Can every atom of manifestation be said to have a soul?

by Zubin

The soul is the spirit of God, it can be likened to a ray of the sun. Divine intelligence has projected itself, has manifested, has become captive, and desires to return. It is trying to break out, in volcanic eruptions, through floods, lightning, stars and planets. The soul’s chance of raising itself is in human life, through the perfection of love harmony and beauty. However, the divine intelligence manifests through more than individuals. It reveals itself through families, through communities and through nations! There is nothing outside of its creative remit, it is continuously revealing its omniscient wisdom. Lets consider how the ray of the Chishti Sufi tradition arrived in India, with a peek into a hundred year period over 900 years ago, for an insight into how a ray of divine intelligence may manifest through generations.

Firstly, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti (1142–1236) was a Sufi preacher from Sistan in Persia, who promulgated the famous Chishtiyya order in the Indian subcontinent in the early 13th-century. He settled in Ajmer to preach the principles of Sufism to all who wished to learn them. Every year, his death anniversary is celebrated at his tomb when thousands of believers gather to pay respect to this great Sufi saint.

Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (1173-1235) was the disciple of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and became his spiritual successor. He developed the traditional ideas of unity and charity within the Chishti order, and is credited with establishing the order of Chishti Sufi mysticism in Delhi.

Baba Farid (1173-1265) Farīduddīn Ganjshakar was a Punjabi Muslim preacher and mystic whose poetry and verses became a big part of both Sufi and Sikh literature. He was a great disciple of Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, and was deeply respected in Delhi, and surrounded by a large number of people whenever he visited Delhi. His outlook was broad and humane. Baba Farid raised the Chishti order of the Sufis to the status of an all-India organisation.

Nizamuddin Auliya (1238 - 1325) was the chief successor of Baba Farid, and undoubtedly the most famous Chishti saint. He lived and worked in Delhi for fifty years and survived repeated changes of dynasties and rulers by staying away from politics. Nizamuddin Auliya, like his predecessors, stressed love as a means of realizing God. For him his love of God implied a love of humanity. His tomb is visited by thousands every week.

Six hundred years later:

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882 - 1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, and philosopher. He sought a sufi teacher, Murshid Madani, who suggested it was his purpose to take the Sufi message from the East, to the West. In 1910 he embarked on this mission with his brothers and later his wife, supporting him through all that met them. In 1927, Hazrat Inayat Khan was laid to rest in Delhi perhaps only two hundred metres from the tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya.

Each year the death of all of these saints is commemorated. In the east, such ceremonies, known as the ‘Urs’, are part of the belief that death is the ‘wedding with God’, and are conducted with meditation, joy and uplifting music.

This year, in addition to the commemoration, the Urs of Hazrat Inayat Khan in Delhi gave the opportunity to observe the developments at that site over almost one hundred years.

In the 1930s Hazrat Inayat Khan’s grave was covered by a small mazar, and standing under a peepal tree, both of which can be seen to the right and rear of the drawing on the left. From a stone memorial under a tree in the 1930s, to a courtyard, tomb and small apartment and kitchen with a few retreat rooms in the 1960s.

The Hazrat Inayat Khan Memorial Trust developed the music hall in the 1980s and library in the 1990s. A new twelve room retreat house was added in 2017, and a lift, roof top teacher’s house and paving have recently been completed as shown in the photo on the right. Over the ensuing decades the trust has quietly grown. It employs music teachers, administrators, gatekeepers, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, and librarians from the local community. The total number of people employed is currently around fourteen, and it also provides opportunities for a women’s sewing group and engages a wider group for commemorative occasions.

‘Nothing moves without God’s will.’

Hazrat Inayat Khan was a musician of considerable renown, as was his grandfather Maula Bakhsh. Musicians consider it an honour to play at the Dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan, and particularly to be invited to play to commemorate his Urs. To them, it is not a ‘concert’ but an opportunity for their own communing with the divine. (Hindustani music is developed from ragas, each is associated with the time of the day, and/or the season and are very evocative of the emotional life.)

This year shrines to Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teacher Sayyid Abu Hashim and to his daughter Pirzadi Noor Inayat Khan, were consecrated in beautiful ceremonies at the centre.

On the final evening of the Urs celebration Pandit Abhay Rustrum Sopori gave a tribute to his father who was a frequent performer at the Dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pandit Bhajan Sopori (1948-2022) hailed from Sopore in Kashmir Valley and traced his lineage to ancient santoor experts, his family had played santoor for over six generations. He belonged to the Sufiana Gharana of Indian classical music. His first public performance was at a conference organised by the University of Allahabad when he was ten years old.

Pandit Abhay Rustrum Sopori is currently doing his PhD on the history of the Kashmiri santoor. From that perspective he could tell how his father had taken the santoor from one and a half to five octaves in a few decades, whereas most Indian musical instruments had taken centuries to develop. In his presentation he went from honouring his father, to exploring the raga on his santoor, to musically conversing with each of the other maestros present, initially with tabla, and then with the pakhawaj drum, and then inspiring them to their best and fastest as a trio. It was a moving and sensational performance by all three. We were blessed to see the evolution of soul in the instrument, the family and the Sufiana Gharana, among other inspirations.

