The real meaning of crucifixion is to crucify the false self that the true self may rise. As long as the false self is not crucified, the true self is not realized.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Those who rejoice in the joy of another, though at their own expense, have taken the first step towards true life. If we are pleased by giving another a good coat, which we would have liked to wear ourselves, if we enjoy that, we are on the first step. If we enjoy a beautiful thing so much that we would like to have it, and then give that joy to another, enjoying it through his experience, we are dead. That is our death. Yet, we live more than he. Our life is much vaster, deeper, greater.
Seemingly it is a renunciation, an annihilation, but in truth it is a mastery. The real meaning of crucifixion is to crucify this false self, and so resurrect the true self. As long as the false self is not crucified, the true self is still not realized. By Sufis it is called Fana, annihilation.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: The Freedom of the Soul 1 )
There is a poem by the great Persian poet Iraqi in which he tells, ‘When I went to the gate of the divine Beloved and knocked at the door, a voice came and said – Who art thou?’ When he had told, ‘I am so and so’, the answer came, ‘There is no place for anyone else in this abode. Go back to whence thou hast come’. He turned back and then, after a long time, after having gone through the process of the cross and of crucifixion, he again went there – with the spirit of selflessness. He knocked at the door; the word came, ‘Who art thou?’, and he said, ‘Thyself alone, for no one else exists save Thee’. And God said, ‘Enter into this abode for now it belongs to thee’. It is such selflessness, to the extent that the thought of self is not there, it is being dead to the self, which is the recognition of God.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The Cross is the symbol of Light. The vertical line is the way by which Light passes from Source to manifestation and also the way by which energy returns from manifestation to Source. This is seen in the breath. The horizontal line is caused by the action between the lower and upper currents and forms the mind-mesh.
The Cross has two forms, one like the letter ‘T’ in the European languages. This represents the crucifixion of the soul in matter. The energy does not pass above the horizontal line. It strikes it and returns again to the earth-plane. This action is called Karma, and it brings to one the results of all speech, thought and action.
The teaching of all sages was to rise above this Karma. That brought the upper part of the vertical line of the Cross. It is that portion which is the Divine Light. But one cannot carry anything through the close lines of the mind-mesh. Only light will go through. Not only are all passions and sentiments too coarse to pass through and above it to the Buddhic Condition (Nuri Mohammed), but even good thoughts and feelings cannot pass. Nothing can pass but thought and feeling of Unity, which is called Love, and this is the very essence of Soul.
By this the false self is crucified and left behind. What is the false self? It is nothing but the thought of self made into a false reality, a pseudo-sun in the mental world. When one perceives the true Light this sun disappears, or by ignoring this false sun, one perceives the true sun. This is the higher crucifixion, and in the case of Jesus Christ and Moses and some others, it even caused the disintegration of the physical body, which had been kept together by the thought-form of the personality. When thought became completely immersed in God, even the physical body disintegrated. That is Paranirvana when even matter is spiritualized.