93 - Tawhid - Only God

            We confront the crowning enigma of the implications of the awakening attained "beyond the existential level" when we face the critical turning point of real life situations again, without losing sight of that transcendent awakening. 

When one does not see anything other than God, the void (khala) is impossible. . . for such a being, a retreat (khalwa) is not possible.

Ibn 'Arabi

            For the Sufis, in the ascetic seclusion one would be missing out on the opportunity that life offers, whereby God reveals His being in the measure of our capacity to countenance the clues covertly intimated through the existential realm. We are witnessing a radical reversal of perspective:  granted our objective is to awaken beyond the limited, commonplace, personal vantage point, what point could there be in one's incorporation in the fabric of the universe if one alienates oneself from it? One would be missing out on the purpose of life altogether.

The man who shuts himself away from all men, however highly evolved he may be spiritually, will not be free in the higher spheres . . . The man conscious of his duties and obligations to his friends is more righteous than he who sits alone in solitude.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            I trigger off the transit into life by espying distant echoes of a remote inflow of what one might call "know-how", featuring the way in which the distillate of existential experiences (wisdom) is being fed back at this lofty level into the programming of the universe. Otherwise, whatever is gained by experience, by the interaction between the fragments of the One Being, would be lost, which wouldn't make sense.

                For tonight, the teeming world gives birth to the world everlasting.

Rumi

                That which is taxed of finitude will become eternal. 

Jami

            These elusive impressions serve as the chain linking me to an anchor beyond my reach in the "world." But I do not wish to lose my perspective, the awakening gained in the ascent. I distinguish two stages leading to awakening in life: 

            (i) Hu manifests as Allah so long as I abstain from trying to experience what is happening, but simply exult in glorification

If the huwa (beyond subjectivity) were apparent, it would not be huwa, but ana (the paramount subject).

Ibn 'Arabi

Huwa manifests as Allah only if I cease to identify with the experiencer (the subject: ana) because the ana stands in the way of this manifestation.  

Ibn 'Arabi

            (ii) I regain my sense of being the spectator, then I can only address God as "Thou", anta.

Should the ana outlast while Huwa manifests as Allah, then we have anta (Thou).

Ibn 'Arabi

            As I intone "Hu", I become aware of the way the realization I attained in the state of Hahut transformed my whole being at all levels, including the configuration of the my subtle bodies, then the material body, starting with my celestial shroud and becoming concrete in the descent towards manifestation. Now the challenge consists in maintaining the divine point of view while recovering one's personal identity.

My contemplation has brought to light the pure essence of my existence so that I have not found another than myself in my extinction and in my perennity. 

Ibn 'Arabi

            While there is no way in which we can discover the ultimate realty, Haqq, which is the ultimate condition of God, we may be invited to participate in the divine vision whereby He/She sees that reality projected in the mirror of the universe as in that reflection of His/Her Being that constitutes our personalities. To accede to this mode of cognizance, we need to serve as a mirror, that is, abstain from interposing our reason or our act of consciousness, rather simply allowing our understanding to be transfigured by this unfamiliar way of looking at things.

            Paradoxically, this ineffable reality may be revealed from within the existential perspective, rather than beyond existence (which is that which is sought in the yogic Samadhis). And therefore, for al Hallaj, the Sufi dervish must abstain from isolating him/herself; then, absorbed in the divine unity, he/she is co-opted by the divine unifying operation to be integrated in His/Her divinity (infirad, rather than tajrid or tafrid; L. Gardet defines tajrid as isolation from any objective input, and tafrid as retraction of one's self from any act (operated by the self). In contrast, al Hallaj advocates infirad, the passive of the verbal form).

It is God who elects him and draws him into His state of isolation that he may participate in the mystery [of the divine solitude].

Gardet

            Therefore now, rather than losing myself, I can see myself inextricably intermeshed in the total being of which I am clearly an integral element. It is a shattering and at the same time overwhelming experience.

