Toshihiko Izutsu
THE THEOPHAN1C EGO IN SUFISM An Analysis of the Sufi Psychology of Najm alDin Kubra Sufism is a complex phenomenon. In the earliest periods of its development, the Sufis were not at all interested in theorizing and thinking; the main emphasis was naturally naturally laid on o n the practice of o f ascetism and devotio d evotion. n. But soon outstanding mystics began to appear, who could very well be considered each an independent independ ent “thinke “ thinker” r” with peculiar peculiar ideas of o f his own about mystical experience, based on an original interpretation of the esoteric aspects of Islam. The sayings and doings of these early masters, remembered and recorded by their followers, gradually gave rise to what is now called the Sufi tradition. This spiritual tradition came to produce in the subsequent periods divergent schools schoo ls and orders orders which often widely w idely differ from from one on e another in their their teachings. As a matter of fact there is no uniform system of ideas which we might consider the Sufi doctrine, so wide a divergence of opinion prevails among individual thinkers and among the schools and orders to which they belong. Struc Structur turally ally too, Sufis Sufism m shows a bewildering complexity. There praxis and theoria. It pr are so many different facets to it in in terms of o f both is hardly hardly possib po ssible le to presen pr esentt Sufism in a nutshell nutsh ell and give a simple and clearcut account of it as a uniform system. Choice must necessarily be made as to which definite aspect a spect of Sufism Sufism we are to deal with and from which particular point of view. Thus any exposition of Sufism will be heavily conditioned condition ed by the choice we w e are forced to make at the outset with regard to these points. i s t o r i c a l l y a s w e ll a s s t r u c t u r a l l y
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No N o te: te : This Thi s is the th e thir th ir d o f the series ser ies o f three thr ee lectu le ctures res on “the egoeg o-co cons ns ciou ci ou snes sn es s in East Ea ster ern n re ligio lig ions ns” ” de liv ered er ed in N e w Y o r k fo r th e C. G. Ju J u n g Fo unda un datio tio n, N o v e m b e r 6, 1975.
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Now my topic in the present paper is the problem of ego consciousness in Sufism. This would mean that of all the divergent factors factors which go to constitute Sufism Sufism I shal shalll be mainly concern c oncerned ed with its psychological aspect. And this again will naturally determine to a great extent my choice cho ice as to whom I shall shall turn turn to, from among all the the famous Sufi Sufi masters, masters, in getting primary materials to draw draw upon for my exposition. I have decided to turn for my purpose mainly to Najm alDin alD in alKubra alKubra (usually (usually known in Iran Iran as Najm Kubra),1one Kubra),1o ne of the greatest masters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the founder of a very important Sufi order called after him Kubrawiyah or the KubraSchool. KubraSch ool. What characterizes characterizes Kubra Kubra and his his school scho ol is the extraordinary attention accorded to the psychological process which the Sufi aspirant goes through stage by stage until he reaches the final state of spiritual perfection, commonly known as unio unio my myshea. In fact, Kubra himself seems to have been the first in the history of Sufis Sufism m to attempt an objective p henomen heno menological ological description description of what a mystic actually actually experienc expe riences es at every stage o f the spiritual spiritual discipline as it gradually gradually transforms his inner inn er self. What he h e offers offe rs as a result is a detailed description of the transformationprocess of the ego consciousness of the Sufi. His description of this process is rendered the more valuable because becau se it is directly directly based on an attentive attentiv e observaobserva tion of his own experience as a Sufi and the experiences of his disciples under his guidance. In this respect nothing could supersede his work for all those who are interested in the formation and structure of egoconsciousness in Sufism. Approaching Sufism from the psychological point of view, we are struck struck first first o f all by the fact fac t that, as was the th e case c ase with Shamanism and Taoism which we w e dealt with in previous papers, imagery plays plays an exceedingly important role. Everything, as far as it is positively experienced by the Sufi, is experienced in the form of an image. A single perusal of Najm Kubra’s Kubra’s work will leave leav e upon upo n every e very reader an overwhelming impression that the esoteric world as experienced by the Sufi is essentially an imageworld — or rather, an “imaginal” world. And this holds true not only of Najm Kubra’s inner experience, but applies with equal truthfulness to Sufism in general. We might express the same thing by saying that the mythopoeic function of the mind is fully at work in Sufism. And this latter formulation immediately brings Sufism close to Shamanism. The Sufi world, in other words, is no less le ss a world of o f imaginal imaginal or mythopoe mytho poeic ic visions than than the Shamanic Shamanic world whose who se structure structure I analyzed in my second lecture. Moreover Mo reover,, Sufism bears a superficia superficiall resemblance resemblan ce to Shamanism Shamanism in that its theory and philosophy are based on the belief in the
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existence of a spiritual entity called “soul” . The concept of soul plays an exceedingly important role in the theoretical formation of both Sufism and Shamanism. In this respect and to this extent there is no difference between the two. But a remarkable difference begins to appear as we examine more closely the way they actually treat the soul. A Shaman is, as Mircea Eliade says, “The great specialist in the human soul” . He is thoroughly acquainted — or at least is supposed to be acquainted — with the drama of the soul; by profession he knows its essential instability and precariousness. He is also acquainted with the geography of the extraterrestrial regions to which the soul can be carried away. With regard to his own soul, he is a man who can freely and at will send it out from his body so that the disembodied soul might have its own peculiar experience in a region lying beyond the physical limitations of empirical experience. It is remarkable that, in order to actualize his Shamanic ego, the Shaman must send out his soul from the body into far distances. His soul, thus separated from his body, encounters extraordinary things and beings such as he never comes across in the ordinary world. The soul in such a state is the Shamanic ego. An d the world in which the Shamanic ego as a vagrant soul roams about is a world of unusual images. Thus a Shaman characteristically lives in two entirely different worlds. One is the empirical world of mundane affairs, in which he experiences ordinary things as a normal, nonshamanic ego. The other is a world of unusual and fantastic imagery, in which he is conscious of himself as a shamanic ego, a true master of his own imageworld. His soul comes and goes between these two different worlds, in each of which he is quite a different person. Quite unlike this is the structure of the Sufi experience of the soul. The Sufi, to begin with, does not send his soul out of his body with the aim of letting her experience the fantastic things of the imageworld. At least he is not interested in such a practice. He is interested in intentionally going down into the depths of his own soul, exploring its ever darker regions, visualizing the essential makeup of the deep strata of the soul in the form of mythop oeic images which are spontaneously evoked out of these inner regions as he g oes on purifying his soul through a systematic spiritual discipline. The images that emerge in the process reflect and visualize the otherwise invisible depths of his soul. They are a mirror of the soul. And herein lies the significance of “imagination” for the Sufi.
