81 - Practices Leading to Illumination

            There comes a time in one's evolution when a passion is awakened for the unattainable.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            1) Continually concentrate on the light radiated by your eyes; imagine them to be two beams of light rather than receptive to the light from the environment. Meanwhile keep identifying with your whole aura.

            A sparkling soul flashes through the eyes.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            2) Hold your breath between inhaling and exhaling. While you hold your breath, turn your eyes upwards. When exhaling turn your eyes back to their forward position and represent your glance to be made of two beams of light that cast their light upon the environment. Do not focus on the profile of objects in the environment; keep concentrating on the beams of light.

            As one evolves, one naturally ceases to look down on earth, but looks up to the heavens. If one seeks the heavens, one must change the direction of looking.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            3) This practice will be ineffective unless you entertain beautiful thoughts. The very thought of being a soul rather than a body and mind will beautify your thoughts which will have an immediate impact upon your facial expression. Conversely your facial expression will affect your attunement. Therefore smile if you can; otherwise there is no point in doing this practice.

            The light which comes from the soul, rises through the heart and manifests outwardly in one's smile, is indeed the light from heaven.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            4) On the other hand, the key to inviting your soul's attunement to come through depends upon whether your thoughts reflect that attunement.

Heaven and hell are manifestations of agreeable and disagreeable thought.

The mind is a world, a world that one makes and in which one will make one's life in the hereafter as a spider lives in the web it has woven.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            5) Offset your sense of identity from its usual setting so as to represent to yourself that you are not simply a visitor on Planet Earth, but are a denizen of the heavens.

            The one who lives in his mind is conscious of his mind; the one who lives in his soul is conscious of his soul.

            As the birds will never have a lasting attachment to beasts, so it is among people: the wayfarer of the heavens can never keep constantly attached to the dweller of the earth.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            6) Be aware of your nostalgia for the sublime.

            Souls who have become conscious of the angelic spheres, even in the smallest degree, hear the calling of that sphere; and the discomfort they have in this world is that of homesickness caused by the call of the angelic spheres.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            The more closely a person is drawn to heaven, the more the things of the earth lose their color and taste.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            7) You will find that if you give vent to your nostalgia for your highest ideal, you will begin to identify yourself with your soul.

            The wonderful thing is that the soul already knows to some extent that there is something behind the veil, that there is something to be sought for in the higher spheres.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            8) Consider your body and mind as support systems for your real being whom we shall call your soul. By so doing, you will create an inner disposition which is favorable to sensing what one means by the soul.

            The soul manifesting as a body has diminished its power considerably, even to the extent that it is not capable of imagining for one moment the great power, life, and light it has in itself. Once the soul realizes itself by becoming independent of the body that surrounds it, the soul naturally begins to see in itself the being of the spirit.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            9) Keep reminding yourself that you exist on several levels simultaneously; that you can highlight one sphere or another by your attunement.

            The soul in its manifestation on earth, does not change its plane. It lives in all spheres, though it is generally conscious on only one plane. If it is only conscious of the earth plane, it is impressed by the troubles and limitations of life on earth...The soul during its life on earth and after does not change its plane of existence. It simply quickens and transfuses it with consciousness, and identifies itself with all the things that it sees, and changes its own identity with the change of its constantly changing vision.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            10) Now try to remember your condition at the celestial level prior to your birth (or rather, conception). Know that you continue to exist and function at that level now and after death, accept you will have matured.

            We live in the world to which we are awakened, and to the world to which we are not awakened, we are asleep.

             The soul has manifested in the world in order that it may experience the different phases of existence and yet be aware not to lose its way, but regain its freedom in addition to the experience and knowledge it has gained in the world.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            11) You will get used to raising your consciousness at will.

            Illumination is obtained by rising above one's earthly condition at the command of one's own will and realizing one's immortal self which is God within.

            The soul's unfoldment comes from its power which ends in its breaking through the ties of the lower planes. It is free by nature, and looks for freedom during its captivity. All the holy beings of the world have become so by freeing the soul, its freedom being the only object there is in life.

            There is a state at which, by touching a particular phase of existence, one feels raised above the limitations of life and given that power and peace and freedom, that light and life which belong to the source of all beings.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            12) Now as you exhale with open eyes, imagine that the beams which you project are the light of your soul rather than the light of your eyes. Besides, highlighting that light will make your aura sparkle. Remember to clear the mind and emotions of any sense of limitation or grudge otherwise the light you project will not be the light of your soul.

            As the sunshine from without lightens the whole world, so the sunshine from within if it were raised would illuminate the whole life, in spite of all seeming wrongs and limitations.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            Such is the way to illumination.
