CURRICULUM OF THE SUFI ORDER
The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis
LESSON FOURTEEN
MODES OF THINKING

This and the next lesson of the meditation course are intended to serve as an overview of the stages fostering the awakening of dormant faculties. They thus present a preview of the more detailed studies that will follow in later installments.

To ensure clarity in our way of thinking, with its consequences regarding our self- creativity by the unfurling of our potentialities in our psyche and the ensuing ability to accomplish our life's purpose, it is relevant to distinguish between our different modes of thinking. Moreover, the knowledge of these perspectives will furnish us with clues to apply them as meditation themes in a progressive sequence.

We may distinguish between five modes of thinking:

1)   the commonplace mode
2)   the dichotomous mode
3)   the proto-critic mode
4)   the archetypal mode
5)   the transcendental mode

The first three modes of thinking are triggered off by three corresponding levels of identity. Beyond that point our identity is transpersonal.

THE COMMONPLACE MODE

This stage corresponds to what the Sufis call the level of Nasut, and to what in Yoga is called Savitarka Samadhi.

At this stage, according to the Qur'an:

God reveals Himself to us through signs (ayat) in the physical realm and in our souls (psyche: our idiosyncrasies).

Reality is inferred from actuality.

We identify with our body and concurrently perceive the environment in our usual perspective of the physical world as made of distinct discrete entities.

The mode of thinking corresponding to this level of identity is what the Sufis call Khayal and in Yoga NirvetarkaSamadhi:

(i) our thinking is likewise fragmented in discrete thoughts - categories of reason, syllogistic logic; we are using static words, nouns like 'thoughts,' instead of dynamic words, verbs like 'thinking,' 'feelings' instead of 'feeling,' an 'act' instead of 'action,' an 'event' or 'occurrence' instead of 'processing,' etc.

(ii) our thinking is biased by our personal vantage point as the spectator.

(iii) we can simply discern the consequence of our past actions, and those of others, upon ourselves and our circumstances at present - causality.

(iv) our motivation is selfish - pursuit of material gain, possessions, dominating others, recognition, appreciation, being loved (rather than loving).

(v) we fail to see from another person's point of view, or sense or validate another's grievances.

(vi) we entertain resentment for people's abuses wreaked upon us - which generates a wish for revenge, intolerance, unkindness, violence and cruelty, with its trail of suffering, misery, crime, the terror of murder, the sheer insanity of the mass destruction of life, and the wanton vandalism by pillaging and ransacking the fruits of the achievements of great civilizations in war. 

THINKING IN THE MODE OF POLARITY, COMPLEMENTARITY, DICHOTOMY, ANTINOMY - THE TWO FACES OF JANUS

This stage corresponds to the level of identity called asman by the Sufis and Savikara Samadhi in Yoga.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

What is meant by concentration is the change of identification of the soul. (The Alchemy of Happiness/The Inner Life and Self Realization)

If we identify with our subtle body (our magnetic field - with no boundary or profile), we see ourselves as part of the environment, overlapping with what seemed to be 'other,' we resonate with the environment instead of perceiving it.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

All things and beings on the surface seem separate from another, beneath the surface they approach nearer to each other, and in the innermost plane they all become one....

This perspective is clinched by turning within, reversing consciousness so that we grasp "that which transpires through that which appears," for example the glance of a person instead of the features of his or her face. These are also 'signs' in which God reveals Himself to us by implication, as those referred to in the commonplace mode.

To shift our consciousness into this mode we need to:

(i) Place a blind in front of the mirror; consciousness will turn within. To turn within, the Sufi closes the door through which the soul is accustomed to look out, and as it finds the doors of its experience closed, a time comes when it turns its back to the external world. (Private Papers) You will find a kind of universe in yourself. Hazrat Inayat Khan

(ii) Then we learn to toggle (oscillate) consciousness from the outer perspective to the inner and vice-versa.

PRACTICE:

As you exhale, perceive the physical environment. As you inhale, close your eyes and identify with your subtle body. Now instead of your eyes passively receiving  light reflected by the objects, identify with your glance as emitting light and casting it upon the objects. Now try to grasp "that which transpires through that which appears."

Now we can do the same considering our problems and what is enacted behind our problems.

(iii) In a further step, we learn to extrapolate between these two perspectives.

We can reconcile two complementary points of view rather than discounting one at the cost of another, while in the previous state we would consider these propositions as contradictory and hence irreconcilable.

Kharras:

Sufism is validating antinomic propositions.

St. Augustine:

Conjunctio oppositorum.

This has relevance in terms of our identity: we can grasp that while being a part of the Total being, we carry the Totality in our being.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

God is in man and man is in God, yet God is God and man is man. We are a condition of God.

The mode of thinking corresponding to this level of identity is what the Sufis call Mithal and in Yoga NirvekaraSamadhi.

