O Thou, Who art the Perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty, 

 A person may follow a religion and yet not come to the realization of truth; but of what use is his religion to him if he is not happy? Religion does not mean depression and sadness. The spirit of religion should give happiness. God is happy. He is the perfection of love, harmony, and beauty. A religious person should be happier than one who is not religious. If a person who professes religion is always melancholy, his religion is disgraced; the form has been kept, but the spirit lost. If the study of religion and mysticism does not lead to real joy and happiness, it may just as well not exist, for then it does not help to fulfil the purpose of life. The world today is sad and suffering as the result of terrible wars; the religion which answers the demand of life today is one which invigorates and gives life to souls, which illuminates the heart of man with the divine light which is already there; not necessarily by any outer form, though for some a form may be helpful, but by showing that happiness which is the desire of every soul. The Alchemy of Happiness - The Alchemy of Happiness

...but the Sufi always recognizes God as the perfection of love, harmony, and beauty, as the perfection of all qualities, and as the perfection of perfections.  If strength is needed, strength comes from God; if love is required, God is love; if one must perform justice, God is Judge and Forgiver. Githa 2 Meditation - Wazifa

The Lord of Heaven and Earth, 

 The question which arises in the mind of every thoughtful person is, what was the reason, what was the purpose of the creation of this world? The answer is, to break the monotony. Call it God, call it the only Being, call it the source and goal of all; being alone, He wished that there should be something for Him to know. The Hindus say that the creation is the dream of Brahma. One may call it a dream, but it is the main purpose. The Sufis explain it thus: that God, the Lover, wanted to know his own nature; and that therefore through manifestation the Beloved was created, in order that love might manifest. And when we look at it in this light, then all that we see is the Beloved. As Rumi, the greatest writer of Persia says, 'The Beloved is all in all, the lover only veils Him; the Beloved is all that lives, the lover a dead thing.'

 Sufis have therefore called God the Beloved. And they have seen the Beloved in all beings. They did not think that God was in heaven, apart, away from all beings. In everything, in all forms, they have seen the beauty of God. And in this realization the main purpose and the ultimate purpose of life is fulfilled. As it is said in the ancient scriptures, when God asked Adam, 'Who is thy Lord?' he said, 'Thou art my Lord.' This means that the purpose of creation was that every soul might recognize his source and goal, and surrender to it and attribute to it all beauty and wisdom and power, so that by doing so he might perfect himself. As the Bible says, 'Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.' The Alchemy of Happiness - The Purpose of Life (1)
 

Open our hearts, 

"...Every person seems to be disappointed with his experience of life. He may be most successful in the world, it does not matter. He may be a rich man, he may have a high position, but he is disappointed, he is longing for something which will satisfy him. What is it? It is not outside. It is within himself. He will find it on the day when he awakens to the reality of life. Once a soul is awakened to the reality of life, all other things matter little. What matters is that he understands clearly that what satisfies is within.

 Besides, when once the heart begins to live, another world is open for experience. For generally what one experiences in one's everyday life is only what the senses can perceive and nothing beyond it. But when once a person begins to feel and experience the subtle feelings of the heart he lives in another world, walking on the same earth and living under the same sun. Healing and the Mind World - Mental Purification - Insight (1)

Question: Is there a system to take away evil?
Answer: That system is understanding life more and more; it is keeping the love element alive, trying to keep an harmonious attitude as much as possible, and then keeping beauty before oneself.

 It is difficult, but it is possible when we have the spirit never to be really grown-up, never to close our heart to learning, always to be ready, whatever be our age, to accept what is harmonious and beautiful. When one thinks, "What I think is right", and one finds arguments and reasons to make it right, and when one thinks, "What the other person thinks is wrong", and one finds reasons to make it wrong, one will always remain in the same place. But when one is ready to accept, even from a child, that something one says may be wrong, one thinks, "Even though it is a child who said it, it is a profit for me to accept it". God has not spoken only through His prophets, He speaks through every person, if we open our hearts to listen. The difficulty is that we become teachers. If throughout our whole life we remain pupils teaching will come all the time from within and without. As soon as we become teachers we close our hearts from Him who alone is our Teacher. Sufi Teachings - The Privilage of Being Human - Resist not Evil

that we may hear Thy Voice, which constantly cometh from within; 

