=kitc16.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 16
RELATIONSHIP VERSUS IDENTITY
our relationship with God as not 'other' than our higher self

What we have basically learned from the previous lesson is this:
our ability to become a beautiful person by unfurling the legacy
of our bountiful potentials and resourcefulness from the whole
universe (which we call God), and thus make sense of the purpose
of our lives, gravitates upon our relationship with that totality.
That is what spirituality is about.

It is crucial here to spot the reason why it works so rarely. It
is because we are so used to thinking of God (let us consider the
universe as the existential dimension of what we mean by God) as
'other.' In one's ordinary logic one envisions that relationship
is a connection between two different entities. It is difficult
for our minds to reconcile our relationship with the totality of
the universe with the realization that the totality is the
transcendent dimension of ourselves because in our commonplace
thinking relationship means the rapport between two things or
ideas - that is relationship is based upon a sense of 'otherness.'
Our sense of personal identity is mostly stronger than our sense
of the totality of which we are an intrinsic part, which gets
relegated into a belief rather than a realization.

Our simplistic minds are stymied by paradox. When we observe what
painful consequences this simplistic thinking has had in causing
religious conflicts, not only between different religions, but
also within the same religion where mystics have overcome dogmatic
thinking of the fundamentalists, we see the urgency of unmasking
the hoax of this dilemma.

What stands in the way of so doing is our commonplace way of
thinking. Ordinarily our thinking is based upon what Martin Buber
calls the I-It relationship; we assume that we are the spectator
perceiving and cognizing the environment, events, circumstances,
reality, the cosmos, the universe, God as 'other' than ourselves,
as the object. But actually we, our bodies, our psyche, our
thoughts, conceptions and emotions are those of that totality we
call the universe or ascribe to God - not like the portions of an
orange, but as a fragment of a crystal which behaves (but less
well) like the whole of which it is a fragment, not simply as a
truncated portion thereof. This basic way of envisioning reality,
the holisitic paradigm of science, applies to us and alters
dramatically how we think ofourselves in our relationship to God
or the universe. 

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"People wish to know something that they cannot understand; they
are very pleased to be told something that their reason cannot
understand." 
(HIK), (ALCHEMY OF HAPPINESS; THE INTOXICATION OF LIFE)

GOD AS CREATOR

It is an easily foregone conclusion to infer that the world was
created by a being other than itself. It is the consecrated
theological view.

PSALM 192:
"The sky proclaims God's handiwork."
[ CORRECTION OF TYPO:  This is Psalm 19 ]

GUSTAV FLAUBERT, the French romantic, ventures:

"What is this hand that propels them?" 
(FLAUBERT) (CF. THE HAND OF GOD, TEMPLETON PRESS, P. 48)

 DR. SLEUS:
There must be someone on top of that small speck of dust. 
(Ibid. p. 31)
[ Citation sic, but oy.  'Dr Seus' is a series of children's
books.  And Ibid. ain't apt here -- unless these are all quotes
form that book, 'The 'Hand' of G_d' -- sa]

JOHN GLENN, astronaut:
I don't think you can be up here and look out of the window and
see the earth from this vantage point, to look at this kind of
creation, and not believe in God. 
(JOHN GLENN), (IBID. P. 123)

Surprisingly we find it amongst scientists!

What with scientists poised at the frontier between science and
spirituality, contemporary physicists are encroaching upon the
realm that used to be reserved for spirituality.

WERNER VAN BRAUN:
"As science explains more of the intriguing mysteries of life and
the universe, its realms expand into those areas which previously
were either unknown or accepted solely by faith". 
(CF. THE HAND OF GOD)

ROBERT JASTROW:
"He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer
the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is
greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for
centuries." 
(IBID.)

[ Footnote kitc16__1 ]                                   


Scientists past, and some even now, and, of course, the majority
of the human population of the world think that it was created by
a transcendent Being 'up there' who sometimes discloses to us
His/Her intention, intervenes in our destiny, and might even
reveal some clues as to His/Her being.

PAUL DAVIES:
"It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to
make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming."
 (THE COSMIC BLUE-PRINT)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN retorts:
"Man is not created by God as wood is carved by the carpenter, for
the carpenter is different from the wood, but man is created out
of the self of God." 
(HIK) (PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, MYSTICISM)

[ Footnote kitc16___2 ]

Wary of anthropomorphism, since physicists discovered such
meticulous planning, some refer to an impersonal principle.

Sir FRED HOYLE sees this impersonal force as a "super intellect."

