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# Intoxication of Life: Inayat Khan's Remarkable Teaching
- URL: https://sufimohamed.com/intoxication-of-life/
- Published: 2026-02-10T11:22:15.000Z
- Updated: 2026-02-10T11:22:15.000Z
- Description: Every stimulus that one experiences through food and drink is really a small intoxication.
- 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).*

## Intoxication of life

This life of continual rise and fall and of continual changes is like running water and man identifies himself with this running water, although in reality he does not know what he is.

> If a man can observe his actions in every day of life, and if he has an awakened sense of justice and understanding, he will often find himself doing something that he did not wish to say (e.g. why was I such a fool?)

In the action and reaction of his life a man sometimes does things on impulse, not considering what he is doing, and at other times he has a spell of goodness.

The Hindus have called the life of the world an ocean, an ever-rising ocean.

> A man is floating on this ocean of worldly activity not knowing what he is doing, not knowing where he is going. What seems to him of importance is only the moment which he calls the present; the past is a dream, the future is in a mist and the only thing clear to him is the present.

All that man considers important in life, such as the collection of wealth, property, fame, rising to a position he may think ideal, all these objects have only an intoxicating effect on him. On attaining the object he is not satisfied.

> What man calls pleasure is what happens at the moment when he is intoxicated with the activity of life.

Every stimulus that one experiences through food and drink is really a small intoxication.

## References

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

## Related reading

- [Life, a Continual Battle: Inayat Khan's Powerful Lesson](https://sufimohamed.com/life-a-continual-battle/)
- [Interest and Indifference: Hazrat Inayat Khan](https://sufimohamed.com/interest-and-indifference/)
- [Life, an Opportunity: Inayat Khan's Uplifting Teaching](https://sufimohamed.com/life-an-opportunity/)

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