Some thoughts on happiness

 Those who seek for something more than happiness in this world must not complain if happiness is not their portion.

Froude.

Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.

Johnson.

Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are enabled to inspire.

Duchesse de Praslin.

 

That state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessaries are not wanting.

Plutarch. 

There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.

Willis. 

When we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself—nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privations.

Humboldt.

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasant thought and feeling.

Coleridge

Happiness is much more equally divided than some of us imagine. One man shall possess most of the materials, but little of the thing; another may possess much of the thing, but very few of the materials. In this particular view of it, happiness has been beautifully compared to the man in the desert—he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.

Colton..

Cultivating Suluk — the loving manner

 Love shows its quality by constancy. Where there is no constancy, there is no love. People have made,understood a wrong meaning of love. They do not know it very often. The real meaning of love is life itself: that feeling of life, that feeling that I live, that feeling itself is love. And therefore what is love? Love is God. And what is God? God is love. As long as one is involved into selfish thoughts and actions in life, one does not understand the meaning of love. Love is sacrifice, love is service, love is the regard for the pleasure and displeasure of the beloved. And that love can be seen in all different aspects of life once it is understood. For those who depend upon one, for those with whom one comes in contact in one’s everyday life, for those of one’s country, for those of one’s race, for humanity. It can expand even to such an extent that the love can be for every little creature in the world, the smallest insect. And it is with this expansion a drop of water, so to speak, expands to the ocean. The man so limited, limited as he is, the more he expands, the further he reaches heavenwards, and that he can become as great as the absolute.

Therefore, instead of teaching the lesson of indifference, as many mystics have taught, the Sufis have learned the lesson of love, of devotion, of sympathy. They have called it the cultivating of the heart. And it is known by the word suluk. Suluk means the loving manner. All that which we call refined manner is only a manner; behind it there is no life. But when a manner is directed by the heart quality, then it becomes the living manner, and that manner comes from love. And all such attributes as kindness, as gentleness, as tolerance, as forgiveness, they all spring from the loving manner, mercy and compassion—all. The great teachers and prophets, and the inspirers of humanity in all times, they have not become what they were by their miracles or wonder workings; that belongs to other people. The chief thing that could be seen in them was the loving manner. When you can read the life of prophets, first of all, see the way Jesus Christ had with all those who came to him. Those who were sinners, who were condemned, who were put out from the society and from people. When they were brought to the master, the master received them with compassion. He was not on the side of those who accused them. He was on the side [of the] one who was accused, that was loving manner. The fishermen who could never understand the master, even the most educated, would not have understood them. The fishermen apart, the master lived with them and moved with them, and won their hearts in the end; that is loving manner. 

But one may ask how to cultivate it? There is only one way, and that way is to become selfless and at each step one takes forward in this path, because what prevents one to cultivate loving quality is the thought of self. The more we think of self, the less we think of another. And then the self grows to become worse and worse as one goes further. In the end the self meets one as a giant whichone has always fought and in the end the giant is the strongest. But if from the first step one takes in the path of perfection, one struggled and fought and conquered this giant, which is self, and [that]is, can only be done by the increasing power of love.

Inayat Khan 

The story of Faith

 In the Greek story of Orpheus and Euridice there is a beautiful teaching on this subject. The first part of the story is that Orpheus loved Euridice, who was among the degenerated people, and that shows that love even tried to bring up, or to raise a soul so thrown down deep in the depth of the earth. And then Orpheus knew that Euridice was taken to the other world, and he began to sing the song by the power of which he won the gods of the lower worlds. And that shows us what power word has, what power sound has, and how it appeals to cosmic forces. Gods of the lower world were the cosmic forces, planetary influences, the conditions which were destined, the spirits, the powers that held in their hands the reign of destiny.

This also shows [us] Orpheus is according to Arabic, it means the knower, the one who has the knowledge of life. In Arabic the knowledge of life is called arifat, and the knower is called arif—that the real knowledge is the knowledge of sound, the knowledge of rhythm, the knowledge of word and of note, and of rhythm. It is this knowledge which gives mastery in the higher, or mystical, or psychological music. As there is a saying of Wagner that, who has the knowledge of sound, knows everything.

He pleased the gods of the lower world and they gave him the promise that Euridice will follow you, she follows you; the condition is that you will not look back. Now this is the point which is concerned with the subject; that faith should have continued to the end. And there is another point, that one may have faith when climbing stairs a hundred steps; one may go with faith ninety five steps and one may lose it at that time. Before four steps are still to be climbed, one may lose faith; doubt may come and the whole journey is [spoiled]. And that very often happens, and in the lives of so many people, that they are face to face with their success, and yet they fail. They have just approached what they have wanted and then they lose. Nearly in every person’s life you see it. And the greater the person the more you see this because the greater the person, the more powerful his faith. And therefore he will , he is able to see the play of faith. And at the same time it is just like sending the kite so far, and before it reached further, it dropped.

And that enemy which causes this is doubt. As Orpheus went by the power of faith, Euridice was drawn. His faith was drawing Euridice. As he was going forward in faith, so Euridice was coming, following him. He could have gone to the other side of the world and Euridice would have followed him. As much faith he had, so far Euridice followed him. And there came doubt, the worst enemy of man, and said, look if she is really there. As soon as he turned his back, Mercury was there to lift her up and take her away.

