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 Realization of God

In the terms of the Sufis the Self of God is called Zat, and His qualities, His merits, are named Sifat. The Hindus call the former aspect of God Purusha and the latter Prakriti, which can be rendered in English by the words spirit and nature. Zat, the Spirit of God, is incomprehensible. The reason is that, That which comprehends Itself is Intelligence, God's real Being; so comprehension has nothing to comprehend in its own Being. No doubt, in our usual terms it is the comprehending faculty in us which we call comprehension; but in this it is not meant so, for intelligence is not necessarily intellect.

Merit is something which is comprehensible; it is something which is clear and distinct, so that it can be made intelligible. But intelligence is not intelligible except to its own self. Intelligence knows that I am; but it does not know what I am. Such is the Nature of God. Intelligence would not have known its own power and existence, if it had not known something besides itself. So God knows Himself by manifestation. Manifestation is the self of God, but a self which is limited, a self that makes Him know that He is perfect when He compares His own Being with this limited self which we call nature. Therefore the purpose of the whole Creation is the realization that God Himself gains by discovering His own Perfection through this manifestation.

Then the idea that has existed in Christianity is also a riddle to solve that we may find out the truth of life. It is the idea of the Trinity. What keeps the soul in perplexity is the threefold aspect of manifestation. As long as the soul remains in this puzzle, it cannot arrive at the knowledge of the One. These three aspects are: the Seer, Sight, and the Seen; the Knower, Knowledge, and the Known. Plainly explained, I would say: these are three aspects of life. One aspect is the person who sees; the other aspect is the sight, or the eyes, by the help of which he sees; and the third aspect is that which he sees.

One, therefore, cannot readily accept the idea that, "What I see is the same as myself"; nor can he believe for a moment that, "The medium, by which I see, is myself"; for the three above said aspects seem to be standing separate and looking at one another's face, as the first person, second person, and third person of Brahma. When this riddle is solved by knowing that the three are one, then the purpose of the God-Ideal is fulfilled. For the three veils which cover the One are lifted up. Then they remain no longer three; then there is One, the Only Being.

As Hegel says,
"If you believe in one God, you are right; if you believe in two Gods, that is true; but if you believe in three Gods, that is right also; for the nature of unity is realized by variety."