Relationship of Spirit to Healing
What I would like to offer are some tentative thoughts based on my personal and others' experiences in regard to the relationship between Spirit and Healing. I am using both Spirit and Healing very generally. By Healing I would like to mean what I first heard Himayat define it as: that healing and evolving are the same thing! By Spirit I mean certain aspects of Spirit. I know the ancient Sufis have names for the dimensions or aspects of Spirit which I will be defining. I would appreciate those more knowledgeable than I in these matters to offer the Sufi terms.
I will offer some practices if people wish to explore these things further. Any feedback would be welcome.
Historically for me and for others as I have noticed, the first realm of Spirit that I encountered on my healing and evolutionary path was the path of Light. This was the realm of Angels, of Devils, of Archetypal figures, of Buddha Krishna and Jesus. When I was initiated into Ziraat in 1991 by Pir Zia (then not yet a Pir) I saw Murshid emerging from a great stream of light. For some years after this was the path I pursued. I sought more Light, I remember Melissa then head of the Healing Order teaching practices with light. Qalbi ( then Qahira) did then and still does seem to radiate light. When I did the first retreat I had amazing experiences with Light. I think this is common experience for many people consciously entering the Spiritual Path.
What I did not realise at the time and have reflected on since was that I sought the Light as an exclusion of Darkness. I sought the Light to get away from darkness I carried within myself. Again I think this is common experience. I call this "the Spiritual Bypass" I did not at that time understand Darkness as Nur the Uncreated Light, as the Light that is so bright that we see it as Darkness. As the Face of God which is too bright for us to see, even with our inner vision.
I now see this phase of seeking the Light a little differently. I now see it as a phase in our Spiritual Journey that allows us to lift out of our everyday experience, to touch on our own Divine States of Consciousness, especially those close to our own human realm, what Ken Wilbur and the Hindu Teachings call the lower and Higher Astral, the realm of the Angels and Devils and Archetypes. These correspond to the Sufi realms of Mithal, of Malakut Jabarut and Lahut I now see it as a necessary phase of helping to anchor ourselves in the Light and eventually in our Higher Self, though I think that the Higher Self resides in a different realm of Spirit again. I think this is a preparation for what is to come, and both historically and individually the Light precedes the Dark, or the Uncreated Light. That is it seems to be an ongoing pattern in my experience that initiations or openings which are filled with Light, precede times of Darkness and indeed are necessary in order to be able to enter the Darkness and have the courage to endure it.
Practices and Contemplations
Healing and Emotions
The first part of the darkness that we may encounter in our journey is the darkness of emotions that we often describe as negative: grief, sorrow, rage, hate, terror and all their transforms: resentment, greed, envy, malice. destructiveness. We often call these emotions negative and may regard these parts of ourselves as undesirable. We may call these emotions and the parts of ourselves that have them as evil.
I believe we all have these emotions "wired in" as part of our humanity. They are the range of emotions we will have as a response to things that happen to us. In my Universe we may have more or less of these emotions to deal with as part of the package we bring with us into this life, that is inherited from past lives. But all of us will I believe have these emotions in some degree and all can be activated by circumstances.
Again in my Universe the circumstances are chosen by our souls precisely to activate these emotions so that we can deal with them and transform them.
None of these emotions or feelings are I believe inherently evil, they just are what they are. We do not create emotions and feelings, they just arise in us, though we can create the conditions that will bring them out and we can certainly through our thinking processes keep emotions like anger going long after they would normally pass.
The thing about healthy emotions is that they come and go and they transform from one to another, they are fluid dynamic and ever-changing like the Ocean. The problem arises when we block the emotions, which we do to survive traumatic, or ongoingly painful and difficult circumstances, especially as children. We are taught in our families and in our society and it seems to be a global problem shared by almost all cultures that certain emotions are unacceptable. So rather than being taught how to deal with them and transform them we are taught to reject and block them and the parts of ourselves that are associated with these emotions. Blocked emotions turn in depression and anxiety amongst other things.
What we need to do is to learn to purify these emotions, a topic on which Murshid has much to say. In order to do that however we have to go into them, we have to experience them " Give me Burning Burning Burning" to quote Rumi. As Pir Vilayat teaches emotions are harder to purify than thoughts. And the challenge is to go into these "dark" emotions and be able to endure them.
In my experience we cannot endure the depths of rage, hate, sorrow, grief without the Rope of Hope, as Murshid teaches, without practices or some connection to the Light however that is done. Someone wrote their thoughts about this in the reply to the first class about the importance of practices. The use of these practices in this particular phase is not however to escape the emotions and be able to dwell in the Light. We cannot I believe do this until we have transformed the lower emotions. We can then enter not only the Light that appears, but Nur, the uncreated Light that does not appear as Light but as darkness.
