God is in you and you are in God:

As the bubble is in the ocean and the bubble is a part of the ocean and yet not separate from the ocean.

I have read many things from and about Inayat Khan and have not ceased to wonder. They tell that his lectures were so full of bliss (joy,light,love) that many attending were unable to listen to his words, but now we can read them and marvel.

In the world now and ever that religions have formed separate rigid domains with mentally rigid followers and belief structures, his message is so true and helpful that it is revolutionary.

Note: These are extracts about him - please READ some of his works to see the full depth of his balanced intelligence, power of communication and wisdom.

Inayat's writing are like music and flowers - beautiful, clear and with a perfume of Love and Wisdom. It's the writing of a Buddha - direct from his OWN heart.

This may be his earliest photo?

Following a vision of meeting a Sufi teacher, he met Muhammad Abu Hashim Madani who trained him in the ways of the:

Chishti,
Naqshbandi,
Qadiri, and
Suhrawardi

Sufi orders.

During his sixteen years in the West, he created a school of spiritual training based upon the traditional teachings of the Chishti Sufis, and infused with a revolutionary vision of the unity of religious ideals and the awakening of humanity to the divinity within. In his unique form of Sufism, there are no barriers of race, creed or religion. He did not see Sufism as a religion, but rather a way of life that enhances and fulfills every religion.

He said

“Sufism is not a religion or a philosophy, it is neither deism nor atheism, nor is it a moral, nor a special kind of mysticism, being free from the usual religious sectarianism. If ever it could be called a religion, it would only be as a religion of love, harmony, and beauty.”

Social Gathekas – 3. Sufism – Beyond Religion

... an incident of an amusing nature occurred as for the first time in his life Inayat heard his Murshid's words on metaphysics. He became so keenly interested and filled with enthusiasm about what was being said that he took a note-book from his pocket, intending to take notes of it. But as soon as the Murshid saw the pencil and notebook in his hand, he instantly began to speak of an altogether different subject. Inayat realized by this that his Murshid meant that his words must be engraved on the soul, they were not to be written with a pencil on the pages of a note-book.

He would return home silent and remain speechless for hours, pondering over the words which had fallen upon his ears. His friends began to wonder what could have happened to him in such a short time, that his whole life should be so changed. He had now become quite a different person in his speech, actions, ways, expression, in his attitude and in his atmosphere. In all these, he showed a marked and definite change. It seemed to them as if, while a traveler walking at a certain rate of speed should have journeyed a mile, Inayat had suddenly made such an advance as to cover a hundred miles in the same space of time...

Now going back to the heading:

Inayat Khan was born in Baroda, India on July 5, 1882. As a youth, Inayat was brilliant in poetry and music, yet his deepest inner calling was in spiritual matters. As a youth, one day as Inayat was praying...

... he thought to himself that there had not been an answer yet to all the prayers he had offered to God and he did not know where God was to hear his prayers and he could not reconcile himself to going on praying to the God whom he knew not. He went fearlessly to his father and said: "I do not think I will continue my prayers any longer, for it does not fit in with my reason. I do not know how I can go on praying to a God I do not know."

His father, taken aback, did not become cross lest he might turn Inayat's beliefs sour by forcing them upon him without satisfying his reason and he was glad on the other hand to see that, although it was irreverent on the child's part, yet it was frank, and he knew that the lad really hungered after Truth and was ready to learn now, what many could not learn in their whole life.

He said to him: "God is in you and you are in God. As the bubble is in the ocean and the bubble is a part of the ocean and yet not separate from the ocean. For a moment it has appeared as a bubble, then it will return to that from which it has risen. So is the relation between man and God.

The Prophet has said that God is closer to you than the jugular vein, which in reality means that your own body is farther from you than God is. If this be rightly interpreted, it will mean that God is the very depth of your own being."

This moment to Inayat was his very great initiation, as if a switch had turned in him, and from that moment onward his whole life Inayat busied himself, and his whole being became engaged in witnessing in life what he knew and believed, by this one great Truth.

Inayat's early life primarily revolved around music, and he was given many awards and medals of honor for his magnificent singing. In 1903 Inayat published a Hindustani collection of some 75 songs as Professor 'Ināyat Khān Rahmāt Khān Pathān. ... Eventually he lost his medals and this was a great lesson that all is 'not ours' or temporary.

...

But going forward,

later on he renounced music as part of his spiritual journey.

One of his daughters, Noor, is known to have been killed in Hitlers concentration camps. She was acting bravely as a spy for UK.

Video on her life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZW6xPr3sfA

Ref:

https://www.pbs.org/video/enemy-reich-noor-inayat-khan-story-full-episode/

https://wahiduddin.net/hik/hik_origins.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism

His life in photos:

http://www.nekbakhtfoundation.org/gallery