The State of Humanity
ONE BODY All human beings are the members of one body —
9/19/2025
ONE BODY
All human beings
are the members
of one body —
every person is a glint,
shining from a single gem.
When the world causes pain for one member, how could the other members
ever rest in peace?
If you lack grief
for another one’s sorrow,
why call yourself a human being?
The Unifying Circle:
Time, The Divine Throne, and The Perfect Man
The most evident symbol of Unity is a circle or sphere. It is an undivided whole. Every point on the circumference of a circle or on the surface of a sphere is identical to every other, since they have the same relationship to the centre. The Divine Throne, which contains the whole of manifestation, and upon which the All-Compassionate is seated, as a circle encompassing all the degrees of existence. Likewise, when we consider the passage of Time as circular, we are considering it as symbolic of Unity. Whether it be a year of 12 months, a lunar month of 28 days, a week of 7 days or a day of 24 hours, each of these is a complete cycle that endlessly repeats itself in a “circular” movement. Each division, whether into 12 or 7 or 24, expresses specific truths about the Whole. In accuracies in the lunar or solar calendars, which require the addition of extra months or days every three or four years, do not affect the symbolic nature of the cycle. Time-cycles, indeed all cycles insofar as they are whole, can also be considered in a sense totally equivalent to each other. It is this “horizontal” correspondence that allows some of the most profound insights into the order of the universe. There are 28 degrees of existence which correspond to the 28 mansions of the moon and the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. Described by 28 Divine Names, they are ranked in descending order from the very principle of order itself, which is called the Pen or the First Intellect, to that which englobes the whole in a synthetic manner (al-Jåmi), the Perfect Man, who knows the entire structure of the hierarchy of existence.
The day has two fundamental aspects, physical and spiritual. What we mean by “day” is one complete cycle of the cycles of the sphere of the fixed stars, which contains the heavens and the earth …Every day is the final day of [a cycle of] 360 days [or 1 year] … or we can equally well say that every day actualizes everything that has taken place in the 6 [prior] days [of the week], from the beginning to the end. For in one day is the ending of each of those [other] 6 days, and it necessarily contains the property of each of them. However, this remains hidden because each of these days has a particular ending in it. A day thus spans 360 degrees, because the whole sphere [of the fixed stars] is manifest in it, moving through all the degrees. This constitutes the corporeal day .Within it there lies a spiritual day, during which the intellect receives its knowledge, the insight its contemplation and the spirit its secrets. This is just like the way that the body receives its nourishment, growth and development, health and sickness, life and death, during the corporeal day. From the point of view of their ruling properties which manifest in the cosmos due to the active power of the Universal Soul, there are seven different days (Sunday, Monday,Tuesday, etc.). To these [corporeal] days there correspond seven spiritual days, which are known [only] to the gnostics. These [spiritual] days have ruling properties in the spirit and intellects due to the knowing power of the Real, in whom exist the heavens and the earth, and that is the Divine Word.
Alchemical Mastery: The Red Sulphur and Spiritual Transformation
Modern physics deals largely with unseen phenomena, but this would be to ignore their inherent qualities as discussed in Islamic thought: everything unseen is alive and aware. The invisible realm is not found in the outward world of quantity and dispersion, but in the inward world of quality and unification. It lies in that dimension of reality that stands beyond the inanimate realm on a curve ascending from life, to consciousness, to enlightenment, and beyond.
In general terms, alchemy (al-kīmiyāʾ) means the transmutation of base metals into precious ones such as lead into gold and silver, a mere philosophy transmitted from Greece to the Arab world during the ninth century. In the Muslim world, it paved the way for experimental sciences and the establishment of laboratories. Alchemists' attempt might have influenced the Sufis, the 'scientists of spiritual transmutation' as the latter borrowed this term to convince their analogy of spirit with metals. Alchemy is a natural, spiritual, divine science. In the Sufi sense, it is a natural philosophy that aims not only at teaching the transmutation of the metals but also the whole connection of the world.
The red elixir was also known as the red sulphur, and became a technical term for designating the transformational action of a true spiritual master. The red sulphur is 'the revered stone' , which 'is found in every existent and in every thing' and is identical to the elixir, and the red sulphur is the reality that 'can be cast upon a disobedient person and it will make them become obedient, or upon someone who covers up the truth and it will make them become a person of truth and faith? Ibn Arabi was referred to as 'the red sulphur' in recognition of his mastery of spiritual alchemy.
