The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan1

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Topic

Archetypes

Astrology

Attainment

Chakras

Character

Christ

Compassion

Dervish

Desire and renunciation

Destiny and Free Will

Dimensions

Discipleship

Dreams

Duties and debts

Ego

Elements

God

Guidance

Healers

Healing

Health

Heart

Immortality

Initiation

Light and Love

Lovers

Magnetism

Mastery

Material life

Meditation

Message

Mind

Physical Body

Planes

Poets

Power

Prayers

Purpose

Reconstruction of World

Relationships

Religions

Saints

School

Scientists

Sexuality

Sleep

Speaking

Stages

Stories

Sufism

Teaching Style

Voice

Women

World

Wounds of the Heart

Sub-Topic

A Cover Over the Soul

Care of the body

Developing will-power

Experience through the

Eyes

Eyes express

Fire Walking

Greetings

Intermarriage

Law of Heredity

Left - Right

Lips

Mind-Body Influence

Movements in Face

Physiognomy

Purpose of

Radiance of Face

Sense Organs

Sex determination

Spine

Stiffness

Vegetarian Diet

Vol. 13, Gathas

Everyday Life

3.3, The Radiance of the Face

As the cleansing of a metal object produces a shine in it so is the cleansing of the heart, especially from any feeling that produces humiliation. When a person thinks, "I have been wrong by acting in a certain way," "By saying a certain thing," or "By having thought something which should not have crossed my mind," he loses, so to speak, a radiance which even beams out through his countenance and which is called in Persian Ab-i-Ru, meaning "The Radiance of the Face." Every person shows from his expression his condition of heart. Therefore the innocence of the expression is the sign of the purity of heart. Man may be clever, learned, qualified, most able, he may be strong physically or even mentally, he may be wealthy, of high rank, but none of these outside things help him to retain that glow of the countenance which depends only upon the purity of heart.

Many know and some say that the eyes can tell everything that is in the heart of man, but fewer there are who know the cause behind it. The eyes are like the thermometer of the center in the head, which is focused to the center of the heart. Every impression that the heart bears, beautiful or ugly, is mirrored upon the center of the head, and so it is reflected accordingly in man's visage, specially in his eyes, which express the most.

There are many clever people but so few there are who may be called wise. The clever ones plot and plan one against the other and exchange evil thoughts between themselves. So those deceitful and treacherous, intoxicated by their interest in life, cover their eyes with the cover of selfishness, thus keeping the heart from showing out its light, which alone illuminates the path of every achievement in life.

It might seem hard work to empty one's heart of all bad impressions and ill feelings, of all bitterness and evil thoughts, and yet it is not nearly so hard as the task of earning one's daily bread. The work in one's everyday life takes most part of the day, the emptying the heart of all undesirable things takes but a few moments silence. It is the desire of erasing from the heart every undesirable impression that enables one in time to purify one's heart.