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The great Sufi
poet Mulana Roomi has said, ‘Man is nothing but sight and the rest of him is
just a body of flesh and bones that is perishable. And the sight is to witness
the friend.’ Witnessing the friend is the poetic way of suggesting the common
level of the universe, which is controlled by
God.
Whether it is
a single person or a multitude of people, the sight is of individual or
collective nature, it’s functioning remains the same. Another interesting
aspect of the sight is that whatsoever it witnesses individually remains
obscure from the others. Technically the common characteristic of the sight, in
Sufism, is called Unity and the diversity and individual characteristic is
called Plurality. But, the plurality is the sight of the unity, all the same.
As regards to the cosmic relationship the sight is unity but when it gets into
the angle of plurality, it looks at things in a diversified manner and
understands them differently. This diversification in the sight is the plurality.
God has
stated, “I was a Hidden Treasure, I created the creatures with love so that I
be recognized.” Analysis of this statement tells that four agencies have been
mentioned here in this statement of God, Almighty. First one is the Supreme
Being of God, second one is the Hidden Treasure, third one is the process of
creation and the fourth one is the creature. In all these four agencies, only the
angles of the sight are different. The first two agencies, in fact, are the two
angles of unity and the other two are the angles of plurality.
God is the
hidden treasure. Being the Hidden Treasure, in Sufism, God is the Indispensable
Being (Wajib-ul-wajood). When we try to understand the Indispensable Being, it
is observed that the Conscious of the Indispensable Being is repeating itself
and is busy in inculcating itself. The Indispensable Being is a point (the
Conscious). When this point repeats itself it becomes two, these two become
four. It is just like the process of cell division in living organisms. It is
happening since Eternity and resulting the repetition of the conscious,
incalculable points are coming into being that arrange themselves in the form
of a circle. Every point is also a circle at its own place and all these points
unite together to become a larger circle, which we know as the universe. This
means that the program that is there in the mind of God is reduplicating itself
and resulting this repetition this program is multiplying itself in a geometric progression.
Resulting the
expansion and contraction, each and every circle becomes dihedral or is divided
into two portions. Each of these two portions is a triangle.
God has
stated, “Verily, It all belongs to God that is there in the day and the night.
And, it is He who is All-Hearing and All-Knowing.” It simply means that all
that is there during the day and the night is the sole property of God
Almighty. All that enters the human senses and perception is under the control
of God as He owns them and is the
circles that have come into being because of the Conscious of God or the
Indispensable Being. These very circles become the perception in the mankind.
And, these are the circles that give us senses. God has divided all that is
there in the human perception in two parts of the nocturnal and diurnal
senses. Both these two circles
are the two planes of a circulatory
movement, which are the source and origin of the
senses of all types. God has given them two different names of ‘Lail’ (Night)
and Nehar (Day). One is the circle of
dreaming and the other is the circle of awakening.
Man thinks
that the nocturnal senses are unreal because according to him these are
darkness, drowse and sleep. It is not so. God has refuted this concept of
considering them as unreal and told that the senses of the Day and Night both
are solid senses. There is no doubt that the diurnal senses have the support of
the collective evidence whereas the nocturnal senses are witnessed only at
individual level. But, this fact also cannot be ignored that the collective
evidence is prone to make many mistakes.
The individual
and collective level of the sight lays the foundation of Time. When a person
introduces with the other, this very phase of introduction becomes the time.
Introduction means that when a person gets acquainted with the other person
there has to have a hidden affinity between them, if there is no hidden linkage
between them then it is not possible for them to be familiar with each other.
This very hidden relation or the affinity is the Time. When a person comes in
contact with another person and the Time is the common hidden relation between
them therefore the two Selves meet and stays at one point.
Individuals of
the universe are inscribed somewhere and the place where these are inscribed is
known as Time. Passing by or staying at one point is the way of the Conscious
otherwise it has no significance whatsoever. Everything exists by its Self,
i.e., every individual of the universe is incorporated on a base. The sight
observes all that is inscribed upon the base and the Conscious understands it.
