Hazrat Inayat Khan composed four sets of rules to cultivate a morally attuned culture and instill awareness in our inter-relationship with all beings. These belong to the tradition of spiritual chivalry (futuwwa), an essential part of the Sufi path.
General Instructions: At first, the rules may seem self-evident and obvious, but if you work diligently with them, you will find that each rule opens up onto a vast field of inquiry and awareness. For this reason, some take on the rules as a disciplined practice. Starting with the first one, you say a rule out loud every day for forty days and seek to apply it in your life. Then you do the same for the next rule, until all are finished.*
The rules come in four sets of ten rules, forty in all, called the Iron Rules, the Copper Rules, the Silver Rules, and the Golden Rules.
* If you would like to undertake this practice and receive a certification of completion when you are done, please visit the Knighthood of Purity.
My conscientious self:
Make no false claims.
Speak not against others in their absence.
Do not take advantage of a person’s ignorance.
Do not boast of your good deeds.
Do not claim that which belongs to another.
Do not reproach others, making them firm in their faults.
Do not spare yourself in the work which you must accomplish.
Render your services faithfully to all who require them.
Seek not profit by putting someone in straits.
Harm no one for your own benefit.
My conscientious self:
Consider your responsibility sacred.
Be polite to all.
Do nothing which will make your conscience feel guilty.
Extend your help willingly to those in need.
Do not look down upon the one who looks up to you.
Judge not another by your own law.
Bear no malice against your worst enemy.
Influence no one to do wrong.
Be prejudiced against no one.
Prove trustworthy in all your dealings.
My conscientious self:
Consider duty as sacred as religion.
Use tact on all occasions.
Place people rightly in your estimation.
Be no more to anyone than you are expected to be.
Have regard for the feelings of every soul.
Do not challenge anyone who is not your equal.
Do not make a show of your generosity.
Do not ask a favor of those who will not grant it you.
Meet your shortcomings with a sword of self-respect.
Let not your spirit be humbled in adversity.
My conscientious self:
Keep to your principles in prosperity as well as in adversity.
Be firm in faith through life’s tests and trials.
Guard the secrets of friends as your most sacred trust.
Observe constancy in love.
Break not your word of honor whatever may befall.
Meet the world with smiles in all conditions of life.
When you possess something, think of the one who does not possess it.
Uphold your honor at any cost.
Hold your ideal high in all circumstances.
Do not neglect those who depend upon you.
Inayatiyya
Inayatiyya
112 E. Cary Street
Richmond, VA 23219
804-447-1898
astana@inayatiyya.org
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