The Becoming and Being

Who are we, why are we, and how are we? These are the fundamental questions that face the human situation.

It is said that the first error is in believing that we are a physical body having a spiritual or soul experience. Whereas, in fact, we are essentially spirit, merely experiencing physicality temporarily.

Once this is understood, the next question would be WHY?

Not just the study of theology, metaphysics, religion, mysticism and spirituality, but even the living human experience itself proves the existence of a Singular, Harmonious, Integrated and Inter-connected Reality that pervades all of existence.

The nature, form and truth of this One Being has been the central point of contemplation, reflection and observation for aeons; since the beginning of human life itself.

The relationship between the Divine and the human is a very complex one as compared to the Divine's realationship with the rest of the universe. The human being is the sole carrier of the Divine Trust that the heavens and the earth refused to carry when it was offered to them before man/woman. This Divine Trust or "amanah" is the Spirit of the One that enlivened Adam. We became the repositories of God's Secret as Allah says, "Man is my secret and I am his secret". This Trust is what brought man/woman to be placed on the eternal pendulum of Huwa/La Huwa [He/Not He]. The human offering of itself to God for holding His Trust meant that man/woman had pledged him/herself to the One Reality for becoming the locus of Its ultimate manifestation.

Therefore Allah says in the Holy Quran, that the world and the universe has been created as an expression of Divine Love for man, but man himself has been created solely for Allah. Then again in the Quran it is told, "We did not create man and jinn but for Our worship".

Mystics and people of wisdom have agreed that the nature of God is such that He alone can know Himself. Murshid Inayat Khan says that no one has remained alive after seeing God; to see God one must die. But we also have proof of people who have seen God while in this world. These are the people of the "ahl-e-kashf al wajud", the people of unveiling and finding. In other words they are the ones for whom the veils have been lifted and they have found "Haq" or Reality. Does that mean that these people have become God? Certainly not! "There is none like Him", and nothing can be compared to Him. He in His transcendence is far removed from any likeness in any of the worlds of existence. Allah has however said, "The heavens and the earth do not contain Me, but I come to be found in the heart of my believing servant". There is a three-fold path to Allah from the point of "Adamiyyat" or the human station. The first part of the journey is the station of "iradah" or desire to find Him and intention to reach Him. This involves the adoption of the sincere garb of servant-hood. We serve Allah by obeying all His commands and following the Path decreed by Him. This is the level of Shariah. The middle part of the journey is the station of "mahabbah" or love of Allah.

When a person has established him/herself in the required deeds, he/her begins to draw yet closer to the Real through voluntary acts of Goodness. This is the way of Tariqah or the path of spiritual striving. Once the spiritual rigours have affected sufficient peeling of the veils of material existence, the human being is made to enter the last part of the journey, which is the station of "marifah" or gnosis. Here one becomes the friend of Allah, the Wali, and the holder of His authority. In A Hadith Qudsi, Allah says, "My servant approaches Me with nothing better than the observation of all that has been made encumbent {Farz} upon him. And he does not cease to draw closer to Me through the exercise of voluntary acts of devotion and goodness until I love him and when I love him, I become the eyes with which he sees, the ears with which he hears, the tongue with which he speaks, the hands with which he holds and the feet with which he walks". In other words this means that man becomes so intensely spiritualised that all that shines through him is only the Light of Allah's Spirit. In one's servanthood one has so completely wiped out one's shadow identity that nothing but the truth of "ilallah " Only Allah remains. It means that we can be Him only in our effacement and dissolution. As long as we assert our own existence we cannot know Him and we can never be Him.

According to another Hadith Qudsi, Allah says "I was a Hidden Treasure [kanzan makhfiyyan] I longed to be known so I created creation". It is for His Own Being that Allah initiated creation. He can Be when we enter into a relational engagement with Him. For instance He is the Creator only because there is a creation. He is the Giver of life only because He has given life to something. He is the Provider only because He has provided something. Likewise, we have to become that which He seeks, and infact He only seeks Himself for there is nothing other than the Real in existence. When we become the locus of His manifestation that He willed us to be, then we also enter the realm of Being. Separated and distant from Him we can not Be, but to dissolve in Him is to BE.

Every being has a dual structure as creation is based on polarity. Allah alone is the One, Real and that which is defined by Light. The rest of creation is all in a state of journeying back toward the Light of Origin. The dual structure of existence however defines its very orientation toward the Light. The quest to unveil this heavenly counterpart is what guides the moral and spiritual destiny of every human being, and of the soul of the world itself. The task is to actualise this "sacral Light" here on earth itself. The energy of this Light is what transforms, transfigures and makes whole the souls of all beings. This transformation to become and to finally be is an alchemical process. In this process the very substance of the thing is the locus of the Work, both container and content i.e our material life as well as our spiritual being. The goal is the transmutation of each being into a more subtle yet more definite state.

To BE is not to be: the wonderful paradox of the human situation.



By Naila Amat-un-Nur

November 2006