            At this point, as we intone Huwa, turning our head towards our heart, we are invited to extrapolate between all the perspectives encountered in the course of the whole recitation of the dhikr. This would mean, then, (i) expanding the outreach of our vantage point, (ii) seeing the "outside" from "inside", (iii) hoisting one's consciousness "beyond the beyond", (iv) now to partake in an overview of the way things appear on earth. This represents a kind of tour de force, challenging all the views we have encountered so far. In fact it could be defined as stereoscopic consciousness:  being able to extrapolate between the perception vouchsafed through our personal vantage point and the transcendental one.

            How can this be achieved? It is a matter of keeping constantly in mind one's connection with the totality of which one is a part, while acquiescing that one has gained some kind of relative autonomy as a visitor on planet Earth.

True exaltation of the spirit resides in the fact that it has come to earth and has realized there its spiritual existence. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Tracing back the stages I passed through in the ascent, I avail myself once more of the creativity of my imaginative faculty:

Imagination causes archetypal notions to descend into perceptible forms.

Ibn 'Arabi

            The same data must be recaptured at each of the degrees of being, or levels through which they had to descend in order to reach the mode of being corresponding to the plane on which they are evident to our ordinary consciousness.

Corbin

            Moreover, one needs continually to keep oneself highly attuned by offsetting one's consciousness so as to grasp the splendor that is striving to transpire behind the sometimes offensive appearance of things.

There comes a time in one's evolution when every touch of beauty moves the heart to tears; it is at that time that the Beloved of heavens is brought to earth.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            Note that as we hoisted our concentration from 'la ilaha' to 'illa', we shifted our awareness from the perceptual and interpretive mode to grasping the emergence of the world and ourselves from the implicate state; then, when we hoisted our consciousness from 'illa' to ''llah', we shifted from the world of metaphor to thoughts bereft of any form or image whatsoever. Now, as we intone 'hu', we descend into the realm of configurations and matter. Our intelligence discovers itself by awakening in the atoms of the cells of our bodies.

Thoughts shift from the perception of the senses to the imaginary ones; then the intelligible thoughts will descend upon you in the form of perceptions. 

Ibn 'Arabi

You will observe the engendering of the possibilities lying in the spiritual plane into the corporeal world. 

Ibn 'Arabi

            Let us now see how this attunement and perspective is going to affect our daily lives. Passing though the stages of the dhikr, we have not only been discovering unfamiliar perspectives, beaming new light upon our problems, but awakening dormant faculties. The shift in outlook triggers off transformation. Let us now consciously awaken the innumerable faculties governing the programming of the whole universe, dormant in ourselves.

In man is awakened that spirit by which the whole universe was created.

 Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Realization needs to be backed up by doing:

In order to gain God consciousness, the first condition is to make God a reality, so that He no longer is an imagination. . . At present there exists only in the world a belief in God; God exists in the imagination. It is such a soul, which has touched upon divine perfection, that brings to earth a living God, who without him would remain on in the heavens. . . If there is any sign of God to be seen, it is in the God-conscious one. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

The clue consists in experiencing God discovering Him/Herself as oneself.

How is higher consciousness attained? By closing our eyes to our limited self and by opening our heart to the God who is all perfection, who is in heaven and on earth, within and without, who is visible, audible, perceptible, intelligible and yet beyond man's comprehension. . . . The key to spiritual attainment is to be conscious of the Perfect One who is formed in the heart.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            The Sufi's task is to be instrumental to God's purpose in the very creation of the world. Here lies the secret of the Hadith Qudsi that lies at the basis of all Sufism: "I was a hidden treasure. . ."

Divinity resides in humanity. It is also the outcome of humanity. Divinity is to God what the drop is to the ocean:  the drop is of the same nature as the ocean, but in comparison it is only a drop.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            The fulfillment of this whole creation is to be found in man. And this object is only fulfilled when man has awakened that part of himself which represents the master, that is, God Himself. It is in man that the divine perfection can be seen. God knows Himself through His manifestation. Manifestation is the self of God, but a self that is limited, a self that makes His perfection known to Himself when He compares Himself with the limited self we call nature. Therefore the purpose of the whole creation is the realization that God gains by discovering His own Perfection though our imperfection. 

