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The God of the Philosophers

Thales (546 B.C.) said that God is mind (nous). The universe is alive
and full of divine power. "Everything is full of Gods." He even noted
that a stone had a soul.

Anaximander (532 B.C.) - the beginning and the fundamental substance
(stoicheion) of things is an infinite something - "The Boundless" as
he designates it. He also says the "apeiron", the absolute is the
source of all things.Other elements are constantly being exchanged,
but the Boundless cannot partake of this changeableness, or else it
would pass away. The Boundless is not like the other elements.

This Boundless is uncreated and indestructible, being itself primary.
It has no cause, but causes all other things.

Heracleitus (500 B.C.) - God is wisest of all. When we die our souls
mount up and live. The deathless are dead, the dead are deathless.

Pythagoras (532 B.C.) - The ruler and cause (arche) of all things is
one eternal God, unique, unmoving, wholly like himself and different
from all else. Being is one and there can be none else.

Xenophanes (536 B.C.) - God is one and incorporeal. Neither in
appearance nor in mind does he resemble mortals. God is without parts
(homoion pantei) defined spherical and perceptive in all parts. The
Unmoving, the effective cause, but most simply the existing one.
There can only be one (sounds like a movie!). He is neither boundless
nor bound, neither the center, nor moving, nor motionless, etc. He is
everywhere the same.

Melissus (440 B.C.) - If nothing exists there is nothing to talk
about. If something exists it is either created or timeless. If
created it must come out of something else. It cannot come out of
what does not exist, yet neither can it come out of what does exist,
therefore what exists has always existed. It is unperishable and
uncreated, therefore it is boundless, and hence one, hence unmoving,
since the infinite has nowhere to go. There is no empty space or the
one would fill it.

Anaxagoras (428 B.C.) - no creation and no passing away, just an
eternal mixing and reshuffling of elements. Nous came and gave
structure to chaos. Nous is independent of all things. Only mind is
unlimited and self-existent. It is the great mover, itself unmoved
and invulnerable. Mind gives meaning, and hence being, to all things.

Empedocles (444 B.C.) - God has no human body parts, but he is
sacred, ineffable, indescribable, Mind (Phren), filling the whole
vast universe with his thoughts. He is not known through the senses,
but with the intellect, right reasoning, dikaios logos.

Protagoras (440 B.C.) - He doesn't know whether the Gods exist or not.

Socrates (399 B.C.) - the divinity in us is invisible.

Antisthenes (444 B.C.) - No one can ever know God because there is
nothing to compare Him with (no eikon)

Euclid (440 B.C.) - Some call God intellect (phronesis), some god,
some mind (nous). Only the Good exists. its opposite is nonexistence.
This one Good is uniform and always the same.

Plato (347 B.C.) - The boundless, the limit or definition (number,
measure), the mixture of these both = our universe, the creator and
cause of it all, God.

God is simple, eternal, pure mind.

The operation of the mind is obvious by looking at the motion of the
celestial bodies.

God is good and causes all good.

Mind, not just necessity created all things.

This cosmos is a living organism with a mind (nous), truly created by
the providence (pronoia) of God.

Aristotle (347 B.C.) - Only philosophy contemplates the immobile,
immaterial, self-existent substratum. The most basic of all first
principles is that nothing can be and not be at the same time. It
cannot have parts, as these are limiting, and the infinite is not
limited. Hence God is infinite and unlimited. The great primal body,
moving on its own axis, is uncreated, indestructible and not subject
to increase of diminution.

Epicurus (306 B.C.) - God is an immortal, imperishable - "aphtharton".

Philo (39 A.D.) - God is simple, absolutely one, and unmixed. He has
no parts, no body, which would diminish him, therefore God is not
compound. While he is older than the cosmos, he is the creator of the
cosmos. He is a monad, One. Impossible to view God, all we can
comprehend is His existence, everything else is beyond us.

Appollonius (1st century A.D.) - God is one and apart from all
things, He is utterly unlike anything corporeal (bodily in nature).
God needs nothing, he is mind and has no organs.

Plutarch (120 A.D.) - God is not like man or anything on earth. has
no body, great or small, but is unutterable, indefinable,
incomparable, to anything else.

Plotinus (242 A.D.) - God embraces all, all nous, all God, all soul.
Being all good, why should he change? Having all things present with
him, where would he go? Being perfect, what more can he seek? Mind is
all, embracing itself all in itself, it is one and eternal, having no
past, present and future. Mind supports being and being is the
substance of mind. For to know is to be, each the cause of the other,
but though they are two, they are one. To seek is the act of an
unsatisfied mind, nous and being are the same, the idea is
inseparable from the Nous that has it; the substance of thought is
thought. All matter is evil, there is nothing true and good in it,
since it is the opposite of perfect being.

=======

When thought, discipline and experience have done their utmost and
finally accept utter defeat, they then cease to function altogether.
That state is beyond both words and silence. It is
neither one thing nor another. The Absolute noumemon cannot be
experienced. To know it is to BE it.

- Ramesh S. Balsekar

"A Net of Jewels"
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Advaita Press, 1966

=======

A deranged person went to a group of children and told them,

"Go to the king's palace, he is giving a party."

