Bowl of Saki for March 11

People see what they see; beyond it they cannot see.

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net

People have differed in all ages because they have called their Deity by different names. There have existed wars, fights and family feuds for ages, people dividing themselves merely for the difference of the names given to their Deity. People always see just what they see; they cannot see beyond it.

Ah! how desirous I was to see the Divine Beloved!
It is not the fault of the Beloved that you do not see;
The Divine is before you!
It is the fault of you who recognize It not.
Everything, whatever you see is nothing else but
The Presence of God!

When ordinary or illiterate people meet a poet, they see the person-part and not the poet-part. But if they are told that this person is a poet, they may see the poet-part when they meet. They now see a poet in the poet’s actions and words; in everything about the poet they see the poet, whereas otherwise they would not have been able to see this. Thus a great poet may go among a crowd and the people will only see the person; they do not see the poet, and they do not know how profound the poet’s thoughts are. So once people begin to recognize God in others they do not see the person any more but God. The person is the surface, while God is deep within. Such recognition brings people into touch with everyone’s innermost being, and then they know more about people than people know themselves. …

It is said, ‘By the vision of God, the self will become God.’ This happens when we come to see God in everybody. We develop goodness in our actions; our words become God’s words because we are impressed with all that reflects only goodness and is mirrored around us. Then we become a museum or a picture of goodness. We reflect it from morning till evening, we reflect forgiveness, we reflect tolerance, and we reflect all these lovely qualities. As it is said, ‘If my Beloved is in every kind of person how considerate I ought to be towards all!’ Lovers are always very careful when with their beloveds; they become thoughtful and tender. …

Divine Perfection is perfection in all powers and mysteries. All these are manifested without specially striving for them. Perfection and annihilation [ بقاء‎ baqāʾ and فناء‎ fanā’ – perfection or subsistence and annihilation, passing away or effacement of the nafs, the small self. — Muiz ] is that stage where there is no longer ‘I’ and no longer ‘you’, where there is [ only ] What There Is.

[ Quoting a footnote from The Book of Certainty, by Abu Bakr Siraj ad-Din (Martin Lings):

“ash-Shari’atu, ana wa Anta;
at-Tariqatu, ana Anta wa Anta ana;
al-Haqiqatu, la ana wa la Anta, Huwa.”

Of the religious law, Shari’at, (its truth is): I and Thou;
As for the mystic path, Tariqat, (its truth is): I am Thou and Thou art I;
But the Truth Itself, Haqiqat, (is): Neither I nor Thou, Only That (Huwa, Hu).

The last statement is equivalent to the Zikr phrase: La Ilaha Ill’ Allahu, there is nothing but Allah Hu, and echoes the Sanskrit ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ (That, you are), and the Buddhist ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ (translated poetically as ‘the dew drop slips into the Shining Sea’ by Sir Edwin Arnold in The Light of Asia), or ‘Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhisvaha’ (Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Beyond Going). In Arabic ‘huwa’ or ‘hu’ is grammatically the 3rd person, masculine pronoun (‘he’, with ‘she’ being ‘hiya’, or ‘hi’), but the Sufis take a transpersonal, beyond gender approach, referring to Hu as a pointer to The Unknown and Unknowable Essence (adh-Dhat or Zat). As Allah is the Essence behind or within all of the manifested Divine Names or Qualities, Hu is the Essence of Allah, so The Essence of The Essence, and is sometimes referred to as the ‘Pronoun of Absence’ as at that level there is no experience of self, or identity, or separation … all of those distinctions are completely absent. Ibn ‘Arabi, arguably one of the greatest Sufis, as well as others, often use ‘hiya’ rather than ‘huwa’ (She rather than He), as they explain that The Essence is more properly feminine than masculine, and adh-Dhat or Zat, is grammatically feminine. — Muiz ]

Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis

The vision of humankind as humankind is confined to the mind-mesh, but it is also true that God made the human being in God’s own Image. By human being is meant what the Hebrews called Aish, the Intellectual Person. But this in turn was an aspect of Adām, the Universal Person, Whose vision extends beyond the mental plane.

The potentiality of humankind is greater than that of any domain in all the aspects of creation or existence. Our physical eye is like that of the animals, limited in scope, better than the eyes of some, not so good as the sight of others. But human eyesight is more closely connected with the human brain and mental life, and our mental eye is not like that of the animals. Some animals may see the sun and moon and be affected by them, but they never think about them, they do not compare their distances or size with the sizes and distances of objects about them. Indeed the mind of animals is totally different from that of the human being in certain aspects, particularly in the higher aspects. Imagination enables us to transcend time while animals are completely subject to time processes.

But the eye of our heart possesses capacity above limitation. This capacity, while it need not be called infinite, still is beyond the scope of mental vision and measurement. In that respect it is neither infinite nor finite nor quantitative nor qualitative; it is not subject to time or space, and is of a very different nature from time and space. So while Heart expands and contracts, opens and closes, it is therefore not of any geometrical or mathematical nature.