Sufi Wisdom on Optimism: Hazrat Inayat Khan

The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan 

"Optimism represents the spontaneous flow of love; optimism also represents trust in love. This shows that it is love trusting love which is optimism. Pessimism comes from a disappointment, from a bad impression which continues to be a hindrance on the path. Optimism gives a hopeful attitude to life, while with pessimism one sees darkness on one's path." 

 

"Optimism comes from God, and pessimism is born of the human mind. "

"The pessimist stands in his own light, and defeats his own object here, and even more so in the hereafter, where the desire is the seed which is sown in the soil of the spirit world. Optimism is the water which rears the plant; but the intelligence at the same time gives that sunshine which helps the plant to flourish on the earth as well as in the spheres of the jinn." 

"Man who is conscious of God Almighty, and who in the contemplation of God loses the consciousness of his own self, inherits the power of God, and it is in this power and belief that the spirit of optimism is born." 

"Optimism is the result of love. "

"The pessimist stands in his own light, and defeats his own object here, and even more so in the hereafter, where the desire is the seed which is sown in the soil of the spirit world. Optimism is the water which rears the plant; but the intelligence at the same time gives that sunshine which helps the plant to flourish on the earth as well as in the spheres of the jinn." 

A man with optimism will help another who is drowning in the sea of fear and disappointment; while on the contrary, if someone who is ill or downhearted comes to a pessimistic person, that pessimist will pull him down and make him sink to the depths together with himself. On the side of the one is life, on the side of the other is death. The one climbs to the top of the mountain, the other descends to the depths of the earth. Is there any greater helper in sorrow or misfortune, when every situation in life seems dark, than the spirit of optimism which knows that all will be well? It is no exaggeration to say that the very spirit of God comes to man's rescue in the form of the optimistic spirit.

"It does not matter how hard a situation in life may be, however great the difficulties, they can all be surmounted; but a person's own pessimistic spirit weighs him down when he is already at a low ebb. Death is preferable to being weighed down in misery by a pessimistic spirit, and the greatest reward there can be in the world is the spirit of optimism, while the greatest punishment that can be given to man for his worst sin is pessimism." 

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