The knowledge of life is the greatest of all religions
and there is no greater or more interesting study
- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mariam Baker
There is a young girl, perhaps three or four, just out of babyhood. Thereis a brightness surrounding her playful spirit. One hot, dry California Augustday, she sits alone in a field, safe and peaceful, not far from her familyhome. She is watching birds. She doesn't know the classifications of sparrowand crow, hawk and bluejay. She knows birds, big ones and little ones. Shewatches, mesmerized. The birds are playing, diving and bathing in the dust.Dust. The hot, fine soft dust of the California valley in August. The birdsare taking a dust bath, fluffing their wings, and shaking up a storm. Thereis no water anywhere. The birds dive into the dust. They flap their wings,roll, fly up and swoop down again and again into the dust. The girl catchesthe ecstacy of this dust bath moment. She enters the family of birds, throwingoff her clothes and running to roll in the dust with them. The dust coversthe skin of her body and the hair on her head. She shakes and rolls in thefineness of this earth, this dust. The girl is Murshida Vera Corda. The imprintof her experience is the sacred manuscript of nature. Experiential practiceand study of Sufic principles begin at a young age.
There is one Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature,
the only manuscript which can enlighten the reader.
- Hazrat Inayat Khan
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