In this example Pandit Abhay is accompanied by the same maestros who accompanied him at this Dargah concert. Click the blue text below to listen to it:

Shri Abhay Rustum Sopori playing the santoor at the Saptak Annual Festival 2019

While considering the soul, as a ray of the divine sun, I would like to mention Hazrat Inayat Khan’s unique inspiration, in the hope of awakening people to the Unity of Religious Ideals and the Truth behind all religions. In London in May 1921, Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan sought the help of those present to create an altar through which he introduced them to the first Universal Worship. The Universal Worship exists to spread the mystical understanding of the Unity of Religious Ideals, and to channel the light of wisdom which the Spirit of Guidance has bestowed on humanity at all times, and which all the great teachers have held aloft.

This is the altar used during the commemoration of the Urs.

In the Universal Worship a candle to Truth is lit and candles and readings of representative scriptures, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and to the Sikh tradition on this occasion, and to all those known and unknown that have held aloft the Light of Truth.

Indeed, the very essence of the divine light is invoked. A reading from the Sufi message, and a short talk on the Sufi message, focused on 5th February 2023 on how we can seek to improve our qualities of goodness, forgiveness, tolerance, peace and ability to act in accord with the divine intelligence in our own hearts.

The Universal Worship reminds us that all the prophets from Adam to Muhammad, have revealed to us, that truth has manifested itself in various names and different forms to attain its glorious end. The prophets lived and breathed and had their being in God, and the truth they brought to the communities they spoke to was in the form that they could understand and wanted to hear. As the Bible declares, 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' Truth is untouched by death and disease; it is everlasting, omnipresent, and omnipotent. Truth, indeed, was Adam, Moses, and Christ, and Muhammad.

In all religions there are outstanding leaders who are the source of inspiration in their own communities and beyond. They spread the universal message of ‘love for the Divine Ideal, service to humanity and respect for the unity of religious ideals’. For some, their mystical understanding radiates through their work while others demonstrate their devotion to the community in times of crises. They live and speak to the oneness of humanity, the importance of the cultivation of the heart, compassion, caring for each other and for the mother earth which sustains us, microfinance to encourage sustainable communities, and to the rights of children to education, health services and safe environments. Many of these leaders have heard of, and indeed quote Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teachings, that the spirit of God lives within the shrine of the heart.

The shrine of the human heart is where each soul bridges the world between individual conscience and infinite consciousness. There lies an opportunity to navigate the trials of human life. And how do we do this?

Hazrat Inayat Khan’s suggestion is to ask one’s conscience, 'My friend, all my happiness depends on you, and my unhappiness also. If you are pleased, I am happy. Now tell me truly if what I like and what I do not is in accordance with your approval.' 'Look what I have done. Maybe it is wrong, maybe it is right; but you know it, you have your share of it; its influence on you and your condition is my condition, your realization is my realization. If you are happy, only then can I be happy. Now I want to make you happy; how can I do it?'

At once a voice of guidance will come from the conscience, 'You should do this, and not that; say this and not that. In this way you should act, and not in that way.' And conscience can give you better guidance than any teacher or book. It is a living teacher awakened in oneself, one's own conscience.’

The teachers, the gurus, the murshids, their way is to awaken the conscience in the pupil; to make clear what has become unclear, confused.

Every plan that a person makes and their desire to accomplish that plan are often an outcome of their personal will, and when their will is helped by every other will that they come in contact with in the path of the attainment of a certain object, then they are helped by God, as every will goes in the direction of God’s will and often a person accomplishes something which perhaps a thousand people would not have been able to accomplish.

Awakening from a Dream: “Tell Me – Which Way Is Up?”

by Karim

I stand, alone, on the shoreline of Eternity

Lit by a fiery-halo of stars beyond number.*

Slowly at first, the dervish turns Moving anti-clockwise, head tilted

Beneath his tombstone hat, listening, As if listening – for what?

Is it this sound, this rushing, this hissing, Stars rubbing against each other in the immensity of space

Creating fire; fire upon fire, “Light upon Light” Across the aeons of time

His right hand, slightly cupped, to catch this light His left hand turned down, drawing this power, this energy

Down, down through his body, lost in the turning, Creating form upon form as it pours forth from his heart-space, down, down

A libation poured out to the parched earth below, blessing this world in its passing. Which way is up? Which down? This turning, Is it anti-clockwise? Or is it clockwise? Can you see Its face?

The heart is a mirror revealing and concealing Depending on one’s place of perspective.

Enter that place, and tell me, Which way is up, which down?

Time slows, at this centre point, it stops. Ever renewing, ever the same.

Then, tell me, which way is backwards? Which forwards? Which past, and which present?

Imagine, open your inner eyes and look! The “Hour-Glass” of time must be turned.

This way only, yesterday becomes today, Tomorrow only a dream yet to be realised.

We? We sit at the centre where these Sands that trickle down (or up) pass,

Hissing slightly as they do so. Which way is past? Which future?

Look! Open your eyes, and look. where you stand, infinity passes And you don’t even know it.

Like a “Mobius Strip”, this time capsule Illuminates the Way to Eternity!

Which way does the dervish “turn”?

Is it clockwise or is it anti-clockwise?

Let your heart take you there, To this place,

For Knowing is not a game for sightseers. One must join the inner and the outer to make this trip. Only then…do lover and Beloved Become timeless

And Eternity awaits Those who travel this Way.

I stand, no longer alone, on the shoreline of Eternity For “she” awaits me there.

Tears of recognition well in our eyes

As he/she stretch-out their hands in welcome.

The falcon must heed the Falconer’s call Else … “ …Thing’s fall apart, the centre cannot hold… mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”*

So listen…listen for the call.

*(My apologies to those other lovers of W B Yeats and especially for my abridged version of this fragment of his “The Second Coming”)