Part of life is letting go of old identities. Old categories we have thought about ourselves in. Categories which we have gained life from and thus have continued to adapt ourselves to. We cling tightly because we don’t know what will be left if we are no longer seen, or see ourselves, in certain ways.
I’m trying to let go. To lose attachment to old ways I have thought about who I am and who I want to be.
Once I had the thought, “Everybody is ugly.” What a terrible way to see the world.
Our culture conditions us to see our flaws, especially our physical flaws. It’s sick. I obsess over it sometimes.
I want to learn to see Beauty in all people.
One effect of my meditative practice that has stood out recently is the effect of keeping reality fresh. Every day is its own thing. Every portion of the day is its own thing. If I go through long stretches without practicing, that effect seems to go away. Moments, stretches, days lose their sense of newness to me. It’s time to get back to monk days.
Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.
My friends and I go running out into the street.
I’m in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren’t listening.
We’re looking up at the sky.
My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden.
Ringdoves scatter with small cries, Where, Where.
It’s midnight. The whole neighborhood is up and out
in the street thinking, The cat burglar has come back.
The actual thief is there too, saying out loud,
Yes, the cat burglar is somewhere in this crowd.
No one pays attention.
Lo, I am with you always means that when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you.
There’s no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.
There is a strong poetic element in the Sufi Tradition, and many Sufi philosophers have also be poets. Rumi is perhaps the most well-known Sufi poet.
“Sufism is a mystical path of love in which God, or Truth, is experienced as the Beloved. The inner relationship of lover and Beloved is the core of the Sufi path. Through love the seeker is taken to God. The mystic seeks to realize Truth in this life and God reveals Himself within the hearts of those who love Him. The mystical experience of God is a state of oneness with God. This unio mystica is the goal of the traveller, or wayfarer, on the mystical path.”
– Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufism: Transformation of the Heart
“As for the prayer of the heart, it is associated in Sufism with dhikr, or invocation of God’s Names. This quintessential form of prayer begins with invocation of the tongue, then with the mind and with our imaginal faculty, and finally with and in the heart, where the Divine Spark has always resided… The dhikr is in the final analysis the act of God Himself within us. In reality only God can utter His Name, and in the dhikr we become simply the instrument through which God utters His own sacred Name… In ordinary prayer men and women address God in an I-Thou relationship. In the prayer that is intertwined with love, the I and the Thou melt into each other. In contemplative prayer, the inner intellect or spirit, which is itself a Divine Spark to which Meister Eckhart refers when he says that there is in the soul something uncreated and uncreatable…is able to transcend the I-Thou dichotomy altogether. This faculty is able to plunge into the Supreme Reality and, in drowning in the Ocean of Divinity, to know it. It is to these realities that Plotinus was referring when he spoke of the flight of the alone to the Alone…As human beings, we have the ability to reach the state of extinction and annihilation and yet have consciousness that we are nothing in ourselves and that all being belongs to God. We can reach a state of unitive consciousness prior to bifurcation into object and subject.”
– Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Garden of Truth
The task is the same every day. Live selflessly in the present, giving yourself fully to the people you are with and the tasks you are called to. It doesn’t matter if you get the thing you think will make you happy or not. Changing life circumstances are just new contexts to live out the same call. The task is the same every new day.
“Invoking strengthens the heart and the body, puts inner and outer affairs in order, gladdens the heart and face, making the latter radiant. Moreover, it procures sustenance and facilitates obtaining it. It clothes the invoker with dignity; it inspires correct behavior in every affair. Its permanence is one of the means of obtaining the love of God; it is one of the greatest gateways leading to that love. Invoking causes the vigilance that leads to the station of spiritual virtue, wherein the servant adores God as if he saw Him with his very own eyes. It causes one to turn to God often; for whoever turns to God by remembering Him frequently will eventually turn to Him in all his affairs. Invoking brings closeness to the Lord and opens the door of gnosis within the heart. It bestows on the servant the veneration and reverential fear of his Lord…The invocation is the nourishment of the soul just as food is the nourishment of the body. Invoking polishes the heart of its rust, which is forgetfulness and the pursuit of its passions.”
– Ibn Ata Allah Al-Iskandari, The Key to Salvation and the Lamp of Souls
In the Sufi Tradition, the state of fana is sometimes described as self-extinction in God, and is thought to be achievable (by grace) through meditative Dhikr.
“Its beginning is only with the tongue, then comes invocation with the heart with effort; then comes invocation with the heart naturally; then comes possession of the heart by the Invoked and the effacement of the invoker.”
“Invocation is an inner reality in which the Invoked takes possession of the heart while the invoker is effaced and vanishes. But it has three coverings, one closer to the kernel than the others. The kernel as such is beyond the three coverings, yet the virtue of the coverings lies in their being the way to the kernel.”
“This is fana, that a man be extinguished from himself.”
