Sufi viewpoint on Grace

[Guest guest]

I received this exposition of the Sufi viewpoint on the SufiMystic list.

-Bill

 

<<

Your phrase: " making consiousness permeable to stillness and Grace "

I find quite riveting. Is there a reference you could give that

would expand upon this?>>

 

I don't have a reference for that phrase. It's one that I made up to

describe how it feels to me, but it is in no way inconsistent with the

classical Sufi teachings or the techniques taught by contemporary masters

of

the path.

 

" Stillness " and " Grace " are ontologically Present. They exist

independently

of human concern and contrivance, and are part of the essential matrix

around which the concrete universe is supported. We don't create

" Stillness " and " Grace " ; they create *us*. They are not emotions or

energies or archetypes, but something far more fundamental.

 

When we are identified with the life of the personality or personal ego,

we

do not experience these in their pure form and are unaware of how they act

upon us. The Sufis are not about trying to kill the ego or to dissociate

the body from the soul as do some of the yogis. The task of awakening is

seen as one of making one's awareness or sense of oneself, first, more

permeable to what's already there, then to let it act through us more

freely, and all the while allowing Stillness, Grace, Power, Compassion, or

whatever to work a certain alchemical process upon the personality such

that

there ceases to be a clear distinction between the personality facets of

oneself and the action of Stillness, Grace, Power, Compassion (or

whatever).

This is the process referred-to in the classical literature as

" purification. "