The Silver Rules – Earthic Commentary

 

The Silver Rules of Hazrat Inayat Khan
With Earthic Chivalry Themed Commentary by Pir Zia Inayat Khan

 

Consider duty as sacred as religion.

To live only for oneself is to skim the Earth’s crust. To extend help to friends and compatriots is to spelunk in the winding caverns of the Earth’s mantle. To devote oneself to the service of all beings in the name of the Deity is to arrive at Earth’s white-hot core.

Use tact on all occasions.

The restoration of the old treaties will require extensive parley. The spirits of nature can be expected to vent their indignation in the strongest terms. Good listening skills will be needed more than anything else. And when the time comes for words, it will have to be speech of the most sincere and tactful kind.

Place people rightly in your estimation.

The peoples of the Earth are multitudinous, and each has a gift the others lack. Bees are astounding architects, eagles are breathtaking aeronauts, and salmon are astonishing navigators. Each species has a unique relationship with the Deity and apprehends reality in its own inimitable manner. Duly valuing Earth’s denizens restores good terms between human consciousness and the Sovereigns of the Species.

Be no more to anyone than you are expected to be.

In a universe of relationality, partnerships are essential. When forming bonds, however, reticence is as necessary as enthusiasm. Enthusiasms are not always mutually shared, especially when pursued to the extreme. Be it an angel, a jinn, or an animal, no being enjoys becoming the object of immoderate attention. Trees show this in their “crown shyness,” the way in which they keep their leafy crowns somewhat apart from each other, resulting in a canopy that is still somewhat open to the sky even when the forest is dense.

Have regard for the feelings of every soul.

Life lives on life: animals feed on plants and, in some cases, on each other. Killing and eating animals is an ancient human practice. But the ancients differed from moderns in one crucial respect: they recognized the souls of the animals they hunted. They painted their images on cave walls, dreamed of them, and mystically ran, swam, and flew with them. They could not help but know their pain, even as they took their lives.

Do not challenge anyone who is not your equal.

In all of the teeming expanse of the Tricosm you will not find a being who proves to be, when all is taken into account, your precise equivalent and equal. Your only equal is yourself. The proper one to challenge, to contend with, to hold responsible, and to transform is yourself. Stand up to injustice in the world by all means, but take care not to contend with anyone but yourself.

Do not make a show of your generosity.

A clownfish never boasts of the services it provides to an anemone, nor does an anemone make a fanfare of its hospitality toward a clownfish. The altruism of both is so perfect that neither is even aware that they are practicing altruism. To give is to receive and no publicity is necessary or suitable.

Do not ask a favor of those who will not grant it to you.

By the hand of the Earth the Deity grants innumerable boons to her denizens. We are fed, given shelter, and supplied with natural remedies of every kind. But where there is birth and growth there must be decay and death. Far better to accept the transiency of all that is ephemeral than to clutch at fading states of being and plead for impossible longevity.

Meet your shortcomings with a sword of self-respect.

Every species is the beneficiary of a unique bequest from the fountainhead of being. A lion is as formidable on the savannah as a shark is in the sea, and both are at a loss out of their element. To be content with one’s created nature is to enjoy a contentment that can never be taken from you.

Let not your spirit be humbled in adversity.

The times are perilous and no one knows what tomorrow may bring. History abounds with tales of prosperous houses reduced to penury. Fortunes are changeable at the best of times, and when Earth’s living systems have been pushed to such extremes as we are now witnessing, all bets are off. Now more than ever, humility is a requisite, but so is the dignity of spirit on which resilience depends.

Keep to your principles in prosperity as well as in adversity.

Principium (Latin) means “source.” Nature was humankind’s source before it was our resource. Keeping to one’s principles means staying close to primal creation, the fresh influx of spirit flooding into matter. This closeness to the Earth’s wellspring is as crucial in hard times as in easy times. In hard times, there is no other balm.