 In the Qur'an it is said, 'He who taught with the pen, taught man that which he knew not.' And what does that mean? It means that to the man who lives the inner life, everything that he sees becomes a written character and this whole visible world a book. He reads it as plainly as a letter written by his friend. And besides this, he hears a voice within which becomes to him a language. It is an inner language; its words are not the same as the words of the external language. It is a divine language. It is a language without words, which can only be called a voice, and yet it serves as a language. It is like music, which is as clear as a language to the musician. Another person enjoys music, but only the musician knows exactly what it says, what every note is, how it is expressed and what it reveals. Every phrase of music to him has a meaning; every piece of music is a picture to him. But this is so only with a real musician. The Inner Life - The Law of the Inner Life

Disclose to us Thy Divine Light, which is hidden in our souls, That we may know and understand life better. 

...in man there is a spark somewhere hidden in his heart which alone can be called a source of free will. If this spark is tended a person has greater vitality, greater energy, greater power. All he thinks will come true, all he says will make an impression, all he does will have effect. What does a mystic do? He blows this spark in order to bring it to a flame till it comes to a blaze. This gives him the inspiration, the power which enables him to live in this world the life of free will. It is this spark which may be called the divine heritage of man, in which he sees the divine power of God, the soul of man; and to become spiritual means that by blowing upon this spark one produces light from it and sees the whole of life in this light. And by bringing the inner light to a blaze one is more able to think, to feel, and to act. HEALING AND THE MIND WORLD - MENTAL PURIFICATION - The Control of the Mind
 

Most Merciful and Compassionate God, 

     I have seen in my life that it is not difficult to have occult or psychic powers; to be virtuous, to keep our life pure, is not very difficult. To be merciful, to be compassionate, is difficult: it is difficult to be human.
 God has many names: the Great, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Sovereign, but he is always called Merciful and Compassionate. In these qualities we are never perfect, we shall never be perfect. As it has been said, "Go into your room at night and repent of what you have done, of all the thousand bad thoughts you have had of friends and enemies". A Persian poet has said, "The whole secret of the two worlds is in these two words: With friends be loving, with enemies courteous".
      If you have understood that this world is nothing, if you have recognized that it is a passing thing, why not let others enjoy while you renounce? Why not let others put on the nice dress while you look at it? Why not let others eat the dinner while you be in the kitchen and cook it? Why not let others sit in the car while you drag it, instead of you sitting in the car and making others drag it?
 Keep your life noble; that is: be merciful and compassionate. It is the tendency of everyone to take the best of another. Even in friendship there is this tendency. All are seeking their own enjoyment and leave the worst for another. If you are a seeker of God, take the opposite way. Let all the world go one way, while you go the contrary way. Sufi Teachings - THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING HUMAN - Human Nature
 

give us Thy Great Goodness, 

    Gratefulness in the character is like fragrance in the flower. A person, however learned and qualified in his life's work, in whom gratefulness is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant. If we answer every little deed of kindness with appreciation, we develop in our nature the spirit of gratefulness; and by learning this we rise to that state where we begin to realize God's goodness towards us, and for this we can never be grateful enough to His divine compassion.
     The great Sufi poet Sa'di teaches gratefulness as being the means of attracting that favor, forgiveness, and mercy of God upon ourselves in which is the salvation of our soul. There is much in life that we can be grateful for, in spite of all the difficulties and troubles of life. Sa'di says, 'The sun and moon and the rain and clouds, all are busy to prepare your food for you, and it is unfair indeed if you do not appreciate it in thanksgiving.'
     God's goodness is something that one cannot learn to know at once; it takes time to understand it. But little actions of kindness which we receive from those around us we can know, and we can be thankful if we want to be. In this way man develops gratefulness in his nature, and expresses it in his thought, speech, and action as an exquisite form of beauty. The Art of Personality - CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY - The Art of Personality

