March 2008

Like the setting sun, I bend my head low at Thy feet, in loving surrender.

Vadan, Alankara’s, Hazrat Inayat Khan
 

Beloved ones of God,

In the Sufi prayer Saum we say “to Thee do we give willing surrender”. To surrender ourselves completely is a difficult task. The will to surrender is only the first step. The most important part is to have confidence in the Spirit of Guidance. And the beautiful thing is that the more we open ourselves, the easier it gets to surrender.
Looking in the books of Hazrat Inayat Khan, we found two beautiful texts about surrender that we would like to share with you. 

With sisterly love,

Maharani and Johara

Through surrender of self, through keeping the gaze and concentration steadfast on God,
all becomes natural, and it is the most natural thing in life to be ever aware and responsive to God.

Githa’s II, Hazrat Inayat Khan
 

Divine love (Volume V)

If there is anything that works against the vanity of the ego, it is love. The nature of love is to surrender; there is no one in the world who does not surrender. The world of variety, which has divided life into limited parts, naturally causes every lesser one to surrender to the greater. And, again, for every greater one there is another still greater in relation to whom he is smaller, and for every smaller one there is another still smaller, in relation to whom he is greater. And as every soul is by its nature compelled to surrender to perfection in all its grades, the only thing that matters is whether it be a willing surrender or an unwilling surrender. The former comes by love, the latter is made through helplessness, which makes life wretched. It moves the Sufi when he reads in the Qur'an that the perfect Being asked the imperfect souls, the children of Adam, 'Who is thy Lord? They, conscious of' their imperfections, said humbly, 'Thou art our Lord.' Surrender is a curse when, with coldness and helplessness, one is forced to surrender; but the same becomes the greatest joy when it is made with love and all willingness.

The purpose of life (Volume VI)

Sufis have therefore called God the Beloved. And they have seen the Beloved in all beings. They did not think that God was in heaven, apart, away from all beings. In everything, in all forms, they have seen the beauty of God. And in this realization the main purpose and the ultimate purpose of life is fulfilled. As it is said in the ancient scriptures, when God asked Adam, 'Who is thy Lord?' he said, 'Thou art my Lord.' This means that the purpose of creation was that every soul might recognize his source and goal, and surrender to it and attribute to it all beauty and wisdom and power, so that by doing so he might perfect himself. As the Bible says, 'Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.'

January 2008

It is according to the extent of our consciousness of prayer that our prayer reaches God.

The bowl of Saki, Hazrat Inayat Khan

Dear brothers and sisters,

Often when we find ourselves helpless in an unsuspected situation we automatically send a cry to heaven. We do so because it is the natural need of our soul to make contact with the Divine. This is a form of prayer and also it is the essence of prayer because it comes directly out of our heart. A daily prayer can protect us and make us stronger and give us the insight to act in the right way in all sorts of situations.

Hazrat Inayat Khan gave us three beautiful daily prayers. If you are interested, please let us know and we will send them to you by email.

With love and light,

Your sisters,

Maharani and Johara

It is important to remember that the prayers “Saum and Salat”
are like pillars upon which the entire structure of the Sufi teachings stands.
These prayers offer an appeal from the heart, uniting races, nations and faiths,
independently of religious principles and varieties of conceptions of truth.

Reflections VI, nr 26, Hidayat Inayat-Khan

The God ideal (Religious Gatheka 31)

Friends, the word of Christ is that God is love. If God is love then we, every one of us, can prove God in us by expressing God in our life. Yes, according to the external customs of the different religions, one goes to church, one to the mosque, one to the synagogue, and one to the temple of Buddha. But the inner church is neither in the mosque nor in the synagogue, but in the heart of man, where God abides and which is the habitation of Christ. With this divine element lighted in man's heart, he will go to the house of prayer and then his prayer will be heard.

There is a well-known story in India that a girl was crossing a place where a Muslim was performing his prayers: the law is that no one should cross where a person is praying. When the girl returned, the man said to her, "How insolent! Do you know what sin you have done?" "What did I do?" said the girl. And the man said that no one was allowed to cross. "I did not mean any harm," said the girl, "but tell me, what do you mean by praying?" "For me, prayer is thinking of God," said the man. "Oh!" she said, "But I was going to see my young man, and I was thinking of him and I did not see you. If you were thinking of God, how did you see me?"

The idea, therefore, friends, is that prayer becomes living if it is offered from a living heart. From a dead heart, prayer has no meaning and is dead. There is a story of an Arab who was running to the mosque where the prayer of God was being offered, but before he could arrive the prayers were finished. On his way he met a man coming from the mosque and asked him, "Are the prayers finished?" The man replied that they were finished, and the other sighed deeply and said, "Alas!" Then the man asked, "Will you give me the virtue of your sigh in exchange for the virtue of my prayers?" And the other agreed. Next day the simple man saw the Prophet in a dream, who told him that he had made a bad bargain, for that one sigh was worth all the prayers of a lifetime because it was from the heart.

There are different human beings in different stages of evolution, and it is natural that every human being according to his particular stage of evolution imagines God before him when he prays. It is questionable for anyone else to judge the one who prays and say, "God is not this or that." Persons who force their beliefs on others often put them against that belief, even if that is the true belief. It requires a great deal of tact, thought, and consideration to explain or correct the belief of another.

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