19 - The Leading Edge

Yes, we are somewhere about an emergent leading edge - if - we take the next step.

The ancients were more interested in discovering first principles or experiencing yonder. People in our day and age are concerned with the nitty-gritty: the unfoldment of the human person. I see here, a clue to Murshid's teaching and a confirmation of its relevance to our time. While most traditional schools were or are striving to reach beyond the middle range, for example, expanding consciousness, we are trying to identify with our planetary, solar galactic, and even angelic inheritance as the boundaries of our consciousness dissolve. See the difference? By the very fact of endeavoring to reach beyond, one is evidencing the assumption that the universe lies beyond some invisible boundary, delineating oneself, whereas in reality, one incorporates the universe (not only the physical) albeit by limiting it, even as a focal point converges a broad array of light, for example.

The more progressive schools in psychology such as transpersonal psychology, are now recognizing factors in the human psyche that lie beyond the boundaries of the zone that their predecessors defined as the human psyche, carrying Jung's collective conscious a step further. Yet most psychotherapists are still reinforcing people's confinement within their self-image by emphasizing the need to heal the trauma of earlier trials, rather than luring them out of that confinement by helping them to identify with the more vast dimensions of their being, revealing to them how they "could be if they would be as they might be." Admittedly, it seems logical that one needs to first remove the obstacles to growth before fostering that growth. But one must realize that this trauma reinforces them in the exploitation by their unconscious, allowing an excuse for having failed to become what they would have liked to be.

Causality is one of two parameters, the other being purposefulness. If you throw an arrow at a target, it is the bull's eye that determines the nervous impulse that triggers off the launch. The pull of the future is more important than the push of the past. If a person had the slightest inkling as to what he or she could be if he/she would be what he/she might be, h/s would have an incentive to remove whatever relic of the past was obstructing his/her objective.

Many handicapped persons excel in alternate or closely related fields to those in which they are incapacitated by dint of nature's mechanism called overcompensation. Many piano tuners are blind; the violinist, Perlman, is paralyzed in his legs but shows incredible dexterity in his fingers; one of the most outstanding brains of our time, the British physicist, Dr. Hawkin, is paralyzed to the extent of not being able to talk distinctly or write at all, Demosthenes and Churchill had a stutter; Beethoven composed while deaf. However psychologically damaged a person might be, there are creative areas in which that person may excel others. One becomes so convinced that one is the image that one makes of oneself, not realizing that it is just a "notion", that is, a construct of one's imagination and that what appears at the surface of one's being is only like the tip of the iceberg in comparison with the iceberg. From the moment one grasps that is an imaginary construct, one realizes by the same token, that one can change it, since change is within the power of one's imagination. What is more, within certain norms, one can make one's image into what one wishes.

In fact, the leading edge in psychology today is signposted by the magical words: "creative imagination" as pioneered by Dr. Rollos May et al. and this is precisely the gist of our work in the Sufi Order. We are onto something of great momentum if we do make the next step, which in this case, is to make ideas materialize, because progressive psychologists are trying to make use of the know-how gained in classical schools of meditation. We are amongst the few esoteric schools who are trying to interface our meditative practices with the latest developments in psychology in order to apply whatever insight we gain in meditation to helping people in their urge to grow through undergoing a process of transformation.

You may ask, "Why especially the Sufis?" Well, the answer springs to evidence. Sufis traditionally, and most particularly, Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, place the accent on finding God in and as ourselves, rather than seeking God "up there" as other than ourselves. The DNA illustrates this reality by pointing out that the whole body is present in totality in each cell of the body.

The Sufis say we not only inherit the divine nature but are that inheritance, albeit limited and tarnished. We could interpret this in the holistic paradigm of our time by paradoxically coining an antique term, we are coextensive with the universe, and our minds are isomorphic with the thinking of the universe, which the Sufis call the mind of God. Holding a belief is one thing; experiencing it in practice in one's being and letting that realization transform one beyond recognition, is another.

There is just that step we need to make. It means letting go of self-image, mental assumptions, of wallowing in whatever assets have been secured, then freewheeling on the strength of a sheer, anticipated vision of how things could be if we would be - if we allowed the universe to fall into place in a novel pattern in us. 19 - The Leading Edge

Yes, we are somewhere about an emergent leading edge - if - we take the next step.

