
A JOURNAL OF TRANS-ETHNIC SPIRITUALITY
VOL. 2, ISSUE 3
Heart of the Message, is produced for the Church of All and
of all churches at Pagosa Springs by Post-Dogmatist
Publications, Rev. Hamid Cecil Touchon; Editor-in-Chief. This publication
is a part of the larger site, A CHERAG'S LIBRARY. COPYRIGHT 1997
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Your
Divine Inheritance
Cherag Regina Choeli McKnight
The following is a transcription of a meditation led by the Sufi master,
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. See how you can relate to this attunement:
"Do you remember being born, descending upon the earth plane? Remember
that as you descended through the spheres from that very impersonal state,
very sublime, but rather cold and remote, you were drawn by something on
the planet earth. It seemed as though life was proliferating there. Some
activity was drawing you there. There is activity in the heavens, but somehow
it is concretized on earth, which is very exciting.
See if you can experience this process. You see that there are beings
down there who had become more material than you had yet, and who are offering
their bodies to make a body for you. You were seduced by the humanness
of the joy of the planet, as contrasted to the remoteness of the emotion
of the higher spheres. That is what brought you down here. You wanted to
dance with all the emotion, to just stretch out your arms and dance.
Think of yourself now as having been born out of the universe and
landing on the planet and having adopted a body which carries within it
the genetic heritage of an evolved dinosaur? On the one hand you can see
the divine perfection of your eternal being, and on the other hand you
experience the limitation through which the divine perfection is functioning
on the planet."
In this meditation Pir Vilayat directs us to feel both our nostalgia for
the heavens, and the warmth, joy, and pain of the opportunity to dance
in the physical form. Can you imagine going through your day with this
perspective? Imagine how this awareness would affect your interactions
with your spouse, your children, a friend, or a clerk in a store. See if
you sense the shift
it would bring if you were to look at someone, engage his eyes and think,
"This being is not of Earth."
Pir Vilayat identifies as the greatest struggle of people in our society
today, the "struggle for self-esteem." This article presents his suggestions
for dealing with this issue in our lives.
In life we constantly encounter our defects, our errors, our inadequacies,
our guilts. We are forced to come to terms with aspects of ourselves we
do not like. We may have to deal with our awareness that we have harmed
others or with our perception that we ourselves have been physically or
psychologically damaged. Most of us tend either to denigrate ourselves
or on the other hand to deny and to justify ourselves.
Part of the answer to dealing with these issues of self esteem is to
be in touch with our Divine Inheritance. "We must first be anchored in
our sense of our divine inheritance so we can cope with our lower self
without losing self-esteem," Pir Vilayat says. We must never forget what
he calls "the Aristocracy of the Soul," even when we are aware of the limitations
of the ego. One has a very different relation to and feeling about oneself
when one identifies with one's divine inheritance.
When we do not like something about ourselves, we can attribute it to
the "evolved dinosaur" that is the inheritance of our body and of our psyche
and personality, as well. This, of course, does not absolve us of responsibility,
but it gives us a way of shifting what we identify with, in order to overcome
the limitation.
The practices found in many of the great spiritual traditions teach
us to get into the consciousness of the great beings like Christ and Buddha
as a way to contact the divine in us. This is a help, but we need also
to discover the majesty of our own Beings, to feel the divine majesty coming
through our own beings. We can, in our meditations, discover the divine
qualities that are present in ourselves. Rather than just working to try
to be more compassionate, we can discover Divine Compassion in ourselves.
Rather than relying on developing our own personal power, we can learn
to call upon a power greater than our own. Instead of experiencing our
will as something other than the Divine Will, we can see our will as being
like a branch of one tree which is the divine will.
One image that can help us in our lives is to think of the divinity
of our being as like an indestructible mirror that can never be tarnished.
Knowing this can preserve us against the humiliation we feel when we have
done something for which we feel regret or shame or when something shameful
has been done to us. We must know that it did not touch that which is really
our Self. There is a part of us which remains pure, whole, innocent.
Pir Vilayat outlines four steps by which you can deal with negative
aspects of yourself or your experience.