– Ibn Ata Allah Al-Iskandari, The Key to Salvation and the Lamp of Souls
“Know that there are four degrees of Remembrance (of God): The first is that it be with the tongue while the soul is inattentive. The effect of this is weak, but it is still not without some effect, for the tongue that is busy with service is better than the tongue that is busy with foolishness or left in idleness. The second is that it be in the soul, but not established firmly and dwelling (in it). It is as though the soul must be constrained to do it, so that if there were no (conscious) effort and constraint, the soul would, from inattention and the whisperings of the self, revert to its normal nature. The third is that in which the remembrance is resident, established, and dominant in the soul, so much so that there is no more need for importuning. This is tremendous! The fourth is that in which the Remembered – and that is God Most High – overwhelms the soul, not the remembrance. There is a difference between him whose entire soul loves the Remembered and him who loves the Remembrance. Rather, the perfection of that is that the remembrance and the awareness of the remembrance go from the soul, leaving the Remembered and nothing else… When one becomes immersed thus, one forgets oneself and all there is, save God Most High. One arrives at the beginning of the way of mysticism. This state is called by the Sufis ‘annihilation (of the self).’ It is also called ‘non-existence (of the self).’”
– Al-Ghazzali, On the Remembrance of God Most High
“In contemplative prayer, the inner intellect or spirit, which is itself a Divine Spark to which Meister Eckhart refers when he says that there is in the soul something uncreated and uncreatable… is able to transcend the I-Thou dichotomy altogether. This faculty is able to plunge into the Supreme Reality and, in drowning in the Ocean of Divinity, to know it.”
“As human beings, we have the ability to reach the state of extinction and annihilation and yet have consciousness that we are nothing in ourselves and that all being belongs to God. We can reach a state of unitive consciousness prior to bifurcation into object and subject.”
– Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Garden of Truth
The following is a lecture from Seyyed Hossein Nasr on “Sacred Silence in Sufism.” In the original lecture, Nasr was paired with a conversation partner representing Vedanta. This audio can also be found with the site Audio Files.
“The world appears to us as multiplicity, and the goal of the spiritual life is to ascend from this multiplicity to unity, to see the One in the many and the many integrated into the One. Now the doctrine of the oneness of Being does not negate the reality of multiplicity. Nor does it claim that God is the world and the world in its totality is God, a position held by pantheists. How could a metaphysics that speaks so categorically of the transcendence of God be accused of pantheism? What the Sufis assert is not that God is the world, but that the world is mysteriously plunged in God, to use a formulation of Frithjof Schuon. Existence is a manifestation of Being, and all existence issues from and belongs to Being in the same way that the rays of the sun are finally nothing but the sun.
Some Sufis and Islamic philosophers have interpreted the doctrine of the oneness of Being to mean that all levels of being come from the one Being, that all the rays of light emanate from the sun, while many Sufis claim that on the highest level of understanding there is in fact only the one and absolute Being. Viewed from within the sun, there is nothing but sun…”
– Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Garden of Truth
I find the analogy of the Sun and the Sun’s rays to be helpful when thinking about unity and multiplicity in the context of the contemplative traditions. From the perspective of a ray of light, after it projects outward from the Sun, it can look around and see other “Sun-rooted” rays of light – the world of multiplicity. But from the perspective of the Sun, there is “Nothing But Sun.”
Unity and Multiplicity. Multiplicity and Unity.
The “Oneness of Being” is a core concept in much of philosophical Sufism.
“We live in times of spiritual uncertainty and great contradictions. We witness signs of cultural collapse and long for a vision of hope. The situation for many in the postmodern era is that all religious truths seem to be relativized; no religion seems absolute anymore. In this situation, even a life of faith and morality is no assurance of salvation. We live with unnamed anxieties and guilt. An undercurrent of shame and unworthiness moves just beneath the surface of our busy lives. We try to find cosmic satisfaction in a lifestyle, a career, a self-image, or a romantic relationship. Some employ therapists to attain self-acceptance, forgiveness, and understanding…
Furthermore, there is no shared cultural myth, no unifying vision to bind us together with the wider society. The servitude to religious forms and structures is quickly disappearing, to be replaced only by a worship of the self or a compulsive escape from the self. The worship of the self conceals itself in many forms: fashion, fitness, career. The escape from the self is served by vast industries that more and more shape our lives: professional sports, alcohol and narcotics, gambling, mass media, and the entertainment of sex and violence.
…Furthermore, we exist in a psychologically fragmented state, a state of continuous inner conflicts among the parts of ourselves. We have lost the principle of unity within ourselves. We are not only psychological polytheists, worshipping gods of our own creation, we are ‘poly-selfists,’ because we have many selves and have not known our essential self.”
– Kabir Helminski, The Knowing Heart
The Islamic Contemplative Tradition and Dhikr pages on the site have been updated.