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Thus in the case of Sufism — particularly as conceived and systematized by Najm Kubra — all images and visions are considered spiritually significant insofar as they function as visual forms in which the different dimensions of the soul are disclosed to the Sufi. Each image or each group of images is for him a symbolic reference to a certain stage which he is actually going through in the course of spiritual discipline. There is, in this sense, a perfect correlation recognizable between a group of images and a spiritual stage on the Sufi Way. One’s actually experiencing a certain image or imagegroup is directly and by itself indicative of one’s being at a certain stage of inner maturity. It will be clear, then, that, although the Sufi world is a world of symbolic images like the Shamanic world, the images and “imagination” play conspicuously different roles in these two religious traditions. But in order to further elucidate this point, I must begin by giving a somewhat more detailed explanation of the Sufi theory of the soul itself. For the Sufi view of mythop oeic imagery entirely depends upon the Sufi view of the structure of the soul. In fact, all archetypal images, whether visual or auditory, that are perceived by the Sufi in the course of his spiritual discipline are attributed to the soul in the sense that they are considered to be inner experiences of the soul. The soul is the subject of these “imaginal” experiences. That is to say, the soul is the ego which experiences the “imaginal” forms as they arise out of its own depths in the course of its spiritual metamorphosis. Fo ra full understanding of the significance of this observation we would do well to remember that there are in Islam two different currents of thought concerning the nature of the “ soul” : one is the theory of the “soul” that was propounded and developed by the scholastic philosophers, and the other is that which is peculiar to the Sufis. The scholastic conception of the “soul” belongs to the Aristotelian tradition of De Anima. It is represented in Islam by Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 9 801 037) who for the first time in the history of scholastic philosophy, Western as well as Eastern, put forward in this section of the traditional Aristotelian philosophy a remarkable view in which he established the selfevident nature of the existence of the “soul” in such a way that it could be interpreted as an assertion of the selfevidence of egoconsciousness. “Let us imagine” , Avicenna says,2“ that a man is created all of a
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sudden, in a perfect form except that his eyes are veiled so that he cannot see anything in the external world. H e is created floating in the air — or rather in the void so that he does n ot fee l any pressure of the air which would force his sense of touch into action. His arms and legs are separated from one another, there being no direct contact between them. Now suppose”, Avicenna continues, “the man thus created reflects upon himself. Will he in such a state affirm the existence of his own self? Yes, he w ill, no doubt. He will surely affirm it without, however, affirming the existence of any part of his body . . . If, being in such a situation he w ere able to imagine a hand or any other bodily member, he would not imagine it as an integral part of himself.” This intuitive awareness of the self which maintains its identity throughout a man’s life, regardless o f whether he be in a waking state or dreaming, intoxicated or asleep, is in the view of Avicenna, the psychological ground for the persistence of man’s egocon sciousness (anniyah, lit. “Iness”).3And for Avicenna, it is this intuitive awareness of the ego that proves the selfevidence of the existence of the “soul”. Thus, for the Muslim philosopher, that which establishes man as an existential subject, i.e., that which constitutes the I or ego of each individual man is the “ soul” . The “ soul” , in other words, is the locus of the ego consciousn ess. And its primary function lies in letting man directly and intuitively becom e aware of his “I am” . The “ soul” , once established in this way as the subject o f human existence, is then recognized as the central principle of all the motive, vital, emotive and cognitive functions. And from here on the Muslim philosopher follows in the main the Aristotelian teachings of De Anima, which have no direct relevance to the topic of the present paper. Without going into details I would simply point out here that the scholastic concept of ego which is based on such an understanding of the “ soul” is nothing but the concept of the empirical ego. It refers to the subject which comes into contact with the objective world through the five senses, perceives things, estimates them, feels, imagines and thinks, exercising all these functions in the dimension of empirical experience. From the Sufi point of view , the I or ego posited in this way as the empirical subject of empirical experiences is but an illusion, a mere figure of speech. Th e illusory image of the I emerges and asserts itself as the subjective center of human personality because one is unaware of Something divine that lies hidden in his existential depths. “ When
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thou regardest thyself as existent and dost not regard Me — the divine — as the cause of thy existence, I veil My face and thine own face appears to thee” , said a Sufi on behalf of G od.4 That is to say, “your own face” appears to you simply because God veils Him self behind your human face; Your human face only remains visible and the Divine face disappears and you become conscious of yourself as the center and ground of your existence. This precisely is the empirical ego which the philosopher speaks of. In reality, however, the existence of such an ego has in the eyes of the Sufi but an imaginary or merely imagined existence (hasti-ye mawhum).5 Sufism, too, admits the existence of the “soul” in man. Indeed Sufi psychology is theoretically a psychology o f the “soul” . Sufism recognizes also the existence of all the functions which philosophy attributes to it. However, Sufism makes a conspicuously different approach to the “ soul” . In other words, the emphasis is placed on those aspects of the “soul” which philosophy pays little or no attention to. Sufism structures the “soul” in an entirely different way from philosophy, around a different center, on a different principle, disposing its various functional spheres into a different form of stratification. Of all the socalled mental functions that are generally attributed to the “soul” , it is perception that plays in Sufi psychology