The ancients were more interested in discovering first principles or experiencing yonder. People in our day and age are concerned with the nitty-gritty: the unfoldment of the human person. I see here, a clue to Murshid's teaching and a confirmation of its relevance to our time. While most traditional schools were or are striving to reach beyond the middle range, for example, expanding consciousness, we are trying to identify with our planetary, solar galactic, and even angelic inheritance as the boundaries of our consciousness dissolve. See the difference? By the very fact of endeavoring to reach beyond, one is evidencing the assumption that the universe lies beyond some invisible boundary, delineating oneself, whereas in reality, one incorporates the universe (not only the physical) albeit by limiting it, even as a focal point converges a broad array of light, for example.

The more progressive schools in psychology such as transpersonal psychology, are now recognizing factors in the human psyche that lie beyond the boundaries of the zone that their predecessors defined as the human psyche, carrying Jung's collective conscious a step further. Yet most psychotherapists are still reinforcing people's confinement within their self-image by emphasizing the need to heal the trauma of earlier trials, rather than luring them out of that confinement by helping them to identify with the more vast dimensions of their being, revealing to them how they "could be if they would be as they might be." Admittedly, it seems logical that one needs to first remove the obstacles to growth before fostering that growth. But one must realize that this trauma reinforces them in the exploitation by their unconscious, allowing an excuse for having failed to become what they would have liked to be.

Causality is one of two parameters, the other being purposefulness. If you throw an arrow at a target, it is the bull's eye that determines the nervous impulse that triggers off the launch. The pull of the future is more important than the push of the past. If a person had the slightest inkling as to what he or she could be if he/she would be what he/she might be, h/s would have an incentive to remove whatever relic of the past was obstructing his/her objective.

Many handicapped persons excel in alternate or closely related fields to those in which they are incapacitated by dint of nature's mechanism called overcompensation. Many piano tuners are blind; the violinist, Perlman, is paralyzed in his legs but shows incredible dexterity in his fingers; one of the most outstanding brains of our time, the British physicist, Dr. Hawkin, is paralyzed to the extent of not being able to talk distinctly or write at all, Demosthenes and Churchill had a stutter; Beethoven composed while deaf. However psychologically damaged a person might be, there are creative areas in which that person may excel others. One becomes so convinced that one is the image that one makes of oneself, not realizing that it is just a "notion", that is, a construct of one's imagination and that what appears at the surface of one's being is only like the tip of the iceberg in comparison with the iceberg. From the moment one grasps that is an imaginary construct, one realizes by the same token, that one can change it, since change is within the power of one's imagination. What is more, within certain norms, one can make one's image into what one wishes.

In fact, the leading edge in psychology today is signposted by the magical words: "creative imagination" as pioneered by Dr. Rollos May et al. and this is precisely the gist of our work in the Sufi Order. We are onto something of great momentum if we do make the next step, which in this case, is to make ideas materialize, because progressive psychologists are trying to make use of the know-how gained in classical schools of meditation. We are amongst the few esoteric schools who are trying to interface our meditative practices with the latest developments in psychology in order to apply whatever insight we gain in meditation to helping people in their urge to grow through undergoing a process of transformation.

You may ask, "Why especially the Sufis?" Well, the answer springs to evidence. Sufis traditionally, and most particularly, Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, place the accent on finding God in and as ourselves, rather than seeking God "up there" as other than ourselves. The DNA illustrates this reality by pointing out that the whole body is present in totality in each cell of the body.

The Sufis say we not only inherit the divine nature but are that inheritance, albeit limited and tarnished. We could interpret this in the holistic paradigm of our time by paradoxically coining an antique term, we are coextensive with the universe, and our minds are isomorphic with the thinking of the universe, which the Sufis call the mind of God. Holding a belief is one thing; experiencing it in practice in one's being and letting that realization transform one beyond recognition, is another.

There is just that step we need to make. It means letting go of self-image, mental assumptions, of wallowing in whatever assets have been secured, then freewheeling on the strength of a sheer, anticipated vision of how things could be if we would be - if we allowed the universe to fall into place in a novel pattern in us.
