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

Attainment of Truth

Entitlement

Fair Trade

Five Desires

Four Paths to the Goal

Pay for every gain

Sacrifice

Several Wishes

Small sacrifices

Vol. 1, The Purpose of Life

1. What Is My Purpose?

Five Desires

There are five aspects which give one the tendency towards the accomplishment of the inner purpose:

  1. desire to live,
  2. desire to know,
  3. desire for power,
  4. desire for happiness and
  5. desire for peace.

These five things work consciously or unconsciously in the profound depth of every soul. Working within one, they prompt one either to do right or to do wrong, and yet these five aspects belong to the one purpose in the accomplishment of which the purpose of the whole creation is fulfilled.

  1. When the desire to live brings one in touch with one's real life, a life which is not subject to death, then the purpose of that desire is accomplished.
  2. When one has been able to perceive fully the knowledge of one's own being, in which is to be found divine knowledge and the mystery of the whole manifestation, then the purpose of knowledge is attained.
  3. When one is able to get in touch with the Almighty Power, then the desire for power is achieved.
  4. When one has been able to find one's happiness in one's own heart, independent of all things outside, the purpose of the desire for happiness is fulfilled.
  5. When one is able to rise above all conditions and influences which disturb the peace of the soul and has found one's peace in the midst of the crowd and away from the world, in him the desire for peace is satisfied.

It is not in one or the other of these five desires that there is the accomplishment of the purpose; it is in the fulfillment of [all] these five desires that one's purpose is accomplished, the purpose for which every soul was born on earth.