Yol IV

The accessibility of esoteric literature and research into various traditions of Islamic mysticism has inspired a fascination with the secret/hidden/inner meaning of the faith’s beliefs and practices, and in the history of the orders/lineages founded and preserved by masters of the path. Invaluable knowledge that documents centuries of contemplation and practical spirituality from minds that had been annihilated in our Lord, intimate with His mystery and servants to His will. These were men and women who wrote from experience, their own most often, and carefully chosen words explain the effects of wayfaring, from the bodily experience to the inner transformation as we are granted control over the ego. In ink, they would write behind the veil that is the limitation of the human language, already a limitation of the human mind, in an attempt to convey the reality of what it is to have the entirety of one’s being extinguished in God. When something of this importance becomes available to the general public, it is inevitable that the significance/gravity of the subject matter will become lost as those entirely removed from the proper context which informs the language used in the master’s explanation. 

Our initial inspiration to the path is a call from our Lord, beckoning us to Him and a life devoted to His service. We answer back from the fitrah, which calls back in lamentation of its separation from its origin, but at this point at our lives where we would be mentally and spiritually mature enough to a sincere interest in wayfaring would have it so that this innate part of us rooted in the knowledge/knowing of our Lord is interwoven with conditioning of the ego through our attempts to balance faith with worldly life, or if the first part of our life was spent in the absence of faith, which is the unfortunate reality of multitudes. In acknowledging the superficial logic of mysticism without having experienced Islam at its most fundamental level is an obvious complication when it comes to the actual process that the explanations of mysticism encapsulate. This is not to say that one with an interest in Islamic mysticism, but with no background in Islam, cannot benefit from the teachings of the teachings of the path. However, it must be understood that the path is a station within the religion, one that we are granted permission to enter, not one in which we offer ourselves a place. The knowledge of mysticism is distinct from the reality of mysticism, and the reality of mysticism is only truly understood in the Imam, who is not merely at the center of reality and its mystery, but in truth the Imam is reality and its mystery.