The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan      

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Volume

Sayings

Social Gathekas

Religious Gathekas

The Message Papers

The Healing Papers

Vol. 1, The Way of Illumination

Vol. 1, The Inner Life

Vol. 1, The Soul, Whence And Whither?

Vol. 1, The Purpose of Life

Vol. 2, The Mysticism of Sound and Music

Vol. 2, The Mysticism of Sound

Vol. 2, Cosmic Language

Vol. 2, The Power of the Word

Vol. 3, Education

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

Vol. 3, Character and Personality

Vol. 4, Healing And The Mind World

Vol. 4, Mental Purification

Vol. 4, The Mind-World

Vol. 5, A Sufi Message Of Spiritual Liberty

Vol. 5, Aqibat, Life After Death

Vol. 5, The Phenomenon of the Soul

Vol. 5, Love, Human and Divine

Vol. 5, Pearls from the Ocean Unseen

Vol. 5, Metaphysics, The Experience of the Soul Through the Different Planes of Existence

Vol. 6, The Alchemy of Happiness

Vol. 7, In an Eastern Rose Garden

Vol. 8, Health and Order of Body and Mind

Vol. 8, The Privilege of Being Human

Vol. 8a, Sufi Teachings

Vol. 9, The Unity of Religious Ideals

Vol. 10, Sufi Mysticism

Vol. 10, The Path of Initiation and Discipleship

Vol. 10, Sufi Poetry

Vol. 10, Art: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Vol. 10, The Problem of the Day

Vol. 11, Philosophy

Vol. 11, Psychology

Vol. 11, Mysticism in Life

Vol. 12, The Vision of God and Man

Vol. 12, Confessions: Autobiographical Essays of Hazat Inayat Khan

Vol. 12, Four Plays

Vol. 13, Gathas

Vol. 14, The Smiling Forehead

By Date

THE SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS

Heading

1. Voices

2. Impressions

3. The Magnetism of Beings and Objects

4. The Influence of Works of Art

5. The Life of Thought

6. The Form of Thought

7. Memory

8. Will

9. Reason

10. The Ego

11. Mind and Heart

12. Intuition and Dream

13. Inspiration

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

Intuition

Dream

Q & A

Vol. 2, Cosmic Language

12. Intuition and Dream

Q & A

Question: Could you please tell us about the difference between impulse and intuition. Answer: The impulse of an intuitive person is often guided by intuition, but the impulse of a person who lacks intuition may come from another direction; it may come from the surface. Impulse directed by intuition is desirable.

Impulse is just like a little straw floating on the surface of the water. This straw becomes an impulse when it is pushed by a wave which is coming from behind. For a right impulse man gets credit, for a wrong impulse he is blamed. Yet, if one saw what was behind the impulse, one would be slow to express an opinion on the subject.

Question: How do you explain symbolical dreams.
Answer: The symbolical dream is the working of a subtle mind, and it is a most wonderful working. As subtle as is the mentality, so subtle is the symbol in which the intuition or the thought is expressed. Therefore it has been very easy for the mystics to see the evolution of a person from his dreams. The subtler his dreams, the subtler the person is in his evolution. Nevertheless the virtue is not only in subtlety; the virtue is in simplicity. Poets, musicians, thinkers, writers, people of imagination have wonderful dreams, and the splendor of their dreams is in their marvelous symbology.

Question: Is it the study of symbols that develops intuition?
Answer: Not at all. It is intuition that develops insight into symbolism.

Question: Are conditions in dreams the same as the conditions after death.
Answer: Certainly.

Question: Are dreams of suffocation, drowning, and inability to walk and speak a result of one's health.
Answer: No, they are results of impressions which have been held in the mind. It is a kind of psychological disorder of the mind, a disease of the mind. The mind must be cured from it.

Question: What about dreams that are inspired by a stimulus from the physical body, as for instance a dream inspired by a feeling of pain in the body.
Answer: The mind has a reaction upon the body, and the body has a reaction upon the mind. Therefore it is natural that a bodily disorder may throw its shadow upon the mind and produce the same disorder in the mind.

Question: What about dreams of flying?
Many people say they are a bad sign. I think this is the most interesting thing in the world. You do not need airplanes! Dreams of flying have much to do with biology. Psychologically they are expressive of the soul's continual effort of rising above the imprisonment and limitation which it experiences in this earthly life. Also dreams of flying signify a journey awaiting one in the future.

Question: Will you please tell us what makes a person sing in his sleep?
Answer: The dance of his soul.

Question: What is the condition of the mind of people who nearly never dream? Are they not imaginative.
Answer: I think that they are better than imaginative: they are happy! The truth is that either a very advanced person does not dream much, or a very dense person, who never troubles his brain to think. He is quite happy and content without troubling to think. He does not have many dreams. Do not think that you seldom find such souls. You often meet with souls to whom thinking is a trouble; they would rather not trouble themselves about it.

Question: What is the difference between the dream which may be called a vision and the real vision.
Answer: Vision is vision. The more one knows reality, the less one uses the word "real." There is one vision which is seen in the dream, and there is another vision which is seen in a state of trance, a state between dream and wakefulness.