=kit096.tst

KIT 96 - THE INNER JOURNEY PART II

"We live in the world to which we are awakened, and to the world
to which we are not awakened, we are asleep...The soul in its
manifestation on earth is not at all disconnected from the higher
spheres. It lives in all spheres, though it is generally 
conscious only on one plane."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            The key to opening up to the impressions of these
sublime spheres lies here in a dramatic shift of one's identity.
In addition to discovering one's cosmic outreach, now one
discovers one's celestial dimension. It is sublime, sacred, an
attunement of exaltation, an attitude of glorification.

"...by soaring upwards to those spheres where spiritual exaltation
manifests."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            And when one reaches the stage where the angelic
quality manifests, then one begins to show innocence, simplicity,
love for all, sympathy and God-consciousness. A symptom of this
step in one's inner journey is that one surreptitiously seeks
situations that trigger off the exaltation of the soul rather than
the thrill of the heart. As one's sensitivity increases, one
becomes more aware of the levels of emotion.

"The pitch of exaltation can be determined by the different grades
to which consciousness rises.2 
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            There is a physical aspect of exaltation which comes
as a reaction to, or result of having seen the immensity of space,
having looked at the wide horizon, or having seen the clear sky,
the moonlit night and nature at dawn. Looking at the rising sun,
watching the setting sun, looking at the horizon from the sea,
being in the midst of nature, looking at the world from the top of
a mountain, all these experiences lift one up and give one a
feeling which one cannot call sensation. It is exaltation.

            Here ecstasy is triggered off by the perception of
nature in its most alluring expression; but it is still dependent
upon perception. However, to tune oneself to the resonance of the
celestial spheres, one finds exaltation when our humanness is
sublimated.

     "A higher aspect of exaltation is a moral exaltation - when
we are sorry for having said or done something unpleasant; when we
have asked forgiveness, and humbled ourselves before someone
towards whom we were inconsiderate. We have humbled our pride
then. Or when we felt a deep gratitude to someone who had done
something for us; when we have felt love, sympathy, devotion which
seems endless and which seems so great that our heart cannot
accommodate it; when we have felt so much pity for someone that we
have forgotten ourselves; when we have found a profound happiness
in rendering a humble service to someone in need; when we have
said a prayer which has come from the bottom of our heart; when we
have realized our own limitation and smallness in comparison with
the greatness of God; all these experiences lift man up...even
such an experience as watching the little smiles of an innocent
infant."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            Ecstasy, erupting through the very appraisal of the
"elegance" of the driving intelligence of the universe, which is
shattering one's commonplace mind, will reveal a meaningfulness
beyond one's ken that opens totally new perspectives to one's
understanding. No sooner is one able to recognize one's celestial
identity than a mode of knowledge, transcending that which was
acquired by experience, is revealed.

"Ecstasy comes by touching the reason of reasons and by realizing
the essence of wisdom."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            While Pir-o-Murshid says: "Wisdom is born out of the
co-mingling of the knowledge of the heavens with the know-how of
the earth." He does clarify that one needs to downplay
experiential knowledge to grasp this higher knowledge.   However:

"Intelligence confined to knowledge of phenomena becomes limited,
but when it is free from all knowledge, then it experiences its
own essence."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

"If one goes further, there is consciousness in its aspect of pure
intelligence, because it is the knowing of things that blunts the
faculty of knowledge...Consciousness is covered by something which
it is conscious of. The moment that cover is taken away, it is
pure intelligence...it is a kind of omniscient condition."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

This tallies with Ibn 'Arabi, who says: "Knowledge is a veil upon
the known."

"The annihilation of knowledge in the known."
ANSARI

            At this level, one has surpassed any consideration of
form, or image, or conceptual teaching; therefore, rather than
envisioning God as the perfect archetype, one discovers God as the
Spectator, and one's consciousness as a derivation from God, as
paramount intelligence. Now the known avers itself to be the
knower. The emotion erupting out of one's discovery of one's
celestial identity triggers off a total reversal of the
commonplace assumption that one is the spectator: one shifts one's
subjective focal center and identifies with God as the Spectator -
a total turnabout of perspective which confers a revealed
knowledge instead of an acquired knowledge.

