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MYSTICISM AS A DOCTRINE OF LOVE AND QUANTUM PHYSICS
Paper
read by
Mr. Abdul Mutaal
(Comments & Review by
Ziauddin Ahmed)
- June ‘05
A boy not quite nine years of age met a girl a year younger than he and
fell in love instantly. The boy was Dante Alighieri[1].
The girl was Beatrice. Twenty years later Dante wrote as his inner being
still cried out recalling that first sight of Beatrice, “Now is your
bliss made manifest” “Now has a God stronger than I come to rule over
me.”
Beatrice did not even speak to Dante for another nine years, and by then
she had married another man. But that moment of impact, that crash of
absolute beauty, surging through the human senses into mind and
intellect converted the incident into amazement and wonder and stayed
with Dante for life. It first prompted him to write his Vita Nuova
(Life Renewed) and later his supreme poem of the vision of God
The Divine Comedy.
In his “Divine Comedy” passing through hell and purgatory, where
he is guided by different people, Dante is led to the edge of Paradise
by Virgil[2],
the Roman poet “who represents the best that humans can achieve on their
own in wisdom, art, and poetry.” But Virgil can guide him no further.
For the further journey he is replaced by Beatrice; for she had been to
Dante the first manifestation of the grace of God made visible in her
beauty representing all “God-bearers” – those who carry the Divine into
our midst.
Dante knew and wrote that such a vision could not be put into words. But
he nevertheless succeeded to open a brilliant glimpse at all those hints
of love gathered within the Divine Essence.
(An excellent beginning of the paper. It shows the frontiers of the
effort. Its expanse, vision and the breadth of enquiry. Inspiration is
the key to search and discovery. What Dante may have seen in Beatrice
was perhaps an image of his own Over / or Other-self. The very quest of
which is in every effort of a sensitive being. We, in my opinion, each
one of us are on the road to self-discovery, -- or the search for that
missing ‘half’ which will make us a complete ‘whole’. The question is
Why is it so, i.e. Why do we keep searching for that unknown entity?
If, as it is said that, we humans are made in the image of the
‘Creator’, then that is what ‘It’ too would be looking for. This idea
has been delved upon in my essay ‘Nature of Nature’.)
The above account by John Bowker[3]
about Dante’s encounter with the mystical aspect of reality illustrates
the central underlying notion that runs through my paper. It shows that
to truly understand mysticism we must have a keen appreciation of
matters of the heart and a patient realization that these same matters
of the heart do not easily lend themselves to logical and rational
scrutiny. The limitations of rational scrutiny are no more evident than
at the postmodern frontier of quantum physics. Therefore, to understand
the true nature of mysticism we must acquaint ourselves with modern
physics because the point of departure for any understanding of
mysticism is our outlook about the nature of reality.
But first, as Socrates[4]
once said, “if you want to debate with me describe your terms”. Let us
begin with a definition of mysticism:
“In the stricter sense,” says Olaf Stapleton[5],
“the word ‘mystical’ applies to a special kind of non-rational
experience,
in
which, it is claimed, the individual attains some degree of illumination
or insight into the essential and normally hidden nature of reality.
(It is called non-rational, perhaps because the underlying phenomena
of the experience has not yet been fathomed, by us humans. At a later
time, with more understanding, it may become understood by higher
intellects, perhaps! Now, as everything is evolving, it is hoped
intellect also will change.)
This insight is reported to be not merely a kind of knowing; it is the
supreme achievement of knowing-feeling-striving
in
one all-fulfilling act. The ‘knowing’ aspect of it is said to be not
abstract, like intellectual knowing, but concrete, like
sense-experience. In fact, in so far as it is knowledge, it is an
immediate acquaintance with the hidden essence of a ‘reality’ which is
said to lie behind all ordinary and illusory experience.”
( I see this as more adequately and perhaps more comprehensively
covered by the term ‘Self-fulfillment’, which is the net result of
achieving all three states of ‘feeling’, ‘striving’, and thus
‘knowing’, -- and, in that order. Now self-fulfillment is also the basic
aim and requirement of every existing entity. The standard of ‘Self-
fulfillment’ may, however, be different for each, because each has a
different level of achievement and satisfaction. Each entity has a
unique identity of its own in ‘Nature’s Grand Master Plan’. )
As can be seen this definition excludes any connotation, which even
touches on pseudo-mystic, superstitious, magical, or psychic phenomena
or even on holiness and piety. True mysticism in its essence is a
dimension of consciousness,
( As said earlier, perhaps a dimension not yet fully understood, in
the supposedly rational manner.) seeking
the truth behind the apparent, and experiencing the reality at its core.
