The Heart...

The heart must be empty in order to receive the knowledge of God.

Bowl of Saki, November 26, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

It is the innocent and pure soul who has a capacity for learning. When a person
comes to take a lesson on any subject, and he brings his own knowledge with him,
the teacher has little to teach him, for the doors of his heart are not open.
His heart that should be empty in order to receive knowledge is occupied by the
knowledge that he already had acquired. In order to know the truth or to know
God earthly qualifications and earthly wisdom or learning are not necessary.
What one has to learn is how to become a pupil. ...

It is the receptivity of our heart and the passivity of our mind, it is the
eagerness, the thirst and hunger after truth, it is the direction of our whole
life to that Ideal from who all light and truth come, that alone can bring us
truth and the knowledge of God. All knowledge of the earth is as clouds covering
the sun. It is the breaking of these clouds and clearness of the sky, or in
other words the purity of heart, which give the capacity for the knowledge of
God.

The innocence of Jesus has been known through the ages. In his every moment, in
his every action, he appeared to be as a child. All the great saints and sages,
the great ones who have liberated humanity, have been as innocent as children
and at the same time wiser, much more so, than the worldly-wise. And what makes
it so? What gives them this balance? It is repose with passiveness. When they
stand before God, they stand with their heart as an empty cup; when they stand
before God to learn, they unlearn all things that the world has taught them;
when they stand before God, their ego, their self, their life, is no more before
them. They do not think of themselves in that moment with any desire to be
fulfilled, with any motive to be accomplished, with any expression of their own;
but as empty cups, that God may fill their being, that they may lose the false
self.