Quotes by Sufi Teachers

To create happiness for oneself and others is the whole philosophy of religion.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Our thoughts have prepared for us the happiness or unhappiness we experience.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Selfishness keeps man blind through life.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Politics is the application of Sufism to earthlife...To refuse to act politically is to starve your children, destroy civilization.
Shamcher Bryn Beorse
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.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
The teaching of Jesus Christ has as its central theme unfoldment towards a realization of immortality.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
The reason why man seeks for happiness is not because happiness is his sustenance, but because happiness is his own being; therefore in seeking for happiness, man is seeking for himself.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Moth: I gave you my life. Flame: I allowed you to kiss me.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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 sign of realization of truth is tolerance towards others. There are the words of Christ, "In the house of my Father are many mansions", and those of the Prophet, "Each soul has its own religion." This means that according to his evolution so man knows the truth and the more a man knows, the more he finds there is to learn.
Inayat Khan
If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Love is the divine Mother's arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them.The Sufis of all ages have been known for their beautiful personality. It does not mean that among them there have not been people with great powers, wonderful powers and wisdom. But beyond all that, what is most known of the Sufis is the human side of their nature: that tact which attuned them to wise and foolish, to poor and rich, to strong and weak -- to all. They met everyone on his own plane, they spoke to everyone in his own language. What did Jesus teach when he said to the fishermen, 'Come hither, I will make you fishers of men?' It did not mean, 'I will teach you ways by which you get the best of man.' It only meant: your tact, your sympathy will spread its arms before every soul who comes, as mother's arms are spread out for her little ones.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Everything in life is speaking in spite of its apparent silence.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
I have loved in life and I have been loved. I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar, and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow. My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it. My heart has been rent and joined again; My heart has been broken and again made whole; My heart has been wounded and healed again; A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet. I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire, and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love. I wept in love and made all weep with me; I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men; And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes. The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear; With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved, I shook the throne of God in heaven.I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love, "Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret." She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear, "My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover, and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.
Hazrat Inayat Khan