Zikr (or Remembrance)

[Guest guest]

Salaam.

 

Thanks to Jerry or the encouragement to trust Intuition. The following is sort

of a patchwork of random reflections, sort of a mental notepad.

 

"la illaha illa Allah" is the confession of faith for a Muslim. It means "There

is no god but Allah."

It may sound exclusivist, and it really is in a way.

 

Islam: There is no god but Allah.

 

Vedanta: There is no self but the Self.

 

Buddhism: There is no self but No Self.

 

Shaivism: There is only Siva.

 

Taoism: There are no ways but the Way.

 

Judaism: "Shema Israel..." The Lord thy God is one God.

 

Christianity: One God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

Well, the correspondences may not be precise, but there is a common theme of

unity. I take the oneness of God in religion to mean, esoterically, the call to

reintegrate the created and the Uncreated. More precisely, it means the

dissolution of the dichotomy.

 

In Sufism, especially in Ibn Arabi, "la illaha illa Allah" is taken broadly to

mean something like: Allah is one without a second, or one without a partner.

Allah is alone. Only the eternal Self exists. Existence in Sufism is akin to

"Sat" in Vedanta. The divine Sat is absolute and pure Being, which admits no

division whatever. At the same time, Divine Being is fully "outgoing" and

creative. Universes are created and enjoyed for the sake of creating them, and

dissolved in the fullness of time. In this way, Islam resembles Shaivism. The

worlds are illusory and real at the same time. A mirage may not be a real

ocean, but it's certainly a real mirage. The creative power of Allah is

manifest as the manifold array of functions in the living universe.

 

God creates humanity in His image. This theme comes down to us in the West from

the book of Genesis, and is an inheritance of the tradition of prophetic

monotheism, in which the Koran is situated. God creates man and woman in the

image of God. Please permit me to give my own take on this old motif.

 

No human has ever seen God. Not even the greatest of mystics or prophets has

seen God. Why is it that we cannot see God? It is because: 1) The finite

cannot behold the Infinite and continue being finite ("No man can see God and

live."); and 2) We are internal to God. I am entirely in God and God is

entirely in me. Seeing God from this interior position is like an atom of water

inside a cup beholding an external view of the cup. It does not happen. But

the human being can catch a reflection because s/he is the reflection. A

reflection of the moon in a puddle of water is not the moon -- it is water. A

reflection of God in us is not God -- it is us. By the same token, God's

thought of me is not me, it is God. This is exactly where logic and language

fail to go beyond themselves. God and the self are a mutually reflecting unity,

beyond description. I am a thought of God, and God is a thought of me. They

are the same thought, caught in a prismatic refraction. It is here that the

mystic Sage and the Lover of Allah are awed to Silence. It is also here that

Hallaj proclaims "I am the Truth" and here that Hallaj goes up in flames.

 

"Zikr" is Remembrance. It is only incidentally a practice of repeating the

names and attributes of Allah. It is total Memory. As in the Eucharist of the

Messiah Jesus, "Do this in Remembrance of me." Total Memory is the soul of

creation. It means to remember your Self, as you were before you came here, as

you will be after you leave. And as you are now, even if subliminally.

 

Zikr lives in the rhythms of the Heart, in the waves of Breath. It is heard in

the noise and the music made in the world. Right now an airplane is flying over

my head: Allah is great. Zikr is the soul and substance of Love.

 

Namaste and Love to You,

 

Idris.

 

 

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