Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Bowl of Saki for December 10, 2006
Bowl of Saki for December 10
AS THE ROSE BLOOMS AMIDST THORNS, SO GREAT SOULS SHINE OUT THROUGH ALL OPPOSITION.--Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti):
There are two attitudes to take in the face of opposition: one is to oppose the enemy with all the power at one's command. If by the use of force one is unable to win, force should not be used. The reason is not only because of success or failure, although this also is
important. The reason is that one must change one's own nufs and also the nufs of another. If in strife one breaks down the nufs of another, and if -- when by the power of God vouchsafed to one -- this can be done, it is not wrong to use force, and it never has been wrong to use such force. Every prophet has followed this path, and no one can become a prophet unless he or she will do so.
But there are subtler souls and also sometimes gentle people who cannot be reached this way. Conniving persons who use no force but depend upon cleverness must be combated in another way. It is not wrong to say in this that loving one's enemies and opposing them are necessarily different in action. In such cases, it is often wise to offer no resistance to evil. Then the enemy is like one rushing forward, not seeing the precipice over which they will fall.
There is another attitude to consider in offering no resistance to evil. This means to refuse to accept the opposition of another, to consider them not at all. This was the position of the Buddha, who overcame his enemies by refusing to recognize them physically,
mentally or spiritually. The result was that their thought could not cast any shadow over his mind. By this the Mahatma (that is to say, Buddha) shone through all the opposition. A shade may block sunlight from a room but it cannot stop the sunlight.
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AS THE ROSE BLOOMS AMIDST THORNS, SO GREAT SOULS SHINE OUT THROUGH ALL OPPOSITION.--Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti):
There are two attitudes to take in the face of opposition: one is to oppose the enemy with all the power at one's command. If by the use of force one is unable to win, force should not be used. The reason is not only because of success or failure, although this also is
important. The reason is that one must change one's own nufs and also the nufs of another. If in strife one breaks down the nufs of another, and if -- when by the power of God vouchsafed to one -- this can be done, it is not wrong to use force, and it never has been wrong to use such force. Every prophet has followed this path, and no one can become a prophet unless he or she will do so.
But there are subtler souls and also sometimes gentle people who cannot be reached this way. Conniving persons who use no force but depend upon cleverness must be combated in another way. It is not wrong to say in this that loving one's enemies and opposing them are necessarily different in action. In such cases, it is often wise to offer no resistance to evil. Then the enemy is like one rushing forward, not seeing the precipice over which they will fall.
There is another attitude to consider in offering no resistance to evil. This means to refuse to accept the opposition of another, to consider them not at all. This was the position of the Buddha, who overcame his enemies by refusing to recognize them physically,
mentally or spiritually. The result was that their thought could not cast any shadow over his mind. By this the Mahatma (that is to say, Buddha) shone through all the opposition. A shade may block sunlight from a room but it cannot stop the sunlight.
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