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. Mental Purification

2. The Pure Mind

3. Unlearning

4. The Distinction Between the Subtle and the Gross

5. Mastery

6. The Control of the Body

7. The Control of the Mind

8. The Power of Thought

9. Concentration

10. The Will

11. Mystic Relaxation (1)

12. Mystic Relaxation (2)

13. Magnetism

14. The Power Within Us

15. The Secret of Breath

16. The Mystery of Sleep

17. Silence

18. Dreams and Revelations

19. Insight (1)

20. Insight (2)

21. The Expansion of Consciousness

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

The Body, the Sacred Temple

1: Health

2: Balance

3: Perfecting the Body

4: Body as Instrument

5: Sensation and Exaltation

Vol. 4, Mental Purification

6. The Control of the Body

3: Perfecting the Body

The third aspect of our physical existence is the perfecting of our body, in other words the fineness, the sensitiveness, of the body. There is a spiritual temperament, and that temperament you can see from a person's body. There are sensitive people, maybe a little bit nervous, and then there are dense people who have quite a different aspect.

  • A sensitive person who can appreciate music,
  • who can respond to the beauty of line and color,
  • who can enjoy a salt and sweet, a sour and bitter taste fully,
  • who can feel cold and heat,
  • who can perceive fragrance, distinguish all these,

It is he who is born with a spiritual temperament.

  • The person who has no love for music,
  • who cannot appreciate fragrance,
  • who cannot understand the beauty of line and color,

That person is dense, and it will take time for him to develop.

Therefore the experience of all the joy and pleasure that life offers is not in materiality, it is in spirituality. It is not the material person who experiences life fully; it is the spiritual person who does so.

One might ask, "Then what about these ascetics who lived the life of a hermit in solitude, who did not eat proper food, who kept themselves away from all the comfort and beauty of life?" These are not for everyone to follow. At the same time it is a mistake to criticize them. Such people are the ones who make experiments of life by the sacrifice of all the joy and pleasure that the earth can give. By their solitude they experiment, just as a scientist shuts himself up in his laboratory for years and years; and these ascetics who left everything in the world also attained a certain knowledge which they give us. It is not a principle for everyone to follow, for spirituality does not depend upon such things.

Why are the eyes given if not to appreciate all that is beautiful; why are the ears given if one may not enjoy music; why has one been sent on to the earth if one cannot look at the earth for fear of being called materialist? Those who make spirituality out to be something like this make a bogey of God, something frightening. In point of fact spirituality is the fullness of life.