Curriculum of the Sufi Order, Lesson 7 -- Fashioning Our Personality

Title

Curriculum of the Sufi Order, Lesson 7 -- Fashioning Our Personality

Date

September 2000

Decade

2000s

Sequence

7

Description

Rather than trying in one’s meditations to assess one’s circumstances or figure out one’s problems, Hazrat Inayat Khan recommends working with the self. This will in turn throw new light on one’s situation in life.

Topic(s)

Consciousness

Meditation Practice

Personality

Sufi Path

Wazifa/Wazaif

Subtopic(s)

Spirituality of the Future, Make God a Reality, Divine Point of View

Type of Publication

Curriculum of the Sufi Order

Media

Writing

Pages

8

Identifier

CSO7

File Format

PDF

Language

English

Author(s)

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Courtesy Of

Amida Cary

Full Text

CURRICULUM OF THE SUFI ORDER

The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis

LESSON SEVEN

FASHIONING OUR PERSONALITY

Do you have a taste for creativity? It gives a wonderful sense of fulfillment without which one may ask oneself what is the purpose of my life.

Wazifa: Ya Khaliq

The art of personality is the purpose for which man was created. For other arts cannot be compared with the art of personality. (Art of Personality.)

One may ask: If we have a personality, why must we develop it? But even a diamond must be cut! It has light in it yet cutting is required to awaken it. It cannot show its glow and brilliancy before it has been cut. It is the same with the personality. (Privilege of Being Human.)

Wazaif: Ya Jamil - Ya Rashid

Rather than trying in one’s meditations to assess one’s circumstances or figure out one’s problems, Hazrat Inayat Khan recommends working with the self. This will in turn throw new light on one’s situation in life.

Man himself is the object of his realization. And by the study of human nature one realizes the nature of life in general. (Unity of Religious Ideals.)

Wazaif: Ya Alim - Ya Mawjud

What an opportunity those few years on the planet offer to fulfill our purpose! To achieve? Yes, being of service, even in a small way as a cog in a wheel of that humungous machine that our civilization has constructed! But even if that is our objective, the richness of our personality will make us more effective.

The saints and sages, who have been gifted with insight, often commune with God and through their inner heart-development have been able to achieve God's purpose in this world. (Githa 2.)

It is of course exciting to enjoy the marvel of life and live it intensely. But what do we do with it? We have a palate of colours; do we make a painting of it?

PRACTICE: (I am paraphrasing Hazrat Pir o Murshid Inayat Khan’s words)

Instead of just regurgitating your assessment of your problems, ask yourself how all you see affects you and how you react to it.
First, how does your spirit react to the objects or the conditions you encounter, to the sounds you hear, to the words people speak to you?

Wazaif: Ya Raqib - Ya Batin

Secondly, see what effect you yourself have on conditions and on others when you come in contact with them.

Wazaif: Ya Zahir – Ya Wali

Thirdly, observe the condition of your spirit, of your mind, of your body, of your situation in life, and of your relationship with others.

Wazifa: Ya Quddus

Fourthly, analyze yourself and see where does “I” stand? Does it stand as a remote exclusive being?

Wazifa: Ya Mawjud

In your meditation, concentrate on the change of identification of your soul. Loose your false self and identify yourself with your true self.

Ana’l Haqq

…As your soul goes further on the path of knowledge, you will notice that it begins to recognize the feeling of ‘I-ness’ and see how it identifies with what is not itself. (The Soul Whence and Whither.) The soul changes its own identity with the change of its constantly changing vision. (Spiritual Liberty, p 227.)


To be part of what it is all about, we need to find our place (and even play our part) in the advancing march of evolution which itself is trying to blossom as our being, while on the other hand, the perfecting of our being contributes to that very advance of the cosmic evolution.

Wazaif: Ya Wajid - Ya Hasib


PRACTICE: (my paraphrasing of Pir o Murshid’s words continues)

Try to discover a kind of universe in yourself. You will find that by the study of yourself, you will come to that spiritual knowledge for which your soul hungers. You will find that all is in oneself, and that you can cultivate in yourself what you wish. As soon as you begin to look within yourself a world opens to you for it is not a little plot of ground that you have to cultivate; but you have the opportunity to make a whole world of yourself, and to make a world is a sufficient occupation to live for. (Philosophy.)

Wazaif: Ya Wajid - Ya Wasi
SPIRITUALITY OF THE FUTURE

While traditional spiritual transmissions from the East in pursuit of Samadhi have often led to what psychotherapists have coined the “spiritual bypass,” overlooking one’s own idiosyncrasies Hazrat Inayat Khan announces the spirituality of the future: rather than a belief in God, making God a reality by incorporating more and more of the bounty of the universe in that wonderful work of art that is the personality.

Wazaif: Ya Haqq - Ya Mawjud


PRACTICE:

Be cautious that while working with your personality, you keep being aware of the action of the Universe (God) upon the formative process of your personality rather than slipping back into your personal identity.

The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience the different phases of manifestation, and yet not lose its way by regaining its original freedom, in addition to the experience and knowledge it has gained in the world.


