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

The Message

Free Will and Destiny in the Message

What is the Message?

Lecture for Mureeds and Friends

Wakening to the Message

Aspects of the Sufi Message

The Message

Relationship Between Murshid and Mureed

Personalities of the Servants of God

Our Efforts in Constructing

Teaching Given by Murshid to his Mureeds

Ways of Receiving the Message

The Path of Attainment

Interest and Indifference

The Call from Above

The Message

Unlearning

Spiritual and Religious Movements

Peculiarity of the Great Masters

Abraham, Moses and Muhammad

Four Questions

The Spreading of the Message

Jelal-ud-din Rumi

Peculiarities of the Six Great Religions

Belief and Faith

"Superhuman" and Hierarchy

Faith and Doubt

Divine Guidance

The Prophetic Life

There are two Kinds Among the Souls

The Messenger

The Message Which has Come in all Ages

The Sufi Message

The Message

Questions Concerning the Message

The Inner School

The Duty of Happiness

Five Things Necessary for a Student

Sub-Heading

-ALL-

The Message Papers

What is the Message?

August 6, 1923

What is the Message? Where does it come from? How is it received by the souls who deliver it?" These questions often arise in inquiring minds. And the answer is that the Message is like the rain, and the rain falls where it is needed and when it is needed. But does the rain come from above? It seems to come from above, but it rises from below first, as the vapor, forming into clouds as ideas, and again falling from above as the rain.

There are so many names for the seas and rivers and streams, but they all contain water. And there are various names of religions, but they all contain the Truth, spoken in different forms, and in different ways. There is a lightning, there is a thunder when the rain falls, and there are wars and disasters before the Message comes. Storms are very often warnings of what follows, and so are different kinds of battles and revolutions warnings before the coming of the time of peace.

Often a person says, "If it is the same water, then I have no need of receiving a new Message, I already hold a certain faith or belief. Is it not the same?" The water of last week, which has been in the jug, compared with the fresh water is different, and yet it is water. And one does not reject the water of last week by drinking the fresh water, for it is water all the same.

Every element turns into its own element, and comes again afresh. When the fire is extinguished, it has become absorbed in its own element. It has gone and joined the heat. So is water and earth. So is the air. Every element goes back to its own element in the end and comes again afresh. And such is the law of the Divine Message.

Numberless religions have been taught. Various prophets and masters have come to waken humanity, and those of them we know are only a few which we could count on the fingers. But where are the other religions gone? What about all the other teachers? It would be like asking, "Where is all the water that fell? Where has the rain gone?" It has gone nowhere; it has gone to its own source, only to come afresh again with new life, with new magnetism, with new strength and vigor. And yet it is the same water of life, the drinking of which gives souls immortality.

Many intellectual people with their very many ideas differ from one another in their opinions and in their way of looking at things, in their speculations. But do the prophets differ from one another? They cannot differ. The reason is that it is the various minds which differ, not the soul. The one who lives in his mind is conscious of mind. The one who lives in his soul is conscious of the soul.

What does the word "spiritual" mean? It means "soul-conscious" or "spirit-conscious." There is a line of a song, "Night has a thousand eyes, the day has but one." When a person lives in his mind, he is living through the darkness of night. The moment one rises above one's mind and wakens in the light of the soul, one becomes spiritual. And if a thousand spiritual people will speak, they will say the same thing, perhaps in different words, but with one meaning. For they have one sight, the same sight. It is therefore that spiritual realization is called the Truth.

There are many facts, but there is one Truth. Facts can be put into words, but not the Truth. For God is Truth, the real self of man is Truth. Truth is unlimited and incomparable. Therefore Truth alone knows, enjoys, and realizes its own existence.