AWAKENING - ESSENTIAL GUIDANCE
Any true Awakening, Enlightenment, Satori, Fath Rabbani, Samadhi, whatever names are given to it, even if in different degrees, this awakening is an emergence, a grace which is given following a "configuration", a harmonious and adequate "predisposition" of the Heart.
Perfect and synthetic guidance
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The various ascetic exercises, the religious conformities, whatever their forms, cannot be enough. Nevertheless, there is a method or if one prefers a dynamic, a path that is valid whatever the religions or spiritual paths, that can bring forth this experience of Awakening following a perfect and synthetic orientation of our existential conditions. This ultimate orientation which leads to the configuration of our being is a science which requires a precise protocol without fault, without negligence. We are going to outline the different elements of it which nevertheless are given only as a first indication given that this path, this opening of the heart operation requires to be accompanied by a specialist as it would be in medicine a heart operation which cannot be imagined carried out alone without the assistance of a specialist trained for this purpose.
This method can be visualized as a harmonious sphere that includes different existential degrees, practices, attitudes, virtues, doctrinal understandings, opportune graces, convergences. But the essential is not the effort in practices, even if they have a role, the essential of the success will depend on the implementation of a personal sincerity functioning as an immense filter of purification washing us of our deepest hypocrisies. This approach requires immense courage and determination in order to face our greatest fears, our greatest sufferings, our greatest weaknesses, our greatest deviations including our karmic predisposition given at birth. According to this approach, any inconsistency in our life would be a betrayal of the quest and a new hypocrisy, just as a circle that is not fully round cannot be called a circle.
The harmony of the celestial spheres is reflected in the microcosm of man who must preserve by sincerity the purity of his heart and thus balance his solar and lunar energies then these different existential circles.
The first step is to look inside ourselves to see if we are ready for this process and even to see if we have this original predisposition, this original purity that calls us, if only by a first inner glow, a call towards this process, however weak it may be, but well recognized and identified.
Already, at this moment, the teacher or the friend can have the role of the mirror which supports this awareness. He will touch this primordial sensitivity, this original (divine) essential nature which is only waiting to manifest itself but which is asleep. It is the "raw material" of the alchemists that begins to gather. This primordial nature is in that purity which precedes all religious, dogmatic or conceptual conditioning. This totally free essence can manifest itself in any form, at any time and as it wishes. It is on this nature which is light that another light, "light on light", will manifest itself through an initiatory act.
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But our existence leads us to attachments, to fixations, to illusions that distort and darken this original nature, which thus loses this receptive quality and availability to this second light. It is also by looking at this in the face that the human being becomes aware of the complexity of his situation in order to integrate it in his approach and his search for the REAL, AL HAQQ.
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He is obliged to note that he is a being of contradictions with the weaknesses of his body, those of his capacities and even that of his existential condition. From then on, he has to look for his center of gravity or his center of synthesis which allows him to integrate this contradiction between the human aspects and the divine aspects.
He then discovers that it is his Heart that must be the place of the great synthesis. Not the heart in the physiological sense, but this heart which encompasses the whole chest and which could be called for each being his own "signature of synthesis". It integrates all the individual horizontal aspects and the divine, vertical aspects. It is this synthetic aspect that is indicated in the famous hadith Qudsi (divine word heard by the Prophet): "The heart of my believing servant contains me". But here again the heart is challenged by dispersion, by the division of its capacities by the distractions of the world. The test of the world, its trial, is precisely to divide this heart by diverting it from what it was created for, to be the house of God, the Kaaba.
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The world offers us innumerable attachments that will use and fix on them the attention and the forces of this heart, thus weakening it.
The Ka'ba, or "Cube", reflection of our inner heart, the center of our being, has 6 faces like the 6 directions or the 6 days, the Fath is obtained by the "passage to the limit" in the 7th direction (center) or the 7th day
The Remedies
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For this heart preserves its capacity for harmony and synthesis only if it is kept pure in its function. But when it loses its original balance and harmony, it loses its capacity to receive divine theophanies. One of the first actions to restore the function of the heart is to eliminate the aggression of the inopportune mental disturbances which appear like ripples or waves on the flat surface of a body of water, thus disturbing its clarity.
