This Sufi's Ashram: 2/19/12

Saturday, February 25, 2012

He who has failed himself has failed all; he who has conquered himself has won all. -Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

There is no reason for anyone to feel discouraged by his weaknesses or deficiencies, or by his actions that have dissatisfied him, or by anything in life that has failed. He should forget the past that has failed him, and begin to construct and mold his future as he would wish it to be. Considering that as a branch is not separate from the bough, and the bough is not separate from the stem, so with all our limitations we are not separate from the will of the Unlimited One.

from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_5.htm

I remember a Persian verse made by my murshid which relates to the self: 'When I feel that now I can make peace with my self, it finds time to prepare another attack.' That is our condition. We think that our little faults, since they are small, are of no consequence; or we do not even think of them at all. But every little fault is a flag for the little self, for its own dominion. In this way battling makes man the sovereign of the kingdom of God. Very few can realize the great power in battling with and conquering the self.

But what does man generally do? He says, 'My poor self, it has to withstand the conflicts of this world; should I also battle with this self?' So he surrenders his kingdom to his little self, depriving himself of the divine power that is in the heart of man. There is in man a false self and a real self. The real self contains the eternal; the false self contains the mortal. The real self has wisdom; the false self ignorance. The real self can rise to perfection; the false self ends in limitation. The real self has all good, the false self is productive of all evil. One can see both in oneself: God and the other one. By conquering the other one, one realizes God. This other power has been called Satan; but is it a power? In reality it is not. It is and it is not. It is a shadow. We see shadow and yet it is nothing. We should realize that this false self has no existence of its own. As soon as the soul has risen above the false self, it begins to realize its nobility.

from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VI/VI_13.htm

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