Curriculum of the Sufi Order, Lesson 9 -- Creativity: How Does One Proceed?

Title

Curriculum of the Sufi Order, Lesson 9 -- Creativity: How Does One Proceed?

Date

January 2001

Decade

2000s

Sequence

9

Description

Can the findings of the meditators of the perennial esoteric schools who have stalked by their explorations the cosmic code - stretching the human mind beyond its middle range in its ubiquitous, enigmatic no-man’s land - help us to discover who we are, or rather who we are becoming?

Topic(s)

Consciousness

Meditation Practice

Sufi Path

Wazifa/Wazaif

Zikr

Subtopic(s)

Life's purpose, Samadhi, Subtle Body, Chakras, Antipodal Point of View, Self-image

Type of Publication

Curriculum of the Sufi Order

Media

Writing

Pages

8

Identifier

CSO9

File Format

PDF

Language

English

Author(s)

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Courtesy Of

Amida Cary

Full Text

CURRICULUM OF THE SUFI ORDER

The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis

LESSON NINE

CREATIVITY: HOW DOES ONE PROCEED?

WORKING WITH THE BODY: NASUTIYA

Can the findings of the meditators of the perennial esoteric schools who have stalked by their explorations the cosmic code - stretching the human mind beyond its middle range in its ubiquitous, enigmatic no-man’s land - help us to discover who we are, or rather who we are becoming?

When one starts to meditate without knowing how to meditate, while regurgitating impressions from the environment and particularly one’s circumstances, one remains conscious of one’s body and the physical environment such as one commonly conceives them to be. At this level, one thinks in terms of categories and causality. Tibetans call it the gross mind. For each level of identity a mode of thinking corresponds.

Hearken! The fulfillment of our life’s purpose hangs precariously upon our vulnerable self-esteem, which in turn is tentatively balanced upon our self-image which is frankly unreliable and specious.

Applying the doctrine of maya will lead us to dismissing our representation of the physical environment and our body, also our mental ponderings, as deceptive. This can lead to a trance condition to the extent that we might claim to have had an experience of Samadhi, and will inevitably lead to the flaw of other-wordliness - the spiritual by-pass, eschewing to take responsibility for human conditions - for which some psychotherapists accuse spiritualists.

PRACTICE:

Survey your life from what one may call a bird’s eye view and ask yourself what is it all about.

Wazaif: ya Muqaddam (the programmer) - ya Hakim (the wise One)

The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience the different phases of manifestation, yet not lose its way, but regain its original freedom in addition to the experience and knowledge it has gained in the world. …True exaltation of the spirit resides in the fact that it has come to Earth and has realized there its spiritual being. (The Alchemy of Happiness)




PRACTICE:

Now imagine that, indeed the whole universe has been funneled down as me. So to know myself, that is ‘who I am (and am becoming) in all its dimensionality,’ I will need to infer the wider and loftier dimensions of my being which I might call the archetype of my being from that exemplar of that archetype with which I identify as my self-image.

Wazaif: ya Muqaddam – ya Mawjud

Let us at this point recall points of view expressed by Hazrat Inayat Khan in the previous lesson (Lesson Eight):

There is no way of getting proof of the existence of God except by becoming acquainted with oneself….One finds a kind of universe in oneself….If man dived deeply enough within himself, he would reach a point of his ego where it lives an unlimited life.

Ibn ‘Arabi:
All that we know of Him is through ourselves….Since we know Him by ourselves and from ourselves, we attribute to Him all that we attribute to ourselves. (1975, p. 16.) Thus you know him from your knowledge of yourself (cf. Chittick, 1988, p. 290)… Since the ephemeral being manifests the form of the eternal, it is by the contemplation of the ephemeral that God communicates to us the knowledge of Himself. (1975, p. 15)

For clarity, we need to distinguish between the state in which: (i) consciousness being oriented in the transcendent dimension loses contact with the physical plane (including the body) and even the memory of it; and (ii) consciousness oriented inwards loses the perspective of the physical environment including the memory of it.

