Beshara Magazine
Unified Vision, Unified World?
The Invitation to God and Vision
A talk given by Niels Detert at the MIAS Symposium, Oxford April 2007
Gathered here under the name of Ibn Arabi, we are gathered under the meaning he represents of the Unity of Existence, the vision of which is the Unified Vision of the symposium title. Implicit in the title of this symposium is a question something like: Since we know that there is one reality, why does the world appear disunified? The images that come to mind are of conflicts and killing, exploitation and rebellion, wars of belief and of self-interest. Within ourselves and in our relationships there are similar disunities. This is a problem with which we are faced. Is it that we are invited to see a vision of unity in diversity despite this state of affairs, or is it that a unified vision can make a difference?
I think it is both. And I think that we can see around us this truth of a unified vision arising, and where we see it, we can observe an effect. Since there is one reality and it is immediately present in all places, this meaning, of the possibility of a unified vision, is potentially arising in all places and times, according to the form it takes from the place. In this talk, this vision will be represented to us through diverse voices in acknowledgement of this. As an example here is what Albert Einstein wrote in response to the letter of a Rabbi who was in great need; his 16 year-old daughter had died suddenly, and his 19 year-old daughter was bereft and he could find no way of comforting her. Einstein wrote back:
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’, a part limited in space and time. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.”
Now we don’t know what the outcome of this was for the Rabbi and his daughter. We do know that this passage has become an inspiration to many. It was brought to my attention by a therapy client with a progressively disabling and life-shortening illness (she has given me permission to mention these matters anonymously). It leapt out at her because it reminded her of several occasions when she was a child when she herself experienced a vision of universality. She had forgotten these experiences, but now when she remembers them, her vision of herself and her suffering changes subtly but significantly. Of course her illness has not gone away – nor have the constantly changing challenges of everyday life in coping with it and the relentless deterioration she is experiencing, but remembering this perspective places herself and her particular experience in the context of the whole, with all sufferings and all beauty. Much of the time she is caught up in the often difficult details of life, and the relentless changes to which she has to adapt, but if she remembers the universal perspective her difficulties seem insignificant, and she knows that “everything changes”. Despite neither offering comfort nor changing anything about the individual situation this change of perspective has a remarkable effect.
Surely this is an extraordinary thing, that nothing material changes and yet the situation can be transformed by perspective, by the nature of the vision. This woman has also been practising mindfulness meditation, which is increasingly offered in healthcare settings in the western world as a way of coping with stress, thanks to the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn at UMASS. The core of this is to practice awareness of things as they are (or as Shunryu Suzuki, the Soto Zen master put it “things as it is”, neatly encapsulating the many in the one), neither judging or rejecting nor becoming attached to particular things, but practising a point of vision which observes all equally. In this way the practice is a truly compassionate one in accordance with God’s name the Compassionate (Rahman), since it is according to the action of compassion that all things which were in a state of non-existence are brought into existence. In the same way practicing awareness of things as they are, is a practice of “widening the circle of compassion” in consciousness, and the result potentially is of a compassionate (unifying) vision of all the manifold aspects of self and of others.
In reality of course the “circle of compassion” is already universal, and the only widening possible is in consciousness. In the Fusus al-Hikam (in the Chapter of the prophet Hud), Ibn ‘Arabi says that:
“for the creation there is no beshara (good tidings) greater than this, that Hud with the word of Truth, announced that Truth, God, is the Ipseity (selfhood) of all ‘things’”.
He mentions Hud because it was Hud, in the company of all the prophets and envoys, who quoted the following verse to him; the Qu’ranic revelation “There is no creature whom He (God) does not hold by his forehead (forelock), because indeed my Lord is on the straight path”. This conversation occurred in the hadrah of the Reality of Mohammed (SA), in a vision he was shown when he was made to be present in that place of vision, in Cordoba in the year 586 (1190). Ismail Hakki Bursevi, in his commentary, explains that the reason why it was Hud, out of all the prophets and envoys present, who spoke, is that the ways and tastes of Hud were the most suitable in the ways of tawhid, Unity in Plurality. And this meaning also seems very suitable to the current time and this symposium. The reality of Mohammed is that place of unified vision, and the good tidings of what Hud said to Ibn ‘Arabi in that place, are the good tidings that indeed all the things of the world are unified in their reality which is the One reality.
