The purpose of our life on earth is to come and see all the distinctions and differences, but not to be congested by them and so to be thrown downwards. We should go on rising above them all, at the same time experiencing them all. H.I.K.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ibn Arabi says that just as there is nothing but good in existence and all paths lead to Allah, so also all character traits are noble and none is base.
He further explains that all character traits are noble only in relationship to their ontological roots. As soon as the four levels of good and evil are taken into account, some are noble and some are base. In reality what is named “evil” and what is named “good” go back to one of four things:
1. The convention of the Revealed Law. Sharai Dastoor.
2. Agreeable or disagreeable in relation to a person’s constitution.
3. A perfection established by proofs so that if it attains to it, it will be good and if it fails to attain to it, then it would be evil.
4. Attaining to one’s individual desire or “Gharaz”, which will appear good to the person or not attaining will appear evil.
When the observer ceases looking at all these things , there remains nothing but the entities of existent things, qualified by neither good nor evil.
The Perfection of Imperfection.
The engendering command of God is that which brought the universe into existence. The prescriptive command is that which establishes the dos and donts. There is scope for disobedience regarding the prescriptive command but if the engendering command alone is considered, there is no imperfection in the cosmos, since all creatures follow what God desires of them. Allah says in the Quran that there is nothing in the universe that does not surrender to Him willingly or unwillingly. Everything in existence is on a clear Path of journeying towards the One, obeying His Desire. In this respect what we would normally call “imperfection” is actually perfection, since it allows for the various levels of existence and knowledge. If there were no imperfections in the sense of decrease, diminishment, lack, there would in fact be no creation. Were there no creation, the Hidden Treasure would remain hidden. There would be no self-disclosure of the Divine Reality, Light would not shine, God would be the Non-Manifest and not the Manifest. But this is unacceptable, because this demands the imperfection of Being Itself, which by definition is Nondelimited Perfection ‘Al-Kamal-Al-Mutlaq’. Being’s perfection requires the manifestation of Its properties. The effects of the names and attributes must be displayed for God to be God.
In short, the perfection of the Divine Reality is made possible only by the existence of imperfection. To be other than God is to be “imperfect”. It is to lack divine attributes which originate in being. But it is precisely this otherness or ‘Ghayriyyat” which allows the cosmos and all the creatures within it to exist. If the things were perfect in every respect, they would be identical with God Himself. Hence it is imperfection which separates the creatures from their Creator and makes possible the existence of the cosmos. Therefore imperfection is a kind of perfection itself.
In order to differentiate between the good and the evil, human beings have need of the Law, or the light of faith which recognises that Law. Al-Firasat al Imaniyya is a divine light which God gives to the person of faith in the eye of his insight, just like the light which belongs to the eye of sight. The light of perspicacity is attributed to the name “Allah”, which is the name that brings together the properties of all the names, just as this light unveils both the praiseworthy and the blameworthy attributes.
Man gains the light of perspicacity by assuming the noble character traits in harmony, balance and equilibrium. Just as physical illness is caused by the disequilibrium of the constitution, so moral illness is caused by the disequilibrium of the character traits. In order to bring the traits into equilibrium, man has need of the divine physician. His task is to show the seeker how to employ his innate character traits, since nothing can be added to man’s creation. The traits that he possesses innately are redirected in a manner that becomes pleasing to God.
The function of the prophets and the awliya is to help bring out the noble character traits which are intrinsic to human nature. They must also provide proper guidance for the base character traits as all the character traits, base and noble, go back to man’s essence.
The law directs all character traits into proper channels so that people will employ their own inner attributes in the mode which corresponds to God’s approval. This is how the attributes become noble character traits and if employed wrongly, become base character traits.
