HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN - - Unselfish Love, Devotion, the Garb of Angels - - In Honor of Hejirat Day In Honor of Hejirat Day

Volume XII - The Divinity of the Human Soul

Part I: The Vision of God and Man and other Lectures

THE VISION OF GOD AND MAN

Some people think that the physical garb is the only one the soul wears, but this is not so; in order to come to this plane of the earth the ray, the soul, must pass through two different spheres. The first sphere may be called the angelic sphere, and the next the sphere of the jinns. One may ask, 'Then way do I not see them, if I also have garbs from these other spheres?' But one can see them too if one has studied human nature minutely. Eating, drinking, and sleeping, all these faculties come from the physical world; but there are others: the love of music, appreciation of poetry, the tendency to invent wonderful things, all intellectual pursuits and phenomena come from the jinn world. Poets and thinkers show the garb of that sphere in the work they do in the physical world. This garb is hidden, but where? It has become their mind, and therefore the mind is the inner garb, while the body is the outer garb, which covers it. The mind is the garb which man has brought from the jinn sphere. But even before this man had still another garb, and this comes from the angelic sphere. Do we see any sign of it? Yes, in his devotion, in his idealistic tendencies, in his innocence, in the love and beauty of his nature, in all these qualities man shows the garb of the sphere of the angels.

Innocence always goes with a loving nature. A person who is loving is generally innocent also, whereas a person who is very clever is least loving. For the very reason that he is clever he has little love, for then love is buried in his cleverness. I do not mean to say that innocence is the most valuable quality; every quality has its place; nevertheless innocence is an angelic quality. Great prophets, saints, and sages, those, who have healed the wounds of humanity, were most innocent people. Innocence is the proof of spirituality. However great a person's cleverness may be, without innocence he cannot be spiritual; also, spirituality produces innocence.

The garb that man has brought from the angelic sphere is revealed in the form of unselfish love, devotion, high ideals, a worshipful attitude, and love of beauty. The first tendency shown by every infant from the time it opens its eyes is love of beauty: beautiful colors, beautiful things, all these attract it. Perhaps it does not see beauty as we do, for our sense of beauty has been spoiled by our experience and our ideas, but the infant comes to the earth with a natural sense of beauty. That which is really beautiful strikes the infant, and it loves it.

photo: Hazrat Inayat Khan

Courtesy Sufi Movement Archives