Cloverleaf (ISSN 2561-6986)
Meditation, prayers and connecting with one’s inner soul are some ways of dealing with the stresses of modern life and a prescription for healing as is commonly known, but there are deeper levels to spiritual and emotional enrichment to be found in the writings of enlightened ones about the spiritual journey.
The words of Muinuddin Chishti, a revered thirteenth-century Sufi and great humanitarian, provide us with both a caution and a sound basis for our movement towards a better world:
Love all and hate none.
Mere talk of peace will avail you naught.
Mere talk of God and religion will not take you far.
Bring out all of the latent powers of your being
and reveal the full magnificence of your immortal “self.”
Be surcharged with peace and joy,
and scatter these wherever you are and wherever you go.
Be a blazing fire of Truth,
be a beauteous blossom of love,
and be a soothing balm of peace.
With your spiritual light,
dispel the darkness of ignorance;
Dissolve the clouds of discord and war and spread goodwill, peace and harmony among the people.
If one were to wonder where or how such thoughts come about, the answer would lie in being able to reach a higher level of human consciousness.
Human consciousness has been the preoccupation of writers, poets and sufis alike. Psychology may discuss consciousness in analytical or theoretical terms but the sufis be they poets or lovers of the Divine dwell in a world of higher consciousness. The sufis understand this journey towards higher consciousness as mergence with the Divine and their teachings through stories and events not always realistic ones hint at a long and difficult journey towards this state of complete bliss and peace.
The question arises as to what the spiritual journey is in actual. Is it abstract and metaphorical or an actual state of mind? Is it something within religion or something outside religion and does it actually benefit the traveller in some special way?
Spirituality is considered by many psychologists to be an inherent property of the human being (Helminiak,1996; Newberg, D’Aquili, & Rause,2001). Another definition is “an individual’s experience of and relationship with a fundamental, nonmaterial aspect of the universe” (Tolan, 2002) (as quoted inWilliam Huitt)
William Huitt goes on to enumerate the benefits of faith, prayer and regular attendance at religious gatherings in the following way:
lower blood pressure (Koenig, 1999),
improved physical health (Koenig, McCullough,Larson,2001; Levin,2001),
healthier lifestyles and less risky behaviour (Koenig,1999),
improved coping ability (Pargament,1997),
less depression (Keonig,1999),
faster healing (Dossey,2002;Koenig,2002)
lower levels of bereavement after the death of a loved one (Walsh,King,Jones, Tookman & Blizard,2002)
a decrease in the fear of death (Ardelt,2000), …
The spiritual journey therefore is a movement of consciousness towards a certain state of mind that is beneficial as illustrated above.
Henry Corbin’s book Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth helps us understand the fact that each spiritual journey toward evolvement and healing is unique thus;
In the whole of the universes of this Earth of Truth, for each soul a universe corresponding to that soul has been created.” This means that there is no one prescription for wisdom that applies to every person, and that, instead of a collective religion for all, each soul has its own religion, its own particular way of approaching and embracing truth. Each of us experiences Reality in a special and unique way.
Seen from another angle, we could say that Reality is afforded many lenses by which it takes in the richness of life. When we are guided to and trusting in our unique way, our “soul’s religion,” the full splendor and mystery of existence has an opportunity to reveal itself. (Inayat Khan:4)
The Sufis are unanimous that anyone can reach the state of realisation of light and higher consciousness which has no boundaries.
To make full use of the journey towards spiritual wisdom it is important to see its relevance to modern times.
Azim Jamal brings the Sufi perspective to the modern world by saying,
A Sufi is an instrument or vessel—he takes from God with one hand and gives with another. (Azim Jamal:0)
He goes on to say:
For me, the Sufi is a symbol for a stance towards life, and a perspective about values that we can all learn for use in our daily lives.Sufism represents an ideal of how we can all maintain a spiritual and ethical centre while still pursuing our worldly goals.(Azim Jamal:8)
Azim Jamal brings out the practicality of spiritual education that is one can be spiritually evolved and be living in the everyday world.The call of the soul demands a disciplined way of living life with simplicity and moderation.
In another chapter he sums up:
For the Sufis, meditation is better than sleep, fasting is better than over eating, and observing silence is better than speech. (Azim Jamal:130)
According to the book Emerald Earth:
True spirituality can be known, as Christ said, by its fruits. It is in our hands to use spiritual principles to change the dreamscape of this life, to bring forth an uplifted world. True spirituality should enable us to move away from narrow interpretations of Reality that damage our environment and threaten the continuity of life as we know it. By the very fact that the dream reality we live in is malleable, we can- not afford to believe ourselves puppets on a string, moved about by fixed definitions of God, chance or destiny. The hope for our world is belief in our power to make a difference, not by grandiose programs but in the day-to-day ecology that begins in our own minds and hearts
The spiritual awakening of heart and soul makes one aware of one’s purpose in life and makes one share that wisdom to help others.
According to Asim Jamal ultimately, through the spiritual journey, we gain the capacity to be joyous even in the midst of suffering. We learn not to get completely caught by circumstances—the traffic jam, the noise, the doctor’s diag- nosis of an illness. No matter what appears, we know another view that is open and spacious, and that allows us to find an equanimity and peace with our experience, accepting and even appreciating the most difficult of feelings and situations.
