We change Reality by changing our Perception of it

There is much to be learn about Eternity by living in Time

There is much to be learn about Time by living in Eternity

Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani al Rabbani

“The supreme madness is to see life as it is and not as it should be,

things are only what we want to believe they are ...”

Jacques Brel

“Ideas create idols. Only wonder leads to knowing.”

St. Isaac the Syrian

“Use Everyday as a Gift to sharpen the sword that is your Soul”

Miquel

Real, profound and lasting change for the better […] can no longer be the result of the victory […] of a particular political view. After all, that is ultimately only an external solution; a structural or systematic concept from the outside.

More than ever before, a profound change will have to be derived from human existence itself, from a fundamental reassessment of people’s position in the world, of their relationships to each other and to the universe. If a better economic and political model is to be made, then […] it must be derived from profound existential and moral changes in society. It’s not something that can be designed and introduced as if you were talking about a new car.

If it is about more than just a new variation on old degeneration, it must above all be an expression of life itself, which takes place in the natural process of transformation. A better system will not automatically lead to a better life. In fact, the opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be developed.

Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 1985

History is a mirror of the past and a lesson for the present.

A Persian proverb

Taking History as A Mirror to Be Future-ready

Yesterday is a history; tomorrow is a mystery; but today is a gift; that is why we call it the present.

The instructive line advocates a positive attitude towards life — living in the present. And people today also tend to focus on the present and plan for the future. History, however, is the record of the past. Some people may ask, “Given all the demands from the present and the future that people have to worry about, why bother with what has been? Why not just leave the past in the past? Does history have any value for people living in the present? ” However, we cannot isolate the present from the past. The past causes the present and influences the future. It’s undeniable to admit the value of history. We can take history as a mirror, learning something useful from it to prosper our country and cultivate ourselves to be a better person.
Tang Taizong, an emperor in Tang Dynasty, once said, “One can know the alteration of the society by viewing its history.” That is to say, the history can reflect the reasons for a country’s prosperity or depression. And history is never short of stories to demonstrate this point.

With post-industrialism in the latter part of the 20th century the world moved toward a
constant change gradient and as a result we entered a state of continuous transition. Now we are entering what I believe to be another state, one in which the gradient of change, largely due to information technology, is shifting from horizontal / linear to one that is exponential. The changes we are now facing and will continue to face much more ferociously are of such magnitude that survival will depend on the ability of people to work through the effects at the deepest levels of their personalities.
Whether we have the resilience to cope with these changes is, itself, a source of anxiety.
There is certainly ample evidence for concern about the degree of social fragmentation.
There is abundant evidence that our reliable containers, which have been vital to human development, are dissolving: familiar family structures, community, social institutions, stable groups and organizations, accepted norms, etc.

Without transformative containers, the cycle of projection and introjection that allows us to stay in contact with the reality of others can no longer do its integrative work. Psychotic anxieties and primitive rages and yearnings are unmediated and unmodified by containers that can no longer help to transform them into tolerable experience or reparative impulse. Deterioration in their containing functions releases frightening aggression and disorientation which, in turn, elicits primitive defenses that foster hostile projection or alienated withdrawal.

Perhaps we are not resilient enough, psychologically and sociologically, to cope with the enormous ambivalence and anxiety accompanying these changes, dooming us to live in the polarized, rigid world of fundamentalism, moralism, political correctness and denigration that seems to increasingly define our public spaces. Such dynamics can readily evoke an “apocalyptic-trajectory-in-the-mind”: the idea that unleashed hostility and aggression mixed with dissassociative technological advances will lead us toward massive destruction.

Does a technology that creates the illusion of actual, immediate proximity in time and space distort how we relate to others and to ourselves? Could it impact upon our ability to tolerate the necessary frustrations of reality? Does being able to “know” things instantaneously, instead of having to tolerate the discomfort of not knowing, impair the development of thinking? Does this perhaps constitute a breakdown of the authority of reality, resulting in less repression, diminished ability to cope with reality and reduced sublimation?

Are we moving towards a world without truth?

Due to the rise of social media, information bubbles and the possibilities of Deepfakes, we no longer live in a shared reality. How further? We live in an “infocalypse,” says British disinformation expert Nina Schick. In her book Deepfakes and the Infocalypse – What You Urgently Need to Know, she sketches a society that is overrun by too much information, whereby no distinction can be made between ‘information’ and ‘disinformation’.

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a series of three fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between February 1338 and May 1339. The paintings are located in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico—specifically in the Sala dei Nove (“Salon of Nine”), the council hall of the Republic of Siena’s nine executive magistrates,^[2] elected officials who performed executive functions (and judicial ones in secular matters). The paintings have been construed as being “designed to remind the Nine [magistrates] of just how much was at stake as they made their decisions”

The “Allegory of Good and Bad Government” is a series of fresco paintings executed by Ambrogio Lorenzetti which are located in the Salon of Nine (or Council Room) in the Town Hall (Palazzo Pubblico) of the city of Siena. This famous cycle of pre-Renaissance painting is made up of six different scenes: Allegory of Good Government; Allegory of Bad Government; Effects of Bad Government in the City; Effects of Good Government in the City; Effects of Bad Government in the Country; and Effects of Good Government in the Country. Commissioned by the Council of Nine (the city council) and designed as a sort of political warning, aimed at members of the Council (drawn from Siena’s ruling families), to reduce corruption and misrule, these mural paintings offer a pictorial contrast between the peace and prosperity of honest rule, versus the decay and ruin caused by tyranny. Read more here

Modern man is ignorant about his own ignorance

The shifting from horizontal/linear information/knowledge to one that is exponential push us far away of the tradional knowledge or Wisdom which has a vertical principle.

Folly ’s ‘keep your mouth shut’, Anno 2020

Based on economic growth, financial hegemony of the “happy few”” and abuse or rape of cheapest labor workers in Low-cost country or homeland, the democracy of Modern man shall never succeed to recover his soul with fake “sincere political change” or with fake “concern”.