the most interesting and original role from the viewpoint of the present paper which is mainly concerned with “imagination” . The kind of perception, however, in which Sufism is interested is not the ordinary perception of external objects. The ordinary perceptual event is for the Sufi devoid of significance. Suppose a Sufi perceives a blazing fire, for example, as indeed Sufis often do. Of course it may come to pass that he perceives through his physical organ of sight a fire actually burning in the external world. But such an event does not interest him at all. What is of vital importance to him is a perceptual event of a different order. Regardless of whether or not there is a fire burning in the external world, he often perceives vividly a blazing fire as a matter of actual experience — it is such an event that is important to him. The perception of fire of this kind is important to him because, as I have said before, he considers it an extemalization of the spiritual state in which he happens to be. The perception of fire assumes a symbolic significance to him as visualization of his inner state. It will be interesting to observe in this respect that Sufism assumes the existence in man of two different sets of sense organs: one exoteric and the other esoteric. The exoteric sense organs are
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nothing other than our ordinary physical or bodily organs of five senses, whose activity depends upon the stimuli coming from the external world, whereas the esoteric organs of perception are nonphysical organs whose working is based on the creative potentials of mythopoesis, that function of the psyche whose nature it is to perceive and project archetypal images. The esoteric organs of perception are supposed to work independently of the exoteric. Thus in the view of Sufism, every man is endowed with, for example, two different sets of ears: one is the exoteric, i.e., physical ear with which he hears physical sounds, and the other is the esoteric ear with which he hears superphysical sounds. A nd the same applies to the rest of the sense organs. An esoteric organ is called in Sufism latlfah meaning literally a “subtle one”, that is, a “subtle” organ of a luminous nature in contradistinction to a “gross” (kathif) organ of a material, physical nature. As a comprehensive complex of all such esoteric organs, a human being is represented as a “subtle body” of luminosity in distinction from the gross body of material turbidity. Man in this sense is possessed of two bodies, subtle and gross, or luminous and dark, and essentially he is a being of Light. And the “soul” in its original purity is to be understood as the spiritual core o f the Man of Light as distinguished from the Man of Darkness. The whole problem of egoconsciousness in Sufism centers round this idea. All this, however, will become fully understandable only when we have understood the Sufi view of the structure of the “soul” and the nature of the technique of spiritual discipline that has specifically been devised by the Sufis for the purpose of transforming the empirically given dark “ soul” back into the state o f its original luminosity. To this problem we shall now turn. The “soul” as conceived by the Sufis has a multilayer structure consisting primarily of three principal strata. Let me first enumerate them without a detailed explanation, keeping in mind only that although each of these three is given an independent name as if there were three independent entities, they are, in the view of the majority of Sufis, nothing but three different dimensions or stages of one and the same “soul” . The first stratum is technically called nafs ammarah meaning literally “the commanding soul”, that is, that aspect of the “soul” which instigates man to evil. It may be translated as the “lower soul” or “ appetitive soul” . It is an inner locus o f immoderate desires and fiery passions. It is, according to the Sufis, in this dimension that the
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egoconsciou sness o f the ordinary man is constituted as the sensuous and sensual I. The secon d stratum is called nafs lawwamah, literally “the blaming soul” . It refers to that aspect of the “ soul” which “blames” or criticizes itself, that is to say, which becomes aware of its own evil nature which it manifests in the first stratum just explained. In this sense it is the locus of moral conscience. A nd the ego which is formed in this dimension is principally a rational ego, the subject passing critical judgments upon itself and others. In this respect the concept partially covers what the philosopher calls ‘aql,“ reason” or “intellect” . The third stratum is nafs mutma’innah or the “pacified soul” , designating the mode of being of the “soul” in which the turbulence of desires and passions has been calmed down and the agitations of thoughts and concepts reduced to stillness. This dimension of the “soul” is more generally called qalb, the “heart” . Qalb is one of the most important technical terms of Sufism, concerning which many things have been said and written by the Sufis. Here I would simply point out that the qalb is no other than what I have referred to above as the spiritual core of the Man of Light, as an integral whole of the subtle, esoteric organs for perceiving the esoteric aspects of things. The qalb is a supersensory organ o f cognition through the activation of which is realized what is usually known as mystical experience. According to the Sufi theory of the “ soul” , the qalb which is its third stratum is the threshold of the divine dimension of Being; it is essentially of a luminous nature, and the world which is disclosed by the activity of the qalb constitutes ontologically the middle domain between the world of the pure L igh tof G od, and the world of material Darkness under the dominion of Satan. But Sufism recognizes within the qalb itself two deeper layers. The first is called ruh, the “ spirit” and the secon d which lies still deeper than the “ spirit” and which therefore is the d eepest of all the strata of the “soul”, is sirr, meaning literally the “secret” i.e., the innermost recess of the soul. The “spirit” is mythopoeically represented by the image of an incandescent Sun whose dazzling light illumines the whole world of Being. A s the sun in the physical world rises from the eastern horizon and illumines all things and activates their lifeenergy, so the divine Sun, rising from the spiritual Eas t,6 illumines the infinitely wide world of the “ spirit” and animates all the energies contained in the spiritual faculty of this “ subtle organ” of supersensory cognition. Subjectively the mystic feels at this stage that he is standing in extreme proximity to God.