The children, hearing of the party immediately went rushing off to the
king's palace. There they found no party, so disappointedly they
started to make their way back. They met up with the deranged person
who was following them.

They asked him, "You knew very well that there is no party, so why
did you follow us?"

"Well, said the deranged person, "I followed, just in case it is true
that the king is giving a party, and I miss out"

We smile, but our situation is not that different from that man. We
too know in the heart of our hearts that all our worldly pursuits are
futile and yet we continue to pursue them just in case they happen to
bear fruitful results and we miss out.

===================

http://answering-islam.de/Main/Books/Mystics/chap3.htm

CHAPTER III

THE GNOSIS

THE Sufis distinguish three organs of spiritual communication: the
heart (qalb), which knows God; the spirit (ruh), which loves Him; and
the inmost ground of the soul (sirr), which contemplates Him. It
would take us into deep waters if we were to embark upon a discussion
of these terms and their relation to each other. A few words
concerning the first of the three will suffice. The qalb, though
connected in some mysterious way with the physical heart, is not a
thing of flesh and blood. Unlike the English 'heart,' its nature is
rather intellectual than emotional, but whereas the intellect cannot
gain real knowledge of God, the qalb is capable of knowing the
essences of all things, and when illumined by faith and knowledge
reflects the whole content of the divine mind; hence the Prophet
said, "My earth and My heaven contain Me not, but the heart of My
faithful servant containeth Me." This revelation, however, is a
comparatively rare experience.

Normally, the heart is 'veiled,' blackened by sin, tarnished by
sensual impressions and images, pulled to and fro between reason and
passion: a battlefield on which the armies of God and the Devil
contend for victory. Through one gate, the heart receives immediate
knowledge of God; through another, it lets in the illusions of
sense. "Here a world and there a world," says Jalaluddin Rumi. "I am
seated on the threshold." Therefore man is potentially lower than the
brutes and higher than the angels.

"Angel and brute man's wondrous leaven compose;

To these inclining, less than these he grows,

But if he means the angel, more than those."

Less than the brutes, because they lack the knowledge that would
enable them to rise; more than the angels, because they are not
subject to passion and so cannot fall.

How shall a man know God? Not by the senses, for He is immaterial;
nor by the intecllect, for He is unthinkable. Logic never gets beyond
the finite; philosophy sees double; book-learning fosters self-
conceit and obscures the idea of the Truth with clouds of empty
words. Jalaluddin Rumi, addressing the scholastic theologian, asks
scornfully:

"Do you know a name without a thing answering to it?

Have you ever plucked a rose from R, O, S, E?

You name His name; go, seek the reality named by it!

Look for the moon in the sky, not in the water!

If you desire to rise above mere names and letters,

Make yourself free from self at one stroke.

Become pure from all attributes of self,

That you may see your own bright essence,

Yea, see in your own heart the knowledge of the Prophet,

Without book, without tutor, without preceptor."

This knowledge comes by illumination, revelation, inspiration.

"Look in your own heart," says the Sufi, "for the kingdom of God is
within you." He who truly knows himself knows God, for the heart is a
mirror in which every divine quality is reflected. But just as a
steel mirror when coated with rust loses its power of reflexion, so
the inward spiritual sense, which Sufis call the eye of the heart, is
blind to the celestial glory until the dark obstruction of the
phenomenal self, with all its sensual contaminations, has been wholly
cleared away. The clearance, if it is to be done effectively, must be
the work of God, though it demands a certain inward co-operation on
the part of man. "Whosoever shall strive for Our sake, We will guide
him into Our ways" (Kor. 29.69). Action is false and vain, if it is
thought to proceed from one's self, but the enlightened mystic
regards God as the real agent in every act, and therefore takes no
credit for his good works nor desires to be recompensed for them.

While ordinary knowledge is denoted by the term 'ilm, the mystic
knowledge peculiar to the Sufis is called ma'rifat or 'irfan. As I
have indicated in the foregoing paragraphs, ma'rifat is fundamentally
different from 'irfan, and a different word must be used to translate
it. We need not look far for a suitable equivalent. The ma'rifat of
the Sufis is the 'gnosis' of Hellenistic theosophy, i.e. direct
knowledge of God based on revelation or apocalyptic vision. It is not
the result of any mental process, but depends entirely on the will
and favour of God, who bestows it as a gift from Himself upon those
whom He has created with the capacity for receiving it. It is a light
of divine grace that flashes into the heart and overwhelms every
human faculty in its dazzling beams. "He who knows God is dumb."

The relation of gnosis to positive religion is discussed in a very
remarkable treatise on speculative mysticism by Niffari, an unknown
wandering dervish who died in Egypt in the latter half of the tenth
century. His work, consisting of a series of revelations in which God
addresses the writer and instructs him concerning the theory of
gnosis, is couched in abstruse language and would scarcely be
intelligible without the commentary which accompanies it; but its
value as an original exposition of advanced

Sufism will sufficiently appear from the excerpts given in this
chapter. {I am now engaged in preparing an edition of the Arabic
text, together with an English translation and commentary.}

Those who seek God, says Niffari, are of three kinds: firstly, the
worshippers to whom God makes Himself known by means of bounty, i.e.
they worship Him in the hope of winning Paradise or some spiritual
recompense such as dreams and miracles; secondly, the philosophers
and scholastic theologians, to whom God makes Himself known by means
of glory, i.e. they can never find the glorious God whom they seek,
wherefore they assert that His essence is unknowable, saying, "We
know that we know Him not, and that is our knowledge"; thirdly, the
gnostics, to whom God makes Himself known by means of ecstasy, i.e.
they are possessed and controlled by a rapture that deprives them of
the consciousness of individual existence.