Folly ’s ‘keep your mouth shut’ about all the abuses of the systems and is silent about Ethics, Virtues and uprightness… Silence about spiritual grow, honesty and respect of differents communities…

Prophets of doom now abound and “green parties” have mushroomed everywhere. The moving force for those movements remains, however, by and large purely external. For a humanity turned towards outwardness by the very processes of modernization, it is not so easy to see that the blight wrought upon the environment is in reality an externalization of the destitution of the inner state of the soul of that humanity whose actions are responsible for the ecological crisis.

Many claim, for example, that if we could only change our means of transportation and diminish the use of fossil fuels as a source of energy, the problem would be solved or at least ameliorated. Few ask, however, why it is that modern man feels the need to travel so much?

The wisdom of the 21th century or the Foffy of our times say: ‘keep your mouth shut’,

But can we ask Why?

Ship of Fools

-Why is the domicile of much of humanity so ugly and life so boring that the type of man most responsible for the environmental crisis has to escape the areas he has helped to vilify and take his pollution with him to the few still well-preserved areas of the earth in order to continue to function?

-Why must modern man consume so much and satiate his so-called needs only outwardly? Read Praise of Folly by Erasmus – Anno 2020

The principle of verticality

The principle of verticality, which is a fundamental principle of traditional wisdom, is based on the affirmation of transcendence as an aspect of a comprehensive and integrated reality that is Absolute.

According to this understanding, reality has both a transcendent Origin and an immanent Center, which are one, rather than being reduced to the merely horizontal dimension of its existential or quantitative elements.

Verticality implies both Heaven and Earth, a worldview in which meaning and purpose are defined principally by both height and depth,and secondarily by breadth – that is, principally by man’s relationship to God, who is simultaneously ‘above’ and ‘within’ creation, and who there-fore governs all creaturely relationships – rather than by breadth alone –that is, solely in terms of the relationship between the subject and the world.

It also implies that the horizontal is subordinate to the vertical,that is to say, the relationship between man and the world is premised on the primary relationship between God and man: to restate this in Christian terms, the love of one’s neighbor is premised on one’s love for God. According to the traditional worldview, existence is transcended by a supreme reality, which, whether expressed in theistic or non-theisticterms, is Absolute, and which, without derogating from its unity, is si-multaneously (at the level of the primary hypostasis) expressed by the horizontal ternary, Truth or the Solely Subsistent Reality, Goodness or the Perfection and Font of all Qualities, and Beauty or Abiding Serenity and the Source of its Radiant Effulgence: in Platonic terms, the True, the Good and the Beautiful.

All creation is prefigured in this supreme reality,which projects existence out of its own Substance into a world of form (hence etymologically, ex-stare, to stand out of, or to subsist from, as the formal world of existence stands out of, and subsists from, the Divine Substance) through a vertical ternary comprising, first, the Essential or Principial Absolute (which is Beyond-Being), second, the Relative-Absolute Source of Archetypes (which is the primary hypostasis of Being), and third, the realm of Manifestation (which is Existence).

The world itself,and its creatures, including man, as such, are therefore of derivative significance and are accidental in relation to the supreme reality, which alone is substantial. The world is transient, ephemeral and illusory.

The Divine Substance alone is permanent and real. This view of the transcendent, supreme and substantial reality of the Absolute (which, according to the principle of verticality, is described in terms of its elevation orperfection in relation to creation) finds its expression in all religious traditions

The sufi master Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani al Rabbani says: We change Reality by changing our Perception of it.There is much to be learn about Eternity by living in Time and There is much to be learn about Time by living in Eternity

So it is time to look at eternity:

What is time and pre-eternity?

We change Reality By changing our perception of it

There is much to be learn about Eternity by living in Time

There is much to be learn about time by living in Eternerty

What is our Destiny:

Tthe sacred Tradition as Sufism an Islam explains the most important cause for misunderstanding the issue of qadar (destiny) is confusion about the concepts of “time” and “pre-eternity” and misinterpreting them.

People live in time and place and so they evaluate every event according to time and they make a mistake by assuming “pre-eternity” as the beginning of “time”. Misunderstanding qadar is the result of this wrong comparison.

Time is an abstract concept. It starts with the creation of the universe and many events happen in it. Time is divided into three parts: Past, present and future. This division is for creatures. Namely, the concepts such as century, year, month, day, yesterday, today, tomorrow are in question for creatures.

Pre-eternity does not mean before the beginning of the time. In pre-eternity, there is no past, present and future. Pre-eternity is a station where all times are seen and known at the same moment. Now, we will try to understand God’s attribute of pre-eternity through some examples from Sufism and Islam:

Suppose that this picture is our timeline. The middle is the present, that is, now; the left side is the past and the right side is the future. Now, we are holding a mirror on the time scheme. The mirror is close to the floor; so, only the present time is reflected on the mirror. The past and the future are not included. Now, we will lift the mirror a bit and in this position, the present time and a part of the past and the future are reflected on the mirror. When we lift the mirror a little more, the remaining part of the past and the future that are not seen in the previous position are also reflected on the mirror. That is, as we lift the mirror, the time period which appears on the mirror expands. Now, we will lift the mirror to the highest point.

At this point, the mirror encompasses the present, past and future as a whole. This point is called the point of pre-eternity, which sees all of the three times as a whole at the same moment. When we say, “Allah is pre-eternal”, we mean that Allah sees and knows all times and places at the same moment and that He is timeless.

A Disclosure of Wisdom

An apocalypse (Ancient Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apocálypsis, from ἀπό and καλύπτω meaning ‘un-covering‘), translated literally from Greek, is a disclosure of knowledge, i.e., a lifting of the veil or revelation, although this sense did not enter English until the 14th century. In religious contexts it is usually a disclosure of something hidden. In the Book of Revelation (Greek Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰωάννου, Apocalypsis Ioannou), the last book of the New Testament, the revelation which John receives is that of the ultimate victory of good over evil and the end of the present age. Today, it is commonly used in reference to any prophetic revelation or so-called End Time scenario, or to the end of the world in general.

An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, “manifestation, striking appearance”) is an experience of sudden and striking realization. Generally the term is used to describe scientific breakthrough, religious or philosophical discoveries, but it can apply in any situation in which an enlightening realization allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective.

Maieutic concepts historically have their origin in Plato’s dialogues of Socrates. In The Symposium, Socrates repeats the words of the priestess or wise woman Diotima of Mantinea who suggested that the soul is pregnant and wants to give birth, but the delivery requires assistance. Thus according to Plato, the role of the philosopher is to assist in this delivery, as would a midwife. From this dialogue comes the word “maieutics”, the “spiritual midwife.” to give birth to wisdom.

