Knowledge of self is the key to the knowledge of God, according to the saying: "He who knows himself knows God," [hadith] and, as it is written in the Koran, "We will show them Our signs in the world and in themselves, that the truth may be manifest to them."
Now nothing is nearer to thee than thyself, and if thou knowest not
thyself how canst thou know anything else? If thou sayest "I know
myself," meaning thy outward shape, body, face, limbs, and so forth,
such knowledge can never be a key to the knowledge of God.
Nor,
if thy knowledge as to that which is within only extends so far, that
when thou art hungry thou eatest, and when thou art angry thou attackest
someone, wilt thou progress any further in this path, for the beasts
are thy partners in this? But real self-knowledge consists in knowing
the following things:
What
art thou in thyself, and from whence hast thou come? Whither art thou
going, and for what purpose hast thou come to tarry here awhile, and in
what does thy real happiness and misery consist? Some of thy attributes
are those of animals, some of devils, and some of angels, and thou hast
to find out to which of these attributes are accidental and which
essential.
Till
thou knowest this, thou canst not find out where thy real happiness
lies. The occupation of animals is eating, sleeping, and fighting;
therefore, if thou art an animal, busy thyself in these things. Devils
are busy in stirring up mischief, and in guile and deceit; if thou
belongest to them, do their work. Angels contemplate the beauty of God,
and are entirely free from animal qualities, if thou art of angelic
nature, then strive towards thine origin, that thou mayest know and
contemplate the Most High, and be delivered from the thraldom of lust
and anger. Thou shouldest also discover why thou hast been created with
these two animal instincts: whether that they should subdue and lead
thee captive, or whether that thou shouldest subdue them, and, in thy
upward progress, make of one thy steed and of the other thy weapon.
The
first step to self-knowledge is to know that thou art composed of an
outward shape, called the body, and an inward entity called the heart,
or soul. By "heart" I do not mean the piece of flesh situated in the
left of our bodies, but that which uses all the other faculties as its
instruments and servants. In truth it does not belong to the visible
world, but to the invisible, and has come into this world as a traveller
visits a foreign country for the sake of merchandise, and will
presently return to its native land. It is the knowledge of this entity
and its attributes which is the key to the knowledge of God.
Some
idea of the reality of the heart. or spirit, may be obtained by a man
closing his eyes and forgetting everything around except his
individuality. He will thus also obtain a glimpse of the unending nature
of that individuality. Too close inquiry, however, into the essence of
spirit is forbidden by the Law.
In the Koran it is written: "They will question thee concerning the spirit. Say: 'The Spirit comes by the command of my Lord'."
Thus much is known of it that it is an indivisible essence belonging to
the world of decrees, and that it is not from everlasting, but created.
An exact philosophical knowledge of the spirit is not a necessary
preliminary to walking in the path of religion, but comes rather as the
result of self-discipline and perseverance in that path, as it is said
in the Koran: "Those who strive in Our way, verily We will guide them to the right paths."
For
the carrying on of this spiritual warfare by which the knowledge of
oneself and of God is to be obtained, the body may be figured as a
kingdom, the soul as its king, and the different senses and faculties as
constituting an army. Reason may be called the vizier, or prime
minister, passion the revenue collector, and anger the police officer.
Under the guise of collecting revenue, passion is continually prone to
plunder on its own account, while resentment is always inclined to
harshness and extreme severity.
Both
of these the revenue collector and the police officer, have to be kept
in due subordination to the king, but not killed or excelled, as they
have their own proper functions to fulfill. But if passion and
resentment master reason, the ruin of the soul infallibly ensues. A soul
which allows its lower faculties to dominate the higher is as one who
should hand over an angel to the power of a dog or a Mussalman to the
tyranny of an unbeliever.
The
cultivation of demonic, animal or angelic qualities results in the
production of corresponding characters, which in the Day of Judgement
will be manifested in visible shapes, the sensual appearing as swine,
the ferocious as dogs and wolves, and the pure as angels. The aim of
moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and
resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.
Someone may here object, "But
if man has been created with animal and demonic qualities as well as
angelic, how are we to know that the latter constitute his real essence,
while the former are merely accidental and transitory?" To this I
answer that the essence of each creature is to be sought in that which
is highest in it and peculiar to it. Thus the horse and the ass are both
burden-bearing animals, but the superiority of the horse to the ass
consists in its being adapted for use in battle.