1. First, accept the negative aspect so that you can make use of
it.
This relates to the Hindu story of Rama and the monkeys, in which the
monkeys make a bridge with their bodies so that Rama can cross a chasm.
The monkeys represent the lower self placed at the service of the higher
self.
Instead of denigrating the lower self, you can make use of it, and thus
ennoble it.
2. Secondly, take responsibility in each situation.
Face yourself rather than avoiding or blaming. Your focus should be
not on guilt, but rather on being truthful with yourself. Thus, there are
two things to avoid: denigrating yourself or justifying yourself.
3. Do something to improve the quality of your being or to repair
the consequences of your actions.
Find out how you can compensate, if not to the person you have harmed,
then to others, or through service. This includes asking not only divine
forgiveness but also forgiveness of the other, if possible. Also important
in this step is releasing resentment.
4. The final step is to change.
Make a vow, and try to keep it.
Pir Vilayat calls us to develop greater magnanimity. He uses the image
of the oyster, saying, "If you are in your higher consciousness and see
yourself as having landed on the planet, your opportunity to transmute
the planet is there in transmuting your relationships with people. How
can you transform those relationships? Can you really love people unconditionally?
. . . What I am talking about is magnanimity, having room in your heart
for all beings, even if they have prickles and hurt you. . . We could all
think of ourselves as oysters, and the jagged-edged personalities we deal
with are painful to our consciousness, but we can accept them and take
them in and transmute the relationship. In this way they become beautiful
through the power of love, which makes them into pearls."
Our vision of the unfoldment of our Being is fulfilled by manifesting
the divine qualities more and more in our daily lives and our relationships.
This is how we claim our Divine Inheritance.
The Law of Heredity - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Heredity has been much thought of among all peoples and in all ages. If
we look at the animal kingdom we see that the lion cub is never the offspring
of the snake, nor are toads hatched from pigeon's eggs; the oak tree will not
produce dates nor do roses spring from thistles.
We see in the East that of all breeds of horses the Arab horse is the
best. One slight touch of the whip will make it leap any obstacle or cover
any distance, while there are other horses that are like donkeys, on whose
backs dozens of lashes are laid and they put one foot forward and stop,
and again twenty lashes are given to them and they take one step forward.
The Arabs value their horses so highly that they preserve the breed and
never allow it to be mixed with any other strain. Among dogs there are
some who will follow anyone. Whoever gives them a bone is their master,
and if another person gives them meat, they leave the first and run after
the other. And there are others who follow only one master, who obey only
one and sometimes even sacrifice their life for him. It depends upon the
breed, the heredity.
In the East they have considered this subject of heredity very much
and have attached great importance to it. The son of a poet will always
be a poet, the son of a musician is expected to be a musician. If a man
handles weapons they ask him, 'Are you the son of a soldier?' The son of
a miner will never do the work of a shepherd, and the son of a shepherd
will never do the work of a miner. A great many words of abuse have more
to do with the parents than with the person to whom they are addressed,
and a great many words of praise have to do with the ancestors, not with
the person of whom they are spoken.
In India, in Rajputana, there is a family of poets whose ancestors have
been poets for ten or fifteen generations, and they are all of them great
and wonderful poets. They are called Shighrakavi, improvisers, and are
appointed to the courts of the Maharajas. Their work is to stand up in
the assembly upon any occasion, and to recite verses, in rhyme and meter,
in a manner suitable to the occasion and to the people present.
In ancient times, when sons of kings and great people were often driven
from their country and wandered unknown in other lands, the way of recognizing
them was always by some test of their quality. It has happened in the history
of the world that slaves have become kings, and yet they could not keep
themselves from showing from the throne, through their grandeur, glimpses
of their slavish nature.
Is it the soul that transmits its qualities, or is it the mind or the
body that transmits qualities? This is a vast subject. Before explaining
it I will say, as to the word soul, that there are some people who call
soul those qualities which compose the individuality. This is not the soul
but the mind. The soul has no qualities, it is the pure consciousness and
therefore it does not transmit any qualities.
