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

Unity and Uniformity

Religion

The Sufi's Religion

The Aspects of Religion

How to Attain to Truth by Religion

Five Desires Answered by Religion

Law

Aspects of the Law of Religion

Prayer

The Effect of Prayer

The God Ideal

The Spiritual Hierarchy

The Master, the Saint, the Prophet

Prophets and Religions

The Symbology of Religious Ideas

The Message and the Messenger

Sufism

The Spirit of Sufism

The Sufi's Aim in Life

The Ideal of the Sufi

The Sufi Movement

The Universal Worship

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

God is Love

Two Points of View

The Kingship of God

Belief in God

The Existence God

Conceptions of God

Many Gods

The Personality of God

The Realization of God

Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Forgiver

The Only King

The Birth of God

Three Steps

God the Infinite

God's Dealings with Us

Dependence Upon God

Divine Grace

The Will, Human and Divine

Making God Intelligible

Man's Relation to God

Divine Manner

Vol. 9, The Unity of Religious Ideals

The God Ideal

Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Forgiver

Why is God called the Creator ? Because the creation itself is the evidence of some wisdom working. No mechanical creation could result in such perfection as is Nature. All the machines of the scientists are built on the model of Nature's mechanism, and every inspiration that the artist has he receives from Nature. Nature is so perfect in itself that in reality it needs no scientific or artistic improvement upon it, except that, to satisfy the limited human fancies, man develops science and art. And yet it is still the creation of God expressed in art and science through man; as in man God is not absent, but more able in some ways to finish His creation, which necessitates His finishing it as man. No better evidence is needed for a sincere inquirer into the Creator-God. If he only concentrates his mind upon Nature, he certainly must sooner or later have an insight into the perfect wisdom which is hidden behind it. The soul that comes into the world is only a divine ray. The impressions it gets on its way while coming to the earth also are from God. No movement is possible without the command of God; therefore, in all creation, in its every aspect, in the end of search and examination God alone proves to be the only Creator.

The word Sustainer is attached to His Name. Jesus Christ said, "Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin; yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these." And Rumi explains it further in the Masnavi: "Even the spider is not neglected by God, but is supplied with its food." If the smallest germ and worm, insignificant as it is, had depended for its supply upon man, who cannot even always supply himself, how would the creation have gone on? It seems that the creatures who do not worry for their supply, to their mouth their food is conveyed. Man's struggle, it seems, for his supply is greater than that of all other living beings in the lower creation. But what makes it so? It is not God, it is man himself, who is selfish, and who is unfair to his brother, absorbed in his own interests in life.

In spite of all famines, the world still has sufficient supplies; but imagine the amount of food that has been sunk in the sea, and how many years the earth, in which man's food is prepared, was neglected by men busy killing one another! If the result of this causes hunger and greater strife, is God to be blamed? It is man who deserves all blame. Sa'adi very subtly explains human nature in regard to providence: it is the most beautiful expression: "'The Creator is always busy preparing for me the supply, but my anxiety for my supply is my natural illness." Life is such a phenomenon, if only we dive deep into it, that we find no question is without an answer. lt never is so that we need something and are not provided with it. The only difference is between what we think we need and what we really need. The supply is always greater than our need, therefore providence is always a phenomenon. Sometimes we look at it with smiles, at other times with tears. But it is something real and living; and more real it will prove to be if we look at it by climbing to the top of our reason.

God as Judge is spoken of by many prophets, and the man of reason and logic has tried to attribute justice to the law. But justice is not law; justice is above the law. Very often, to our limited view, things in the world appear unjust; and often it seems that there is man's law: what he wishes, he does, if he has the power to do it. But behind this illusive appearance there certainly is a strict justice and a real law. No sooner does the heart becoming living than this law manifests. One cannot but marvel at life and nature, to see how great is the justice of God: that it is, to give with the right hand and take with the left--all you give and all you take. No soul has to wait for days or weeks or years, or for death to come, for the law to manifest. Every day is a Judgment Day, and every hour is the hour of justice. A criminal will escape from the prison bars, but he cannot go from under the sky! There is the Judge within and without. When his eyes are closed he is being judged within; when they are open he is being judged without. We are always in a court of justice. If we do not realize it, it is because we are intoxicated by life, and we become like a drunken man in the court, who does not see the judge nor justice.

But what we can marvel most at in life, is to know that, in spite of His great Justice, God is the Forgiver. He forgives even more than He judges, for justice comes from His Intelligence, but forgiveness comes from His Divine Love. When His Divine Love rises as a wave, it washes away the sins of a whole life in a moment. For law has no power to stand before love; the stream of love sweeps it away. When before Christ the woman was brought who was accused by everyone of her crime, what arose from the heart of the Master? The law? No; it was love, in the form of mercy and compassion. Even the thought of the Love of God fills the heart with joy, and makes it lightened of its burden. And if, as the religious have always taught, once in a person's life he has asked whole-heartedly for forgiveness, in spite of his whole life's sins he will certainly be forgiven.