External life is the shadow of the Inner Reality.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
… The outer manifestations of life are so rigid and dense that the secret of their nature and character is buried underneath.
Why is the world called an illusion by the mystics? Because the nature of manifestation is such that it envelops its own secret within itself, and appears in such a rigid form that the fineness, beauty and mystery of its character are hidden. Therefore the seekers after the Truth of Life, the students of Life, are of two opposite kinds. The one wishes to learn from outward appearance. The other wishes to find out the secret that is hidden behind it. The one who learns from the external gets the knowledge from the external, which we call science. The one who finds out from the within, from what is hidden in this manifestation, is the mystic. The knowledge gained is mysticism. … Every activity of the outer world is a kind of reaction; in other words a shadow of the activity which is behind it and which we do not see.
The inner life is not separate from the outer life, but is a fuller and larger life. What is necessary is to put first things first. Mystics do more than quote scriptures; they not only say, ‘Seek ye first the Realm of God,’ their whole life is absorbed in the seeking.
( from Githas, Series II, Dhyana 7: Meditation [ unpublished ] )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
Absolute Life is of the nature of Light. When Allah performed the Creation, Allah drew toward a center the highest vibrations, to make as it were, a greater Abode of Light. By this in-drawing, contractive movement Allah caused Light to depart in certain regions causing an apparent sphere of relative darkness. By this process and within this sphere the grosser worlds were made. And humankind, when its turn came, entered into this abode to help restore the Light, which had been temporarily withdrawn from it.
[ This ‘apparent sphere of relative darkness’ (which Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan says above ‘envelops its own secret within itself, and appears in such a rigid form that the fineness, beauty and mystery of its character are hidden’, and which the mystics refer to as illusory) is the outer, external Universe – the so-called Worlds of Form.
The density and rigidity of the matter throughout the Worlds of Form are what enable and make possible our human life, and everything that we create and build and make use of in that life. At the same time that very density and rigidity, and the other material, physical properties of matter, veil and hide (al-Baatin) the radiant, effulgent character of the inner Abode of Light, and in a sense “prevent” that Light from shining openly (az-Zaahir, or adh-Dhaahir) into and through the Worlds of Form. This veiling as well as the limited nature of our physical eyes and other senses prevent us from being directly aware of all but the barest fraction of a fraction of a percent of that hidden effulgence.
From this perspective Murshid SAM (and many other mystics and occultists including the Christian Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, and the Theosophical Society writers) say that one of humanity’s fundamental purposes is to spiritualize the matter that we are using as our vehicles in the outer world … our bodies, and all of the matter we come in contact with and interact with, including the very air we breathe in and out. As we awaken more and more to our True Self, our Inner Being, as we proceed with the Awakening of Heart, as we purify and clarify our emotions and and minds, as we begin to be able to penetrate the mind-mesh, and experience the greater reality of the Heart Sphere, awakening into our Soul Nature, our Indwelling Essence, the Alchemical process of refining and spiritualizing the very atoms and molecules of our bodies proceeds. As we raise our consciousness to higher vibratory levels, there is a corresponding raising of the vibratory levels of the physical matter in our bodies. As our nafs, our ego becomes more refined, more spacious, more transparent the Light from the Inner World begins to shine through it into our bodies and the surrounding environment. Matter itself becomes less dense and rigid, and the Abode of Light, which it previously was veiling begins to shine through, much like the Sun breaking through the clouds that seem to cover it.
In the late 1970s in San Francisco, during my early training with my teacher Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, one Saturday evening in his Advanced Dance Class, he recited a quote he attributed to the great Sufi preacher, ascetic, mystic, jurist, and theologian, Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani (from 12th century CE/6th century AH, Baghdad, the founder of the Qadiri Sufi lineage). Speaking from within a state of mystical Union with the highest levels of the Abode of Light, in the voice of Allah he states: “For those unable to abide the Brilliance of My Intellect, I created the Worlds of Form … as a screen. And for those unable to abide the Solitude of My Unity, I created the Worlds of Light … as a screen.”
This statement and the Reality that it points towards made a very powerful impression on me, at the time, and I’ve carried it with me, coming back to it again and again, over the decades since I heard it. That the Worlds of Form were a screen or a veil hiding or concealing the Worlds of Light from our direct, in the body, perceptions and experience, was a principal spiritual teaching that I’d more or less integrated into my deeper understandings. And I’d been aware for a long time that there was something Unknowable beyond, behind, within, or more fundamental than the Worlds (or Abode) of Light, the Heaven Worlds, Devachan, the Buddhic and Atmic planes and so on … the Great Mystery. But to hear, in this quote, that not only were these inner realms veiled from our perceptions by differences in the octaves of Vibration until we evolved more, but that we were being actively shielded and protected by the Worlds of Form, from the human-blinding intensity of the Brilliance of the Cosmic Intellect, the Love-Wisdom aspect of the Creator which floods and permeates the Worlds of Light … this was a pretty amazing consideration. But even more mind blowing for me was this revelation that the Worlds of Light were themselves a cover, a shield, and a protection for all beings no matter how evolved and how high their Vibration, from the overwhelming Solitude of the Absolute Unity of Allah, the Only Being. This was an electrifying deeper insight into the nature of Reality than I had had before.
Over the years I’ve searched the net for this quote, to see if I could find it and perhaps the work that it was quoted from … hoping that it had been translated into English (which so many Sufi metaphysical works have not been) … but my net searches never turned up anything close to the quote. A few years ago I asked Wali Ali if he remembered sharing the quote and if he had any more information about it. He replied that he did remember the words, but not where he had read it, or heard it quoted, and couldn’t say definitively that it was indeed from Sheikh Abdul Qadr Jilani. Perhaps it is, and at some point an Arabic Sufi writings scholar might recognize it, or might indicate that it was mistakenly attributed to Sh. AQJ, and correctly identify whose insight it was. And perhaps, on that evening, the Spirit of Guidance spoke through Wali Ali in that particular manner for the impact that the words would have on my inner being. Hu knows! In any case, al-hamdu lillah! — Muiz ]