We say that the hand is in control when it can grasp something and hold the thing in its grasp. The fingers, we say, are in control when they move up and down the piano, when they strike B when B is wanted, they do not strike E. Control is in repose and activity both. Sometimes we find that we have become angry, we have become impatient, we have lost control of our mind. Before control of the mind is lost, the control of the breath is lost. More than a thousand times since I have been in the West people have said to me, "We cannot control our mind. We cannot keep our mind fixed on one point." The first step is to lessen the activity of the mind. When the thoughts come more slowly, this is the first step. And the first thing is to control the breath, to make it slow and regular. By this the health of the body is improved, and the health of the mind. In the Qur'an it is said, "Surely, we revealed it on the night of Power" (Sura 97, 1:5).

What was that night of power to him whose whole life was revelation? It was the sending of breath within. It is natural that we always look outward. The breath is directed outward. We see what is outward, we hear what is outward, we taste what is outward, we are touched by what is outward. When the breath is sent within, then a person sees what is within, he hears what is within, he tastes within, he is touched by what is within. When this is done and the breath is purified, the mystics see in it forms and colors which reveal to them the past, present, and future. They know the past, present, and future of every person whom they see. But if the control of breath tells him the past, present, and future, that is too little. That is not worthwhile. It must tell him more. It must bring him to that unlimited existence from this limited being, to that immortality from this mortal being.

In the account of the miraj it is said that a buraq was brought for Muhammed to ride, an animal like a horse with a human face. This buraq was the breath, the horse whose rein is in the rider's hand. If a person exercises the breath and practices concentration with a scientific idea only, he soon becomes tired. He thinks, "Why take so much trouble, for what result?" If it is done with the thought of God, with the repetition of the names of God, then a happiness comes, a bliss, by the thought of the idealized God, in Whom is all perfection, all beauty, the Friend to Whom we can tell our sorrows, all our sorrows, all our troubles. Sa'adi says that in the thought of God there is this blessing, that it draws us every moment nearer to Him. The practice of zikr makes you much warmer to all about you. The Fikr makes you able to send your thought to another and it gives long life. The more each breath is lengthened, the longer you will live. Some yogis, by this means, have lived three hundred or four hundred years. God bless you.