There is a still deeper sphere to which our memory is linked, and
that sphere is the universal memory; in other words, the divine
mind where we do not only collect what we have seen or heard or
known, but where we can even touch something we have never
learned, heard, known or seen. For this the doors of memory should
be laid open.

[ The preceeding paragraph is apparaently by PVK.  Although it is
in blue_font in Kaivan, it is not in quotes nor italics in the
hardcopy. -- sa ]               

[ In thsee KITs, two or more quotes are sometimes set out in
consecutive paragraphs, but the dude 
[toneail note kit096_1n] 
who said all that's not noted. 
[Toenote kit096__1 ]

"Who so draws not knowledge from the spring of knowledge, knows
not the reality."
ANSARI

Mastery in accomplishment will equally give one ecstasy.

"If one can make oneself obey one's own will one will surely rise
to a greater exaltation."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN


           At this stage in one's inner journey one will be almost
compulsively drawn to any expression of glorification. One will
see the forms of the ritual as simply devices to trigger off a
level of exaltation that sparks a sense of deja vu of the heavenly
spheres.

"Religious prayers, rituals, and ceremonies were intended to
produce exaltation, for it is one of the treasures of life;
exaltation is as necessary, or perhaps even more so, as the
cultivation of thought."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            But eventually exaltation is enigmatically self-
generated. This represents an advanced stage in the inner journey.

"Sometimes exaltation may be the outcome of sensation. It is
possible; but at the same time exaltation which is beyond price
comes of itself, as soon as we have shown an inclination towards
it."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            At this stage, the role model to inspire one on the
path is that element in one that Suhrawardhi calls "the witness in
the heavens". This level corresponds with the level which the
Sufis call Malakut, the celestial level.

6) One discovers the software transcending even one's latent
potentialities:

            Now we are ready for the most magically creative
stage. It is not the unfurling of latent, dormant potentialities
as in the Mithal stage, but rather a totally different mode of
creativity linking us with the archetypal level of which our
personalities are the exemplars - a level beyond causality. The
difference between our latent qualities ready to be unfurled
(given favorable conditions lying within), and the unlimited all-
possibilities inherent in what one might call the software of the
existential reality, could be illustrated by the difference
between the continual recycling of the seed through the plant as
compared with its mutation. In its recycling, the seed is subject
to determinism, causality; but the variables presiding over its
mutation are infinite and hence, unpredictable. This could again
be demonstrated by the fact that, while every cell of our body
carries the code of our whole body, the cells of our immune system
are open to develop unforeseeable faculties ad infinitum.

"Such is genuine creativity - it is unpredictable and hence
involves levels of reality beyond the known."         
[Andreas Speiser, presumably]

[The preceeding sentence is included in the following italicized
quote in the hardcopy, but is not in blue_font in Kaivan. ]

"It is an initial state which is not governed by mechanistic law,
but is the preconditioning of law, the chance substrate upon which
law is built."
ANDREAS SPEISER

            We find evidence the "pull of a future that is
exploratory", rather than the "push of the past", insofar as it
determines the present. In fact, we are referring to a state that
is neither initial nor forthcoming, because it transcends the
arrow of time.

            The exemplar now discovers its relationship with the
archetype through the discovery of what the archetype has of
itself in the exemplar. Consequently, the personality of the inner
wayfarer may now exhibit qualities beyond even its latent
idiosyncrasies, because the divine archetypes, predicated by all
that manifests in the universe, are themselves unlimited and hence
undefinable. The Sufis ascribe them to the divine intention.

