The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan      

        (How to create a bookmark)

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

Superstitions, Customs, and Beliefs

Insight

Symbology

Breath

Morals

Everyday Life

Metaphysics

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

1.1, Belief and Superstition

1.2, Belief

1.3, Customs (1)

1.4, Customs (2)

1.5, Hanuman

1.6, Bells and Gongs

1.7, The Custom of Drinking the Health of Friends

1.8, The Origin of the Custom of the Seclusion of Women

1.9, The Custom of the Seclusion of Women (1)

1.10, The Custom of the Seclusion of Women (2)

2.1, "Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood"

2.2, Customs of Courtesy

2.3, Customs of the Marriage Ceremony

2.4, The Horse

2.5, Oracles Among the Ancient Greeks

2.6, The Greek Mysteries (1)

2.7, The Greek Mysteries (2)

2.8, The Greek Mysteries (3)

2.9, The Banshee

2.10, The Psychology of the Shadow

3.1, Toasts

3.2, Wedding Customs

3.3, Funeral Customs

3.4, The Swansong

3.5, Customs at the Birth of a Child in India

3.6, The Superstitions of the Days Existing in the East

3.7, Unlucky Numbers

3.8, The Mysteries of Omens

3.9, The Influence of Time

3.10, Planetary Influences

Vol. 13, Gathas

Superstitions, Customs, and Beliefs

3.3, Funeral Customs

The human body represents the five elements, and nature's law is that every element returns to its own origin. Naturally therefore the being which is the air part turns into air, the heat is absorbed by the heat -- the fire-element has left already. The body belongs either to earth or to water. But the body, which is born on earth, not in the water, and has sought its comfort on earth, not in water, and has also been afraid of the water, an element foreign to it, had better be saved from it and had better be buried.

Another point of view is that every living being, whether man or animal, has a fear of fire. A powerful animal like the lion is afraid of the fire; the elephant with all its large body and strength runs away from fire. If that is the nature of all living beings, to be afraid of fire, then imagine for a person who is not yet dead to know that as soon as he is dead his body will be put in the fire. Although his mind is separate from the body, yet his mind will have a shock just the same.

The reason of mummies is to suggest that if the body which is dead can be kept along, then the life, which is real life, is eternal. Besides among the ancient Egyptians there was a custom (the same tendency exists in the East) that at every banquet or feast a mummy was brought in. It was brought for a moment and taken away, in order to waken man in the midst of his great joy and enthusiasm and pleasure to the consciousness that there is such a thing as death, that there is something awaiting him and that he must not keep ignorance of that truth, absorbed in all the pleasures of the world. But at the same time they put the mummies also in the grave.