Visions of Allah, part Three

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Visions of Allah, Part Three

 

By James Bean

santmatfellowship

 

Copyright May 1997

 

Sufi messengers portray most societies as having succumbed to

spiritual sleep, having long since forgotten about the soul and the

importance of reconnecting with the spiritual world, the Point of

Origin. The Persian tale called "The Hymn of the Pearl" chronicles

the journey of one soul who incarnates and ends up in a typical human

society with the usual package of prejudice, myopia and agnosis,

helplessly trapped in it's own dreams and nightmares, seemingly

unable to ever wake up. In this environment, our soul grows up only

to forget itself and the mission for which it had originally been

sent. Our soul then takes on a new identity, wanting to "fit in,"

gaining the acceptance of others.

 

I put on a robe like theirs lest they suspect me as an outsider who

had come to steal the pearl of great price; lest they arouse the

serpent against me. But somehow they learned I was not their

countryman, and they dealt with me cunningly. I forgot that I was

a son of kings, and served their king. I forgot the pearl for which

my parents had sent me. Through the heaviness of their food I fell

into a deep, deep sleep. (from the "Hymn of the Pearl")

 

The role of a genuine Master is to summon souls to awakening again,

enabling them to remember their true identity...to find themselves,

and to begin their great journey back home to the original abode of

all souls.

 

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi, desperate for awakening, said that he prayed the

lover's prayer:

 

O Allah, give me Light. Bring me to the station of Vision, that I

may know myself as You.

 

Sanai advised his disciples to meditate in order to discover the

spiritual highway that leads to the True Realm:

 

Collect your mind's fragments that you may fill yourself bit by bit

with meaning. The one disciple who meditates the mysteries of

creation for sixty minutes gains more merit than from sixty years

of fasting and prayer. Meditation: high-soaring hawk of the

intellect's wrist resting at last on the flowering branch of the

heart: this world and the next are hidden beneath its folded wing.

(The Drunken Universe)

 

An exercise of awakening practiced by the Sufis is called Zikhr --

chanting names of God. The name of God takes possession of the lover

who invokes it. Union with the name becomes union with Allah Himself.

As the lover calls for his Beloved, the magnetic force of love draws

them both together. 'Iraqi:

 

I could see you a thousand times a day and still desire to see you

once again.

 

This yearning of the lover spurs even those who have attained union

to aspire to reach higher and higher still. Rumi says:

 

Bring the sky beneath your feet and listen to Celestial Music

everywhere.

 

And from Master Darshan Singh:

 

Let us find the remedy which raises us from the wheel of life,

fills our whole being with love which, and alchemizes us into the

Divine. Unite us in a love which surges into our Life-Stream,

making our lives a symphony, soft and sweet. The soul cries for the

dawn that smiles at the weary wayfarer, and for Divine Light to

embrace the whole cosmos.

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Quotes in "Visions of Allah," Parts One, Two and Three came from:

 

.. The Cry of the Soul, Darshan Singh, SK Publications;

.. Fakhruddin 'Iraqi -- Divine Flashes, Paulist Press;

.. Jewels of Remembrance, (Rumi poems) Threshold Books;

.. The Drunken Universe -- An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry,

Phanes;

.. God's Whisper -- Creation's Thunder (Rumi poems), Threshold Books;

.. Love At Every Step, Darshan Singh, SK Publications;

.. The Complete Gospels, (Gos. of Thomas) R. J. Miller, Polebridge

Press;

.. The Other Bible, (Hymn of the Pearl), W. Barnstone, Harper Collins;

.. Living Light Melodies magazine, (the Patrick Corrigan poem);

.. The complete Hymn of the Pearl online:

http://www.gnosis.org/library/hymnpearl.htm

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