Bowl of Saki (selection)
See Bowl of Saki for ALL quotes with commentary.
Bowl of Saki for March 10
Everyone's Pursuit is according to one's evolution.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
This means pursuit of pleasure, pursuit of wealth, pursuit of knowledge, pursuit of God, pursuit of love. What is the basis of pursuit? It is that the soul has an unsatisfied longing; no matter what the path in life, where there is pursuit it shows the soul has an unsatisfied longing.
The sage knows the direction his pursuit should take, the average man does
not; so the sage comes to satisfaction and finds peace of mind, heart and
soul, which are foreign to the natures of the generality.
Bowl of Saki for March 27
We start our lives trying to
be teachers; it is very hard to learn to be a pupil.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
Because being a pupil is not a learning, it is a surrender. Until self is surrendered one cannot learn from another. So long as one holds on to self, the door is shut before all other selves, whether it is the nufs of man, animal, plant, rock, thought of anything in the heavens above or in the earth below.
All this is shut out beyond a certain point. When this nufs is restrained, all vibrations convey to the heart all that the heart needs. This is the beginning of being a pupil, yet after years of meditation and prayer, one does not always attain to the heart condition or sustain it. At the same time, pain or love or sorrow can bring it all in an instant.
nufs...
http://www.rosanna.com/sufiwritings/glossary/glossary.htm
Bowl of Saki for March 28
Untill the heart is empty, it
cannot receive the knowledge of God
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
Now the condition of the heart is this, that it carry nothing. It cannot contain two things, but the unity which it holds in love may be simple or complex, very large or greater than all the universe. This is the explanation of the teaching of Upanishad. In the Upanishads, Atman often means the same as heart-essence, and this heart-essence grasps both great and small, but whatever it holds, it holds nothing else. For that reason Sufis practice heart-concentration, first to restore to the heart its faculty of grasping and then to prepare the heart for grasping that which alone does it good; that is to say, to grasp God, to hold God. All Sufi practices have this object in view.
Bowl of Saki for April 4
To give sympathy is sovereignty, to desire it
from others is captivity.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
Ishk Allah. Sympathy is God Himself, there is no difference. When one gives out sympathy, one is expressing God; one has found God whether conscious of it or not.
But when one desires it, one has not found it, the search is not complete. This sympathy is the very root-force of the Universe and when one comes to the heart of it -- which is found even within the human heart -- all keys to all mysteries are found. There is no lost key to mysteries other than love and sympathy, and to look for anything mental or magical or evocative is lost effort. By removing the ego in love and sympathy, with love and sympathy the Golden Key becomes one's possession.
Bowl of Saki for April 18
Our success or failure depends upon
the harmony or disharmony of our individual will with the divine will.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
All thought, speech and action not divine in its operation causes disturbance. Therefore restraint of thought, speech and action appears necessary to produce calmness and peace for ourselves or for the universe. But this is the calmness of sleep, not of activity, and approaches death, not life, in its principle. The great quest is to find the calmness which is action, the peace that is expressive, the principle which is harmonious in all its operations.
This comes through our union with God, and this in turn is the natural result of the spiritual practices, especially Fikar. This permits action, allows the life to touch the surface and spiritualizes even the dense earth, for as soon as human will touches Divine Will, then that instant the Divine Will is expressed through the human being. And for this humanity was made to appear on the earth.
Bowl of Saki for April 22
To learn the lesson of how to
live, is more important than any psychic or occult knowledge.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
Transcendental knowledge which is confined to the universe of limitation is subject to limitation. The knowledge of the psychic realm may take one beyond earth, but it does not take one to God. The knowledge of the mental and psychic and physical may seem to be without limit, yet it is nothing compared to the knowledge which transcends these spheres.
Even all the heart can give, as heart -- as heart separated from the pure
stream of life -- even that which appears unlimited to the intellectual
man, even that is nothing to the comprehension of life itself which
comes through self-sacrifice, through union with the source of all things
and thoughts.
Bowl of Saki for May 3
No one should allow his mind
to be a vehicle for others to use;
He who does not direct his own mind lacks mastery.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
This has four aspects, three of which correspond to the three gunas of the Hindus, the fourth of which is the diabolical condition where one controls and uses the mind of another. This is possible through hypnotism, black magic and other practices.
Some people unknowingly and unwittingly become controlled by others; when there is love it does not matter much, when there is not love it brings terrible consequences. The Sufis through their spiritual control of breath not only can protect their own minds but can guard the minds and hearts of others. Those who serve the Spiritual Hierarchy in higher capacities can protect even large areas in this way.
Those who are subject to emotions, who are led by others in the mob, may
be considered as "tamasic"; they are blind, ignorant. The "rajasic" man
escapes the control of others, but his mind directs his will, his real
self is not free. This freedom is only true of the "sattvic" man, whose
inner spirit guides his vehicles; this means not cessation of thought but
mastery of thought, so that one may refrain or adhere to thinking just
as one partakes of food or drink. The real spiritual fast is to refrain
from thinking through concentration upon God; this is called austere contemplation
-- "Mushahida".