            Therefore to reach this stage on the inner journey,
instead of envisioning the cosmic dimension of our being in
holistic fashion, as at the Arwah level, when one says that the
Truth most glorious comprehends all beings, the meaning is that:

[ (Note (sa) ):
The preceeding partial paragraph, to which I have added a colon:
is apparently by PVK.  It is not in italics in thehardcopy,
although it is in blue_font in Kaivan]  

"He comprehends them as a cause comprehends its consequences, not
that He is a whole containing them as His parts..."
JAMI

            We need to relate our sense of identity to its
archetype: imagine a rose seeing itself as the expression of
"rosehood", imagine that we see our qualities as the expressions
of their perfect models which we ascribe to God!

"Know that there is no form in the lower world without a likeness
(mithal) in the higher world. The forms in the higher world
preserve the existence of their likeness in the lower  worlds.
Between the two worlds there are tenuities which extend from each
form to its likeness. ...These are like ladders for the angels,
while the meanings that descend in these tenuities are like
angels."
IBN 'ARABI

            To achieve this requires a tour de force in our
thinking: instead of assessing the potentialities latent in us, we
discover unlimited possibilities not yet existent. The Sufis call
this Imkan and Buddha calls it the sphere of all-possibility.

            Now, having transited through the volte-face at the
Jabbarut level, instead of reaching out towards the universe from
our personal center, we recognize the universe forming itself as
us. Moreover, the intention, even the nostalgia of the universe
(what we mean by God), is to discover potentialities unknown to
Him/Herself as us.

            This for the Sufis, establishes a knightly
relationship between us as the vassals, and the Lord whose
qualities we actualize in our personalities.

"Then God makes him journey through his Names (that is, His
archetypes) in order to show him His signs. Thus the server comes
to know that he is designed by every name. It is through these
names that God appears to the server."
IBN 'ARABI

"Each manifest being is the form of a lordly name. The Rabb, the
Lord becomes a reality in relationship with a being who is
designated in the passive form."
HENRI CORBIN

"The divinity seeks for a being whose God it is. The divine
sovereignty has a secret, and that is thou."
SAHL TOSTARI

            We might recognize two complementary states here,
which may be discovered on the inner journey in two steps. 1)
Thinking of one's personality as the exemplar of the diving Being; 
2) Letting go of one's human identity and identifying with the
archetype of which one's personality is simply the exemplar
through which God, as the ultimate reality behind the existential 
show, makes Himself (Itself) known.

"When thou perceives, thou seest limitation openly, and thou seest
Me at the back of the unseen. When thou art with me, thou seest
the opposites and him whom I have caused to witness them." 
NIFFARI

            PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN points out the complementary
view to our own personal one:

"Therefore the ultimate aim of the eternal Consciousness in
undertaking a journey to the plane of mortality is to realize its
eternal being."
(HIK), AKIBAT

"God discovers His Perfection in our limitation...Therefore the
soul may be considered to be a condition of God, a condition which
makes the only Being limited for a time...The one who is conscious
of his earthly origin is an earthly man, one who is conscious of
his heavenly origin is the son of God."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            Now one's role model is one's projection of what one
imagines to be the divine perfection.

"Just as one's own sub-consciousness would awaken one at a certain
time, if previously warned, in the same way the consciousness of
God is the agency for awakening His manifestation, projecting
itself through different names and forms to accomplish His desire
of being known."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            The Sufis call this level LAHUT.

7) One awakens beyond life:

            Unless one has a strong commitment to one's
responsibilities or to service in real life situations, if it were
not for one's delight in wonderful people, in acts of heroism, and
in the achievements of great civilizations; if it were not for
one's bewonderment when enjoying the beauty and negotiating the
power of nature, one could find oneself continually disappointed
by the greed and cruelty of many, and the sham values pursued. One
tends to turn away from "the world" and seek that which lies
behind the scene and scenario of life, which powers the miracle of
life. To grasp the "reality behind the here and now", it is easier
to downplay the existential actuality and highlight "that which
transpires from behind what appears", while it would be more
difficult to extrapolate between the two perspectives. This would
then represent a further stage in the journey.