You can’t. Every small thing you do is important. The conversation you have could change one person’s life and through that person a thousand.
“As the One does not contain any difference, He is always present; and we are ever present to Him as soon as we contain no more difference. It is not He who is aspiring to us, or who is moving around us; on the contrary, it is we who are aspiring to Him. We resemble a chorus which always surrounds its leader, but (the members of) which do not always sing in time because they allow their attention to be distracted to some exterior object; while, if they turned towards the leader, they would sing well, and really be with him. Likewise, we always turn around the One, even when we detach ourselves from Him, and cease knowing Him. Our glance is not always fixed on the One; but when we contemplate Him, we attain the purpose of our desires, and enjoy the rest taught by Heraclitus. Then we disagree no more, and really form a divine choric ballet around Him….
…In this choric ballet, the soul sees the source of life, the source of intelligence, the principle of being, the cause of the good, and the root of love. All these entities are derived from the One without diminishing Him. He is indeed no corporeal mass, otherwise the things that are born of Him would be perishable. However, they are eternal, because their principle ever remains the same, because He does not divide himself to produce them, but remains entire. They persist, just as the light persists so long as the sun remains. Nor are we separated from the One; we are not distant from Him, though corporeal nature, by approaching us, has attracted us to it (thus drawing us away from the One). But it is in the One that we breathe and have our being. He gave us life not merely at a given moment, only to leave us later; but His giving is perpetual, so long as He remains what He is, or rather, so long as we turn towards Him. There it is that we find happiness, while to withdraw from Him is to fall. It is in Him that our soul rests; it is by rising to that place free from all evil that she is delivered from evils; there she really thinks, there she is impassible, there she really lives.”
– Plotinus, Ennead VI.9 Of the Good and the One
For Plotinus, if we fix our eyes on the One – the Source – , we can sing and dance rightly.
“In short, the divinity is not outside of any being. On the contrary, He is present to all beings, though these may be ignorant thereof. This happens because they are fugitives, wandering outside of Him or rather, outside of themselves….
…Self-knowledge reveals the fact that the soul’s natural movement is not in a straight line, unless indeed it has undergone some deviation. On the contrary, it circles around something interior, around a center. Now the center is that from which proceeds the circle, that is, the soul. The soul will therefore move around the center, that is, around the principle from which she proceeds; and, trending towards it, she will attach herself to it, as indeed all souls should do. The souls of the divinities ever direct themselves towards it; and that is the secret of their divinity; for divinity consists in being attached to the Centre (of all souls). Anyone who withdraws much therefrom is a man who has remained manifold (that is, who has never become unified)…”
– Plotinus, Ennead VI.9 Of the Good and the One
“We must close the eyes of the body, to open another vision, which indeed all possess, but very few employ…
…But how shall we train this interior vision? At the moment of its first awakening, it cannot contemplate beauties too dazzling. Your soul must then first be accustomed to contemplate the noblest occupations of man, and then the beautiful deeds, not indeed those performed by artists, but those (good deeds) done by virtuous men. Later contemplate the souls of those who perform these beautiful actions. Nevertheless, how will you discover the beauty which their excellent soul possesses? Withdraw within yourself, and examine yourself. If you do not yet therein discover beauty, do as the artist, who cuts off, polishes, purifies until he has adorned his statue with all the marks of beauty. Remove from your soul, therefore, all that is superfluous, straighten out all that is crooked, purify and illuminate what is obscure, and do not cease perfecting your statue until the divine resplendence of virtue shines forth upon your sight, until you see temperance in its holy purity seated in your breast. When you shall have acquired perfection; when you will see it in yourself, when you will purely dwell within yourself, when you will cease to meet within yourself any obstacle to unity, when nothing foreign will any more, by its admixture, alter the simplicity of your interior essence, when within your whole being you will be a veritable light, immeasurable in size, uncircumscribed by any figure within narrow boundaries, unincreasable because reaching out to infinity, and entirely incommensurable because it transcends all measure and quantity, when you shall have become such, then, having become sight itself, you may have confidence in yourself, for you will no longer need any guide. Then must you observe carefully, for it is only by the eye that then will open itself within you that you will be able to perceive supreme Beauty.”
– Plotinus, Ennead I.6 Of Beauty
Purify yourself of all that is not beautiful. Close your eyes, dwell within yourself. “The eye will then open itself within you.” This seems to be as close as Plotinus gets to a meditative method.
Flowerly language aside, Plotinus’ emphasis on striving to perfect oneself morally as a precursor to “the contemplative experience” is another common element among the world’s contemplative traditions.