Ibn Arabi also called the Revivifier of the Faith – was born in 1165 CE in the city of Murcia in Muslim Andalusia, and died seventy-five years later in Damascus: a narrative traversal of the Islamic world more than mirrored by his encompassment of its internal, esoteric aspect. Called within the Sufi tradition the Shaykh al-Akbar, or Greatest Master, and seen as its ultimate exemplar of esoteric Knowledge, he was, among many other things, the author of approximately three hundred books, some of them no longer than a pamphlet, others comprising several volumes. The best known and doubtless most important of these are the Fusus¬al-hikam, in many ways the crystallization of a lifetime’s gnosis, and the enormous Futtuhat al-Makkiyya, which combines the functions of a spiritual encyclopedia and intimate autobiography.
In the history of monotheistic spirituality, in particular its Western,Abrahamic branch incorporating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, you may find an aspected resemblance here and there, but there is really no one, from tap root to top most leaf tip, like Ibn Arabi. In Islamic esotericism per se, especially with regard to its metaphysical and exegetical component, virtually everyone before him is an anticipation and everyone after a commentator or interpreter.In encountering him you come upon the ultimate implications of monotheism whole and unaltered. Since in exoteric Islam the Unity and Absoluteness of God is the primary axiom, it follows that for its definitive esotericist a One and Absolute God implies the non-existence of anything other than Himself – since that would qualify HisSingleness and Absoluteness – so that there is not, in existence or the many shades of relative existence and non-existence in the eighteen thousand Universes anything other than Him tout court. From this vantage point we pass to a world of apparently infinite paradox, actually a series of antinomic affirmations logically exclusive of each other but united in the supra rational fact that is the One Existence:the Universes are His appearance, He is the same as the existence of the things, although nothing can be associated with Him and He is transcendent from all qualification, even that of transcendence; everything that exists is the self-manifestation of possibilities latent inHis essence, existentiated by His Mercy.
The conscious, perfected human being – the normal run of humans are veiled from the Reality by the illusion of their own self-existence– is the complete reflection of its infinite and eternal Source, and it is precisely for the sake of this mirroring that the Absolute breathedHis mercy upon the possibilities and potentials latent in Himself and permitted the Universes to become, although their existence is pure contingency, a veil, an illusion, and also the Truth in Truth, while there is only He, and nothing with or beside Him, ever. And so on, almost ad infinitum, according to each particular face of revelation implicit in the nature of the Reality. Ibn Arabs cosmology sometimes seems as detailed as the Universe whose ontology it addresses; at other times he demolishes all secondary consideration in a totalizing affirmation of the indivisible and unconditionable One:these two components of his vision do not exclude each other but are essentially the same, and cannot be halved. And as the Shaykh Arabi sometimes likes to put it: if you understand it that way, fine; and if not, then not.
To be empty of worldly food is the precondition for enlightenment.
"Could the reed-flute sing if its stomach were filled?"- Rumi
The celestial pole is the apparent pivot of the heavens, that is, the stars and other heavenly bodies appear to rotate about this point. This phenomenon is symbolically significant for traditional cultures that are familiar with the night sky. The celestial point is symbolically the hub or pivot of heaven and the fixed point of heaven.
The “Pivot of the Law” is what almost all traditions refer to as the “Pole”. Also ‘In the Far-Eastern tradition, the “Great Unity” is represented as residing in the pole star that is, literally “roof of Heaven”.) This location is also the axis-mundi . It is the ‘ridgepole’, or of the world and is the axis-mundi and the pole itself, as well as the point that stabilizes earth and heaven.
The word ‘pole’ in English also has the dual meaning of being at once a vertical shaft and a terminus or pivot, such as the North Pole or the Celestial Pole. This leads to a strong symbolic association between the vertical axis on one hand and the pole at the end of the axis on the other. It is the symbol of order and stability, the ‘pillar to heaven’, The pole star is to the heavens what the omphalos is to the earth. This location upon the earth is ‘the place where earth and sky meet, where the four seasons merge, where wind and rain are gathered in, and where yin and yang are in harmony.’