31 Toshihiko Izutsu T he sirr, “ secret” , on the other hand, is the inmost ground of the “soul” , the deepest layer of consciousness which is in reality beyond “consciousness” in the ordinary sense of the word. It is the sacred core of the “ soul” , where the divine and the human become united, unified and fused. In other words, it is in this dimension of the “ soul” that the socalled unio mystica is realized. The egoconsciousness which is actualized in this dimension and which naturally is the highest form of egoconsciousness in Sufism is no longer the consciousness o f the mystic of himself as the human I. It is, as we shall see in more detail later, rather the consciousness of the divine I. The Sufi who, as a novice, starts with the consciousness of his human I finally ends by losing sight of it and finding in its place the divine I. This is the whole track of his spiritual journey. And the existential tension caused by the mutual relationship between the human I and the divine I, underlies all the unusual inner events which the mystic encounters on his way. Sufism as a spiritual praxis consists in effectuating the transference of man from the dimension of the purely human to the dimension o f the purely divine, from Darkness to Light, through the process o f the transfiguration of the “soul” from the stage of the “ appetitive soul” to that of the “ secret” . Such a radical transfiguration — or we might say, transubstantia tion — of consciousness would be extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, if it were not for a systematic method o f spiritual training to help the inexperienced on the way. In the earliest periods of the history of Sufism there seems to have been no definite technique of meditation; that is to say, each individual Sufi was in a large measure on his own in this matter. Gradually, however, the Sufi masters came to devise for themselves as well as for their disciples a number of systematic methods of meditation, among which by far the most important is the dhikr practice. Dhikr (meaning “remembrance”) is a highly developed technique of onepointed meditation on God consisting in the Sufi’s constantly and continuously repeating to himself, either verbally or silently, the name o f God, somewhat like the practice of nembutsu in the Pure Land School of Mahayana Buddhism. The novice is admonished to endeavor to keep his mind directed with the utmost degree of concentration toward the object of meditation, so much so that he becomes totally absorbed in the thought of God. The simplest and perhaps the earliest form o f dhikr consisted in the repetition of one single word signifying God: Allah — repeating Allah! Allah! Allah! — unceasingly.7 Later a number of more complicated dhikr formulae were proposed by different masters. That is
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to say, the word Allah became amplified into various phrases and sentences, each containing the name of God as its innermost constituent. From among all these dhikr-iormvl&e which developed in the course of the history of Sufism, there is one which has come to occupy an especially privileged position, being appreciated by the majority of the leading masters as the best theme of dhikrmeditation. It is La ilaha ilia Allah, meaning: “There is no divine being except God” . As a theme of concentrated meditation on God, this formula has a very conspicuous semantic advantage. As is easy to see, the sentence is divisible into two halves; the first part, la ilaha meaning “ there is no divine being or god” , and the second, iliaAllah meaning “ except G od” . The first section is negative in its semantic structure, negating as it does all elements in the consciousness that are “other” than God. When activated as part of the dhikr-meditation, it serves the purpose of sweeping off the mind the dirt of all profane images and thoughts of God arising from the dimension of the “appetitive soul” . The second half — “ except God” — on the contrary, is positive; it brings into the purified space o f the mind prepared by the action of the first part, a pure image of God. So the formula taken as a whole first negates everything other than God and then affirms and establishes God, and God alone. Metaphysically it reflects the whole process of creation as understood by the Sufis: the things “other” than God emerge out of His unfathomable depths; then their ontological reality as “things other than G od” having been negated, they all return to Him as their sole and true Reality. What is far more important for our purpose, however, is the very original way in which this formula has traditionally been used in the actual dhikrpractice by the Sufis. Without going into unnecessary details, I shall give here a brief exposition of it, condensing it into a typical pattern.8 The Sufi who intends to engage in the dhikr-practice begins by accomplishing a twofold purification, cleansing his body by abstinence and ablution and purifying his mind from all sinful desires and thoughts. Then, he enters a dark, quiet room, preferably burns fragrant incense and sits crosslegged. Laying his hands open on his thighs, with his eyes closed,9 he starts with the negative part of the aforementioned dhikr-formula: la ilaha (“There is no divine being” ). With intense concentration he pronounces the first word Id, pushing it up, as it were, out of the underside of his left nipple — or’ according to D ay eh, out o f the root of the navel. Having produced the
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word of negation, la, in this fashion, he prolongs it in a forcefully suppressed voice until he reaches the next word, ilaha which he pronounces in such a way that in his imagination he throws it down to his back over the right shoulder. This is immediately followed by the second, i.e., positive, half of the formula: iliaAllah. The Sufi, without relaxing his inner concentration, begins to pronounce the first word ilia, producing it from the upper part of his right shoulder, and then, summoning up the whole o f his spiritual energy, strikes the word, Allah, down into his heart as if Allah thus forcefully driven into the heart is with a hammer. The word supposed to awaken the “soul” from its natural slumber and make it realize its own self in a deeper, nonempirical dimension. And the whole process of dhikr, repeated assiduously and continuously day after day will end up by disclosing the qalb which, as I have explained earlier, is the “subtle” esoteric organ of supersensory cognition. The qalb will be completely disclosed, and through it the divine Light will begin to stream into the “ soul” . The “ soul” will finally be immersed in the divine Light. It is in this dimension