Table Of ContentT S ' J
he oul s ourney
Selected titles by Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Art of Being and Becoming
The Awakening of the Human Spirit
The Complete Sayings
Creating the Person
Gayan
Inner Life
Mastery
Meditation Theme for Each Day
Music of Life
Nature Meditations
Spiritual Dimensions of Psychology
Tales
Unity of Religious Ideals
with Coleman Barks
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia
T S ' J
he oul s ourney
By
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Edited and with a preface by
KORE SALVATO
Omega Publications
New Lebanon
Much of the material in Soul's Journey has previously been published in
somewhat different form under the title The Soul: Whence and Whither. This
new edition is based upon extensive scholarship re-creating the exact
words that Hazrat Inayat Khan spoke, and is the most accurate of several
versions. See the description of the publishing history of this material in
the preface for more details.
Published by
OMEGA PUBLICATIONS
www.omegapub.com
©2003, 2010 Omega Publications.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Hafizullah based on ideas by Yasodhara. Front cover art
credits: Head of Hypnos in Bronze (British Museum) and M51, the Whirlpool
Nebula, NGC5194/5195 (by Christine Olson and Joe Lapre/Adam Block/
NOAO/AURA/NSF). Used with permission of the British Museum and
the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. First edition financial
support provided by Nurya Blood and Casey Blood. Production and
publication support by Green Lion Press. Printed by Sheridan Books,
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
This edition printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National
Standards Institute Z39-48. Designed for durability and longevity with
sewn binding, high-quality paper, and 15-point cover stock with lay-flat
gloss film lamination.
Cataloging in Publication Data
Inayat Khan (1882-1927)
The Soul’s Journey / Inayat Khan / edited by Kore Salvato.
Includes notes, bibliographical references, and index.
1. Sufism. 2. Psychology. 3. Mysticism. 4. Spirituality.
I. Inayat Khan II. Title
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003115274
10 98765432
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-0-930872-53-3
For more information on Sufism contact Sufi Order Internationsal
www.sufiorder.org
T S ' J
he oul s ourney
Editor’s Preface
ix
Introduction
3
Towards Manifestation
9
The Manifested Soul
83
Towards the Goal
175
Conclusion
237
Textual Notes
241
Index
247
INAYAT KHAN: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
289
v
Editor's Preface
Timely and timeless, our sustained interest in the soul—
its nature, its progress, its place in daily life—shows that the
soul matters to us. But what is this soul of ours exactly? And
how can it go on a journey? Is it an adventure or an exile?
Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan (1882-1927), a great teacher in
the Sufi tradition, had reflected on these questions since the
early days of his own training with his murshid, or teacher,
in Hyderabad, India. Commissioned by his teacher to go to
the West to harmonize East and West with his music, Hazrat
Inayat Khan first went to New York in 1910. Already a
musician of great renown, he sang and played his vina for
American audiences and, later, European ones, as far east as
Russia. Gradually, he came to lecture extensively, and it is
through these lectures that we, too, have access to that
aspect of this teacher which is like music. That is to say that
this series of lectures, given in the summer of 1923, has the
attributes of music: lively, charming, ordered, resonant,
surprising. There is no sternness here, no dogma to follow,
no set of principles to which one must adhere.
Rather, it is the composition of a great master whose inner
life involved deep contemplation on the nature of the soul,
and whose destiny gave him the opportunity of offering the
fruits of that inner study in the form of words. And although
his native languages were Urdu and Gujarati, Hazrat Inayat
Khan gave these lectures in English, which he had learned
as a boy.
The value of studying this journey ourselves, according to
Hazrat Inayat Khan, is that it calls our attention to the road
along which we have to pass. Inayat Khan describes this
journey, or the soul's progress, in three stages: the first is
Towards Manifestation, in which the soul is moving into
physical form; the second is Manifestation or physical exis
tence; and the third is Towards the Goal, which is the return.
The nature of the journey itself undergoes scrutiny in the
Vll
Editor's Preface
conclusion to the series, in which Inayat Khan raises the
question: “Is it a journey or is it not a journey?” And the
answer: “It is a journey in fact, but not a journey in truth,”
suggests that the aspects of the journey are all appearances
of the single, continuous, modulated existence of the soul.
Inayat Khan’s initial meditations on the material which
was to become a series of lectures delivered in 1923 in
France began in Hyderabad. His murshid, Abu Hashim
Madani, one day named the seven planes of manifestation
in Arabic. That was all, just seven names. Taking these
names as clues in his meditation, within three years Inayat
Khan had experienced these planes. Perhaps it is this expe
rience which prompts him to urge that we open our eyes so
we may see for ourselves on this journey. Human beings
make a great many mistakes, he says, but the principal mis
take is that one goes through life thinking that one will be
here forever. And so when the call comes, it comes as a
blow rather than an invitation.
Indeed, that moment when death occurs is of great
interest. Inayat Khan describes the soul at that particular
moment. Whatever one’s attitude is towards death, and the
attitude of those around one at the moment of the soul’s
passing, the soul, he says, holds that impression—if it be an
impression of the horror of death, the soul carries that with
it. For this reason, it can be most helpful to know the terrain
of one’s spirit.
There is a Sufi story which Inayat Khan tells to illustrate
this. A student went to his teacher and asked, “Tell me what
is in heaven and what in hell.” The teacher said, “Close your
eyes and think of heaven.” When he opened his eyes, the
teacher asked him, “What did you see?” The student
answered that he saw no sign of that paradise of which
people speak—no beautiful plants and fruit, no things of
comfort and luxury—he saw nothing. Then the teacher
asked him to close his eyes again. When he finished his
meditation, the teacher asked what he saw in hell. There,
where the student had expected to see fire and people in
torture, he saw nothing. The student asked, “What is the
vm
Editor's Preface
reason? Did I see or did I not see?” The teacher answered,
“Certainly you have seen, but the jewels of paradise and the
fire of hell, you have to take them for yourself. You do not
find them there.”
Knowledge of this journey, then, helps us to prepare for
the hereafter. A follower of Hazrat Ali questioned him about
the value of this preparation. The follower asked him, “What
if our restraint leads us to nothing and there is no hereafter?”
Ali answered, “If there is no hereafter, you and I are in the
same boat. But if there is a hereafter, then I shall be better
off.”
Yet how does it help our lives here and now to know the
nature of this journey?
Inayat Khan carefully addresses this question throughout
the three parts of the series. The soul is unable to see itself;
it thinks it is that which surrounds it. This mistake has, of
course, important consequences, one of which Hazrat Inayat
Khan illustrated in a story. There was a lion who lived
among sheep since birth. This lion cavorted like the sheep
and learned to bleat as they did. One day, another lion came
upon this lion in the midst of the sheep. “Who are you?” the
lion asked him. “A sheep," he answered. The second lion
then took this lion to a nearby pool to show him his reflec
tion. Only then did the young lion understand who he was.
The soul, which retains its impression of the angelic
heavens, finds that impression buried under layers of illu
sion. When it begins its journey towards manifestation,
every soul is an angel. The human being, however, is not
less than that. The human being, Inayat Khan assures us, is
a grown-up angel. This is a radical perspective in our age
where divisions between people occur due to excessive
nationalism, blind materialism, discontinuity between
generations, and divisions so extreme that violence explodes
too often. Criminals and victims—grown-up angels?
Inayat Khan does not avoid the difficult situations in
which we might find ourselves in the course of our lives. At
the end of one lecture, for example, someone asked, “Why
are some souls born in miserable circumstances?” Inayat
IX
