118 - Updating our Understanding of Spirituality

While the prow of the momentous advance of civilization is exploring new perspectives by abandoning previous formats, the more populous bulk of human potential is still bogged into diehard customs, habits of thought, and dogmas. There are prescriptions, institutionalization, authoritarianism, vested spiritual interests - in fact we're right back into the sclerozed obscurantism, and bigotry of the middle ages. As we stand on the brink of opening up exciting perspectives for the millenium, in the midst of the din of war cries, testing technological weaponry to stem the primitive territorial conquests fed by hackneyed, outmoded feuds, the ugly face of resentments, intolerance for the unfamiliar unknown, revenge, vendettas, the ordeal of victims of abuse throughout the world, the victims of religious fanaticism; we seek rescue in the way of life, the dedication, the human values of the saints, recluses and prophets, "warners of coming dangers and awakeners of the world from sleep". These values are embedded in the conscience of the more evolved beings, appalled, alerted by the sounds of alarm to take responsibility in redressing the infamy.

At this juncture, more then ever in the world's history, we are poised between the push of the past and the pull of the future. Advances in technology, cultural changes, new ways of thinking, anomalous art forms are beckoning upon us to brainstorm a brave new world - while the attendant greed, crass materialism, elitism, callousness and manipulation, balks the sensitivity of nobler souls. Those nobler souls' cultural values include the dedication to charity for the victims of that emerging power which abuses our physical resources; and include the splendor that sparks creative minds exploring loftier dimensions of thinking, uplifting our spirits by an intuition of the sacred nature of our human status.

The whole universe has contributed to the way humanity thinks today. If the Planet did not have an intelligence, it would not have intelligent beings on it. The collective working of several minds and the activity of the whole world in one direction are governed by the intelligence of the Planet.

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, from the Unity of Religious Ideals.

There is a mind behind all minds; there is a heart which is the source of all hearts; there is a spirit that collects and accumulates all the knowledge that every living being has had. No knowledge or discovery that has ever been made is lost. It all accumulates and collects in that mind as an eternal reservoir - the Divine Mind.

Thus we are recurrently pummeled between honoring our sacred traditions as a safeguard against loosing one's roots, and conversely updating by upgrading our thinking beyond undemonstrated assumptions taken for granted for having neglected to examine them. Pioneers in the thinking of humanity in the religious realm, even in the secular, have consistently bypassed conformity to the traditions of their ancestors even as they honored those ancestors, and thereby opened wider horizons embracing both the past and the future. Such was the curve of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan's spiritual journey as he moved from the transmission of his Sufi predecessors to the all-embracing purview of the "Universel", the Message of Unity. We encounter this challenge in our Sufi institutions such as the Sufi Order or Sufi Movement to forestall them becoming sects. Pir-o-Murshid warned us about how the "followers of the followers":

Therefore there is a difference between the followers and the followers of the followers... But the real following is the imitation of the prophet. And what is it? It is greater than study, and even greater than meditation. Among a thousand disciples, perhaps there will be nine hundred for study, one hundred for meditation, but hardly one who will follow.

The followers, if failing to see the breadth of outreach of the pioneer, would discount Pir-o-Murshid's readiness and wish to explore new ways. Pir-o-Murshid would undoubtedly have explored new ways if he had lived in our time.

Pir-o-Murshid's s vision incorporates the traditional transmission of the ancient Sufis, while making it accessible to people in their daily lives and updated the teachings of the great schools of the world religions, rather than discounting them. He embodied his latest views in the 'Universel', a temple made of human beings sparked by the vision of the Message of Unity and Spiritual Liberty of our time, announcing thereby the next step which he placed in our hands: ''I have placed the Message in your hands". The Universel carries Pir-o-Murshid's vision of an overarching organization which implements his intention embodied in his institution of International Headquarters of the Sufi Movement to ensure the coordination of activities such as the Universal Worship, Healing Order, etc., opening up the perspectives of this message to a broader public. This encompasses a wider outreach than the Sufi Order which is the Esoteric school to train the "the ten thousand workers" to spread the Message of Unity in the world.

