Intellect and sentiment

 In these days people give less importance to sentiment. They rely more upon the intellect. The reason is that when they meet two sorts of people, the intellectual and the sentimental people, they find in an intellectual man greater balance than in the one with sentiment. This is no doubt true. But the lack of balance is for the very reason because there is a greater power than the intellect, which is the sentiment. The earth is fruitful, but not so living and powerful as the water. The intellect is creative, yet not so powerful as the heart and the sentiment. In reality the intellectual man in the end will prove unbalanced too if he has no sentimental side attached to it.

Are there not many people of whom their surroundings say: I like him, love him, admire him, but he closes his heart? The one who closes his heart neither fully loves others nor allows others to love him fully. Besides, the person who is only intellectual, in time becomes sceptical, doubting, unbelieving, destructive, as there is no power of the heart to balance it. The Sufi considers the devotion of the heart as the best thing to cultivate for spiritual realization. It might seem quite different from what many think, but the one who closes his heart to man, closes his heart to God. Jesus Christ did not say: God is the intellect; he said: God is love. And if, therefore, there is a peace of God that can be found anywhere, it is not in any church on the earth, nor in heaven above, it is in the heart of man. The best place where you are sure to find God is the loving heart of a kind man.

It may be said that by the help of reason man will act according to a certain standard of morals, but that does not make a person good. If they are good or righteous, they are artificially made good. All the prisoners in the gaol can be righteous. But if a natural goodness and righteousness can be found anywhere, it is to be found in the spring of the heart from which life rises, a springing virtue and every drop of this is a living virtue. That proves that goodness is not man-made, it is his very being. And if he lacks goodness it is not the lack of training, nor training which is very often wanted most; it is because he has not yet found his self. Goodness is natural. For a normal person it is necessary to be good. No one needs teaching to live a good or a righteous life. If love is the torch on his path, it shows him what fairness means, the honour of the word, charity of heart, righteousness. Do we not see sometimes a young man, who with all his boisterous tendencies finds a girl, whom he begins to love, and if he really loves her, he begins to show a difference in his life, he becomes gentle, for he must train for her sake; he leaves off things he was never before willing to leave off. And in the same way forgiveness, where there is love, is not a very difficult thing. A child coming before his mother, having offended her a thousand times, asks her forgiveness. There is no other to go to. It does not take a moment for the heart of the mother to forgive. Forgiveness was waiting there to be manifested. One cannot help being kind when there is feeling. A person whose feeling goes out to another person, he sees in his child the want of his feeling. He strikes a note of sympathy in every person, because he finds that point of contact in every soul he meets, because he has love.

There are people who say: But is it not unwise to give oneself in an outgoing tenderness to everyone? But I should say: If a person is good and kind, this goodness ought to be manifested to everyone; the doors of the heart should not be closed. 

A mystic like Jesus Christ said, “Love your friend,” and he went as far as to say, “Love your enemy.” It is the same path the Sufi treads. In his charity of heart to his fellow-men he considers it is the love of God, and in showing love to everyone, he considers this as giving love to God. In this the method of the Sufi and the Yogi differ. The Yogi is not unkind. He says: I love you all, but I had better keep away from you, for your souls are always groping in darkness, and my soul is in the light. With your friendship I shall spoil my soul. So I had better keep away and love you from afar, from a distance. The Sufi says: It is a trial, but it is to be tried. I shall take up my everyday duties as they come to me. Although knowing how little important the things of the world are, and not giving too much value to these things, he is attentive to his duties towards those who love him, like him, depend upon him, follow him. For those who dislike, despise him, he tries for the best way of meeting them all. He lives in the world and yet he is not for the world. In this way the Sufi considers loving man as the main principle in the fulfilment of the purpose of his life.

How true it is that those who love their enemies and yet lack patience, remind one of this picture of their life, which is like a burning lantern with little oil. It cannot endure. In the end the flame becomes faded. The oil in love is patience. Besides this, in the path of love, what is the oil? From beginning to end: unselfishness, self-sacrifice from beginning to end. And he who says, give and take, does not know love; he knows business.

Inayat Khan