Bowl of Saki for January 11

WHERE THE FLAME OF LOVE RISES, THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD UNFOLDS OF ITSELF.--Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Hazrat Samuel L. Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti):

As it is evident that human intellect cannot grasp
Deity and as it is said that God created the world to
become known, there must be some other means of
attaining to Divine Knowledge. As has been explained,
this means is through love, through the casting away
of self. Love has two aspects, the love of the greater
for the lesser called 'compassion', and the love of
the lesser for the greater called 'adoration'. These
are pictured in the six-pointed star.

Compassion is the love which seems to fall like water,
or as Shakespeare has beautifully described it, "The
quality of Mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the
gentle rain from Heaven." The use of the word
'strained' is excellent for it describes the passing
of the Divine Light-Love down into the sphere of
sentient beings. The idea of the god Avalokita or
Avalokiteshvara came from that source.

But in man love is like a flame, and in adoration it
rises and raises the whole personality. It is the
rising flame of love which turns man around to face
God, to begin the upward journey until he gets above
the mind-mesh and karmic activity. Then the knowledge
of God unfolds of itself, no effort is needed once man
has discarded his lower self.

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