The average man...

The more you evolve spiritually, the further you pass from the understanding of
every man.

Bowl of Saki, August 8, by Hazrat Inayat Khan




Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

The average man cannot understand the mystic; and therefore people are always
at a loss when dealing with him. His 'yes' is not the same 'yes' that everybody
says; his 'no' has not the same meaning as that which everybody understands. In
almost every phrase he says there is some symbolical meaning. His every outward
action has an inner significance. A man who does not understand his symbolical
meaning may be bewildered by hearing a phrase, which is nothing but confusion to
him.

I will tell you something about my own teacher. Once I met a learned man, a
doctor of philosophy with a great many degrees. I spoke to him on the deeper
side of life and he became so interested in me that he thought much of me. So I
thought, 'If I were to tell him about my teacher, how much more interesting that
would be for him. If I make such an impression upon this man, how much more my
teacher will be for him, and how much will he appreciate my teacher', and I told
him, 'There is a wonderful man in this city, he has no comparison in the whole
world'. 'Yes?', said he, 'Are there such people? I would so much like to see
him. Where does he live?' I told him, in such and such a part of the city. He
said, 'I live there too. Where is his house. I know all the people there. What
is his name?' So I told him, and he said, 'For twenty years I have known this
man, and you are telling me about him!' I thought, 'In a hundred years you would
not have been able to know him'. He was not ready to know him.

If people are not evolved enough they cannot appreciate persons, they cannot
understand them, they cannot understand the greatest souls. They sit with them,
they talk with them, there is a contact of the whole life, but they do not see.
Another person in one moment, if he is ready to understand, makes a benefit out
of it. Imagine, the learned man had known my teacher for twenty years and did
not know him. I saw him once, and became his pupil forever. One might ask, 'Was
this man not learned, not intellectual?' Yes, he was. Then what was lacking? He
saw my teacher with his brain, I saw him with my heart. People pursue
spirituality with their brain: that is where they are mistaken. Spirituality is
attained through the heart.

The more one evolves the more one will discover the different grades of people,
just like the different keys on the piano. One is lower, another is higher.
Every person has a different grade of evolution. Also, the higher you evolve the
more you will find that you cannot drive everyone with the same whip. You have
to speak to everyone differently, in fact in his own language. If you speak a
language he does not understand, it will be gibberish to him. ...

Once when traveling I met a man of a very dense evolution, a soldier who always
lived in military surroundings and who had very fixed ideas of his own. And when
we were talking together and it appeared that we thought differently about
something, I happened to say in order to preserve harmony, 'Well, we are
brothers!' He looked at me with great anger, and said, 'Brothers! How dare you
say such a thing!' I said, 'I forgot. I am your servant, Sir.' He was very
pleased. I could have argued, but this would have created disharmony without
reason. The foolishness of that man blazed up just like fire. I put water on it
and extinguished it. I did not diminish myself. We are all servants of one
another. And it pleased and satisfied him.