Spirit of Guidance
The Holy Spirit is referred to in terms of the Spirit of Guidance. This spirit is particularly manifest in the prophets of the world's religions as well as being manifest in all beings. This belief has parallels in Quakerism (that of God in everyone, and the Inner Light) and the concept of Buddha Nature.
In the Hadiths the Islamic prophet Muhammad stated that believers should "Seek knowledge even unto China," and this dictum is specifically followed by Universal Sufis who do not limit their source of spiritual knowledge to one particular area or tradition.
Therefore most historical figures, including both founders of great world religions as well as secular individuals, are considered to be important teachers, worthy of respect. Zia Inayat-Khan, the Pir of the Sufi Order International was, during his training, a student of the Dalai Lama as well as an initiate in the Chishti Sufi order.
Read more about this topic: Universal Sufism
Famous quotes containing the words spirit of, spirit and/or guidance:
“So much of truth, only under an ancient obsolete vesture, but the spirit of it still true, do I find in the Paganism of old nations. Nature is still divine, the revelation of the workings of God; the Hero is still worshipable: this, under poor cramped incipient forms, is what all Pagan religions have struggled, as they could, to set forth.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“The world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the unconscious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.”
—Anne Sullivan, U.S. educator of the deaf and blind. The Last Word, ed. Carolyn Warner, ch. 16 (1992)