Veiled Guidance
Moses Maimonides, a Jewish mystic and philosopher, is reported to have once said that on the Day of Judgment he would be evaluated not on the basis of whether he had become Moses (peace be upon him) but whether he had realized his own potential. The goal of the mystical path is to realize the spiritual potential of the Self, for only through such realization does one engage in the true meaning of free worship of Divinity -- that is, as long as one is other than one's essential Self, the worship is neither free nor done in accordance with the capacity which God has given to each of us as a potential.
In a Hadith Qudsi God indicated: 'I was a hidden treasure and loved to be known, so I brought forth Creation." Creation is the manifestation of the Names and Attributes of Divinity through the 'fixed forms' which constitute the created capacities or potential of 'things' -- much like the way light is scattered by a prism according to the properties of the latter. The Sufis also indicate that Creation never repeats itself, so the nature of each 'thing' or fixed form is unique.
Through God's knowledge of Divinity's Hidden Treasure, Creation was brought forth, and through our coming to understand the true nature of Creation and how Divinity is manifested through it, we are given the opportunity to share in the experience and knowledge of that Hidden Treasure according to our spiritual capacity. The fully realized human being -- al-insan al kamil ... the perfect human being -- is the one whose entire array of inner faculties has been purified and properly calibrated to work in unison to create a mirror which reflects back, according to the capacity inherent in that mirror, all of the Names and Attributes of Divinity, and because each human being has a slightly different inherent capacity to serve as such a mirror, each perfected reflection reveals different aspect of the infinite nature of Divine Being.
Ultimately, there is only one spiritual teacher, and that is Allah, but as the Qur'an indicates God never speaks or discloses Divinity to human beings except through veils (42:51). Consequently, books of revelation, the Prophetic tradition, the awliyah (friends) of God, our own inner being, the signs on the horizons, each, in its own way, gives expression to the veiled presence of Divinity in all things.
For the Sufis, the primary expression of veiled guidance in human form is the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) -- but every member of the Prophetic Tradition gives expression to this same principle of guidance according to the unique capacity of any given Prophet to do so -- thus, Abraham (peace be upon him) is said to be the Friend of God, and Jesus (peace be upon him) is said to be the Logos or Word of God, and so on. Someone who is in suluk, or journeying on the Sufi path, may, if God wishes, come into contact with the spirit of different Prophets and be brought, for a time, under the umbrella of a particular Prophet, as well as be colored with the unique spiritual potential of that Prophet, and such people may be known as Musawi (in relation to Moses - peace be upon him) or Isawi (in relation to Jesus - peace be upon him), and so on.
Although coming under the guidance and protection of any of the Prophets of God is a great blessing, people on the Sufi path aspire to have this sort of relationship with the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). However, one's spiritual journey may begin anywhere, and in the case of Ibn al-'Arabi, his journey, near the beginning, was influenced by Isa (peace be upon him) and he was known as Isawi, and, then, later he went on to learn, by the Grace of Allah, from so many of the Prophets, including, of course, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). For many of us who seek to travel on the Sufi Path, we often begin with a shaykh, pir, or murshid who -- if authentic -- is someone who has, with God's permission, been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) for a spiritual purpose and who has been given authorization, spiritual support, as well as a methodology, to be of assistance to those who wish to make the journey from self to Self.
Although the Truth is One, the nature of our participation varies according to capacity. A spiritual guide seeks to assist an individual to learn how to maximize the way in which one has the capacity to participate in the Truth or give expression to the Truth or serve as a locus of manifestation for the Truth or to reflect the Truth.
The Sufis often speak of three stages of fana -- a term which is frequently translated as 'annihilation' but this is misleading since nothing is annihilated ... rather, fana is a spiritual condition in which awareness of the Presence overwhelms everything else, including one's own sense of individual existence. Ahmad Sirhindi (may Allah be pleased with him) likened fana to the following: if one looks at the stars on a clear night, one has no difficulty seeing them, especially if one is far away from the distractions of civilization and its various lights. However, when the sun comes up, and one tries to see the stars, one cannot do so -- not because the stars no longer exist, but because the radiance of the sun blocks our awareness of their existence, and fana is like trying to see the stars (individual existence) after the sun has risen.
In any event, the Sufis tend to speak of three stages of fana -- fana fil-shakh, fana fil-rasul and fana fil-Allah. These are not really different realities, just the same Reality manifesting itself in three different ways according to the stage of the mystical path a seeker is on.
