I played the vina until my heart turned into the same instrument. Then I offered this instrument to the Divine Musician, the only muscian existing. Since then I have become His flute, and when He chooses He plays His music. The people give me credit for this music which, in reality, is not due to me, but to the Musician who plays his own instrument.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the deep connection between artistry and spirituality, illustrating how true creation comes from a higher source.
In this quote, Hazrat Inayat Khan reflects on the transformative power of music and spirituality. He emphasizes that as he immersed himself in playing the vina, he became one with the instrument and, metaphorically, with the Divine Musician, suggesting that true artistry is a channeling of a greater force rather than solely an individual achievement. This reflection highlights the humility and surrender required in the artistic journey, recognizing that the accolades attributed to the artist ultimately belong to the divine source of inspiration.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might use this quote to illustrate the flow of inspiration from a higher source.
Sufism is not a religion or a philosophy, it is neither deism nor atheism, nor is it a moral, nor a special kind of mysticism, being free from the usual religious sectarianism. If ever it could be called a religion, it would only be as a religion of love, harmony, and beauty.
I had composed songs, I sang, and played the vina. Practising this music I arrived at a stage where I touched the music of the spheres. Then every soul became a musical note, and all life became music. Inspired by it I spoke to the people, and those who were attracted by my words listened to them instead of listening to my songs.
Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful.
What science cannot declare, art can suggest; what art suggests silently, poetry speaks aloud; but what poetry fails to explain in words, music can express. _x000D_ Whoever knows the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things.
Atmosphere is a silent music. It has its effect upon the listener, exciting or peaceful, whatever it may be.
What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music: our mind and body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music.
Some of the qualities of # God must _x000D_ be merged into us before our _x000D_ # prayers can be fit for His _x000D_ acceptance.
In small towns people scent the wind with noses of uncommon keenness.
How could anybody confuse truth with beauty, I thought as I looked at him. Truth came with sunken eyes, bony or scarred, decayed. Its teeth were bad, its hair gray and unkempt. While beauty was empty as a gourd, vain as a parakeet. But it had power. It smelled of musk and oranges and made you close your eyes in a prayer.
I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).
The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.
Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly, though he may pass through and seem to inhabit a world quite foreign to it.
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