(i) TRANSCENDENTAL

While seeking one’s transcendental dimension, to avoid the flaw of ‘otherworldliness,’ Hazrat Inayat Khan emphasizes the importance of maintaining an awareness of one’s bodiness, albeit in its relationship with the investment of consciousness in matter which means in nature and in our body, and furthermore in its relationship with the subtle bodies.

PRACTICE:

When we first try to meditate, we tend to turn our attention away from the physical world. But our body and mind carry clues as to who we are. Of course it is difficult to maintain, somehow, the recollection of the physical environment while reaching into the software of which it is the hardware. But it is essential to do so.

Wazaif: ya Warith (the inheritor) – ya Mawjud (the existentiator)



Hazrat Inayat Khan:
There is a gradual awakening of matter to become conscious. Through the awakening of matter to increased consciousness, matter becomes fully intelligent in man. In matter life unfolds, discovers and awakens the consciousness that has been, so to speak, buried in it for thousands of years. (The Smiling Forehead.) The more deeply we study matter, the more proofs shall we find of intelligence working through the whole process of continual unfoldment…It is the dense form of the intelligence which is light. (Smiling Forehead.) In its finer aspect it is the light of intelligence. (Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism)

Intelligence becomes known to itself when there is something intelligible. Therefore the Knower had to manifest Himself, thus becoming an object to be known.

Hazrat Inayat Khan even proposes how one can do this:

In one’s spiritual practices one awakens dormant faculties in one’s body that reciprocate functions in the higher spheres, which one does not generally use.

More specifically by concentrating on the chakras, which correspond to the plexi of the autonomic nervous system, that is, by arousing the intelligence embedded in the centers, one enhances their activity which otherwise would remain dormant

PRACTICE:

If you concentrate on your solar plexus, envisioning it as a gate into the inner dimension of your being, you will develop intuition.

Wazifa: ya Batin (the innermost)

With closed eyelids, turn your eyes upwards as you inhale.

Then as you exhale, open your eyes and turn them forward.

Wazifa: ya Zahir (the manifest)

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
Place a blind in front of the mirror; consciousness will turn within. To turn within, the Sufi closes the door through which the soul is accustomed to look out, and as it finds the doors of its experience closed, a time comes when it turns its back to the external world. (private papers)

The same reality can look different according to the vantage point from which you look at it. There are two awakenings: man awakening in the Divine perspective and God awakening in the human perspective.

PRACTICE:

While practicing the dhikr, you will notice the same shift as previously described between turning within in the ‘illa’ and reaching out in the ‘llah.’ Furthermore, notice the shift from the ‘h’ of the word Allah with eyes turned upwards to the ‘hu’ concentrating on the heart. If you concentrate on your heart chakra, you will awaken resonance with the emotional attunement of people, of nature. This represents a deeper sense of meaningfulness than the intellect.

By the practice of the dhikr (Remembrance of God), the Sufis arouse certain centers operating the way the mind affects the body that otherwise would remain dormant….We pass to the higher planes of existence in the lift by means of the breath, and hold to the rope, the physical body, and come back to the first floor. (Spiritual Liberty)

The consequence is that we never consider our body objectively as ‘other’ (as in the first Buddhist Satipathana practice, or in Yoga), but recognize the impact of our intelligence and indeed our personality upon the configuration of our body. Indeed when identifying our consciousness in its personal dimension, one may, with practice, envision the body as ‘other.’ But if one were to envision the body from a ‘bird’s eye view,’ that is by envisioning that the whole Universe (God) is looking through one’s eyes (which is actually what the fourth Satipathana is about - without mentioning God or the Universe), then one clearly sees the impact of intelligence upon matter, most particularly, one’s body. (Buddha describes this in the first Jhana.)

The Sufis are always envisioning how things would look from the antipodal point of view to the personal vantage point:

PRACTICE:

This is the key: in addition to extending your sense of identity, try to identify the spectator in you - the perceiving and knowing subject as the focalization of the consciousness of the Universe (God).

Wazaif: ya Khabir (the aware) - ya Shahid (the witness)

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
The purpose of the whole creation is the realization that God Himself gains by discovering His own perfection through His manifestation.