Teach us Thy Loving Forgiveness,

 If we could only know the joy of asking pardon even of our fellowman, when we realize we are in fault, however little it may be! When we ask the Father of all to forgive our fault, joy, beauty, and happiness, spring up in the heart in a way unknown until it is experienced. To think we can ask pardon of Him whose love is unlimited, while our errors are numberless and our ignorance limitless! Think of the joy of asking forgiveness from God! Every moment of our life, if we can see wisely, contains some fault or error, and asking pardon is just like purifying the heart and washing it clean. Think of the joy of humbling yourself before God! (from HUMILITY IN PRAYER Hazrat Inayat Khan the religious gathekas)

Raise us above the distinctions and differences which divide us, 

      The religious bond shows a still higher ideal. But it has caused diverse sects, which have opposed and despised each other for thousands of years, and have caused endless splits and divisions among men. The germ of separation exists even in such a wide scope for brotherhood, and however widespread the brotherhood may be, it cannot be a perfect one as long as it separates man from man. 
      The Sufi, realizing this, frees himself from national, racial, and religious boundaries, uniting himself in the human brotherhood, which is devoid of the differences and distinctions of class, caste, creed, race, nation, or religion, and unites mankind in the universal brotherhood. THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION - Sufi Thoughts

Send us the Peace of Thy Divine Spirit, 

[The] spirit of agitation shows itself as intolerance, as rivalry, as jealousy, as a dominating spirit, irritability, patronizing, all such qualities, show agitation of nature. When we study the lives of those who have served humanity, that was the first thing that they had to conquer. When it is said in the life of Krishna that Krishna had a battle with Kansa, the monster, that monster was not outside of Krishna, that monster was inside of Krishna that monster was that agitation spirit. Krishna had to fight it, and it is after conquering that spirit of agitation that Krishna became the Messenger of Love.

 In the Bible we read that Jesus Christ went for forty days on the top of the mountain, at the side of that spirit. What is that spirit? The same spirit which is the greatest enemy of the human race, the spirit of agitation. And the master had to fast for forty days; then the spirit went among the creatures who were the receptacle of that spirit to whom it belongs. Halima gives the description of the Prophet, - symbolical artistic, picturesque. But what is it after all? She says that the breast of the Prophet was cut open and some undesirable stuff was taken off from there. Behind the symbology, there is only one thing, that spirit of agitation that was removed from there to make place for divine inspiration. 

 Does it not show that man inherits divine spirit, and yet this divine spirit is covered by the earthly characteristics. among those earthly characteristics, agitation is the principal characteristic. A child sometimes begins it against his parents a boy in the school begins it against his friends, a youth shows it with his companions, a person shows it to his neighbor, and yet everyone has a reason to give for his faults. Every right or wrong one does, there is a reason to justify false ego, and when this false ego is broken, when this very agitation has crushed itself, just as fire burns itself, then purification arises.

  Every man notices how far this spirit follows a person in the path of spiritual progress. A person may arrive at the gate of the heavens, even to that length this spirit will travel with him. It may become weaker, but it is there. Only, this spirit has no entrance into the shrine of God, and the soul that carries this spirit with him, therefore, has no entrance into that perfect goal. He may advance as afar as the gate of that inner temple, but he is not allowed, he is held back by the power of the same spirit of agitation. For the shrine of God is called "Dar-as-Salaam"; the corrupted word is "jerusalem". And what does it mean? It means the door to peace. Agitation, therefore, is not allowed to enter the door of peace, it must stay outside. Therefore, as, in the ancient times, they used to say, "You cannot follow two masters, God and Satan." What is Satan? It is the spirit of agitation which is to be found within ourselves, God is the spirit of peace in whom is our happiness; and we cannot follow two masters. THE PATH OF INITIATION - THE PROBLEM OF THE DAY - Brotherhood (2)
 

And unite us all in Thy Perfect Being. Amen 

 The Sufi Movement does not call a man away from his belief or Church: it calls him to live it. In short, it is a movement intended by God to unite humanity in brotherhood and in wisdom. THE UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS - THE MESSAGE AND THE MESSENGER - The Sufi's Aim in Life