1a) Water is the substance
of all beings yet it remains only itself.
1b) When it flows, it always
seeks the humble path.
1c) It rests in the lowliest
places.
1d) The creative harmony
works in a similar way.
1e) The mastercraftsman
takes this as his example.
2a) In home life he lives
harmoniously and down to earth.
2b) In speech his simple
manor shows authenticity.
2c) Among friends he is
unassuming and open.[1]
2d) As a teacher he inspires
his students to learn from themselves.
2e) When he is working,
the creative harmony pours itself through him.
3a) Within the Universal
Harmony things do not compete with each other.[2]
3b) That is why it is harmonious!
footnotes
[1] This shows that in the inner life the greatest principle that one should observe is to be unassuming and quiet, without any show of wisdom, without any manifestation of learning, without any desire to let anyone know how far one has advanced, not even letting oneself know how far one has gone. The task to be accomplished is the entire forgetting of oneself and harmonizing with one's fellow-man; acting in agreement with all, meeting everyone on his own plane, speaking to everyone in his own tongue, answering the laughter of one's friends with a smile, and the pain of another with tears, standing by one's friends in their joy and their sorrow, whatever be one's own grade of evolution. If a man through his life became like an angel he would accomplish very little; the accomplishment which is most desirable for man is to fulfill the obligations of human life.
Hazrat Inayat
Khan, The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, The inner life
[2] I cannot think that Real
Poets have any competition. None are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven;
it is so in poetry. Blake,
Annotations to Wordsworth’s, Poems, 1826