The Bowl of Saki Commentary

From the study of the heart in the body, we can observe that it is the circulation of the blood which is the continuous process of life. The blood touches every part of one's body and keeps it functioning as a unit. We can tell something about others if we know the condition of their blood. Heart in the body does not separate part from part but considers the whole as a unit.

Such is the nature of love. It can think only in terms of unities. From one point of view, this is not thinking, but from a deeper aspect it is the only real thinking. What one calls thought—by which one endeavors to know something of the nature of things—is really a process of analysis.

Analysis can only bring knowledge of analyzing; it sees parts but cannot put them together because its nature is to divide. To bring parts together one must be able to efface the nufs of each part. By thinking of them as separate pieces one gives each a nufs, which is the product of human thought.

In fact, the whole world as we consider its existence is nothing but the external projection of this thought-power, and the physical world itself is dependent upon thought-power to some extent. But thought itself disintegrates when there is not feeling behind it. In fact, this occurs at all times, yet not much attention is paid to it.

As mind analyzes, it cannot put parts together; therefore constantly looking at diversity, it can never apprehend truth. The enlightened mind is not different from the unenlightened mind except that it perceives unity, yet it is not self-dependent, it is dependent upon heart. In fact it is one with heart.

Now heart expands and contracts, but there is no limit to its expansiveness. Whatever it touches, it regards as itself. It sees no separate self and does not think of others as separate. We often find little infants looking upon each other as the same person, calling each other by their own names. They have not yet gained the habit of analyzing and separating. The spiritual soul passes again into a stage when it can see above all the distinctions and differences which divide, when another does not appear to one as another but as a projection of the Self, the Only Being.

This type of love is wisdom itself. When the bounds of limitation are removed, there is no end to wisdom, to knowledge, to ability. However, the real lover does not place the heart upon such things; one loves and it is this love that makes one live. If there are any gains in it, one does not do it for that reason: one loves because it is one's nature to love. This shows the presence of heart which marks the spiritual person. No other person is really spiritual, but all—even sinners—possess this potentiality be it in a smaller or greater degree. Pure thought, real thought, is without any "I" and is the expression of an awakened soul.