In the words of Inayat Khan it is the seeker’s attitude that is of utmost importance in the spiritual journey.It is a journey of faith and love failing which, it cannot be accomplished and such a journey of distrust and misgiving does not enrich the traveller in anyway. He illustrates this through the story of the Kalpvriksha or the ‘wish fulfilling tree’:
For this tree is this whole universe, the miniature of which is one’s own self, and there is nothing that you ask that this universe will not answer, for it is the nature of the universe to answer your soul’s call. Only, if you ask for the pears, there are pears... if you ask for the rose there will be the rose and its thorns together. And it is the lack of knowledge of this great secret hidden in the heart of the universe which is the only tragedy of life. When a person seeks for something in the universe and he cannot find it, it is not true that it is not there, the fact is that he does not see it. ( Inayat Khan:7)
This journey towards self realisation and spiritual evolvement is certainly not a bed of roses but the goal makes it worth while.
The poem titled “The Unbroken” by Rashani highlights the journey towards spiritual enlightenment and freedom, a journey that is filled with pain and strife:
There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
our of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.
The poet Mohammad Iqbal in his poetry spoke engagingly about wakening the higher consciousness in order to realise a better world and a balanced personality. He felt that the unawakened consciousness is to blame for the present crises in the modern world.In other words he talked about the development of the spiritual self.
Evelyn Underhill interestingly compares the connection between the inner and outer worlds with a morse code.
The conscious self sits, so to speak, at the receiving end of a telegraph wire.On any other theory than that of mysticism, it is her one channel of communication with the hypothetical “external world.” The receiving instrument registers certain messages.She does not know, and —so long as she remains dependent on that instrument—-never can know, the objects, the reality at the other end of the wire, by which those messages are sent; neither can the messages truly disclose the nature of that object.But she is justified on the whole in accepting them as evidence that something exists beyond herself and her receiving instrument.It is obvious that the structural pecularities of the telegraphic instrument will have exerted a modifying effect upon the message.That which is conveyed as dash and dot, colour and shape, may have been received in a very different form.Therefore this message though it may in a partial sense be relevant to the supposed reality at the other end, can never be adequate to it.There will be fine vibrations which it fails to take up, others which it confuses together. Hence a portion of the message is always lost; or, in other language, there are aspects of the world which we can never know.
In a very lucid manner she conveyed the impossibility of giving an absolute description of higher consciousness and its contents because of the different levels of understanding between the seeker and the sought.
The writer M. G. Hawking in his notes taken on his journey through the Himalayas has dealt with the idea of the individual consciousness as being a part of the universal or divine consciousness. His book is about a town called “Siddhalaya” which he discovered in the remote Himalayas. He has written about his incredible journey to the psychic and spiritual world of Siddhalaya. Some of the concepts are amazingly familiar to the psychologist Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious which is a source of ideas, imagination and the origin of one’s destiny on the planet.
According to E.H. Palmer the heavens of afterlife are given to each soul in accordance with the degree of evolvement or enlightenment and not on the basis of colour, gender, race, religion or status. He has written about the spiritual beliefs of the Ahl i wahdat a branch of Sufism who insist upon the Universality and Unity of God.
The traveller towards God is shown ten marks that are the mark of followers of truth.These ten points over lap with the spiritual ideas in other religions too.
1. God is to be known first and material objects later.
2. He should be at peace with the world.
3. Charity towards all.Real charity consists in employment of counsel and discipline.
4. Humility which consists in paying due respect to others.
5. Submission and resignation.
6. T rust in God, patience, endurance and perseverance.
7. Freedom from avarice; for avarice is the mother of vice.
8. Contentment.
9. Inoffensiveness.
10. Conviction; for the truth brings conviction with it.(E.H.Palmer:11)
These precepts which direct human beings to be kind, generous, balanced and modest have the power to tackle the root of human suffering. A life of faith lived in detachment from worldly allurements would certainly make a better world. The road to the Divine is same for all as this Sufi perception is echoed in different religions and spiritual movements.
When the soul has reached a stage on enlightenment it gets embedded in a relationship of love not only with other souls but it develops a deep sympathy for the Earth and the planet as a whole.
Satish Kumar in his essay “Three dimensions of Ecology: Soil, Soul and Society” talks about the soil as symbolising man’s relation to nature, the soul as symbolising the human relation to the divine and society as symbolising the human relationship to other humans as the basis of peace and harmony in the universe and to save the earth and humanity from extinction thus:
Making peace with ourself is a prerequisite for making peace with the earth.And making peace with ourselves means realising our true nature and being who we are (Satish Kumar:136)
Thus a spiritual journey is one which connects the soul to the Divine but also enriches the soul’s bond to humans and the living earth.
References:
Hawking,M.G. 2017. In the Valley of Supreme Masters The Greatest Knowledge of the Ages.Wisdom. California:Masters Press.
Jamal,Azim.2010. The One-Minute Sufi. New Delhi:Jaico Publishing House.
Kumar, Satish. “Three Dimensions of Ecology:Soil, Soul and Society,” in Spiritual Ecology The Cry of the Earth Ed., Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.2013.
Khan Inayat, Pir-O-Murshid. The Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty. Sacred Text 1914,PDF ebook date of reproduction 2015 communitybooks.ebooklibrary.org
Miller,William, Janet C’de Baca.2001. Quantum Change When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives.New York, London: The Guilford Press.
Norton, Felicia and Charles Smith in An Emerald Earth from Hazrat Muinuddin Chishti. in William Begg, “The Holy Biography of Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti” (The Hague: East-West Publications, 1977), p. 12.
Norton,Felicia and Charles Smith in An Emerald Earth from Hazrat Inayat, Khan, “The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan,.”Vol. XIII: The Gathas (Geneva: International Sufi Movement, 1982), p, 112.
Palmer, E.H. Oriental Mysticism A Treatise on the Sufiistic and Unitarian Theosophy of the Persians. communitybooks.ebooklibrary.org
Rashani. “The Unbroken.” rashani.com
Underhill ,Evelyn. Mysticism (Kindle edition).