If
it fails in this, it becomes degraded to the rank of burden-bearing
animals. Similarly with man: the highest faculty in him is reason, which
fits him for the contemplation of God. If this predominates in him,
when he dies, he leaves behind him all tendencies to passion and
resentment, and becomes capable of association with angels. As regards
his mere animal qualities, man is inferior to many animals, but reason
makes him superior to them, as it is written in the Koran: "To man We have subjected all things in the earth."
But if his lower tendencies have triumphed, after death be will ever be
looking towards the earth and longing for earthly delights.
Now
the rational soul in man abounds in marvels, both of knowledge and
power. By means of it he masters arts and sciences, can pass in a flash
from earth to heaven and back again, can map out the skies and measure
the distances between the stars. By it also he can draw the fish from
the sea and the birds from the air, and can subdue to his service
animals like the elephant, the camel, and the horse. His five senses are
like five doors opening on the external world; but, more wonderful than
this, his heart has a window which opens on the unseen world of
spirits.
In
the state of sleep, when the avenues of the senses are closed, this
window is opened and man receives impressions from the unseen world and
sometimes fore-shadowings of the future. His heart is then like a mirror
which reflects what is pictured in the Tablet of Fate. But, even in
sleep, thoughts of worldly things dull this mirror, so that the
impression it receives are not clear. After death, however, such
thoughts vanish and things are seen in their naked reality, and the
saying in the Koran is fulfilled: "We have stripped the veil from off
thee and thy sight today is keen."
This
opening of a window in the heart towards the unseen also takes place in
conditions approaching those of prophetic inspiration, when intuitions
spring up in the mind unconveyed through any sense-channel. The more a
man purifies himself from fleshly lusts and concentrates his mind on
God, the more conscious will he be of such intuitions. Those who are not
conscious of them have no right to deny their reality.
Nor
are such intuitions confined only to those of prophetic rank. Just as
iron, by sufficient polishing can be made into a mirror, so any mind by
due discipline can be rendered receptive of such impressions. It was at
this truth the Prophet hinted when he said, "Every child is born with
a predisposition towards Islam; then his parents make a Jew, or a
Christian, or a star worshipper of him." Every human being has in the depths of his consciousness heard the question "Am I not your Lord?"
and answered "Yes" to it. But some hearts are like mirrors so befouled
with rust and dirt that they give no clear reflections, while those of
the prophets and saints, though they are men "of like passions with us"
are extremely sensitive to all divine impressions.
Nor
is it only by reason of knowledge acquired and intuitive that the soul
of man holds the first rank among created things, but also by reason of
power. Just as angels preside over the elements, so does the soul rule
the members of the body. Those souls which attain a special degree of
power not only rule their own body but those of others also. If they
wish a sick man to recover he recovers, or a person in health to fall
ill he becomes ill, or if they will the presence of a person he comes to
them.
According
as the effects produced by these powerful souls are good or bad they
are termed miracles or sorceries. These souls differ from common folk in
three ways: (1) What others only see in dreams they see in their waking
moments. (2) While others' wills only affect their own bodies, these,
by will-power, can move bodies extraneous to themselves. (3) The
knowledge which others acquire by laborious learning comes to them by
intuition.
These
three, of course, are not the only marks which differentiate them from
common people, but the only ones that come within our cognizance. Just
as no one knows the real nature of God but God Himself, so no one knows
the real nature of a prophet but a prophet. Nor is this to be wondered
at, as in everyday matters we see that it is impossible to explain the
charm of poetry to one whose ear is insusceptible of cadence and rhythm,
or the glories of colour to one who is stone-blind. Besides mere
incapacity, there are other hindrances to the attainment of spiritual
truth. One of these is externally acquired knowledge. To use a figure,
the heart may be represented as a well, and the five senses as five
streams which are continually conveying water to it.
In
order to find out the real contents of the heart these streams must be
stopped for a time, at any rate, and the refuse they have brought with
them must be cleared out of the well. In other words, if we are to
arrive at pure spiritual truth, we must put away, for the time knowledge
which has been acquired by external processes and which too often
hardens into dogmatic prejudice.