            Now the existential world appears simply as a
perspective, like an optical illusion evidences that one's
consciousness is captured in a certain perspective. The
consequence is otherwordliness, detachment, alienation - the way
of the ascetic, the monk or the nun, the anchorite. On the other
hand, one finds oneself awakening on the other side of a veil,
into a realness that confirms one's sense of the illusoriness and
the deceptive nature of one's usual representation of life.

"When the unreality of life pushes against my heart, its door
opens to the reality."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            The consequence is a sense of freedom, emancipation,
authenticity, exaltation, ecstasy and serenity.

            The criterion determining this stage on the inner
journey is the degree to which one is able to shift one's personal
consciousness into God consciousness without losing one's self or
rather, to see one's self center as the customizing of the
cosmic/transcendent reality we call God.

            There is a stage at which, by touching a particular
phase of existence, one feels raised above the limitations of
life, and is given that power: peace and freedom of light and
life, which belong to the source of all beings. In that moment of
supreme exaltation, one is not only united with the source of all
beings, but dissolved in it; for the source is in one's self.

            Here it is, the Being whose attributes served as one's
role model, who is revealed to one irrespective of the devices
whereby one may gain a clue to His/Her nature.

"There is a further stage at which one knows God by God, instead
of through His signs...discovery of Himself through one."
IBN'ARABI

This is the level that the Sufis call HAHUT and the Yogis call
SAMADHI.

8) One grasps the unity underlying multiplicity and the
multiplicity inherent in unity (TAWHID):

"Exaltation of the spirit resides in the fact that it has come to
earth and has realized there its spiritual existence." 
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            As one progresses in one's realization and advances in
one's inner journey, one increasingly finds oneself in a state
where, although unintentional, one's perspective suddenly shifts
and fluctuates. This perspective moves between grasping a basic
unity underlying the multiplicity of what our minds had conceived
as "discrete" objects, persons or events (an example would be
emphasizing the grasp of the sea at the cost of the grasp of the
waves); or on the other hand, apprehending that what appears as
objects becomes manifest by dint of a plethora of ephemeral and
elusive projections of the multifarious bounty inherent in the
Oneness (like the minerals present within a distillate, but only
apparent at the point at which they precipitate).

  According to KALABADHI: "... TAFRID is the mystical state where
one sees unity in multiplicity (wahdat) and tajrid, the state in
which one sees multiplicity in unity (Wahdadiyat). Titus
Burckhardt defines all-Wahadiya as the way that Unity appears in
its various aspects, and al-Wahid'ya as the unity hidden behind
these predicates."
(KALABADHI)

[ (Note )sa):
The preceeding may be a paraphrase by PVK, or may be a quote.  it
ain't in italics in the hardcopy, nor in seperate paragraph, but
it is preceeded by an ellipsis ... and in Kaivan is in blue_font.]


            This becomes, not only an ever-recurring feature
during one's meditation, but even while active in everyday life
situations. Eventually one catches a third perspective whereby one
is able to extrapolate between these antipodal perspectives.

"One becomes conscious of one's own self in God, and of God in
one's self. Man is divine limitation and God is human perfection."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

"It is just like touching the Presence of God, when one's
consciousness has become so light and so liberated and free that
it can raise itself and dive and touch the depths of one's being."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

 
We reach the realization of which Ibn'Arabi speaks:

"Thou art not thou, thou art He without thou; not He entering into
you, nor thou entering into Him. Thou art not ceasing to be nor
still existing. Then if thou know thy existence thus, then thou
knowest God; and if not, then not."
IBN'ARABI

"When all idea of this external being is gone, then comes the
consciousness of the unlimited Being of God."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            When asked what is the message of our time, Pir-o-
Murshid Inayat Khan said:

"It is the awakening of the consciousness of humanity to the
divinity of man."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            The Sufis call this level TAWHID.

================================================================
Skim_Checked (sa) against hardcopy.  No divergence of 
text, but many divergences of what is and what ain't indicated as
a quotation.  I usually follow the hardcopy in such cases, but I
do note and detail each divergence, as_it_is_said (in the
Hippocratic oath for physicians, or maybe a corallary to it:  

*** "First of all:  Do no harm."  ***

That's the EDITOR'S OATH.