Niffari bids the gnostic perform only such acts of worship as are in
accordance with his vision of God, though in so doing he will
necessarily disobey the religious law which was made for the vulgar.
His inward feeling must decide how far the external forms of religion
are good for him.

"God said to me, Ask Me and say, 'O Lord, how shall I cleave to Thee,
so that when my day (of judgment) comes, Thou wilt not punish me nor
avert Thy face from me?' Then I will answer thee and say, 'Cleave in
thy outward theory and practice to the Sunna (the rule of the
Prophet), and cleave in thy inward feeling to the gnosis which I have
given thee; and know that when I make Myself known to thee, I will
not accept from thee anything of the Sunna but what My gnosis brings
to thee, because thou art one of those to whom I speak: thou hearest
Me and knowest that thou hearest Me, and thou seest that I am the
source of all things.'"
The commentator observes that the Sunna, being general in scope,
makes no distinction between individuals, e.g. seekers of Paradise
and seekers of God, but that in reality it contains exactly what each
person requires. The portion specially appropriate in every case is
discerned either by means of gnosis, which God communicates to the
heart, or by means of guidance imparted by a spiritual director.

"And He said to me, 'My exoteric revelation does not support My
esoteric revelation.'"

This means that the gnostic need not be dismayed if his inner
experience conflicts with the religious law. The contradiction is
only apparent. Religion addresses itself to the common herd of men
who are veiled by their minds, by logic, tradition, and so on;
whereas gnosis belongs to the elect, whose bodies and spirits are
bathed in the eternal Light. Religion sees things from the aspect of
plurality, but gnosis regards the all-embracing Unity. Hence the same
act is good in religion, but evil in gnosis--a truth which is briefly
stated thus:

"The good deeds of the pious are the ill deeds of the favourites of
God."
Although works of devotion are not incompatible with gnosis, no one
who connects them in the slightest degree with himself is a gnostic.
This is the theme of the following allegory. Niffari seldom writes so
lucidly as he does here, yet I fancy that few of my readers will find
the explanations printed within square brackets altogether
superfluous.

THE REVELATION OF THE SEA

"God bade me behold the Sea, and I saw the ships sinking and the
planks floating; then the planks too were submerged."

[The Sea denotes the spiritual experiences through which the mystic
passes in his journey to God. The point at issue is this: whether he
should prefer the religious law or dis-interested love. Here he is
warned not to rely on his good works, which are no better than
sinking ships and will never bring him safely to port. No; if he
would attain to God, he must rely on God alone. If he does not rely
entirely on God, but lets himself trust ever so little in anything
else, he is still clinging to a plank. Though his trust in God is
greater than before, it is not yet complete.]

"And He said to me, 'Those who voyage are not saved.'"

[The voyager uses the ship as a means of crossing the sea: therefore
he relies, not on the First Cause, but on secondary causes.]

"And He said to me, 'Those who instead of voyaging cast themselves
into the Sea take a risk.'"

[To abandon all secondary causes is like plunging in the sea. The
mystic who makes this venture is in jeopardy, for two reasons: he may
regard himself, not God, as initiating and carrying out the action of
abandonment,--and one who renounces a thing through 'self' is in
worse case than if he had not renounced it,--or he may abandon
secondary causes (good works, hope of Paradise, etc.), not for God's
sake, but from sheer indifference and lack of spiritual feeling.]

"And He said to me, 'Those who voyage and take no risk shall
perish.'"
[Notwithstanding the dangers referred to, he must make God his sole
object or fail.]

"And He said to me, 'In taking the risk there is a part of
salvation.'"

[Only a part of salvation, because perfect selflessness has not yet
been attained. The whole of salvation consists in the effacement of
all secondary causes, all phenomena, through the rapture which
results from vision of God. But this is gnosis, and the present
revelation is addressed to mystics of a lower grade. The gnostic
takes no risk, for he has nothing to lose.]

"And the wave came and lifted those beneath it and overran the
shore."
[Those beneath the wave are they who voyage in ships and consequently
suffer shipwreck. Their reliance on secondary causes casts them
ashore, i.e. brings them back to the world of phenomena whereby they
are veiled from God.]
"And He said to me, 'The surface of the Sea is a gleam that cannot be
reached.'"

[Anyone who depends on external rites of worship to lead him to God
is following a will-o'-the-wisp.]

"And its bottom is a darkness impenetrable."

[To discard positive religion, root and branch, is to wander in a
pathless maze.]

"And between the two are fishes which are to be feared."

[He refers to the middle way between pure exotericism and pure
esotericism. The 'fishes' are its perils and obstacles.]