To arouse our potentials lying in wait in the seed of our personality, we need to learn the skill of contemplating our personality from the antipodal vantage point, which the Sufis call the divine point of view. The realization arrived at by making this shift in perspective contrasts with the knowledge acquired by the personal vantage point (acquired knowledge); it is revealed when having seen that one’s personal vantage point is limited. One invites the thinking of the universe (which albeit adumbrates one’s thinking) to take over from one’s personal thinking.

This calls for a complete reexamination of our concept of God as “up there.” We need to strongly and realistically discover in ourselves God as a potentiality that becomes an actuality as us.

God is hidden in His creation. The soul may be considered to be a condition of God, like a wave is a condition of the sea… a condition which makes the only Being limited for a time. It is in man that divinity is awakened, that God is awakened, that God can be seen….

Ibn ‘Arabi:
Then you make Him manifest in His creation.

Al Jili:
O Thou who art absent there, we have found Thee here.
Thou art non-existent in Thy Essence, existent in Thy person. (1983, p 5.)

Wazaif: Ya Quddus – Ya Mawjud

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
As God comprehends the whole universe within Himself, being one, so man contains within himself the whole universe as His miniature. (Akibat: Life after Death.) … Man is born in this world ignorant of the kingdom which is within himself. (Power of the Word.)

Admittedly, the word God embodies anthropomorphic projections.

Ibn ‘Arabi:
Since we know Him by ourselves, we attribute to Him all that we attribute to ourselves. To Him we attribute no quality without ourselves having that quality, nor Him.

Owing to the widespread influence of Buddhism in our time, the word Universe, often used by Hazrat Inayat Khan, is more acceptable to some.

To many the thought of a personal God does not appeal, though they might accept the idea of an abstract God. But they forget that something abstract cannot be a living being… Let them call God by any name, or think of Him with whatever imagination they have: it is after all the highest ideal. ...Urging upon someone that God is abstract and formless and pure, and that God is nameless, all these things do not help that person to evolve; for the first step on the path of God is to make a conception of God….Then awaken the God within by making God a reality.

Wazaif: Ya Alim - Ya Allah

However as he points out,

There is no way of getting proof of God’s existence except by becoming acquainted with oneself, by experiencing the phenomena which are within one. (Mind World p 265.)…Very often, many who are ready to accept the God-Ideal question the personality of God. Some say: “If all is God, then God is not a person, for ‘all’ is not a person: ‘all’ is what is expressed by the word all.”… No doubt it would be a great mistake to call God a personality, but it is a still greater mistake when man denies the Personality of God.

However, although he points to the aspect of God actuated in existence, and by the same token in ourselves, Hazrat Inayat Khan does not limit God to that dimension.

God is beneath all, within and without all things. It is owing to our limitation that we cannot see the whole Being of God.

Wazaif: Ya Qabid - Ya Kamil

…but all that we love in color, line and form, or personality - all that is beloved by us - belongs to the real Beauty who is the Beloved of all. (Music.)


PRACTICE:

While envisioning your personality as an advanced condition of the cosmos, the way by means of which God (the Universe) becomes a personality, still leave room for the transcendent dimension of God as “beyond the beyond” – as “other.”

Wazaif: Ya Aliy - Ya Wahid


Hallaj:
O consciousness of my consciousness so subtle that it escapes the imagination of all living beings. (cf. Massignon, vol. lll, 1975, 56.) How can contingent creatures who have alienated themselves from Him by the abyss of time, try to prove the Creator by His works. (cf. Diwan Q viii.)

Ibn ‘Arabi:
So He knew Himself through witnessing in the manifest. But He knows that He could not be known in respect of His transcendence (Huwiyyah) – in respect that He knows Himself in the principle of His Being. (cf. Chittick, 1989, 131-2.)

Wazifa: Ya Hu


YOUR PERSONALITY AS PLANT; POTENTIALITY AS SEED

Hazrat Inayat Khan illustrates the relationship between man and God with that of the plant and the seed.

Is not man the seed of God? Is it then not his life’s purpose to bring forth divine blossoms? In the heart of the flower there is something that tells the story of the whole plant….The key to spiritual attainment is to be conscious of the Perfect One who is formed in one’s heart. God is hidden within His creation… Awaken the God within.


PRACTICE:

Instead of just identifying yourself with your self-image try to envision your personality as a plant and imagine that it is the unfurling of its seed which is buried in your unconscious, but tries to become known by manifesting itself as your personality.

Wazaif: Ya Muqaddam - Ya Zahir


The seed represents a dimension of God as a potentiality becoming a reality in God in His/Her existential condition.

While Hazrat Inayat Khan places so much emphasis on the development of the human personality - that is the plant, the flowers:

The fulfillment of the purpose of that seed is that it is put in the ground, that it is watered, that a seedling springs up and is reared by the sun; it brings forth its flowers and fruits. This is the fulfillment of that seed which already contained in itself the fruit and flower. A person who does not see the reason of all this, is in the seed state; his mind is in the state of a seed which has not yet germinated, which has not yet produced its seedling, which has not yet experienced the springing of the plan.