Bowl of Saki for May 15
Ono who is looking for a reward is smaller
than the reward;
One who has renounced a thing has risen above it.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
For we can be no larger than our possessions. As Jesus Christ has said:
seek ye first the kingdom of the heavens and all else will be yours. That
is to say, cease to think particular thoughts, cease to have narrow attachments,
desires and ideals, put your heart on the All and the All will manifest
Its Heart to you.
Bowl of Saki for May 20
Insight into Life is the real religion,
Which alone can help man to understand Life.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by -- Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
Religion is not a belief, religion is that which links man to God.
And what is life? It is the aspect of God, it is the aspect which enables
Unity to appear as diversity, which develops harmonies out of Universal
Sound, which patterns in molds of beauty mind-stuff and matter-stuff. Insight
is different from perception in that perception deals with variety, insight
takes one toward Unity. It is the apprehension and comprehension of Unity
which leads to the understanding of life. This is a process of the heart,
not of the head.
Bowl of Saki for May 26
So long as one has a longing to obtain
any particular object, one cannot go further than that object.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
This is not wrong of itself. For instance, that longing leads to concentration
-- or rather when it does lead to concentration, when it is strong enough
to keep one from flitting hither and thither, that longing cannot be called
evil. From this point of view not even passion is wrong if it keeps one
concentrating on the same point of passion. It becomes wrong when it leads
to unsteadiness, to satisfaction of self and to lack of consideration toward
the object desired.
If all objects are considered as living, whether they are the work of
man's hands or of God's, already the seed of unity is sown. It is only after
one has come to the realization that any particular object will not bring
happiness or satisfaction that one is ready for the next step. Therefore
the sage may not oppose that which seems to lead toward vice; it is not vice
in itself which is vicious, it is the constant tendency toward diversity,
the lack of constancy, the absence of any motive or concentration in life
which is wrong.
Therefore Sufis always help others to select some ideal, but the other
person must choose something he desires or loves, so as to form a bond
of attachment. Then that one can learn concentration, collection of powers,
gaining a purpose or motive in life. The highest morality without this
concentration may lead nowhere, but the simplest undeveloped soul, once
gaining a purpose and concentration, will advance far on the journey toward
the goal, often unaware of traveling.
Bowl of Saki for May 25
Tolerance does not come by learning but by
insight. By understanding that each one should be allowed to travel along
the path which is suited to their temperament.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
It is from the view of God that real tolerance comes. This is the stage
of the enlightened who understand all. If one were all heart, one would find
that one were also all eye. In Djabarut, if one can be said to have a body
(let us call it a spiritual body), that body emits light and receives light
from every portion of its surface. Its functions are not differentiated.
Furthermore, so soon as one thinks of another, as soon as one loves another,
instantly they are as one. They may appear separate at other moments but
then they are one.
This is hard to understand from the physical or mental points of view,
for in these planes the life is very different;besides which, activity depends
to a certain extent on our differences, even though these differences cause
harmonies. Yet so long as there are differences there is the opportunity
for inharmony.
The heart point of view of the sage is to regard all opinions as offspring
of mind, and knowing that spiritual evolution is not a mental process --
rather a sloughing of mind -- it is not against any special opinion, thought
or belief but against mental centering in itself that the sage is opposed.
And the only way he can oppose it is to give all love and tenderness toward
all people, regardless of opinions, knowing there is no such thing as right
opinion and wrong opinion, that "opining" itself leads to difficulties.
Djabarut (Jabarut)....
http://www.rosanna.com/sufiwritings/glossary/glossary.htm
Bowl of Saki for May 27
Everyone's path is for themselves; let them
accomplish their desires that they may thus be able to rise above them to
the eternal goal.
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
Every soul on the journey toward manifestation selects certain qualities
out of the Empyrean, so to speak, which form the nexus of his later desire.
This is the seed of his nature and it is through the development of personality
-- not its suppression -- that the fulfillment of the involution and evolution
is accomplished. As the very nature of desire was born out of unfulfilled
love, it is not proper to crush this desire entirely -- to transmute it is
the right procedure.
From one point of view all desire is crushed, but from another point
of view this is not so. What is necessary is to demonstrate through life itself
that satisfaction cannot arise out of any particular thing, rather that satisfaction
only comes from the Pleroma, the totality of thing-ness, not from the things
themselves. And what is this Pleroma? It is nothing but an aspect of Allah,
the aspect which satisfies every soul.
Bowl of Saki for May 30
All the disharmony of the world caused by religious
differences is the result of man's failure to understand that religion is
"One", truth is "One", God is "One"; How "can" can there be two religions?
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis:
As religion is "the" connection between man and God, and as that connection
designates unity, there is no room for two connections. Whatever be man's
relation toward God, it is a single relation and a singular relation. One
can no more forse that relation on another than one can make one's parents
the parents of another. To each soul God may appear different, but it is
the appearance which is unique, not the reality. All we can understand is
that appearance; as God appears to us so shall we understand Him, but neither
can we give to another our eyes, our mind nor our heart. These things distinguish
us one from another and cause the apparent differences in religion which
are nothing but these different relations in their appearances as different
religions.