Unlimited...

How can the unlimited Being be limited? All that seems limited is in its depth
beyond all limitations.

Bowl of Saki, September 3, by Hazrat Inayat Khan




Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

Man has respect for his mother or father or wife, or for his superiors; but all
these have limited personalities. To whom then shall he give most respect? Only
to one being: to God. Man can love another human being, but by the very fact of
his loving another human being he has not got the full scope. To express all the
love that is there, he must love the unlimited God. One admires all that is
beautiful in color, tone, or form; but everything beautiful has its limitations;
it is only when one rises above limitations that one finds that perfection which
is God alone.

There is no such thing as impossible. All is possible. Impossible is made by the
limitation of our capacity of understanding. Man, blinded by the law of nature's
working, by the law of consequences which he has known through his few years
life on earth, begins to say, 'This is possible and that is impossible.' If he
were to rise beyond limitations, his soul would see nothing but possible. And
when the soul has risen high enough to see all possibility, that soul certainly
has caught a glimpse of God.

They say God is almighty; and I say, God is all-possible. Possibility is the
nature of God, and impossibility is the art of man. Man goes so far, and cannot
go any further. Man makes a flower out of paper, giving it as natural a color as
possible, yet he says it is not possible to make it fragrant, for he has his
limitations. But God, Who is the maker of the flower and Who is the Giver of the
fragrance, has all power, and man, who is weakened by his limitedness, becomes
more and more limited the more he thinks of it. In this is created the spirit of
pessimism. Man who is conscious of God Almighty, and who in the contemplation of
God loses the consciousness of his own self, inherits the power of God, and it
is in this power and belief that the spirit of optimism is born.

People mostly think that the spiritual message must be something concrete and
definite in the way of doctrines or principles; but that is a human tendency and
does not belong to the divine nature, which is unlimited and life itself. The
divine message is the answer to the cry of souls, individually and collectively;
the divine message is life, and it is light. The sun does not teach anything,
but in its light we learn to know all things. The sun does not cultivate the
ground nor does it sow seed, but it helps the plant to grow, to flower, and to
bear fruit.

There is a stage at which, by touching a particular phase of existence, one
feels raised above the limitations of life, and is given that power and peace
and freedom, that light and life, which belong to the source of all beings. In
other words, in that moment of supreme exaltation one is not only united with
the source of all beings, but dissolved in it ... As the great Indian poet
Khusrau says, 'When I become Thou and Thou becomest me, neither canst Thou say
that I am different nor canst Thou say that Thou are different.'