On Hijerat Day, September 13, 1926, Pir-o-Murshid announced the next step: the Universel. Honoring the different world religions together on the same altar is a bold and necessary step in the interest of peace. A further step is getting into the consciousness of the prophets, masters and saints as he did on Tuesday evenings. This for example illustrates the aims of the "Universel of Human Beings" rather than the temple of stone, and while subsumed in the Universal Worship it represents a further development. More than paralleling the teachings of the world religions, it invites participants to effectively participate in "getting to know the composer so to understand his music better". Maybe this is what Murshid meant by the "formless Universal Worship".

Why do you  suffice  yourself with  the  known, when  you  can  know  the  Knower? How much more important is the Knower than the known.

Niffari

Such is the great art of distilling the achievements of the past and fertilizing the future with their essence. New formats to link people in resonance with a shared vision are emerging out of the antiquated ashrams and khankas and parishes without enclosing them in institutions 'in the name of spirituality' which an increasing number of people reject. Initiation, pledges, consecration are beginning to prevail over 'membership' - being a Sufi or a Christian or a Muslim.

Moreover, this process is enabled by a delicate, balanced shift from a hierarchical format to a selective group processing which presents the advantage of availing oneself of a far greater pool of human resources in terms of visions, ideas, and good-will. This needs to be carefully articulated so that the insight and wisdom of those assuming positions of greater responsibility are not handicapped by more pre-possessive and domineering partners. This is a precaution for the future, but does not apply in our present group processing based upon trust and mutual respect.

There is clearly a difference of emphasis between the two poles of Pir-o-Murshid's vision (two poles of the same thing): the Sufi Order and the Universel. The Sufi Order, while honoring its transmission needs to be more hierarchical. It is a school for training for those who feel called to spread Pir-o-Murshid's vision of the Message of unity of all people and all religions (without being reduced to uniformity). On the other hand, the Universel needs to extrapolate between the many-facetted bounty of a vision implemented in the rich variety of human experience and the nitty-gritty of carrying it out in actual real-life situations, while holding the vision delivered in the hands of the many-tiered gamut of human realizations

The vertiginous advance of civilization we may be witnessing is counterbalanced by the current decadence, vulgarity, and deterioration of noble values. But let us hold ourselves from being stymied to the point of defeating our heart in our endeavor to build a beautiful world of beautiful people. Birthing is accompanied by pain, and sometimes disruption. The faster the spearhead of our civilization advances, the more disruption it is bound to stir. It bespeaks of a painful and rather unwieldy adjustment to change.

As one evolves, one develops a passion for the unattainable.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Humanity is just espying a whole new dimension of thinking, exploring other dimensions of the cosmos than the commonplace existential cross-section of our many-splendored universe. Although awakening to this or these dimensions of the universe has always sparked the passion of great beings for the unattainable, 'beyond the beyond' pioneering thinkers are beginning to ascertain with increasing conviction that it is the limitation in our thinking that blocks us from making the next step in the inexorable advance of evolution. This is our only way to move forward updating and upgrading our human paradigm, in consonance with the material progress of technology by extending our thinking to these other dimensions of thinking.

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.

Since the challenges of out current civilizations are different and greater that those of our spiritual predecessors, we will need to even update their thinking while honoring their deep insights and instructions. The onus is upon us to carry further the inestimable research in the little or unexplored no-man's land of the human mind they conducted in the solitude, by exploring and fraying a serene yet venturesome path riding the tide of the tumult of our covetousness for comfort, to crown our concerns with a nostalgia for meaningfulness and holiness.

In the beginning of a world, all the matter which will eventually form a completed whole is already in existence, but it is in a state of chaos. It is not that any new thing or world, or being, is to be created, but that there shall be a re-arrangement of all the parts until the whole is complete. The number and arrangement of every atom has yet to be made. Every electron and atom must take its own appointed place in the mighty scheme. This is the great evolutionary process. The God buried in humanity must be uncovered and placed on His throne in the heart of man.

A world-in-the-making can be likened to a great jigsaw puzzle, whose separate parts have life and are capable of independent movement. Each part has its own particular place, and its relation to every other part; and no thing or being can live to itself alone.