As Ibn ‘Arabi explains in the same chapter, when it comes to man there are degrees of consciousness of reality. He explains that “it is only at the station of Man that there is otherness between what is imagined as creature and what is known as God”. He goes on to explain that “God says: ‘I am in manifestation, I am that which is manifested’, but when it comes to man, He does not say that, He keeps it secret. Only mankind has to discover it for themselves”, and “everything is Him and knows it” except for those who are in His image. So God keeps the truth secret from humankind because otherwise His mystery would not have been known and consequently it would not have been possible for Him to come to be known in the way that it is possible through Man. To paraphrase what Ibn ‘Arabi says: Because of this ignorance individual humans are on a continuum between ignorance and knowledge of the truth. There are therefore different degrees of consciousness of Reality, and different kinds, categories and eras of people. And each kind and category of people has a spiritual leader appropriate to their particular nature, who comes with a particular message and law according to what is needed by those people. Some of the most obvious examples are of course Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Gautama Buddha. So, at the level of human beings, starting out from a position of relative ignorance, there are some who follow one way and some who follow another, and this is the situation we have in the world today. And of course there are some who deny these and follow lesser and partial ways, for example, certain aspects of human nature to the exclusion of others (appetites and desires, tribe, power, reason and any of these qualities which continue to be worshipped implicitly in much the same way as they have at times been worshipped as personified deities). It is of the nature of this situation that there will be difference and disagreement. This can then become pernicious when, on the basis of their own particular form of belief humans may make the further assumption that their notion is the true nature of reality and the only universal law, when in fact it is what they personally have been shown, and that in turn is according to their own particular nature and needs. Then where there is disagreement this easily leads to conflict, and where this is between groups, even to war. Bob Dylan captured the essence of the error in this very succinctly when he said:
“I don’t mind the ten commandments. I believe in the ten commandments. The first one ‘I am the Lord thy God’ is a great commandment if it’s not said by the wrong people.”
It is interesting to note just how precisely Dylan has formulated this, exactly observing that a person taking this sort of view is in fact deifying themselves. On the same subject Ibn ‘Arabi says:
“the people who are veiled, … who go through one form of dogma, what they see as God is their own nafs (self) and there is no difference between idols and such brought-about Gods.” Although Ibn ‘Arabi goes on to point out that “in the end, even that is also He”.
Nevertheless at the level of the collectivity of all the facets of existence, in the Reality of Mohammed, the meeting of all the prophets and envoys, and the statement of Hud testifies to the gathering of all these categories within one unified place of vision, according to the Qu’ranic saying which Hud quoted. And Ibn ‘Arabi comments that:
“this he mentioned to prove to me, by bringing in the testimony of the Qu’ran, that God (Haqq, truth) is the same as all the creatures of the world. He did not categorise nor differentiate one thing from the other and specially did not demonstrate other than the fact that God through the Huwiyyah, Ipseity of the plurality of His Uniqueness, holds by the forehead all the individuations of the indefinite number of possibilities, and that each of the indefinite number of possibilities goes on the way towards his private lord; making that which is of God, individuated in themselves, their Lord (rabb) in the World of Truth; and that God, Truth, indeed is ‘the beginning and the end and the zahir and the batin and the manifested and the secret’”.