One might do something for his whole life and may accomplish it to a great extent. And by the lack of little more faith, one would lose it, and all that is done may be spoiled in a moment’s time. How long it takes for a house, to [be built] ? And how long it takes to destroy it? How long it takes to make a business really prosperous? And how long it takes to fail? One moment. When one learns this principle and thinks on this, one begins to see that the whole world with all that we hear and see and touch and feel, all this is illusion in the [face] of faith. Faith alone is reality, and compared with faith all else is unreal. But since we do not see faith with our own eyes, it is very difficult to call faith real and all else unreal, because faith we do not see. Our eyes cannot see it and we do not know where it is.

And now a question how one can find faith in oneself, how one can develop faith? One can find faith by practising self-confidence as the first thing. Even in the smallest thing, have self-confidence. And today most of them have the habit, especially here, to say with everything perhaps. It seems that a new word has come, and in France it is most used, for everything they say perhaps. Perhaps I will, it will happen. It is a kind of polite word, or a word of refined people to show themselves pessimistic. I can see their reason, because they think that it is fanatic and it is presumptuous and it is simple to say it will be, or it will come, or it will be accomplished, or it will be fulfilled. But to say perhaps, this makes us free from responsibility, of having committed ourselves. The more pessimistic a person, the more perhaps he uses. And this perhaps has gone so deep in souls today, that they cannot find faith.

And after once self-confidence is developed, the second thing is to trust another with closed eyes. And one might think that this is not always practical, and one might think that it might lead one to a great loss. But at the same time that loss will be a gain. And even a thousand gains, compared with the loss of faith, will be as nothing. A person is richer if he has trusted someone and lost something, than if he had not trusted someone and had something [preserved] that will be one day taken away from him, he could have just as well given it up.

But you might say that every simple person is inclined to trust another. Yes, but the difference between the wise person who trusts bravely, and the simple person who trusts readily, is a great difference. The wise person who trusts, if he is influenced by another person that he may not trust another person or you must not trust, or even if he had a certain proof, even then that habit of trusting will remain [with] him. But that simple person, oh, but what are you doing? You are trusting someone,who you must not trust, his trust will change. That is the difference between the simple and the wise person. The foolish person trusts because he does not know better, the wise person trusts because he knows that to trust is the best.

And the third step towards the development of faith is trust in the unseen, to trust in something which one does not see, which the reason does not show where it is, how it is, how it can be brought up, how it can be obtained, how it can be reached. One does not see the reason, one only sees that it must be done, it must come. And it is that trust in the unseen which is called trust in God. Then, when you do not see before you any sign of something that should happen, and yet when you think that yes, it must happen, it will happen, it certainly must happen, and you have no doubt, then your trust is in God.

Inayat Khan 

Judge ye not

 When one is developing on the spiritual path, what must be remembered most is to let everyone else go on his own path. And the treaders on the spiritual path must always remember that by criticizing another they are not doing any good to themselves or to the other. If another person has a fault, an adept must know that his very fault will teach him sooner or later, or his fault will ask of others to teach him, and to let another get that privilege of correcting him. As soon as an adept exerts his powers to correct others, he loses his path. An adept must be concerned with his own path and not concerned with the other.

You might think it is a lesson of remoteness; it is an advice to be exclusive; it is a teaching of indifference. Whatever you may call, that is the way. It is so heavy on an adept to keep his own personality in the right way, as it ought to be. In other words, to keep his own heart in tune, to keep his own spirit on a certain rhythm, [and] instead of doing that, when he troubles about another, he loses his path. There is no kindness, there is no goodness [in] trying to correct another. There are many in this world to correct him. The first thing that will correct the wrongdoer is life itself. The life slaps a person stronger than a person may punish another person. One need not trouble about anybody’s fault. And how far one is advanced, one must know that the more advanced you are, the more faults one will find with oneself. I do not mean that advancement adds faults, I only mean that advancement makes your sight so keen, that at every stage further, more faults manifest before you which were perhaps unknown to you before. The attitude of the treader on the spiritual path towards the wrongdoer must be of tolerance, of forgiveness, also of indifference. Just like the Japanese symbol of three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. In reality, the first, from the moment one takes his first step in the spiritual path, evil vanishes. Vanishes in what sense? That he recognizes no more evil. What does it mean? Does it mean he [encourages] evil? Does it mean he recognizes evil as good? Does it mean he loves evil? No, [far] from it. It only means he does not judge. And by not judging, does it mean that he knows no more justice? No, it means he knows more justice. He is now a great judge. The moment one has left judging, from that moment he becomes judge. Then he knows what justice means. Does justice mean to condemn another? Does justice mean to criticize another? Does justice mean to offend another? Does justice mean to insult another? Does justice mean to correct another? No. Justice means to know and not know, to see and not see, to hear and not hear.

And [one] might think, will this negative state not make a person quite a different being? And what does it matter if you became a different being? What is one striving after? Is it not truth that one is striving after? If in going towards truth, you changed your personality, your attitude, your outlook, your action, what does it matter? On the contrary, it is what it ought to be. You show change. Life means change.

But one might think, shall I not be different from others? Yes, naturally you will be different from others. You ought to be glad to be different from others, as long as you do not show that you are different from others. When we begin to show and cry out aloud, I am different from you all, then you fall. If you do not fall, they will pull you down. But in being different [from] others in your outlook, you do not harm anybody.  The principle of everyone who journeys on the spiritual path must be that he is unassuming; that he is not inclined to judge; that he is not trying to be a teacher. In other words, he is not trying to correct others; that he is ready to tolerate; that he is ready to forgive. Also, he makes no pretence of knowing something or of being something. Outwardly to be like everyone, inwardly to be what one is.

Inayat Khan