The Study of Life...

A study of life is the greatest of all religions, and there is no greater or
more interesting study.

Bowl of Saki, July 21, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

There are two ways in which we may attain control over our activity. The first
is confidence in the power of our own will; to know that if we have failed
today, tomorrow we will not do so. The second is to have our eyes wide open, and
to watch keenly our activity in all aspects of life. It is in the dark that we
fall, but in the light we can see where we are going.

So it is in life: we should have our eyes wide open to see where we walk. We
should study life, and seek to know why we say a thing, and why we act as we do.
We have failed perhaps hitherto because we have not been wide awake. We have
fallen, and felt sorry, and have forgotten all about it, and perhaps may have
fallen again. This is because we have not studied life. A study of life is the
greatest of all religions, and there is no greater and more interesting study.
Those who have mastered all grades of activity, they above all experience life
in all its aspects. They are like swimmers in the sea who float on the water of
life and do not sink.

If we only knew how much the study of life can tell us! One could go into the
British Museum and read every book in the building, and yet not obtain
satisfaction. It is not study, it is not research, it is not inquiry which gives
this knowledge; it is actually going through the experiences of life, witnessing
life in its different aspects and in its different phases or spheres; that is
what reveals the ideal of life. ... Look not on life as a person would watch a
play on the stage. Rather look upon it as a student who is learning at college.

It is not a passing show; it is not a place of amusement in which to fool our
life away. It is a place for study, in which every sorrow, every heartbreak
brings a precious lesson. It is a place in which to learn by one's own
suffering, by the study of the suffering of others; to learn from the people who
have been kind to us as well as from the people who have been unkind. It is a
place in which all experiences, be they disappointments, struggles, and pains,
or joys, pleasures, and comforts, contribute to the understanding of what life
is, and the realization what it is. Then do we awake to the religion of nature,
which is the only religion. And the more we understand it, the greater our life
becomes, and the more of a blessing will our life be for others.