=kit019.txt

KIT 19 - The Leading Edge

Yes, we are somewhere about an emergent leading edge - if - we
take the next step.

The ancients were more interested in discovering first principles
or experiencing yonder. People in our day and age are concerned
with the nitty-gritty: the unfoldment of the human person. I see
here, a clue to Murshid's teaching and a confirmation of its
relevance to our time. While most traditional schools were or are
striving to reach beyond the middle range, for example, expanding
consciousness, we are trying to identify with our planetary, solar
galactic, and even angelic inheritance as the boundaries of our
consciousness dissolve. See the difference? By the very fact of
endeavoring to reach beyond, one is evidencing the assumption that
the universe lies beyond some invisible boundary, delineating
oneself, whereas in reality, one incorporates the universe (not
only the physical) albeit by limiting it, even as a focal point
converges a broad array of light, for example.

The more progressive schools in psychology such as transpersonal
psychology, are now recognizing factors in the human psyche that
lie beyond the boundaries of the zone that their predecessors
defined as the human psyche, carrying Jung's collective conscious
a step further. Yet most psychotherapists are still reinforcing
people's confinement within their self-image by emphasizing the
need to heal the trauma of earlier trials, rather than luring them
out of that confinement by helping them to identify with the more
vast dimensions of their being, revealing to them how they "could
be if they would be as they might be." Admittedly, it seems
logical that one needs to first remove the obstacles to growth
before fostering that growth. But one must realize that this
trauma reinforces them in the exploitation by their unconscious,
allowing an excuse for having failed to become what they would
have liked to be.

Causality is one of two parameters, the other being
purposefulness. If you throw an arrow at a target, it is the
bull's eye that determines the nervous impulse that triggers off
the launch. The pull of the future is more important than the push
of the past. If a person had the slightest inkling as to what he
or she could be if he/she would be what he/she might be, h/s would
have an incentive to remove whatever relic of the past was
obstructing his/her objective.

Many handicapped persons excel in alternate or closely related
fields to those in which they are incapacitated by dint of
nature's mechanism called overcompensation. Many piano tuners are
blind; the violinist, Perlman, is paralyzed in his legs but shows
incredible dexterity in his fingers; one of the most outstanding
brains of our time, the British physicist, Dr. Hawkin, is
paralyzed to the extent of not being able to talk distinctly or
write at all, Demosthenes and Churchill had a stutter; Beethoven
composed while deaf. However psychologically damaged a person
might be, there are creative areas in which that person may excel
others. One becomes so convinced that one is the image that one
makes of oneself, not realizing that it is just a "notion", that
is, a construct of one's imagination and that what appears at the
surface of one's being is only like the tip of the iceberg in
comparison with the iceberg. From the moment one grasps that is an
imaginary construct, one realizes by the same token, that one can
change it, since change is within the power of one's imagination.
What is more, within certain norms, one can make one's image into
what one wishes.

In fact, the leading edge in psychology today is signposted by the
magical words: "creative imagination" as pioneered by Dr. Rollos
May et al. and this is precisely the gist of our work in the Sufi
Order. We are onto something of great momentum if we do make the
next step, which in this case, is to make ideas materialize,
because progressive psychologists are trying to make use of the
know-how gained in classical schools of meditation. We are amongst
the few esoteric schools who are trying to interface our
meditative practices with the latest developments in psychology in
order to apply whatever insight we gain in meditation to helping
people in their urge to grow through undergoing a process of
transformation.

You may ask, "Why especially the Sufis?" Well, the answer springs
to evidence. Sufis traditionally, and most particularly, Pir-o-
Murshid Inayat Khan, place the accent on finding God in and as
ourselves, rather than seeking God "up there" as other than
ourselves. The DNA illustrates this reality by pointing out that
the whole body is present in totality in each cell of the body.

The Sufis say we not only inherit the divine nature but are that
inheritance, albeit limited and tarnished. We could interpret this
in the holistic paradigm of our time by paradoxically coining an
antique term, we are coextensive with the universe, and our minds
are isomorphic with the thinking of the universe, which the Sufis
call the mind of God. Holding a belief is one thing; experiencing
it in practice in one's being and letting that realization
transform one beyond recognition, is another.

There is just that step we need to make. It means letting go of
self-image, mental assumptions, of wallowing in whatever assets
have been secured, then freewheeling on the strength of a sheer,
anticipated vision of how things could be if we would be - if we
allowed the universe to fall into place in a novel pattern in us. 

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