371 Quotes by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Dying is this: When there is a fruit or something sweet or good to taste, the child comes to it's mother and says "Will you give it to me?" Although it would have given pleasure to the mother to eat it, she gives it to the child. The eating of it by the child is enjoyed by the mother. That is death. She enjoys her life in the joy of another. Those who rejoice in the joy of another at their own expense have taken the first step towards true life.

The first lesson to learn is to resign oneself to the little difficulties in life, not to hit out at everything one comes up against. If one were able to manage this one would not need to cultivate great power; even one's presence would be healing.

Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word.

We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself.

The whole of life in all its aspects is one music, and to tune one’s self to the harmony of this perfect music is the real spiritual attainment.

Das Ego des Menschen ist das falsche Ego; Gottes Ego ist das wahre Ego. Doch was ist das Ego? Das Ego ist Teil einer Linie: an einem Ende der Linie befindet sich Gottes Ego, am anderen das Ego des Menschen. Letzteres ist falsch, weil der Mensch sein Ego mit seinen Illusionen überdeckt hat, die er Ich-selbst nennt. Daher, wenn das Ego durch Liebe, Weisheit oder Meditation aufgelöst wird verfliegen die Wolken, die es bedeckten und das wahre Ego, Gottes Ego tritt in Erscheinung. (S. 176)

It is more important to find out the truth about oneself than to find out the truth about heaven and hell, or about many other things which are of less importance and are apart from oneself. However, every man's pursuit is according to his state of evolution, and so each soul is in pursuit of something—but he does not know where it leads him.

Everything in life is speaking in spite of its apparent silence.

The reason why man seeks for happiness is not because happiness is his sustenance, but because happiness is his own being; therefore in seeking for happiness, man is seeking for himself.