"Do not voyage on the Sea, lest I cause thee to be veiled by the
vehicle."

[The 'vehicle' signifies the 'ship,' i.e. reliance on something other
than God.]

"And do not cast thyself into the Sea, lest I cause thee to be veiled
by thy casting thyself."

[Whoever regards any act as his own act and attributes it to himself
is far from God.]

"And He said to me, 'In the Sea are boundaries: which of them will
bear thee on?'"

[The 'boundaries' are the various degrees of spiritual experience.
The mystic ought not to rely on any of these, for they are all
imperfect.]
"And He said to me, 'If thou givest thyself to the Sea and sinkest
therein, thou wilt fall a prey to one of its beasts.'"

[If the mystic either relies on secondary causes or abandons them by
his own act, he will go astray.]

"And He said to me, 'I deceive thee if I direct thee to aught save
Myself.'"
[If the mystic's inward voice bids him turn to anything except God,
it deceives him.]

"And He said to me, 'If thou perishest for the sake of other than Me,
thou wilt belong to that for which thou hast perished.'

"And He said to me, 'This world belongs to him whom I have turned
away from it and from whom I have turned it away; and the next world
belongs to him towards whom have brought it and whom I have brought
towards Myself.'"

[He means to say that everlasting joy is the portion of those whose
hearts are turned away from this world and who have no worldly
possessions. They really enjoy this world, because it cannot separate
them from God. Similarly, the true owners of the next world are those
who do not seek it, inasmuch as it is not the real object of their
desire, but contemplate God alone.]

The gnostic descries the element of reality in positive religion, but
his gnosis is not derived from religion or from any sort of human
knowledge: it is properly concerned with the divine attributes, and
God Himself reveals the knowledge of these to His saints who
contemplate Him. Dhu 'l-Nun of Egypt, whose mystical speculations
mark him out as the father of Moslem theosophy, said that gnostics
are not themselves, and do not subsist through themselves, but so far
as they subsist, they subsist through God.

"They move as God causes them to move, and their words are the words
of God which roll upon their tongues, and their sight is the sight of
God which has entered their eyes."
The gnostic contemplates the attributes of God, not His essence, for
even in gnosis a small trace of duality remains: this disappears only
in fana al-fana, the total passing-away in the undifferentiated
Godhead. The cardinal attribute of God is unity, and the divine unity
is the first and last principle of gnosis. {According to some
mystics, the gnosis of unity constitutes a higher stage which is
called 'the Truth' (haqiqat). See above, p. 29.}

Both Moslem and Sufi declare that God is One, but the statement bears
a different meaning in each instance. The Moslem means that God is
unique in His essence, qualities, and acts; that He is absolutely
unlike all other beings. The Sufi means that God is the One Real
Being which underlies all phenomena. This principle is carried to its
extreme consequences, as we shall see. If nothing except God exists,
then the whole universe, including man, is essentially one with God,
whether it is regarded as an emanation which proceeds from Him,
without impairing His unity, like sunbeams from the sun, or whether
it is conceived as a mirror in which the divine attributes are
reflected. But surely a God who is all in all can have no reason for
thus revealing Himself: why should the One pass over into the Many?
The Sufis answer--a philosopher would say that they evade the
difficulty--by quoting the famous Tradition: "I was a hidden treasure
and I desired to be known; therefore I created the creation in order
that I might be known." In other words, God is the eternal Beauty,
and it lies in the nature of beauty to desire love. The mystic poets
have described the self-manifestation of the One with a profusion of
splendid imagery. Jami says, for example:

"From all eternity the Beloved unveiled His beauty in the solitude
of the unseen;

He held up the mirror to His own face, He displayed His loveliness
to Himself.

He was both the spectator and the spectacle; no eye but His had
surveyed the Universe.

All was One, there was no duality, no pretence of 'mine' or 'thine.'

The vast orb of Heaven, with its myriad incomings and outgoings,

was concealed in a single point.
The Creation lay cradled in the sleep of non-existence, like a child
ere it has breathed.

The eye of the Beloved, seeing what was not, regarded nonentity as
existent.

Although He beheld His attributes and qualities as a perfect whole
in His own essence,

Yet He desired that they should be displayed to Him in another
mirror,

And that each one of His eternal attributes should become manifest
accordingly in a diverse form,

Therefore He created the verdant fields of Time and Space and the
life-giving garden of the world,

That every branch and leaf and fruit might show forth His various
perfections,

The cypress gave a hint of His comely stature, the rose gave tidings
of His beauteous countenance.

Wherever Beauty peeped out, Love appeared beside it; wherever Beauty
shone in a rosy cheek, Love lit his torch from that flame.

Wherever Beauty dwelt in dark tresses, Love came and found a heart
entangled in their coils.

Beauty and Love are as body and soul; Beauty is the mine and Love
the precious stone.

They have always been together from the very first; never have they
travelled but in each other's company."

