The Heart

Breath keeps body, heart, and soul connected. It consists of astral vibrations, and has much influence upon the physical and spiritual existence. The first thing a Sufi undertakes in order to harmonize the entire existence, is the purification of the heart...

Man's heart is the throne of God. The heart is not only a physical organ but is also the function of feeling, placed in the midst of the body and soul. The heart of flesh is the instrument which first receives the feeling of the soul, and transmits its effect through the whole body...

...If there is anything that can tune man to the highest pitch, that can tune the strings of his soul to the right note, it is only by the tuning of the heart. The one who has not reached his heart has not reached God. People may be relations, friends, partners, collaborators, and yet be quite separate; nearness in space does not make people real friends. There is only one way of coming near to one's friends, and that is by way of the heart. If there is anything which is the most wonderful in heaven and earth, it is the heart. If a miracle is to be found anywhere, it is in the heart. For when God has tuned the heart, what is there which is not to be found in it?...

...Is there anything that can be compared with the heart? It dies and lives again; it is torn and mended again; it is broken and made whole; it can rise and it can fall, and after falling it can rise again, and after rising it can fall again instantly. There is one heart that can creep, another that can walk, another that can run, another that can fly, and yet we cannot limit the action of the heart. We cannot imagine how the heart can be illuminated and darkened in a moment! It is a maze we enter and when we are inside we can never get out. The heart can be confusion and it can be paradise, it can be heaven itself; and if we ask where we can see the soul manifest to view, it is in the heart. Where is paradise, where is heaven, where is love, and where is God? We can answer each of these questions by saying: in the heart of man...

The living heart has the same quality as the primal being of God, and it is because of this that the heart of man is the greatest magnet there is. The primal aspect of the divine Being, as it is said in the Bible, is love. The manifestation of the same principle in its fullness is to be found in the heart of man, and thus the awakening of the heart is in fact the awakening of God...

The Sphere of the Heart

...Each one has his circle of influence, large or small; within his sphere so many souls and minds are involved; with his rise, they rise; with his fall, they fall. The size of a man's sphere corresponds with the extent of his sympathy, or we may say, with the size of his heart. His sympathy holds his sphere together.

As his heart grows, his sphere grows; as his sympathy is withdrawn or lessened, so his sphere breaks up and scatters. If he harms those who live and move within his sphere, those dependent upon him or upon his affection, he of necessity harms himself. His house or his palace or his cottage, his satisfaction or his disgust in his environment is the creation of his own thought. Acting upon his thoughts, and also part of his own thoughts, are the thoughts of those near to him; others depress him and destroy him, or they encourage and support him, in proportion as he repels those around him by his coldness, or attracts them by his sympathy.

Each individual composes the music of his own life. If he injures another, he brings disharmony. When his sphere is disturbed, he is disturbed himself, and there is a discord in the melody of his life. If he can quicken the feeling of another to joy or to gratitude, by that much he adds to his own life; he becomes himself by that much more alive. Whether conscious of it or not, his thought is affected for the better by the joy or gratitude of another, and his power and vitality increase thereby, and the music of his life grows more in harmony.

Love

Sympathy is the main quality to be cultivated in order to develop the spiritual faculty; but if one would ask me what I mean by sympathy, it is something I cannot explain. All such words are different names, different aspects of one and the same thing. What is called sympathy, kindness, mercy, goodness, pity, compassion, gentleness, humility, appreciation, gratefulness, service, is in reality love. And what is love? Love is God.

[The third kind of love] ... is developed when the love becomes a continually springing fountain, which rises as a stream and falls as many drops. It is the love of souls who cannot help but love, the love of souls who only know love, not hate; the love of souls who are no longer the possessors of love but who have become love itself. Their magnetism spreads in a wider horizon and lasts longer than one could ever imagine...

Healing and the Heart

...No doubt warmth of heart is not the only quality the healer needs, he must have the power to heal, besides concentration and a desire to heal; but at the same time it is the name of Christ that is known as that of the Messiah. Messiah in the East means healer, and for a Messiah the power of love is the first quality, love in the form of sympathy. One sympathizes with another, thinking perhaps, 'He is my relation, friend, or acquaintance', but when sympathy develops to its fullest extent one begins to see in everybody 'I', 'myself', and the pain of everybody one begins to feel as one's own pain.

This is a sign of a true Messiah. How can he heal the wounds of the hearts of the children of the earth and relieve them from pains and sufferings, since life is full of them, when his sympathy is not awakened to such a degree that he feels the pain of another even before feeling his own pain? Every healer who has a spiritual aspiration must develop a spark of the fire of the heart of the Messiah; and then even before trying to heal a person his very presence will heal. When a child is ill the mother approaches it with the wish that it may be well, with a pain in her heart for the suffering of her child. From that moment she becomes a healer, her touch, her word, her glance do more than medicine or any other remedy. When this mother quality is developed in the heart of the healer, then, when he heals not for any return except the happiness of seeing a soul released from pain, he becomes a healer who can heal merely by his presence.

Pain and Suffering

My heart drinks its own tears and puts them forth as pearls.

...People who have had deep experiences of any kind, of suffering, of agony, of love, of hate, of solitude, of association, of success, of failure, all have a particular quality, a quality which has a special use for others. And when a person realizes this, he will come to the conclusion that whatever has been his life's destiny, his heart has prepared a chemical substance through sorrow and pain, through joy or through pleasure, a chemical substance that is intended for a certain purpose, for the use of humanity, and that he can only give it out if he can keep his heart awakened and open. Once it is closed, once it is frozen, man is no longer living. It does not matter what he has gone through, for even the worst poison can be of some use. There is no person, however wicked, who is of no use, if only he realizes that the first condition for being useful to humanity is to keep his heart open.

...The heart is not living until it has experienced pain...The pain of love becomes in time the life of the lover; the soreness of the wound of his heart affords him a joy that nothing else can give. The heart aflame becomes the torch on the path of the lover, which lightens his way that leads him to his destination. The pleasures of life are blinding, it is love alone that clears the rust from the heart, the mirror of the soul...

Out of the shell of the broken heart emerges the new‑born soul.

The Eyes of the Heart

...By the opening of the eyes you can see things, so by the opening of the heart you can understand things. As long as the heart is closed you cannot understand things. The secret is that, when the ears and eyes of the heart are open, all planes of the world are open, all names are open, all secrets, all mysteries are unfolded.

The Mirror of the Heart

Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.

Every beauty manifested in beings is an expression of His perfect beauty, from which it derives. Without the mirror that I am, the beauty of Thy beloved being would not appear. The Lover is God and so is the Beloved.

The Intelligence and Wisdom of the Heart

...When the light of love has been lit the heart becomes transparent, so that the intelligence of the soul can see through it, but until the heart is kindled by the flame of love the intelligence, which is constantly yearning to experience life on the surface, is groping in the dark.

The saintly spirit only expresses itself in the love of all creatures; it is the continuous springing of love from that divine fountain in the heart of man. When once that fountain is turned on it purifies the heart, it makes the heart transparent to reveal both the outer and the inner world. The heart becomes the vehicle for the soul to see all that is within and without, and then a man not only communicates with another person, but also with God.