Art of Being & Becoming by Khan Hazrat Inayat

Author:Khan, Hazrat Inayat [Khan, Hazrat Inayat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Omega Publications
Published: 2005-01-28T06:00:00+00:00

The Privilege of Being Human

Character is, so to speak, a picture with lines and colors that we make within ourselves. It is wonderful to see how the tendency of character building already springs up in childhood, just as one sees in a bird the instinct of building a nest. A child begins by noticing all kinds of things in grown-up people, and then it adopts whatever it likes most and whatever attracts it. By this we understand that when a person is absorbed in himself he has no time for character building, for he has no time to think of others. For instance, if even the greatest actors do not forget themselves on the stage, they cannot act. The musician, if he cannot forget himself while playing, cannot play well. As with everything else, the whole task of building oneself depends entirely on forgetting oneself. This is the key to the whole of life. I have met people distinguished in art, science, philosophy, religion, in all fields, and found that they had all reached greatness by means of this quality, the quality of forgetting themselves. And again I have seen people with great qualities who could not bring out the best in their lives because they did not possess this one quality.

I remember a vina player, a very wonderful musician, who used to play and study many hours a day, but whenever he had to play before an audience he became self-conscious. The first thought that came to him was himself; and when that happened all the impressions of the people there would fall upon him. Generally he would then take his vina, cover it up, and run away. On the other hand I have heard Sarah Bernhardt simply recite the “Marseillaise;” that was all. But when she appeared on the stage and recited this poem, she would win every heart in the audience, for at that time—it was during the war—she was France. What enabled her to be France was her concentration, her way of forgetting herself.

Character building is much greater and more important than the building of a house, a city, a nation, or an empire. One might ask why it is so important, as it is only the building of our insignificant self, while many have built an edifice or even a nation and they are gone and there is no memory of them left. The Taj Mahal is one of the most wonderful buildings in the world. Those who see it—artists, architects—have a great admiration for it, but that is all. No one cares who made it; no one’s heart is moved on account of the builder.

To this day the Hindus repeat, early in the morning, “Ram, Ram;” the Buddhists call on the Lord Buddha and the Christians on Christ. Why? Only because of the personalities of these holy ones, the magnetism that was theirs. The words of Christ spoken so many hundreds of years ago are remembered today simply because of his personality. It is not spirituality alone: there have been many majdhubs who were very spiritual.

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