Ibn ‘Arabi:
The Real knows Himself. He knows the cosmos from Himself, and he brought the cosmos into existence upon His own form. Hence, He is a mirror within which He sees His own form. (Chittick, 1989, p. 297.) Whenever the Real discloses Himself to you, within the mirror of your heart, your mirror will make Him manifest to you in the measure of its constitution and in the form of its shape. (Chittick)

This requires one to envision oneself wholistically - including all the levels of one’s being and ultimately the divinity of our own being, while making allowance for the limitation incurred by existentiation. In most of us, our self-image includes only a sliver of the vast range of our total being. Meditation aims at extending that range into ever wider and higher dimensions of our being.

By man's limitations he, so to speak, buries the divine creative power in his mind. (The Way of Illumination)

Ibn ‘Arabi cautions:
The knowledge of ourselves through the divine perspective insofar as its form appears to one as a form in God, is by necessity limited by our ability to grasp it through ourselves. The perspective of unity is lost. (cf. 1975, pp. 42 and 57)

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
We live in a world to which we are awakened, and to the world to which we are not awakened, we are asleep….The soul in its manifestation on Earth is not at all disconnected from the higher spheres. It lives in all spheres, though it is generally conscious only on one plane. (The Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan)

The soul manifesting as a body has diminished its power considerably, even to the extent that it is not capable of imagining for one moment the great power, life and light it has in itself. Once the soul realizes itself by becoming independent of the body that surrounds it, then the soul naturally begins to see in itself the being of the spirit. (Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism)

We are clothed in the garb of an angel, of a jinn, and of a human being. When we see ourselves in the garb of a human being without seeing the other garbs, we believe that we are human beings. (Spiritual Liberty)

Hazrat Inayat Khan describes how this consciousness is attained:

Illumination is obtained by rising above one’s earthly condition at the command of one’s will and realizing one’s immortal self which is God.

You need not leave behind your body; you can also become aware of your higher bodies. The first step is awakening to our celestial dimension.

Wazifa: ya Muta’Ali (the very high)

PRACTICE:

The key to doing this is to be found in identifying, not just with one’s aura of light, but higher levels of light. To this end it is advised to follow step by step the light practices which will be given in a future installment of the Curriculum. But this in turn requires that one transfigure one’s ego.

Wazaif: ya Nur - ya Munawwir (the lamp)

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
As man evolves, he ceases to look down upon the Earth, but looks to the heavens. (The Unity of Religious Ideals)

Souls who have become conscious of the angelic spheres hear the calling of those spheres. When the soul is cleared of all earthly shadows, heavenly pictures appear upon the curtain of man’s heart. (Esoteric Papers/Githa III)

The key is: the form, the way matter is configured, the body fashioned.


PRACTICE:

Match the forms in the physical perspective with their transcendent models - archetypes. For example, the configuration of the lattices of a crystal exemplify a transcendental archetype: orderliness. Likewise, try to imagine the archetype of which the form of your subtle body is the exemplar. For example, a thought of kindness towards someone will alter your countenance; bitterness will show in your countenance.

Wazaif: ya Muqaddam (the programmer) - ya Mawjud (the existentiator)

Ibn ‘Arabi:
When meanings are embodied and become manifest in shapes and measures they assume forms, since witnessing takes place through sight. (Chittick, 1989, p. 354)

Qur’an:
There is no form in the lower world without a likeness (mithal) in the higher world.

Ibn ‘Arabi comments:

Between the two worlds there are tenuities, which extend from each form to its likeness. (Chittick, 1989, p. 406.) He brings them out of the treasuries that are from an existence that we do not perceive to an existence that we do perceive. Hence the treasuries contain only the possibilities of the things. (cf. ibid. p. 87)

Here it is that magical creative faculty with which we are endowed that connects these two poles of ourselves.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
The soul has in it a potentiality, a creative power as its divine heritage. Think that the same power that moves the stars and the sap in the trees is in you. (The Way of Illumination)

The mind is a magic shell in which a design is made by the imagination. (The Way of Illumination.) On the physical plane this process may be seen in a more concrete form. (The Mysticism of Sound and Music.) …Imagination becomes a ladder on the path of the mystic. The mystic begins his work with the ladder of imagination, and actual experience follows. (Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism)

PRACTICE:

Acquaint yourself with your faculty of imagining a form.

