Sufism and Spiritual Life in Islam PDF

page 1 to 3 In recent years many books have been published on Sufism and the spiritual life in Islam, Each of them has touched upon different facet, for the phenomenon usually called Sufism is so broad and its appearance so protean that nobody can venture to describe it fully. Like the blind men in...

page 1 to 3 In recent years many books have been published on Sufism and the spiritual life in Islam, Each of them has touched upon different facet, for the phenomenon usually called Sufism is so broad and its appearance so protean that nobody can venture to describe it fully. Like the blind men in Rkmi's famous story, when they were made to touch an elephant, each described it ac cording to the part of the body his hands had touched: to one the elephant appeared like a throne, to another like a fan, or like a water pipe, or like a pillar. But none was able to imagine what the whole animal would look like (M g:1259-68),! Such is the case with Sufism, the generally accepted name for Islamic mysticism. To approach its partial meaning we have to ask ourselves first, what mysticism means. That mysticism contains something mysterious, not to be reached by ordinary means or by intellectual effort, is understood from the root common to the words mystic and mystery, the Greek myein, "to close the eyes." Mysticismn has been called "the great spiritual current which through all religions." In its widest sense it may be defined as the goes consciousness of the One Reality-be it called Wisdom, Light, Love, or Nothing.' Such definitions, however, merely point our way. For the reality that is the goal of the mystic, and is ineffable, cannot be under. stood or explained by any normal mode of perception; neither philosophy nor reason can reveal it. Only the wisdom of the heart, gnosis, may give insight into some of its aspects. A spiritual experi ence that depends upon neither sensual nor rational methods is needed. Once the seeker has set forth upon the way to this Last Reality, he will be led by an inner light. This light becomes stronger as he frees himself from the attachments of this world or-as the Sufis would say--polishes the mirror of his heart. Only after a long period of purification-the via purgativa of Christian mysticism-will he be able to reach the via illuminativa, where he becomes endowed with love and gnosis. From there he may reach the last goal of all mystical quest, the unio mystica. This may be experienced and expressed as loving union, or as the visio beatifica, in which the spirit sees what is beyond all vision, surrounded by the primordial light of God; it may also be described as the "lifting of the veil of ignorance,'" the veil that covers the essential identity of God and His creatures. Mysticism can be defined as love of the Absolute-for the power that separates true mysticism fromn mere asceticism is love. Divine love makes the seeker capable of bearing, even of enjoying, all the pains and affictions that God showers upon him in order to test him and to purify his soul. This love can carry the mystic's heart to the Divine Presence "like the falcon which carries away the prey," separat1ng him, thus, from all that is created in time. One can find these essentially simple ideas in every type of mys ticism. The mystics of all religions have tried to symbolize their ex periences in three different groups of images: The never-ending quest tor God is symbolized in the "Path" on which the "way farer" has to proceed, as in the numerous allegories dealing with Pilgrim's Progress or the Heavenly Journey. The transformation of the soul through tribulation and painful purification is often expressed in the imagery of alchemy or similar processes from nature and prescientific science: the age-old dream of producing gold from base material is realized on the spiritual level. Eventual ly, the nostalgia of the lover and the longing for union was ex pressed by symbols taken from human love; often a strange and fascinating combination of human and divine love permeates the verses of the mystics. Notwithstanding similarities of description of mystical experi ences, it is advisable to distinguish between two main types, which have been classified as Mysticism of Infinity and Mysticism of Personality. The former type has found its highest and purest expression in the system of Plotinus and in the Upanishads, par ticularly as elaborated in Shankara's advaita philosophy. Sufism comes close to it in some of the forms developed by the Ibn Arabi school. Here, the Numen is conceived as the Being beyond all being, or even as the Not-Being, because it cannot be described by any of the categories of finite thought; it is infinite, timeless, spaceless, the Absolute Existence, and the Only Reality. By con trast the world possesses only a "limited reality," which derives its conditioned existence from the Absolute Existence of the Di vine. It may be symbolized as the boundless ocean in which the individual self vanishes like a drop, or as the desert, which shows itself in ever new sand dunes that hide its depths, or as the water out of which the world is crystallized like ice. This type of mys ticism was often attacked by prophets and reformers, because it seemed to deny the value of the human personality and to result in pantheism or monism, thus constituting the greatest threat to personal responsibility. The idea of continuous emanation in contrast to the unique divine act of creation was considered, by both Muslim and Christian nystics, to be incompatible with the Biblico-Koranic idea of a creatio ex nihilo. In the so- called Mys ticism of Personality, the relation between man and God is per ceived as that of creature and Creator, of a slave in the presence of his Lord, or of a lover yearning for his Beloved. This type is more commonly found in earlier Sufism.