Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Way of Illumination

reason: 'It is so, because of this or that,' that is knowledge. But there is a knowing which cannot be explained by 'because.' It can only be said that it is so.

It cannot be anything else. The knowledge with its 'because' attached, is contradicted a thousand times over. One scientist, one inventor, one learned person has one argument. Another comes and he says, 'This is not what I think.

I have found out the truth about it, which the one who looked before did not perceive rightly.' It has always been and will always be so with the outer knowledge. But with that knowing, which is the central knowledge there has never been a difference and there will never be. The saints, sages, seers, mystics, prophets of all ages, in whatever part of the world they were born, when they have touched this realm of knowing, have all agreed on this same one thing. It is, therefore, that they called it Truth.

It was not because this was the conception of one person, or the expression of another person, or the doctrine of a certain people, or the teaching of a certain religion. No, it was the knowledge of every knowing soul. And every soul whether in the past, present, or future, whenever it arrives at the stage when it knows, will realize the same thing. Therefore it is in that knowledge that there is to be found the fulfillment of the purpose of one's coming to the earth.

And now one may ask, 'What is that knowledge? How can one attain it?' The first condition is to separate this outer knowledge from the inner knowing. False and true, the two things cannot go together. It is in separating the real from the unreal. The knowledge gained from the outer world is the knowledge of the cover of all things, not of the spirit of all things. Therefore, that knowledge cannot be essential knowledge. It is not the knowledge of the spirit of all things.

It is the knowledge of the cover of all things, which we study and call learning, and to it we give the greatest importance. One may say, 'What is one to do when the call of the intellectual reason for knowledge and learning is such that it threatens one's faith in the possibility of knowledge by the self? The answer is to go on, in that case, with the intellectual knowledge till one feels satisfied with it or tired of it. For one must not seek after food if one is not hungry. The food which is sought in absence of hunger will prove to be a poison. Great as it is, the knowledge of self, if there is not that natural desire raging like fire does not manifest.

One might ask, 'Then why should we not try to get to the bottom of all outside things. Shall we not by this way reach the same knowledge?' That is not possible. The easiest way and the possible way is to attain to the knowledge of the self. It is the after-effect of this attainment that will give one keen sight into outside things, into the spirit of outward things. The question is about oneself, the knowledge of oneself, what that knowledge is. Do we know ourselves? None of us, for one moment, will think that we do not know ourselves. That is the difficulty. Everyone says, 'I know myself better than I know anybody else. What