Power of Love...

The only power for the mystic is the power of love.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:


Every kind of power lies in this one thing which we call by the simple name:
love. Charity, generosity, kindness, affection, endurance, tolerance, and
patience--all these words are different aspects of one; they are different names
of only one thing: love. Whether it is said, 'God is love,' or whatever name is
given to it, all the names are the names of God; and yet every form of love,
every name for love, has its own peculiar scope, has a peculiarity of its own.
Love as kindness is one thing, love as tolerance is another, love as generosity
is another, love as patience another; and yet from beginning to end it is just
love.

Remember therefore that for higher attainment on the spiritual path study is
secondary; all knowledge of occult and psychic law, all magical powers, are
secondary. The first and most important principle is the cultivation of the
heart quality.

One may ask: How to cultivate the heart quality? There is only one way: to
become selfless at each step one takes forward on this path, for what prevents
one from cultivating the loving quality is the thought of self. The more we
think of our self the less we think of others, and as we go further the self
grows to become worse and worse. In the end the self meets us as a giant which
we had always fought; and now at the end of the journey the giant is the
stronger. But if from the first step we take on the path of perfection we
struggled and fought and conquered this giant which is the self, it could be
done only by the increasing power of love.

What do I mean by love? It is such a word that one cannot give one meaning. All
attributes like kindness, gentleness, goodness, humbleness, mildness, fineness,
are names of one and the same thing. Love therefore is that stream which when it
rises falls in the form of a fountain, and each stream coming down is a virtue.
All virtues taught by books or by a religious person have no strength or life
because they have been learned; a virtue that is learned has no power, no life.
The virtue that naturally springs from the depth of the heart, the virtue that
rises from the love-spring and then falls as many different attributes, that
virtue is real. There is a Hindustani saying, 'No matter how much wealth you
have, if you do not have the treasure of virtue, it is of no use'. The true
riches is the ever increasing spring of love from which all virtues come.