Wine, Pure and Mingled: Degrees of Remembrance

The Spiritual Gym

Different spiritual practices may be compared to different workouts in a gym. The heavier the spiritual workout, the less external support is needed to sustain inward remembrance of God.

The lightest workouts are emotionally charged forms of worship—Sufi songs (qawwalis) and mystical poetry—that even many secular people enjoy. These can genuinely awaken souls. Yet because the outward forms carry much of the burden through sensory appeal and sentiment, they remain a relatively light workout. Nevertheless, they are still superior to polemical debates online about God which tend to generate more heat than light.

A more demanding stage involves intellectual and scriptural study, often with others. Here, remembrance is sustained less through sensory appeal and more through reflection or communal companionship.

The heaviest workout is silence and solitude. No music. No conversation. No company. Eventually even the tongue falls still. Only inward attention upon God remains. This is the most demanding form of concentration, for remembrance must be self-sustaining without outward aid—something many in our age find psychologically overwhelming.

Karen Armstrong’s story illustrates the point well. She sought to become a nun and live a life of solitude and silence but found it unbearable. Jewish friends wisely guided her toward the intellectual path of scriptural study and scholarship, where she could flourish.

Earlier ages seem to have possessed greater natural capacity for sustained inward concentration. This may explain why ancient traditions such as Hinduism placed profound emphasis on meditation, solitude, and contemplation, while later traditions increasingly stressed study, community, collective worship, and sacred law. As humanity grew more distracted and removed from its primordial nature, greater outward structures of support became necessary. This is not humiliation but a realistic diagnosis of spiritual decline—like an elderly person who now needs a walking stick.

Many Muslims, Jews, and Hindus would rightly object to any simple hierarchy that would subordinate scriptural study and recitation. They regard engagement with the Divine Word as among the highest practices, believing it carries immense transformative power when recited in its original form. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali does not disagree. Yet he still describes a further stage in which even the tongue becomes unnecessary: the heart itself begins to chant the Divine Word inwardly. This is the quintessential prayer of the heart—remembrance independent of outward stimuli.

Paradisal Realities and the Maturity of the Soul

The Qur’an distinguishes between those in Paradise who drink directly from the fountain of Tasnīm and those who receive it mingled or mixed with something else. According to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Tasnīm symbolises the knowledge of God and the bliss of beholding His Face. The foremost are said to drink from this fountain directly in its pure form, for they gaze upon none but God.

The righteous majority, however, do not drink from the fountain directly, but receive it mixed. That is to say, they perceive the Divine indirectly — through the celestial delights of Paradise, which manifest His presence only as reflections. The difference is like gazing upon the sun itself, or beholding it only through its countless reflections in illuminated objects.

In Paradise, there are countless sensual realities which exist in their most exalted form: wine, beauty, music, sexuality, celestial gardens and so on. These very realities are dangerously distracting in this world, yet in Paradise, when beings have attained sufficient maturity, they become transparent disclosures of the Divine rather than independent entities that are idolised.

Beauty—including music and sexuality—is a double-edged sword. It can elevate the soul or pull it into distraction and disorder. In the Golden Age, when humanity lived closer to its primordial nature, sensual beauty was more transparent which is to say that the Formless One was perceived within the many forms, Unity was perceived within multiplicity. Over time, however, forms become increasingly opaque and idolised independently.

This is why later traditions, particularly Islam, regulate public beauty and music more stringently—not because they are inherently evil, but out of compassionate realism toward humanity’s changed condition.

The Hindu Perspective

Hindu and Buddhist heavens are often described in strikingly sensual terms: celestial music, intoxicating bliss, radiant beauty, exquisite food and drink, and erotic pleasures with heavenly maidens. Heaven (svarga) is typically attained through accumulated acts of merit (karma) rather than knowledge (jñāna). Because such souls reach paradise primarily through bodily actions, paradisal pleasures are primarily experienced as heightened bodily enjoyment rather than a means of liberating knowledge. 

Actions are finite; knowledge is inexhaustible. A soul carrying seeds of liberating knowledge — even if it arrives through acts of merit — will continue its ascent. One arriving with acts of merit alone, without knowledge (jñāna), exhausts its store and returns to the cycle of rebirth.

Certain Vedantic doctrines, such as krama mukti (gradual liberation), leave open the possibility that heavenly realms may function not merely as temporary rewards but as stages of continued spiritual ascent through heavenly worlds (lokas) culminating in liberation.

Maturity

The decisive quality is the maturity of the soul.

An immature soul turns even Paradise into subtle worldliness. A mature soul turns even the world into Paradise.

In the spiritual gym metaphor, we said outward supports are necessary for a weakened soul to sustain remembrance of God. As one advances, these supports become less essential as remembrance grows increasingly inward, direct, and self-sustaining through the awakened heart.

Likewise in Paradise, a hierarchy exists. Lower heavens abound in celestial and sensual delights—wine, women and song—which disclose the Divine indirectly through outward multiplicity. Higher states move beyond dependence on external intermediaries toward more immediate, inward knowledge of the Divine.

At the highest level of maturation, the soul is no longer dependant on religious forms or even celestial forms to sustain remembrance of God. It drinks from the fountain directly.