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

The Existence God

The existence of God is a question which arises in every mind, whether in the mind of the believer in God or in the mind of the unbeliever. There are moments when the greatest believer in God questions His existence--whether there really is a God? He finds it, at the second thought, sacrilegious to have a notion such as this, and he tries to get rid of it. But often the question rises in the heart of the unbeliever if it is really true; if there is such a thing as God? The idea of God is inborn in man. The God-Ideal is the flower of the human race; and this flower blooms in the realization of God.

As everything in the objective world has its tendency to rise upwards, so the tendency of the soul can be seen in human aspiration, which always soars upwards, whatever be the sphere of man's consciousness. The man who is only conscious of the material life, his aspirations reach as far as they can reach in material gains, yet he proceeds higher and higher, and remains discontented with all that he achieves through life, owing to the immensity of life in every phase. This craving for the attainment of what is unattainable, gives the soul a longing to reach life's utmost heights. It is the nature of the soul to try and discover what is behind the veil; it is the soul's constant longing to climb heights which are beyond his power; it is the desire of the soul to see something that it has never seen; it is the constant longing of the soul to know something it has never known. But the most wonderful thing about it is that the soul already knows there is something behind this veil, the veil of perplexity; that there is something to be sought for in the highest spheres of life; that there is some beauty to be seen; that there is Someone to be known who is knowable. This desire, this longing, is not acquired; this desire is a dim knowledge of the soul which it has in itself.

Therefore disbelief in the God-Ideal is nothing but a condition which is brought about by the vapors arising from the material life of illusion, and covering as clouds the light of the soul, which is its life. It is therefore that the unbeliever is not satisfied with his unbelief. Yes, sometimes his vanity is fed by it, to think that he is wise in not believing in Someone Whose existence is believed in by numberless blind beings. So he begins to think: "After all, to believe in God is not difficult; any simpleton can believe in the God-Ideal." He takes, therefore, the opposite direction of refusing to believe. He is honest, and yet he is like someone who stands before a wall which hinders his path to progress.

If this world offered to one person all it possesses, even then the soul would not be satisfied because its satisfaction is in its higher aspiration, and it is this higher aspiration which leads to God. The question: "Has man an aspiration because it is his nature, but in the end of the journey he may perhaps not find anything?" may be answered: "There is no question which has no answer, and there is no desire the object of which is lacking." There is appetite, and there is food; there is thirst, and there is water; there is sight, and there is something to be seen. So there is aspiration, and there is God. Man knows not what is not. There is no such thing which one knows and which does not exist. For one cannot know what does not exist; something must exist first to enable one to know it.

But there is a question: "Everyone does not know God; does he not then only believe in some idea?" The answer is: "What is the idea? The idea is that out of which all is born. Science, art, music, poetry, religion and nationality, all is born of the idea. If the idea is the source from which all comes, then why is the idea something insignificant, and why is God, Who is the Source and Goal of all, not found in the idea?"

The seeking for God is a natural outcome of the maturity of the soul. There is a time in life when a passion is awakened in the soul which gives the soul a longing for the unattainable, and if the soul does not take that direction, then it certainly misses something in life for which is its innate longing and in which lies its ultimate satisfaction.