(This address was given in England, May 1st, 1922, and reprinted in the January 1995 issue of Caravanserai. The 'Miss Green' referred to is Murshida Sophia Saintsbury-Green, one of the early workers in the Sufi Movement.)

Beloved Ones of God,

The subject on which I wish to speak tonight is the story which Miss Green has so beautifully told you. I do not wish to give an interpretation, but to take this story to make clear an idea. The way of addressing you as beloved ones of God might bring a question to the mind: are we really beloved of God? And if we believe it to be so, we might also ask, is God our beloved? Or is it only that we are beloved of God? Man has never seen God's love, and yet He has loved every one of His creatures. The love that a child experiences coming from his mother, the like of which he can never find throughout his whole life, the love of a kind father, of a devoted friend - one only knows the external source from whence this love comes, one does not know the hidden cause. One sees the tree, but not the root from which it springs.

The story of Cyrano shows what true love means. True love is above reciprocity. In its pure sense, true love stands alone. Man cannot comprehend the cause which enables true love to stand alone, but perfection is independent, whereas it is lack of perfection which makes one dependent. True love knows only love, it cannot know hate, and this is the difference between the Love of God and the love of man. In the story of Cyrano, which tells of such a rarity in the world as selfless love, one begins to have a glimpse of the love of God. No doubt in our own experience the love of our mother is also a proof of the Love of God; in the self-sacrificing love of friends one also has a witness of the Love of God; for God is Love, and wherever Love manifests, it is the manifestation of God.

This story throws light upon the position of the lover and the beloved; God is the Lover and His Creation is the beloved. There is a Sufi teaching of old that someone asked why this world was created, and the answer was this: God alone is Loving, and His whole Nature is Love; Love wished to manifest and its manifestation depended upon Beauty, and as the outcome of Love was Beauty; so the manifestation of God shows the beauty of God. This gives us the picture of a lover who was loving by nature, and who created the beloved in order to love - but the tragedy is this, that He who was alone and wanted to love is left outside of the manifestation of the beloved; therefore, the many beloveds in the world of variety, unaware of the Lover, began to seek beloveds among themselves. Yet this Lover has never been absent; He is hiding behind every play of life, and He alone loves, while the others act on the stage. People have lived their lives after the passing of their beloved in the form of one person or another, in the form of brother, husband, child, friend or beloved, and through all their lives the impression of love and beauty has never left them, and has lived in their heart forever - but they did not know that He who loves is always there, He is not lost but, like Cyrano, kept hidden.

A great poet of Persia says that, hiding His face behind His long sleeve, the same One is coming Who has made the whole world one by His Love, and yet He has hidden Himself. When one sees a beautiful work of art, the first tendency is to admire the artist; in hearing good music, one looks for the musician; when one receives some kindness, one looks for the friend. Yet, if one only knew Who is acting through all - it is He Whose Love has always been and He Who makes the lasting impression. This deep impression upon the human heart is made by the Lover, who is not seen except by the ones He keeps before Him, as Cyrano kept the lover of Roxane before him. The reason for this is that Roxane was not capable of seeing the beauty of Cyrano, she was only capable of seeing that beauty reflected through her lover. This also is the nature of man: he wishes to see his beloved in mortal form, for he himself is mortal and limited. He often cannot see further than the form, and this is the delusion from which the human soul becomes more and more puzzled.

There is a story of Moses, that once he went to Mount Sinai and asked God if He would honour him with His Presence; and God answered, Yes, I will come on such a day, at such an hour. Moses made preparations and waited to receive God, but on that day, instead of the coming of God, he saw a lame man passing through his door, who said, "Moses, for three days I have had no food, and I am so hungry. Will you give me some food?" And Moses said, "I am waiting for a friend. If you will come again after an hour, I shall have many things to give you." After an hour this man did not come, nor did God, and Moses began to wonder. The next time he went to Mount Sinai, he prayed and lamented, and said, "God, why did You not come when You Promised?" And God answered, "I came, but you did not know who it was."

Jelaluddin Rumi says, "The beloved is all in all, and the lover awaits him; the beloved is all that lives, the lover is a dead thing." The story of Cyrano shows that the lover is always here, unseen, uncared for, but only the external form is recognized, not the inner beauty of the true lover. So man's devotion, help, service and praise all go to the outer form, not knowing to whom it is really due.

Someone once had a vision in which he saw a procession going forth; one carried a cross and many people followed. Then came a procession where someone was being carried sitting cross-legged, and many people followed him. Then there was a procession with someone riding on a horse, and thousands of people followed that one. Then finally, there was procession where someone was walking, and only three or four people followed. The man was amazed by his vision, and went to a mystic and asked for an interpretation. The mystic explained that the first procession was a Christian one; the second was a Buddhist procession; the third was a procession of the Prophet Mohammed. Yes, said the man, but what about the fourth procession, where only two or three people were walking in simple dress. What was that? And the mystic said, That was the procession of God - for very few recognize the true Lover, though many recognize what He says.

Ideas are more understood in the form of words. The Bible says, first the Word, then Light; first and last and always is the Word. The Word is His Message which He sends to His beloved for whom He has created the whole universe, and His only work is to love His beloved. This is the Message He sends, but man is only capable of loving the bearer of the Message, instead of knowing Whose message it is.

