112 - Awakening Leading to Illumination

A series of studies on Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan's teachings will be featured in some of the forthcoming Keeping In Touches, based on the database for a curriculum which is being sent by the Secretariat to Center Representatives for monthly classes. The relevant excerpts of Pir-o-Murshid's teachings will then be published in a booklet upon completion of the course. Alongside these, corresponding excerpts from the ancient Sufis will be furnished, and sometimes Yoga and Buddhist texts which apply to Pir-o-Murshid's Message of the Unity of Religious Ideals.

I well realize it would be congruent to observe the sequence of themes set forth in the database for the curriculum. However, it is sometimes imperative to first state the objective and then outline the steps leading to that objective. Hence this presentation-our first-a kind of introduction.

There are many valuable and exciting things we pursue, enriching to our psyche, which are more readily available today thanks to the significant progress of technology. We need also to reckon with the chores we do to obtain and maintain them; moreover, we mostly find ourselves battling with the stress of simply surviving to "keep up with the Joneses" as life becomes increasingly demanding. However, in this medley of interests and responsibilities, it is well to assess priorities, to eschew prioritizing "the urgent" rather than "the important." Go for the best, at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of values (and I must say, most challenging, and most enthralling and transforming): illumination, enlightenment.

Watch to what extent the values which we ordinarily pursue in our social environment-as it has developed in our day and age-are conditioned, and to what extent we are clear about what we really rate highly, and uphold our self-esteem. It is a serious reflection on our alertness if, albeit somewhat enriching our personal idiosyncrasies, our pursuits tarnish our personality. It is ingratiating to realize to what extent our quest for illumination in the course of our meditations can transfigure our whole being-body and psyche-and unfurl qualities lying in wait.

Watch what qualities and defects that such or such pursuit may exercise upon our personality. If we pursue what delights our soul, and this gives us a sense of fulfillment, our whole being will blossom. Of course the most satisfying quest, felt by the more aware, fulfills a daunting need to see meaningfulness in life, and meaning in our own life. We become alerted by a surreptitious intuition that to assess circumstances on their face value is deceptive-a simplistic mode of thinking-that there must be some congruent planning, or intention, or meaningfulness behind occurrences, appearances.

That this programming needs to account for the somewhat whimsical, unpredictable nature of our personal incentives represents a surprising view, and strikes a whole new breakthrough, in contrast with traditional thinking. It validates human incentive and creativity. It stands at the core of Pir-o-Murshid's message, and is, moreover, paralleled by Ibn 'Arabi's insight.

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.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

When God sent Himself down to the waystations of His servants, their properties exercised their influence over Him. Hence He only determines their properties through them.

Ibn 'Arabi

That this programming, which we strive to be apprised of, should take into account our own volition makes the whole process of awakening most intricate, because it points out to us the importance of realizing the reciprocity of the Divine and human dimensions of our own being and the Divine and human dimensions of God. Only in this realization can we understand Pir-o-Murshid's teaching.

Man is Divine limitation and God is human perfection....The soul conscious of its limited existence is man; and the soul reflected by the vision of the unlimited is God.

 Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Thou art not Thou, Thou art He without Thou. Not He entering into Thee, nor Thou entering into Him, nor Thou proceeding forth from Him, or He proceeding forth from Thee.

Ibn 'Arabi

We also find the reciprocal thought:

The soul of every individual is God, but man has a mind and a body that contains God according to the accommodation. The key to spiritual attainment is to be conscious of the Perfect One who is formed in the heart.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

God makes Himself known by projecting His shadow. This shadow is Him and not Him.

Understand whereby thou art He and whereby Thou art other than He. The soul of every individual is God, but man has a mind and a body which contains God according to the accommodation.

Ibn 'Arabi

We may discern our ability to shift our perspective, in a first step, from "that which appears" to "that which transpires through that which appears", for example personal problems, or most particularly the way that "whom you really are" is trying to surface and unfurl as your personality. In a second step we may try to decode the "software" of the universe that determines the "hardware" of the cosmos. This gives us a sense of "awakening" - actually, there are several awakenings. In fact this is now our most prized objective: awakening.

As we meditate, we can actually grasp in our own being the way in which the bounty of the cosmos is squeezed into our personality, albeit virtually present, while regaling us with its many-splendored potentials and wide compass (the holistic paradigm as applied to the psyche).

The soul may be considered as a condition of God, a condition that makes the Only Being limited for a time.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

There are more such quantum leaps in our thinking - or, shall we say, in our realization. They occur as traumatic shocks coined as "awakenings" - not just an identity jolt, but discovering that super-logic that defies our commonplace (syllogistic) logic - which Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan calls "the reason of reasons." Indeed this is, rather than awakening from sensory perception and the resultant world-view, awakening from our commonplace conceptual thinking.

Not knowing that God experiences this life through us, we are seeking for Him somewhere else.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

When all idea of this external being is gone, then comes the consciousness of the unlimited being of God.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

In what manner is awakening related to illumination? This quandary could be better framed by asking: what relevance does illumination have to awakening? We may ascertain a clue in the paradoxical behavior of light. In the first place, light distinguishes itself from other physical phenomena in that it has no mass, which is precisely the criterion that defines matter for non-scientific minds. Secondly, it can only be known by its interaction with our body cells, particularly our brain cells, and those of our retina. It escapes our grasp beyond these transducers. This conundrum could be aptly illustrated by flying fish in murky water; all we know is how they behave when observed above the water, but what occurs under the water is usually ascribed to our inadequate sense of the void. Light therefore lends itself most welcome as a bridge between the known and the unknown, the ponderable and the imponderable, body and mind, the existential world and its (Divine) programming. It illustrates most aptly the paradox of illusive thoughts. As we meditate, let us observe how thought gets coagulated, so to speak, in order to be tangible to our consciousness.

The pure consciousness has so to speak gradually limited itself more and more in order to enter into the external vehicles such as the mind and body in order to be conscious of something.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Knowledge is of things in their forms and characteristics, whereas realization is of things in their deeper reality.

Abu Bakr al Warraq

On the other hand, when we realize that it cannot be reduced to that ephemeral "apparition", it eludes our grasp. Without trying to clinch it, to stalk it, we have to shift our sense of being the personal observer to identifying with the ineffable observer.

Not being is the mirror; the world the reflection; and you are as the reflected eyes of the Unseen person. In that eye, His eye sees His own eye.

Shabistari (1880 p.15)

The great art of illumination then consists in shifting our perspective, just like in a hologram, from one perspective to another, highlighting one perspective while downplaying another by means of shifting our sense of being the observer. By "closing one's eyes", Pir-o-Murshid does not mean ignoring, but simply downplaying a perspective in order to highlight another. It is only at a later stage that we are able to extrapolate between both perspectives.

How is illumination attained? by closing our eyes to our limited self and opening our heart to the God who is all perfection.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

In the next issue, we will be describing the practices with light prescribed by Pir-o-Murshid for attaining illumination, and parallel views of the ancient Sufis.

It is by this process that man becomes like a luminous star.
