The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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Volume SayingsSocial GathekasReligious GathekasThe Message PapersThe Healing PapersVol. 1, The Way of IlluminationVol. 1, The Inner LifeVol. 1, The Soul, Whence And Whither?Vol. 1, The Purpose of LifeVol. 2, The Mysticism of Sound and MusicVol. 2, The Mysticism of SoundVol. 2, Cosmic LanguageVol. 2, The Power of the WordVol. 3, EducationVol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa ShastraVol. 3, Character and PersonalityVol. 4, Healing And The Mind WorldVol. 4, Mental PurificationVol. 4, The Mind-WorldVol. 5, A Sufi Message Of Spiritual LibertyVol. 5, Aqibat, Life After DeathVol. 5, The Phenomenon of the SoulVol. 5, Love, Human and DivineVol. 5, Pearls from the Ocean UnseenVol. 5, Metaphysics, The Experience of the Soul Through the Different Planes of ExistenceVol. 6, The Alchemy of HappinessVol. 7, In an Eastern Rose GardenVol. 8, Health and Order of Body and MindVol. 8, The Privilege of Being HumanVol. 8a, Sufi TeachingsVol. 9, The Unity of Religious IdealsVol. 10, Sufi MysticismVol. 10, The Path of Initiation and DiscipleshipVol. 10, Sufi PoetryVol. 10, Art: Yesterday, Today, and TomorrowVol. 10, The Problem of the DayVol. 11, PhilosophyVol. 11, PsychologyVol. 11, Mysticism in LifeVol. 12, The Vision of God and ManVol. 12, Confessions: Autobiographical Essays of Hazat Inayat KhanVol. 12, Four PlaysVol. 13, GathasVol. 14, The Smiling ForeheadBy DateTHE SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS | Heading HealthPhysical ConditionPhysical CultureControl of the BodyBalanceBalance in SolitudeBalance in GreatnessLife's MechanismHarmonyMasterySelf-MasterySelf-DisciplineA Question about FastingSelf-ControlPhysical ControlQuestions about Vaccination and InoculationBreathThe Mystery of BreathThe Science of BreathThe Philosophy of BreathThe Control of the BreathThe Control of the BreathThe Power of SilenceA Question about FeelingsThe Control of the MindThe Mystery of SleepFive Stages of ConsciousnessDreamsDreams are of Three KindsSpiritual Healing |
Sub-Heading -ALL-NasutMalakutJabarutLahutHahutEnnobling the Soul |
Vol. 8, Health and Order of Body and MindFive Stages of ConsciousnessMalakutMalakut is a further stage of consciousness working through our mental plane. By means of this higher consciousness we experience thought and imagination - which are beyond our senses. Very often it happens that a person does not notice a passer-by, so deeply is he thinking upon some subject. You may speak to him, but he will not listen, so deeply is he absorbed in his subject. Though his ears are open he cannot hear, though his eyes are open he cannot see. What does this mean? It means that at that moment his consciousness is experiencing life on a different plane. Though he is sitting before you with open eyes and ears, his consciousness is on another plane, working through a different body. The plane of Malakut is experienced by every person not only when absorbed in thought, but also in dreams. While the different sense-organs are resting, the mind is free to work, and it works with the aid of the same mechanism which it has collected during the experience of the Nasut condition. In other words, all the experiences which a man gathers during the day are assembled during the night, and the mind works with that mechanism; whatever has been collected during the day is at work during the night.
So the mind prepares a cover for every impression it receives, it prepares an outward appearance for it: that is what accounts for the meaning of dreams. Suppose that a person goes to a wise man saying, "I have seen flowers in my dream. What will be the result of it?" The wise man will answer, "Love, happiness, success." Why? Because the wise one knows that the mind disguises itself and the impression it receives into something beautiful when something beautiful is going to happen, and into something ugly when something bad is going to happen. It is, however, not only so that the mind adorns itself with a certain form in order to tell you that you are going to have a good or a bad experience. There also is the natural outcome of things, there is action and reaction: what we take from the outer world is prepared in the mind, and it reacts again in another form. This gives us a sort of key by which we can understand what the next step will be. In that form the dream is a warning. There is no need to take it as a warning in a spiritualistic form, and claim that a spirit, a ghost or an angel came to tell you the future. It is your own mind which disguises itself as a spirit, a ghost or an angel, in whatever form you wish it to come to you, or in whatever form you are accustomed to. It will never come in a form strange to you, such as you have never known; it will only come in a form to which you are accustomed. For instance, if you were to see a dog with wings, it would still be the form of a dog with which you are familiar; only the mixture or combination of forms is curious. Although wings are attached to the dog, the form is not actually new; you are seeing something which you recognize. In the dream the state of the mind has two different aspects. When the mind is not expressive but responsive and is not acting in a positive but in a negative rhythm, then it becomes visionary. That mind is visionary which is apt to catch the reflection of whatever other mind falls upon it. Thus it may catch the reflection of a living person's mind, or of a deceased person's mind, of a spiritually advanced person, or of a very ordinary person. That mind lies open like a piece of uncultivated ground which a person may turn into a farm or into a garden; in that soil he may sow seeds of flowers or only seeds of thorns. This accounts for people having different experiences in their dreams from those they had in their waking life. When people say, "I learn something from my dreams, I am inspired by them, have received new ideas, new lessons in my dreams", it is because their mind was exposed to the given impressions. However, a mind open to impressions in this way may reflect a satanic as well as an angelic impression, a wrong one as easily as a right one: it is open to whatever comes into it. Such a person is as likely to be led astray as to be helped. The result, therefore, is only good as long as the impressions to which the mind responds are good ones. What then is the way in which one can be sure to have the mind focused upon good things, and so to receive only good impressions? There are three considerations.
The simple teaching of all the religions during every age, the essence of all religion and philosophy, is contained in these words: Go and stand before God in simple faith, being as a little child before God. At that moment you will say,
Here is the essence of religion. It is so simple that even a child could do it, should he wish so. He does not need much learning to be able to do it; once it is explained to him he will understand it. We need not have learning or great intellectual knowledge to be able to do it. |