In Theaetetus, Socrates is presented as a “spiritual midwife” and in Meno, by posing questions to a slave who never learned geometry, Socrates leads him to “remember” how a square is doubled.

The human crisis of our time is immense. To meet this crisis, we need real thinkers and doers. We need people who are able to be persistent in asking good questions and willing to do the work needed to follow through, with great persistence, in seeking answers.

We do not want everyone to merely be robots who only know how to memorize and regurgitate the popular talk of the day. We cannot afford to have millions of citizens who are too uninspired, unable or unaware to continue working persistently for the sake of their own understanding. We need to cultivate sapient beings capable of leading their lives with excellent and original thoughtfulness.

Based on the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” by Joachim Patinir

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a subject in Christian art showing Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus resting during their flight into Egypt. The Holy Family is normally shown in a landscape.

The subject did not develop until the second half of the fourteenth century, though it was an “obvious step” from depictions of the “legend of the palm tree” where they pause to eat dates and rest; palm trees are often included.^[2] It was a further elaboration of the long-standing traditions of incidents that embellished the story of the Flight into Egypt, which the New Testament merely says happened, without giving any details.

Joachim Patinir is generally recognized as the founder of the Flemish school of landscape painting that flourished in the sixteenth century.

Reindert Falkenburg’s important new book, a translation of his doctoral dissertation landscape as an Image of the Pilgrimage of Life completed in 1985 for the University of Amsterdam. Falkenburg decisively rejects the prevailing view of Patinir’s landscapes; it is, he says, an anachronism, a projection of essentially modern secular attitudes onto the past. Falkenburg claims that these paintings were not only deeply rooted in the religious thought of Patinir’s day, but in fact ‘are directly related to late medieval devotional art‘ .

Rest on the Flight into Egypt ‘can be regarded as visual aids for meditation on the pilgrimage of life’

There are no immediate precedents for this subject in fifteenth-century art. Rather it developed out of earlier ,Andachtshilder, or devotional images, such as the Madonna of Humility, or the Madonna and Child in a hortus conclusus, an enclosed garden whose many plants svmbolize the virtues of the Madonna and the future Passion of Christ.

lt is the tradition of the hortus conclusus, furthermore. that accounts for the complex program of botanical symbols as the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life.

Patinir, however, enriches the original iconic image of the Madonna and Child with subsidiarv scenes of the Massacre of the Innocents, the Miracle of the Wheatfields, and the Fall of the Idols near Heliopolis. see Landscape of the soul, as an Image of the Pilgrimage of Life and Migration to the Spiritual Land of Peace

To Become a “Refugee”: Emigration to Sincerity or “uprightness” of Love

To Become a “Refugee” means to make a migration to Sincerity or to the“uprightness” of Love.

What the Emigration to Sincerity demands of us

Goethe and his poem “Hegir” : Hijra

When one speaks of the Hijra one is not merely speaking of a journey from Mecca to Medina, or the starting point of a calendar; but one is also speaking of a new start for humanity. And Johann Wolfgang von Goethe make his Hijra, his emigration and take refuge in Islam. He became a “Refugee”.

The Hijra is symbolic of changing those conditions that cause problems and that clash with ideals and beliefs, as well as the search for new opportunities. Read more here: Goethe, the “refugee” and his Message for our times

Emigration: Historical Hijra

Starting from a narrow family-tribal environment Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) underwent 13 years of hardship and torment in Meccan society; with the immigration (Hijra) to Medina, a new stage began. This stage, if one takes into consideration the time that it took all religions to spread, is the starting point of one of the fastest religious developments in recorded history. In this sense, when one speaks of the Hijra one is not merely speaking of a journey from Mecca to Medina, or the starting point of a calendar; one is speaking of a new start for humanity.

The Hijra is symbolic of changing those conditions that cause problems and that clash with ideals and beliefs, as well as the search for new opportunities.

The Hijra, as is expressed in a variety of verses, was extrication from a difficult and stressful situation with the aim to widen the belief and the ideals, and a search for new possibilities and new places. From this aspect, the Hijra is not something that was realized as part of a certain process or a completed historical event in the life of Muslims. The Hijra is symbolic of changing those conditions that cause problems and that clash with ideals and beliefs, as well as the search for new opportunities. Thus, the Hijra, which includes certain preconditions, is a moral duty and responsibility for every individual.

Prophet Muhammad placed the Hijra in the minds and hearts of the Islamic community with a hadith (Prophetic tradition) that expresses two basic interconnected matters.

The first is a general principle which, in particular, is considered to be one of the reference points in the evaluation of laws for Islamic jurists. This principle is connected to intentions in behavioral values, as it is the intention that gives behavior direction. As we know the Hijrawas the first and most important social movement of the young Islamic society.

Migration

As is to be expected with all social movements, it is only natural that there were people who had different intentions when participating in the emigration led by Prophet Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad drew attention to this situation and stated that those who performed the same action received different responses, each according to their intention. The matter expressed in the hadiths is concerned with a Meccan Muslim who had joined the emigration and come to Medina to marry the woman he loved. The ruling that Prophet Muhammad gave concerning this person can be considered to be a universal principle compulsory for all Muslims to take into account when performing an action. Read more here

La Primavera – Botticelli: The Eternal Spring and a message for our times

In their search for a basis for reconciliation of the major religions with the religions of the ancients, the Medici Platonic Academy explored Gnosticism and Hermeticism, which they believed had passed down from this fertile epoch. Outwardly, reconciliation would appear impossible; however, it was argued that, if the nature of the gods were understood in the Orphic Platonist’s sense, and the Mosaic law in the sense of the Hebrew Kaballah, and the Christian grace in its interpretation by Paul to Dionysius, then they differed not in substance, only in name.*

From Egypt had emerged the concept of the Logos or Light, the sun as agent of the Way and the Truth, the spirtual nature which could rise out of and separate itself from the sensual, instinctual animal nature. Man encapsulates within his higher nature a profound reality, the answer to his own quest, closing the circle by both posing and answering the perennial question.

