The Wave...

The wave realizes "I am the sea", and by falling into the sea prostrates itself
before its God.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Prayer has been taught by all religions in different forms: by bowing, by
prostrations, by recitation or chant. As soon as man begins to feel the
immanence of God in nature, he begins to prostrate himself before that Being,
calling his limited self helpless before Him, bowing before Him, worshipping
Him. ... There are many virtues, but there is one principal virtue. Every moment
passed outside the presence of God is sin, and every moment in His presence is
virtue. The whole object of the Sufi, after learning this way of communicating
is to arrive at a stage where every moment of our life passes in communion with
God, and where our every action is done as if God were before us. Is that within
everyone's reach? We are meant to be so. Just think of a person who is in love:
when he eats or drinks, whatever he does, the image of the beloved is there. In
the same way, when the love of God has come, it is natural to think of God in
everything we do.

The Sufi does not need to follow a particular belief or faith, to restrict
himself to a particular path. He can follow the Hindu way, the Muslim way, the
way of any Church or faith, provided he treads this royal road: that the whole
universe is but an immanence of beauty. ... How is the perfection of mind
reached that we have to touch? It is reached through contemplation, through
realization and understanding of the one current running through the whole of
life. We begin to contemplate on that. The mind which we call in religious
language the Almighty, and in mystical terms the divine mind, is the depth of
life, the depth of activity, with which all activity and every activity is
connected.

Therein lies the whole of religion. The mystic's prayer is to that beauty, and
his work is to forget the self, to lose himself like a bubble in the water. The
wave realizes, 'I am the sea', and by falling into the sea prostrates itself
before its God. As it is said, 'Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect'.

The Sufi recognizes the knowledge of self as the essence of all religions; he
traces it in every religion, he sees the same truth in each, and therefore he
regards all as one. Hence he can realize the saying of Jesus; 'I and my Father
are one.' The difference between creature and Creator remains on his lips, not
in his soul. This is what is meant by union with God. It is in reality the
dissolving of the false self in the knowledge of the true self, which is divine,
eternal, and all pervading. 'He who attaineth union with God, his very self must
lose,' said Amir.