To the Sufi, creative expression which results from participation mystique - that is, a state of being one with nature, although not conscious of the Divine Presence - is an expression of ones vision of self within self. It is an expression which is not reflective, not polished, not aware of the total possibilities inherent in the nature of things. It is only through conscious expression that one has the more perfect vision of self reflected in the qualities of something else. The only way that expression can serve in its full capacity is when it is reflective; it becomes reflective only when conscious of the Divine Presence. The reflective surface now reflects something which is contained, a Spirit which is not only ones own. this is the Spirit which is universal to all things; to the Sufi, it is the desire which exists within things to be known. The Breath of the Compassionate. The preparedness within a thing, its inner Archetype, is actualized in an intelligible form at the moment when its Name flows into it through a Word. The Divine Spirit or Logos flows into a thing through the process of the Divine Breath, the Breath of the Divine name Rahman, Compassionate. The Name of the Compassionate manifested through the Divine Breath, is just one of the many symbolic processes which the traditional craftsman emulates. By blowing or chanting the Divine Names upon the form to be transformed, the creative process of the breath, which contains the Divine Presence through a Name, transforms the object in hand. The creator participates as active agent and the object participates as passive recipient. There is a Tradition of the Prophet in which he says, God created the universe through the Breath of the Compassionate. The Compassionate Rahman is the higher of the names, Ideas or ARchetypes. Where was your Lord before creating the visible Creation? someone asked the Prophet. His answer: in a cloud. There was no space either above or below. This cloud which the Divine Being exhaled, and in which it originally was, receives all forms at the same time as it gives beings their forms. It is the act of making things to exist. The Absolute, appearing in the Name, Compassion, overflowing with goodness, gives existence without limit and without end. When the desire to be known, the preparedness, arises within a thing, the Divine in Compassion extends Itself as Archetype to the thing and becomes its receptivity, its ability to receive the theophany. This receptivity is actually what the Archetype, in its state of concrete essence, desires. Therefore, the actual effect of Compassion is to give a thing the possibility of receiving sensible existence. Compassion is given without any discrimination; Mercy, the complement, is given only for an act done. Compassion, in a sense, is the universal form of Divine giving; Mercy is the particular aspect. Through the Name of Compassion, the Absolute breathes out upon the other Names or Archetypes. This breathing out is a means of being things into existence. By means of the Command Be! the Absolute through Compassion sends into the external, phenomenal world that which has been compressed within it. This Divine Breath is Nature itself, just as the Breath contains all the forms of the universe in a potential state and actualizes them by exhaling, so Nature holds all forms of expression in a potential state of preparedness in which they await the appearance of the Breath of the Compassionate, the Spirit, the Logos, in order to be known. This breath is essentially the initial act of the metaphysic of love. Love is the cause and secret of all creation and thereby the principle of all motion from desire to being known. the creation of the world, in this sense, was the motion of love towards perfection and completion. The absolute loves to be perfect in both types of forms intelligible and sensible. Ultimately, one who wishes to know the Breath of the Compassionate need only know Self, for Self is the Lord who is manifested in the form. Ones innermost being is most directly expressed through speech. Speech on the human plane reflects the Divine Word or Logos; it was the Word that create the universe and it is through the Word that it returns to God. Invocation (zikr) is the means of reaching the very substance of things within us. Everything contains the Presence of the Divine. The ideas of intellections in our minds are like those Ideas in the mind of the Absolute. A word contains both a meaning and the thing itself, which has a form. the meaning is permanent, the Divine Idea; the form the thing takes is but a shadow, transient. The Ideas are made temporal through the Breath of the Compassionate. In Sufism, christ symbolizes the particular Divine Quality of the Breath of the Compassionate, for it is through the Breath that all things receive life. When the Word of God comes into the hart of anyone and the Divine Inspiration enters his heart and soul, its nature is such that there is produce in him a spiritual child having the breath of Jesus that revives the dead. (R. Nicholson, Mathnawl.) The Universe, in the Sufi view, is being re-created at every moment. At every moment what appears to be a time-connected universe returns to God. There is continuous, instantaneous expansion and contraction. The manifestation of actualized individual things occurs continually, as in successive waves. At every moment creation is annihilated and re-created. Wtih each heartbeat we die and are reborn. the world is in intense motion, ascending towards the vertical axis within all things to meet the descent of the Absolute in manifested forms. The flow occurs in such an orderly, successive manner, according to definite patterns, that we are unaware of it, and the world appears to us to stay the same. This ever-new creation is a process which only the human form endowed with consciousness of Self can come to know. The wonder of wonders is that the human form and all other created things are in a perpetual process of ascending. And yet one is not ordinarily aware of this because of the extreme thinness and fineness of the veil (when one looks at something through a very transparent veil, one does not become aware of the veil between oneself and the object) or because of the extreme similarity between the successive forms. How splendid is Gods description of the universe, and of its perpetual renewal with each Divine Breath which constitutes an ever new creation in one single entity! But this is perceived by only a few, as the Quran says: Nay, they are in utter confusion regarding the new creation. (50:15) These people who do not perceive are in confusion because they do not know the constant renewal of things with each Divine Breath. (T. Izutsu.) Taken from: Sufi Expressions of the Mystic Quest by Laleh Bakhtiar
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 14:13:36 +0000
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