Realising this god within through contemplation is a rebirth, a resurrection through discovery of the spiritual treasure in the profound depths of the mind.

Experiencing this was seen as a paradise by Lorenzo and as a garden of perpetual spring by Poliziano. This was the ‘pure gold’ of early religious belief sought by the Academy.

The Egyptian sage Hermes-Mercurius’s recovered works were seen as validating the doctrines of Plato which they were translating from the Greek at the time.

For the Medici-Ficino circle, the idea of ‘oneness’ was supported by the capacity of all to achieve a deep inner tranquility (ataraxia) and fulfilment.

The idea that, by mastering the ego and the senses, one discovers who one is, was shared by many cultures, suggesting a single primal source.

Many such concepts, perceived as Christian (such as the virgin birth, father and son as deity, resurrection and the last judgment) had earlier pagan manifestations. This supported the belief in a common unity and therefore the need for a single harmonised religion. ( The Mysteries or `Mystery religions’ from the Orient, based on the Hermetic Perermial Philosophy, met a need which the established state religions, more concerned with celebrations and the state, did not satisfy. These cults employed allegorical drama to explain rebirth and reach their objective, a transcendant state or palingenesia. Down the ages, access to the higher Mysteries and their brotherhoods was restricted to initiates. They eschewed the deception of the senses and demands of the ego associated with the body and the unenlightened mind.

From Purgatory to the Primavera: Some Observations on Botticelli and Dante

Quelli ch’anticamente poetaro
I’eta de I’oro e suo stato felice,
forse in Parnaso esto loco sognaro.
Qui fu innocente I’umana radice;
qui primavera sempre e ogne frutto;
nettare e questa di che ciascun dice.
(They who in olden times sang of the Age of Gold and its
happy state perhaps in Parnassus dreamed of this place. Here
the root of mankind was innocent; here is always spring, and
every fruit; this is the nectar of which each tells) (Purg. xxviii,
1 39-1 44).

Botticelli’s “Primavera” has been studied by more eminent art historians than perhaps any other work of Renaissance art. The chronicle of these readings would make for a representative anthology of 20th-century art historical methodologies, and yet no consensus about the painting’s “meaning” has emerged. In this article, the “Primavera” is discussed in the context of what we know and what we can surmise about the artist’s own literary and intellectual culture and especially his lifelong engagement with Dante’s “Divina Commedia”. The painting is studied as an attempt on the artist’s part to translate into his own medium the thematics surrounding Dante’s Earthly Paradise episode at the end of the Purgatorio. These thematics are explored in the context of Cristoforo Landino’s 1481 commentary on Dante, with which Botticelli, who devoted many years to illustrating Landino’s edition, was intimately familiar. Landino saw in Dante’s Earthy Paradise episode an allegory of the soul’s moral and spiritual pilgrimage from the vita voluptuosa through the vita activa to the vita contemplativa, a passage occurring, like Dante’s pilgrimage as a whole, under the influence of Celestial Venus. The “Primavera” is discussed as a visual variation on the same theme, presented all’antica in a manner that resonates with Dante’s classical allusions, especially as interpreted by Landino. In addition to reflecting Botticelli’s own artistic and intellectual interests and aspirations, as well as those of his presumed patron, the “Primavera” echoes still with a rivalry that brought Botticelli into competition with such other close students of Dante as Leonardo and Michelangelo. This paragone awaits further study. Read more here

Educating Desire: Conversion and Ascent in Dante’s Purgatorio

by Paul A. Camacho

In Cantos 17 and 18 of the Purgatorio, Dante’s Virgil lays out a theory of sin, freedom, and moral motivation based on a philosophical anthropology of loving-desire. As the commentary tradition has long recognized, because Dante placed Virgil’s discourse on love at the heart of the Commedia, the poet invites his readers to use love as a hermeneutic key to the text as a whole. When we contextualize Virgil’s discourse within the broader intention of the poem—to move its readers from disordered love to an ordered love of ultimate things—then we ﬁnd in these central cantos not just a key to the structure and movement of the poem ,but also a key to understanding Dante’s pedagogical aim. With his Commedia, Dante invites us to perform the interior transformation which the poem dramatizes in verse and symbol. He does so by awakening in his readers not only a desire for the beauty of his poetic creation, but also a desire for the beauty of the love described therein. In this way, the poem presents a pedagogy of love, in which the reader participates in the very experience of desire and delight enacted in the text. In this article, I oﬀer an analysis of Virgil’s discourse on love in the Purgatorio, arguing for an explicit and necessary connection between loving-desire and true education. I demonstrate that what informs Dante’s pedagogy of love is the notion of love as ascent, a notion we ﬁnd articulated especially in the Christian Platonism of Augustine. Finally, I conclude by oﬀering a number of ﬁgures, passages, and themes from across the Commedia that provide fruitful material for teachers engaged in the task of educating desire. Read more here

“I Felt My Heart Awaken” – Vita Nova – The new Life

In chapter XXIV Of the Vita Nova , “I Felt My Heart Awaken” (“Io mi senti’ svegliar dentro a lo core”, also translated as “I Felt a Loving Spirit Suddenly”), Dante recounts a meeting with Love, who asks the poet to do his best to honour her.

Io mi senti’ svegliar dentro a lo core
Un spirito amoroso che dormia:
E poi vidi venir da lungi Amore
Allegro sì, che appena il conoscia,

Dicendo: “Or pensa pur di farmi onore”;
E ’n ciascuna parola sua ridia.
E poco stando meco il mio segnore,
Guardando in quella parte onde venia,

Io vidi monna Vanna e monna Bice
Venire inver lo loco là ‘v’io era,
L’una appresso de l’altra miriviglia;

E sì come la mente mi ridice,
Amor mi disse: “Quell’è Primavera,
E quell’ha nome Amor, sì mi somiglia.”

I felt awoken in my heart
a loving spirit that was sleeping;
and then I saw Love coming from far away
so glad, I could just recognize.

saying “you think you can honor me”,
and with each word laughing.
And little being with me my lord,
watching the way it came from,

I saw lady Joan and lady Bice
coming towards the spot I was at,
one wonder past another wonder.

And as my mind keeps telling me,
Love said to me “She is Spring who springs first, and that bears the name Love, who resembles me.”