When the soul starts from its original point, it comes first to the
world of the Farishta, the angels, and is impressed with the angelic qualities.
The angels are absorbed in the hunger for beauty and the thirst for song.
They do not distinguish good and bad, high and low. The infant, who represents
the angel on earth, always turns to what appears to it radiant and beautiful.
There are two sorts of angels, those who have never manifested as man,
and those spirits who upon their way back to the infinite have reached
the world of the angels. Love, light, and lyric are the attributes of the
latter, and from them the soul receives these impressions. Devotion, service,
and worship are the attributes of the former. The angels are masculine
and feminine; the former are called Malak, the latter Hur.
In the world of the angels the soul for years and years enjoys these
experiences. When the desire for more experience urges it on, it goes forth
and comes to the world of jinns, which is the astral plane. In the Bible
we read that Adam was driven out of paradise; this means that the wish
for more experience makes the soul leave the world of the angels and go
to the astral plane and the physical plane.
The occupation of the jinns is to imagine, reason, and think. The jinns
are of two sorts: there are those who have never manifested physically
and there are those spirits who have left the earth with all the load of
their actions and experiences upon them. The jinns also are masculine and
feminine, and are called Gulman and Peri. From the first sort of jinns,
those who have not manifested physically, the soul receives the impressions
of imagination and thought. The soul that leaves the earth can take to
the world of the angels only whatever love, good feelings, and kindness
it may have. Even its love and kindness and its good feelings it cannot
take higher than the world of the angels; these are still too heavy for
the higher plane.
For there is a higher plane, and on that plane there is no individuality,
nothing but the infinite consciousness. All the rest the soul must leave
in the astral plane, and until it can leave behind all the evil that it
has gathered it must remain there, as it is too heavy to go higher. It
is like milk that is put over the fire: when all the watery part has evaporated,
the cream, the good, the essential part of the milk remains. This plane
is just like a street where someone is walking with a bundle. He says to
a soul, 'Will you take this bundle?' The soul is inexperienced, and so
it says, 'Yes, is it a nice bundle? Has it a good sound or a good perfume?'
It takes the bundle, and receives all the impressions that go with it.
Every soul possesses the best qualities. However wicked a person may
be, be assured that his soul possesses the best qualities as a special
inheritance, though they are covered up by all that has been gathered afterwards.
And there is always a possibility of spiritual progress for every soul,
even for the most wicked.
The soul, on its journey from the unseen to the seen world, receives
impressions from the souls which are on their return journey from the seen
to the unseen. In this way the soul collects the first merits and qualities.
It is this which forms a line for the soul to follow, and it is this line
that leads it to the parents from whom it inherits its later attributes.
The soul receives the impressions of another soul if it is attuned to that
other soul. For instance a soul meeting the soul of Beethoven receives
the impression of Beethoven's music, and then is born with the musical
qualities of Beethoven. The upholders of the theory of reincarnation say
that he is the reincarnation of Beethoven; the Sufi says that if they mean
that Beethoven's mind is reincarnated in him, it may be so; but as the
spirit comes from the unlimited, he says it need not necessarily be called
reincarnation. Therefore a person of poetical gifts may be born in the
family of a statesman where there was never a poet before.
The soul of a saint or murshid has remained long in the world of the
angels, and being more impressed by it, it brings with it the angelic qualities
of that world.
When the Bible speaks of 'the son of God', and the 'son of man', it
means that he is a son of God who has recognized the eternal spirit as
his parent, and that he is a son of man who has recognized himself as the
son of his parents who are as limited as he. We recognize our father and
mother as our origin. The parents claim the child as their own, and so
delude themselves. Its origin is the universal spirit; and in this we are
all brothers and sisters, without distinction of high or low, of race or
caste, of creed or religion.
Each soul is like a ray of the sun or of any light. Its work is to project
itself, to go forth as far as it can. It is creative and responsive. It
creates its means, its expression, and it is impressed by whatever comes
before it, in proportion to its interest in that. The soul goes always
to what appears to it beautiful and radiant, and so it goes on and on and
finds different qualities and different experiences and collects them round
it, until at last it finds the mother's womb.
