|
|
 |
|
 |
O reader who seeks the truth! May God make you attain the highest point of the truth and the intrinsic knowledge that you are seeking. Know that it is very difficult both to understand these spiritual states and to describe them. These spiritual levels and stages that God's beloved servants attain are not physical levels or visible ranks or states that may be described and explained. Even though this is the case, let us at least try to understand a little.
Tawhid,(the belief in unit);means to know and consider something as being one. That is to know and believe that God is One, Unique, and Peerless. God says in the Noble Qur'an, "Do not set up besides God any other deity" Ittihad means to be one. The level of Ittihad is superior to the level of tuwhidbecause in the former there is only the notion of knowing God as one, while in the latter there is the notion of being one with God. How is that possible? How can a human, a powerless and mortal being, be one with God? God is indeed not a physical being; we cannot go and be one with Him and stay together with Him.
Some people with limited understanding think of man as being one with God as hulul (God's incarnation), and thus are mistaken. The concept of hulul carries the meaning of taking on a body and as such is not an Islamic belief, bringing a believer to unbelief. In this matter, Rumi says the following: "Ittihttd is not hulul, it is your effacement. " The main point of being one with God, of ittihad, is this: If the person who enters the path of God, cleanses his lower self (nafs) by properly and thoroughly performing asceticism, self-mortification, good deeds, and worshipful duties, that person has found a way to ittihad. That person's being one with God means that he is obeying God's commandments completely, and that he is dissolving his personal choice and will into God's choice and will. Awhad al-Din Kirmani, a great saint, said the following concerning this issue: "Walk on this path until duality disappears. If there is duality, it can be removed by a friend of truth. You do not become him, but if you struggle and endure, you come to a point where "you-ness" is removed from you."
If a person's will is effaced in God's will, that person has attained God. If a person who does not know how to swim falls into the sea and moves his arms and legs in an attempt to get out, yet does this in an incorrect way, then he will sink deeper into the sea. If that person dies and remains motionless on the sea, then any motion made by the body is dependent on the sea. In this regard, Rumi says in the Mesnevi: "The water of the sea takes a dead man on its head and carries him on the surface of the water. How can a living person escape the sea? If you kill your desires and do away with your human attributes, the sea of secrets carries you over its head. " In this case, when a person becomes insan al-kamit,, or an ideal human, any word related to this intrinsic meaning which comes from him will originate from God; as stated in the Noble Qur'an, such a word came from a tree: "When Moses reached there, he was addressed by a tree from the right side of that holy valley: 'O Moses, verily I am God, Lord of the Worlds. '" Inspired by this event Rumi says the following in one of his poems:
I saw a tree of fire. It called out to me: "O my beloved!" That fire was calling me.
Or am I Moses, the son of Imran? Stricken with calamity, I wound up in deserts;
I ate dessert of power and quail.
I have been traveling in the desert for forty years like Moses. O my beloved, come, you, too, are a Moses.
This body is your staff. If you grasp your body and hold on to it, I will turn it into a stick of wood.
But if you throw it away, if you throw it on the ground, I will make of it a dragon with many powers.
You are a Jesus, and I am your bird. You made a bird of clay, and when you breathed on it, I gained life, spread my wings, and soared in the skies.
I am the pillar of die mosque in Madina, the Prophet gave his sermons leaning against me; if he leans against anything else it starts to lament and cry with the sorrow of separation.
O Master of the Masters! O King of Kings! O God who creates figures and shapes while Himself remaining pure of them.
What shape are You going to put me in? I cannot know this. Only You can know.
Our Hudavendigar (another title of Rumi) says this in one of his poems:
I do not know how I have become effaced, is it due to that wine of divine love?
Or where I am due to that Beauty of Nowhere? I arrived at such a place that I do not fit into the world.
Now I do not suit anyone other than that Unique Beloved who is not associated with a place.
You are telling me: "Why aren't you coming to yourself (to your senses)? You show to me myself and who I am, and I shall come to myself. You are the light you called out to Moses: 'I am God, I am God!'
If a voice saying "I am God!" can emanate from a tree, then why cannot such a voice come from man, the most honorable of the creatures and one who carries the Divine Entrustment? Rumi says, "God called out from a tree: 'I am God!' Everybody heeded and was pleased by this call. If a man says the same thing, do not say that this word cannot be uttered due to your spiritual blindness. " The Sultan of the Gnostics, Bayazid Bistami, in a state of ecstasy, said: "I disassociate myself from all imperfect attributes. Great is my Glory!" And he saw the divine manifestation in himself. The qutb57 of his time, Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910 A. D. ) said: "There is none but God in my robe. " Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922 A. D. ), who pleases the hearts of the lovers of God with his spiritual states and who was hung for the love of God, said, "I am the Truth (God)" and was taken to the gallows.
Rumi was also subject to these manifestations and attained the highest point of this spiritual level; he, too, said many similar things in states of ecstasy. For example, in this couplet, he says, "Everybody drank a glass of the divine sherbet, the sherbet of I am the Truth " I, on the other hand, drank a glass full of it. " And in another poem, he expresses the same idea:
We are alive with the holy light of God, that light is keeping us alive.
We are both very close to Him, very familiar with Him and very far away from Him, very foreign to Him.
Were we to show our real face, the moon would repent seeing itself and showing its face.
Were we to spread our wings, we would burn even the wings of the sun. This pure body of ours, our physical being that appears in form of a human, is the veil of real existence.
In fact, we are the qiblah of all those who prostrate.
Do not look at Adam, created of clay, but rather see the breath that was breathed into him and be fascinated by it.
Satan saw only our outer appearance and not what was in us and therefore thought that we were separate from God.
Elsewhere Rumi says: "Mansur was hung by people since he implied secrets of tawhid. If he were alive today, he himself would hang me because of the abundance and exuberance of my secrets."
Rumi has explained the secrets of tawhid with many other meaningful poems like the ones above. I do not want to lengthen this section more by considering other poems. But I could not proceed without citing the two couplets that Sipehsalar attributes to Rumi, which I could not find in the Divan-i Kabir:
O my God, this thorn stuck in my foot and prevents me from reuniting with You and walking on Your path comfortably is my own existence.
Therefore, I would like to get away from myself, save myself from myself. This way when I escape from myself, my ego, duality disappears. I become You, You become I.
I cannot sit with You as much as I want as long as Your love does not empty myself from myself and as long as 1 do not give up on myself, my ego.
As the Gnostics state, this spiritual state of Ittihad is such a spiritual level, such a spiritual state that a person who attains the fortune of reaching it cannot stay in this state indefinitely. He cannot carry this heavy burden.
« Back
|
|
|
