He who knows himself knows his Lord.

                                              Saying of the Prophet Muhammad

 

What is this essential Self? How can we know whether we are in touch with it or whether we are engaged in wishful thinking? Does the essential Self have an objective reality, an ontological presence?

This is not the place to ask and answer every question about the existence of the human soul or the reality of the Unseen.  Even assuming a certain level of spiritual awareness and sensitivity on the part of those who read this book, some questions are inevitable. Does the essential Self exist, or is it merely an effective notion to carry us beyond the limitations of the conventional mind?

Objective reality usually refers to things that we apprehend with our senses, whether they be objects, forces, or natural laws.  Even an idea has a kind of existence, but if the idea contains an impossibility--as does the idea of a square circle, for instance--it exists only as an idea and refers to nothing real.  Some might say that the essential Self is such an idea, that even the idea of a witnessing presence is a mere epiphenomenon, a byproduct, of certain physiological proceses.

But what if we were to experience something more real than what we can see and touch, something more ourselves than our body, or our role in society, or our personal history--more real in fact than even our thoughts and emotions? Can this essential Self be experienced?

Whatever we can know is dependent on our state of consciousness.  In the state of sleep, for instance, our knowing is limited to the functioning of the mind that we call dreaming.  As long as we are in a state of sleep, we will interpret even sensory impressions--such as sounds and sensation--in terms of the dream we are experiencing.  If a glass of water spills on the night table and drips onto us, we may dream that we are being drenched in the rain.  Unless we wake up, even this sensory information will be shaped by the subjectivity of our sleeping dream.

In our so-called waking state we are open to sensory impressions in a more objective sense, and yet we may still distort what is happening before our very eyes.  It is common for several people to witness exactly the same event and have very different ideas of what actually happened.  The wise have been telling humanity that it is asleep even though it thinks it is awake.  Muhammad said, "This life is a dream and when we die we awaken." Even this waking state can include a kind of dreamlike distortion.

Beyond the facts of sensory existence, or concurrent with this existence, is the dimension of qualities that are perceived by even subtler faculties than our senses.  If we read great poetry with only our sensory mind and intellect, we may know the literal, concrete meanings of the words--we may know whether or not it makes sense on a concrete or intellectual level--but we will not necessarily know the meaning, feel the nuances, or catch the emotional taste of it.  We may in one moment be reading poetry as mere words; but with a change of consciousness, with the heart open and engaged, the same lines might inexplicably bring tears to our eyes.  What is it that controls this flow of tears? Why does this experience arise from our depths? What we experience is dependent on our state of consciousness.

The essential Self is an objective reality, but it cannot be known in a state of sleep, any more than the ordinary facts of reality can be known in a dream.  In the Sufi tradition it is written that the absolute Spirit said, "And I breathed My Spirit into humanity." We are each enlivened by this inbreath.  The essential Self, the soul, can be understood as this individualization of Spirit. The soul, however, is such a fine and subtle energy that it can be obscured by coarser energies of our existence, the energies of thought, desire, instinct, and sensation.  These are the veils over the essential Self, the substances of intoxication that numb us to our essential Self.

If the essential Self, the soul, is engaged, it has the powers of Being, Doing, Living, Knowing, Speaking, Hearing, and Loving.  From essential attributes like these proceed all the qualities that we need to live an abundant life.  Within this nondimensional point of the essential Self (nondimensional because it has its existence in the realm of true Being, which appears to us as nonexistence) is the treasury of all qualities.  We may receive what we need to be of service from this treasury through a process of conscious or unconscious activation, but it is our right as human beings to receive consciously.  The human being is a channel for the creative power of the universe. Through the use of will--conscious choice--we can activate the qualities and powers of the essential Self.

 

Is the essential Self something that is veiled from the conscious mind and that can be known only indirectly, like Jung's unconscious?  For Jung, the Self was an archetype of the wholeness of the unconscious. All our images of wholeness--including Divinity, Christ, and the Tao--represented this unconscious archetype, which would never be known directly.  This reveals a fundamental truth of the essential Self--that it is infinite and can never be fully comprehended by consciousness alone--but it is only a partial truth, because, at the same time, we can see with the eyes of the essential Self, hear with its ears, act with its will, forgive with its forgiveness, and love with its love.

In classical Sufism the continuum from the false self to the essential Self has been described in seven stages. The word for self, nafs, is also equivalent to "soul."

       1.     The self of compulsion seeks satisfaction primarily in satisfying its selfish, carnal desires and its will to power. It is mentioned in the Surah Yusuf, verse 53, of the Qur'an as "the self impelled to evil."

       2.     The self of conscience has begun to discriminate between right and wrong, and can sometimes resist the temptation to evil and selfish actions. It is mentioned in the Surah Qiyyamah, verse 2: "I call to witness the self of conscience."

       3.     The self of inspiration is inspired with spiritual knowledge and can reliably follow the voice of conscience. It is mentioned in the Surah Shams, verses 7-8: "By the soul and the proportion and order given to it and its inspiration as to its right and its wrong." This is the highest stage that conventional religion and morality achieves.

       4.     The soul of tranquillity has reached the level of presence in which a conscious intimacy is possible. It is described in Surah Fajr, verses 27-28: "O soul in tranquillity, return to your Lord well-pleased and well-pleasing to Him."

       5.     The soul of submission has reached the level where its desires and actions are in harmony with Reality. It accepts each moment as it is and submits itself to Reality. This is described in Surah Ma'idah, verse 122: "Allah is well-pleased with them and they with God."

       6.     The soul of total submission is even more completely identified with the Universal Will. This is the stage of the great saints whose lives may be a profound and miraculous example of human wholeness. These people are lost in God.

       7.     The soul of perfection is a theoretical absolute, the perfected or complete human being as described in the Surah Shams, verse 9: "Truly he succeeds who purifies [the soul]."

Stages 1 and 2 are more or less under the domination of the false self. Stage 3 might be called the natural self, whereas stages 4 through 7 represent various degrees of the essential Self.

 

We can have no sense of the essential Self unless we arrive at our core--that which is deeper than thoughts and emotions, likes and dislikes, or opinions and ambitions. It is possible to listen within while following the rising of the breath, to listen for a silence behind thoughts and emotions.  This silence is the background of what we normally pay attention to.  Once this state is somewhat established we might direct our mind to our birth, to the mystery of our coming into the world. We can feel love for this being entering upon life.  We might then focus on a funeral, our own. We might then bring the beginning and the end of our life into the present moment, viewing this present moment with the eyes of eternity, of our loving Creator. With this viewpoint, which is that of the essential Self, many wounds can be healed, many mistakes forgiven, and many losses accepted.

Rumi has also said in one of his odes (Divani Shamsi Tabriz #120):

 

Don't go away, come near!

Don't be faithless, be faithful!

Find the antidote in the venom.

Come to the root of the root of your Self.

Molded of clay, yet kneaded

from the substance of certainty,

a guard at the Treasury of Holy Light --

come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Once you get hold of selflessness,

you'll be dragged from your ego

and freed from many traps--

come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You are born from the children of God's creation,

but you've fixed your sight too low.

How can you be happy?

Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Though you are a talisman protecting a treasure,

you are also the mine.

Open your hidden eyes

and come to the root of the root of your Self.

 

You were born from a ray of God's majesty

and have the blessings of a good star.

Why suffer at the hands of things that don't exist?

Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

 You came here from the presence of that fine Friend,

a little drunk, but gentle, stealing our hearts

with that look so full of fire, so

come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Our master and host, Shamsi Tabriz,

has put the eternal cup before you.

Glory be to God, what a rare wine!

So come, return to the root of the root of your Self.