Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, the son and spiritual successor of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, became head of the Sufi order in 1956 and served in that capacity until his passing in 2004. This article is excerpted from his book, Awakening: A Sufi Experience. An extensive and wonderful collection of Pir Vilayat's teachings and meditations can be found at the Universel web site.

Can you imagine how your problems might look from God's point of view, or envision how God might resolve them? Do you ever ask yourself what is the reason for the circumstances of your life? Have you ever considered the notion that those vexing dilemmas that plague your daily life are challenging you to open to new ways of thinking? Can you sense how these difficulties are the means through which something mysterious, perhaps even great, is struggling to be born through you? Thus far our meditations have borne us aloft toward the peaks of spiritual transcendence, where we have been granted a magnificent overview of all creation and insight into the mysteries of life. Now it is time to concentrate this overview upon the ordinary realm of everyday life. For, as I have pointed out, awakening beyond life must be followed by awakening in life. At this level of realization, you are able to cast the light of the intelligence of the Universe upon your problems instead of judging things the way they appear from your personal point of view.

This descent is called tanzil in Sufism, or the way in which the Divine Thinking expresses itself in the phenomenal world. By applying the expanded and detached perspective we have gained in our previous meditations to our day-to-day circumstances, the problems that once seemed insurmountable now appear in an entirely different light. In fact, everything may seem quite the opposite of how it once appeared. just like the accounts of astronauts who return to earth transformed by their vision of the planet earth from outer space, so, too, from the vantage point of altered states of consciousness do we suddenly see the experience of human life as so precious, rare, and poignant that we feel ashamed for having let ourselves be consumed by petty grudges and fleeting temptations. From the viewpoint of our higher self, it's like having been invited to the Divine Banquet, only to pick up crumbs from the floor.

In fact, one reason many of us have difficulty reconciling the spiritual dimension with the worldly stems from the misguided notion that the drama of life itself the frustrations of earning a living, the suffering caused by ill health or the emotional roller coaster of intimate relationships make it difficult to attain, or sustain, illumination. Yet it's just in the midst of such difficult situations that one can find illumination. Rather than prevent unfoldment, such stresses challenge us to develop heroism. Instead of permanent roadblocks on the spiritual path, the obstacles we face are creative catalysts for spiritual evolution. What had seemed a defeat avers itself in our new realization to be a victory. For as wonderful as meditation is, the true test of spiritual realization lies in how well we manage to deal with our day, and whether or not there is a difference in how we handle our problems.

Often, the tendency is to slip back into the same state of mind we were in before our meditation. Even after having had the breakthrough that enabled us to see how uninspiring and inadequate our old strategies proved to be, the habits by which we handled our day-to-day circumstances die hard. Thus the task is to learn to build a bridge between altered states of consciousness and our real-life situations in the outer world. For myself, I find that when faced with the onrush of urgent, compelling activities, it helps to keep in mind the deeper reality that lies concealed by overt appearances. In order to prevent overlooking my dedication to fulfilling higher ideals in order to meet my day-to-day commitments, I continuously ask myself, "What are you doing in life? Have you forgotten what it is all about?" Even more important, I question what is really at stake behind the drama that is being enacted. In fact, according to the teachings of the ancient Sufis, what is at stake is giving birth to the Universe's unborn qualities. Like Divine genes that are latent within the psyche, attributes such as compassion, mercy, truth, power, forgiveness, and many other qualities are the fruits born of life's stuggles. The crucible within which this alchemical process occurs is the arena of everyday decision-making and problem-solving: to marry this person or remain single; to speak the truth or remain silent; to keep faith with one's soul destiny or settle for a comfortable lifestyle; to protect the environment from degradation or turn one's head away.

Those difficult situations that we struggle to be free of are in reality the birth pangs through which God is being born in everyday life; and the means through which our soul evolves. From this vantage point, meditation is less a means of retreating from life in order to awaken into higher states of consciousness, and becomes instead a rehearsal for life itself. It is a method of changing one's perspective in order to effect a change in one's circumstances. Even if a particular situation doesn't change, the resulting shift in perspective can allow us to see how something that had once filled us with despair is somehow exactly right because it is providing a difficult, but valuable, spiritual lesson.

This lesson always has to do with the unfolding of new patterns and ways of being. In the birth of a child, for instance, one could say that the Universe is re-creating itself in an entirely new way. This rebirthing process can also manifest in us in a new psychological and spiritual pattern. Buddhist teachings point out that human beings become trapped in the vicious cycle of illusion, repeating lifetime after lifetime on the samsaric wheel. A person does what everyone else does: grows up, gets married, has children, works, gets ill, grows old, and dies. In this manner, life goes on and on without making much sense. Nothing is gained.

But now suppose that we evolve in a way that the samsaric wheel doesn't just keep turning on its axis but advances forward. In order for it to advance, however, it has to be pulled forward by something greater than itself. What this means is that whatever those deeply embedded habits and conditions are that prevent us from changing whether our ancestral, educational, or cultural upbringing they can be overcome only through a vision of how one "could be if one would be as one might be." That's spiritual creativity seeing how the problems in our lives can be re-framed as catalysts for Divine artistry. For while Sufis and Buddhists both employ teachings of detachment and self-transcendence, Sufis believe neither that the body and mind are just the products of our ancestors, nor that we are the victims of a mysterious process that happened against our will, but that there is a quality within us that is uniquely purposeful and useful within the overall plan of the Universe.

In samadhi, for example, the focus is not so much on responsibility, but on otherworldliness. In Sufism, however, an initiate is considered a vice-regent of God who takes responsibility for the human condition. Rather than leave the world behind, the Sufi surveys the realm of his or her personal domain, saying, in effect, "I was so involved in my own personal problems, or trying to be entertained by life, that I forgot that there are others who need me." This might, for example, result in my writing a letter to someone, or answering a letter rather than ignoring it. Surveying one's "kingdom" or "queendom" with an eye to those qualities life is seeking to bring forth can result in a sense of responsibility that conveys authority and sovereignty, and fosters the flowering of one's personality.

Thus from the Sufi standpoint the spiritual journey is about much more than detaching from the illusory conditions of life; it is creative and transformative. In the old days, in Morocco or Afghanistan, for example, a person could go to the bazaar and see skilled artisans making beautiful trays, carpets, pottery, and clothes. It is no different with our personality: our personalities are like lumps of clay, loose threads, or bolts of cloth that, through the formative influence of the problems and challenges we face in life, are refashioned into exquisite expressions of the marvelous bazaar of Divine Qualities. The only difference is that, unlike artists' raw materials, the bounty of God's perfection cannot manifest as reality without our conscious participation. As Hazrat Inayat Khan said, "God can entertain a greater degree of perfection in a being who participates in his creativity." Indeed, the ultimate work of art is ourselves, our personality. We are each endowed with the faculty of being able to become what we want to become; life is a great loss if we don't avail ourselves of this potential. So remember: How we could be is so much greater than the way we've become. The future lies before us; we create it through our imagination in the same way that the whole Universe is created by the Divine Imagination.

This article is excerpted from Pir Vilayaty's book Awakening: A Sufi Experience