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

Connected to the Earth

Continual Struggle

Evolution

Receiving an Offering

Responsibilities and Occupations

Spiritual Means Living

Vol. 1, The Soul, Whence And Whither?

Jinn

Manifestation

When the soul comes into the physical world it receives an offering from the whole universe; and that offering is the body in which to function. It is not offered to the soul only by the parents, but by the ancestors, by the nation and race into which the soul is born, and by the whole human race. This body is not only an offering of the human race, but is an outcome of something that the whole world has produced for ages;

  • a clay which has been kneeded a thousand times over;
  • a clay which has been prepared so that in its very development it has become more intelligent, more radiant, and more living;
  • a clay which appeared first in the mineral kingdom, which developed in the vegetable kingdom, which then appeared as the animal, and which was finished in the making of that body which is offered to the new-coming human soul.
One may ask, "It is not true then, as some scientists say in their biological study, that man has risen from the animal kingdom?" Certainly it is true; but true in the sense explained above.