In another work Jami sets forth the relation of God to the world more
philosophically, as follows:

"The unique Substance, viewed as absolute and void of all phenomena,
all limitations and all multiplicity, is the Real (al-Haqq). On the
other hand, viewed in His aspect of multiplicity and plurality, under
which He displays Himself when clothed with phenomena, He is the
whole created universe. Therefore the universe is the outward visible
expression of the Real, and the Real is the inner unseen reality of
the universe. The universe before it was evolved to outward view was
identical with the Real; and the Real after this evolution is
identical with the universe."

Phenomena, as such, are not-being and only derive a contingent
existence from the qualities of Absolute Being by which they are
irradiated. The sensible world resembles the fiery circle made by a
single spark whirling round rapidly.

Man is the crown and final cause of the universe. Though last in the
order of creation he is first in the process of divine thought, for
the essential part of him is the primal Intelligence or universal
Reason which emanates immediately from the Godhead. This corresponds
to the Logos--the animating principle of all things--and is
identified with the Prophet Mohammed. An interesting parallel might
be drawn here between the Christian and Sufi doctrines. The same
expressions are applied to the founder of Islam which are used by St.
John, St. Paul, and later mystical theologians concerning Christ.
Thus, Mohammed is called the Light of God, he is said to have existed
before the creation of the world, he is adored as the source of all
life, actual and possible, he is the Perfect Man in whom all the
divine attributes are manifested, and a Sufi tradition ascribes to
him the saying, "He that hath seen me hath seen Allah." In the Moslem
scheme, however, the Logos doctrine occupies a subordinate place, as
it obviously must when the whole duty of man is believed to consist
in realising the unity of God. The most distinctive feature of
Oriental as opposed to European mysticism is its profound
consciousness of an omnipresent, all-pervading unity in which every
vestige of individuality is swallowed up. Not to become like God or
personally to participate in the divine nature is the Sufi's aim, but
to escape from the bondage of his unreal selfhood and thereby to be
reunited with the One infinite Being.

According to Jami, Unification consists in making the heart single--
that is, in purifying and divesting it of attachment to aught except
God, both in respect of desire and will and also as regards knowledge
and gnosis. The mystic's desire and will should be severed from all
things which are desired and willed; all objects of knowledge and
understanding should be removed from his intellectual vision. His
thoughts should be directed solely towards God, he should not be
conscious of anything besides.

So long as he is a captive in the snare of passion and lust, it is
hard for him to maintain this relation to God, but when the subtle
influence of that attraction becomes manifest in him, expelling
preoccupation with objects of sense and cognition from his inward
being, delight in that divine communion prevails over bodily
pleasures and spiritual joys; the painful task of self-mortification
is ended, and the sweetness of contemplation enravishes his soul.

When the sincere aspirant perceives in himself the beginning of this
attraction, which is delight in the recollection of God, let him fix
his whole mind on fostering and strengthening it, let him keep
himself aloof from whatsoever is incompatible with it, and deem that
even though he were to devote an eternity to cultivating that
communion, he would have done nothing and would not have discharged
his duty as he ought.

"Love thrilled the chord of love in my soul's lute,

And changed me all to love from head to foot.

'Twas but a moment's touch, yet shall Time ever

To me the debt of thanksgiving impute."

It is an axiom of the Sufis that what is not in a man he cannot know.
The gnostic--Man par excellence--could not know God and all the
mysteries of the universe, unless he found them in himself. He is the
micro-cosm, 'a copy made in the image of God,' 'the eye of the world
whereby God sees His own works.' In knowing himself as he really is,
he knows God, and he knows himself through God, who is nearer to
everything than its knowledge of itself. Knowledge of God precedes,
and is the cause of, self-knowledge.

Gnosis, then, is unification, realisation of the fact that the
appearance of 'otherness' beside Oneness is a false and deluding
dream. Gnosis lays this spectre, which haunts unenlightened men all
their lives; which rises, like a wall of utter darkness, between them
and God. Gnosis proclaims that 'I' is a figure of speech, and that
one cannot truly refer any will, feeling, thought, or action to one's
self.

Niffari heard the divine voice saying to him:

"When thou regardest thyself as existent and dost not regard Me as
the Cause of thy existence, I veil My face and thine own face appears
to thee. Therefore consider what is displayed to thee, and what is
hidden from thee!"
[If a man regards himself as existing through God, that which is of
God in him predominates over the phenomenal element and makes it pass
away, so that he sees nothing but God. If, on the
contrary, he regards himself as having an independent existence, his
unreal egoism is displayed to him and the reality of God becomes
hidden from him.]

"Regard neither My displaying nor that which is displayed, else thou
wilt laugh and weep; and when thou laughest and weepest, thou art
thine, not Mine."
[He who regards the act of divine revelation is guilty of polytheism,
since revelation involves both a revealing subject and a revealed
object; and he who regards the revealed object which is part of the
created universe, regards something other than God. Laughter
signifies joy for what you have gained, and weeping denotes grief for
what you have lost. Both are selfish actions. The gnostic neither
laughs nor weeps.]

"If thou dost not put behind thee all that I have displayed and am
displaying, thou wilt not prosper; and unless thou prosper, thou wilt
not become concentrated upon Me."
[Prosperity is true belief in God, which requires complete
abstraction from created things.]