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            The key is, rather than thinking of God as other, discover the various levels of Godness in yourself.

The soul of every individual is God, but man has a mind and a body which contains God according to the accommodation.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            How do we reconcile this with the thought which we came across and which led us to the Hahut or Samadhi state: "work through the ties with the life of the world"?  Having loosened these, we are able to reconcile what would seem like the irreconcilable: involve ourselves with unconditional love with all beings, while not being dependent upon attachment or gain.

            The way of those who renounce is to know all things, to admire all things, to get all things, but give all things and to think that nothing belongs to them and that they own nothing.

            He who arrives at the state of indifference without experiencing interest in life is incomplete and apt to be tempted by interest at any moment; but he who arrives at the state of indifference by going through interest really attains the blessed state.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

            Here lies the enigma:

            Indifference gives great power; but the whole manifestation is a phenomenon of interest. All this world that man has made, where has it come from?  It has come from the power of interest.  The whole creation and all that is in it are the products of the Creator's interest. But at the same time the power of indifference is a greater one still, because, although motive has a power, yet at the same time motive limits power. Yet it is motive that gives man the power to accomplish things. On the other hand, so long as a man has a longing to obtain any particular object, he cannot go further than that object.

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

SYNOPSIS

A = Subject/Object perspective  L=  Identity: body, psyche subtle and celestial bodies (according to level of identity)  I =  personal subject, witness  H= ultimate reality.  U = The aspect of God actuated as the existential reality

la:  

            You experience reality biased projection of psyche. (L > psyche, A > reality as existential)

ilaha:  

            The subject realizes the delusion (the first step towards awakening). The witness (I) is extended, grasping reality (A) from an all-encompassing span. The representation that the psyche (L) carried of reality is now replaced by an objective one. But to be germane, the new representation of reality (the second A) needs to be adumbrated by the divine point of view (H).

 illa: 

            The witness in you (I) is looking within. Of necessity your identity shifts from the first (L)  your physical body (Nazut) to the second (L) your subtle body (Arwah, in Yoga tanmatra). Concomitantly from your psyche (Khayal), to a new mode of thinking (Mithal) you project the reality you discover internally (Arwah) and now identify with. Reality is now off-set from the time/space frame of ordinary experience and seems to flow recurrently into the way it transpires in the physical world and also as your psyche; you grasp the physical world (A) "from inside-out" dynamically instead of statically; that is: instead of simply ingesting the input from the physical and social environment, interpreted and assessed by conditioned assumptions, you can envision it (A) unfolding from its seedbed, like a plant releasing the genes that were previously turned virtual. By the same token, you can envision these potentials unfurling as the idiosyncrasies of your personality The creative thrust of the universe in you fosters the genesis of form (physical or idiosyncratic) from subliminal patterns of energy which thus materializes as matter (the physical body:  Nazut) or subtle matter (the subtle body:  Arwah) or at the level of thinking as the psyche, Khayal, or the creative mind (at the level of metaphor:  Mithal

'llah: 

            Since creativity integrates the different modes of reality (which vary from one level to another), you now realize that the creativity materializing as you, while emerging from within, includes patterns hailing from all levels. My consciousness is now hoisted from that unsounded first "a" of the word Allah which represented my grasp of reality emerging from within (Mithal) to the second "a" of the word Allah which represents reality at the archetypal level (Lahut) . To reach the perspective grasped at the (Lahut) level, you will need to let go of your identity from your previous identity with your etheric body (Arwah) and shift your identity into your celestial effigy (Malakut, which is like a countenance without substance), represented by the first (l) of the word Allah; next, you shift your identity into identifying with being pure intelligence beyond form, time and space (Jabarut) , represented by the second "l" of the word Allah).

h: 

            When intonating the "h" of the word Allah, we leave not only the existential world out of focus, but even the programming behind it to touch upon the reality that it unfolds and actuates.

hu:

            The "u" of hu indicates the descent through the spheres. We would be discounting all that is gained by the interfacing and osmosis fostered at the existential level if we did not awaken in the perspective of the world while extrapolating it with the perspectives encountered at each of the levels explored in the entire dhikr.
