Class theme januari 2010 Friendship

dear ones,

I am looking forward to seeing you on Sunday at our first closed gathering.

One of the themes that I would like to introduce into our deeper sharings

with each other is friendship on the path - real human to human contact. The

beauty of soul contact and the love that is the motivation of working

through difficult relationships are connected with our ability to open to

this very important aspect of spiritual development on the Sufi path.

This will prepare us for the honesty and trust needed to eventually look at

the shadows of the sacred, and how we might tend bring in our own

unresolved family dynamics into spiritual community. Also, unrealistic

idealization of teachers and guides could be the shadow side of learning to

form healthy relationships on the path of love.

I am including a reading from Hazrat Inayat Khan on Friendship, which you

are not required to read, but might be helpful as a start to our meeting

together.

Volume VII - In an Eastern Rose Garden FRIENDSHIP (1) Friendship is the

first lesson of spirituality that one can learn.

Friendship is a word which we all use in our everyday language, and yet it

could take one's whole life only to realize its meaning. However learned a

person may be, however pious, spiritual, or experienced, if he has not

learned the nature and character of friendship he has not learned anything.

This is the first and the last thing we have to learn. We so often use this

word lightly, calling every acquaintance a friend, or professing to be

somebody's friend; but the more we realize the meaning of it, the less we

are able to claim friendship. For everything in life we are tested,

examined, and tried, but to pass this examination of friendship is the most

difficult thing in the world.

What is the reason for this? Why is it so difficult to be a friend? One

would think that it was the easiest thing there is! The reason is that there

is something in ourselves which is always against our being friendly. It is

the self, the ego, which the Sufi calls *Nafs. *As long as this ego is

standing and lives, a man cannot claim to be anybody's friend. And when he

is not somebody else's friend he is not even his own friend, for one learns

friendship by being a friend to another. A selfish man may seem to be a

friend to himself but, it is on the surface, not in reality. He has not yet

learned how to be a friend to another, so he cannot be a friend to himself.

In our pursuit of truth we want to learn a great many things: the nature of

life, the secret of life, the character of life; and to understand the

meaning of friendship seems so easy and simple that we never trouble to

think about it, nor about the responsibility of being a friend. The great

error we make in our lives is that we begin to claim friendship before we

have learned the meaning of friendship. In this world of illusion, where at

the end of the examination we find everything to be of little importance, of

little worth, if there is a sign of reality, of something that one can

depend upon, and in which one can recognize a sign of eternity, it is in the

constancy of friendship.

Man, absorbed in the active life of this world, has a desire for friendship,

though he never practices it. Yet this tendency to friendship can be found

even among the animals. There is a story of a hunter who was shooting birds

one day in the forest, and saw two birds sitting on a branch of a tree. He

shot one bird and it dropped to the ground. As this man was at a distance it

took him some time to arrive at the spot, and while he was walking towards

it he saw that the other bird had come down to look at its mate. It touched

it with its beak and found that it was dead, and by the time the man arrived

he found both birds dead. 'From that day,' he said, 'I gave up shooting, for

I had seen a friendship among birds which one cannot find among mankind.'

It is a simple lesson, and it is a lesson that we have to learn; today when

nations are against nations and races against races, when communities are

against communities, and one religion against another, it is now that

friendship is so much needed. Besides, friendship is the first lesson of

spirituality that one can learn. One may think that friendship, a personal

friendship, means nothing; that one does not become spiritual through a

personal friendship. But one does. A person begins his spiritual

accomplishment by learning how to be a friend. For one who is really

treading the path of friendship need not go anywhere to learn morals.

Friendship itself teaches him sincerity, gratitude, sympathy, tenderness,

appreciation; all these things that we must learn in this world, friendship

teaches us. And once a man begins to learn these things through friendship

with one person, he will naturally show to others the same virtues which, he

has acquired by going along this path. Just as someone who has learned how

to sing beautifully will naturally sing every song that is given to him

beautifully. The one who has cultivated his heart through friendship will

naturally be inclined to be friends with others.