Reality as a phenomenon of material manifestation is experienced through
our sensory apparatus; however, it is experienced in a relationship of “I
and Thou” as a manifestation of love. The latter is the realm
of the heart, the former the realm of the mind. In the realm of mind,
the accepted tool to know the manifest reality is the scientific method;
so let us briefly dwell on that.
According to the Gale Encyclopedia of Science, the scientific method
postulates a model consistent with existing experimental observations,
checks its predictions and adjusts or discards the model accordingly.
The corner stone of the scientific method is the collection of
observable and measurable data, which are collected through our senses.
Commenting on the scientific method the philosopher George Berkeley[6]
has observed that each person experiences only the signals of his or her
five senses. An individual can infer that a natural world exists as the
source of a person’s sensations, but he or she can never know the
natural world directly.
The scientific method gave us the Newtonian picture of the mechanistic
world and we lived in that world comfortably until Einstein’s theory of
relativity[7]
brought about a revolution in our understanding of time, space, matter
and energy. Its e = mc2 equation showed us equality or
convertibility of matter into energy and vice versa; and its
mathematical logic revealed the curvature of space and non-linearity of
time. While these percepts were still hard to grasp for many and, as if
it were not enough to wake us up from our slumber, there came the big
bang of quantum physics. Until that time the accepted building block of
the universe was the atom. But then came the new discoveries of particle
physics’ forever increasing number of sub-atomic particles. Today more
than 400 “sub-atomic” particles have been discovered and still the
search for ultimate matter continues. All these particles behave so
strangely that all the earlier theories of physics failed to describe
their behavior. The quantum theory postulated a wave function, which
describes quantum facts in terms of probability of existence called
uncertainty principle of Heisenberg[8].
This has proved to be the only theory of physics that successfully
describes the behavior of sub-atomic particles. At the same time it
postulates that nothing is sure in this world - only probabilities exist
and those probabilities depend upon how they are looked at. There is
talk about quantum nothingness, randomness and inseparability. Let us
listen to some of this talk so that we can feel our brains rattle.
According to Neils Bohr[9],
one of the founders of modern physics, “the conception of the objective
reality of the elementary particles has evaporated in a curious way, not
into the fog of some new, obscure, or not yet understood reality
concept, but into the transparent clarity of a new mathematics.” Von
Neumann[10],
the great mathematician, who developed the quantum theory into an
elegant mathematical structure of Hilbert’s space of many dimensions[11],
grappled with the conceptual difficulties of interpreting the quantum
facts in ordinary language. Neumann concluded that to collapse the
probability wave, something new must be added and that this something
new cannot be a physical process since the entire physical world has
already been postulated as only a wave of probability. Something outside
physics, capable of turning fuzzy quantum probabilities into definite
actualities has to enter into the equation. With reluctance, von Neumann
concluded that the only known entity fit for this task was the
consciousness.
We see that when science zooms into the heart of the matter it is
touching the boundaries of mysticism. Ironically, the above assertion by
Neumann that by itself the physical world is not fully real, but takes
shape only as a result of the acts of numerous centers of consciousness
parallels theologian George Berkeley’s assertion that nothing in this
world is real unless it is being perceived by some mind. I cannot help
but recall Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy”.[12]
(This
same phenomena of reality, and its sensory manifestations, has been so
accurately described by Ghalib in his verse.