of pure luminosity that the Sufi will encounter, and become identical with, his Alter Ego, the inner Man, the Man of Light. Let us note that he is not identified with God. He is merely, identified with his other Ego. Our remaining task will consist in correlating stage by stage the process o f the dhikr-discipline with the process of the transfiguration of the “ soul” which we have summarily described above. Each stage of the transfiguration of the soul is clearly marked by the spontaneous emergence of images that are peculiar to, and characteristic of, the spiritual stage. It goes without saying that from the viewpoint of the theory of mythopoesis, this is the most interesting part of the Sufi experience. Let us begin with the first dimension of the “soul”, that of the lower or appetitive self, the nafs ammarah, which is the ground and locus of the empirical I. The empirical I, prior to being subjected to the dhikr-discipline, that is, as long as it exists under ordinary conditions, is naturally unaware of its own state. Desires and passions are swirling and swarming in the “soul” at this stage. Najm Kubra compares it to a house littered with filth in which all kinds of brutes live, dogs, pigs, donkeys, leopards and elephants. But the empirical ego does not realize its own existential misery except on rare occasions and that in a very superficial manner. However, to the spiritual eye of a novice in Sufism who has
Sophia Perennis, Volume IV, number 1 already made some progress in the dhikr-exercise, the actual state of
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his “appetitive soul” discloses itself in a number of characteristic images. The first image that emerges is that of a deep pit or well (bi’r). He finds himself at the bottom of the well. An impenetrable darkness reigns all over. There is no light. Nothing is discernible. The dark pit is a mythopoeic visualization of the bodily, physical, and material aspect of human existence. From time to time, piercing through the thick darkness there flashes a mysterious red light. It is the flickering fire of the Devil. Unlike the limpid and serene fire of a spiritual nature which we shall encounter at a later stage, the fire of the D evil is strangely turbid, says Najm Kubra.10The Dev il himself is a personified configuration of the uncontrollable lust and pleasureseeking (called in Arabic hawa) which is often compared in Sufism to a foul dog filled with frantic passions, a dark force which, residing in the “lower soul” , instigates it to immorality.11 The Sufiaspirant, when he witnesses the diabolic fire, feels unusual heaviness in his whole body, the breast pressed hard, and the four members as if crushed by a stone.12 Sometimes the “lower soul” itself projects its own image on the mental screen of the Sufi. Its color is blue, skyblue. The image gives the impression of blue water continuously welling up from a spring.13 In the scheme of the color symbolism of Najm Kubra, blue is the color of the “ appetitive soul” as it is active with an exuberant vitality, whereas green is the highest color, being as it is the sign of the full vitality of the qalb, i.e ., the “ soul” in its third dimension.14 As the Sufiaspirant moves on a little further in the dhikrexercise, that which was at first utter darkness reigning over the bottom of the pit changes its appearance and begins to coagulate. Suddenly it assumes the form of dense black clouds. And as he still moves on, the Sufi begins to notice something like a crescent faintly observable through the clouds. A nd finally the crescent fully discloses itself in the rip of the clouds. The emergence of the image of the crescent is a sign that the “soul” has to a great extent been purified by the force of the dhikr formula that has continuously been penetrating into it. The “ soul” is already getting into its second dimension. In the corresponding sphere of mythopoeic imagery, the black clouds are gradually transformed into heaps of white clouds.15 The “soul” at this stage visualizes itself in the image of the rising sun, except that it rises in a very peculiar manner. The Sufi notices a red sun rising out of his right cheek. The impression is so vivid that he feels the burning heat of the sun on his cheek. The sun ascends to the level of the ear, sometimes to the level of the forehead, and some-
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times again above the head. When this is actually experienced, the “ soul” is definitely in its second dimension. That is to say, it has been transfigured into the “ blaming soul” . The Sufi has not yet come out of the dark pit in which he found himself confined in the beginning. He is still in the well. But he stands now closer to the exit. This situation too is visualized in the form of an image. In the midst of darkness filling up the pit he notices a beautiful green light. A s I said above, green occupies the highest position in the color symbolism of Najm Kubra. The green light is a reflection o f the light emanating from the Emerald Stone which in the mythopoeic cosmology of Sufism marks the highest point or the Center of the Universe, which is directly connected to the sacred space, and which, therefore, is the gate of entrance to the Presence of God. Led by this supernatural green light, the Sufi goes out of the well. And therewith his “ soul” reaches the third stage, that of the “pacified soul” or the qalb, the “heart” . The event marks the opening up of the divine dimension in man. And the “ soul” thus transfigured produces its own image. Let me quote Kubra’s own words concerning the imagery peculiar to this stage. “Sometimes (while your ‘soul’ is in this stage)”, says Najm Kubra, “you witness your ‘soul’ emerging in front of you as a circle which gives you an impression of a huge spring of Light emitting brilliant rays in all directions. It often happens that you, in a state of ecstasy, perceive your ‘soul’ appearing as the circleimage of your own face, a circle of pure light somewhat like a wellpolished mirror. And as this circle comes up toward your face, it absorbs your face into it. When this is experienced, you may be sure that that image df your face is (the image of) the ‘pacified soul’.” 16 The last sentence of the passage just quoted, which as it stands may be obscure, in reality expresses a very important idea relating to the basic structure of the egoconsciousness in Sufism. For.the Circle which emerges in front of the Sufi’s face and into which his face is absorbed is a visualization of the alterego of the Sufi himself .'With the realization of the “ pacified soul” your , “ soul” , i.e.,, your empifical ego, becomes absorbed into the Circle of Light which is nothing other than the visual image of your true Ego. The two egos become completely unified into one, your empirical ego disappearing into the figure of your alter ego, your true Ego. That which hap been split into two egos by the force of the physical and fnaterial structure of existence goes back to its original, primordial unity. The image of The Circle plays an important role in the process leading to the final emergence of the alterego. Already in the earlieir
