This Sufi's Ashram: Our spirit is the real part of us, the body but its garment.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Our spirit is the real part of us, the body but its garment. - Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

Our spirit is the real part of us, the body but its garment. A man would not find peace at the tailor's because his coat comes from there; neither can the spirit obtain true happiness from the earth just because his body belongs to earth.

Bowl of Saki, July 25, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Spirituality is contrary to materiality. One who is conscious of matter alone is material, one who becomes conscious of spirit also is spiritual. He who thinks, 'I am my body', and sees no further, is material. He may as well say, 'I am my coat', and when the coat is worn out he may say, 'I am dead.' The one who is conscious of the spirit, to him his body is a coat, and as by taking off one's coat one does not die, so even by the death of this body the spirit realized soul does not die.
   from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIII/XIII_20.htm

Once a person has advanced in spirituality, nothing matters to him - neither what he eats and drinks, for he lives in the spirit the most part of his life; for him the body is a coat and he does not care if it is full of holes or if it is patched. But for a person who has yet to develop spiritually and who follows a process consideration is necessary; it is most necessary that the body should be kept pure, outwardly and inwardly, that it may become a suitable vehicle for the manifestation of the spirit.
   from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIII/XIII_16.htm

Those who seek for happiness from external sources are never really satisfied. A man imagines that if he could have a certain sum of money he would be happy, but if he gets it he is not really content. He wants more. No earthly happiness is lasting: it never remains. ... The Bible says, 'The spirit quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.' Our spirit is the real part of us. The body is but a garment. There is absolute peace in the abode from whence the spirit came, and the true happiness of the soul lies in that peace. As man would not find peace at the tailor's just because his coat came from there, so the spirit cannot get true happiness from the earth just because the body belongs to the earth. The soul experiences life through the mind and body and enjoys it, but its true happiness lies in peace.

In order to gain this peace we have to begin with ourselves. There are fights going on within us between spirit and matter. Struggles for our daily bread, and want of peace in our surroundings. We must first get this peace within ourselves before we can talk of peace in the world. Then we must be at peace with our surroundings, and never do or say anything that disturbs that peace. All thoughts, words, and actions that disturb the peace are sin, and all thoughts words, and actions that create peace are virtue.
   from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/V/V_40.htm

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Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan

BBC - History - Historic Figures: Noor Inayat Khan (1914 - 1944)
Noor Inayat Khan was born on New Year's Day 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother. She was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the 18th ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/inayat_khan_noor.shtml

Noor Inayat Khan was a wartime British secret agent of Indian descent who was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She was arrested and eventually executed by the Gestapo.

Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan: Exotic British spy who defied Gestapo brutality to the end - her last word was liberté (Liberty)

Etymological Abbreviations

Eng. English, West Germanic language spoken in England after c.450,
heavily influenced by French and somewhat by Scandinavian.
O.E. Old English, the English language as written and spoken c.450-c.1100.
Gk. Greek, Indo-European language spoken in Greece in the classical period, c. 8c. B.C.E.-4c. C.E. Among its dialects were Ionian-Attic (the language of Homer and the Athenian dramatists), Aeolic (used in Thessaly, Boeotia and Lesbos), and Dorian (the language of Sparta).
Heb. Classical Hebrew, ancient Semitic language of the Israelites.
L. Classical Latin, the Italic language of ancient Rome until about 4c.
L.L. Late Latin, the literary Latin language as spoken and written c.300-c.700.

I.E. Indo-European, the family of languages that includes most of the languages of modern Europe (English among them) and some current and extinct ones in western and southern Asia. All are presumed to share a common ancestor, PIE.

PIE Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical reconstructed ancestral language of the Indo-European family. The time scale is much debated, but the most recent date proposed for it is about 5,500 years ago.

Online Etymological Dictionary

ONE

In the Semitic language of Aramaic which Jesus most likely spoke, the Aramaic word which is translated as God in the European bible was actually Alaha. According to some linguists, the word Alaha which Jesus spoke would have had the ending "a" softened or not pronounced at all, leading to the pronunciation "alah". Since the Arabic language was largely derived from the earlier Aramaic (much the same as Aramaic was derived from the earlier Hebrew), the modern Arabic word Allah is likely derived from the earlier Aramaic pronunciation "alah". Indeed, Allah of the Qur'an and Alaha of Jesus refer to the same One. In contrast, the word "God" is a relatively new, and perhaps unfortunate, European invention which has been the source of much misunderstanding and conflict.
http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/mv_glossary.htm