There is a subsequent stage beyond fana which is known as baqa, and when, God willing, this becomes realized, the individual's unique, essential capacity is experienced while, at the same time, being totally absorbed in unity with Divinity. It is as if the drop had returned to the Ocean and, yet, by the extraordinary generosity of God, one is permitted a sense of being an individual within Oneness, and the root of this sense of Divine individuality is the essence of our unique spiritual potential ... our real Self which is a reflection of the Hidden Treasure which Allah wished to be known.
When one experiences fana fil-shaykh, one loses awareness of one's sense of self, and becomes aware of the Presence as manifested through the capacity of the shaykh. One falls in love with the beauty and majesty inherent in the shaykh as made manifest by Divinity and as a function of the shaykh's spiritual capacity. In addition, one's awareness of the nature and beauty of one's shaykh's inner capacity will be according to one's own spiritual capacity, which is why two different seekers, with two different spiritual capacities, may experience one and the same Reality in different ways with neither experience being more correct or less correct than the other, but, rather, just different reflections of one and the same Truth.
If by the Grace of Allah, one goes through the station of fana fil-rasul -- that is, the condition of being overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of the way Divine light is cast through the spiritual capacity of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) -- then, again, one experiences the Presence as manifested through the capacity of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and participates in that according to one's own essential capacity to do so.
When, if God wishes, the station of fana fil-Allah is reached, then, the individual experiences the same Truth as encountered in the two previous forms of fana, except from a slightly different spiritual angle, so to speak. The experience of the Presence may be different than one's experience of the Presence previously, but the underlying Truth is the same, yet, because Divinity is infinite in nature, the Truth can never be exhausted but only encountered as a series of disclosures or unveilings (kashf) which continue pushing the horizons of experiential possibility back with each new disclosure ... which is why the Sufi masters often speak of a condition of bewilderment in relation to these higher stations because there is a constant disclosing of different dimensions of the Truth which combines what is known with what transcends the known.
To be at one with one's shaykh is to be in the Presence of Truth according to the capacity of the shaykh and according to the capacity of the seeker, and to experience this complex unity of Presence. One of the reasons why one finds so many different descriptions of this state or station, is precisely because there are different modalities of spiritual capacity (both with respect to the seeker and the shaykh) and, therefore, the experience may vary, in certain ways, from context to context as a reflection of these differences.
As indicated previously, the purpose of a shaykh is to assist an individual to struggle toward coming to understand and trust the nature of the Self, for it is the essential Self which God has given the best capacity to reflect different dimensions of the Hidden Treasure -- and in that pure reflection is our essential worship of Divinity and the realization of one of life's highest purposes. Because each individual has been given a different capacity through which to manifest the Names and Attributes of Divinity, the task of a seeker is to struggle to give expression to, and participate in, the Hidden Treasure according to one's innate capacity to do so.
Moreover, so desperate an issue is the matter of finding an authentic teacher, that many people, when presented with clear-cut evidence that their so-called spiritual guide is counterfeit, will react with considerable anger and animosity toward those who are merely conveying the message. The former will go into denial about the whole matter and often tend to paint the ones who have started to awaken to the presence of spiritual abuse as being troublemakers and spreaders of dissension, disharmony and false information, rather than the false teacher.
“And surely We shall test you with fear and hunger and loss of wealth and lives and crops; but give glad tidings to the steadfast –– who say when misfortune strikes them: surely to Allah we belong and to Allah is our returning.” (2:155-156) May the remainder of our returning be fortuitous and blessed, and for those of us who have been abused by a false spiritual teacher, may we be steadfast in the face of adversity and confident that Allah’s quality of pride is such that, insha’ Allah, He will never abandon one who sincerely depends on Him to provide, among other things, the spiritual guidance, in the form of the locus of manifestation of an authentic shaykh, that is necessary to continue on with struggling to realize the purpose of life and the nature of essential identity.
The key to the foregoing is the quality of sincerity and the process of maintaining sincerity. As a previously noted Hadith indicated, the sincere are at great risk, and one of the reasons for the presence of such risk, is that the sincere are very vulnerable in a world which is steeped in illusion, deceit, and the other machinations of nafs and Iblis. The sincere see the need for spiritual guidance, but the process of seeking guidance is replete with many perils –– among these being the existence of so many false teachers, and such teachers become a test for the sincere ... a test of their sincerity, for, if successful, the test of sincerity gives expression to the sort of aforementioned strangers who break away from false teachers for the sake of Islam –– that is, the spiritual truth or haqiqah of Being.
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