The good news is not just that each goes on the way to his private lord, it is also both that that private lord is indeed a face of the One reality, and that this is the case for all ‘things’, all people. Hence the saying of Jesus when asked which was the greatest commandment in the law:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Although in a certain way the first commandment contains all, and that is why it is called the great commandment, it is a necessity for there to be not just one, but two commandments. Firstly, metaphysically, because the Reality is both transcendent beyond existence and manifest in it. The first commandment is according to love for God as Lord, and the second is according to love for God as He appears in relative manifestation, individuated in our neighbour. Indeed it would hardly be possible to square these two commandments with eachother if they are not understood in this way, since it is clearly not possible to love God with all one’s self, and also to love oneself and one’s neighbour at the same time – unless this is seen from a unified perspective in which it is He who appears in all these forms. Secondly, at the level of the individual or group, the first commandment could be understood to refer to the private lord to the exclusion of others, and the commandment to love thy neighbour as thyself counter-acts this partial perspective, both in a way which reflects the truth and as a practice which guides towards the truth even if you do not see it. This is because it is the One God who is the selfhood of our neighbour, just as He is our own self-hood. And because the God whom we are invited to love with all our heart, soul and mind is the One who is the God of all and not just at the level of the private lord. So the second commandment indicates the transcendence of the first beyond the private lord at the level of totality and oneness, and the first indicates the point of unified vision without which it would not be possible to love thy neighbour as thyself. So it is the combination of these two commandments together which points to a unified vision at the level of Collectivity (Reality of Mohammed). In this way, curiously, it is the world - and the appearance of difference in it - which points towards a truly unified vision. Drawing out the radical implications of the commandment to love your neighbour, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors; only so can you be the children of your heavenly Father, who makes the sun rise on good and bad alike, and sends the rain on the honest and the dishonest.”
Now, we are invited to this unified vision. In the Surah of Yusuf, (108) is recorded the revelation to Mohammed, “And say, this is my way: I invite to God and to vision, I and those who follow me, and I am not of those who associate”. In this passage, first of all the invitation is to God, and only God since it is made explicit that “I am not of those who associate” (mushrik) i.e. those who associate other than God with him. So, this is an invitation without association in it, it is not an invitation from other than God to Him. Since there is only He, how could there be anything other than God from which to be invited? Nevertheless this is a real invitation and requires a real response, and the nature of this response is pointed to in the reference to vision. It is an invitation to or through vision – a change in vision or perspective. And because the invitation is to God first, it is certain that the vision to which there is invitation is according to wholeness and totality at the level of oneness.
How then is it that this vision is not an intermediary or copy (in which case there would be association)? Only if the vision is essentially the same as that of which it is a vision. And how can it be the same when the object of vision is the whole Being? Only by a field of vision which is total and in such a way that Being sees itself. According to Ibn ‘Arabi (Fusus al-Hikam, chapter of Adam) this occurs both in the being “of itself by itself”, and in the mirror of the perfect man. The first vision is an essential vision in which vision is the same as being (he says: “there is no other vision than the ipseity of oneness”). Even to express it in language is to limit something which cannot be described in words – for there is nothing to refer to and nobody to refer to it, and no relation in this vision. The second vision, in the mirror of the perfect man, is the vision which is collective of the infinite aspects of the being differentiated into all ‘things’ (which were implicit in the first vision), a situation which is likened to an unpolished mirror, and then further when they are collected together in a single point of vision, likened to a polished mirror, which occurs in a human being and is known as the perfect man. This is the vision at its most sublime degree, according to which we are invited to God.
The unpolished mirror is the world, and, in that it is no other than what was implicit and ‘hidden’ in the being of itself by itself and brought into existence, the many are indeed unified. However the appearance is of difference, and hence the unpolishedness. It neither appears completely disunified (which would be chaos), nor as unified (which would be oneness before manifestation), but in this world, the nature of which is relativity, the appearance is of relative degrees of unity, and relative degrees of lack of unity. This unified vision to which we are invited needs the discrimination of all the aspects, before the vision according to reality, of oneness in multiplicity and multiplicity in oneness. This is so so that humans can be invited from an unpolished, disunified vision to a unified vision. As we previously saw in the discussion of the chapter of Hud in the Fusus al-Hikam it is the situation of relative degrees of knowledge amongst humans which underlies relative disunity and strife, linked to such great suffering. But from the discussion of the two commandments to love God and neighbour we could see that it is the very existence of difference at the level of our neighbour which points towards the unified vision according to the One and all-inclusive Being.
