an excerpt

[Guest guest]

If I may, I would like to share a brief excerpt from Pir Vilayat Inayat

Khan's book Awakening (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam publishers, 1999)...

 

How does on go about gaining insight into the deepest levels of

reality? First, by dropping the biases of ordinary thinking that

obscure the interconnection with the Universe. Bistami, a dervish who

lived in the mountains for forty years, said, "God fools you in the

markets of this world. Now when you see His effigies, they are just

devices. The reality is hidden behind them." He goes on to say, "The

Bridegroom doesn't have to suffice himself with the veil of the bride."

Stripped of the veil of the illusory, ephemeral traces of everyday

experience, our minds may gradually, in infinite regress, begin to

perceive remote glimmers of the thinking of the Universe. Ultimately,

we may reach a stage in our meditations where we discover a direct

intuition of meaningfulness unmediated by physical phenomena. Hazrat

Inayat Khan says that when intelligence is confronted with an object it

becomes consciousness, and when it is voided of any content, it returns

to its ground, which is intelligence.

Attainment of this "spiritual intelligence" is the ultimate

realization of mystics. Sufis call this state of consciousness Jabarut,

the ground out of which consiousness emerges. For as ordinary

consciousness is gradually freed from the perspectives of everyday

existence - thoughts, ideas, circumstances, emotions, physical events -

the transcendent dimension begines to emerge. What do we mean by

transcendence? Take, for example, an apple tree in blossom. Though

your glance takes in its trunk, brances, leaves, and flowers, you are

also moved by its beauty and loveliness. And while the beauty of this

tree depends on its physical form, still, it has an essential reality of

its own which is its meaningfulness. Or, take music, behind the notes

are an array of vibrational frequencies that could be said to constitute

the language of the thinking of the Universe. Likewise, it is the

meaning - not the letters - that shine through the words of a book or

text. So the mind, stripped of the distraction of transient thoughts,

is infused with an inborn sense of meaningfulness. This transcendent

faculty appears only when one has given up trying to sort things out in

an habitual fashion.

Once while on retreat in the Alps, I had just such a breakthrough

experience - one that was dramatically reflected in the weather and

surrounding landscape. After a stormy night in the mountains,

precariously sheltered beneath the roof of a shepherd's shed, I observed

the dark clouds and heard the thunderclaps gradually receding into the

distance, swept away by a raging wind. As if in sympathetic resonance,

my consciousness began to melt away, scattering into an infinite,

edgeless Universe. Vanishing along with the storm were my concept about

the world, the Cosmos, my personal circumstances, unresolved problems,

values, appropriate or inappropriate actions - even my teachings about

the Divine Qualities, the meaningfulness of life, egos, bodiness, the

psyche. Suddenly, all these thoughts seemed so futile, worthless, and

misleading!

Rather than floundering in a "dark night" of negativity brought on

by the collapse of these mental structures, however, I clung to the very

meaningfulness that had just shattered my commonplace thinking. It was

the consummate quantum leap; it brought vividly alive the last words

spoken by my father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, on his deathbed: "When the

unreality of life strikes my heart, its reality is revealed to me." All

my life, I thought to myself, I have prided myself on what I thought

were valid theories about the Universe - unmasking the hoax of

superstitions, dogmas, and conditioned responses to life. But, instead

of dismissing all these constructs, I realized that they had acted as

stepping-stones that led me to this ultimate breakthrough. Even though I

now had no more use for them, they remained there for my use, like a

ladder propped against a wall, while "I" became immersed in the sublime,

wordless state of unity beyond life - existence inveiled into eternity.

 

Love, Mark

[Guest guest]

Fascinating how all traditions arrive at the end result. Thanks for

this excerpt.

 

The entire thirteen volume book collection of his father, Hazrat Inayat

Khan, is on the web at the following URL:

 

http://www.murshid.org/Khan/khanindex.htm

 

Used to whirl at the Church of St. John in NYC when Pir Vilayat gave

teachings there many many years ago. Fond memories.

 

With love and affection,

 

Victor