It is not belief in God, which leads us to the goal, nor is it the analysis

and the knowledge of God that bring us there. It is the friendship of God.

For someone who learns the lesson of friendship in this world, this lesson

develops in the end into friendship with God. But when a person exacts in

return from his friend all that he does for him, then it is not friendship,

it is business. It only means: I give you a shilling an you give me twelve

pence. When a person judges his friend, then the spirit of friendship is not

awakened in his heart, for a friend never judges. When a person talks to

another about his friend, when he blames him, when he criticizes him, he

does not know what friendship is. The meaning of friendship is too sacred to

realize. All other relationships and connections in this life are empty if

friendship is not at the back of them to strengthen them. The relationship

between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and sister, husband and

wife, teacher and pupil, all these connections need a spirit behind them;

and this spirit is the spirit of friendship. When a daughter says, 'I am

friends with my mother,' there is something beautiful about it. It makes the

connection between a mother and a daughter a different thing. It makes it

living. In every relationship it is the same. When there is friendship to

bind the relationship it makes it secure, it gives it life. Love is life,

and life is symbolized by water. When one wants to bring water up out of the

ground one has to dig for it, and the first thing which one finds is mud.

And if one is disappointed by that, one has fooled oneself, for beneath the

earth is water; it can be found but one must have patience to dig for it, to

dig deep enough to find the water.

If one has made a friend it is not something that one has made to order,

that must just fit in according to one's expectations and wishes. Every

individual has his own characteristics, and as long as the spirit of

forgiveness is not developed, friendship cannot last. It is a continual

forgiveness that helps friendship to endure. Much can be learned by study,

but not unselfishness. Unselfishness can be learned by one thing only and

that is by treading the path of friendship. And it brings beauty into one's

life; a friendly person, whether in business or in a profession, in whatever

capacity he stands, gives one a feeling of warmth; in other words an

atmosphere of life. One is always glad to meet a friendly person in a shop,

in a factory, in an office. When this spirit is awakened one can feel in his

words, in his voice, in his expression, in his atmosphere, that he is a

friendly person, that there is something that goes out to meet others, a

continual tendency to harmonize with others.

Once this spirit is developed the ever-complaining tendency vanishes. If it

is not developed then this world is full of thorns that prick. Then one will

have no peace, no happiness, whatever one's position in life. If a person

wants to make his life easy, if he wishes to create happiness in his life,

he must try to crush that ego, that Nafs, that thought of self which keeps

one continually absorbed in one's own thoughts and in one's own affairs. By

rising above it he will learn the spirit of friendship. And then for him the

same path, which was full of thorns will become full of roses. For some

souls that same world which can be hell to many others, is heaven. For

friendship changes man's point of view. An unfriendly man, as soon as he

sees another person, sees him from his own critical point of view. He has

his preconceived ideas and therefore he is not allowed by Providence to see

the good side of the other. But the one in whom the friendly spirit is

awakened always overlooks little errors, faults, mistakes; his sympathy and

his love naturally help him to rise above the faults of man. That is the

story of Jesus Christ, the friend of humanity, before whom the greatest

sinners were brought; but the attitude of the Master was always forgiving.

Those who brought them were unfriendly; the Master was friendly.

Life is as we look at it. If we wish to find faults we can find faults in

the best person in the world, and if we wish to find good points we can find

good points in the worst person in the world. It is as we see life. Someone

went to Jami, the great seer of Persia, and asked him if he would accept him

as his disciple on the spiritual path. Jami asked him, 'Have you loved, have

you learned the manner of friendship?' He said, 'No, not yet.' Jami said,

'Go into the world again, and learn it.' The first lesson on the spiritual

path that one has to learn is the manner of friendship. Once that is learned

then all other parts of the spiritual journey will become easy. Where do all

the disturbances, such as wars, revolutions, disagreeable experiences among

nations, fights among parties, come from? They all come from lack of

friendship. And the most extraordinary thing is that one party may perhaps

have been fighting another party for years, but if we investigate their

particular ideas we find that they are not even friends among themselves,

for fighting against the other party produces and develops this unfriendly

spirit in them. It is a kind of intoxication.