A
mistake of an opposite kind is made by shallow people who, echoing some
phrases which they have caught from Sufi teachers, go about decrying
all knowledge. This is as if a person who was not an adept in alchemy
were to go about saying, "Alchemy is better than gold," and were
to refuse gold when it was offered to him. Alchemy is better than gold,
but real alchemists are very rare, and so are real Sufis. He who has a
mere smattering of Sufism is not superior to a learned man, any more
than he who has tried a few experiments in alchemy has ground for
despising a rich man.
Anyone
who will look into the matter will see that happiness is necessarily
linked with the knowledge of God. Each faculty of ours delights in that
for which it was created: lust delights in accomplishing desire, anger
in taking vengeance, the eye in seeing beautiful objects, and the ear in
hearing harmonious sounds. The highest function of the soul of man is
the perception of truth; in this accordingly it finds its special
delight. Even in trifling matters, such as learning chess, this holds
good, and the higher the subject matter of the knowledge obtained the
greater the delight.
A
man would be pleased at being admitted into the confidence of a prime
minister, but how much more if the king makes an intimate of him and
discloses state secrets to him!An
astronomer who, by his knowledge, can map the stars and describe their
courses, derives more pleasure from his knowledge than the chess player
from his. Seeing, then, that nothing is higher than God, how great must
be the delight which springs from the true knowledge of Him!
A
person in whom the desire for this knowledge has disappeared is like
one who has lost his appetite for healthy food, or who prefers feeding
on clay to eating bread. All bodily appetites perish at death with the
organs they use, but the soul dies not, and retains whatever knowledge
of God it possesses; nay increases it.
An
important part of our knowledge of God arises from the study and
contemplation of our own bodies, which reveal to us the power, wisdom,
and love of the Creator. His power, in that from a mere drop He has
built up the wonderful frame of man; His wisdom is revealed in its
intricacies and the mutual adaptability of its parts; and His love is
shown by His not only supplying such organs as are absolutely necessary
for existence, as the liver, the heart, and the brain, but those which
are not absolutely necessary, as the hand, the foot, the tongue, and the
eye. To these He has added, as ornaments, the blackness of the hair,
the redness of lips, and the curve of the eyebrows.
Man
has been truly termed a "microcosm," or little world in himself and the
structure of his body should be studied not only by those who wish to
become doctors, but by those who wish to attain to a more intimate
knowledge of God, just as close study of the niceties and shades of
language in a great poem reveals to us more and more of the genius of
its author.
But,
when all is said, the knowledge of the soul plays a more important part
in leading to the knowledge of God than the knowledge of our body and
the functions. The body may be compared to a steed and the soul to its
rider; the body was created for the soul, the soul for the body. If a
man knows not his own soul, which is the nearest thing to him, what is
the use of his claiming to know others? It is as if a beggar who has not
the wherewithal for a meal should claim to be able to feed a town.
In
this chapter we have attempted, in some degree, to expound the
greatness of man's soul. He who neglects it and suffers its capacities
to rust or to degenerate must necessarily be the loser in this world and
the next. The true greatness of man lies in his capacity for eternal
progress, otherwise in this temporal sphere he is the weakest of all
things, being subject to hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and sorrow.
Those
things he takes most delight in are often the most injurious to him,
and those things which benefit him are not to be obtained without toil
and trouble. As to his intellect, a slight disarrangement of matter in
his brain is sufficient to destroy or madden him; as to his power, the
sting of a wasp is sufficient to rob him of ease and sleep; as to his
temper, he is upset by the loss of a sixpence; as to his beauty, he is
little more than nauseous matter covered with a fair skin. Without
frequent washing he becomes utterly repulsive and disgraceful.
In
truth, man in this world is extremely weak and contemptible; it is only
in the next that he will be of value, if by means of the "alchemy of
happiness" he rises from the rank of beasts to that of angels. Otherwise
his condition will be worse than the brutes, which perish and turn to
dust. It is necessary for him, at the same time that he is conscious of
his superiority as the climax of created things, to learn to know also
his helplessness, as that too is one of the keys to the knowledge of
God.
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