True Life

I am constantly amazed at the beauty manifested by the complex textures of life
Each day a blessing, a magnificent unfolding into the deeper dimensions of truth
It is such a gift to be free from the echoes of experience
To cherish the gifts of the past but to be at the forefront of creation, playing in the liquid light of what is to come

The eye looking forward projecting a magnificent now
Breathing in the currents of the universe, one exhales a luminous ocean of openness
The building blocks coalesce from the passions of the inner heart
This is the playground of the Beloved

True life exists at the edge of the creative force
Its depth is born out of wisdom
Its intensity is defined by the purity of glance
And its capacity by the ability of the heart to expand

- Abdul Karim Chishti


I would like to follow the poem I wrote above with a passage that Hazrat Inayat Khan wrote while he was in Geneva in 1924:

If life could be pictured, one would say that it reminds one of a sea in the storm, and the waves coming and going; such is life. And it is this understanding which gives man that weight which can endure through the rain and the storm and all the vicissitudes. Without understanding he is like a jolly-boat on the sea which cannot go on through the storm. By understanding a mystic learns. He learns tact; he is tactful under all circumstances. And his tact is like a ship with a heavy load, which the wind cannot move and which stands still in the midst of the storm on the sea.

The nature of life is such that it easily excites the mind and makes man unhappy in a moment’s time. It makes man so confused that he does not know where to take the next step. Contrary to this, the mystic stands still and inquires of life its secret, and from every experience, every failure or success, the mystic learns a lesson. Therefore, failure and success both are profitable to a mystic.

The ideal of a mystic is never to think of disagreeable things. What one does not want to happen one must not think of. All disagreeable things from the past, a mystic erases them from his mind. He collects and keeps his happy experiences and makes out of them a paradise. Are there not many unhappy people, who keep a part of the past before them which causes them pain in their heart? Past is past, it is gone. There is eternity before you. If you want to make your life as you wish, do not think of disagreeable thoughts and of painful experiences and memories that make you unhappy.