God say, “I am
All-Hearing. I am All-Seeing.” It means the faculties of the Sight and the
Hearing are the sole property of God Almighty and no one shares this right with
Him. Then this also is the statement of God, “I granted sight and hearing to
man.” Now, it is not very difficult to have this conclusion that man sees and hears by virtue of God’s Sight and
God’s Hearing. Whether a person is making us of this faculty for his individual
purposes or uses it to witness the Supreme Being of God, whether a spiritual
associate sees into the Serial Time or witnesses the Non-serial time, all these
forms of sighting are the seeing by God, or to say, it is seeing using the sight of God and hearing using the
hearing of God. The act of seeing into the Serial Time in individual capacity
is an imperfect viewing. When a person uses the God given faculties of seeing
and hearing and considers them to be his own merits and thinks that he sees or
he hears at his own, he starts committing mistakes. It is the fact that a
person sees or hears because of the faculties of God but when he ascribes them
to be his own merits a chain of unending mistakes is switched on in giving
meanings to the things seen or heard.
When the sight
is used, whether it is at the individual level or it is collective level, the
sight witnesses alike. It is the law of God. When a person in deviation to this
law, starts considering the God given abilities to be his own and associate
them to himself, he starts committing such mistakes that take him away from the
Non-serial Time and the cognition of God becomes an unachievable task for him.
It is not possible for any person to see an almond tree as a fig tree because the almond, fig and man exist on the same one plane and
all use the sight in the same one way. This is
quite possible that a person might be declaring the fig as a useless thing
because of his own misinformation but the properties of the fig would remain
what they are and these would not change because he considers them to be
useless.
God has
stated, “It is He who has created you from one single Self.” It means that God
has created mankind with an obscure scheme, which is not visible in the Serial
Time because it is kept operative in the background of the manifestations. God
has termed this very scheme as the Single Self that creates those impressions
in the darkness of the night and in the deeper recesses of light, which are
perceived by our senses in the form of manifestations. Now, this is not at all
possible that we could deny the existence of these impressions or refuse to
acknowledge their presence, what at the most we can do is to declare the right
as wrong or wrong as right. And the basic reason for this is the act of
associating the gifted faculties of sight and hearing to our own self. When a
person considers the personal attributes of God as his own qualities he tends
to treat right as wrong and the wrong as the right. This wrong approach of
thinking causes us to go astray from the straight path.
According to
the statement of God everybody has been given the intuitive ability, which is
known by the name of the Conscience. Conscious is the inner light and the voice
of the conscience is the voice from God that guides man at every step and when
a person refuses to take the advice of the conscience, the conscience starts
criticizing him. This criticizing is also a sort of guidance, which helps in
having the intentions correct. If a person does not pay attention to the voice
of the conscience, he is deprived of the guidance towards the correct path.
And, in absence of the guidance of the conscience one falls prey to whims,
doubts and uncertainty.
ADMINISTRATION OF TIME AND SPACE
Internal self
is the base line encompassing the huge heavenly bodies and the smallest tiny
particles of the universe, that is, all those lights that form the great and
small heavenly bodies and the other particles of the universe are the integral
part of the Internal Self. If we want to see the tiny particles otherwise
invisible to our sight, we can see them in our imagination by envisioning them.
Similarly, when we mention angels we do have some concept about them although
we have not seen the angels. Similarly we talk about the heavens, which we have not seen but we do
have some concept about them. These very concepts, ideas and thoughts transfer
to the Personal Ego from the Internal Self. Transference of the concepts does
not depend upon the Personal Ego rather it entirely depends upon the Internal
Self. Personal Ego is duty bound to accept and accommodate the concepts handed
over to it by the Internal Self just as these are passed down to it. Rose, for
instance, is a Personal Ego; the Internal Self transferred the concepts of its
form and features and the rose exhibited itself in the form and features
according to the concepts transferred to it. Similarly, a person exhibits the
shape, color, complexion and features that are transferred to his Personal Ego
from the Internal Self. Man, in fact, is a collection of those concepts that are conceived
by the Conscious and are transferred to it from the
Internal Self, the unconscious. The concepts,
which are responsible for the creation of the physical body, are the
Unconscious.
