lille personligheten som presser seg frem i alle ting, å utslette dette falske egoet som tvinger deg til å føle din mangelfulle kraft i både det ene og det andre. Og hvordan oppnår man det? Man oppnår det ikke bare gjennom bønn og tilbedelse, eller ved å tro på Gud. Det oppnås ved å glemme seg selv i Gud. Tro på Gud er det første steget. Det man oppnår gjennom tro på Gud er at man glemmer seg selv i Gud. 

Er man i stand til å gjøre det har man oppnådd en kraft som er bortenfor menneskelig forståelse. Prosessen hvor man oppnår dette kalles av Sufiene fana’. Fana’ er ikke nødvendigvis å bli tilintetgjort i Gud. Fana’ resulterer i hva man kan kalle en oppstandelse i Gud, som symboliseres ved bildet av Kristus. Kristus på korset er beskrivende for fana’ som betyr ”Jeg er ikke”. Og ideen om oppstandelse forklarer neste stadium, som er baqa’ og betyr ”ødeleggelse”, som igjen betyr oppstigningen mot den Allmektige. Guddommelig ånd forståes i oppstigningen mot den Allmektige. Fana’ oppnås ikke gjennom å torturere seg selv, ved selvplaging, ved å påføre seg selv masse problemer, heller ikke slik mange asketer gjør; for selv etter å ha torturert seg selv kommer de ikke frem til denne forståelsen hvis det ikke var meningen at de skulle det. Kjernen i guddommelig væren finner du ved å si nei til ditt lille selv, det falske selvet som dekker over ditt sanne selv.

Mange har sett på selvfornektelse som veien til lykke fordi de har tolket selvfornektelse som askese. De har fratatt seg selv alle kortvarige gleder. Det finnes en annen måte å se det på. Det er ikke meningen at vi skal gi avkall på det som er skapt. Vi leser i Koranen at alt som finnes på jorden og i himmelen er skapt for menneskeheten. Derfor skal vi ikke gi avkall på alt som er vakkert og gir velvære og glede. Hemmeligheten med det hele er at det som er skapt for oss mennesker er skapt for at vi skal bruke det, men vi må ikke bli sittende fast i det. Feilen oppstår hvis man gir avkall på den sanne lykkes vei i jakten på nytelse og gleder.

Fred:  For all bønn og hengivenhet er til for å oppnå fred. En god og snill person, lærd og med gode kvalifikasjoner, sterk og kraftfull, kan ikke være åndelig, selv med alle disse egenskapene, hvis ikke sjelen har tilegnet seg den rytmen som er dens naturlige rytme. Kun i denne rytmen finnes livets tilfredshet. Fred er ikke en kunnskap, det er ikke en kraft; fred er ikke en lykke. Fred er alt dette. Fred skaper lykke. Fred inspirerer en til kunnskap om det synlige og det skjulte. I freden finnes den guddommelige kraften.

Det er ikke den opprømte som seirer i livets evige kamp. Det er den fredfulle som utholder alt, som tilgir alt, som forstår alt, som tar alt til seg. . Det er fred som gir dem kraft og som muliggjør klar observasjon. Derfor er det de fredfulle som forstår, for fred hjelper dem til å forstå. Det er de fredfulle som kan kontemplere. Når det er mangel på fred kan man ikke kontemplere ordentlig. Derfor er det slik at alt som har med åndelig fremgang å gjøre avhenger av fred. Og nå er spørsmålet ”Hvorfor har man ikke fred?” Svaret er ”Kjærligheten til sanseinntrykk”.

 Det ingen grunn for den som går en åndelig vei å føle skuffelse, uansett hvordan det står til med verden. Deres åndelige kamp er ikke til for at andre skal verdsette den. Den er til fordi de ønsker å gå en åndelig vei. Holder de fast ved at sannheten, den guddommelige sannheten er det vakreste i verden, og at vi må verdsette, besvare og beundre alle former for skjønnhet, vil menneskene åpne seg opp og utvide sin sfære. Vi må kjenne igjen det hellige i all skjønnhet; i fruktens sødme, i blomstens farge, i rosens duft, i stjernenes lys. Gjør vi det, tillater vi sjelen å folde seg ut og vise frem sin guddommelighet.