A child may or may not inherit the qualities and defects of its parents.
If the impressions previously received by the soul are stronger it does
not inherit them. Very wicked parents may have a very saintly child, and
very good parents may have a very bad child.
The mental attributes of the parents are inherited by impression on
the mental plane. The thought, the feeling of the parents are inherited
by the child as a quality. If the father is engaged in thinking, 'I should
build an orphanage', the child will have a philanthropic disposition. If
the father is thinking, 'This person is my enemy, I should revenge myself
on him', the child will have a vindictive disposition. If the mother admires
something very much, for instance flowers, the child will have that love
of beauty in its nature. Also the qualities and features of the relations
and of other persons of whom one of the parents thinks a great deal are
impressed on the child. To explain the relation between heredity and environment,
one may say that heredity is the foundations of the house, and environment
is the building itself; and from this one may conclude which has the more
importance.
Often a child is like an uncle or an aunt of the father or mother; why
is this? It has two aspects: it may be either that the father or mother
has the qualities of this relation, although in them they have not fully
developed, and those qualities develop in the child; or it may be that
the grandmother or grandfather or other relation is so much attached to
his descendants that his spirit watches and impresses with his qualities
the child that is born in that family. Heredity is a matter of vibrations.
There must be harmony in the number of vibrations, in the same way that
color and sound are made by the harmony of vibrations. Thus a person may
be more like his grandfather than his father. If the grandfather has been
a poet, the grandson may again be a poet if the number of the vibrations
corresponds, even when the son is not one.
It is true that genius is transmitted by heredity and develops at every
step, but it is sometimes found that the child of a very great person happens
to be most ordinary, and sometimes the child of a most worthy person proves
to be most unworthy. This may be explained in the following manner: every
manifestation of genius has three stages, Uruj, Kemal, and Zeval, ascent,
climax, and decline. When the genius is in the ascendant it develops more
and more in every generation; when it reaches its climax it surpasses all
previous manifestations of genius in that family; when it is in the decline
it shows gradually or suddenly the lack or loss of genius. It is thus with
families, nations, and races.
That which is outward is given in heritage more than that which is inward.
A man may not be very like his father in looks or nature, yet he inherits
his property; the State will give the property to the son. It is inherited
because it is more outward. The qualities of the body are inherited more
than those of the mind, because they are more outward.
Every physical atom of the parents becomes radiant and its qualities
are imparted to the child. In the case of a father who has liked drink,
the child, of course, is born without the tendency for strong drink, but
as it grows and develops, the cells of its body, being the same as those
of the father's, may have the same craving for drink. And so it is with
all vices; though the parents would never wish to impart them to their
children, yet they do so unconsciously by their weakness and neglect.
Often a man has so much concern for his posterity that he earns money
and amasses it, not spending it on himself, in order that he may leave
it to his children. He even gives his life on the battlefield that his
children may enjoy the fruits of the victory. But if he only knew how much
influence the life that he leads has on his posterity he would think it
of more value to keep his life pure and elevated, both in health and mind,
in order that his children may inherit the wealth of humanity, which is
much more precious than earthly wealth and possessions.
Coming now to the question whether more qualities are inherited from
the paternal side or the maternal side, I will say that the qualities inherited
from the father are more deep-seated while those inherited from the mother
may be more apparent, because the father's inheritance is the substance,
while the mother's is the mold. The soul has many more attributes of the
father because these are the fundamental, original attributes; the attributes
of the mother are added to these, they are more active because they are
later attributes. Those qualities which are first impressed upon the soul
are stronger and those attributes which are acquired later are more active.
From association with its mother, from her training, a child acquires very
many of her attributes.
A man may not like the qualities of his father and may hide them. A
small child may have a face just like its mother's, but at some period
of its life it will grow so like its father in looks that it is astonishing.
A coward by association with brave people may become brave; he may go to
the war, but then, when he hears the guns, the cowardice which was the
original attribute of his soul will show itself. Although the father's
qualities are stronger, the responsibility of the mother is far greater.
