this and That
The odd capitalization is intentonal
Just now during morning practices I suddenly remembered that THAT is truly bigger than this—infinitely, unbelievably bigger—and that those suffering so much in Palestine are indeed more fortunate than the people causing their suffering, or even than those who are ignoring it. Though from an earthly point of view, this sounds ridiculous and even offensive.
“Wa kayfa akhaafu maa ashraktum wa laa takhafuuna annakum ashraktum bi’Llah.” “How should I fear what you have associated [with Him], when you do not fear [the fact] that you have established associates besides Allah?”1
This is the answer to all those trying to frighten others with worldly power: with ICE agents, atomic weapons, arrest, starvation, or murder. Their danger is far greater, not of some agony imposed from outside by a cruel authority, but of eventual confrontation with the absolute lie on which they have built their lives.
In his paper, “No Activity without Truth,” the incomparable Frithjof Schuon writes, “Tradition speaks to each man the language that he can comprehend, provided he wishes to listen. The latter proviso is crucial, for tradition, let it be repeated, cannot “become bankrupt”; rather it is of the bankruptcy of man that one should speak, for it is he that has lost all intuition of the supernatural.
It is man who has let himself be deceived by the discoveries and inventions of a falsely totalitarian science; that is to say, a science that does not recognize its own proper limits and for that same reason misses whatever lies beyond those limits.”2
As one who experienced the higher planes and the Presence of God from early childhood (though with no name to give to this Being beyond being), I had a powerful intuition from early on that the so-called Enlightenment was in many ways a loss and a darkening. Schuon continues,
“Fascinated alike by scientific phenomena and by the erroneous conclusions he draws from them, man has ended by being submerged by his own creations; he will not realize that a traditional message is situated on quite a different plane or how much more real that plane is, and he allows himself to be dazzled all the more readily since scientism provides him with all the excuses he wants in order to justify his own attachment to the world of appearances and to his ego and his consequent flight from the presence of the Absolute.”
When the door to that other world is closed or even invisible to us, statements like those above appear absurd: self-deluding nonsense, invented or swallowed by cowards who can’t face reality. When that door opens even a crack, and even more when it is flung wide, we realize that what lies above / beyond / beneath is orders of magnitude greater in goodness, meaning, intelligence, and actuality than what we formerly considered to be real.
The writer, even one like Schuon, is driven to initial capitals, because this is not “reality,” but Reality, not “that”, but That.
“Lahum ul-bushraa fil hayaati dunyaa wa fiil aakhira. Laa tabdiilla li kalimaati ‘Llah.” “For them are good tidings in the life of this world and in the hereafter. There is no changing the words of Allah.”3
Which is why we have tales in scriptures, history, and even in modern times of people in the worst circumstances who smile and laugh and praise God. Not everyone to be sure, but enough to show us that, within every great tradition, there are those who have broken through and fear nothing the world can do to them. This is not confined to any one religion, as the Qur’an itself tells us. If only the aquifer can be reached, where the well is dug is of lesser importance.
If you want to dive deeper while also having some laughs and some intercultural and intergalactic education, consider reading my book, The Tesseract (coming soon). Because it weaves together a fictional world, the so-called real world most of us live in, and the Place we’ve just been discussing. Peace and goodness to you, namaste, wah-shday. As-salaamu aleykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatu!
Qur’an 6:81, p. 90 in A Prayer for Spiritual Elevation and Protection by Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi, translation and commentary by Suha Taji-Farouki.
In The Sword of Gnosis: Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism, edited by Jacob Needleman, 1974. p. 29. This absolute jewel contains essays by Rene Guenon, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and others as well Schuon and Needleman.
Qur’an 10:64, p. 86 in A Prayer for Spiritual Elevation and Protection.