In education, in religion, or in anything else, the best thing one can do is

to introduce the spirit of friendliness. And how can we introduce it? This

is something, which cannot arise only by reading some books about it. There

exist innumerable societies and institutions of brotherhood everywhere, but

they prove to be anything but brotherhood. Therefore that is not the way.

The way is for an individual to be brought to understand fully that the

essence of morals and of religion and of education is one, and that one

essence is the manner of friendship. Sufis of all ages have named it *Suluk,

*which means divine manner, beneficence. That is why the best education is

beneficence: how to bring pleasure and happiness to another; and one can

begin to learn this by understanding fully what friendliness is and by

practicing it at the same time.

Volume VII - In an Eastern Rose Garden LOVE, HUMAN AND DIVINE

Love, whether it is human or divine is considered to be sacred, in the view

of the mystics, philosophers, and thinkers. That it is possible to regard it

thus is shown by the fact that in its root it is beyond both the human and

the divine. As it is written in the Bible, 'God is Love', three words which

open up an unending realm for the thinker who desires to probe the depth of

the secret of love.

In ordinary life, we make this word mean affection for our surroundings, for

our relatives or our beloved, but when we think deeply about it, we see that

from start to finish it represents the power underlying the power of all

activities and all intelligences.

When we study life from the material standpoint, we see there are four

different stages: the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal,

and the human. And of these four domains it is said by a dervish, 'God slept

in the mineral kingdom. He dreamed in the vegetable kingdom. He woke in the

animal, and He realized Himself in the human.' And this gradual progression

shows us that underlying it there is a sense of life, which has expressed

itself in every step towards the completed development of love.

In the mineral kingdom we find no tendency towards love. But as the

intelligence develops in the vegetable kingdom, we feel that sympathy is

reflected from us into the flowers. The plants perceive and feel that which

comes from us. A loving person may attend to plants and rear them and water

them with love and sympathy, and they flourish. But in the hands of another

it may not be so. If we only watched plants closely, we should see how much

they feel our presence and our love. They flourish according to our love;

the more love we give, the more fragrance, the more sweetness. Man is always

working on farms and in gardens, thinking of them as material things,

looking to see how plants can be improved by material means. If he could

only believe it, there is a still higher means of helping them to grow, a

spiritual means: the use of love and sympathy.

There is a story in the East of Puran Bhagat, who was once living in exile

in the forest. After a long time, during which he had developed the true

love in his thought and feeling and spirit, he returned to his country. The

first thing he wished to do was to sit in his garden, which had gone to ruin

during his absence. He went down to it in the guise of a sage, and began to

water it with his little water bowl. The garden at once began to flourish,

and in a short time it became such a miracle of beauty that everyone in the

city began to talk about it and say, 'This must be some spiritual man, since

the garden begins to grow and flourish.' The touch of the saints and sages

and prophets makes things grow.

Every kind of power lies in this one thing which we call by the simple name:

love. Charity, generosity, kindness, affection, endurance, tolerance, and

patience – all these words are different aspects of one; they are different

names of only one thing: love. Whether it is said, 'God is love,' or

whatever name is given to it, all the names are the names of God; and yet

every form of love, every name for love, has its own peculiar scope, has a

peculiarity of its own. Love as kindness is one thing, love as tolerance is

another, love as generosity is another, love as patience another; and yet

from beginning to end it is just love. It is love's different manifestations

in different directions which distinguish themselves differently and have

different purposes.

According to Sufi metaphysics love has two different aspects, Jalal and

Jamal; and each aspect of love has its peculiar sphere. The Jalal of love is

the power of love. You may call it psychic power, will power, or power of

mind; yet it is one power working through different channels. And this is

the power of love; its power manifests and acts according to its force. Its

force is greater when it is unlimited, and less when it is limited. That

which is called imagination, thought, perception, conception, inspiration,

and intuition, comes from the Jamal aspect of love.

