| Hazrat
Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
4. There is One Religion
the unswerving progress in the right direction,
toward the ideal,
which fulfills the life's purpose of every soul.
Religion in the Sanskrit language is termed Dharma,
which means duty. The duty of every individual is religion.
"Every soul is born for a certain purpose, and the light
of that purpose is kindled in his soul", says Sa`adi. This
explains why the Sufi in his tolerance allows every one to have
his own path, and does not compare the principles of others with
his own, but allows freedom of thought to everyone, since he himself
is a freethinker.
Religion, in the conception of a Sufi, is the path
that leads man towards the attainment of his ideal, worldly as well
as heavenly.
Sin and virtue, right and wrong, good and bad are
not the same in the case of every individual; they are according
to his grade of evolution and state of life. Therefore the Sufi
concerns himself little with the name of the religion or the place
of worship. All places are sacred enough for his worship, and all
religions convey to him the religion of his soul. "I saw
Thee in the sacred Ka`aba, and in the temple of the idol also Thee
I saw."
In a few instances, Hazrat Inayat
Khan's original gender-specific wording of the 10 Thoughts and 3
Objects has been slightly altered, by Pir Moineddin Jablonski, Murshid
Wali Ali Meyer, and Pir Shabda Kahn, as a reflection of ongoing guidance. The commentary associated
with each Thought has been extracted directly from the Sufi Message
of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Volume I, Part 1: The Way of Illumination (© 1979,
International Sufi Movement, All rights reserved.), and as a quoted passage,
Hazrat Inayat Khan's use of gender specific language has not been updated. |