The Vita nova’s basic storyline is actually quite simple. The narrator tells us that he fell in love when he was nine years old with a girl who was about a year younger than he and who was named Beatrice. His falling in love with her is so powerful that it leaves an indelible mark on his soul, a perception that is reinforced when she greets him in passing nine years later. Because of her, the personification of love—that same “Lord Love” all the love poets of the time wrote about—comes to dwell in his heart. It is not a peaceful residence. The protagonist’s feelings of love are so intense and private that he (following the conventions of his time) pretends to others that his love, which he cannot hide, is actually directed toward another woman besides Beatrice. When this woman moves out of the city, leaving the protagonist without his cover, he invents another “screen-woman.” Beatrice catches wind of malicious gossip regarding her admirer’s alleged unsavory comportment in relation to this second screen-woman, and consequently shuns him. She has no awareness of the effect this has on him. Eventually he finds peace for his unrequited love by resolving to praise her in his poetry independently of her responses to him. Read here

EARTHLY PARADISE : Dante’s Initiatory Rite of Passage by Daniela Boccassini

Thanks to the experiential work he had done on himself in the years spanning the First World War, Jung had come to understand that the way to wholeness, to individuation – if any – demands at the outset a grueling descensus ad inferos, which entails «the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness» (CW13: §335). I do not need to dwell on how graphically Dante describes this very process in the Commedia: from his descent through Hell, where the souls engulfed in darkness are the unconscious manifestations of their own and humanity’s gigantic shadow, to his ascent of Purgatory, where Dante as a living being retains his shadow, while the souls, who have lost theirs, are engaged in the process of uncovering the hidden identity of their translucent celestial nature, which fully manifests as spirit in Paradise…

….The procession accompanying Beatrice captures Dante’s attention for the whole of canto 29, and the figurative events involving the chariot and the Tree unfold in canto 32. In between, through cantos 30 and 31, all of Dante’s reasonable expectations of a happy reunion with his Beloved are not merely challenged but ruthlessly thwarted. Instead of praising him for successfully carrying out his unparalleled journey into the Garden of Eden, Beatrice sternly forces Dante to confront the unacknowledged gloom that the shadow of his human persona still casts into the paradisal «chiaro fonte» (Pg 30.76). In this way and through interrogation, Dante is skillfully challenged to disown that side of himself which had failed to follow Beatrice beyond Persephone’s threshold, causing him to remain ensnared in the alluring, yet deadly, web of «imagini di ben false» that enwraps mortal life.

Only by dying to that fallacious, ego-centered and ego-driven worldview will Dante gain access to the paradoxical Apollonian dualitude of the griffin, thus entering into a true hieros gamos with his immortal Beloved, as Beatrice intimates by intently gazing at «la fiera | ch’è sola una persona in due nature» (Pg 31.80-81). It is this kind of radical ‘ri-conoscenza’, this endured apprehension of his mortal shadow as beguilement, that finally allows Dante to die-before-dying, so that the purifying ritual of immersion in the waters of the river Lethe, presided over by Matelda, can effectively take place. Yet this is not enough for Dante to move on, as the events outlined in the last two cantos openly show: if in Christianity the ritual of baptism symbolizes death and rebirth at once, here we are told beyond the shade of a doubt that Dante’s immersion in the waters of Lethe seals his death to what might be called his ego-consciousness, but leaves his rebirth into higher consciousness, literally, hanging. For that rebirth to occur, Dante needs to tap the potentialities offered by a different state of being, and only once this has occurred, will a second baptismal ritual be performed, in the waters of another river….. Read the complete paper EARTHLY PARADISE : Dante’s Initiatory Rite of Passage by Daniela Boccassini

Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity

There is good reason to believe that there is a tropological dimension to the
painting. The known Savonarolan sources on which the Mystic Nativity draws are all
moral in intent, and the painting exhorts us to worship the Child truly and become
reconciled with our brothers. Unlike most Italian pictures of the time, it is clearly
structured into groups of significant numbers and combinations of white, green,
and red. Significant numbers were the almost irresistable cue for late-medieval theologians to list a set of moral precepts, and Savonarola was no exception to this
rule. White, green, and red usually symbolise Faith, Hope, and Charity respectively.

That perhaps is what they do in Botticelli’s painting also. But caution is necessary.
For Savonarola Faith may be green and Hope sky blue,’ whereas white, green, and
red may stand for any number of other things.
To conclude, I shall propose three possible interpretations of the painting, taking them in ascending order of probability, before ending with an observation about its theme.

Firstly, the Mystic Nativity might be, along with the Mystic Crucifixion in the Fogg
Art Museum , a picture intended for the boys in the group of Bernardino
dei Fanciulli or another Savonarolan association like it. This is suggested by the
highly ‘naive’ syntax of both paintings, the great stress on angels, and the fact that
in both paintings the symbols of evil-five small and apparently self-destructed
demons in the case of the Mystic Nativity and two small and seemingly unferocious
animals in that of the Mystic Crucifixion-do not appear to be intended as frightening. As a further slight but perhaps relevant indication, in the only volume of the ‘collected works’ of Bernardino dei Fanciulli, there are just two illustrations, one showing the Nativity and the other the Crucifixion. Against the possibility that these two pictures were intended for children is of course the presence of the Greek inscription to the Mystic Nativity. But as we have seen, that inscription might have been added later; if so, perhaps it was added with the purpose of ‘redefining’ the painting. In this connection we should note that Bernardino and his group were forced into exile in 1500-and according to the inscription it was ‘at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy’ that the Mystic Nativity was painted.
Secondly, the painting might be a cryptic representation of the Millennium-or rather those features of it in which Botticelli believed and which he thought to be in harmony with the predictions that Savonarola had made. During such a Millennium those Florentines who truly believed would reign with Christ their king. As we have seen, the Millennium begins with the binding of Satan. Accepted Catholic doctrine holds that it therefore begins, figuratively, with the birth of Christ. It is even possible that the word ‘time’ in the painting’s Greek inscription means ‘millennium’, as in Francesco da Meleto’s interpretation. The mortals being embraced by angels and led by them to the manger would be the martyrs and saints who live again through the First Resurrection -or whomever else it was that Botticelli might have thought these Apocalyptic persons stood for. Their crowns of olive would be the crowns of martyrdom or righteousness. It at first strikes one as unlikely that Botticelli would have shown the Millennium in an age in which it was rarely mentioned. But of those persons who believed in the Millennium at the time, how many actually ventured to say so in print? If the Mystic Nativity does represent the Millennium in any real sense, firstly, the painting is in this respect unique as far as we know; secondly, it is thoroughly heretical. We recall that-if for the wrong reasons-Vasari believed Botticelli to have been a heretic.

