inspiration

Inspiration? - a hoax fabricated by poets for their self-importance.

What the world craves today is a more spiritual and less formal religion. To the man or woman facing death, great conflict, the big problems of human life, the forms of religion are of minor concern, while the spirit of religion is a desperately needed source of inspiration, comfort and strength.

Trained and inspired leadership is needed in the troubled world of today. We live in uncertainty and fear. The times call for thinking and straight thinking - one of the goals of true education. Unfortunately, the world so clamors for action that men and women devote little time to thinking. Many believe in second-hand thinking. They find it easier to ascertain and adopt the thoughts of others than to think for themselves.

The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

Indeed as Jalaluddin Rumi also says, each of our eternal individualities is a word, a divine Word, emitted by the Breath of Divine Compassion. When this Word penetrates the mystic's heart... that is, when the "secret of his Lord" unfolds to his consciousness, when divine inspiration invests his heart and soul, "his nature is such that there is born within him a spiritual Child (walad ma'nawi) having the breath of Christ which resuscitates the dead."

Averroes (an integrist Aristotelian master): What manner of solution have you found through divine illumination and inspiration? Is it identical with that which we obtain from speculative reflection? Ibn 'Arabi (a young man about 20 years old): Yes and no. Between the yes and the no, spirits take their flight from their matter, and heads are separated from their bodies. Averroes (in a private interview with Ibn 'Arabi's father): Glory be to God who has let me live at a time distinguished by one of the masters of this experience {i.e. Ibn 'Arabi}, one of those who open the locks of His gates. Glory be to God who has accorded me the personal favor of seeing one of them with my own eyes.

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and . . . unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraightened, ardent piety.

The observation of nature is part of an artist's life, it enlarges his form [and] knowledge, keeps him fresh and from working only by formula, and feeds inspiration.