To which I would hereby affix;
MY SEAL

but she's out hunting mackeral.

Amd amyhow, any gentleman who tries to keep a female fixed in
place has better learn to cook quick.

As Susie (Susan Harrison, zl'b) would have said:  woman is motion,
man is static.

And "everyone knows" -- Underhill said it, if memory serves --
there are two kinds of mysticism -- static and dynamic. 
 
=================================================================
================================================================

COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:

[ Editorial Note (sa), "More of Less"  (Celso, Celso's Bar and
Grille, Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, near New Buffalo commune ]

Here's a bit of boilerplate, Mate:

[ 'SOS' = 'divergent text from the SO SURESNES KIT' ]

[ Skimming only, I -- IN GENERAL -- find no significant divergence
in the Kaivan KIT texts from the SOS KIT XX texts ]* 

* I cross_check these_here Kaivan KITs against whatever SOS KITs
I happen to have got, only by skimming the starts and stops of the
paragiraffe (1), not by reading the sentences.
(1) A 'paragiraffe' (singular, 'paragraph') is, obviously, an
extended paragraph, eg a KIT.  ]

Kaivan KITs 61__72 are published as SOS KITs 61__72 (with Kaivan
KIT 30, published as SOS KIT 31 ) in a booklet by the SOS, long
flogged or peddled , as Everyman progresses, at Zenith Camp, it
should only evolve indeed into an 'Institute'. ] 

[ I also happen to have at hand, thanks to Rinatya Nachman (24
HaShalom, Rosh Pina 12000, Israel, renatia@bezeqint.net ) xeroxes
of the following KITS, which I am now starting  similarly to skim
if not precisely peruse:  SOS KIT's:  96, 97, 98, 101, 102,  105,
106, 107, 110 ]

---------------------------------------------------------------

TEXT;
[ In thsee KITs, two or more quotes are sometimes set out in
consecutive paragraphs, but the dude wot said all that's not
noted. 
[Toenote kit096__1 ]
[Toenote kit096__1 ]
(or so it's said (as_it_is_is_said, "how do I know -- the Bible
tells me so" (USA pop song, 1950's) is only noted after the last
quote. -- sa ]

[toenail note kit096_1n] 
" 'Dude' indeed!"  or so you say.
Aye 'dude' say I'
USA slang, as in 'dude ranch'.
Dude maybe from 'duds', clothes.
So, a newcomer, most llikely a 'city slicker' (slick, neat, too
tidy maybe) who shows up in the sticks (sticks, rural regions
where you can't even get a good quiche and have to pack in your
own Perrier).
Restro_slang (USA, fin du siecle, Mechel) originally surfer slang,
applicable almost to anyone, as in 'Dude, Where's my Country'
(title of an anti_Bushie book by Michael Moore.

So so say I:
We're all dudes here, as_it_is_said (in a folk_song sung by Burl
Ives, in an album -- of 78s, of course -- which we got in my
childhood, which is USA 1950's) , "I'm just a poor wayfaring
stranger, passing through this world of woe" [ or maybe it is ,
'world below'].  The title of the album was 'Wayfaring Stranger',
but Burl Ives.  
So too another folksong, that I heard at 'Old Joe Clarke's) a
communal folk_singers shouse in Cambrige, off Kirland street if
memory serves, late 1950's:
"I saw Adam leave the Garden with an apple in his hand/
 tell me, Now you're out what are you gonna do
 'Plant my crops and pray for rai;
  maybe reaise a little cain 
[ cane = 'cane sugar', also, Cain, the alleged archetypal
assailant in the Bible ]
  'we're all brothers and we're only passing through.
 Chorus:
 'Passing through, passing through
  sometimes happy, sometimes blue
  glad that I ran into you.
  We're all brothers and we're only passing through."

'Brothers' was of course intended in gender_neutral sense.
This song exemplifies the best of Old Left  (ie, CPUSA_led) naive
USA socialist realism.

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