The third possible interpretation is that the painting is a figuration of an ‘Apocalyptic’ birth of Christ, in which allusions to the reconciliation of the heavenly virtues with one another and with mankind, the ‘crown’ of Mary, and the Millennium (or the casting out of Satan) are elements of a complex and yet ‘simple’ allegory of the future in which Botticelli believed.

That future would, through the intercession of Mary, see the ‘birth’ of Christ in the hearts of the Florentines. Through the mercy of divine Grace, the Florentines would be filled with charity and love towards one another and be reconciled with the angels and their God.‘

There would thus come to pass that peace and goodness which the devil cannot abide and which would cause his downfall: ‘Now is come the power of Christ on earth; the dragon has lost’.
Whatever it is that the Mystic Nativity shows, the chances are that it took great
courage for Botticelli to paint it.

Where heaven shall touch earth

The overriding theme of the Mystic Nativity, because of the large number of olive branches in it, appears to be peace. But we should do well to remember that in
Botticelli’s time the olive was usually a symbol of peace and mercy.

In Savonarola’s ‘1493’ Christmas sermon it is Mercy, not Peace, who holds a branch of olive. Moreover, wreaths of olive conveying thoughts of mercy and repentance had recently come into use in one of Florence’s most important public rituals, the offering of little torches by pardoned offenders at the city’s Baptistry. These persons had formerly
been led to the Baptistry in chains, but from 1493 at the latest each is described as
being led, ‘in the usual way, his head uncovered, with a crown [or garland] of olive,
with a little torch in his hands… preceded by trumpets’.

Now, one of the conditions for receiving pardon at the time was that an offender make ‘peace’ with the offended party. Perhaps onlookers remembered this as the olive-wreathed offenders were marched past them. But surely what was uppermost in their thoughts was that these transgressors had come to repent what they had done and were now receiving mercy. Indeed, what Botticelli and many others who lived during his age probably hoped for more than anything else but also in our times , was Peace and Mercy.

The overriding theme of the Mystic Nativity, because of the large number of olive branches in it, appears to be peace. But we should do well to remember that in Botticelli’s time the olive was usually a symbol of Peace and mercy. Read more here: Mystical Nativity for our Times

Christmas Mythology: Myth, Our Self, and the Divine Child

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus the Divine Child. The Divine Child is an archetypal figure in myth and psychology, for good reason. If we tend to him properly, he can help integrate our psyches and enhance our spirituality. The Christmas holiday prompts us to do so. There is no better Christmas gift to ourselves.

From the mythological, psychological, and spiritual perspectives, the birth, life, and teachings of Jesus together with his suffering and resurrection can be understood as representing the integration of our total psyche (the “Self”, capitalized), specifically the integration of the unconscious part of our psyche with the conscious part (the “self,” not capitalized) (Jung 1969a, pp. 36-71).

Carl Jung called this integration process “individuation,” which results in a person reaching a higher level of consciousness and self-awareness, and being more advanced spiritually.

As a symbol of the Self, Christ represents both the dynamic process of individuation as well as the result, the more integrated Self. This endeavor can be considered “religious” in nature because at the deepest level of our collective (transpersonal) unconscious lies an archetype of unity and totality that Jung calls the “God-image,” which is the deepest source of our numinous experiences of “divinity,” and the integration process draws upon it (see Edinger 1996a).

Numinous experiences have a lasting emotional impact on us and drive much of our thinking and behavior, including in the individuation process. This happens in everyone, atheists included, and it is the realm that mystics from various religious and non-religious traditions access during their sacred experiences, including in some forms of meditation.

The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation

In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story begins when Mary becomes pregnant, known as the incarnation. In these Gospels, Jesus was both human and divine at his creation in the womb. In both accounts, this happened through the action of the Holy Spirit. Thus, in order to understand the incarnation (and so too the Christmas event) from a mytho-psychological perspective, we first must understand the Holy Spirit from that perspective.

The Holy Spirit is a creative divine force or energy that acts as a mediating agent between God and the cosmos, especially humans. In the New Testament, Jesus is both conceived and baptized through the Holy Spirit. He performs his miracles through it (e.g., Mt 12:28; Lk 11:20; Acts 10:38), and confers it upon his disciples when commissioning them to preach and perform healings (Mt 10:1, 20; 28:16-20; Lk 9:1-2). It descends upon the disciples at Pentecost, which enables them to proclaim the gospel, including in many foreign tongues (Acts 2:1-13). St. Paul spread the gospel through it, and he said that it dwells within Christians, who can then live as Christs (e.g., Rom 8:9-11). The Spirit was intended to have a continuing effect and provide ongoing guidance, in the form of the Paraclete (Jn 14:16-17, 26) (Jung 1969a, pp. 88-89). The Spirit has a deifying effect, which is noticeable to others. This was exemplified when Paul and Barnabas, who carried the Spirit, were mistaken for gods (Zeus and Hermes). Those who saw them remarked, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men” (Acts 14:11).

In psychological terms, the Holy Spirit is the psychic energy (libido) that brings “divine” archetypal unconscious content into consciousness. Technically it is not the substantive unconscious content itself, but is the carrier of varied contents from various archetypes; yet the contents and the psychic energy hit consciousness together, so the two are inseparable and “operationally they are synonymous” . It is literally felt somatically, in the body, indeed an incarnation.

The result is an overwhelming numinous emotional experience. When this content and spirit incarnate, they take on a personally meaningful quality that psychologists call “soul.” Soul has a lasting effect on ego consciousness and also grows over time as new content is integrated, which is why the Christian myth can speak of the Paraclete. On the other hand, to the extent a person fails to integrate archetypal unconscious content, he or she is said to suffer a loss (or lack) of soul. This is characterized by a lack of energy and motivation, listlessness, and often some degree of depression, because one’s ego consciousness has no inspiration or inner guide.

