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-

The Soul of Religion

Body and Soul of Religion

Dharma

The Religion of the Heart

The Present Need of the World

The Coming World Religion

Five Aspects of Religion

The Message of Sufism

Vol. 9, The Unity of Religious Ideals

Religion

The Message of Sufism

What is the Message of Sufism? Sufism is the Message of digging out that water-like life, which has been buried by the impressions of this material life. There is an English phrase: "A lost soul." The soul is not lost; the soul is buried. When it is dug out, then the divine life springs out like a spring of water. And the question is, what is digging? What does one dig in oneself? Is it not true, is it not said in the scriptures, that God is love? Then where is God to be found? Is He to be found in the seventh heaven or is He to be found in the heart of man?

He is to be found in the heart of man, which is his shrine.

But if this heart is buried -- the heart which has lost that light, that life, that warmth -- what does this heart become? It becomes as a grave. There is in a popular song in English a beautiful line which says: "The light of the whole life dies when Love is done." That living thing in the heart is love. It may come as kindness, as friendship, as sympathy, as tolerance, as forgiveness -- in whatever form this living water rises from the heart, it proves the heart to be a divine spring. And when once this spring is open and is rising, everything that man does as an action, as a word, as a feeling, it is all religion; that man becomes religious.

If there is any coming religion, a new religion to come, it will be this religion, the religion of the heart. After all the suffering that has been caused to humanity by the recent war, man is beginning to open his eyes. And as time will pass he will open his eyes to know and understand that the true religion is in opening the heart, in widening the outlook, and in living the religion which is one religion.