The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan1

BUILT-IN BOOKMARKS    
(Read the passage in context)

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

Aphorisms

Dowa (Protection)

Five Kinds

Five Levels

Khatum

NABI

Nayaz (Healing)

Necessity

Phrases

PIR

Prayer is our work

Prayerful Attitude

SALAT

SAUM

The Invocation

Vol. 2, The Mysticism of Sound and Music

Aphorisms

Love produces harmony and harmony creates beauty. Therefore the chief motto in life is "Love, harmony and beauty." Love in all things and beings the beloved God, in harmony with all in the right understanding, and beautify your life by observing the beauty within and without. By love, harmony and beauty you must turn the whole of life into a single vision of divine glory.

Life is a symphony, and the action of every person in this life is the playing of his particular part in the music.

The best moral is to learn from all that sounds inharmonious to us that we may not use it for another, and to use that which sounds harmonious to us for others. Thus should the ears be trained.

The further we advance, the more difficult and the more important becomes our part in the symphony of life; and the more conscious we are of this responsibility, the more efficient we become in accomplishing our task.

Once a soul has awakened to the continual music of life, that soul considers it as his responsibility, his duty, to play his part in the outer life, even if it be contrary to his inner condition at the moment.

The secret of seeking the will of God lies in cultivating the faculty of sensing harmony, for harmony is beauty and beauty is harmony. The lover of beauty in his further progress becomes the seeker of harmony, and by trying always to maintain harmony he will tune his heart to the will of God.

There is nothing in this world which does not speak. Every thing and every being is continually calling out its nature, its character, its secret; the more the inner sense is open, the more capable it becomes of hearing the voice of all things.

If the soul were awakened to feel what the birds feel when singing in the forest at dawn, man would know that their prayer is even more exalting than his own, for it is more natural.

There is nothing in the world which is not the instrument of God.

Sound is the sign of life; in the temples of gods and goddesses, in Hindu churches, bells ringing show life even in the silence.

Sound is hidden under words, and words are hidden under sound. When one perceives the words, one does not perceive the sound underneath, and when one perceives sound, one does not perceive the words underneath. When the poet perceives words, the musician perceives sound underneath. The mystic perceives even in that sound a Word which was God.

Tone continues, time expires.

Tone lives on time, time assimilates tone.

God is not in time. Therefore He is in the silence. Sound is part of the world of time.

Rhythm cannot exist without tone, nor tone without rhythm. They are interdependent for their existence, and it is the same with time and space.

Noisiness comes from restlessness, and restlessness is the destructive rhythm.

Man's atmosphere explains the condition of his soul. The further we go, so the more our disputes and arguments cease. They fade away until there is no color left in them; and when all the color has gone, the white light comes which is the light of God.

Nirvana means no color. What is color? Right or wrong, sin or virtue - all this is color, and in the realm of truth they fade away, as every color fades in the brightness of light. He who has realized this has entered nirvana.

A Sufi must always recognize in God the source of all things and the origin of all beings.

A Sufi must observe in the continual unfoldment of the spirit the birth of the soul.