A CLEAR VISION DEPENDS UPON A CLEAR HEART
The Palace of Mirrors
Chapter 7
Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

A clear vision depends upon a clear heart, open for reflection. Jelal-ud-Din Rumi begins his MATHNAVI by speaking about the the mirror-quality of the heart; also by telling that this mirror-quality sometimes disappears when a kind of rust covers the heart. Then he goes on telling us that by purifying the heart from this rust one makes this mirror of the heart clear to take reflections.

Once I asked my Murshid about the science of telepathy. He said, "It is reflection. If your heart is clear then you must only know how to focus it, and you do not need to do anything else. It is a mirror and all that is before it will be reflected in it".

Therefore, it is not surprising if the seers see the soul of every person as clearly as an open letter, for it is the nature of sight. If the sight is perfect it must see whatever is before it, it cannot help seeing. It is not that the seer desires to see. It is natural that when the eyes are open all that is before them is reflected in them. So the seer cannot help seeing the soul of another, perceiving the thoughts and feelings that a person has. If he made an attempt to do it, it would not be right on his part. The heart is the soul's private chamber. No one must intrude upon anyone's privacy, no one has a right to try and find out the thoughts and feelings of another person. But as the eyes cannot help seeing what is before them, so the heart, once made clear and pure from the rust, then sees as the eyes see. But the eyes can see so far and no further, the dimension which is before the eyes is different. Before the heart there is another dimension, and that is the heart of man. When the eyes see the surface, the heart sees the depth of a person. Never, therefore, think that a real mystic does not see into a person's life; never think that a mystic is unable to see a certain side of a person's nature. No, he sees all, if only his heart is clear.

Now the question is: what is the rust? What is it made of? The rust is made of the dense outcome of the mind itself. It does not come from outside, it comes from its own self. It is its dense part, it comes from the surface, and therby it covers, covering at the same time its mirror-quality. The heart becomes covered by confusion, by fear, by depression, by all manner of excitement that disturbs the rhythm of its mechanism. As the health of the body depends upon its tone and rhythm, so the health of the heart depends upon the regularity of its tone and rhythm. A person may be virtuous in his actions, pure in his thoughts, kind in his feelings - at the same time if he has ups and downs, then the rhythm is not kept aright, then he cannot see the reflection clearly; for the mirror is clear, but when the mirror is continually moving, the reflection is blurred, the reflection does not show itself clearly.

Once we think of it we begin to think what a wonderful instrument this human personality is for perceiving life and experiencing life fully. If there were a mirror sold for a million dollars which showed the conditions of thought and feeling of every individual, there would be a great demand for it. The man who had that mirror would certainly get numberless orders, even at a million dollars, for such an invention. And here man has it and is unaware of it. He does not believe in it, therefore he neglects it. And as he does not believe in it, he would rather spend that much money and buy that mirror than try and cultivate a thing in which he does not believe.

As man does not believe in it, he does not believe in himself; and as he does not believe in himself, he does not believe in God. His belief in God is most superficial. Numberless souls believe in God, and yet they know not if God really exists. They only believe because others believe in God. They have no proof, and they live their whole life without a proof of the being of God. There is no way of getting the proof of God's existence, except by becoming acquainted with oneself, by experiencing the phenomenon which is within oneself. And the greatest phenomenon that one can experience is the phenomenon of one's heart.

Could there be anything more interesting in life, more precious to give life to, than the thought that you could be an instrument for knowing all that is in the person who is before you, his nature, his character, his condition, his past, his present, his future, his weakness and his strong points? Nothing in the world could be more interesting and more precious than arriving at this stage, than experiencing this; more precious than wealth or power or position or anything in the world. And this is something which is attained without cost, even without the hard work which man does for his everyday livelihood. When we think of this we feel that man thirsts for water standing near the stream. What man thirsts after is within himself, and what keeps him from it is the lack of belief in himself, in truth, in God.

People try to study the outer life. But for this study the sight must be the first thing. This outer sight can show the surface of things. It is the inner sight that is the seeking of the soul. Science as we know it is built on the study that one has made of the things which are visible, which are on the surface, and therefore that study is incomplete. That study can be completed by seeing the inside of things; for even the beginning of science can be traced as the outcome of intuition. The ancient physicians used to follow the wild animals such as the bear and others who sought for different herbs, when they were in need of curing themselves of some illness, because their intuition was clear. Physicians used to live a life of solitude, a life of meditation. They used to live a pure life, and from that they got their inspiration, and from that inspiration they knew what to give in order to cure different diseases. The science which we know today is borrowed from what has been known to them, although it was not called science at that time. It is a heritage of the ancient people which we name science, but its beginning was in intuition. If ever a scientist today discovers something new, someting wonderful, he is again indebted, not to the outer studies but to intuition. If this is true then the faculty of intuition must be developed, the heart must be made clear, that, even if a person were not a spiritual person, if he were a man of science, he could be completed in his study and practice in life.

-oOo-