We think that
the physical body is making itself and it is supplied with the nourishing food
(lights) from without and this is causing it to maintain the circulation of the
blood in the body. Well, this is not the case. Actually the concepts, thoughts
and ideas transferring from the Internal Self transform into solid matter,
which causes us to feel the gravity. If the Unconscious does not arrange to
transform the concepts into matter, death takes over.
Qalander Baba
Auliya has said. Man in his lifetime usually suffers, sometimes more than once,
from fatal and protracted diseases. His diet is reduced to the minimum or is
completely forbidden from taking anything food but this does not result in his
death. This thing clearly establishes that the physical body is not responsible
for the functioning of life and all that is supplied to the physical body from
without is not causing it to live. The only thing that is responsible for our
life is the Internal Self. There could be many ways for understanding the
Internal Self.
Man, after his
birth and infancy attains the age up to sixty or seventy sometimes even ninety.
His physical body, his thoughts, his ideas, his approach of thinking, his
knowledge and his acts and deeds keep on changing through out his life. So much
so that every part and bit of his body changes beyond recognition but the
person remains the same who was born say, some ninety or sixty years ago. If
his name is Tom, he would always be addressed and remembered as Tom. This
establishes this fact that only those concepts are lasting, which transfer to
the human conscious from the Internal Self, even if each and every particle of
the physical body is replaced, altered or changed. The Internal Self is invariant
and unchanging and the Personal Ego is variant and changing.
God has
stated, “It is He who is All-encompassing,” i.e., the Internal Self is encompassing.
Now the
question is that if Tom is the Internal Self and is encompassing then why he
does not have the knowledge of the universe. It is not very difficult to answer
this question. The reason for his obliviousness is that he is unconcerned about
the Internal Self. He does not want to get out of the limited confines of his
Personal Ego. The person who considers the things remaining within the confines
of his personal views and interests have a limited approach of thinking and,
because of this limitation he lacks in sincerity. But a person after negating
his limited approach can manage to have the pattern of collective thinking and
is liberated from the limited individual approach. If all the interests of a
person are limited to his family alone, his understanding will not exceed
beyond the limits of his family. And the limiting understanding will result in
the limited observations.
Eyes and ears
of a person see and hear within the limits of his understanding, these cannot
see or hear beyond the limits of his understanding. Apparently he enjoys a good
perception of his surroundings but, in fact, all his interests remain centered
at his family affairs and he is least interested in anything else beyond that
sphere. The Conscious of a person having individual
approach of thinking is not better than the
conscious of a few years child. From the viewpoint of spiritualism a man is
considered to be only few years old even in his fifties, if his thinking
approach is confined within the limits of his family alone. Conscious of a
person remains immature even in his hundredth year if he only cares about his
own individual interests. For this very reason, he remains unaware about the
Internal Self. He, on the stage of the universe reminds us of a three-year
child present in an international symposium.
It is the holy
statement of God, “God is the light of the earth and the havens.”
When the light
is disconnected the death prevails. Death does not mean that the relation of
the Personal Ego with the Internal Self has come to an end forever. Death, in
actual effect, is such a veil that covers one level of life so that a person
could enter into another phase of the life.
KHWAJA SHAMS-UD-DEEN AZEEMI
The book Loh-o-Qalum (The Pen and The Scripturum) was written by His Divine Grace, Qalander Baba Auliya at the behest of the Holy
Prophet; the Prophet
of Islam, (Peace
and Blessings of God
be upon him). This auspicious command was given
to him by the Holy
Prophet directly, in a manner, which is known as the Owaisian Manner.
Possessor of the
Insinuated Knowledge, Knower
of the Secrets
of the Command, “Be!” Proclaimer
of the Reality, the Kind Preceptor, His Divine Grace,
Hassan Ukhra Mohammad
Azeem Burkhiya Qalander Baba Auliya (May the blessings
of God be upon him),
whose saying is the saying
of God though uttered
through the human mouth, narrated
the contents, which
were inscribed on the
screen of my mind, by his strong Spiritual Influence, word by word ……. And, thus, this inspired
writing, stated by Qalander Baba Auliya and penned down by me took the form of Loh-o-Qalum
(The Pen and the Scripturum).
This knowledge of the Spiritual Science is the heritage of mankind and jinns. I, hereby, deliver this trust onto the present and the future generations of man and the jinns.