In the third stage of evolution, which is called the animal kingdom, love is

still more manifest. The animal is more capable of perceiving and feeling

our love and kindness, our pleasure and displeasure. When we enter a house

the dog may be delighted, or he may recognize our displeasure and feel

depressed. Cats recognize our love, and so also do parrots and other pet

animals of different kinds. Thus we see that the cat is vexed because

another cat comes into the house, and we read how, when Joseph was in the

well, it was a dog that brought him bread from a neighboring town, and fed

him during the time that he was in the well. And in Arabian stories we hear

about an Arab who was protected and guarded by his horse when he fell

wounded on the battle-field; the horse became his protector.

In man love can develop still more, though sometimes man proves to be not

only worse than animals, but even more dead to love than a rock. We would

rather be with the rocks than with such a man. This is because he has

developed selfishness with his evolution. He is more selfish than any other

creature in the world, unless he wipes off the impression of selfishness

from his heart.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the reason why a man cannot achieve

occult and psychic power, and the intuitive and inspirational faculty, is

because he has not developed the power of love; and this failure is caused

by the selfishness which has kept him back from developing the power of

love.

Man does not differ from the animals in his passions and emotions. The human

being differs from the animal by his human qualities; these are not eating,

drinking, or seeking his kind. Human qualities can only be developed by the

development of love. Man has fought in all ages with his brother on account

of differences of religion, differences of faith, differences of belief,

differences of Church, differences of community, not knowing that each

religion, each time it was given, has brought only a message of love, taking

a different expression each time. It has been given in different ages and to

different people; they have received it according to their evolution; and

yet there has really been only the one teaching, that of developing love.

'Love your neighbor; love your fellow man; love your enemy', there has

always been the same lesson given.

Christ told the fishermen to come, and he would make them fishers of men;

that is to say, 'As fishes come into your net, so your heart full of love

will become a net that will attract every man to it.' Rumi says, 'All who

see me feel attracted to me, yet do not know what it is in me that attracts

them'. Is it not the secret of the whole of life? If we could see to whom we

are attracted in life, father, mother, sister, neighbor, or anybody that we

feel drawn to, then it would seem to us to be a magnetic or psychic power.

But there is no greater magnetic power than love. Its magnetic power is very

great. It changes a person's voice, his heart, his manner, his form, his

movement, his activity, everything becomes changed. What a difference

between water and rock; that smoothness and that liquid state of being, the

rise and fall of the surface of the water compared with the rigidity of the

rock! The great teachers of humanity become streams of love. It is the first

sign of the sage or holy man that he himself becomes love. His voice, his

feeling, his presence, everything makes one realize that there is something

open in him which we do not find in everybody; this something is his deep

love.

The development of love is often hindered by different obstacles in life.

The first obstacle is ourselves. We begin our life with selfishness, and all

that we want is for self, and if there is a tendency to love, it is for

one's own happiness, and one's own joy. When the question comes, 'How much

do you love me, and how much do I love you?' it has come to be a trading in

love. 'I love you, but you do not love me' is as much as to say, 'I have bid

so much, and I expect a return of love'. This is trading in love, and trade

cannot lead anywhere, because it makes one think of the self, and love is

beyond that. To love is to give; it is not to take at all. The true lover

never speaks of what he has done for his beloved, for he loves for love's

sake, not for the sake of a return. If a person begins to love and makes it

a love fed by the love of his beloved, then he seeks an impossible thing. If

a person keeps waiting for the love of the beloved, he is bound to find that

nature cannot grant that desire, unless both are traders in love. Then each

takes the best of the other; each may think he loves, but neither truly

loves.

Love teaches the lover patience, forbearance, gentleness, because he thinks,

'My beloved will be displeased; I will be as gentle as possible in my action

and in my movements'. These thoughts are a correction to the lover. With

every such thought that passes in the life of the lover he corrects himself.

Hope is the only thing in life which keeps us alive, because it feeds on

love. Patience is fed by love. We can never have patience with anybody

without love. How valuable is patience! As it is said in the Quran, 'Allah

loves the patient'.

Another hindrance to love is its dependence on the beauty of the ideal, be

it physical beauty, beauty of thought, of character, or of personality.

