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 The Religion of the Heart

#2 The Belief in God

#3 Religion

#4 The Manner of Prayer

#5 The Present Need of the World for Religion

#6 "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

#7 Religion: Universality or Exclusivity?

#8 Humility in prayer

#9 The Need for Prayer

#10 The Prophet

#11 How the Wise Live in the World (1)

#12 How the Wise Live in the World (2)

#13 The Christ Spirit

#14 The Sufi Form of Worship

#15 Degrees in the Spiritual Hierarchy

#16 Stages in Following the Message

#17 The Message of Unity

#18-19 The Coming World Religion

#20 The Purpose of All Beings

#21 Christ

#22 Buddha

#23 Krishna

#24 Zarathushtra

#25 Rama

#26 Abraham

#27 Muhammad

#28 Is Sufism a Religion?

#29-30 The Religion of All Prophets

#31-32 The God Ideal

#33 Moses

#34 The Universal Worship (1)

#35 The Universal Worship (2)

#36 The Religion of All Prophets (3)

#37 The Universal Worship (3)

#38 The Idea of Sacredness

#39 The Universal Worship (4)

#40 Attaining the Inner Life Through Religion

#41 The Kingship of God

#42 Belief and Disbelief in God

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

Religious Gathekas

#22 Buddha

Buddha was the title of Gautama. He was called Buddha because his spirit expressed the meaning of the world buddh, which in Sanskrit means reason. In the Buddhist terminology the Spirit of Guidance is named boddhisatva, which means the essence of reason. Reason in its essence is of a liquid form; it is the cream of intelligence. When it is crystallized it becomes rigid. Very often intellectuality explains a knowledge formed by reasons, most of them of rigid character. The fine reason is subtle; the finer the reason, the less it can be explained in words. It is therefore that people with fine reason cannot very well put their reason into words. Reason in its essence is the depth of intelligence. The intelligence knows, not because it has learned; it knows because it knows. In this higher reason the Spirit of Guidance is conceived, and from that fountain of reason all the great prophets have drunk.

In the teaching of true Buddhism, Buddha has never been considered as an exclusive personality. Buddha has been known to the Buddhists who have understood his message rightly as a man who attained the realization of that essence of reason in which is the fulfillment of life's purpose. Worshipping Buddha does not mean that the Buddhist worships the personality of his spiritual master. He only means by this worship that if there is any object that deserves worship most, it is a human being, it is the person from whose heart the essence of reason, buddhi, has risen as a spring. By this knowledge he recognizes the possibility for every soul, whatever his grade of evolution, to attain that bliss; he trusts that the innermost being of every soul is divine.

The honey of life is hope. If the knowledge of God does not give hope to attain the divine bliss which is attained in life, that knowledge is of no use. Man may believe in God for years, yet may not be benefitted by spiritual bliss; for spiritual bliss is not only in believing, but also in knowing God. Buddhi, which is subtle reasoning, is the path which leads to the goal. The absence of that keeps a person in obscurity. As the sun is the source of light which shows outward things in life, so buddhi is the inner source of light which enables the person to see life clearly, inwardly and outwardly. The true aim of the disciples of Buddha has not been only to admire Buddha, his name or his ideal, but to take Buddha as an example before them. Their idea is the secret of Sufism.