Light Upon Light: Short Reflections

 Reflection 1

Only the Divine inside me can realise the Divine above me.

 

Only the Absolute can know the Absolute.

"I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart. I asked 'Who are Thou?' He said, 'Thou'" 

    - Hallaj 

Commentary: 

"None sees Him but He"

     - Ibn Arabi

"He is the Observer and the Observed" 

    - Ibn Arabi

"Vision does not comprehend Him but He comprehends all vision" 

    - Quran 6.103

Allah says in a Hadith Qudsi, “When I love my servant… I become the ear by which he hears, the  eye by which he sees, the hand by which he grasps, the foot by which he walks…” 

[Source: al-Bukhari 6502]

Reflection 2

"I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart. I asked 'Who are Thou?' He said, 'Thou'" 

    - Hallaj 

"Me and thee signify duality and duality is illusion because Unity [tawhid] alone is Truth" 

    - Bayazid Bistami

"I am not a drop, I am the entire Sea where every particle is me, singing in ecstasy" 

    - Rumi

The perennial question, "Who am I?" The answer is Unutterable.

"Thou are That" [Thou are the Absolute] 

    - Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7

Notes

* Obviously, this is dangerous territory which can lead to confusion and great error. Sufism refers to the highest mysteries of Oneness (tawhid) as the Secret (sirr) which should not be revealed publicly because it can lead to misunderstanding and heresy.

Reflection 3

Only the God inside me can know the God above me.
He is above all things and within all things 

The Most High and The Most Near
Highest "Other" and deepest "I"
In spiritual awakening, the two converge,

"God grasps God" (Meister Eckhart1)

Light upon Light
Only the Absolute can know the Absolute
"Know God through God", i'rafullah billah (Imam 'Ali رضي الله عنه)

Notes 

* "Only one who has come to know God through God knows Him" 

    - Imam Jafar al-Sadiq 

    (Source: Ibn Babawah, al-tawhid, (Beirut: Dar-al-Ma'arif 2008, 143, no. 7)] 

* Ibn Arabi explains that God created Adam because he wished to know Himself from the starting point of another. The Absolute desired to know itself from the starting point of the relative. 

References

1.  Source: Paths to Transcendence by Reza Shah Kazemi, page 171]

Reflection 4

The God inside me calls upon the God above me.

He is the seeker and the sought. 

He is the invoker and the invoked.

Remember; He is alone and without partner.

According to Imam al-Ghazali, the highest understanding of Divine Oneness (tawhid) is that is nothing in existence but the solitary One. 

“[In the beginning] there was only God and nothing else. And He is now as He [always] was”

    - Ibn Ata’illa

[Al-Hikam, Sufi Aphorisms by Ibn Ata’illa, 37] 

Notes

* The secret of the invocation is that He is both the invoker and the invoked. God Himself pronounces His own Name within the servant. 

“God and His Name are one” - Ramakrishna

Reflection 5

The God inside me calls upon the God above me. 

The primordial Self remembering itself. 

 

"He is the First and the Last. The Most High and the Most Inward" 

    - Quran 57.3