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stages of dhikr - practice before the Sufi reaches the stage we are now dealing with, he witnesses various circles: two luminous circles corresponding to the two eyes, for example, appearing everywhere, in no matter which direction he may turn, right or left, and the circle of sacred light appearing between the eyebrows and the eyes, etc. All these circles are unstable; they constantly become larger or smaller and change the intensity of their luminosity corresponding to the inner states of the Sufi. But the most important of them all is the justmentioned Circle of the face announcing the appearance of the alteregowhich Najm Kubra calls the “Witness in Heaven” (al-shahid fi al-sama’), that is, the individual Sufi’s celestial I. Concerning the Circle of the face Kubra writes: “When the Circle of the face becomes pure and limpid, it begins to effuse bright light which issues forth from it just as water gushes forth from a spring, so much so that the Sufi himself becom es aware of the effusion o f the light from his own face. The effusion occurs from between the two eyes and the two eyebrows. Then, as the Circle absorbs his entire face, there appears in front of his face another irradiating Face, effusing, this one too, brilliant light. And behind its thin veil the Sufi perceives a Sun moving forward and backward like a swing. This Face is in reality your own real face, and this Sun is the Sun of the ‘spirit’ ruh (one of the deeper layers of the qalb) moving this way and that in the body” .17 It is at this point that the image of a luminous human figure appears to the inner eye of the mystic. It is the aforementioned emergence of the Man of Light {shakhs min nur, shakhs anwari), the mythopoeic carrier of the true Ego (ananiyahoxanrii, the true Iness). Thus the alterego of the Sufi, his “Witness in Heaven” appears to him assuming the form of a Man of Light who dwells in him and who mythopoeically represents his true I. “Then an atmosphere o f spiritual serenity covers up the whole of your body, and you witness before you a Man of Light effusing out of himself effulgent light. Correspondingly you feel yourself also effusing light. It often happens that at such moments the veil is torn apart so that your true I becomes completely disclosed” .18 The Man of Light, the “Witness in Heaven” is, Najm Kubra emphatically asserts, no other than your true self — Anta huwa literally meaning “You are He” . This alter ego at the final stage of - practice completely absorbs into itself what has falsely been dhikr posited as the empirical ego, the ordinary I. The mythopoeic experience on the part of the Sufi of the unification of these two egos which is effected as the alter ego absorbing into itself the empirical ego,
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marks the birth of the Theophanic Ego. It is called “theophanic” because the celestial Witness of man as conceived by Najm Kubra is the inner locus of tajalll, ‘‘theophany’’. Metaphorically it is a Mirror in which the Hidden God reflects Himself, thereby changing Himself into the selfrevealing God. This Mirror is like transparent water; it reveals something beyond itself. That Something is God as He manifests Himself (mutajalli) through the Mirror. The Ego of the mystic thus actualized as the divine Mirror is the Theophanic Ego. At first, that is, from the viewpoint of the ordinary man, it was his alter ego. But now it is no longer his “alter” Ego, for it is the only Ego that subsists in this dimension, there being no trace here of the empirical ego. And now, only at this stage is the mystic in a position to stand in a IThou relationship wih God. This relationship assumes the form of a dialogue betw een the I and the Thou. The Theophanic Ego, in other words, comes into a very special dialogical relationship with the Divine Ego. Let us recall at this point that Islam is a monotheistic religion of Semitic origin standing parallel to Judaism and Christianity. Thus in Sufism as Islamic mysticism, the “deification” of man cannot go to the extent o f man becoming God, or man being transubstantiated into God. Except in some aberrant cases, unio mystica is conceivable only in the sense of God manifesting Himself in and through man, i.e., theophany. In terms of the Sufi theory of consciousness, it is the aforementioned sirr, the “secret”, the deepest layer of the “soul”, which is the real locus of such theophany. In order to get into a dialogical relationship of IandThou with God, the “ soul” must be brought up to the Divine Presence. Subjectively this is experienced by the Sufi as an “ ascension” to Heaven. It is interesting to observe that here again we encounter the Ascension theme, the Celestial Journey, which is so familiar to mythopoeic mentality all over the world and through all ages.19 The Ascension of the Sufi in the technical sense of the word begins at the level of the “spirit” — the abovem entioned ruh — that is, when the transfiguration of the “soul” attains to the deeper layer of the qalb. Says Najm Kubra: “Here the concentrated energy of the d/ukrformula bores a tiny hole in the right side of the body of the Sufi. It leaves its trace there looking like a cicatrix, which effuses the irradiance of the energy of dhikr. Then the cicatrix begins to move and turns to other parts of the body corresponding to the gradual shift of the concentrationcenter of dhikr in the heart. Thus, beginning with the right flank it gradually moves on and ends by reaching the
