Hazrat Inayat Khan
14 quotes
Biography
Inayat Khan Rehmat Khan, was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the sarasvati vina, poet, philosopher, writer, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. At the urging of his students, and on the basis of his ancestral Sufi tradition and four-fold training and authorisation at the hands of Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani of Hyderabad, he established an order of Sufism in London in 1914.
"We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself."
"Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word."
"If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others."
"A person however learned and qualified in his life's work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant."
"A person however learned and qualified in his life's work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant."
"Everything in life is speaking in spite of its apparent silence."
"It is more important to find out the truth about oneself than to find out the truth about heaven and hell, or about many other things which are of less importance and are apart from oneself. However, every man's pursuit is according to his state of evolution, and so each soul is in pursuit of something—but he does not know where it leads him."
"The first lesson to learn is to resign oneself to the little difficulties in life, not to hit out at everything one comes up against. If one were able to manage this one would not need to cultivate great power; even one's presence would be healing."
"Moth: I gave you my life. Flame: I allowed you to kiss me."
"Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe."
"The teaching of Jesus Christ has as its central theme unfoldment towards a realization of immortality."
"There are two aspects of individual harmony: the harmony between body and soul, and the harmony between individuals. All the tragedy in the world, in the individual and in the multitude, comes from lack of harmony. And harmony is the best given by producing harmony in one's own life."
"Our thoughts have prepared for us the happiness or unhappiness we experience."
"To create happiness for oneself and others is the whole philosophy of religion."