On the other hand, the Infinite and Ultimate are without a ridgepole, or Wuji, which is non-duality and Ultimate Nothingness, prior even to Taiji, the Supreme Ultimate (ridge) pole.It is through this relationship that the ‘Will of Heaven’ unfolds upon the earth.
The Earth is our mother. What happens to the Earth also happens to the children of the Earth. When people spit on the ground, they spit on themselves. We know one thing for sure: the Earth does not belong to humans. Man belongs to the Earth. So we also know: everything is connected to everything, just as blood unites the members of a family . There is a connection between everything. The web of life is not woven by man. He’s just a thread in it. What he does to the web, he also does to himself.’ .Equally old was the idea that the Consciousness that created the Earth.
Know, o (true) listener, that the people of God, when the Real One (al-Haqq) draws them toward Himself ... , He places in their hearts something calling them to seek their (true) happiness. So they seek after that and inquire about it (until) they find in their hearts a certain tenderness and humility and striving for peace and release (salàma) from the state of ordinary people with their (normal condition of) mutual envy, greed, hostility and opposition. Then when they have completed the perfection of their moral qualities or have nearly done so, they find in their higher self something calling them toward solitary retreat and withdrawal from ordinary people. So some of them take to wandering and frequenting the (wild) mountains and plains, while others do their wandering between the towns and cities - moving from one to another as soon as they've come to know and get used to the people of a particular place - while still others isolate themselves .
Just as the Breath of the Holy Spirit, breathed into Mary, made him conceive the Holy Spirit, as so when the Word of God (kalám al-haqq) enters someone’s heart and the divine Inspiration purifies and fills his heart (see Matthew V, 8 or Jesus in the Sermon of the Mountain exclaims: “Blessed are pure hearts, for they will see God! “) and his soul, his nature becomes such that then is produced in him a spiritual child having the breath of Jesus who raises the dead.
“Human beings,” must be born twice: once from their mother, another from their own body and their own existence. The body is like an egg: the essence of man must become in this egg a bird, thanks to the warmth of Love; then it will escape its body and fly into the eternal world of the soul, beyond space. ”
The soul, in the prison of the body, is enclosed like the embryo in the maternal womb, and it awaits its deliverance. This will happen when the “germ” has matured, thanks to a descent into oneself, to a painful awareness: “The pain will arise from this look thrown inside oneself, and this suffering makes pass to beyond the veil. As long as the mothers do not take birth pains, the child does not have the possibility of being born (. Rumi, Mathnawî, II, 2516 sq.) (…) My mother, that is to say my nature [my body], by his agony pains, gives birth to the Spirit … If the pains during the coming of the child are painful for the pregnant woman, on the other hand, for the embryo, it is the opening of his prison.
Once the illusion of duality has been transcended, all that remains in the soul is the divine Presence: the soul then finds in the depths of its being the divine effigy.
It has become the place of theophany. This is what the spiritual resurrection: “The universal Soul came into contact with the partial soul and the latter received from her a pearl and put it in her womb. Thanks to this touch of her breast, the individual soul became pregnant, like Mary, with a Messiah ravishing the heart. Not the Messiah who travels on land and at sea, but the Messiah who is beyond the limitations of space! Also, when the soul has been fertilized by the Soul of the soul, then the world is fertilized by such a soul “
The second birth corresponds to what we also gain in Sufism as the “opening (fath) of the eye of the heart“: “When Your Eye became an eye for my heart, my blind heart drowned in vision ; I saw that You were the universal Mirror for all eternity and I saw in Your Eyes my own image. I said, “Finally, I found myself in His Eyes, I found the Way of Light!” (Rumi, Mathnawî, II, 93 sq.)
This opening is the promise made by God to all those who conclude a pact with the spiritual master, pole of his time, like the apostles with Jesus or the Companions when they pledged allegiance to Muhammad: “God was satisfied with believers when they swore an oath to you under the Tree, He knew perfectly the content of their hearts, He brought down on them deep peace (sakina), He rewarded them with a prompt opening ( fath) and by an abundant booty which they seized ”(Q’ XLVIII, 18-19).(The abundant loot indicates Divine Knowledge (mari’fa).
