KNOWING SELF

Ibn 'Arabi Heir to the Prophets

All expressions of knowledge go back to our own understanding and experience. Seeing with both eyes, or what might be called “gnosis” (ma‘rifa), is no exception.The human self or soul (nafs) is “an ocean without shore,” to use the expression that Michel Chodkiewicz has chosen as the title of his outstanding study of Ibn ‘Arabi’s hermeneutics.

To the extent that we do come to know ourselves correctly as the divine form,we also come to know the infinite God in both his incomparability and his similarity. It is axiomatic for Ibn ‘Arabi (and for most of Islamic theology as well), that God never repeats himself in his creative activity, because he is absolutely One. At each moment the One discloses itself to each individual in the universe,and each disclosure of the One is one and unique. 

Every creature undergoes constant change and flux as the moments of self-disclosure follow one upon another.We are no different from any other creature in this respect, so we are endlessly changing and forever new. Each moment of self-knowledge represents a new perception of God’s manifestation in the soul and the world. For Ibn ‘Arabi, the achievement of self-understanding means to live in a constantly overflowing fountain of divine elf-expression, a neverending outpouring of knowledge and awareness. 

At each instant God’s knower experiences a renewed divine self-disclosure and comes to a fresh understanding of what it means to be created in God’s form. God is infinite, but his form is limited, because it appears in the realm of disclosure and manifestation. Each moment of self-disclosure specifies the form and makes it uniquely itself. 

The Real itself cannot fit into form, so the divine forms can only appear as successive self-disclosures, extending ad infinitum. This explains among other things why people in paradise will never be sated or bored: they experience constant renewal and refreshment. So also, the gnostic, who sees with both eyes, witnesses each moment as a totally new creation, fresh and exhilarating. In discussing the nature of self-knowledge, Ibn ‘Arabi frequently cites the famous maxim attributed to the Prophet,“He who knows himself (or, “his soul”) knows his Lord.” The saying can perhaps more accurately be translated,“He who recognizes himself recognizes his Lord.”The saying does not employ the usual word for knowledge, ‘ilm, which often carries the connotation of learning or erudition without true understanding. Rather, it uses the verbal form of the noun ma‘rifa, which is often translated as “gnosis.” This word implies direct experience of the thing and recognition of its true nature and actual situation. 

The “gnostics” are those who achieve this sort of knowledge – direct, unmediated knowledge of self and God. Thus “gnosis,” if this is the right translation, means simultaneous self-recognition and God-recognition. In his frequent explanations of the meaning of this maxim, Ibn ‘Arabi sometimes takes one or the other of the two basic routes of understanding God – asserting his incomparability or declaring his similarity.

The more we use our rational insight to analyze the knowing self, the better we come to recognize that we are not God and we cannot hope to know him. But the more we are given the gift of imaginal vision, the better we recognize ourselves and the world as forms of the divine selfdisclosure. Ibn ‘Arabi refers to the perception of self and world achieved by the gnostics – those who recognize things for what they are – as the direct vision of “He/not He,” or “God/not God.”With one eye they see that God is incomparable, transcendent, and infinitely beyond their perception and understanding.With the other eye they see that all things display God’s similarity,immanence, and sameness. Each thing in the universe, not least the human self, is simultaneously God and not God. 

Each breath, each beat of the heart, offers a new instance of God’s absence and presence. Although knowledge of God’s Essence is inaccessible to any but God himself, knowledge of God as he discloses himself to the soul is the ready cash of everyone.There is in fact no other knowledge.All of us know God in ourselves and the world, but most of us do not recognize what we know.“There are none but knowers of God,but some of the knowers know that they know God, and some do not know that they know God.The latter know what they witness and examine, but they do not know that it is the Real” (F. III 510.32).

From: Ibn ‘Arabi Heir to the Prophets by William C. Chittick

- Enlace a artículo -

Más info en https://ift.tt/7BUGCr0 / Tfno. & WA 607725547 Centro MENADEL (Frasco Martín) Psicología Clínica y Tradicional en Mijas. #Menadel #Psicología #Clínica #Tradicional #MijasPueblo

*No suscribimos necesariamente las opiniones o artículos aquí compartidos. No todo es lo que parece.