Religion of the Heart
Toward the One, the perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty, the only Being,
United with all the illuminated souls, who form the embodiment of the Master the Spirit of Guidance.
From Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan:
Help me to serve Thy cause.
O Spirit of Guidance, throw Thy divine light on my path.
Open my heart, that Thy spirit it may reflect.
My life is changing and taking a better turn.
My mind is still, my thought is steady, my sight is keen, my life is balanced. Harmonize my soul, Lord, with all people and with all conditions.
My body is healed, my mind is fortified,
and my soul is illuminated by the grace of God.
Fortify my heart. Give me a new life and new inspiration,
that I may see in life Thy divine inspiration.
Make my heart Thy divine temple.
There are many who call Sufism ‘the religion of the heart’. Murshid referred to this in his teachings, Pir Vilayat referred to the heart in his earlier practices and at the end of his life in his teaching on making this a ‘beautiful world filled with beautiful people’. Pir Zia offers practices for the development and unfoldment of the heart. And the heart is a major theme in the healing work. This text comes from the book The Smiling Forehead.
“There are three ways of seeking God in the human heart. The first way is to recognize the divine in every person and to be careful of every person with whom we come in contact, in our thought, speech and action. Human personality is very delicate….
The next way of practicing this religion is to think of the feeling of the person who is not at the moment before us. One speaks well of a person to his/her face, but if one speaks well of someone who is absent that is greater….
The third way of realizing this Sufi principle is to recognize in ones own feeling the feeling of God…and realizing that love is a divine spark in ones heart, to blow that spark until a flame may arise to illuminate the path of ones life.”
Below is a practice in the line of Pir Vilayat, for healing and developing the subtle nervous system, and developing capacity of the heart. You can do this practice in three stages. As you are doing this practice keep in mind that light comes from the environment around you, from the sun, and from the universe.
Week 1:
Breathe in feeling or imaging light going in to the eyes, up the optic nerves, and in to the brain
Breathe out imagining or feeling light flowing from the brain back out the eyes
Week 2:
Breath in feeling or imagining the light going in to the brain as above, and overflowing the brain down the spine
Breathe out feeling or imagining light radiating out from the whole spine
Week 3:
Breathe in, feeling or imagining light coming in the eyes, up the optic nerves, into the brain, overflowing the brain down the spinal cord, and then out to the nerves in the farthest reaches of the body, transforming and healing it
Breathe out feeling that Divine light flow into the heart, filling it until it overflows, radiating out into the world