92 - Hahut - Consciousness of the Unity

            As I pronounce the "h" of the word "Allah", not only the experience of the world and my self-awareness fade away, but even the memory of these.

Every time you consider a thing, He will have already escaped you.

Ibn 'Arabi

            The "h" of Allah represents the shift from my sense of being the subject (the knower) to the take over of God as the Knower (the Super-eminent Subject).  But where there is a knowing subject, even if singular, it follows that there is a "known."  This is dichotomy; consequently, we are still at the level of duality.  When the "h" is transformed into the hu, however, I am hoisted beyond multiplicity into unity.

            Let us summarize the steps we have been following.  In my ascent, I first integrated the objects or thoughts experienced in the world into a vision of the universe as one being I called God. Then I shifted my notion of being myself, the knowing subject shahid, to the One and only Witness.  And now as I by-pass the al's and la's and ll's of my recitation by intoning the "h" of Allah, I reach into the state of paramount Hahut.  It is only accessed beyond the existential realm.

            The letter "h" is the symbol of something that is absent.

It stands for the state of non-manifestation of the pure essence.

Ibn 'Arabi

            Paradoxically, even the void in which I thought I lost myself (in the illa) opens the way to the ultimate reality.  This even though I cannot experience it: it is self-revealing.  Now the perspective of the qualities (at the Lahut level)  fades away as I pull myself away from even the slightest spur of the seeds of the existential state,

            The real Being is only and exclusively God in His essence (dhat) and principle (ayn); not under the aspect of His names. . . In  the station of unity, touching upon the unity, one accesses the supreme knowledge whereby the grasp of the qualities falls away; indeed the qualities cannot add anything to the essence. . . If  the names disappeared, the Named One would appear.

            The one who is immersed in the vision of multiplicity is in the world in the aspect of the divine names and the names of the world; and the one who is immersed in the Unity is with God in the grasp of this unity irrespective of the worlds.

Ibn 'Arabi

            Do not confuse the perfection of the manifestation through existence, where the essence is individuated (like the manifestation of the Totality in the parts), with the manifestation of the essence to itself, in itself and for itself. 

Jami

            I realize that since any sense of being the observer is vanishing, the only way in which cognizance can take place at this level is by dint of the fact that my mind is homologous to the mind of the universe, albeit customized and thereby less effective (on the holographic model). Any remnant of my sense of individual identity limits the vastness and splendor of the thinking of the universe, shattering my faltering mind.

Knowledge is a veil upon the known. 

Ibn 'Arabi

            In Yoga, one would say,  Bodhi  has been resorbed into its ground:  Purusha.

What is more, one cannot say that one is experiencing fana, because one is not conscious of being the experiencing subject. This is called "fana al fana."  One is not aware of not being aware.

To be conscious of annihilation is incompatible with annihilation.

 Jami

            But something in the depths of one's being spells a kind of premonition of death.  It is the Asamprajnata Samadhi of Yoga, "parat param",  -  "beyond the beyond". The word fana assumes its apparently irrevocable meaning.

            Later, upon reflection, I understand al Hallaj:  at the supreme moment, hanging on the cross after the most atrocious tortures, there was no more "I am" left to recite the Shahada: la ilaha illa 'lla - hu. There is a contradiction in affirming the divine unity if one is aware of oneself as the one affirming it.  Therefore, at this pinnacle of the mystic's acid test, at the collapse of any remnant of one's sense of  "I-ness", any human affirmation is handed over to the supreme and ultimate divine unifying act.  His last words were:

It suffices if God alone unifies the mystic in His Unity (wahid-wajid).

al Hallaj

            Here lies the difference between Yoga and Sufism.  It is mind-shattering to hear that  this crucial and last sentence of al Hallaj was the answer to the impudent question asked him by his erstwhile presumptive friend, Shibli, while he hung bleeding and agonizing on the cross:  what is Sufism? Indeed, by dint of trying to reach beyond the edge of their consciousness by isolating themselves  from the existential realm, the Sufi mystics lend themselves to the divine action which resorbs them in the Oneness of His being.

I see myself when Thou art not before me; when I see Thee myself is lost to view.  I consider it good fortune when Thou art alone with me, but when I am not there at all, I think it the greatest blessing. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            The subtlety of the language used by the Sufis makes it possible to distinguish different aspects of God.  The word Allah originated from the word  "luh", which means the One whom I make into the "worshipped one" by my glorification.  But God cannot be limited by this aspect of His/Her being that requires the dichotomy of the worshiper and the worshipped one, which I bring forth by my worshipping Him/Her.  Nor can it be restricted to that aspect called Rabb, whereby my manifesting the divine qualities invested in my nature, I confer upon God a mode of existence in/as me.  For the "awakened one", the ultimate reality (called Haqq), by-passing any dichotomy,  takes precedence over these aspects of God.  Whatever we countenance and ascribe to the universe as we whirl our head is only the projection or the shadow of that aspect of God that is denoted as Haqq.  Therefore the dervish's dhikr is "Haqq la ilaha illa 'lla - hu."  Hence al Hallaj's famous exclamation:  Ana'l Haqq (I am the truth).

            A zephyr of perplexity may trouble your spirit. The dervishes evoke this uncanny divine emotion encountered by the dhakir called hayrah ecstasy, or perhaps beyond ecstasy  sometimes called the consternation of intelligence.

This cannot be known by reason, nor conceived by thought; only he who has attained Divine intuition savors the pure taste of this total revelation which one calls the "divine unveiling"; and it is the object of the perplexity, hayrah, of the perfect amongst the initiated.

al Jili

So there is nothing but perplexity upon perplexity. 

Ibn 'Arabi

Be not surprised if God Himself is perplexed! 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