In the picture of Roxane and her beloved, Roxane represents humanity and her beloved young man represents the messenger of God, but as the story shows, the human being takes the word and forgets Who stood behind the messenger and Whose words the messenger spoke. Man rejoices in the message of love until the mortal messenger who was the bearer has disappeared. Then man laments and says, where has he gone with his beautiful message? After the mortal message bearer has passed away, the One who gave the message is still alive, is still here. Yet humanity says, my beloved has gone, there is no one else - until the breaking of the heart produces a flame which throws a light over everything, and the error is discovered, as Roxane at last discovered the lover she had never known who was always watching, always loving, more than anyone else could love. The perfect Lover, God, has constantly been ignored, and in consequence, whenever He has sent His Message, illusion has arisen because man has not known God as the One Who sent the messenger, he has only known the one who has brought the Message. When another messenger came, therefore, he has always been opposed and denied. By this, mankind has always made religion narrow. In spite of the teaching of holy Scripture, man has always gone astray, deluding himself as to whom he loved, and who was the beloved, thinking that he who left was his beloved.

Sufi teaching can be understood by this story and its interpretation. First we learn that God is Love, and for His manifestation and to know and enjoy His Love, He has created the world, but the nature of this world of variety is such that man is generally incapable of fulfilling the purpose of creation, which is to know directly who is his love and whom he must love, although he is receiving love every moment from that same Lover. All tragedy, sorrow and disappointment comes out of this ignorance. Man does not recognize the true lover and goes after illusory appearances, and so he is heartbroken, and finds fault with the mortal beloved. But it was not the mortal beloved who inspired his love, but the hidden One Who was unrecognized; if one truly recognized the beloved, then one would be face to face with God.

The Sufi teaching is not in wonder-working or in phenomena, not in spirit communication, not in very much intellectual study; but it is to bring to the human soul the message of the Great Lover, to teach him to say, "my Beloved is mine," and to gradually awaken the consciousness where he can recognize the beloved. The human heart is like the sun glass : when it is laid before the sun, it becomes burning hot, it partakes of the heat of the sun. In the same way, the heart of man, when it is exposed to the Love of God, reflects His love and partakes of it. Reversely, when the heart of man is exposed to the things of this mortal world, man, who by nature is immortal, is limited by the appearance of mortality and becomes, so to speak, mortal.

Jesus Christ said, 'Wherever be thy treasure, there will thy heart be.' If the mortal world is treasured, then the heart becomes mortal. But when the heart is exposed to God Who is Love, as a sun glass partakes of the heat of the sun, so the human heart when exposed to God, reflects His Life and perfect Wisdom, and shows in thought, word and action the Love of God. Just as the lover of beauty expresses beauty, so the one who holds the Love of God in his heart expresses God in all his actions.

In the Sufi teaching there is no fixed principle, we do not say this is good and that is bad. The Sufi thinks man has no power to judge for others. Every man can judge his own actions, but is he evolved enough to judge the action of another? Those who are ignorant accuse others of faults more than do those who are wise. Jesus Christ was always willing to forgive, to tolerate, to excuse, as have been all the Great Ones whenever they came to the world. When man judges, it is because he does not understand.

Nevertheless, there is a moral that Sufism teaches. It is called Akhlaq Allah, the manner of God, learning what is right and wrong directly from God, when one has placed one's heart as an offering to God, as the sun glass before the sun. One must partake of the attributes of God. As every emotion of the heart goes to the brain and becomes clear, and every thought, when put into words, becomes concentrated and more intelligible, so the divine moral becomes clear and definite when manifested by the godly man. The godly man need not show wonders to prove God; he need not call spirits in order to prove the hereafter; his very being must tell of God. Can one show love by saying, 'I love you, I love you'? Love is best shown in silence. The sincere and faithful person emits an atmosphere. Truth does not need to be shown. Sooner or later it proves itself.

Today there is talk everywhere of spiritual awakening, but it is necessary that humanity should know what to strive for. We need not strive for clairvoyant powers, not knowing where they lead; we do not need the things which make man abnormal. It is the balanced condition of mind, the insight into the inner law of nature, the unfolding, the raising high of the light which is hidden under a bushel that it may make the path in life clear. The world is seeking and cannot find; if only the simple things in life were taught, and we tried to live them. The Bible says, 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.' Everyone reads it, but no one stops to think; they want to read something they do not understand. If someone told them that a certain star was going to move about for ten thousand years, and then it will go out for ever after, it would be very interesting and everybody would wish to know how it will come and how it will go. But of the Truth a person will say, 'It is nothing I haven't known.' Yet there are things which we have always known which, if we lived them, would be good enough for our whole life. It is nothing, it is living, it is thinking of such things as the simple teaching which one reads in the Bible, 'Raise your light on high.' What a revelation there is in this sentence, that man hides his divine life, his soul, under his personality, and his mission is to raise it on high so that it may be a torch to light his path. No doubt man was not born with open eyes, and if he had been born with open eyes there would be no interest in life. Life would be uninteresting. It is to wake from sleep, to come out into light from the darkness, that gives interest. So ignorance of truth is a natural thing, not to be blamed, but to come into the light is the work of man, and by constantly holding this ideal, the path will open and man will attain that realization for which his soul has always longed.