Mystic River Vietsub
Giuseppina Worster
Sufism is a path of love, and for the last thirty years I have been trying to describe this mystery of the heart. Since my first book, The Bond with the Beloved, and one of my earliest talks in Hamburg, I have followed this thread, the link of love that is at the core of all that exists, that takes us into the unknown and unknowable Essence, as well as revealing the oneness of the created world around us. Now this journey has come full circle and I would like to share this story, this adventure of love, woven together with past writings from this journey of the heart.
Sufism is a mystical path of love. The Sufi is a traveler on the path of love, a wayfarer journeying back to God through the mysteries of the heart. For the Sufi the relationship to God is that of lover and Beloved, and Sufis are also known as lovers of God. The journey to God takes place within the heart, and for centuries Sufis have been traveling deep within themselves, into the secret chamber of the heart where lover and Beloved share the ecstasy of union. Through this mystical journey the Sufi wayfarer comes to experience God as a deepening experience of divine love, a love that belongs to both the created and the uncreated worlds, form and formlessness.
There is a story about a group of mystics, a band of lovers of God, who were called the Kamal Posh. Kamal Posh means blanket wearers, for their only possession was one blanket which they wore as a covering during the day and used as a blanket at night. As the story goes, they traveled throughout the ancient world from prophet to prophet but no one could satisfy them. Every prophet told them to do this or to do that, and this did not satisfy them. Then one day, at the time of Muhammad, the Prophet was seated together with his companions when he said that in a certain number of days the men of the Kamal Posh would be coming. So it happened that in that number of days this group of Kamal Posh came to the prophet Muhammad. And when they were with him, he said nothing, but the Kamal Posh were completely satisfied. Why were they satisfied? Because he created love in their hearts, and when love is created, what dissatisfaction can there be?
Sufism is the ancient wisdom of the heart, not limited by time or place or form. It always was and it always will be. There will always be lovers of God. And the Kamal Posh recognized that Muhammad knew the mysteries of the heart. They stayed with the Prophet and were assimilated into Islam. According to this story the Kamal Posh became the mystical element of Islam. And later these wayfarers became known as Sufis, perhaps in reference to the white woolen blanket, sūf, which they wore, or as an indication of their purity of heart, safā, for they were also known as the pure of heart.[1]
These lovers of God followed Islam, and observed the teachings of the Qur'an, but from a mystical point of view. For example, in the Qur'an (50:16) there is a saying that God, Allah, is nearer to us than our jugular vein. For the Sufis this verse speaks about the mystical experience of nearness with God, of divine intimacy. The Sufi relates to God not as a judge, nor as a father figure, nor as the creator, but as our own Beloved, who is so close, so near, so tender. In the states of nearness the lover experiences an intimacy with the Beloved which carries the softness and ecstasy of love.
We all long to be loved, we all long to be nurtured, to be held, and we look for it in another; we seek a man or woman who can fulfill us. We follow it into the tangle of human relationships. But the mystic knows the deeper truth, that while an outer lover can appear to give us the love and support we crave, it will always be limited. And one day the mystic discovers that the source and answer to our primal need is not separate from us, but part of our own essential nature, our own true being. To quote Rumi:
Only within the heart can our deepest desires, our most passionate needs, be met, totally and completely. In moments of mystical intimacy with God we are given everything we could want, and more than we believe possible. God is closer to us than ourself to ourself, and we are loved with the completeness that belongs only to God.
The energy of divine love and our longing for love is the fire that burns away the veil of separation, that awakens us to the knowing of our deepest nature, the essence of our being which is love. Destroyed by love we become love itself as told in the story of Layla and Majnun, the best-known love story of the Middle East, which is about a young man Qays, whose love for Layla changes his name to Majnun, the mad one. Sufis are often known as the fools of love.
All the radiance of this morning was Layla, yet a candle was burning in front of her, consuming itself with desire. She was the most beautiful garden and Majnun was a torch of longing. She planted the rose bush; he watered it with his tears.