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN points out that by reducing God to a principle,
we are depriving God of manifesting in the existential realm as
the human, which is the very marvel of creation. 

"People ask: "If all is God, then God is not a person." The
answer: though the seed does not show the flower in it, yet the
seed culminates in the flower, and therefore the flower already
existed in the seed. No doubt itwould be a great mistake to call
God a personality, but it is a still greater mistake when man
denies the personality of God...."
(HIK),  (VOL. 9, THE UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS, THE GOD IDEAL)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN concedes that one needs to start with a
conceptualization:

"It is necessary first to have a conception of God in order to
reach that stage at which one realizes Him." 
(HIK), (VOL. 12, VISION OF GOD AND MAN.) 

"The limitless God cannot be made more intelligible to our limited
self unless He was first made limited. That limited ideal becomes
as an instrument, as a medium of God Who is perfect and Who is
limitless."
(HIK),  (UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS.) 

"It is owing to our limitation that we cannot see the whole
being."
(HIK), (THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND)

JANE GOODALL calls this limitation a "tiny peephole."  
(Ibid., p. 146)

[ Yes folks, this errant Ibid is referring back to that 'Hand of
G_d' book by Templeton Press. 
I must say, a lot of work needs to be done on filling out these
citations. Not urgently for the HIK citations, since those can all
be found from the SO USA Seattle CD-ROM, but for the rest of 'em.]

Conceptualizing tends to gel into a sclerosed world-view unless
one keeps questioning it, reappraising it and updating it.

EINSTEIN:
"The important thing is to not stop questioning."

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Belief is like a staircase. Each step takes one higher, but when
one remains standing on a certain step of the staircase one does
not progress. Belief may nail the feet to the ground and keep one
there...they only know how to remain standing on a certain spot on
a staircase." 
(HIK), (VOL. 12, THE VISION OF GOD AND MAN)

"The same reality can look different according to the vantage
point from which you look at  it....There are two awakenings: man
awakening in the divine perspective and God awakening into human
perspective."
(HIK, presumably)


NIFFARI distinguishes two perspectives, above the veil and below:

"When thou perceivest, thou seest limitation openly, and thou
seest me at the back of the unseen; when thou art with me thou
seest the opposites." 
(MAWAKIF 15, P. 50)

IBN 'ARABI:
"If you witness creation, you will not see the Real and if you
witness the Real you will not witness creation." 
(CF. CHITTICK)

IBN 'ARABI testifies to how things look differently according to
one's state of consciousness.

Looking at things as viewed from above (as it were) the threshold
between transcendence and immanence he says:

"Thou art not thou; thou art He, without thou, not He entering
into thee, nor thou entering into Him"
(Ibn 'Arabi),  (1976, p. 4)

Then when looking from the other side of the threshold,
acquiescing that one needs to account for the personal vantage
point:

"However know by what you are God and by what you are other than
God."
(IBN ARABI),  (1975, P. 64)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN reconciles the two antinomic points of view in
a single statement:

"We are a condition of God."
(HIK)

Here we encounter the criterion upon which the realization
proposed by Sufism is based: strive to see things from the
antipodal point of view to your personal vantage point which the
Sufis call the divine point of view while acquiescing to the
relative validity of the contribution of your personal point of
view to the transpersonal one.

If we do not do this, we are trapped in a biased vantage point.
Here precisely lies the stumbling block in the full compass of our
creativity!

It is this crucial issue which was at stake in the drama that
erupted at the very heart of Sufism, God as 'other.' The
difficulty of the finite mode of thinking is to see duality in
unity, wahdaniat, versus the experiential realization of the
mystic who is able to free his/her mind from the constraint of
commonplace logic.

AL HALLAJ:
"Ana'l-Haqq. 
I am the Truth! 
I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I." 
(Cf. Massignon, passion)

JUNAID:
"Unification is the separation of the eternal from that which is
from that which originated in time." 
(Cf. KALABADHI P. 91)

AL HALLAJ:
"The first step in unification tawhid is the abandonment of
separation [isolation] tafrid."

In unity, wahdaniat, it is not possible to affirm other than God.

KALABADHI makes a difference between renunciation of the world
TAJRID and self-abnegation TAFRID. 
HALLAJ says the first step towards TAWHID (unification) is to give
up isolation so that it is God who elects you to be incorporated
INFIRAD and IFRAD in his unity. 