Logically, these doctrines annul every moral and religious law. In
the gnostic's vision there are no divine rewards and punishments, no
human standards of right and wrong. For him, the written word of God
has been abrogated by a direct and intimate revelation.

"I do not say," exclaimed Abu 'l-Hasan Khurqani, "that Paradise and
Hell are non-existent, but I say that they are nothing to me, because
God created them both, and there is no room for any created object in
the place where I am."

From this standpoint all types of religion are equal, and Islam is no
better than idolatry. It does not matter what creed a man professes
or what rites he performs.

"The true mosque in a pure and holy heart

Is builded: there let all men worship God;

For there He dwells, not in a mosque
of stone."

Amidst all the variety of creeds and worshippers the gnostic sees but
one real object of worship.

"Those who adore God in the sun" (says Ibn al-'Arabi) "behold the
sun, and those who adore Him in living things see a living thing, and
those who adore Him in lifeless things see a lifeless thing, and
those who adore Him as a Being unique and unparalleled see that which
has no like. Do not attach yourself" (he continues) "to any
particular creed exclusively, so that you disbelieve in all the rest;
otherwise, you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognise
the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is
not limited by any one creed, for He says (Kor. 2.109), 'Wheresoever
ye turn, there is the face of Allah.' Every one praises what he
believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises
himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would
not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance. If he
knew Junayd's saying, 'The water takes its colour from the vessel
containing it,' he would not interfere with other men's beliefs, but
would perceive God in every form of belief."

And Hafiz sings, more in the spirit of the freethinker, perhaps, than
of the mystic:

"Love is where the g1ory falls
Of Thy face--on convent walls
Or on tavern floors, the same
Unextinguishable flame.

Where the turbaned anchorite
Chanteth Allah day and night,
Church bells ring the call to prayer
And the Cross of Christ is there."

Sufism may join hands with freethought--it has often done so--but
hardly ever with sectarianism. This explains why the vast majority of
Sufis have been, at least nominally, attached to the catholic body of
the Moslem community. 'Abdallah Ansari declared that of two thousand
Sufi Sheykhs with whom he was acquainted only two were Shi'ites. A
certain man who was a descendant of the Caliph 'Ali, and a fanatical
Shi'ite, tells the following story:

"For five years," he said, "my father sent me daily to a spiritual
director. I learned one useful lesson from him: he told me that I
should never know anything at all about Sufism until I got completely
rid of the pride which I felt on account of my lineage."
Superficial observers have described Babism as an offshoot of Sufism,
but the dogmatism of the one is naturally opposed to the broad
eclecticism of the other. In proportion as the Sufi gains more
knowledge of God, his religious prejudices are diminished.
Sheykh 'Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Sabbagh, who at first disliked living in
Upper Egypt, with its large Jewish and Christian population, said in
his old age that he would as readily embrace a Jew or Christian as
one of his own faith.

While the innumerable forms of creed and ritual may be regarded as
having a certain relative value in so far as the inward feeling which
inspires them is ever one and the same, from another aspect they seem
to be veils of the Truth, barriers which the zealous
Unitarian must strive to abolish and destroy.

"This world and that world are the egg, and the bird within it

Is in darkness and broken-winged and scorned and despised.

Regard unbelief and faith as the white and the yolk in this egg,

Between them, joining and dividing, a barrier which they shall
not pass.

When He hath graciously fostered the egg under His wing,

Infidelity and religion disappear: the bird of Unity spreads its
pinions."

The great Persian mystic, Abu Sa'id ibn Abi 'l-Khayr, speaking in the
name of the Calendars or wandering dervishes, expresses their
iconoclastic principles with astonishing boldness:

"Not until every mosque beneath the sun

Lies ruined, will our holy work be done;

And never will true Musalman appear
Till faith and infidelity are one."

Such open declarations of war against the Mohammedan religion are
exceptional. Notwithstanding the breadth and depth of the gulf
between full-blown Sufism and orthodox Islam, many, if not most,
Sufis have paid homage to the Prophet and have observed the outward
forms of devotion which are incumbent on all Moslems. They have
invested these rites and ceremonies with a new meaning; they have
allegorised them, but they have not abandoned them. Take the
pilgrimage, for example. In the eyes of the genuine Sufi it is null
and void unless each of the successive religious acts which it
involves is accompanied by corresponding 'movements of the heart.'

A man who had just returned from the pilgrimage came to Junayd.
Junayd said:

"From the hour when you first journeyed from your home have you also
been journeying away from all sins?" He said "No." "Then," said
Junayd, "you have made no journey. At every stage where you halted
for the night did you traverse a station on the way to God?" " No,"
he replied. "Then," said Junayd, "you have not trodden the road,
stage by stage. When you put on the pilgrim's garb at the proper
place, did you discard the qualities of human nature as you cast off
your clothes?" "No." "Then you have not put on the pilgrim's garb.
When you stood at 'Arafat, did you stand one moment in contemplation
of God?" "No." "Then you have not stood at 'Arafat. When you went to
Muzdalifa and achieved your desire, did you renounce all sensual
desires?" "No." "Then you have not gone to Muzdalifa. When you
circumambulated the Ka'ba, did you behold the immaterial beauty of
God in the abode of purification?" "No." "Then you have not
circumambulated the Ka'ba. When you ran between Safa and Marwa, did
you attain to purity (safa) and virtue (muruwwat)?" "No." "Then you
have not run. When you came to Mina, did all your wishes (muna)
cease?" "No." "Then you have not yet visited Mina. When you reached
the slaughter-place and offered sacrifice, did you sacrifice the
objects of worldly desire?" "No." "Then you have not sacrificed. When
you threw the pebbles, did you throw away whatever sensual thoughts
were accompanying you?" "No." "Then you have not yet thrown the
pebbles, and you have not yet performed the pilgrimage."
This anecdote contrasts the outer religious law of theology with the
inner spiritual truth of mysticism, and shows that they should not be
divorced from each other.