Whatever beauty it may be, whenever love depends for its continuance or for

its existence upon the beauty of its object, it must some day fail.

Therefore true love does not regard the body, the external object; in point

of fact love prepares its own ideal. For when a person says, 'O, I have

loved you for your beauty', what will he say when youth has gone and the

beauty is lost? Where will the love be then? The love will change too. And

if love has gone with the passing of the beauty of the object of its love,

what then? Another may say, 'O, I love you for your personality', and yet

perhaps within a month the beloved may not show the same personality, the

same attractive goodness. What then?

We think a flower is a fleeting thing, so soon does it change; and yet the

human heart is liable to a quicker change than even the flower. A person may

be very good one moment, very kind; and the next moment the contrary; calm

one moment, and then restless; at one time so affectionate, at another

indifferent; all according to the state of mind in which he happens to be at

the time. So it cannot last if it is allowed to depend on the beauty of the

ideal; such love is dependent and would sooner or later die. That is why so

many hearts cannot keep the flame of love alive in them.

Often it happens that lovers grow cold just from lack of understanding that

love must not be for an external ideal, but that the lover has to prepare

the ideal in himself; they have failed to make the self-sufficient love

within themselves. Not so the sages, the holy men, the wise ones. They know

that a person who is kind today can be the contrary tomorrow. Therefore the

wise lover expects both opposites in the external and inner beauty of the

beloved.

Those who have developed the ideal love within themselves by the aid of an

object to love, transform their nature into a more and more loving one in

time. Their love for a certain person is akin to learning the abc, for by

learning the abc one comes to be able to read not only the primer, but any

book. By learning to love one, we gain a light, a torch, by the light of

which we can read all things in life; it is as if in our nature we have

developed something that we can give to everyone.

In the East there is a saying, 'A loving son is always a loving husband'.

This is a true philosophy. It teaches the fact that he who has known from

the beginning of life what love means, has laid the foundation of a whole

life of being truly loving. A person who is faithful and kind to one friend

can be kind to all, acquaintances, servants, neighbors, and strangers alike,

because he has developed that quality. But when people pretend to love they

are kind to one and bitter to another. This shows that they are not really

lovers. The real lover will show his kindness, gentleness, sympathy, all

aspects of love, to everyone he meets.

When one thinks about occult powers, such as knowing the condition of other

people's minds, their pleasure and displeasure, also the joy and pain of

another's heart, knowing what is going on at a distance, receiving news from

far away in the world, we find that all these can be gained without study,

just through the power of love. It is all so easy and simple to one who

loves. The traders with love cannot know this. The real lover will know such

things without special meditation or concentration, for what can exert a

greater concentration than love? If one's thoughts are scattered over

pianos, chairs, tables, jewels, dress, one cannot understand such power; but

if one has true interest in an ideal, the power is there before one seeks

it.

Therefore all occult and psychic power is the power of love. But it is not

only a matter of love for a living person. There is a love of art, of

science, of music, of poetry, of all the different aspects of beauty. Love

in every direction shows one the sublime vision of the beautiful. It is

those who have loved the beauty of poetry who are able to enjoy its beauty

and to express it to others; those who have love of music are enabled to

give their music to the world and attract the lovers of music, as well as

being able to enjoy its beauty themselves. Love's power ever shows its

magnetism afresh through all the ages.

But love in its higher sense teaches us that there is a love, an object, a

beloved that can last with us and prove satisfactory, compared with which

there is nothing in life worthy of all our love; and that one object is God.

But among those who say, 'O yes, I love God', very few tell the truth; very

often that is a false pretense. How can we love the formless and colorless?