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back of the body. The Sufi all the while has a vivid sensation of both the inside and the outside of the cicatrix. And from this narrow aperture the transfigured ‘soul’ emerges out of the body, and goes upward . . . until finally it attains to the sacred regions o f God” .20 For the Theophanic Ego thus actualized at the end of the dhikrdiscipline, God is no longer the third person, “ H e” , the transcendent Absolute standing aloof from the man. God is here primarily the second person and in that capacity he enters into a dialogical relation with the Theophanic Ego of the Sufi. The I and Thou are the two terms of this relationship. A s a matter of actual experience on the part of the Sufi, the I and Thou are at this stage confusingly close to each other. It is in such a dimension of sanctification in which the I is hardly distinguishable from the Thou that secret dialogues (technically called munajat) take place between the two. Says the famous Sufi, Abu Mansur alHallaj (executed in 921 A.D.) in one of his poems: How surprising the relation between Thee and Me! Through Thy Thou, hast Thou annihilated My I from Me. Thou hast brought Me so nigh unto Thee that I imagine Thy I were my own I.21 The intimacy between the two is indeed so close that they are almost interchangeable with one another. It is as if each of the two contained the other within itself. This situation is admirably expressed by Jalal alDin Rumi (d. 1273 A.D.) in the wellknown quatrain:22 Between us the Thou and the I have ceased. I am not I, Thou art not Thou, nor art Thou I. I am at once I and Thou, Thou art at once Thou and I. As we see, the Thou and the I are here separated from one another by an extremely tenuous veil. Negatively speaking, there is almost no separation between the two. Yet, positively, we must admit that the distinction between the Theophanic Ego of man and the Divine Ego of God is still maintained. How could there be any “dialogue” otherwise? A dialogue, being essentially bifurcation of logos, is conceivable only where there are two persons, one who addresses and the other who is addressed. As long as the Sufi here addresses himself to God, saying that “the Thou and the I have
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ceased between us”, i.e., that there is no longer two distinguishable terms of a dialogical relationship, it is still a dialogical relationship. It is evidently not a monologue. However, the Theophanic Ego is theophanic. If the emphasis is shifted to this part of the semantic complex, then everything will immediately turn into pure theophany. There will then be absolutely no trace left of the E go, no matter how transfigured and deified an ego it might be. Besid es, strictly speaking, the cosub sistence of two egos is impossible in the spiritual space of Div ine Presence wh ose structure we are now discussing. The coexistence of two or many egos is a matter pertaining properly to the empirical level o f human existence; it is characteristic of, and peculiar to, the personal relations that obtain between man and man in the social space of their daytoday existence. The immediate implication of this statement would seem to be this. O f the two egos here in question, i.e., the Theophanic Ego and the Divine Ego, the former is fundamentally a false ego, although, to be sure, it is the real Ego of the Sufi if it is viewed in comparison with his empirical ego. And as a “false ego” understood in this sense, it is something to be done away with, something to disappear ultimately. The dialogical relation o f the I and Thou is also, consequently, to disappear. The coming to an end of the dialogue between the Theophanic Ego and the Divine E go is given an impressive description by Bayazld Bastami in the following “dialogue” between him and God.23 It will hardly be necessary to point out that the speaker here is the Theophanic Ego of Bastami describing the process of its own nullification. “ Once God lifted me up [reference to the celestial Ascensio n by which the “ soul” is transubstantiated into a Theophanic Ego] and placed me in His presence. He said to me: ‘O Bayazld, My creatures long to behold thee.’ I said: ‘Adorn me, then, with Thy allcomprehensive Unity and clothe me in Thy I [anariiyah, Iness] and raise me up to Thy absolute Oneness [the primordial state of undifferentiation where there is nothing discernible, not even potentially], so that when Thy creatures behold me, they may say they have seen Thee [God]. But then, there will be only Thou there; I [Bastami] shall have completely disappeared’.”
The impossibility of the cosubsistence o f two egos in the divine region of Being is theoretically explained by Rumi in a typically Sufi manner as follows. “In the presence of God two I’s cannot possibly subsist. You say T and He says T . Either you must die before Him, or He must die before you, so that there might remain no duality. That God should die, however, is factually impossible and rationally
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inconceivable. For ‘He is the Living, the Immortal’. Of course He is so gracious that He would gladly die for your sake, if it were at all possible, in order to nullify the duality. Since, however, it is impossible for Him to die, you must die so that He might manifest Himself in you thereby bringing duality to naught.” Thus at the height of mystical experience, the duality which at the previous stage sustained the dialogical relationship betw een the I and the Thou completely disappears. That is to say, the Theophanic Ego of the Sufi disappears and there remains only the Divine Ego. It is now the Divine Ego that assumes the role of the Theophanic Ego. This means that the Divine Ego in such a state speaks in the first person through the mouth of the Sufi. It is then that the Sufi utters what sounds to uninitiated ears as sheer blasphemy. Many such scandalously “blasphemous” words have been recorded and come down to us as shatahat, “ecstatic utterances”, of the Sufis, the most famous of all being among others, Ana al-Haqq (“I am God!”) of Hallaj and Subhani, maa‘zamasha’ni (“ Glory to Me, how great is My state!”) of Bayazid Bastami. Because of utterances of this nature many a Sufi was put to death. We must remember, however, that the first person in these utterances is not the I of the Sufi, not even his Theophanic Ego. The speaker is the Divin e Ego . Hallaj cries outAna al-Haqq “I am God!” not because he feels himself completely deified, or that he has become God. The preceding analysis of the Sufi experience will have made it clear that the utterance is not an outburst of rapturous exultation arising from the conviction that he is now God. Quite the contrary. He says “I am God” because he, Hallaj, is no longer there. Instead of being a glorification of his ego, it is an absolute glorification of God through an expression of the total absence o f the human ego even in the form of the Theophanic Ego. Let us observe in ending that Najm Kubra used to regard Sufism as a spiritual alchemy (al-kimiya’).24 We now see that the final end to which leads this alchemical process is the transfiguration of the human ego into its absolutely unadulterated essence, which is nothing other than its own annihilation in the presence of the Divine Ego. And this must be the Theophanic Ego in the final and absolute sense of the word, i.e., God appearing as God to God Himself.
