=kitc15.txt

CURRICULUM OF THE SUFI ORDER
The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis

LESSON 15
PLUGGING INTO THE UNIVERSE TO FASHION OUR BEING

Our objective: To converge the totality of the universe in our
personality we need to explore the cosmic outreaches of our being,
and on the other hand the subliminal roots of our psyche.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The purpose of life is fulfilled in rising to the greatest
heights and in diving to the deepest depths of life, in widening
one's horizons, in penetrating life in all its spheres, in losing
oneself, and in finding oneself in the end."
(HIK),  (THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION; THE INNER LIFE)

We will find that each one of us does this in a unique way because
this diversification of the totality enriches the totality by the
interface of the fragments of the whole.

"Men differing in education and belief feel today closer thanks to
a passion for that double truth that there is a unity of being and
they are its living and active parcels."
(HIK?),  (L'AVENIR DE L'HOMME SEUIL P. 32)

Moreover we are embarking on a journey across the transpersonal
dimensions and outreaches of our being by transfiguring form and
converting the transient into everlastingness.

Consequently what is gained by individuation is fed back into the
comic code and integrated into the programming of the universe by
undergoing a process of transmutation.

Our ability to achieve what we so wish to accomplish is poised
precariously upon our self-esteem, and our self-esteem is
constrained by our self-image, which is a sliver of who we are.
Consequently the unfurling of the bounty of who we are potentially
is blocked by our refusal to recognize all the dimensions of our
being.   

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Most men can only see the limitations of his human life, and can
never probe the heights of his divinity; comparatively few can do
this."
(HIK), (UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS; THE MESSENGER)

PRACTICE:
You wish to call a halt to the stress and disarray of the rat race
in which you are inevitably embroiled. You sit down to meditate,
seeking tranquility and composure.

Notwithstanding, your mind is idling apparently randomly, even
turbulently, agitated by undisclosed emotions that evade scrutiny.
Notice that your thinking meanders in subliminal, imponderable,
and unsounded recesses called the unconscious only to surface
sometimes by erupting into assessments of your problems that prove
in the end unreliable. Observe that the albeit unwieldy outreach
of our unconscious is awkwardly squeezed into the narrow purview
of our personal bias. Is it not surprising that Yoga devalidates
that mode of thinking as misleading (maya)? These constructs of
our commonplace mind cannot make sense of the wide context of what
is implied behind what we try to explain to ourselves. If we watch
them carefully, we will realize that they are ambiguous, do not
fit into a coherent pattern. Consequently our mind toggles between
one way of looking at the problem then another, then perhaps still
another. Hence the aimless erring of our thoughts when we try to
make them orderly.

Behind this display of incoherent thoughts are the emotions that
spur them. Surreptitiously our psyche is irrevocably part of the
problem - with the suffering, joy, personal satisfaction it
incurs. Bear in mind that your psyche is precariously poised upon
your vulnerable self esteem.

THE IMPACT OF THE SITUATIONS UPON OUR BEING AND THE IMPACT OF OUR
BEING ON THE SITUATIONS

If you now turn your attention toward yourself rather than the
problems at their face-value, that is, observe the impact of the
problems (earmark first one problem) upon your emotions, that
which will at first strike you is an emotion of frustration. Of
course blessedly it might be satisfaction (but most probably more
rarely than frustration).

The possibility lies ahead that, blocking the way to your
perfunctory resolve to take action, you may discover drawbacks,
even insurmountable hurdles. You may have to admit to yourself
that your plans are unrealistic, built like 'castles in Spain'
upon injudicious wishful thinking.

Alternately you may entertain an 'aha' hunch: why did I not think
of this option before? It may occur to you that while the
situation is blocked, you need not be stymied because you have the
possibility of changing yourself by enhancing qualities that were
not yet up to the challenge. The impact of your qualities upon the
situation has dawned upon you, rather than the impact of the
situation upon your psyche. Lamenting the blockage in the
situation has proven counterproductive.

WORKING WITH THE QUALITIES OF YOUR PSYCHE

Ask yourself what is the quality I need to reinforce in my being
in order to meet the challenge that I am faced with. However you
need to bear in mind that the drawback in figuring out the
relevant quality is owing to basing our judgment upon the face
value of the problems rather than what is enacted behind them. The
flaw is that we are assessing ourselves on the basis of our self-
image instead of who we really are.

It now becomes clear that our ability to deal with our problems is
a function of the qualities that we activate in our psyche, and it
is our self image (which is not our self but our false notion of
ourselves) that blocks the unfurling of these qualities by our
refusal to acknowledge who we are in all its dimensions,
resourcefulness and flaws.   