.... Layla could bewitch with one glance from beneath her dark hair, Majnun was her slave and a dervish dancing before her. Layla held in her hand the glass of wine scented with musk. Majnun had not touched the wine, yet he was drunk with its sweet smell.[5]
This love is the greatest secret of creation, a substance within the heart that, when awakened by the glance of the Beloved, begins the mystical transformation of the lover, the turning of the heart that finally reveals the secret of union, that lover and Beloved are one. This is the journey that Majnun is drawn to make, helpless in the hands of love. Even the sweet smell of this intoxicating substance is enough to make him drunk.
All lovers know this pain that tears apart the very fabric of one's being, the longing that makes one bleed tears of love. And this longing is infinitely precious because it draws one directly back to God. To quote the ninth-century Sufi Bayezid Bistami:
If the eight Paradises were opened in my hut, and the rule of both worlds were given in my hands, I would not give for them that single sigh which rises at morning-time from the depth of my soul in remembering my longing for Him.[8]
Majnun has become the slave of love and a prisoner of longing. His longing, this divine sickness of the soul, has begun its work of breaking him free from the chains of normal existence, from the conditioned life of the ego:
O who can cure my sickness? An outcast I have become. Family and home where are they? No path leads back to them and none to my beloved. Broken are my name, my reputation, like a glass smashed on a rock; broken is the drum which once spread the good news, and my ears now hear only the drumbeat of separation.[9]
Majnun, consumed by love, ceases to exist. He becomes so absorbed by the object of his love that the lover and the beloved become one. In such a state there is no longer any separation: "If you knew what it means to be a lover, you would realize that one only has to scratch him and out falls the beloved."[13] Rich with his love, Majnun cares for nothing else. He goes into the desert where he lives on roots, grass, and fruit, and having died to himself is afraid of nothing. The wild beasts sense his unusual power, and, rather than attack him, befriend him. They forget their hunger and become tame and friendly. The fox, the wild ass, the lion, the wolf, and the panther travel with him and are his companions, watching over him when he sleeps. Majnun's love transforms the wildest animals, suggesting that within the lover the deepest, wildest instinctual forces are transformed through the power of love. These instinctual energies are not tamed by force or willpower, as in the path of the ascetic, but by love itself.
Who do you think I am? A drunkard? A love-sick fool, a slave of my senses, made senseless by desire? Understand: I have risen above all that, I am the King of Love in majesty. My soul is purified from the darkness of lust, my longing purged of low desire, my mind free from shame. I have broken the teeming bazaar of the senses in my body. Love is the essence of my being. Love is fire and I am wood burnt by the flame. Love has moved in and adorned the house, my self tied up its bundle and left. You imagine that you see me, but I no longer exist: what remains is the beloved....[14]
The power of love works within the heart, consuming everything that separates us from God. When Rumi summed up his whole life in the phrase "I burnt, and burnt, and burnt,"[15] he was not speaking in poetic metaphor; he was describing the actual inner experience of someone who has made this journey of love.
He is now as He was. He is the One without oneness and the Single without singleness.... He is the very existence of the First and the very existence of the Last, and the very existence of the Outward and the very existence of the Inward. So there is no first nor last, nor outward nor inward, except Him, without these becoming Him or His becoming them.... By Himself He sees Himself, and by Himself He knows Himself. None sees Him other than He, and none perceives Him other than He. His veil, that is phenomenal existence, is a part of His oneness; nothing veils other than He. His veil is only the concealment of His existence in His oneness. None sees Him other than He, no sent Prophet, nor saint made perfect, nor angel brought nigh know Him. His Prophet is He, and His sending is He, and His word is He. He sent Himself with Himself to Himself.... There is no other and there is no existence other than He.[20]
The Divine, whose true nature is hidden, reveals Itself in the creation, and yet at the same time remains unknowable. But through the heart, our spiritual organ of direct perception, we can experience the Divine Essence, the love, that is present in all things. We recognize a love that is a direct expression of the Divine. And this love carries a quality of divine consciousness, is awake in ways beyond our limited understanding. This love speaks to us, to our heart and soul, and reveals the hidden qualities of God, the secret of secrets.
c80f0f1006