The key point for me however is that we cannot transform or purify these emotions unless we go into them and experience them. It is our conscious experiencing of them that does the transforming, our consciousness is Light, but it is the Light upon a Light, the Light of the Divine Intelligence Alim, that is added to our consciousness that in my experience truly allows us to transform these emotions.
We need to sit with them, holding on to our Rope of Hope so that we will not get lost in them but will be able to keep just sufficient distance to be able to do the work of enduring and can practice the presence that Himayat teaches. That being present, enduring, sitting with, as he also teaches, is what does the transforming and purifying.
Practices
This posting is about which aspect of Spirit can be used for the experience of the Dark Night of the Soul. So often this is what postings on the Healing List talk about. It is what I have experienced in 2 major ways so far and what Sufi friends have talked about and gone through. It almost seems like becoming initiated as a Sufi is going to guarantee that there will be a major Dark Night of the Soul, involving, illness loss grief, tragedy. Lasting for years. I always remember Himayat talking about how he stopped doing practices and participating as a Sufi for 8 years. Beginning as a Sufi for me brought in a huge amount of light. I was blown away by it on the first retreat and could not get enough of it in the years to come until the First Dark Night hit. One involved a long chronic painful illness and physical struggle and struggle with fear due to heavy bleeding episodes. The other involved a shattering of my illusions about love and loving.
I now believe that if there is any influx of light, there will be an episode of darkness, and now I believe that it is meant to be that way, that the light comes in specifically to enable us to illuminate some hidden aspect of ourselves. The greater our resistance to doing this the greater the suffering. Or we will be confronted with some external experience or illness which will stir up in us all our deepest feelings as illness does, for us to look at. The greater the light it seems to me, the greater the darkness. But the converse seems true too, the greater and deeper the Dark Night, the brighter the dawn the deeper the illumination to follow.
In regard to Spirit and Healing, my question to myself was what aspect of Spirit is drawn on during the Dark Night of the Soul, for the healing.transformation process? It is not the Light aspect because by definition the Light aspect is gone when the Dark Night is present. It seems like there is no light, practices go flat and stale, we mourn the loss of the light, and it seems like God has forsaken us. St. John of the Cross talks of this in the most detailed and eloquent way as well as spelling out the progression that follows. So it seems to me it is not the light that we need at this time: it is the Dark Aspect of the Divine: the one that as Pir Vilayat says cannot be seen as light because it is a light so bright that it seems to us as humans, even as humans in an elevated state of consciousness, that it is Dark.
I think also that this Dark aspect of God Nur the uncreated Light is more subtle than Light. What we can see with our inner vision is still something we can see. Therefore it is still close to the earth plane. It is what Hindus call the Higher Astral Plane, Withal and the plane of the Angels. But beyond that is something we can no longer see at all. Because it is too subtle to see. I believe it is however something we can feel, perceive, experience, if we are still enough, and if we are willing to shed the gross and often hidden aspects of our personality that prevent us perceiving this aspect of ourselves and of God.
So during the Dark Night we need to seek the Dark face of God for healing Lahut, the Great Mystery. We need to develop and call upon the Beings of Faith Hope Persistence, all qualities being as Murshid says, a Being. This transformation process calls up our ability to endure. As Pir Vilayat says for each circumstance that faces us we need to consider what quality or qualities we need in order to deal with that circumstance. We need to be willing to go beyond the information of the senses even the inner sense to go behind that which appears to that which transpires. To burn away the ego, the little false ego which lies to us and says we are alone and separate in our suffering that tempts us with the thought that if we cannot see light and we are suffering it means God has abandoned us. I believe we have to go through a difficult transition of knowing the Void as emptiness, a terrifying absence of anything, before we can come to know the Void as the dynamic fullness and presence of God. This emptiness is I believe the shedding of the last shreds of the ego, the little ego which secretly still wants to control everything and remain in charge but which actually disguises and hides the Full Void the Greater Self, the Godself So the little false ego has to left behind with all its beliefs. I believe the Dark Night of the Soul is the process of letting go every single aspect of the little ego, even its apparently good aspects. It has to let go altogether. Again as Pir Vilayat teaches it is like the myth of Pegasus and Bellaphron the winged horse. Bellaphron could only take Pegasus so far, but he could impart the impetus whereby Pegasus could continue on his own to Mount Olympus. As Pir also teaches to shed our ego, we have to have developed a strong ego, and in so doing we develop the strength to continue in the Dark. It is as Murshid says in the teachings of Ziraat, we have to dig out all that we are good and bad if we are to grow in Spirit. This is frightening it requires us to have a leap of faith into the Abyss.