“How shall we start, and later arrive at the contemplation of this ineffable beauty which, like the divinity in the mysteries, remains hidden in the recesses of a sanctuary, and does not show itself outside, where it might be perceived by the profane? We must advance into this sanctuary, penetrating into it, if we have the strength to do so, closing our eyes to the spectacle of terrestrial things, without throwing a backward glance on the bodies whose graces formerly charmed us. If we do still see corporeal beauties, we must no longer rush at them, but, knowing that they are only images, traces and adumbrations of a superior principle, we will flee from them, to approach Him of whom they are merely reflections. Whoever would let himself be misled by the pursuit of those vain shadows, mistaking them for realities, would grasp only an image as fugitive as the fluctuating form reflected by the waters, and would resemble that senseless (Narcissus) who, wishing to grasp that image himself, according to the fable, disappeared, carried away by the current.”
– Plotinus, Ennead I.6 Of Beauty
Here Plotinus echoes many of the contemplative traditions in encouraging “fleeing the things of the world.” The things of this world are merely shadows, “as fugitive as the fluctuating form reflected by the waters.” Whether they must be rejected/given up completely, or merely abstained from for a time so that the heart may become unattached, is a matter of debate within the traditions, and perhaps among each individual seeker.
To engage in the world without attachment, to appreciate all the beauty in the world – but without seeing its forms as absolute, or coming to them with craving or need – is sometimes seen as characteristic of one who has matured on the contemplative path. The final stage of the Zen Oxherding Pictures (Returning to the Marketplace with Helping Hands) may be one way of expressing this.
“Thus, in her ascension towards divinity, the soul advances until, having risen above everything that is foreign to her, she alone with Him who is alone, beholds, in all His simplicity and purity, Him from whom all depends, to whom all aspires, from whom everything draws its existence, life and thought. He who beholds him is overwhelmed with love; with ardor desiring to unite himself with Him, entranced with ecstasy. Men who have not yet seen Him desire Him as the Good; those who have, admire Him as sovereign beauty, struck simultaneously with stupor and pleasure, thrilling in a painless orgasm, loving with a genuine emotion, with an ardor without equal, scorning all other affections, and disdaining those things which formerly they characterized as beautiful. This is the experience of those to whom divinities and guardians have appeared; they reck no longer of the beauty of other bodies. Imagine, if you can, the experiences of those who behold Beauty itself, the pure Beauty, which, because of its very purity, is fleshless and bodiless, outside of earth and heaven. All these things, indeed are contingent and composite, they are not principles, they are derived from Him. What beauty could one still wish to see after having arrived at vision of Him who gives perfection to all beings, though himself remains unmoved, without receiving anything; after finding rest in this contemplation, and enjoying it by becoming assimilated to Him? Being supreme beauty, and the first beauty, He beautifies those who love Him, and thereby they become worthy of love. This is the great, the supreme goal of souls; this is the goal which arouses all their efforts, if they do not wish to be disinherited of that sublime contemplation the enjoyment of which confers blessedness, and privation of which is the greatest of earthy misfortunes. Real misfortune is not to lack beautiful colors, nor beautiful bodies, nor power, nor domination, nor royalty. It is quite sufficient to see oneself excluded from no more than possession of beauty. This possession is precious enough to render worthless domination of a kingdom, if not the whole earth, of the sea, or even of the heavens – if indeed it were possible, while abandoning and scorning all that (natural beauty) to succeed in contemplating beauty face to face.”
– Plotinus, Ennead I.6 Of Beauty
“Alone with the Alone” is perhaps the most widely quoted language from Plotinus, which he uses more famously at the end of his essay Of The Good and The One.
“We must ascend to the Good to which every soul aspires. Whoever has seen it knows what I still have to say, and knows the beauty of the Good. Indeed, the Good is desirable for its own sake; it is the goal of our desires. To attain it, we have to ascend to the higher regions, turn towards them, and lay aside the garment which we put on when descending here below; just as in the (Eleusynian, or Isiac) mysteries, those who are admitted to penetrate the recesses of the sanctuary, after having purified themselves, lay aside every garment, and advance stark naked.”
– Plotinus, Ennead I.6 Of Beauty
The writings of Plotinus (204-271 CE) represent a major strand of Neoplatonic thought. In Neoplatonic thought, the soul’s ultimate good is sometimes conceptualized as “a return to the One” – alternatively referenced as the One, Divinity, Unity, the Good, the Beautiful – the Ultimate Principle from which all emanates. Personally, I view Neoplatonism as a development in the Platonic Theory of Forms, but more explicitly unified in a vision of God or the Absolute. Neoplatonism likely influenced Christian and other forms of mysticism, especially through Pseudo-Dionysius.
In Neoplatonic thought, matter (referenced above in the idea of “descending here below”) is generally regarded as evil, or at least inconsequential to the soul’s task. Plotinus also here references the Greek “Mystery Religions,” and sometimes uses their rituals as demonstrative analogies.
The following posts will be a series of quotations from Plotinus’ Of Beauty and Of the Good and the One.