Hastee kay mutt faraiab
mein aajaeoo Asad
Alam tamam halqa e daam e khayaal hai
Be not deceived, O Asad, by the dazzle of creation,
All existence is encircled, by the net of imagination. )
Taking inspiration from the above discourse one gets to a relative
quantum notion that, the triad of life, which is, ‘thought’, ‘word’,
and ‘deed’, is to be viewed from an entirely different angle. We see
that these three are closely interlinked and somehow interdependent. As
in the context of E = m C² , where energy and matter are
interchangeable, i.e. two non-materials entities ( Energy and the Speed
of Light) manipulate the material, or the tangible quantity – matter, so
perhaps is the case in THOUGHT, WORD and DEED. i.e. in the context of
the interchangeability of the three. Where, ‘ thought’ may connote the
intangible, ‘word’ the linking agency, akin to the speed of light in the
other case, and the ‘ deed or act’—the tangible or the material
manifestation of the other two. Hence, it may be that the outcome of
the two intangibles leaves a tangible effect in the world of existence –
both this material world, and some other -- the realm of the supra
natural, and so above common experience. Interestingly enough, here I
would like to mention that I am feeling a lack of adequacy in
explaining in writing what I may perhaps be able to explain in talk or a
direct verbal narrative. This is the inherent limitation of ‘material
manifestation of Life’.This inadequacy, similar to our actions in the
material domain of this life, makes us realize its imperfections and
hence the search for the missing element and quest for perfection or
wholeness or completion. Now this experience of mine makes me search
some other form of communication – telepathy or mysticism perhaps— as
has been so aptly described by below by Mr. Mutaal.)
From the times of antiquity it has been recognized by philosophers that
there are two realms of human consciousness. One is the realm of
knowledge, of mind, of reason and of cognition and the other is the
realm of the heart, of love, of intuition. As the great synthesizer of
philosophy Immanuel Kant[13]
said, “Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe,
the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the
starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” These two
dimensions of being human viz., knowing and loving, are beautifully
expressed by the great spiritual thinker Martin Buber[14]
in terms of “I and It” and “I and Thou”. The
world of I and It is the world of utility, of using, of
means and ends. It is a world of measurement and of comparison. The
world of I and Thou is the world of “encounter.” Here in a
direct relationship we encounter the “Other”. The lines of relationships
when extended intersect in the eternal “You.” Modern times are seeing
the dusk of uncertainty of quantum physics descending over the world of
I and It. However, the human spirit is not rendered
handicapped by the inaccessibility of all dimensions of reality by our
normal modes of consciousness. Human spirit transcends - and gets
entangled in the direct embrace with the Reality, in a mystical
“encounter”. In that encounter of love, one is taken to the cross and
one, in a blink of an eye, to the end of seven heavens in the presence
of Divine.
(How so beautifully expressed by the writer !. I just wish to
interject here and point out that, does it not point towards the fact
that ‘thought’ rules and controls ‘All’ (the domains of word and
deed too) ? However, in itself the thought is the outcome of human
existence – a prerequisite for the manifestation of every thing human.
Is it not the ‘charge’ of intense desire, which is an inseparable
outcome of the human manifestation of The Being, an UNCONSCIOUS
DEITY, desirous of Self-Consciousness or Self-fulfillment ? --- For
elaboration please refer to my essay ‘Nature of Nature’, and also the
closing query I put to Ghalib in my introduction to ‘Ghalib – as I
understand him’. )
Echoing words of Evylin Underhill[15],
“why, after all, take as our standard a material world whose existence
is affirmed by nothing more trustworthy than the sense-impressions; the
mystics have always declared their distrust in these channels of
communications They have never been deceived by phenomena, nor by the
careful logic of the industrious intellect. One after another, with
extraordinary unanimity, they have rejected that appeal to the unreal
world of appearance. In their grasp of experience are those spiritual
messages, which are mediated by religion, by beauty, by pain and by
love. More reasonable than the rationalists, they find in that very
hunger for reality that there is something else, some final
satisfaction, beyond the ceaseless stream of sensation, which besieges
our consciousness.”
(
In my opinion ‘The material world’ has to be taken as a
standard for two reasons:
a.
That one’s own manifestation is dependent on matter, which itself
however, may have emerged from ‘thought’ or ‘idea’ – each (material and
non-material) being an interchangeable yet an indispensable part of the
other.
b. The effect of a thing makes its presence felt, and its presence is
what gives it the effect, both are essential and prerequisite,-- each
for the other.)
“In that thou has sought me, thou has already found me, “says the voice
of Absolute Truth in their ears. This is the first doctrine of
mysticism. Its next doctrine is that only in so far as the self is real
can it hope to know the Reality: LIKE TO LIKE. Upon the propositions
implicit in these two laws the whole claim and practice of the mystic
life depends. And implicit in these two doctrines is the fundamental
doctrine of life and of mysticism; the doctrine of love. “
(Again,
if one sees it from a slightly different angle one finds, that since
evolution seems to be inherent in the nature of Nature itself, one
stands to question the above. Just think, that if the ‘Inner /
or the Over-self ’, or THOU, were to be, as per the Qur’an -- “Al
Haiyo al Qayyum”, i.e. Living ,Eternal, Self-subsisting and ever-
Sustaining,-- only then can ‘It’ be Real and
substantiate
the Evolutionary process of It’s own creation. For, were
it not so, evolution would eventually be able to surpass It in
good time.)