Ibn ‘Arabi refers to Jesus as” symbol of engendering.” One of the most important principles of which the “Qur’anic” Jesus stands forth as a “symbol”, sign, and concrete embodiment, is the following: mercy and compassion are the fruits of the realization of the true Self – or self of the Real.
Compassion, in turn, should be understood not only morally but also, and a priori, metaphysically, in terms of the bestowal of life: God gives life to the cosmos out of compassion for His own hidden qualities that long to be known; and man participates in this process both positively – through being compassionate towards his own self, as well as towards others – and inversely, by enlivening his own soul and that of others through the knowledge of God.
The Qur’anic narratives concerning Jesus, together with the esoteric interpretations thereof from the Akbari perspective, illuminate these intertwined realities of selfhood and compassion in a particularly fruitful manner. Jesus is described in the Qur’an “as a sign for mankind and a mercy from Us”. Ibn ‘Arabi draws out, in a most instructive way, how these two aspects of Jesus can be spiritually understood: what Jesus is a sign of, and how this relates to mercy or compassion.
This secret season, of which the earthly spring is a fleeting reflection, is none other than the divine time of the soul, its eternal rebirth in God.
THE SECRET IS HIDDEN
Look at the world:
the Divine Secret is hidden.
Like the Fountain of Life,
it is hidden in darkness.
Millions of fish appeared in the sea—
Because of their number,
the sea went into hiding.
What is the Merciful Heart?
It is the heart’s burning for all of creation. All types of love are ultimately aspects of our love for The Creator; all kinds of love can lead to God. The constant heat of love’s fire allows a soul to fully ripen. It allows an individual who is “raw” or immature to attain a “cooked” or even a “burnt” state. Most important, the power of love allows the individual to surrender the false self of the isolated ego for the sake of the Beloved and receive a deeper vision of reality —a vision that is no longer self-centered.
In the words of Fakhr al-Din ‘Iraqi,
The first step in love is losing your head.
After the petty ego you then give up your life and bear the calamity.
With this behind you, proceed: Polish the ego’s rust from the mirror of your self.
It is love that speaks to you, calling you beyond the limits of this created realm.
That which frees you from your tiny self also is love.
The highest form of knowledge is a kind of love, and the highest form of love is a type of direct knowing, or gnosis. Yet the false self, with its petty egoism and socially conditioned responses, presents an overwhelming obstacle that isolates the soul from a genuine vision of Reality and the presence of the Beloved—whether the beloved is God or another human being.
As Rumi advises, “If you want to know your self come out of yourself / Leave the tributary and flow toward the River.” Or as another classical writer puts it, “Know that when you learn to lose yourself, you will reach the Beloved. There is no other secret to be learnt, and more than this is not known to me.”
Put in psychological terms, it is the self-absorbed narcissism of the modern self that keeps us trapped in a tiny, lonely bubble of isolated awareness, unable to hear and participate in the larger choir of creation. While actively marketed as a healthy model of human existence, this isolation from others—and from the greater, living world in which we are embodied—constitutes a primary root of
our modern spiritual, social, and ecological dilemmas.
As the Sufis clearly realized, love alone possesses the power to lead us beyond ourselves—and enables us to make the types of liberating personal sacrifices that might not otherwise be possible. For this reason, the spiritual opportunities present in love must never be overlooked if we wish to become the fully human individuals we are meant to be.
God made the heart the locus of this longing to bring actualization of this reality near to the human being, since there is fluctuation in the heart. If this longing were in the rational faculty, the person might seem to be in a constant state. But since it is in the heart, fluctuation comes upon him always. For the heart is between the two fingers of the Compassionate, so its situation is not to remain in a single state. And so it is within this fluctuation, witnessing the way the fingers cause it to fluctuate.
The heart is not an accessory to life. It is not a switch to be turned on or off, a box to be open or closed. The fathoming of the human heart and the disclosure of spiritual qualities within it is the work of all life, art, spirituality. Our purpose in life is to know the heart without the veils of our fears, preoccupations, desires, and strategies. A human being with a heart is the hologram of the seen and unseen universes. If we have seen such a person we have seen everything. Everything is a part of him or her who has fully known the reflection of the Infinite within the heart. If we keep the mystery of spirit, “God,” present in our hearts, that “God” will become our reality. This Essence will become our essence. This Power will become our power. God’s wholeness is our wholeness.
