Love Purifies...

Love is as water of the Ganges; it is in itself a purification.

Bowl of Saki, December 25, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

When God's divine love rises as a wave, it washes away the sins of the whole
life in a moment, for law has no power to stand before love: the stream of love
sweeps it away.

Think of the life of the great Master Jesus Christ who was the soul of religion
-- one sees that from beginning to end there was nothing but love and
forgiveness. The best expression of love is that love which is expressed in
forgiveness. Those who came with their wrongs, errors, imperfections, before the
love, that was all forgiven; there was always a stream of love which always
purified.

All the beauty that there is in life is after all what we call love. From it all
the virtues spring. The whole beauty of life is in it, and it is as the English
song says, 'The light of a whole life dies, when love is done'. Life's light is
love; and when the heart is empty of love, a man is living and yet not living;
from a spiritual point of view he is dead. When the heart is asleep, he is as
though dead in this life, for one can only love through the heart. But love does
not mean give and take. That is only a trade; it's selfishness. To give sixpence
and receive a shilling is not love. Love is when one loves for the sake of love,
when one cannot help but love, cannot do anything but love. Then one is not
forced to love; there is no virtue in that. One does not love because another
does. It is simply there. It cannot be helped. It is the only thing that makes a
person alive. If a person loves one and hates another, what can he know of love?
Can you love one person fully if at the same time you cannot bestow a kind
glance on some other person? Can you say you love one person fully when you
cannot bear him to be loved by someone else as well? Can you hate a person when
love is sprinkled like water in your heart? Love is like the water of the
Ganges. It is itself a purification. As the Bible says, 'God is love'. When love
is awakened in the heart, God is awakened there. When a man has journeyed, he
reaches the goal as soon as his heart has reached love.

The Sufi says, 'The Kaba, the divine place, paradise, is the heart of the human
being'. That is why he has respect for every heart. Every heart is his Kaba, his
shrine. The human heart is the place toward which he bows, for in this heart is
God.