110 - Stalking the Light: Transmuting Fire into Light, Anger into Compassion

Light is a particularly important factor in our lives because it acts as a bridge between matter and the ineffable, beyond our perception. At the psychological level, we all know how it feels to be hot under the collar, burning with rage when abused, insulted, repressed, or when we are outraged with righteous indignation at witnessing an injustice or a blatant lie. It seems wise to contend that we condemn an ignominious act, not the person, but how real is it? Surely the action we condemn must reflect something of the person. We can intervene to counter evil like a noble knight, without hatred. That a gesture of compassion can transform the fire of anger into the radiance of our countenance by the generous feeling of love is perhaps the greatest miracle of life. Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan told those training for leadership, "We are tested in our love." Being able to love a person who is obnoxious and unkind faces us with an almost unrealistic challenge. How strong is our love? I mean a wholesome, all-embracing, cosmic, unconditional love, not a sentimental love. One can be judgmental while protective. If we try to wean ourselves from our reactive ego, which is our defense system, we will suffer from psychological withdrawal symptoms, unless our love is very strong.  

The phenomenon of light hands us a number of clues which convey realizations that open some escape from the enigma posed to our understanding when we discover that we cannot account for things on the strength of what we perceive. For one thing, light behaves-according to the test devised by scientists in laboratories-either as though it were constituted of particles (photons), or of waves. Particles collide-like what we understand by particles of matter-but waves compose, forming a network (a wave-interference pattern). We imagine that particles occupy a definite location in space at a given moment, and collide if vying for the same space, whereas matter cannot be locatable as a wave. 

Our human behavior follows the same principles. Our psyches can clash in conflict, or cooperate by completing each other. Waves can configure themselves in such a manner that they build up-like a kind of knot, called a solliton; this is called a standing wave. Such is also the case for us humans when, in the course of cooperating, somehow a conflicting situation arises. If we consider our consciousness as a focal point located in space, light seems to radiate from a point located in space: the sun, the stars, a candle, an electric bulb. But when we turn within in our meditation, our consciousness, as it gets inverted, is diffused. Consequently our representation of light has shifted-it is diffused. Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan calls it "the all-pervading light." We find the same in the words of Ibn 'Arabi.

Light is of two kinds: a light having no rays, and radiant light. If self-disclosure takes place through radiant light, it takes away our inner vision. As for the light that has no rays, it is the light within which self-disclosure takes place without rays. Then its brightness does not go outside of itself and the viewer perceives it with the utmost clarity and  lucidity....

 Ibn 'Arabi (Fut III 274 23, Chitt p 213)

Physicists never cease to be amazed by the paradoxical way light behaves when they try to track it down in laboratory experiments. They can only ascertain and measure what happens at the instant it interacts with their instruments, but light eschews giving any clues as to its behavior before, after or between the measurements. It seems a misnomer to call light matter, even though it is an electro-magnetic phenomenon, because, unlike any other form of matter, it does not have mass. It provides us with a useful model of the relationship between reality and actuality-the universe and the cosmos. Reality escapes any efforts on our part to track it down beyond the existential, perceptual world we commonly know. This familiar world looks like the cross-section of a multiple, multi-dimensional, and many-tiered universe of which we only know what intersects it. This paradox becomes even more bewildering, because when we stalk it, reality appears as a virtuality that becomes an actuality in the existential condition.  

We are a condition of God. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

We are baffled by the unknown, stymied, ever wishing to decipher the secret of the mysterious unknown that affects us in such uncanny ways. 

He takes you from perplexity to perplexity. 

Ibn 'Arabi

Reflecting upon the wave-like / particle-like antinomy, we ask ourselves whether our known world is not the crystallization of the reality beyond our understanding, just as we imagine waves to have crystallized as particles, or photons having crystallized as electrons to form a crystal. Just stop to ponder the miracle whereby our thoughts or emotions configure the muscles of our face; more so, how we may fashion the fabric of light of our aura into the countenance that transpires through our face. To stalk reality beyond actuality, we would then have to reverse this process and transmute the electrons of our bodies into photons (as is the case with fireflies in the process of phosphorescence) or transmute the particle-like photons of our aura into wave-like, ineffable light. This would represent an ingratiating prospect for life after life. Perhaps we could already start preparing for this right away, now. It would mean trying to stalk light as far as we can reach beyond its perceptual existential condition.  

Should we attempt this-for example, trying to shift our consciousness into that of a master, saint or prophet, or an angel, or departed loved one-we would reach a point where, the light that escapes our grasp, intangible yet luring us ever further, does not seem to be any different from the light of our intelligence.  

Light is perceived; and through it perception takes place. Were it not for the light that belongs to the souls, there could be no witnessing since witnessing only takes place when two lights come together.

Ibn 'Arabi (Fut II 485 29 Chitt p.226) 

What would it be like to live bereft of the body? Our advanced meditations "beyond existence", as Buddha coins it, may offer us some clues. Imagine brain-storming creative ideas, while interfacing and interacting with the minds and attunements of other disincarnate beings, and fashioning these ideas into forms without substance-as an architect, or tuning to a bountiful symphony of emotions without translating them into musical notes and rhythms-as a composer, discovering new modes of meaningfulness without manipulating objects, working at the software of the universe, knowing that your programming will, if viable and meaningful, be intuited by those on Earth who will carry them out concretely and practically, then updating them by being receptive to the feedback from the Earth. The feedback of experience upgrades the feedforward of creativity acausally. The clues to soar into worlds of celestial light are, first, in overcoming resentment and shifting our notion of light from its physical underpinning to its ineffable dimensions beyond the existential state, and then, rather than identifying ourselves with our aura, identifying ourselves with the light of our intelligence. Then we bring heavenly light to Earth through the glow of our eyes. This is the "Light upon a light" of the Qur'an.  

'The light that can be seen' and 'the light that sees,' according to the Sufis, now seem like two poles of the same reality rather than being separated-like the horns of a dilemma-as they appear to our commonplace thinking. Therefore to stalk the light of those we yearn to reach beyond this limited world-to be inspired-we need to transcend our commonplace thinking and allow our minds to be overwhelmed in what the Sufis calls "the consternation of intelligence." Our ordinary thinking sees 'otherness,' whereas our peri-personal thinking sees similarity, likeness, in a process of resonance. Pir-o-Murshid calls it the thinking of the soul, rather than of the mind-the state of bewondering, and more so, glorification will spark our souls to ecstasy.

We do not have to condemn ourselves if we cannot forgive, but it is the clue to being luminous and radiant. It is our choice. Resentment traps us in our personal dimension, forgiveness will make us free to stalk light beyond its constraint at the existential level. In life after life, if one has not found freedom, one will be stuck in one's thoughts, regurgitating acrimony, and fail to interface and interact creatively with wonderful beings in skyscapes of light and splendor. The message of Christ, "forgive those who offend us", is hard to follow, but it carries a great secret - perhaps the greatest secret - the sublimation of our human nature, like the way infra-red light can be transmuted into ultra-violet, (passing through the spectrum). Our incandescent aura becomes diaphanous: we have transmuted the fire of truth into the light of love.  

When the unreality of life pushes against my heart, its door opens to the reality.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
