None would know that these beams are from him, 100 So you fancy that this world of itself is permanent From far-sightedness of overweening reason From one-eyedness that of God's remoteness." From the same cause arose false and vain Metempsychosis,' 2 'The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains, Are not these, O Soul, the vision of Him who reigns? Is not the vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems?' Far-sighted reason goes astray because it looks afar off for " The Truth," which is nearer to us than our neck vein.' L. The philosopher regards necessary and contingent matter as two distinct entities, whereas there is only the 'One.' L. 4 * Halul, descending, descent of the Spirit, the incarnation of God in Christ. L. The Sufi sect called Nasriah, or Haluliah, held that God had descended into individual men. See Sale's Koran, Prelim. Discourse, 125; Malcolm's Persia, II. 271. 5 Tashbih, assimilation. The "Assimilators," says Lahiji, liken God to a material body dwelling above the highest heaven, 'arsh, (i.e. they are, as we should say, anthropomorphists). Lahiji says these two doctrines are erroneous apart, but true together. God is remote from contingency, but is connected with the phenomenal world in that it is His reflection. "Tanzih, declaring God to be without an equal, exalted above, and remote from matter. Tanasukh, transmigration of souls. Since it had its origin from defective sight. He is like one born blind, cut off from perfection, Men of externals have ophthalmia in both eyes,' For they see in external objects naught but the external. The theologians who has no perception of Unitarianism * Is in utter darkness in clouds and bondage of dogmas ;" 110 Whatever each says about Unity, more or less, Affords a specimen of his own power of insight. 5 The Divine Essence is freed from where, how, and why." 'The schismatics, or Mutazzalites, deny the eternity, baka, of God, and are therefore debarred from attaining to true insight into the verities of things. L. The men of externals (ahl i Zahir) are dominated by externals, and do not penetrate to "The Truth" within them. L. 3 The Mutakallamin, or scholastic theologians, are they who tread the road to Divine knowledge with the foot of logic and not of illumination.' L. Al-kalam is defined in the Dabistan as the science enabling one to confirm the truth of religion by logical demonstration, and thus corresponds to the scholasticism of mediæval Europe. Tauhid, Unification, Unitarianism, belief in God's unity, acknowledging that all things are One. See Answer VII. and Hafiz (Brockhaus' edition), Ode 465 : 'Hafiz, when preaching unity, with Unitarian pen Blot out and cancel every page that tells of spirits and men.' In the Dabistan, chapter xi., is given a list of the principal technical terms of the Muhammadan faith, with their exoteric or ordinary meanings, and with the esoteric meanings given to them by Miyan Bayazid, a Punjabi Sufi. The work of Tauhid is said to be "To annihilate self in the absolute Truth, and to become eternal in the Absolute, and to be made one with the One, and to abstain from evil." Taklid, putting a collar on the neck, blind imitation, canting, bondage, subservience to authority; compare the definition of religio from religare. Old women's religion is said to consist of taklid. The perfected Sufi advances from the stage of bondage, taklid, to that of absolute liberty and consciousness of truth, itlak wa tahkik. Compare St. Paul's expressions, "carnal ordinances," "law of a carnal commandment," "the yoke of bondage." • I.e., from quantity, quality, and relation. He is therefore incognoscible by the mind of man so long as it is not 'illumined' by Divine grace. L. Koran, Sura XVI. 3: Let Him be exalted above the gods they join with Him.' QUESTION II. What sort of thought is the condition of my path? ANSWER II. To think on the mercies is the condition of your path,' But to think on the essence of "The Truth" is grievous sin. Know it is impossible to demonstrate the manifest.2 Let reason go, and abide in "The Truth." In that place where God's light is our guide, 1 Alluding to the Hadis, 'Think on the mercies of God, not on the essence of God.' * Tahsil i hasil, "The Truth" is more general than His works, and thus demonstrating Him from His works is demonstrating the general and more known from the particular and less known. And again, knowledge of God is gained by illumination and intuition, and demonstration of ultimate facts of consciousness is impossible. L. 3 Aiat, texts, names of God, works or signs of God. The face of "The Truth" is not displayed till all the illusory phenomena, which veil it, are annihilated. L. But is it unreasonable to confess that we believe in God not by reason of the nature which conceals him, but by reason of the supernatural in man which reveals him ?'-Jacobi, quoted in Hamilton's Metaphysics, I. 40. Gabriel was the "angel of revelation." See Koran, Sura II. 91. This refers to the tradition, 'There are times when I am with God in such wise that neither highest angel nor prophet apostle can attain thereto.' Like as His light utterly burns up the angels,' So it burns up reason from head to foot. Reason's light applied to the very Light of lights, Is as the eye of the head applied to the sun. When the object seen is very near to the eye, The eye is darkened so that it cannot see it." This blackness, if you know it, is the light of very Being; In the land of darkness is the well-spring of life. * 125 Since the dark destroys the light of vision, 2 Give up looking, for this is no place for looking.5. All phenomena are annihilated in Him. L. 2 The mental bewilderment or darkness which occurs to the mystic is the light of Absolute Being approaching close to him. L. See a passage of Dionysius, the pseudo-Arcopagite, quoted in Tholuck (Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländischen Mystik), p. 9: "Then is he delivered from all things seeing or being seen, and dives down into the truly mystical darkness of ignorance, wherein he closes up all the intellectual apprehensions, and finds himself in the utterly impalpable and invisible, being entirely in Him who is beyond all, and in none else, either himself or another; being united as to his nobler part with the utterly unknown by the cessation of all knowing, and at the same time, in that very knowing nothing, knowing what transcends the mind of man." And Blosius (quoted in Vaughan, I. 290): “The light is called dark from its excessive brightness." * Alluding to the "water of life" found by the prophet Khizr in the land of darkness. 4 When the mystic annihilates all phenomena, self included, which veil the face of "The Truth," and is drawn near to, and united with "The Truth," seer and seen are identified, and looking is no longer possible. The dust, i.e. the contingent is naught but the reflection in not being of Necessary Being, which in itself is pure from the stain of contingency and plurality. Therefore the contingent is impotent to perceive "The Truth" in the ordinary way, and its highest degree of perception is to be absorbed in the "The Truth," when its eyes are blinded by excess of light, and its vision is unconsciousness, inability to be conscious of seeing. L. 'Blackness of face-nothingness, not being. The contingent is naught but not being, and its highest perfection is to be conscious of this, and to annihilate self by absorption in "The Truth." L. Blackness of face in both worlds is poverty,' Blackness is most precious, neither more nor less. 'A light night that shineth in a dark day.'' 130 On this place of witnessing which is the light of Epiphany, I have much to say, but not to say it is best. If ILLUSTRATION. you desire to behold the eye of the sun, Since the eye of the head has not strength enough, 1 That Unity is exposed to view in this plurality, 1 Referring to the Hadis, 'Poverty is my peace.' Poverty with the Sufis means self annihilation. 2 This darkness is light, because it shows "The Truth," free from the veil of plurality. It shines in a day, i. e. the visible world of phenomena, but this day is dark because phenomena veil "The Truth." L. Divine Epiphanies, such as that to Moses at the burning bush, and to Mohammad on the night of his ascension. See couplet 367. ''Adm, privation of being, not being. The 'to me on' of the Eleatics, handed on to the Sufis through Plato, Plotinus and the Arabian philosophers. See Jami, Tuhfatul-Inrar. Mokamat, I.: 'In its cradle lay with suspended breath The infant of creation in the sleep of not being. The eyes of that Beauty seeing what was not Though he beheld in His own perfections The beauties of all things and their qualities, Yet He desired that in another mirror They might be displayed to His view.' |