"The Law without the Truth," says Hujwiri, "is ostentation, and the
Truth without the Law is hypocrisy. Their mutual relation may be
compared to that of body and spirit: when the spirit departs from the
body, the living body becomes a corpse, and the spirit vanishes like
wind. The Moslem profession of faith includes both: the
words, 'There is no god but Allah,' are the Truth, and the
words, 'Mohammed is the apostle of Allah,' are the Law; any one who
denies the Truth is an infidel, and any one who rejects the Law is a
heretic."

Middle ways, though proverbially safe, are difficult to walk in; and
only by a tour de force can the Koran be brought into line with the
esoteric doctrine which the Sufis derive from it. Undoubtedly they
have done a great work for Islam. They have deepened and enriched the
lives of millions by ruthlessly stripping off the husk of religion
and insisting that its kernel must be sought, not in any formal act,
but in cultivation of spiritual feelings and in purification of the
inward man. This was a legitimate and most fruitful development of
the Prophet's teaching. But the Prophet was a strict monotheist,
while the Sufis, whatever they may pretend or imagine, are
theosophists, pantheists, or monists. When they speak and write as
believers in the dogmas of positive religion, they use language which
cannot be reconciled with such a theory of unity as we are now
examining. 'Afifuddin al-Tilimsani, from whose commentary on Niffari
I have given some extracts in this chapter, said roundly that the
whole Koran is polytheism--a perfectly just statement from the
monistic point of view, though few Sufis have dared to be so
explicit.

The mystic Unitarians admit the appearance of contradiction, but deny
its reality. "The Law and the Truth" (they might say) "are the same
thing in different aspects. The Law is for you, the Truth for us. In
addressing you we speak according to the measure of your
understanding, since what is meat for gnostics is poison to the
uninitiated, and the highest mysteries ought to be jealously guarded
from profane ears. It is only human reason that sees the single as
double, and balances the Law against the Truth. Pass away from the
world of opposites and become one with God, who has no opposite."

The gnostic recognises that the Law is valid and necessary in the
moral sphere. While good and evil remain, the Law stands over both,
commanding and forbidding, rewarding and punishing. He knows, on the
other hand, that only God really exists and acts: therefore, if evil
really exists, it must be divine, and if evil things are really done,
God must be the doer of them. The conclusion is false because the
hypothesis is false. Evil has no real existence; it is not-being,
which is the privation and absence of being, just as darkness is the
absence of light. "Once," said Nuri, "I beheld the Light, and I fixed
my gaze upon it until I became the Light." No wonder that such
illuminated souls, supremely indifferent to the shadow-shows of
religion and morality in a phantom world, are ready to cry with
Jalaluddin:

"The man of God is made wise by the Truth,

The man of God is not learned from book.

The man of God is beyond infidelity and faith,

To the man of God right and wrong are alike."

It must be borne in mind that this is a theory of perfection, and
that those whom it exalts above the Law are saints, spiritual guides,
and profound theosophists who enjoy the special favour of God and
presumably do not need to be restrained, coerced, or punished. In
practice, of course, it leads in many instances to antinomianism and
libertinism, as among the Bektashis and other orders of the so-
called 'lawless' dervishes. The same theories produced the same
results in Europe during the Middle Ages, and the impartial historian
cannot ignore the corruptions to which a purely subjective mysticism
is liable; but on the present occasion we are concerned with the rose
itself, not with its cankers.

Not all Sufis are gnostics; and, as I have mentioned before, those
who are not yet ripe for the gnosis receive from their gnostic
teachers the ethical instruction suitable to their needs. Jalaluddin
Rumi, in his collection of lyrical poems entitled The Divan
of Shamsi Tabriz, gives free rein to a pantheistic enthusiasm which
sees all things under the form of eternity.

"I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;

One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

I am intoxicated with Love's cup, the two worlds have passed out
of my ken;

I have no business save carouse and revelry."

But in his Masnavi--a work so famous and venerated that it has been
styled 'The Koran of Persia'--we find him in a more sober mood
expounding the Sufi doctrines and justifying the ways of God to man.
Here, though he is a convinced optimist and agrees with Ghazali that
this is the best of all possible worlds, he does not airily dismiss
the problem of evil as something outside reality, but endeavours to
show that evil, or what seems evil to us, is part of the divine order
and harmony, I will quote some passages of his argument and leave my
readers to judge how far it is successful or, at any rate,
suggestive.

