Unity in Variety

The Sufis say:
"He is the One,
whom all lovers love in each and every beloved;
He is the Only One."

The knowledge of plurality begins life;
but in the consciousness of unity is life´s culmination..
The closer one approaches reality, the nearer one arrives at unity.
The man who will not take in the idea of unity,
will be taken in by unity some day.

All souls in the world are the receptacles of God´s Message -
not only human beings, but even the lower creation.
All objects and all conditions convey to us the Message
of the One and Only Being.

Everything in the world that has a name is imaginable;
the one and only Being the imagination cannot reach is God.
And yet as God is manifested in all things and in all beings,
so in all things and in all beings there is always a part which is unimaginable.
Man can reach God only as far as his imagination can take him.

The God of each is the God of all,
but in order to comprehend that God we each have to make our own God.
Some of us seek for justice; we can seek for God, Who is just.
Some of us look for beauty; we must find it in the God of beauty.
Some of us seek for love; we must find it in the God of mercy and compassion.
Some of us wish for strength and power; we must find it in God Almighty.
The seeking of every soul in this world is different, distinct, and peculiar to himself,
and he can best attain to it by finding the object of his search in God.

Hazrat Inanyat Khan

The God who is in a faith is the God who discloses Himself to the heart
in such a way that the heart recognizes it.
Thus the eye only sees the God of the faith....
to each believer the Divine Being is He who is disclosed to him
in the form of his faith.

If God manifests Himself in a different form the believer rejects Him.
That is why there are different faiths and the dogmatic faiths combat each other.
He who is fixed on a certain particular adoration,
is necessarily ignorant of the intrinsic truths of other beliefs.

He would admit the validity of all beliefs and
he would recognize God in every form and every object of faith.

Hernry Corbin

The blind religious are in a dilemma, for the champions on either side stand firm:
each party is delighted with its own path.
Love alone can end their quarrel.
Love alone comes to the rescue when you cry for help against their arguments.

Jalal ud-Din Rumi

The faithful of different religions know God
according to the form in which they conceive Him,
not in the form in which another religion conceives Him.
The message of our time collects all forms in one,
universal form to which people are not accustomed,
so that the followers of all religions may worship at the same time.

Hazrat Inayat Khan