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It is not so much a question of eliminating thoughts that can be considered transient and ephemeral, but rather of removing the authority we give them and their power to fix our minds in a tyrannical manner. For this, we can substitute another center of fixation: a divine word, a Name of God which leads to a living Presence rather than to the frustration to which random thoughts lead. This is what in the Sufi way is called dhikr, which is the invocation of the Name of God, the mantras in the traditions of India or the prayer of the heart in orthodoxy. At the beginning, the fact of pronouncing this divine Name or this sacred word aloud can help precisely to concentrate, provided that one applies oneself to it with a certain continuity, in the consciousness of what one is reciting and with Presence.
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In the second degree, after a certain amount of practice, the heart begins to pronounce internally the same word or the chosen divine Name, and then can also receive by inspiration other divine Names that correspond to the state and the need of this heart as spiritual food.
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At the third level, it is possible to reach the point where the heart regains its virginal availability, without the help of invocation or external dhikr or even internal dhikr, it is a contemplative state as if in suspension, without support, beyond the thoughts which no longer appear during the time of this contemplation which at the beginning may only last for an hour or two before the onslaught of the thoughts returns. One can then return to the inner dhikr with the divine Name in awareness of the Meaning of the invocation and by keeping the Presence, then find again this state of emptiness of virginal simplicity, this original innocence of the heart. It is the continuity of the practice that allows us to install in ourselves this configuration of the heart, or rather we should say, to return to the natural virginal configuration of the heart. But it is important to realize that the simple practice of these invocations is not enough if our whole life is not in coherence with this "orientation" of the heart towards the REAL. Our whole life is like a circle with the heart at the center.
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The different parts of the circumference of this circle are our human relationships: those with our parents, those with our brothers and sisters, those with our partners, those in our work, our teachers and so on for all other relationships. If one of the sectors of the circle is not in order, how can it remain round and how can we remain stable in the center of the heart.
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To put the various circles of our existence in order to allow the alchemy of our soul and the passage of the divine Light; hence the popular expression: "to round the angles".
This ordering of our life is directly related to what is the sincerity of our orientation. Sincerity is in fact this dynamic of truth that circulates in all aspects of our existence. It is this that confronts us with our hidden hypocrisies and incites us to purify ourselves of them through constant vigilance. This vigilance is the one that constantly asks us from the depths of our soul if what we do, our words, our acts, our devotions, are for God, by God and in Him or if it is all just a game of our ego. This exercise of continuous awareness, this vigilance that is indispensable for the guarding of our heart, is called Muraqaba. It is like a scale that measures our balance in the various aspects that constitute the building of the true heart. Our study of the fundamental doctrines concerning the eternal Law is, for example, a necessary complement to our practice of prayer.
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There is still complementarity between the unveiling of the divine essence of things which can be given without retreat or in contemplative practice and the unveiling of the divine Names which are the colorations and angles of it. To clothe oneself with the divine Names gives us the virtues which are an element of stability for those who will be able to live the unveiling of the Essence, a powerful experience which without preparation can make us lose all our bearings. It is in this sense that the heart has a role of synthesis and stability that must be configured as a sacred house visited by the divine graces. Each one being unique must therefore build what we could call his personal "signature of synthesis", or his personal architecture of the heart, the one that in the end must play its role as the House of God. Each one is invited to seek the method by which he or she will build the house of his or her heart, should there be a companionship? Prescriptions given by a teacher ? Steps with validations ? How to check the dark and hidden aspects of our hypocrisies that veil all our practices ? How to finalize the plans of this sacred architecture which must become the House of God according to our fundamental predisposition, according to our eternal signature in God.
Sheikh Amanullah