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Notes 1. Najm al-Din al-K ubra (ca. 1145-1221 A .D.). His major work Fa wa ’ih al-Ja mal wa-Fawatih al-Jalal was edited and published by Fritz Meier (Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1957). All references to K ubra in the presen t paper are to this edition of this book; 2. Kita b al-Nafs (S hifa’, “Physica” VI) Chap. I, ed b y F . Rahm an, Oxford, 1959, p. 16. Almost the same description of the “man in the air” is found also in Al- Ish arat wa-al-Ta nblha t, (“Physica”) ed. by S. Dunya, Cairo, 1957, pp. 319 -320 . The A vicennian image of the “ floating man” became very famous in Mediaeval philosophy in the W est; it is regard ed by som e historians of Western philoso ph y as th e precurs or of the C artesian c oncep t of the ego as establish ed by the famous Cogito ergo sum. 3. A l- Is hara t (op. cit.), p. 320. 4. This is an utteranc e of a wand ering dervish of the ten th centu ry, Niffari. The qu otation is from R. Nicholson, The Mystics o f Islam, London, (reprint) 1963,p. 85. 5. On the illusory and imaginary natur e of the existence attribu ted ot the empirical ego, see Muhammad Lahljl: M afa tih al-V jaz fi Sh ar h- e Gulshan- e R a z, ed. Kayvan Saml‘i, Tehran, 1957, p. 154. Lahljl was a famous head of the N urb akhshiy a-O rd er in Ir an. H e died in 150 6/7 A .D . 6. The East (mashriq) in Sufism is a symbol of spiritual illumination, whereas the West, the place where the sun sinks and disappears, is a symbol of material darkness. 7. See, for example, the technical adm onition given by Sahl al-Tustari (d. 896 A.D.) to one of his disciples, Hujwin: K a sh f a l-Mah ju b, ed. by Zhukovski, Tehran reprint, 1336 A.H. (solar), p. 245. 8. The description is based on two books. Th e first is al-Qushashi, al-Simtal-mafid, Hyderabad 1327 A.H., p. 149. The gist of the passage was translated into German by Fritz M eier in the Introduction to his edition of Najm K ubra’s ma jor work (op. cit., see N ote 1). The second is M irsa d al- ‘Ib d d of Najm al-Dln al-Razi (d. 1256 A .D .), widely know n by his surnam e, D ay eh. The b oo k is considered authoritative in the Kubrawiyah School. 9. The sitting posture here described is of course not the only on e; there are variant forms. For example, in the present-day Ni‘matullahl Order according to an explana tion given by its ma ster himself, the Sufi kneels on his heels with th e right hand on the left thigh, theleft han d grasping the wrist ofthe right, so that the body as a who le and th e han ds and fe et b ent inwards assume the fo rm of the Arabic letter La. See Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh: The A im and Method o f Sufism, Tehran, 1974, p. 13. 10. Op. cit., § 7, p. 3. 11. See, for instanc e, Hu jw iri (op. cit.) p. 262. 12. Najm Ku bra (op. cit.) p. 262. 13. Ib id. 14. Ib id., § 13, p. 6. 15. Ib id., § 7, p. 3; 35, p. 26. 16. Ib id ., § 56, p. 26. 17. Ib id ., § 66, pp. 31-32. 18. Ibid.
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19. Th e most famo us example of this ph eno m eno n in Sufi literatu re is the Ascension experience (mVraj) of Bayazld BastamI (commonly — and mistakenly — known in the W est as BistamI, d. 875 A .D.)- O n Bastami’s As cension see Hu jwiri (op. cit.) p. 306; Sarraj; Kitab al- L um a‘ (ed. Nicholson, Leyden-London, 1914), p. 384. 20. Najm Ku bra (op. cit.), § 50, pp. 23-24. 21. L e Diw an d ’al-Halla j, ed. Louis Massignon, Paris, 1955, pp. 30-31. 22. I expressly quo te this qua train as it is foun d in Cassirer’s opus magnum , in which this famous philoso pher refers to it as expressing the idea of “ a pure correlation bet w een G od and man” . There is no den ying that m any of th e lead in g Sufis themselves recognize such a correlation, i.e. a mutual existential dependence, betw ee n G o d and man . B ut th e poin t is that Cas sirer do es n ot pro perly d ete r mine the dimension in which “man” comes into such a relation of mutual dependence. See Ernst Cassirer: The Philosophy o f Symbolic Forms, vol. 2, “M ythical Th ough t” , Tr. R. M anheim (Yale pap erback), New Haven -Londo n, 1953, p. 231. 23. Sarraj (op. cit.), p. 382. 24. Tanq-na tariq al-kimiya’, op. cit., § 12, p. 5.
