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What is the Message? Where does it come from? How is it received by the souls who deliver it?" These questions often arise in inquiring minds. And the answer is that the Message is like the rain, and the rain falls where it is needed and when it is needed. But does the rain come from above? It seems to come from above, but it rises from below first, as the vapor, forming into clouds as ideas, and again falling from above as the rain.

There are so many names for the seas and rivers and streams, but they all contain water. And there are various names of religions, but they all contain the Truth, spoken in different forms, and in different ways. There is a lightning, there is a thunder when the rain falls, and there are wars and disasters before the Message comes. Storms are very often warnings of what follows, and so are different kinds of battles and revolutions warnings before the coming of the time of peace.

Often a person says, "If it is the same water, then I have no need of receiving a new Message, I already hold a certain faith or belief. Is it not the same?" The water of last week, which has been in the jug, compared with the fresh water is different, and yet it is water. And one does not reject the water of last week by drinking the fresh water, for it is water all the same.

Every element turns into its own element, and comes again afresh. When the fire is extinguished, it has become absorbed in its own element. It has gone and joined the heat. So is water and earth. So is the air. Every element goes back to its own element in the end and comes again afresh. And such is the law of the Divine Message.

Numberless religions have been taught. Various prophets and masters have come to waken humanity, and those of them we know are only a few which we could count on the fingers. But where are the other religions gone? What about all the other teachers? It would be like asking, "Where is all the water that fell? Where has the rain gone?" It has gone nowhere; it has gone to its own source, only to come afresh again with new life, with new magnetism, with new strength and vigor. And yet it is the same water of life, the drinking of which gives souls immortality.

Many intellectual people with their very many ideas differ from one another in their opinions and in their way of looking at things, in their speculations. But do the prophets differ from one another? They cannot differ. The reason is that it is the various minds which differ, not the soul. The one who lives in his mind is conscious of mind. The one who lives in his soul is conscious of the soul.

What does the word "spiritual" mean? It means "soul-conscious" or "spirit-conscious." There is a line of a song, "Night has a thousand eyes, the day has but one." When a person lives in his mind, he is living through the darkness of night. The moment one rises above one's mind and wakens in the light of the soul, one becomes spiritual. And if a thousand spiritual people will speak, they will say the same thing, perhaps in different words, but with one meaning. For they have one sight, the same sight. It is therefore that spiritual realization is called the Truth.

There are many facts, but there is one Truth. Facts can be put into words, but not the Truth. For God is Truth, the real self of man is Truth. Truth is unlimited and incomparable. Therefore Truth alone knows, enjoys, and realizes its own existence.

There are two ways of receiving the divine Message: receiving from the heart, and receiving through the head. The Message received through the head will whirl around the head, till the wind of reason rises and blows it off. The Message that is received into the heart will settle in the heart, will remain in the depth of the heart, out of which virtues, morals, merits, and inspirations, besides the strength and power will come. It is easy to perceive the Message through the head. One has only to give a thought to it. And it is difficult to receive the Message into the heart, because one has to prepare the heart first to receive it.

There is a saying of the mystics that spiritual things, the spiritual teachings, can be given from the heart, can be taken into the heart. That is what the sign of the Sufi Movement denotes. It requires a certain preparation to make the heart a receptacle of the Message. By concentration, by contemplation, and by meditation, the heart is purified, enlarged, and made into a receptacle of the Message. Therefore it is that among many thousand mureeds, if you begin to take the real benefit of the Message, although others are benefitted in another way, the full benefit of the Message is received by knowing how to take the Message.

And now coming to the question: what are the principal things that the Message must give to people?

• The first principal thing is to understand the essence of religion and to practice outwardly, by putting in a universal form, which are Universal Worships.

• The next is practicing the love and sympathy which one has cultivated through devotion in one's practical life, regarding pleasure and displeasure of our fellowmen, and being gentle, kind, tolerant, and patient to them, rendering any service we can render. And this idea is represented by our Brotherhood activity.

• To dive deep into the self and to rise as high as the consciousness can rise; to widen one's horizon, making it larger than the universe; to realize the meaning of God: it is this that the Sufi Order, our esoteric school, represents.

Hazrat Inayat Khan - https://www.hazrat-inayat-khan.org/php/views.php?h1=4&h2=12