But what comes after this leap it is a Knowing. this is not light in any of its human forms, inner or outer. Rather it is a knowing, Alim. As we go through our fear, sit with absence and the terror it brings, be present to it as Himayat, and keep up our prayer and practice or whatever is our Rope of Hope no matter whether we are sustained by it or not slowly the emptiness fills with the Divine Presence with something dynamic and full but Dark to our inner sight. It is like a black hole and out of it comes guidance inspiration and glimpses of bliss. These are deep things, hard to speak of , but worth the effort. Can any one else share their experiences or confirm these subtle experiences?
The fourth aspect of transformation and healing that I will look at is what we call evil. There is undoubtedly evil in the world: the natural disasters that bring pain and suffering but especially pain and suffering inflicted by humans -- upon others and upon themselves. I believe that we all contain evil, that it is hardwired as part of our human condition: greed malice cruelty destructiveness hate. I think the only way we can cope with the evil that exists in the world outside of us is to be willing to face the evil within us. And to do that that I think we need the Light: the knowledge of our own Divine Soul, our Divine Inheritance as Beings of Light. This has been Pir Vilayat's main message as I have heard it: that we need to claim our Divine Inheritance, to know who we truly are, to know that we are truly in our essence Divine Beings of Light.
Clearly however we are not only Divine: We are also Human though in the end they are one. Pir Vilayat quotes Murshid as saying Humans are Divine Limitation and God is human perfection, that the Universe converges within each one of us and in so doing is limited. To face our full humanity, which includes the evil within all of us I believe we need to know that we are essentially Divine Beings having a human experience. And that there is purpose in that experience. In my view the purpose of the Light, of seeking and bringing in the light is to use it: to illuminate and transform the dark, to convert it back to its original source, which is Light. As Pir Vilayat again quoting Murshid says: evil is temporary (though temporary can be a very long time). I believe our purpose is to bring in the Light in order to transform and heal the evil within us.
As the Sufis teach their purpose is to awaken in Life, not beyond Life. For me this now means not trying to transcend the human experience though I believe there is a time on the spiritual path to do that, but to awaken in life which for me means awakening to all of life including the evil that life contains and which is of necessity also within all of us. I believe the awakening in Life has a purpose to transform that evil. As Pir Vilayat says it is not we who awaken it is God who awakens in us as us. I believe that if we look into our own hearts (and it is the journey of therapy as well as of spiritual evolution to do this) we will find that we all carry as part of the human condition our share of aggression, destructiveness, cruelty, meanness pettiness, superiority and contempt for others, hate for others (and for ourselves), inferiority, fear, and a wish to dominate everything and everyone. I believe this is wired in to all of us whether we are aware of it or not. Generally we can easily see these qualities in others, but it takes a lot of work to be able to see it within ourselves.
I do not believe that we can get away from these aspects. It is a psychological law that whatever we deny in ourselves will be projected onto others. If we deny these aspects of ourselves we will project them onto others. This projected evil then seems disconnected from us: others seem to be carrying it or to be manifesting it, not us. We will then feel frightened overwhelmed repelled disgusted at the evil in others And yet we are strangely connected to others who carry our projections. Either in our hatred or fear of them or in the way in which their behavior seems to stir us and distress us. That is I believe because in truth we are seeing ourselves only we are not aware of it.
The rule of identifying a projection is the intensity of the reactions we have to those who are "carrying" our projections who are "carrying" the: denied parts of ourselves. I believe that the only thing we can do in regard to our own negativities is to learn to face them, to be with them, to make them conscious. The purpose of doing this is to eventually transform and reeducate these negative immature and underdeveloped parts of ourselves which we all share and which are part of the human condition.
To face these aspects of ourselves, so we do not quail in the face of such darkness do not feel overwhelmed with our limitations, we need to know we are Divine Beings. We need to have the Light of healing knowledge and wisdom to be able to look in the darkness and then to have the courage and wisdom to start the long slow process of emotional reeducation. We cannot change what we cannot see: consciousness is the Great Light which together with, the light of the Divine Intelligence, Alim, The Light upon the Light, can allow us to start this difficult process. By the same token when we can face these aspects of ourselves without shame and anxiety and fear we can start to reeducate these parts, which are in the end immature ignorant undeveloped. I believe we can only do this when our sense of self is not rooted in the little false ego which thinks it is separate and tries to maintain a mask of perfection, or on the spiritual path, is filled with spiritual pride ( a constant challenge of mine) but which can accept humanity and Divine limitation on one dimension and limitless perfection on another. We need to be aware of existing on multidimensions as Pir and Himayat teach us to do and to be able to hold these dimensions simultaneously. Only then can we "descend into Hell" as even Jesus had to do (" He descended into Hell and on the third day he arose again and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty). Only then can we face the heart of darkness and not be swallowed up by it.
