Excerpts from Volume VIII - The Art of Being: The Privilege of Being Human
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
“Man's greatest privilege is to become a suitable instrument of God, and
until he knows this he has not realized his true purpose in life. The whole
tragedy in the life of man is his ignorance of this fact. From the moment a man
realizes this he lives the real life, the life of harmony between God and man.
When Jesus Christ said, 'Seek ye first the
In the Quran it is written, 'God is the light of the heavens and of the earth.' Beside the desire to obtain the things of the earth there is that innermost desire, unconsciously working at every moment of life, to come into touch with the Infinite. When a painter is painting, when a musician is singing or playing, if he thinks, 'It is my painting, my playing, my music,' perhaps he has some satisfaction but it is like a drop in the ocean. If he connects his painting, his music, with the consciousness of God, if he thinks, 'It is Thy painting, Thy music, not mine,' then he connects himself with the center and his life becomes the life of God…….
Think for a moment of the condition of the world just now: how many nation, communities, churches, religions, all divide
humanity – the children of one Father who loves them all without distinction! Man with all his claims of civilization, of progress, seem
to have fallen into the greatest error. For centuries the world has not been in
such a state as it is just now: one nation hating another, looking with
contempt on another. What can we call it? Is it progress, or is it a
stand-still? Or is it worse than that? Is this not the time when thinking souls
should open their eyes from sleep and devote themselves to the effort of doing
what good they can do humanity in order to better the conditions of the world
and, when each one is thinking only of his own interest, to think of the
interest of all?”