Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the difference between those who seek beauty in their surroundings and those who actively create beauty in their environments.
Hazrat Inayat Khan highlights the contrast between passive appreciation of beauty and active participation in creating a beautiful environment. The quote suggests that true beauty comes not from merely finding it in the world but from the effort and intention we put into enhancing our surroundings, which reflects our values and mindset. It encourages individuals to take initiative and become agents of beauty, shaping their spaces and experiences rather than solely seeking them out.
In practice
This quote can be shared during community service events to motivate volunteers.
Sufism is not a religion or a philosophy, it is neither deism nor atheism, nor is it a moral, nor a special kind of mysticism, being free from the usual religious sectarianism. If ever it could be called a religion, it would only be as a religion of love, harmony, and beauty.
I had composed songs, I sang, and played the vina. Practising this music I arrived at a stage where I touched the music of the spheres. Then every soul became a musical note, and all life became music. Inspired by it I spoke to the people, and those who were attracted by my words listened to them instead of listening to my songs.
What science cannot declare, art can suggest; what art suggests silently, poetry speaks aloud; but what poetry fails to explain in words, music can express. _x000D_ Whoever knows the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things.
Atmosphere is a silent music. It has its effect upon the listener, exciting or peaceful, whatever it may be.
What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music: our mind and body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music.
Belief and disbelief have divided humankind into so many sects, blinding its eyes to the vision of the Oneness of all Life.
You must climb above yourself-up and beyond, until you have even your stars under you.
I fear waking up one morning and finding out my life was all for nothing. We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. When you're kind to someone in trouble, you hope they remember and are kind to someone else and so on. Soon it will be like a wildfire.
The world needs you. It doesn't need you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties - these books exist, and they're tempting - but resist falling into that trap. The world needs you at the party starting real conversations, saying, 'I don't know,' and being kind.
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
It's important for celebrities, environmentalists and world leaders to continue to increase education and eco-awareness through the forums provided to them naturally by virtue of being famous. Take inspiration from these words of wisdom from a Nazi-era teenager and concentration camp victim: "how wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
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