PERSONAL VERSUS TRANSPERSONAL ASSESSMENTS

However let us not dismiss our personal assessment altogether,
granted it is biased, therefore relative, yet as we have seen
something is gained in the totality by the diversification and
hence individuation of the Totality.

Here we are faced with a basic antinomy in our logic: (i) the
Hindu view that personal judgment is deceptive (maya) with (ii)
the Islamic view that the apparent carries signs conveying clues
to the intention in the programming of events. To glean an
exhaustive picture, we need to reconcile these seemingly
irreconciliable principles.

We encounter the criterion upon which the realization proposed by
Sufism is based: strive to see things from the antipodal point of
view, which the Sufis call the divine point of view, to your
personal vantage point. 

JAMI:
"The world is an illusion but eternally reality manifests through
it." 
(JANI), (1982, P. 125)

QUR'AN:
"We will show them our Signs in the furthest regions of the earth
and in their own souls." 
(QUR'AN 41: 53, TR YUSUF ALI)

IBN 'ARABI:
"The signs alert us to what they manifest, what they reveal. He is
known through the things." 
(CHITTICK, 1989, P. 225)

IBN 'ARABI:
"One may see the Real behind the veil of things. (cf. Chittick,
1989, p. 228) Things are like curtains over the Real. When they
are raised, unveiling takes place...." 
(IBID, P. 225)                                                     
                                                                   
              

We learn in Sufism to always look at things from two complementary
antithetical points of view: our personal view and the divine
point of view.

But how can we know the divine point of view (the all-encompassing
grasp of the universe of itself)?

HADITH (saying) of the Prophet:
"Man 'arafa nafsahu faqad 'arafa Rabbahu.  
Whomsoever knows himself knows the Lord."

IBN 'ARABI:
"Since the ephemeral being manifests the form of the eternal, it
is by the contemplation of the ephemeral that God communicates to
us the knowledge of Himself." 
(1975, P. 15)

"However the ephemeral is not conceivable as such, that is in its
ephemeral and relative nature, except in relation to a principle
from which it derives its possibility, so that it has no being in
itself, but derives it from another to whom it is tied by its
dependence" 
(IBN 'ARABI, LOC. CIT. ) (1975, P. 15)

"For man is incapable of appropriating the divine knowledge which
is applied to those archetypes in their state of non-
existence....However the essence only reveals itself in the form
of the disposition of the individual who receives this
revelation." 
(IBID, P. 23)

Meditation could also be considered as the skill to upgrade our
thinking beyond the commonplace, middle range of thinking.

Just like non-Euclidian geometry or Gdel's paradoxical structures
that flummox our commonplace minds.

D'ESPAGNAT:
"One needs to surpass familiar concepts because one cannot account
for the world or for our rapport with the old by relying upon
them."
(LA PHYSIQUE QUANTIQUE, CF. L'HOMME FACE A LA SCIENCE)

As our understanding progresses, we learn to reconcile the view
that "all is one," including ourselves, and of God as 'other.'

It takes a shift from our commonplace logic to a more advanced
logic formulated by 'and' instead of 'or.'

We learn to toggle between our personal vantage point and the
transpersonal one, and may eventually be able to extrapolate
between these two perspectives.

AL KHARRAZ:
"God can only be known by the synthesis of antinomic
affirmations." 
(IBN 'ARABI, 1975, P. 36)

[ preceeding citation sic. -- Is Ibm 'Arabi quoting Al Kharraz? --
sa ] 

MAHON:
"Is God immanent or transcendent, composed or compassionate? Like
the question whether the atom is wave or particle." 
(cf. THE HAND OF GOD, P. 139)

JILI:
"The quality of Unity unites the contrasts such as the eternal and
the ephemeral, God and the creature, or existence and non-
existence." 
(IBID, P. 18)
[ Ibid. it ain't, but loc. cit, maybe -- sa ]

There is a propensity of human thought and emotion to always seek
further into the far reaches in infinite regress.

HENRI POINCARRE, the French mathematician, (paraphrased by the
author) [ie, PVK, I assume ]:

'Infinity consists in our ability to imagine a larger number than
that envisioned so far, or a space farther than we can imagine, or
a time beyond our grasp.'
(POINCARE, paraphrased by PVK)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"There is a time in life when a passion is awakened in the soul
which gives the soul a longing for the unattainable." 
(HIK), (THE UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS)

CARL SAGAN:
"We belong to something that is greater than ourselves." 
(p. 36)
[ opus non citatus ]


HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Oneself, as one knows self, is a limited part of Being like a
bubble in the sea, which has no existence of its own.  It is only
a temporary condition, and so is the conception of self which man
has."

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