It is she who molds the child. The mother's responsibility is a hundred,
a thousand times greater than the father's. Therefore mystical knowledge
is very necessary for women; in these times of civilization this should
not be withheld from them. Control of mind is very important for women.
It is the mother's fear that gives the child fear; her anger gives it
anger; her contempt gives it contempt. Her bad surroundings and impressions
give the child bad impressions; her good and desirable impressions give
the child good and desirable impressions. It is she who molds the human
race. From her are born the prophets and murshids. The credit for all good
and great people is hers; but at the same time children are often born
weak and defective because of her want of control and foolishness. By putting
too many coals on the fire, the fire may be covered up and the flame cannot
come out.
Krishna is often represented with his mother Devaki, and Christ with
his mother the Virgin Mary. This is woman's greatest merit and glory. In
the Gayan it is said, 'The mother was the stepping-stone of Jesus to Christhood.'
This means that human nature is such that man often forgets, seeing the
great glory of the Master, that modest and humble help given at the time
of need which enabled the Master to show forth his divine glory. The soul
which was to expand as Christ was enabled to come on earth by the mother;
and that is why in every case thought and consideration for the mother
are important. Even Jesus Christ, the manifestation of the Almighty God,
was dependent on his mother for his manifestation.
A child may be very like its mother in appearance, yet the quality is
the father's. For instance, if the father is very generous, and the mother
is finer, the child will perhaps be both generous and finer. In this way
the evolution of the world goes on by the intermingling of nations and
races. Those families who keep themselves segregated in the end become
weak and very stupid. For this reason the Prophet in Islam allowed all
races and castes to intermarry, because the time had come for the human
race to evolve in this way. When a child is different from both its mother
and its father, this is partly because of its heritage from other ancestors
on either side, but also because of its astral impressions. Besides every
thought, speech, and action of the child builds its self from the moment
of its birth upon earth. It is for this reason that there can be such a
difference between father and son, while there is no difference between
fleas or mosquitoes of East and West.
If we inherit the attributes of our father, our mother, our grandfather
and forefathers, and acquire the attributes of the jinns and angels, how
can we help what our character is? A man may say, 'I have a quick temper
because my father had a quick temper, I have a changeable disposition because
that is in my family; I cannot help this, it is my character.' This is
true in part, but it is developed by belief in it. The soul acquires and
casts off attributes and qualities throughout life. A coward who joins
the army through hearing always of bravery, by living with soldiers may
in time feel inclined to go to the war and to fight. A joyous person from
being in the society of serious people may become serious, and a sad person
from being with cheerful people may become cheerful. The soul acquires
only those qualities in which it is interested, it will never take on those
in which it is not interested. And the soul keeps only those attributes
in which it is interested, it loses those in which it is not interested.
However wicked a person may be, however many undesirable attributes he
may have inherited, he can throw them all off by the power of will if he
does not like them.
But can we change our physical body, can we change our face? We can.
People become like those of whom they think much or with whom they associate.
I have seen herdsmen whose faces have become very like those of the cattle
and sheep with which they lived. It is our thoughts and feelings that change
our appearance, and if we had control over them we should develop the appearance
that we wish to develop.
When one looks at pictures of Christ, of Zoroaster, of Moses and of
other prophets, one will see that they resemble each other. These pictures
are drawn from imagination; the painters have not seen their subjects.
Are they then not lifelike? They are, for the mind is greater than the
camera. There exist pictures of the murshids of the Sufi order, from Kwaja
Moin-ud-Din Chishti onwards, and these pictures of ten or twelve murshids
and their mureeds are very much alike. If it were imagination, why should
not imagination produce different pictures, as the nature of imagination
is more to differentiate than to unite?
But for those who are walking in the path of truth there is no heredity.
By realizing their divine origin they free themselves from all earthly
inheritance. As Christ said 'My Father in heaven', so they realize their
origin from the spirit, and by their concentration and meditation they
can create all the merits they wish for and clear away from their soul
all influences which they do not like to possess.
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at Cecil Touchon Contemporary Art who
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