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. Mysticism in Life

2. Divine Wisdom

3. Life's Journey

4. Raising the Consciousness

5. The Path to God

Four Stages of God-Consciousness

6. The Ideal of the Mystic

7. Nature

8. Ideal

9. The Moral of the Mystic

10. Brotherhood

The Ideal of Brotherhood

11. Love

12. Beauty

13. Self-Knowledge

14. The Realization of the True Ego

15. The Tuning of the Spirit

16. The Visions of the Mystic

17. The Mystic's Nature

18. The Inspiration and Power of the Mystic

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

Harmony

Beauty of the Objective World

Beauty of the Living Being

Beauty of God

Discovery of Beauty

Vol. 11, Mysticism in Life

12. Beauty

Discovery of Beauty

There are two ways of discovering beauty.

  • One way is to find it in the distribution of all things and beings. What one person lacks another has got; what one tree lacks the other tree has; what the river lacks the sea has, and what the desert lacks is to be found the forest; what the earth lacks is to be found in the sky. And therefore, when we take beauty as a whole, we begin to get a glimpse of what it is. Beauty is never absent, but when we take a part of it and look only at that, we shall certainly see some lack of beauty. Those who see beauty cut up in divisions, in sections, become critical. They are in pursuit of beauty, but they do not it; they find a little in one person and the lack of it in another.

    But even when they find a little beauty in one person, they still find something lacking too; and when we compare this with the perfection of beauty, then the lack of beauty manifests much more to us than the beauty itself. Naturally, therefore, man becomes critical, and this tendency makes him blind to himself.

  • The other way of seeing divine beauty is to close one's eyes for a moment to the dense aspect of beauty in order to see the inner beauty. For instance the one who rises above the beauty of form begins to see the beauty of thought; the one who rises above the beauty of thought begins to feel the beauty of feeling, of" sentiment, which is greater still; and the one who rises even above sentiment and sees the spiritual aspect of beauty, sees a beauty which is still greater. There is no end to the realization of the inner beauty; the inner beauty is much greater when compared with the outer beauty, yet it does not make a person turn away from the outer beauty. It only makes him appreciate it more than others do.

Once an ascetic thinker was taken to a variety show in New York, where there were all sorts of dances and acts and different amusements; and the one who took him there was eager to find out what his opinion about it was and said to him, "This must disgust you, a contemplative person, to come and see this nonsense going on on the stage." He replied, "No, never. How can it be disgusting? Is it not my Krishna who is playing there?"

It is those who have touched the inner beauty who are capable of appreciating beauty in all forms; and it is not only that they appreciate it, they admire and worship it. If worship is given to anything or anyone, it is given to the God who is hidden in the form of beauty.

The poems of the Sufis of Persia and elsewhere, such as Hafiz and Jami, Rumi and Farid-ud-Din Attar, are not only philosophical statements, but they are written from beginning to end in admiration of beauty. And if one were to dive deep into their every verse, one would find that each one is equal to a hundred books full of philosophy. Why? Because their souls have been moved to dance at the sight of beauty. What they have expressed in their words is living, burning, full of" beauty. It penetrates the one who can feel it, who can admire it. Their poetry is their prayer. It might seem that it is sung to beauty, but to whom is it sung? Their song is to God.