- he still draws our attention to the seed. Therefore, while fashioning our personality, we need to be cautioned against the tendency to slip back into our personal vantage point and identity.

Wazaif: Ya Khabir - Ya Muqaddam

On the other hand, it is the discovery of God as the seed of our being that will spark the unfurling of that plant that is our personality….One might say that it is for the sake of the flower that the plant was purposed, but really speaking, it is the seed which comes in the heart of the flower which continues the race of the plant, which is the source and goal of the plant….One can see that in the essence of the seed of the rose there is the rose itself, its fragrance, form and beauty. Although in the seed it is not manifest, at the same time it is there in essence. The one who tunes himself not only to the external but also to the inner being and to the essence of all things, gets an insight into the essence of the Whole Being, and therefore he can find and enjoy that fragrance and flower which he sees in the rose, to the same extent even in the seed. (Mysticism of Sound.)

Yet Hazrat Inayat Khan sees both as complementary.

The effect is in the cause and the cause is in the effect, as the flower is the outcome of the seed and the seed is in the heart of the flower. It is difficult to decide whether to name the flower “seed” or to call the seed “flower.” (Sangitha 1.)


PRACTICE:

Try to reconnoiter, identify with, the bounty lying in the root of your personality rather than simply identifying with your personality (which one erroneously confuses with one’s self image).


The stem sprung up first, then the leaves, then came the flower, and from the flower came the seed.…The final purpose is to bring about that seed which is the source of this whole manifestation. (Smiling Forehead.)…The same God so little of whose perfection manifested in the plant arises again and again in the pursuit of perfection trying to emerge as perfectly as possible in the midst of the human condition.
Man may be called the seed of the whole existence. As the seed comes last, after the life of trunk, branch, fruit and flower. And, as the seed is sufficient in itself and capable of producing another plant, such as that of which it was but a small product, so man is the product of all the planes, spiritual and material, a being small in comparison with the mountains and rivers and seas, or even in comparison with many beasts and birds, and yet in him alone that shines forth which caused the whole – that primal intelligence, the seed of existence – God. Therefore is man termed Ashraf-ul-Makhluqat, the Ideal of the Universe. (Sangathas I)

Avicenna:
He began with the noblest thing: intelligence and He concluded with the noblest beings: the intelligent. (Arberry, Avicenna on Theology, John Murray, 1951, p 50.)

Furthermore Hazrat Inayat Khan sees a level in the programming of the universe beyond the seed – the cosmic code: the initiating divine intention:

On the other hand, we cannot really compare even the seed with the source. The ultimate source does not depend upon anything. (Mental Purification.)

Wazaif: Ya Mubdi - Ya Badi


PRACTICE:

Can you imagine that the very code of the cosmos not only embodied in your genes but the seed of your personality is simply the program that enlists the divine intention that escapes and defies our reason.


YOU DISCOVER YOURSELF THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE GOD HAS OF HIM/HERSELF THROUGH YOU

The soul has in it a potentiality, a creative power as its divine heritage. On the one side man is limited and imperfect; on the other side he represents the unlimited and perfect. (Alchemy of Happiness.)…God is ‘all possible.’

Wazaif: Ya Qabid - Ya Kamil

Ibn ‘Arabi:
He brings them out from the treasuries which are with Him; that is from an existence which we do not perceive to an existence which we do perceive.

` Wazaif: Ya Mubdi - Ya Mawjud

For the Sufis we discover ourselves by discovering how God discovers Himself by manifesting to Himself, and by the same token disclosing to us the eternal principles of His being in the idiosyncrasies of our evanescent personality.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
The purpose of the whole creation is the realization that God Himself gains by discovering His own perfection through our imperfection.

This knowledge cannot be acquired, but is revealed.

Al Hallaj:
No one knows Him except the one to whom He makes Himself known. (Massignon, vol. III, 1975, 72.)

Ibn ‘Arabi:
God describes Himself to us through ourselves.
No one knows what is within himself until it is unveiled to him instant by instant.

Wazaif: Ya Alim - Ya Zahir

Hazrat Inayat Khan:
The intelligence knows, not because it has learned. It knows because it knows. This is the reason of all reasons, the cause of all causes, beyond man’s limited reason….Reason cannot be broken except by a still greater reason. (The Way of Illumination.) If anywhere there is a trace of God to be found, it is in the intelligence. (Social Gathekas.)

These are not unrelated points of view; rather they are interdependent. One might illustrate their relationship, albeit inadequately, by the relation there would be between a three dimensional panoramic view (the cosmic dimension) and a two dimensional snapshot. But this does not suffice. It is also like the relation between the code and its existential configuration, or the archetype and the exemplar. 

Besides, Hazrat Inayat Khan recommends extrapolating between contemplating the plant (our personality) and the seed of that plant (the cosmic code); that is, extrapolating between the divine point of view and the human.

Wisdom is born of the meeting of the knowledge of the heavens and the knowledge of the earth. When the light from within is thrown upon this knowledge, then the knowledge from outer life and the light coming from within make a perfect wisdom.

Wazaif: Ya Khabir - Ya Alim

To be continued in the next installment.