Qutes from Inayat Khan

For the value of everything exists for man only so long as he does not understand it. When he has fully understood, the value is lost, be it the lowest thing or the highest thing.

The secret of mysticism is to feel, think, speak, and act at the same time, for then all that is said, or felt, or done, becomes perfect.

What is rooted out in the quest of truth is ignorance; it is entirely removed from the heart, and the outlook becomes wide; as wide as the Eye of God; therein is born the divine Spirit, the spirit, which is called Divinity.

He who sincerely seeks his real purpose in life is himself sought by that purpose. As he concentrates on that search a light begins to clear his confusion, call it revelation, call it inspiration, call it what you will. It is mistrust that misleads. Sincerity leads straight to the goal.

All that produces longing in the heart deprives the heart of freedom.

To repress desire is to suppress a divine impulse.

As soon as one thinks of another the boundary that limits the will of the individual breaks down and  becomes the universal will. 

Our prayer reaches God through our ears. God is inside us. If our soul can hear our voice God can hear it too. 

From a worldly aspect there may be a man who looks after himself, who is self-conscious, who thinks of himself, who concerns himself solely with himself. One can say that the ego counts in that person, but that is all that one can admire. Then there may be another person, who has outgrown that thought of self. You cannot help respecting him. The respect comes by itself, as soon as a person has emerged from that thought of self. And when a person has lost interest in holding, in possessing others, then his charm is such that without his holding or possessing all becomes his own. You can feel that person to be above the average in the world.

Morally prayer is the greatest virtue and the only way of being free from all sin, because in prayer one reaches that spirit of God which is all-powerful and which is ever-forgiving, and it is by the power of prayer that man opens the doors of the heart, in which God the Merciful abides. No ethics, no philosophy, can give greater joy than this, which is sincere devotion to God; and the deepest joy is his who knows best how to humble himself before God. The proud man, ignorant of greatness of God, and of His all-sufficient power, does not know this exaltation, which raises the soul from earth to Heaven. To be really sorry for one's errors is like opening the doors of heaven.

As the little child learns to walk, falling a thousand times before he can stand; and after that falling again and again before he learns at last to walk, so are we no more than little children before God; we fail again and again, but if we feel that because we failed yesterday we shall do so again to-morrow, we shall never overcome. We must always look forward with faith to the day when we shall walk aright, and that day will surely come. "As I have fallen so often perhaps I shall never walk", that thought would make a mental image on his soul, and he would never walk. Our follies and errors are natural; but when we defend ourselves, making virtues of our shortcomings and trying to hide our errors, it is as if we nurtured our errors, trying to make them grow. The only real method of growth is to judge ourselves constantly and to see where we fail; then in prayer to ask for pardon and right guidance. His words about prayer here:https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/archives/prayer.htm

 

His prayers here: https://thethoughtsofdavidaw.blogspot.com/2020/12/sufi-prayers-from-pir-o-murshid-inayat.html

Man is here on earth for this one purpose, that he may bring forth that spirit of God in him and thus discover his own perfection.

The stages of self realization: The first stage is to imagine God as great and as perfect as you can. The second stage is to lose your self in the thought of God, in the same way that the lover loses the thought of self in the thought of the beloved and in the third stage the beloved becomes the self, and the self is there no more. For then the self, as we think it to be, no longer remains; the self becomes what it really is. It is that realization which is called self-realization. https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VI/VI_30.htm

True happiness is not gained, it is discovered. Man's way itself is happiness. That is why he longs for happiness. What keeps happiness out of one's life is the closing of the doors of the heart, and when the heart is not living, then there is no happiness there. Sometimes the heart is not fully alive but only partly. At the same time it expects life from the other heart. But the real life of the heart is to live independently in its own happiness and that is gained by spiritual attainment, by digging deep into one's own heart.

