CURRICULUM OF THE SUFI ORDER
The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis
LESSON 10, PART 2
THE UNIVERSEL, continued

Knowledge is found in the realization of people – not in the abstract.

The present text may appear in some way as a repeat of Lesson 10. It is a clarification devised as an introduction to the next installments in which we shall be systematically exploring the developmental stages step by step. Quotes repeated gain relevance by being reiterated in new contexts. All quotes are from Hazrat Inayat Khan. 

PROPOSED FOR NEXT INSTALLMENTS

We propose to explore in the teaching of Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan, the clues to find out who we are, to deal with our problems, to make sense of our lives, to fulfill our life's purpose, and to achieve what we wish to accomplish. This study includes parallels with the ancient Sufis, also sometimes Yoga, Buddhism, Kabbala, Christianity, Islam and, in addition, some references to psycho-therapy and present day scientific theories. Since many people eschew trying to figure out sophisticated scientific views, while some are intrigued by the challenge, references to these, as the case might be, will be placed in an annex at the end of the installment. It is reassuring to find to what extent these views corroborate experiences in meditation, particularly some of Hazrat Inayat Khan's bold futuristic views.

Moreover, our purpose is to explore what light the views, realizations, and attunements of the prophets, masters, saints and great beings project upon our human problems in our day and age. Hazrat Inayat Khan opened our perspective to this broad, cosmic, ageless perennial spectrum. His universal message offers an all-encompassing embrace which integrates the sometimes antinomous points of view of these great beings followed by their consequences in terms of popular beliefs in a cosmic symposium. Therefore in the universal perspective, while having the incentive to select a prophet, master or saint who is particularly close to our heart, we could brainstorm a dialogue between this holy being and a holy being of another religion to broaden our outreach, if we consider it important to keep abreast with the evolution of the prow of the thinking of humanity as it advances towards a unified world-view.

The collective working of several minds and the activity of the whole world in one direction are governed by the intelligence of the planet….There is a spirit that collects and accumulates all the knowledge that every being has had.

This invites us to harness the realizations revealed to us during our meditations, highlighting an alternate assessment of our life situations as viewed from the perspective of wise beings.

It is the situation we are in that makes us believe we are this or that.

It consists in accessing knowledge through beings. 

A mystic does not look at reasons as everybody else does, because he sees that the first reason that comes to his mind is only a cover over another reason which is hidden behind it. (The Path of Initiation.) He does not see things through the reason he has learned from the world, but he begins to see the reason of all reasons, the reason which is covered by ordinary reasoning. (In an Eastern Rose Garden)

For us to reach these perspectives and resonate with those lofty attunements, we need to try to shift our consciousness into theirs and see ourselves from their vantage point. This calls upon us to endeavor to familiarize ourselves with these beings.

In reality, there are no things, they are all beings. It is simply a gradual awakening from the witnessing aspect to the recognizing aspect. (Gatha I, Insight, the Glance) 

It involves a sustained apprenticeship. To learn this, we need to first develop a clear grasp of the basis of their teachings – each very different from the other. Then we need to familiarize ourselves with these beings (as far as it goes) based upon the traditional chronicles of history; in a third step we try to reverse our consciousness by inverting it into that of the being we have selected to inspire us (and incidentally by the same token guide us).

The same reality can look different according to the vantage point from which you look at it.

This later step is facilitated by getting into the consciousness of the chosen master, saint or prophet while repeating the dhikr. Moreover, one could select an inspiring being for each wazifa. In a future installment, we shall be working with the effect that concentrating on a 'quality' has upon the form of our subtle body. 

The first step is called Tassawuri Murshid, imagining how that being looked in the past (the role of imagination).

One may see faces never seen before that have once existed in the world…. (Githas)

In the second step called Tawajjeh, one imagines how it would be to see things from their vantage point and attune to their emotional attunement.

The glance of a sage has the power to open every object and to see through it.

We prepare ourselves by first earmarking a friend, then a person whom one resents (if it be the case). Then an acquaintance whom one admires or a role figure we have heard about. Then earmark a wise or great person. It is a gradual process leading to the point of really getting into the consciousness of the great prophets, masters and saints; ultimately, through these, into the divine consciousness. It requires of one to achieve precisely what all religions teach, downplaying one's self-image, fana, in order to discover the divinity of one's true being as a "condition of God" (Hazrat Inayat Khan). This is called baqa.

It is not his true self which is limited; what is limited is what he holds, not himself. (Alchemy.) The ego itself is never destroyed. In the knowledge of the ego there is the secret of immortality. If you dived deep enough in yourself, you would discover your real ego. (Cosmic Language.) Where are you to find God if not in the God-conscious…. It is in man that divinity is awakened, that God is awakened, that God can be seen.… Not knowing that God experiences this life through us, one is seeking for Him somewhere else. Man in the flowering of his personality expresses the personality of God. (The Unity of Religious Ideals)

Hence the motto: fana fi Sheikh, fana fi Rasul, fana fi Allah; leading to baqi bi'l Allah.  Thus through trying to see things from the point of view of the prophets, masters and saints, one reaches into God consciousness.

No doubt, as Hazrat Inayat Khan says, "All is God but man has a body and mind of his own," but in comparison with the cosmic and transcendent outreach of the divine consciousness, our thought, albeit customizing that thinking, pales in comparison. Our emotions do likewise in comparison with divine emotion.

So far there has only been a belief in God. God exists in people's imagination as an ideal. Believing is the first step. By this process the God within is awakened and made living. It is in those who are God conscious that God becomes a reality so that He is no longer an imagination…. The first thing a believer does is to imagine. He imagines that God is the Creator, and tries to believe that God is the Sustainer, and he makes an effort to think that God is a Friend. But do not forget that God is beneath all, beyond all, within all, and without all things, the sum total of all that exists and which is knowable, but also what lies beyond man's knowledge. (Esoteric Papers/ Sangitha I.) But if this imagination is to become a reality, exactly as one feels for one's earthly beloved (the emotions of) sympathy, love and attachment, so one must feel the same for God. (The Way of Illumination)

In this study we will proceed systematically through the levels of consciousness according to the Sufis while pointing out the parallels with other esoteric schools.

I am appending here an improved topography of levels, including the relevant chakras.