Part 1

 
In the Gathas [teachings] of Holy Murshid [Inayat Khan], and in the Sufi traditions, you have the Divine Light pictured as the Sun. My going to America was a journey to that Sun. In America that Sun was called Pir-O-Murshida Rabia and is now Pir-O-Murshida Ivy, and in Australia it is called Khalif  Momin.

In this I obtained my proof of the Sufi message. The light is one but its expression is different. The Message is one, the message bearers are of various personalities. This is one of the traps that Murshid [Inayat Khan] himself pointed out to his mureeds, and I am mentioning it now to you so that you will be sure to avoid that trap, and that is — attachment to the personality of a teacher as distinct from Message.

It is very easy for a mureed to imagine what Murshid Inayat Khan was like and to interpret the books and the lessons by the light of that imagination. It is much, much harder to accept the direct admonition of the teacher who is living. It is much more uncomfortable. I had this well impressed upon me in America with mureeds who had been disciples of Inayat Khan himself, and subsequently found it difficult to accept the living teacher as the same light. The personality being different, they thought the Message was not the same.

But the Message is the same. These same people would have exactly the same difficulty if they met a man who had complete Christ-consciousness. They would not be able to see he was the same as the Christ, because the personality would be different.

You might say the message has never clothed itself in the same body twice — that would be a physical impossibility. The message, in order to be delivered, has to assume the vehicle suitable for it in the time and place where it is delivered, and it expresses itself in the terms which can be understood by the people of that period.

So we look upon Moses as a Law-Giver, then we think of Jesus as being a Peace-Maker and Forgiver, and we think of Buddha as being the Compassionate One, and Krishna is pictured as a Dancer and Shiva is pictured as an Ascetic, and we regard Mohammed as a Uniter. But these are merely expressions of the One Message in terms suitable for the people to whom they were given and for humanity and its particular stage of evolution.