The Holy Prophet s.w said, “I was sent to complete the noble character traits.” According to Ibn Arabi the noble character traits were incomplete because the previous prophets did not deal with all of them. Prophet Muhammad s.w completed them by adding to the noble character traits all the base character traits, since his revealed law transforms the blameworthy traits into praiseworthy ones. The transformation is to change the manner in which the traits are applied. The attributes found in man’s innate disposition do not change, since they are essential to this world’s configuration and man’s specific constitution. These include cowardice, avarice, envy, eager desire, tale-bearing, arrogance, harshness, seeking subjugation and the like. Since these cannot be eradicated, God explained various applications for them by the rulings of the Law. If the soul directs the properties of these attributes towards these applications, it will attain to felicity and high degrees.
These proper applications are:
1. The soul should be COWARDLY toward committing forbidden things because of the loss it can incur.
2. It should have AVARICE in respect to its religion.
3. It should ENVY him who spends his possessions in the Way of Allah and seeks knowledge.
4.It should be EAGERLY DESIROUS towards good and try to spread it among people.
5.It should TELL the TALE of good, just as the garden tells the tale of the sweet-smelling flowers within it.
6.It should be ARROGANT in God towards him who is arrogant towards God’s command.
7. It should be HARSH in its words and acts in the places where it knows that God approves of that.
8.It should SEEK the SUBJUGATION of him who is hostile towards God and resists Him.
People should therefore not suffer hardship for they are not forbidden the attributes that their natures require. People perish only when they are controlled by individual desires. It is that which allows them to suffer pain and to dislike things.
If man were to redirect his desire towards that which his Creator wants for him, he would be at rest.
Abu Yazid was asked, “What do you desire?” He replied, “I desire not to desire.” In other words, “Make me desire everything that Thou desirest,” “ So that there may be nothing but what God desires.” And God desires for His servants “only ease and He desires not hardship” 2:185. That is why Abu Yazid sought deliverance from those individual desires of the soul which do not conform with the approval of God.
[The Sufi Path of Knowledge by William.C.Chittick.]
--------------------------------------------------------------
Murshid sheds light on all the above-mentioned,saying, “When people say that they distinguish between right and wrong by their results, even then they cannot be sure if in the punishment there was not a reward, or in the reward a punishment. This shows us that life is a puzzle of duality. The pairs of opposites keep us in an illusion and make us divide life into this and that. At the same time when greater light is thrown upon them, we see them as something totally different to what we had thought.
Seeing the nature and character of life, the Sufi does not consider it so important to distinguish between two opposites. What is important is to recognize the One that is hiding behind it all. After realizing life, the Sufi climbs the ladder which leads him to unity, to the idea of unity which comes through the synthesis of life, by seeing One in all, in all beings.
A person who awakens to the spirit of unity, a person who sees the oneness behind all things, his point of view becomes different and his attitude therefore changes. He no longer says to the friend, “I love you because you are my friend”; he says,’I love you because you are myself.” He begins to speak the language of the mystic, “Whether you have done wrong, or whether I have done wrong, it does not matter. What is wanted is to right the wrong.”
Murshid concludes, “God is not to be blamed [for human disasters]. It is we human beings who are at fault; instead of seeking the pleasure of God, we have sought our own pleasures.”
Meditation.
“You are not afraid of your limbs because they are yours, you claim them as your very own. But when you go beyond your own boundaries and do not expand or enlarge your consciousness, you feel alienated; you feel everybody is a stranger to you. When we practice yoga, the union of the individual soul with the Supreme Self, we try to enlarge our consciousness until the time comes when it pervades the length and breadth of the world. With our conscious awareness we become one, totally one, with the universe.
Then there can be no fear.
Fear exists just because we want to remain separated, consciously or unconsciously, from the all-pervading Reality that we eternally are. For a seeker, the paramount thing is to dive deep within, and discover the road that leads to this all-pervading oneness-reality. Where there is oneness… there cannot be even an iota of fear.
The mind creates division,
And division is another name
For devastating pain.
The heart creates oneness,
And oneness is another name
For spontaneous joy.”
The Divine Hero, by Sri Chinmoy.