More technically, these archetypal contents and spirit form the core of complexes that structure our personality . This means that what we know as the “divine” forms the structure of our minds, and hence also the character of what we think of as the external world. In particular, when an archetype is felt strongly, to ego consciousness it feels like something “other,” as if it is from the external world, when actually it is external only to ego consciousness.

Hence the appearance of external divine beings, including the God-man. When we perceive the “Holy Spirit” as something external affecting someone else, we are projecting this psychic energy onto heroic figures (Jesus, Paul), often using solar imagery. Idealized people are seen as the carriers (or even the source) of spirit, and of divinity itself . This gets us to the Divine Child figure, to be considered shortly below.

Nativity scenes typically show signs of the presence of divinity (halos, angels, the star and light from it). The magi represent the recognition and acceptance of the Divine Child; so do the angels, from the heavenly perspective.

The donkey and ox are humble animals who serve people, and so represent the humbleness of the ego needed in order to accept the Divine Child and achieve integration. Lambs and oxes are also sacrificial animals, so Christ was considered a sacrificial lamb. The ego must sacrifice part of itself to achieve integration.

While in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels Christ’s incarnation was literalized as a one-time historical event, mythologically and psychologically the implication is that incarnation can occur in any and all of us.

St. Paul’s teachings come close to this. Further, we see other versions of such incarnation in various mythic and religious traditions, which suggests that the process of incarnation of the “divine” is an archetypal psychic process.

Thus, in ancient Egypt the king was the god Horus born to a mortal woman, and in India Vishnu incarnated at times of need, while a Bodhisattva incarnates in order to liberate humanity .

The archetypal nature of the Christ story is also evidenced by Christianity’s spread and acceptance in the many cultures of the Mediterranean. As Jung put it, “Christ would never have made the impression he did on his followers if he had not expressed something that was alive and at work in their unconscious. Christianity itself would never have spread through the pagan world with such astonishing rapidity had its ideas not found an analogous psychic readiness to receive them” . As a result, Christians were able to live more spiritually integrated lives.

More specifically from the mythological standpoint, the incarnation of Jesus was considered a kind of second creation.

The first creation marked the emergence of ego consciousness, through which we are able to see opposites, as seen by Adam and Eve gaining the “knowledge of good and evil” in the Eden myth.

Jesus was seen as the second Adam (Rom 5:12-14; 1 Cor 15:21-22, 45). Jesus as the second Adam works mythologically because he represents a yet higher, more integrated consciousness, and therefore also a more developed and differentiated God-image.

His birth through incarnation of the divine marks the dawn of this higher consciousness, quite literally a spiritual birth; he is thus available as a symbol of the Self. With that understanding, we can now consider the meaning of Jesus exemplifying the Divine Child.

The Birth of Jesus and the Divine Child Motif

The archetypal figure of the “Divine Child” has great importance in myth and psychology. The child archetype is an emanation from the collective unconscious, meaning that “divine” child figures arise from it, in miraculous births .

A child represents the “potential future” ). Within us, the Divine Child represents “the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche”, meaning content of the collective unconscious that is not yet integrated with ego consciousness.

The Divine Child is a “symbol of unity” to be born from the tension of opposites , thus giving hope of change for the better. Hence he is a savior figure who promises to provoke integration and redeem us.

But the Divine Child does more than represent potential: His coming actually initiates the individuation process because of the incarnation.

The Divine Child is a numinous symbol resulting from this moment, representing the wholeness that can achieved from it. Since in this moment humans feel the divine, it is only natural that it will be mythologized, historicized, and celebrated through a sacred holiday.

When unconscious content rises up, it needs to be recognized and accepted by ego consciousness in order to be integrated and embodied as soul.

Thus, when the Divine Child appears he must be recognized, accepted, and adored.

In the Christmas story, we see this process at work in the accounts of the adorations of the magi and the shepherds, as well as the chorus of angels (Corbett 1996, p. 149). This also appears to be happening when the fetus John the Baptist leaps in his mother’s womb just as the pregnant Mary appears before John’s mother Elizabeth (Lk 1:41).

When confronted with such powerful unconscious material, ego consciousness will suffer. When the Divine Child appears, inevitably he will clash with “the establishment” of our ego consciousness – the Pharisees, scribes, priesthood, and Romans of our self – which will oppose and reject him in order to preserve the status quo (i.e., the ego’s dominant position).

This is why in the “birth of the hero” mythological motif the special child is abandoned back to nature (i.e., back to the unconscious), often to be brought up by animals or otherwise in primitive conditions.

This same process is reflected in the story of Herod and the massacre of the innocents and the flight to Egypt. Herod, the reigning King of the Jews, fears Jesus as a threat to his kingship; he and the Romans are ego consciousness running rampant. Such is the precariousness of individuation.

But the nature of culture heroes is to overcome this opposition in order to bring benefits to humankind, including higher consciousness. Accordingly, the child-hero inevitably breaks free and evolves toward independence, and so in the “birth of the hero” motif he is often described as gaining in wisdom and accomplishing extraordinary deeds at a young age, like Jesus.

It is the Divine Child figure in particular who can accomplish this because in a young child the ego is only budding, not yet dominant, and so is still more integrated with the unconscious; the opposites are not yet sharply contrasted.

Being in such a state, a child appropriately represents not merely the potential for wholeness of the Self, but also the way to achieve this. He is well-suited for the task because he is carried by powerful numinous spirit (psychic energy) yet is less threatening that much other archetypal content.

Accordingly, Jesus uses child imagery in his teachings.

This is why Jesus says in Matthew 18:4 that “unless you change and become as little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (likewise Mk 10:15; Lk 18:17; Gospel of Thomas 22, 46.2). Mark’s Gospel provides a larger narrative context for this metaphor of integration. The enacted “parable of the child amongst” in Mark 9:33-37 can be read according to this psychological framework.

In verse 34 the disciples’ egos are driving their behavior, so they are seeking greatness and preeminence, which hinders their spiritual growth. So Jesus teaches them that if anyone would be first, he first must be last and be a humble servant. (In the ancient household, where this scene takes place, a child has the lowest status.)