[ I'm here using CAPITALIZATION , which is the only mode of
emphasis available in text_only , to set off terms from Islamic
mysticism.  These are italicized in the Kaivan KITs, and I assume
in the original SO SURESENES SmailMail KIT's. -- sa]

JUNAID:
"Nothing of his attributes is mingled with you."

IBN 'ARABI says the opposite:
"Thou seest thy attributes to be His attributes, and thine essence
to be His essence without thou becoming Him or Him becoming thee."

JUNAID:
"Return to the state in which you were before you were engaged in
the process of becoming."

AL HALLAJ:
"Oh God why didst Thou create this body if it does not have a
purpose?"

It is this same dualistic view held by Junaid that spurred Yogis
to deport their consciousness beyond the existential realm, parat
param, 'beyond the beyond,' in asamprajnata samadhi and prompted
Buddha to declare "this become does not lead to the non-become."
It leads to an unbridgeable hiatus demanding the contemplative to
make a quantum leap.

SHANKARACHARYA saw this, and highlighted Advaita, the monistic
view which was already announced in the Vedic adage formulated in
the CHANDOYA UPANISHAD: 'Tat twam asi' (Thou art That) as opposed
to the dualism of Yoga, differentiating between prakriti, that
which is transient, from purusha, that which transcendental. 

[ Comment (sa):  Ooops.  In my comments on PVK's table of
cross_refernec eterminolog in =kitc10b.txt , I think I quite
misunderstood the distnction between prakriti and perusha. ]


The two horns of this dilemma are articulated in the two terms
transcendent and transcendental. By transcending the transient
existential state, one reaches out in infinite regress towards
that 'unattainable' coined as transcendent; whereas one cannot
reach the transcendental except by losing one's self in the
blackout, the 'dark cloud of unknowing,' al ama, so that one is
not there to reach it. 

That is why HALLAJ said: 
"it is enough if God alone testifies to His Oneness and the
contemplative is no more there." 
(Cf. MASSIGNON)

Mystics, touched by a genuine ineffable experience are hard
pressed to convey it within the constraint of commonplace logic.

IBN 'ARABI:
"How can I know Thee since Thou art the 'hidden.' And how could I
not know Thee, since Thou art the 'apparent!'" 
(Cf. ETUDES TRADITIONELLES, EDITIONS CHACORNAC, 1949, P. 257)

And those unaware of the progress of the information theories
distort their experience in the process of trying to explain it in
the accepted idiom.

EDGAR MITCHELL, the astronaut who walked on the moon, concedes
that the experience cannot be one that fits into our rational mode
of thinking:

"Instead of a rational search, suddenly there was a non-rational
way of understanding." 
(Edgar Mitchell, I suppose, presumably as quoted in the 'Hand of
G_d' book by Temptleton Press), (Cf. 67) 

[ I don't know if that 'Cf. 67' means, see page 67 of that boo, or
whether PVK made up a numbered list of his Sources.  If so, one
would certainly like to see it.  But it don't look like he did,
otherwise he presumably would have used it herein. -- sa ]

As in Vedanta, we learn of the efforts of Sufis to clarify this
antinomy: God versus man. Hazrat Inayat Khan dispels thinking in
terms of duality by taking the next step in logic: 'and' instead
of 'or.' He calls it 'the reason of reason.'

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The mystic does not stop at the first reason, the mystic sees
that behind that reason there is another but he wishes to see the
reason behind them all."
(HIK),  (Vol. 10, THE PATH OF INITIATION, SUFI MYSTICISM)

The mathematician OUSPENSKY had already foreseen this:

"There is no reason...for hoping that in the world of causes,
relations can be logical from our point of view. Everything
logical is only phenomenal...we cannot orient ourselves there with
our logic...the axioms of logic and mathematics are deduced by us
from the observation of phenomena and represent a certain
incorrectness necessary for the recognition of the unreal
subjective world." 
(OUSPENSKY, TERTIUM ORGANUM, FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS, MARCH 1982, PP.
214 & 209)       

Scientists are beginning to see this:

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

"Instead of picturing God as a medieval monarch on a marble
throne, imagine God as the living awareness in the space between
the atoms, empty space that makes up 99% of the universe. Thinking
of God that way gets us past some of the great divides of the
past. Is God immanent or transcendent, internal or external,
composed or compassionate? Like the question of whether the atom
is wave or particle, the answer is yes." 
(TOM MAHON, THE SPIRIT IN TECHNOLOGY, CF. HAND OF GOD, P. 139)

Indeed in view of the fundamental maxim: La ilaha illa 'llah, the
Sufis always espy the unity behind the appearance of duality:
WAHDAT or the multiplicity inherent in unity and WAHDANIAT the
unity overarching multiplicity.  