It is impossible to love one whom we cannot confine within any particular

beauty. It is only those who pretend to be spiritual because they are godly

and pious towards those of their own sect that say, 'We love God'. It is as

absurd to say this as to say to a beloved, 'O beloved, I love you very much,

but I do not like looking at your face'. For God says, 'I have made man in

My own image'. When man is prejudiced against man and still says, 'I love

God', how can God be pleased with that kind of love? How can that be true

love for God which refuses to see the beauty that is before it? If God said,

'If you wish to see Me, see Me in the face of man; that is My own image'

this would show what true love is. Also, if a person claiming to love an

artist were to say to him, 'I love you very much, but I cannot bear to look

at your picture', what kind of love could that be? The artist has given all

his soul and life to that art; his very self has, so to speak, become art,

and his whole satisfaction lies in our appreciation of his art. How can

those claim to love the Creator who do not love what He has created? For God

could never have become known had there been no manifestation. So he who

does not find sufficient beauty to admire in His manifestation cannot

pretend to love God.

So, too, if someone limits his love to a single object, saying, 'I only love

this and there is nothing else I need', surely he has not the right kind of

love either. True love is limitless. Though it begins by being limited in

such a way, yet it progresses and some day breaks out. Such a thing is

constantly happening in life, but people do not understand the psychic law

which underlies it. Eastern people say, when someone loves another person

intensely and does not care for anyone else, 'There will be some mishap

there some day'. There is always some breakdown, some danger waiting, some

trouble in the future, when love is not allowed to flow freely and is

limited. The Japanese and Chinese have called God jealous, because He does

not allow two persons to be devoted only to each other. God cannot tolerate

this narrowing of love. If one tried to put the whole sea into a little jar,

the sea would break it. The sea of love breaks its limited channel. To speak

of the jealous God means that the unlimited force of love cannot allow its

expression to be directed towards one limited object. That is why the love

of God alone is the culmination of love, for love is as vast as God. Verily,

love itself is God.

There is a beautiful story which has been dramatized and acted in India for

hundreds of years; the people never get tired of seeing it, so it is acted

even today. It is called 'The Court of Indra'. Indra is the God of Heaven.

His court is made up of Devas and Paris. The latter dance in the court, the

Devas are to attend the pleasure of Indra. No earthly creature is ever

allowed to enter, nothing of the earth is ever seen or allowed in the court

of Indra. Once a Pari, the Green Pari, happened to fly to the surface of the

earth, and she saw a prince of that country over which she was flying, whose

beauty charmed her so much that she thought that if she could in some way or

other take him to her high dwellings, she would be happy. She told one of

the Devas about it, and he carried away Gulfam, the Prince, while he was

asleep. He wakes up, and finds himself in a strange place, and breathing a

different air. After great bewilderment he sees a Pari, a creature much more

beautiful than the creatures of the earth. He looks at her and asks her how

he comes to be there. She tells him he is in Indra Loka, that she loves him

and will be happy to keep him there. 'I will do anything for your

happiness', she says.

Gulfam forgets all about his kingdom, and lives with the Pari, most happy in

her love. Every day she has to leave him to be at her duty, and every day

she returns, never saying where she has been. This arouses his curiosity,

but still she will not tell where she goes and what she does. Finally she

does tell him that she has to dance before Indra every day. Then he wants to

go and see. She expostulates, but at length consents to take him. She keeps

him behind her, and hopes to conceal him with her wings as she dances before

Indra. But one of the Devas sees him and tells Indra, who for a long time

will not believe it possible that a human being could be in his court. Then

he discovers him, and pronounces a curse upon him, while the Pari is to be

banished until she has undergone the successive stages of purification

through earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Not till then can she be allowed

to enter the heavens again.

This story shows that in the highest dwellings, in that sphere which is

Indra Loka where love conquers man, the King is Indra, the perfection of

beauty. The highest love must be for God; it belongs to Him. In its

development love should aim at that idea. The Pari is the human soul, Gulfam

is the human body. The soul which is heavenly becomes interested in this

earthly body; but when by the power of love it comes from the earth to the

heavenly sphere, it brings to heaven an object which is destined only for

the earth. The love of a limited being is not allowed to remain in heaven,

and will be condemned to be purified and uplifted until it can nevermore

find satisfaction in a limited object, in the love for a human being. Homage

must be paid to the Lord of Heaven. True love must have free flow; and to

learn that free flow the teachers have taught us first to love from the

limited, and thence to advance in love till we attain to the love of God,

the Unlimited.

checked 18-Oct-2005

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