The Sufis, it will be remembered, conceive the universe as a
projected and reflected image of God. The divine light, streaming
forth in a series of emanations, falls at last upon the darkness of
not-being, every atom of which reflects some attribute of Deity. For
instance, the beautiful attributes of love and mercy are reflected in
the form of heaven and the angels, while the terrible attributes of
wrath and vengeance are reflected in the form of hell and the devils.
Man reflects all the attributes, the terrible as well as the
beautiful: he is an epitome of heaven and hell. Omar Khayyam alludes
to this theory when he says:

"Hell is a spark from our fruitless pain,

Heaven a breath from our time of joy"

--a couplet which Fitz Gerald moulded into the magnificent stanza:

"Heav'n but the Vision of fulfilled Desire,

And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,

Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves

So late emerged from, shall so soon expire."

Jalaluddin, therefore, does in a sense make God the author of evil,
but at the same time he makes evil intrinsically good in relation to
God--for it is the reflexion of certain divine attributes which in
themselves are absolutely good. So far as evil is really evil, it
springs from not-being. The poet assigns a different value to this
term in its relation to God and in its relation to man. In respect of
God not-being is nothing, for God is real Being, but in man it is the
principle of evil which constitutes half of human nature. In the one
case it is a pure negation, in the other it is positively and
actively pernicious. We need not quarrel with the poet for coming to
grief in his logic. There are some occasions when intense moral
feeling is worth any amount of accurate thinking.

It is evident that the doctrine of divine unity implies
predestination. Where God is and naught beside Him, there can be no
other agent than He, no act but His. "Thou didst not throw, when thou
threwest, but God threw" (Kor. 8.17). Compulsion is felt only by
those who do not love. To know God is to love Him; and the gnostic
may answer, like the dervish who was asked how he fared:

"I fare as one by whose majestic will

The world revolves, floods rise and rivers flow,

Stars in their courses move; yea, death and life

Hang on his nod and fly to the ends of earth,

His ministers of mourning or of joy."

This is the Truth; but for the benefit of such as cannot bear it,
Jalaluddin vindicates the justice of God by asserting that men have
the power to choose how they will act, although their freedom is
subordinate to the divine will. Approaching the question, "Why does
God ordain and create evil?" he points out that things are known
through their opposites, and that the existence of evil is necessary
for the manifestation of good.

"Not-being and defect, wherever seen,

Are mirrors of the beauty of all that is.

The bone-setter, where should he try his skill

But on the patient lying with broken leg?

Were no base copper in the crucible,

How could the alchemist his craft display?"

Moreover, the divine omnipotence would not be completely realised if
evil had remained uncreated.

"He is the source of evil, as thou sayest,

Yet evil hurts Him not. To make that evil

Denotes in Him perfection. Hear from me

A parable. The heavenly Artist paints

Beautiful shapes and ugly: in one picture

The loveliest women in the land of Egypt

Gazing on youthful Joseph amorously;

And lo, another scene by the same hand,

Hell-fire and Iblis with his hideous crew:

Both master-works, created for good ends,

To show His perfect wisdom and confound

The sceptics who deny His mastery.

Could He not evil make, He would lack skill;

Therefore He fashions infidel alike
And Moslem true, that both may witness bear

To Him, and worship One Almighty Lord."

In reply to the objection that a God who creates evil must Himself be
evil, Jalaluddin, pursuing the analogy drawn from Art, remarks that
ugliness in the picture is no evidence of ugliness in the painter.

Again, without evil it would be impossible to win the proved virtue
which is the reward of self-conquest. Bread must be broken before it
can serve as food, and grapes will not yield wine till they are
crushed. Many men are led through tribulation to happiness.

As evil ebbs, good flows. Finally, much evil is only apparent. What
seems a curse to one may be a blessing to another; nay, evil itself
is turned to good for the righteous. Jalaluddin will not admit that
anything is absolutely bad.

"Fools buy false coins because they are like the true.

If in the world no genuine minted coin

Were current, how would forgers pass the false?

Falsehood were nothing unless truth were there,

To make it specious. 'Tis the love of right

Lures men to wrong. Let poison but be mixed

With sugar, they will cram it into their mouths.

Oh, cry not that all creeds are vain! Some scent

Of truth they have, else they would not beguile.

Say not, 'How utterly fantastical!'

No fancy in the world is all untrue.

Amongst the crowd of dervishes hides one,

One true fakir. Search well and thou wilt find!"

Surely this is a noteworthy doctrine. Jalaluddin died only a few
years after the birth of Dante, but the Christian poet falls far
below the level of charity and tolerance reached by his Moslem
contemporary.

How is it possible to discern the soul of goodness in things evil? By
means of love, says Jalaluddin, and the knowledge which love alone
can give, according to the word of God in the holy Tradition:

"My servant draws nigh unto Me, and I love him; and when I love him,
I am his ear, so that he hears by Me, and his eye, so that he sees by
Me, and his
tongue, so that he speaks by Me, and his hand, so that he takes by
Me."
Although it will be convenient to treat of mystical love in a
separate chapter, the reader must not fancy that a new subject is
opening before him. Gnosis and love are spiritually identical; they
teach the same truths in different language.

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