So the invitation is to a shift of vision. This shift is both essential and relative. Essential in that this vision in its completion is an end in itself (the end in itself). Master Dogen’s (C13) description of the reality of meditation illustrates it in the language of Buddhism in the opening chapter of his great compendium of Zen knowledge, the Shobogenzo (the meaning of which, interestingly, is of right vision: “Right-Dharma-Eye-Treasury”):
“If a human Being, even for a single moment, manifests the Buddha’s posture in the three forms of conduct [of body, speech and mind], while [that person] sits up straight in samadhi, the entire world of dharma assumes the Buddha’s posture and the whole of space becomes the state of realization”, and, echoing what Hud said to Ibn ‘Arabi, “All concrete things possess original practice as their original features; it is beyond comprehension.” (Master Dogen, Shobogenzo, Bendowa, 20, trans.G. Nishijima & C. Cross).
And this shift is also relative, in that even a glimpse of this vision in a particular time and context brings, according to the particular need, for example; meaning and guidance, relief in suffering, and harmony where there was discord. The being of this vision and those who represent it is indeed a mercy to the world, both essentially and relatively.
How then to respond to this invitation. How individually, and how as a society and world. If we are responding to this invitation then we are doing so from a point of not seeing this unified vision and not seeing unification in the world. How do we come to a point of unified vision from here?
I think that the answer is simple, and it is a life’s work since everything changes. Even if we do not see this unified vision we can conceive of it. And if we represent it to ourselves we are putting ourselves in relation to it. Representing this to ourselves has an effect on our consciousness. All of our more limited perceptions and states (our ordinary vision) becomes related to this universal perspective, and observed in the light of this. In the famous hadith of Gabriel, when Gabriel asks Mohammed “What is ihsan (right action)?”, Mohammed replies “To worship God as though you see Him. And even if you don’t see Him, surely He sees you.” One meaning of “He sees you”, is that adopting this perspective of “as if” we see Him, instantly puts us in the position both of knowing we are seen, and of observing ourselves as if from the point of view of Him. This method of ‘as if’ is a voluntary practice in vision and consciousness, and by practising this there is an immediate effect on our consciousness, during the time we are aware, in the particular situation we are in. There is also a longer-term effect as diverse disunified aspects of ourselves – thoughts, beliefs, emotions, habits of action etc come into relationship with the collective vision. As this goes on the “circle of compassion” widens, and it becomes possible to a greater extent and more frequently to love God with all one’s heart, soul and mind, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, according to the good tidings that God is the Ipseity of all things. It is impossible not to quote here the famous hadith of the superogatory works which tells us the ultimate end of this process: “my servant continues to come nearer to me through the further acts of devotion until I love him. Then when I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he holds, and his foot with which he walks.”
Within society and the world there is a directly analogous effect of representing this unified vision. Since the unified vision is a thing of consciousness, the representation of it within the consciousness of groups, societies and the world is in itself a manifestation of unified vision. Analogously to the individual case, as this mode of consciousness is represented and practiced, so apparently disunified aspects of the world are brought into essential relationship under the collective unified vision. From that unified point of vision every ‘thing’ has its place, because He holds it by the forelock. This vision is already there to be seen, and it is also possible be ‘as if’ we saw it. By doing this we submit ourselves collectively under this superordinate unified vision, observing plurality in unity and unity in plurality, and one result is to bring about a consciousness of our proper place and the place of others within it. Only in submission to the unified vision is it possible for us to address our differences non-violently. This applies in ourselves and in our close relationships, but now in the modern era it applies globally in a way it never has before. The issues we face are Global, and the means of communication enable global consciousness of these issues and a global response. The unified vision is potentially ‘good news’ to every individual, and it is announced and invited to by the diverse voices of those who represent it, which potentially meet with the same meaning from within each individual. In reality this is a meaning which is both universally present and pregnantly potential, arising according to its own timing.