Wazaif: ya Khaliq (the creator) – ya Musawwir (the fashioner)

Ibn ‘Arabi:
Imagination causes archetypal notions to descend into perceptible form. (Et.7.10, 1961, p.354)


Hazrat Inayat Khan instructs us as to how to sustain this antinomy:

The act of raising the light on high is to hold the torch of intelligence in one's hand in order to see into the external world - that which is seen - and also into the world which is within and unseen. (Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism)

Wazaif: ya Noor - Ya Khabir (the aware)

(ii) AS VIEWED FROM WITHIN

When considering form, it is necessary to distinguish between forms perceived in the existential perspective and the forms of our subtle bodies.

According to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the first step to Samadhi is identifying with one’s subtle body, sensing subtle matter, tanmatra, viz: vikara, the subtle shape of object.

Therefore in a further step, Hazrat Inayat Khan advocates extrapolating between the perspective of the physical world and that when turned within. To start with, connect these two perspectives by oscillating between them on the ebb and flow of your breath.

The process takes place in two directions; outwardly by being one with all we see, and inwardly by being in touch with that one life which is everlasting by dissolving into it, and by being conscious of that one spirit being the only existence. (Path of Initiation)

The one who tunes himself, not only to the external, but to the inner being and to the essence of all things gets an insight into the essence of the whole being; and therefore he can to the same extent find and enjoy even in the seed the fragrance and beauty that delights him in a rose. He so to speak touches the soul of the thought.

PRACTICE:

As you inhale, turn within; as you exhale open your eyes without losing from your memory the way things looked from inside.

Fikr: Batin – Zahir

Ibn ‘Arabi:
The interpreter operates a transposition from the form perceived by the dreamer to the real “form” of the implied reality. (1975, p. 59.) Then He manifested it in tangible form after it had appeared in imaginative form. (Ibid. p. 61.)

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
This space of three dimensions is reflected in the space that is the inner dimension. What exists in the inner dimension is also reflected in the three dimensional space. And it is the action and reaction of the two that constitutes your life.

In the world, you are here, and everything is without you, you are contained in space. In the dream state, all you see is contained in you.

All things and beings on the surface seem to be separate from one another, beneath the surface they approach to each other, and in the innermost plane, they all become one….

When I open my eyes to the outer world, I feel myself as a drop in the sea, but when I close my eyes and look within, I see the whole universe as a bubble raised in the ocean of my heart. The bubble is not any other element than the water of the ocean.

Ibn ‘Arabi:
Never look at anything without perceiving in it the real face. For the Sufi, nothing appears as a discrete reality, but everything is seen as the face of Reality. (cf. Valsan, Et. 6, 1952, p. 183)

PRACTICE:

Now try to capture the form of your countenance behind your face and ascertain how it matches your aura and how it changes with your thought and emotions.

Wazaif: ya Bari (the configurer) - ya Alim (the knower)

You may test this out. Consciousness is offset. The physical environment seems remote, out of reach. The mistake is in simply plunging and encapsulating oneself in one’s commonplace thinking, assuming that one is the subject observing one’s thoughts. This is the danger incurred by introspection since one is deceiving oneself by one’s personal bias, because one is observing one’s thoughts simply from one’s personal vantage point. Whereas one needs to extrapolate between one’s personal vantage point and also that antipodal vantage point which the Sufis call the Divine point of view.

Wisdom is born out of the meeting of the knowledge of the heavens and the knowledge of the earth. When the light from within is thrown upon this knowledge, then the knowledge from outer life and the light coming from within make a perfect wisdom.

Ibn ‘Arabi says precisely this in other words:

The world of the unseen is perceived through the eyes of insight just as the world of the visible is perceived by sight. When these two lights come together, unseen things are unveiled as they are in themselves and as they are in existence.

You will recall that for the Sufis, what in our commonplace dualistic representation we imagine God to be as “other,” is a level of oneself which is coextensive with what in our dualistic view we consider as “other.”

Ibn ‘Arabi:
When He discloses Himself there is no other; when He conceals Himself, everything is other. (cf. Valsan, Et. 9, 1949, p. 254)