Meditation is to train the mind to become passive and to receive inspiration, power and blessings. Meditation is not just to sit passive with eyes closed, but to be attentive to what emerges. Not only witnessing it, but to be prepared to sharpen ones senses to make body and mind receptive for vibrations. With meditation we also clean the mind from unnecessary impressions that makes the mind impure. The purpose of concentration, meditation and contemplation, which in total is the essence of religion, philosophy and mysticism, is to attain the depth that is the root of our life. It is to lift the soul above the body and mind. It is like opening up to the spaciousness, senses and the various qualities of the mind. This spaciousness comes from meditation and the soul can now operate through all visible and invisible parts, instead of just one part of ones being.

The sufi teachers emphasis kindness, mildness and love more than how diligent the student meditate. In sufism not only meditation is taught, but also Gods love, that is an opening of the heart towards the heart of every creatures. The purpose of meditation, concentration and contemplation is simply to open our hearts, have focused minds and search for our lives purpose. What we achieve by studying philosophy and mysticism and by practicing concentration and meditation is to serve others better.

True power is not in trying to gain power. True power is in becoming power. But how to become power? It requires an attempt to make a definite change in oneself and that change is a kind of struggle with one's false self. When the false self is crucified, then the true self is resurrected. Before the world this crucifixion appears to be lack of power, but in truth all power is attained by this resurrection.

As to knowledge, it has two aspects. One knowledge is what one gathers by learning the names and forms of this life. That cannot satisfy this appetite. It is only a stepping-stone to it. This outer learning only helps one to come to the inner learning, but the inner learning is quite different from the outer learning. How is it learned? It is learned by studying the self. One finds that all the knowledge one strives after and all that exists to study, is all in oneself. Therefore one finds a kind of universe in oneself, and by the study of the self one comes to that spiritual knowledge for which the soul hungers.

There are many who do not mind if they hurt anyone as long as they think they have told the truth. There is, however, a difference between fact and truth. Fact is that which can be spoken of; truth is that which cannot be put into words.

The bare truth alone is not sufficient; Truth must be made into wisdom. What is wisdom? Wisdom is the robe of truth.

When a person doesn't listen to us we must know that it is because ourselves don't believe.

Intuition can be describes as a glimpse of knowledge that one has stored inside oneself, that comes in a time that it is needed. It is a disclosure of of ones own spirit that unveils all things. It is by seeing the cause of every fault in oneself that one is able to have insight into human nature.

In order to make the intuition clear, the best thing is to stop imagination.

Every imagination is intuition until it has been corrupted by reason and when it has been corrupted by reason it becomes fantasy. For as soon as we start think it out we at once descend from a higher, the spiritual source of information and use earthly means to establish what belongs in heaven. Therefor the first condition is to separate this outer knowledge from the inner knowing.

There is a knowledge that one can perceive with the senses, and there is a knowledge that one can perceive with the mind alone, and a knowledge that can be realized by the soul.

Man experiences heaven when conscious of his soul; he experiences the earth when conscious of his body. Man experiences that plane which is between heaven and earth when he is conscious of his mind.

The soul is like a light in the room that is the mind, for the soul perceives feeling, thought, memory, reason, and identity, and identifies itself with them. In reality it is aloof from them. But as the soul cannot see itself, it thinks, with the help of the ego, “I am sad”, or, “I am glad,” or, “I remember,” or, “I have forgotten.” In reality the soul does none of these things; they are all the workings of the mind, but it identifies itself with what it sees at this time.

After death, that which the soul had known as mind is now to the soul a world; That which the soul while on earth called imagination is now before it a reality. In this world our mind is in us. In the next world we are in our mind.

There is a still deeper sphere to which our memory is linked, and that sphere is the universal memory, in other words, the divine mind.

All the quotes in this book is interesting: Daily meditations by Inayat Khan. You can download it here for free: https://cupdf.com/document/inayat-khan-daily-meditations.html