> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://sufimohamed.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Interest and Indifference: Hazrat Inayat Khan
- URL: https://sufimohamed.com/interest-and-indifference/
- Published: 2026-02-10T11:22:14.000Z
- Updated: 2026-02-10T11:22:14.000Z
- Description: If one is hungry after gain one should have interest. If one feels relief n losing one should show indifference
- Author: Sufi Mohamed
- Tags: Spirituality

*This piece presents teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927), the Indian musician and Sufi teacher who brought Sufism to the West. His lectures on this theme are collected in* The Alchemy of Happiness*, volume 6 of* The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan *(Inayat Khan, 2015).*

## Interest and Indifference

> If one is hungry after gain one should have interest. If one feels relief n losing one should show indifference

### Interest can be described in four ways:

**First way:** Interest in the self. If a person is not interest in anybody or anything he is certainly interested in himself.

**Second way:** There is interest in another (briefly based on sacrifice)

**Third way:** Interest is in science or art or in the attaining of a material object, wealth or power or possessions. This interest has nothing to do with a special person. It is for something which is gained but requires sacrifice.

**Fourth way:** There is interest in spiritual things that brings one again to interest in oneself.

### Indifference can be described in three ways:

First way: Indifference to oneself, as when a person says, "I do not care what people say, I am not interested in myself. I have other things on my mind"

Second way: Towards an individual/individuals one does not mind whether one lives or dies, one doesn't mind what happens to another, one does not mind if they love or hate. Whether one profit or doesn't, happy or unhappy -- it is all the same

Third way: Indifierence of the 4th kind: "What does it matter whether I pray or not, whether it is good or bad, whether I am received in paradise or not"

## References

Inayat Khan, H. (2015). *The Sufi message of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Vol. 6\. The alchemy of happiness*. Motilal Banarsidass.

## Related reading

- [Intoxication of Life: Inayat Khan's Remarkable Teaching](https://sufimohamed.com/intoxication-of-life/)
- [Indifference: Inayat Khan's Uplifting Teaching](https://sufimohamed.com/indifference/)
- [Life, a Continual Battle: Inayat Khan's Powerful Lesson](https://sufimohamed.com/life-a-continual-battle/)

[More articles on Spirituality](https://sufimohamed.com/tag/spirituality/)