Modern man is a human without Soul, without the “Living Breath”
Purity of the heart refers to the heart’s overall soundness and health. The heart, if it is truly a heart, is in contact with Spirit, but to achieve this rapport with Spirit it must be renovated and made receptive all the way down to the subconscious levels. Only then can it reliably respond to the spiritual qualities within are reflected within itself.
Living from the heart is responding to the inner guidance of Love and Wisdom in the heart. This guidance may appear to be irrational and even counter to one’s own apparent self-interests. That is its beauty and power. It does not come cheap. It does not depend on emotion. It submits faithfully, spontaneously and joyfully to the requirements of the moment. It knows no fear and always submits to the Wholeness.
You are not you when you are you but God is you.
But they reveal the truth that it is God alone who is the agent of all acts, the agent who acts through all the faculties of man. This truth is affirmed by Ibn ‘Arabi by reference to the words of the famous hadith al-taqarrub, means “drawing near”, in which God says that when He loves a servant, He is “the hearing with which he hears, the sight by which he sees, the hand with which he strikes and the foot whereon he walks.“Ibn ‘Arabi draws attention to the important fact that God speaks in the present tense, saying “I am his hearing, his sight, and his hand”
Jesus tell us:
I worship truly, and God is our Master;and I am His very identity, so understand.When I say “man”, do not be veiled by man,for He has given you proof.So be the Real and be a creature.You will be, by God, compassionate.
The last line expresses the essence of “being” the Real – while remaining a creature – means “being” compassionate, merciful, kind. The one cannot “be” without the other.
When Ibn ‘Arabi writes takun bi’Llahi rahmanan, this sounds rather like an oath: by God, you will be compassionate – in the measure that you realize the true Self, which is veiled by your outer self, your ego. It should be noted that it is not a question here of realizing “one’s true Self “, inasmuch as the Self cannot be the property of any individual ;the only thing that the individual can be said to possess is the property of essential poverty. In this perspective, no individual owns anything, on the contrary, all individuals “belong” to the Self.
There is no ego-consciousness in the Essence, for there are no distinct egos, although all are nonetheless mysteriously contained by the Essence, in absolute non-differentiation; there is but the one Self, the Nafs al-Haqq, the self of the Real, and there are no distinctions, no tafadul, therein. It is only in the Paradises that one finds such ranking in the degrees between the prophets, saints, martyrs and righteous ones.
TO SAVE A SOUL IS TO SAVE MANKIND
While God has no need to change, man is constantly tossed by the temporal waves of change. When grounded in the immutable truth and light of God and living for nothing but God, however, man can participate in that eternal present. Righteousness is the substance of the eternal present.
The prophets and saints are inwardly at one with the Essence, while outwardly, as slaves, they imbibe from this fountain, the source of essential identity, the one and only Self of the Real; and this is why they are not just slaves, but veritable streams of grace by which the infinite compassion of Al-Rahman flows through the veins of the entire cosmos:
“And We sent you not save as a mercy to all the worlds.” (Q’ XXI: 107)
Be courageous and discipline yourself.Work. Keep digging your well.Don’t think about getting off from work.Water is there somewhere.Submit to a daily practice.Your loyalty to thatis a ring on the door.Keep knocking, and the joy insidewill eventually open a windowand look out to see who’s there.
Invitation for Believers
ONE BREATH
It’s only one breath from disbelief’s world, to the place
where faith resides.
It’s only one sigh from doubt’s waystation to the homeland of certainty.
Don’t now despise
this single, dear breath — the purpose of life
is just this breath.
“Amongst my friends there shall be no fear, sadness, mourning or grief.” (Q’10:62)
Transcend into Pure Oneness Consciousness. REALIGN, REVIVE, REMIND, REFRESH and RESTORE to your Primordial state. Followed by divine heart guided reflections of universal light guides that have come before and return to rebalance hearts and spaces from pieces to PEACE.
Don’t change the world in hopes of changing yourself, change yourself so the world changes because of you.
“God loves the artisan who seeks perfection in his art.”
UNIVERSAL LIGHT MEDITATION
Be watchful—the grace of God appears suddenly.
It comes without warning to an open heart.
Sweep out the stable of your existence
and the king will gladly enter.
Comments