To be able to deal with the evil outside of us we need to bring back our projections and face our evil within, so we can see clearly. I believe to face the evil outside of us we need Ahad, the sense of Oneness the Big Picture. We need to know the Big Secret: that we are God. We have to ascend to the plane of Lahut. Then all that happens can be felt as part of a greater scheme that if we could see with our full Divine vision across time and space and lifetimes we would see that all does work to the greater good. We would be able to know and feel that even in the midst of the greatest darkness. Even in the concentration camps there were those who could do this. It shows that it is possible for all of us. As Jesus said: "You will do far greater things than I". Jesus, Buddha, Murshid, all showed us what it is possible for us to be as humans, if not in this lifetime then in some other.
Evil is then its own bitter medicine and has a purpose in the divine scheme of things. If we are God then we are Divine Beings and Have divine freedom to do whatever we please to ourselves and to each other. The constraint is the Spiritual Law: whatever we do will have consequences. But these are like the bars of the playpen, they will ensure that we cannot go too far.. And the other constraint is the God essence in all of us. No matter how far we descend into evil that essence remains and eventually we will feel the yearning whether in this life or some other and we will call out in the Darkness and God will have to come. Our own evil has to be faced first. If there is only one consciousness then we all share it. We all have Hitler inside: the wish to hurt maim torture kill. If we observe ourselves closely enough we will see and feel these impulses and fantasies. The part of spirit we need here is the part that is firmly rooted in the knowledge that we are God, that we are essentially good but not good as in good versus evil but as in Good beyond Good and Evil, something that incorporates both as an essential whole that together forms something synergistically beyond either one, just as the Tao form a unified symbol from the two parts.
This does not mean that as humans we condone or indulge evil in ourselves or others as Burzug pointed out but to change something we have to accept that it is there and to seek to understand it.
The story of Arjuna in the Baghavad Gita has always been meaningful to me. He was saying to Krishna that he could not go into battle because he was going to be facing relatives on both sides. And Krishna said You are a warrior. You have to do what you have to do. Do not be concerned about the consequences once you have acted as you cannot possibly know all the consequences of your actions. action in the world: story of Arjuna and having to fight his relatives. So what do we do about evil as humans? Act with passion from the heart and leave the rest to God.
4 forms of Darkness and the aspects of Spirit that are needed:
4 forms or levels of Spirit:
We have looked at healing and the emotions and how the light is an important part of healing that. We have looked at healing and the Dark Night and how the Dark the Void is an important part of healing that and we have looked at evil within and how knowing we are Divine Beings is an important part of healing that and finally how Unity the knowledge that we are one with God is an important part of healing evil without.
These are all dynamic and intertwined. They all interconnect. But it helps to have maps to be able to identify the station you are occupying, the state or dimension you are in or trying to attain. To know others have been there before you and have described it as you have.
The ancient Sufis have identified these states of being these stations, they have mapped them out for us. They have traversed the Dark Nights to show that they could be traversed. They have offered up their bodies to be burned to show their faith and their knowledge and be our inspiration. They left us practices and above all the Dhikr: Rumi whirled in his pain and grief until he moved into dimensions of Oneness with the beloved the only place he could heal his human pain: :"Closer to me than myself" he said of the beloved. "Only Love" he said.
We are fortunate because Pir O Murshid Inayat Khan and Pir Vilayat and now Pir Zia continue to form a line of connection to that knowledge a pipeline to the well from which we can all continue to quench our thirst for the Beloved. I am grateful to them and all who have gone before. My experience on encountering Sufism when Qalbi visited Australia in 1989 to give a retreat was of being plugged into a Cosmic Light socket and connected to an ancient tradition that was suddenly available to nourish me.
There is a wonderful story in the Baghavad Gita where Arjuna (Everyman/woman &endash; the Spiritual Warrior) was pleading with God to show His Her Face. God said you will not be able to endure it. Arjuna kept pleading and insisting. And so God granted his wish what he saw was something he could not endure. he saw the whole of reality with all of the creation and destruction cruelty bliss and violence. It hit him with the force of a nuclear explosion: "Brighter than a thousand suns" And he could not bear it.
Another story: the Goddess Kali dancing on the skulls and making a sign a mudra with her left hand which means "Have no fear".
And finally a quote from Joseph Campbell great teacher and seeker and keeper of myths who met a great Hindu sage and asked him what do we do about evil in the world and the sage replied: "People like you and I , we have to say Yes to it all."
La Illaha Illa 'La Hu - Only God is Real
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February 18, 2004
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