Volume
Vol. 8a, Sufi Teachings
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The Tuning of the Heart (1)
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2. Heart Influences Circumstances
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Vol. 8a, Sufi Teachings
The Tuning of the Heart (1)
2. Heart Influences Circumstances
The relationship between the heart and the conditions of the outside world is such that it is the condition of the heart which influences one's life's affairs. When the heart is out of tune everything goes wrong; it makes the whole atmosphere out of tune.
Once a lady said to me, 'I have had bad luck this week. I lose or break many things; everything tears and gets destroyed.' I said, 'There is something wrong with yourself. You yourself are out of tune; especially this week something has upset your rhythm.' And on thinking this over, she found out that it was so.
The more keenly one studies life, the more one will find that the heart has an influence on both failure and success, on rise and fall, on favorable and unfavorable conditions in life. No sooner has the heart been tuned than conditions in life become better and ill luck is averted; wrong reasoning, people becoming tired and disappointed with one another, things going wrong, losses, all these things disappear as soon as the heart is tuned.
It is difficult enough to keep a delicate instrument like the violin tuned, and the heart is incomparably more delicate; it is the instrument on which the soul, the spirit, plays. It is on the model of the heart that the harp we know has been made, and the ancient artists have put a harp or a lute in the hands of the angels. Symbolically the angels mean heart, the heart quality.
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