To understand mysticism’s doctrine of love it is better to examine and
ponder over the life and events of the great mystics than just
exercising speculative dissertations. Therefore, before ending my paper,
I would like to offer a brief version of Coleman Barks’s story of
Jelaludin Rumi[16],
best-known mystic of Persia from where he fled during raids of the
Mongols and settled in Konya, Turkey.
“Rumi’s life seems to have been a fairly normal one for a religious
scholar – teaching, meditating, helping the poor – until in the late
fall of 1244 when he met a stranger who put a question to him. That
stranger was the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz. Shams has been
praying for someone who could endure his company and a mystical voice
has asked him what he will give in return. “My head”, he had said. So he
was guided to Rumi.
The question Shams spoke made the learned professor faint. Shams had
asked who was greater, Muhammad or Bestami, for Bestami had said, “How
great is my glory,” whereas Muhammad had acknowledged in his prayer to
God, “We do not know You as we should.”
Rumi heard the profundity out of which the question came and fell to the
ground. He was finally able to answer that Muhammad was greater, because
Bestami had taken one gulp of the divine and stopped there, whereas for
Muhammad the way was always unfolding. Various versions of this
encounter exist, but whatever the facts, Shams and Rumi became
inseparable. This mystical connection caused difficulties in the
community. Rumi’s students and family members felt neglected. Sensing
trouble, Shams disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. …it was at
this first disappearance that Rumi began the transformation into a
mystical artist. “He turned into a poet, began to listen to music, and
sang, whirling around, hour after hour.”
Word came that Shams was in Damascus. Rumi sent his son, to bring his
Friend back to Konya. On return, again the long mystical conversation (sohbet)
began, and again the jealousies grew.
On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams
was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Most
likely, he was murdered.
The
mystery of the Friend’s absence pervaded Rumi’s world. He himself went
out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. It was there
that he realized
Why should I seek? I am the same as He.
Through me his essence speaks.
It is my own self, which I seek.
The annihilation (fana) in the Friend became complete. Rumi recited the
poems Shams wrote. Rumi called the huge collection of his odes and
quatrains The Works of Shams of Tabriz”.
We are infinitely humbled, both by the limits of science to know the
nature of ultimate reality, and by the mystics’ great leap right into
the heart of reality. The underlying message coming from the realm of
scientific enquiry is a reflection back from reality itself, a kind of
slap on our clever faces. On the other hand, the realm of mysticism
invites us to contemplate. Only if we could contemplate enough with open
minds and seeking hearts we will find ourselves in the embrace of the
Infinite where all the separation melts away and where with a quantum
leap of faith we will know that it is love, which is the ultimate
reality.
(It
is perhaps no slap on our faces., Instead I see it is a pat on our
backs for taking the enquiry back to the source. For, through science we
endeavour to rationalize the irrational, or to bring to conscious
understanding that which was intuitive or dormant acceptance.
Scientific enquiry is perhaps a human’s own method of questioning,
searching, verifying and then accepting. And, this is what leads us
human’s to Self-fulfillment, or as Mr. Mutaal has so aptly said above,
“ …find ourselves in the embrace …., which is the ultimate reality.)
The essence of mysticism as doctrine of love is most beautifully summed
up in Prophet Mohammad’s saying (Hadith Qudsi) about God.
“I was a hidden treasure and I wished to be known …”
Is that
not the essence of human love too – being a hidden treasure and wishing
to be known?
( How
so very true. Perhaps the essence of all probe is the search of that
hidden
half
which becomes manifest only after Self- Consummation, i.e. when time and
life
is spent with full dedication in a certain direction.
( For a detailed elaboration
please
refer to my essay ‘ A Muslim’s destiny’.)
In
the closing I wish to commend Mr. Mutaal on his very well knit and a
beautifully a concise presentation of such an expanded and diverse
subject. The seminar has been very appropriately titled
‘ Mysteries of Mysticism’)
Zia
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