The path of mystics is rocky and bumpy

The path of mystics is rocky and bumpy

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): In the previous article, I expounded the four
different stages of spiritual development, namely Stage I:
Chaotic, antisocial; Stage II: Formal, institutional; Stage III:
Skeptic, individual; and Stage IV: Mystic, communal.

When people hear the word "mystic", what immediately comes to
mind is quackery, voodoo, black magic and the like. Mysticism is
actually a universal phenomenon among every religious movement
that seeks hidden treasure in mainstream religions.

And what is astonishing is that through the ages, this much
maligned word, mysticism, and mystics of every religious
tradition -- from the Indian Yaqui in Mexico to the Sufis in the
Middle East to the Lamas in the Himalayas -- a small minority
they may be, have spoken of and demonstrated amazing commonality
and unity of an underlying connectedness among all parts of the
universe: Between men and women, between us and the other
creatures and even inanimate matter as well, fitting together
according to an ordinarily invisible fabric underlying the
cosmos. Unique though they might be in their individual
selves, they have largely escaped from -- transcended -- those
human differences which are cultural. For this reason, Aldous
Huxley labeled mysticism "the perennial philosophy".

Mystics, even though they sound "fuzzy", are by no means
irrational people as frequently demonstrated by the Stage II
religionists. Their Stage IV spirituality transcends the commonly
perceived rationalism, hence Ken Wilber, the leading thinker on
transpersonal psychology, calls it transrational: Beyond
rationality.

Even Islam, the religion most blamed today for fanaticism and
fundamentalism, recognizes these stages as Syariah (Islamic law),
Tariqat (the path), Haqiqat (the truth) and Ma'rifat (the
gnosis). The Taliban is an extreme example of those in the lowest
Syariah stage. They see religion as a mere list of dos and
don'ts, and little else.

Most Muslims are in the Syariah stage, a few develop their
spirituality enough to hunger for the more substantial Tariqat
stage and only a handful of "chosen ones" reach the mystical
Haqiqat and Ma'rifat stages.

Niffari, a Sufi author, says: "The true mosque in a pure and
holy heart is builded: There, let all men worship God; For there,
He dwells, not in a mosque of stone."

At this highest stage, the religions people adhere to
dissolving all their boundaries -- no more mistaking the finger
(map/symbols) with the moon (territory/reality) -- and are called
esoteric religions and this is the true, one religion -- that
Islam calls Tawheed (meaning "one" or "unifying") -- that should
be distinguished from the prerational, mythical religion of Stage
II.

Jalalludin Rumi, the most renowned Sufi master, who is often
called the greatest 13th century poet-mystic, asserted in Table
Talk: "The paths are many, but the goal is one. Don't you see how
many roads there are to the Kaaba? For some, the road starts from
Rome, for others from Syria, from Persia or China; some come by
sea from India and the Yemen. If you are considering the
different roads, the variety is immense and the difference
infinite. If you consider the goal, however, they are all in
harmony. The hearts of each and every one of them are fixed upon
the Kaaba. Each heart has one overriding attachment -- a
passionate love for the Kaaba -- and in that there is no room for
contradiction. That attachment to the Kaaba cannot be called
either "impiety" or "faith": It is not mingled with the various
paths we have mentioned. Once the travelers arrive at the Kaaba,
all quarreling and vicious squabbling about the different paths
-- this person saying to that "You're wrong! You're a
blasphemer!" and the other shouting back in kind -- simply
vanish; they realize that what they were fighting about were the
roads only, and that their goal was one."

Mystics obviously deal with mystery. They, thus, acknowledge
the enormity of the unknown, but rather than being frightened by
it, they seek to penetrate ever deeper into it that they may
understand more -- even with the realization that the more they
understand, the greater the mystery will become -- and the more
humble they become. This stage is an absolute contrast of Stage
II, in which people need simple, clear-cut dogmatic structures
and answers to life's difficult and ambiguous dilemmas, formulas
to tell them how to behave and have little taste for the unknown
and unknowable. While Stage IV people enter religion in order to
approach mystery, people in stage II enter religion to escape
from it.

See again how similar Sufism's point of view of ultimate
reality is to the Hindu advaita (nonduality) -- which is also
shared by the Buddhists -- or the Buddhist sunyata (emptiness) as
uttered by Rumi, something that Orthodox Muslims will be
mortified to read and won't think twice about labeling him and
all Sufi followers infidels or blasphemers (the early Sufi Al
Hallaj was executed for uttering his Hindu-like pantheistic
belief: "The man of God is made wise by the Truth/ The man of God
is not learned from book/ The man of God is beyond infidelity and
faith/ To the man of God right and wrong are alike.")

In his collection of lyrical poems titled The Divan of Shamsi
Tabriz, again Rumi says: "I have put duality away, I have seen
that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see,
One I call. I am intoxicated with Love's cup, the two worlds have
passed out of my ken; I have no business save carouse and
revelry."

Read his very Buddhist denial of the self and Zen-like
scornful opposition to intellectual idolatry of theological
doctrines/dogmas (the finger-moon analogy): "Do you know a name
without a thing answering to it?/ Have you ever plucked a rose
from R, O, S, E?/ You name His name; go seek the reality named by
it!/ Look for the moon in the sky, not in the water!/ If you
desire to rise above mere names and letters,/ Make yourself free
from self at one stroke./ Become pure from all attributes of
self,/ That you may see your own heart the knowledge of the
Prophet/ Without Book, without tutor, without preceptor."

The great Persian mystic, Abu Said ibn Abi'l-Khayr, speaking
in the name of the Calendars or wandering dervishes, expresses
their iconoclastic principles with astonishing boldness: "Not
until every mosque beneath the sun/ Lies ruined, will our holy
work be done;/ And never will true Musalman appear/ Till faith
and infidelity are one."

The author is a director of the Satori Foundation, a center
for the study and development of human excellence through mind
programming and meditation techniques, e-mail: satori@cbn.net.id.