To summarize again: The crux of the whole issue at stake here is
in including the divine pole of our being God as 'other.'

At an advanced stage our concept of God is not determined by our
knowledge of ourselves but by reaching into the antipodal
dimension; therefore envisioning that God discovers aspects of
Him/Herself in us who are extensions of Him/Herself, and what is
more by including our knowledge of Him/Her in the clues in
ourselves  to His/Her knowledge of Him/Herself through us.

IBN'ARABI:
"You know yourself with another knowledge, different from that
which you had when you knew your Lord by the knowledge you had of
yourself." 
(CORBIN, 1970, P. 133)

Challenging realizations announcing the spirituality of the future
come through Murshid's bold announcements:

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Divinity resides in humanity; it is also the outcome of
humanity."

"The divine mind becomes completed after manifestation. The
creator's mind is made of His own creation. The experience of
every soul becomes the experience of the Divine Mind." 
(HIK), (UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS)

"While forms and names multiply upon earth, their manifold
impressions are retained and absorbed by the spiritual spheres, as
the souls return and pass through them. Semitic tradition has
sometimes explained this by teaching that first was the world, and
after the world the heavens were created." 
(HIK), (Sangatha I)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience
the different phases of manifestation, and yet not lose its way by
regaining its original freedom, in addition to the experience and
knowledge it has gained in the world." 
(HIK), (VOL. 1, THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION) 

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN sees the need to eschew dismissing or
devalidating the personal point of view. It is relative, but when
paired with the transpersonal point of view, the apparent
irreconciliables aver themselves to be complementary.

"Wisdom is born out of the meeting of the knowledge of the heavens
and the knowledge of the earth. When the light from within is
thrown upon this knowledge, then the knowledge from outer life and
the light coming from within make a perfect wisdom. The guidance
from the outer knowledge and the guidance from the inner
intelligence are both necessary. If the inner light were enough,
then man would never have been created; he would have been an
angel." 
(HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN, CLASS FOR MURIDS)
	
================================================================
==============================================================
 
COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:

TEXT:
ROBERT JASTROW:
"He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer
the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is
greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for
centuries." 
(IBID.)                                   

[ Comment (sa):  Quite so; Theologians have been sitting on the
summit of the Mountain of Ignorance for millenia.  Even
Aristophanes couldn't knock them off it. ]     


[ Footnote kitc16___2 ]

I was about retort, 'A retort is was not.'

I don't mean that you can't have a dialogue between people who
never met nor even read each other's works on earth.

PVK is using HIK to attack the dualism of a clear affirmation of
the philosophic 'theory' of 'Intelligent Design'.  

But the notion of 'Intelligent Design' is not invalidated by its
dualism -- incidentally, I think it is piyutim in the Rosh HaShana
Machzor that state the -- oh, call it a perspective, if you don't
want to call it a thoery -- though it accommodates observation as
well as many a theory -- nowadays one does not ask if a theory is
'true' or not, it is quite enought if it works for a while -- that
is, if many though not necessarily all observations can be
subsumed under it. 

What I'm trying to say is:
You can say that dualism is an error, if you like -- though that's
a Sufi pietism of which I'm getting darned bored -- as I say in a
footnote to a previous KIT, dualism does facilitate and for most
of us even enables pettionary prayer -- I suppose I learned that
sitting in the tipi in New Mexico ("and this is sufficient for
those who know", to quote R. Hayim Heikel of Amdur ) -- I mean,
like any other philosophic concept, it is and it ain't an error -- 
netti_netti -- but like, it's a higher_order error -- icing on the
cake, so to speak -- I mean, even if you deem dualism an error,
the notion of 'Intelligent design' -- which is counterposed to
evolution by infinite random competition invetiably ensuing in
survival of the fitest -- sure, like that's what got us George
Bush Jr. -- a sort of update of the Divine Right of Kings -- if
he's at the top he must be the best -- 

but anyhow, even you deem dualism an error, 'Intelligent Design'
ain't necessarily in error just because it's dualistic -- 

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

Everybody in the SO seems to have got Ph.D's except PVK and me.
And I should maybe go back somewhere and pick mine up, if I can
find a place that gives them over the counter like hamburgers.  

My mother told me a story of some dude at Harvard, the pre_eminent
Shakespearean of his era, Kittridge maybe.  They wanted to give
him an honorary Ph.D.  He said, " Oh? -- Who could examine me?"

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

=================================================================
 