In this mode of thinking, we learn to gauge the two sides of a problem: the disadvantage of an advantage, the advantage outweighing the disadvantage.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

The defeat that avers itself to be a victory; the victory that turns out to be a drawback.

We can unmask where we pride ourselves in a stance of humility and therefore reconcile

The greatest pride with the greatest humility; the aristocracy of the soul with the democracy of the ego. Hazrat Inayat Khan

(I) our thinking is extended to grasp the context of a situation or of our problems rather than their content.

(II) we can shift our consciousness into the vantage point of another, resonate with the attunement of another, even grasp a sense of his or her opinion of us.

(III) we can see how the very problem with which we are involved looks from the point of view of another, in particular our opponent.

(IV) on a cosmic scale, we can about-turn our personal perspective grasping how the cosmos thinks and feels.

(V) furthermore, we discover the cosmos in ourselves,

(VI) and intuit how we look from the vantage of the cosmos in an infinite embrace.

As St. Francis said:

I thought I was looking at the world but I discovered the world looking at me.

In this mode of thinking, one does not consider one's problems as one's problems, but as a specific case of the problems of humanity, ultimately of the universe. Consequently our involvement in our problems is one of the manners in which we are inextricably linked and intermeshed with the whole of humanity and further the whole universe.

Furthermore, in this mode of thinking, rather than relegating one's problems to circumstances, one envisions oneself and one's problems as an indivisible whole however polarized between the impact of the circumstances upon oneself and the impact of oneself upon the circumstances.

PRACTICE:

Recollect the whole curve of your life. First earmark how events and circumstances shaped and kept modifying your psyche. Then recollect how your idiosyncracies and values played a role the programming of the circumstances.

In this mode, we see how mind and matter are related as the two poles of the same reality.

Dr. David Bohm:

If we look deeply into matter, we find something that is of the nature of mind.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

There is a gradual awakening of matter to become conscious. In matter life unfolds, discovers and realizes the consciousness that has been, so to speak, buried in it for thousands of years. (The Smiling Forehead). Through the awakening of matter to increased consciousness, matter becomes fully intelligent in man.

We also see how our subtle body, eventually our body, is shaped by our thinking and attunement.

Evola:

Rendering states of consciousness corporeal. (The Doctrine of Awakening)

Geshe Gyatzu:

the cause for your future achievement of an actual illusory body in the form of your personal deity (not seen by everyone). (The Clear Light of Bliss)

We now see the impact of our thinking and attunement as they customize the thinking and attunement of the universe upon our psyche. The attunement sparks the thought.

These are now modes of creativity. Knowledge thereof will furnish us with clues as how to enhance our creativity. Creativity is actuating a thought or an attunement into an image or a form.

Ibn 'Arabi:

He never manifests Himself to His creatures except within a form, and his forms are diverse. (cf Chittick)

Reacting to circumstances or the thoughts of others is not creativity, it is conditioning. Circumstances however operate as catalysts to arouse and awaken personal thoughts and emotions. The secret is in plunging blind-foldedly into the void inside which is actually a plenum of potentialities lying in wait in subliminal areas of the universe customized as our potentialities unbeknown to ourselves, then actuating them in our psyche and, if one is an artist, in a masterpiece. Therefore the secret is relating inside with outside.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

This plane of three dimensions is reflected in the space that is in the inner dimension; and what exists in the inner dimension is also reflected in the three dimensional space.

Creativity is free-wheeling, spontaneous, the actuation of latent potentials and resources by awakening one's awareness of them by arousing them and arousing them by awakening one's awareness of them.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

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

Ibn 'Arabi calls this process: "begetting the possible in the actual."

If you watch carefully what happens in this process, you will observe that, at first, your incentive is passive with regard to the formative process operating in your psyche at the subliminal level whereby the universe is self-organizing itself as you.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

One finds a kind of universe in oneself. If man dived deep enough within himself he would reach a point of his ego where it lives an unlimited life.

The planet has culminated into human beings. (Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism/Philosophy/ Intelligence). The whole universe has contributed to the way humanity thinks today. (Spiritual Liberty). The collective working of many minds as one single idea and the activity of the whole world are governed by the intelligence of the planet. (The Message of Spiritual Liberty). 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. (Unity of Religious Ideals).

As the qualities surfacing in the new birthing pass the threshold between the unconscious and the conscious, your will needs to customize the emerging plethora of cosmic qualities in accordance with your personal wish. (Incidentally, this rebirthing is moreover paralleled by a surge of new energy, rather than simply restoring what was damaged to the state prior to the debilitation of pristine energy.)

Ibn 'Arabi:

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. He does not determine our properties except through us; or rather we determine our own properties through ourselves though through Him. (Chittick, p. 299) 

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

All is God, but man has a body and mind of his own.

Divinity resides in humanity; it is also the outcome of humanity.