So as Jesus the God-man physically embraces a child in a house, he teaches that a person first must identify oneself with a child and in an important sense become mentally like one, with the ego having no pretensions to greatness.

Psychologically, the story shows the need to tame ego consciousness by becoming like a child so that self-aware individuation can occur. This can establish a new pattern for human relationships that will leave no occasion for strife, which is what at the beginning of this story had been occurring among the disciples.

The goal of the individuation process in New Testament terms is the Kingdom of God. Psychologically speaking, this is the point where the Self has become integrated.

This is why, for example, Jesus can say that there is no marriage in the Kingdom of God; instead people will exist there like angels in heaven (Mk 12:25).

The opposites, in this marriage example the masculine and feminine principles, will have been resolved and integrated. The idea is similar in religions worldwide. In Hinduism, for example, the Divine Child Ganesha is born from the spirit of his father Shiva and part of the body (earth) of his mother Parvati. He is a unity not only of male and female, but also of spirit and matter, and of heaven and earth. As such, he represents the integration of opposites in the psyche and the path toward spiritual enlightenment (see generally Lilla 2016).

In summary, the conception and birth of the Divine Child represent the incarnation of the divine within ourselves. This birth is a spiritual birth, both his and potentially ours.

This Child symbolizes potential for our future. Recognizing and accepting him, as the magi did, results in integration. Christians concretized this in terms of the future realization of the Kingdom of God, or salvation by going to heaven.

Psychologically, however, this is an internal affair. Jesus himself spoke in such terms, telling the Pharisees that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21). Similarly, in the Gospel of Thomas, he taught:

“When you give rise to that which is in you, what you have will save you” (Saying 70).
“The kingdom is within you. . . . When you know yourselves, . . . you will know that you are the sons of the living Father” (Saying 3).

Observing Christmas offers us the chance to focus on our own incarnation by celebrating the Divine Child. He is born not in a far-off place, but within ourselves. We each can have our individual way of “putting Christ back into Christmas.”

We can find the same Symbol of Divine Child, Peace and Mercy in Islam and Sufism:

Bism ‘Lláh al-Rahmán al-Rahim

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Bismillah

Now the letter ب ba’ of the bismillah (meaning in) implies connection, and it is itself connected (directly) to God (‘Llah); the word ‘Name” (Ism) does not separate them, since it is identical with the Named according to the Sufis as well as most of the Ash’aris.

Note: When the bismillah اسم الله‎, is written in Arabic, the letter ba’ ‘in’, is directly connected to the word ism, ‘Name’. ب س م ل What the Shaykh al-Alawi is saying is that since the Name (Ism) is identical with the Named, i.e. God Himself Ism does not really separate the letter bá’ from the Divine Name Allah. الله‎

Thus the beginning is in God (bi’llah): from Him all begins and to Him all returns.

JURIDICAL : Four rulings can be deduced from the basmala:

Firstly, all who write or recite the Qur’án must begin with the bismillah; this is inferred from that fact that the Almighty Himself begins the Book with it.

Secondly, we understand from this that God wishes us to praise Him for His Beauty more so that His Majesty ; this is inferred from how He begins with the two Holy Names ‘the Compassionate’ (al-Rahmán) and ‘the Merciful’ (al-Rahim), describing His Essence (Dhát) thereby.

Thirdly, we learn that there is a difference between the two Names, though they are derived from a single Quality (They are both derived from rahma); for otherwise, to list both ‘the Compassionate’ and ‘the Merciful’ would be nothing but repetition.

Fourthly, we learn that the Name is identical with the Named; otherwise, it would not be proper to seek aid in it rather than its object, God (Allah).

ALLEGORICAL : The way the letter ba’ is fastened to the Divine Name(Ism al-Jalála, the ‘Name of Majesty’ ), though it is not part of it, inspires in us a consciousness of how everything in existence, with all its different realities and divergent paths, is fastened to God.

Do not imagine that it touches Him—for in His transcendence, our Lord is not touched by any contingent thing, and such could not occur without the contingent thing vanishing altogether because of its lack of permanence in the presence of Him who is Eternal—rather, we mean that it is connected to Him and given being through Him: it subsists through God; not through itself. Its being is borrowed from that of its Being-Giver (mujid), as it has been said:

That which has no being in and of itself Could not be at all, were it not that He is.

The way the ba’ of the bismillah is lengthened where otherwise it is not, is because it is connected to the Name, and the one who is connected to the Named—and is thus one of God’s Folk—is worthy of being raised above the other members of his kind. As for the lengthened bá”s standing in for the elided letter alif of the word ism, it symbolises the representationi of God by he who possesses the Muhammadan inheritance: 0 David, We have made you a vicegerent on earth [Q.38- 26]; Whoso obeys the Messenger has obeyed God [Q.4- 8 0] .

Note: In the bismillah, the first downward stroke of the letter ba’ is often lengthened, particularly in North African orthography, so that it is as tall as a letter alif, because it serves the function of representing both the letter bei’ and the alif of the word ism, ‘Name.’ See Martin Lings, A Sufi Saint, p. 156.

We have translated the word niyába as both ‘standing in’ and ‘representation‘. The Shaykh is saying that the letter ba’ is lengthened to represent the alif in the same way that a prophet or saint is God’s intermediary and His representative .

As for the position of the bismillah at the head and summit of the Book, it symbolises how God is raised above His Throne; and since this `rising’ (istiwa ) does not mean, as ordinary people think, that He is `contained’ by the Throne, but rather that He is present in every element of existence, the bismillah is placed at the head of every Chapter of the Qur’án (Sura), whether short or long: And He is with you, wherever you are [Q.57-.4]. (In fact it is placed at the head of all Chapters but one, the exception being Surat al-Tawba – Chapter9)

Traditions affirm that everything in the Book is encapsulated in the words ‘In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful’ ; this symbolises how all things are contained in the Being of their Being-Giver; that is, that everything in them branches from what is in Him: Nor is there anything but with Us are the treasuries thereof [Q.15.21]. That the Divine Name (Allah] comes before the other Beautiful Names symbolises the precedence of the Essence, and how the Names and Qualities are contained in Its treasury.see Commentary on the Bismillah.

The birth of Jesus in man:

The soul of the mystic, Rûmi teaches us, is similar to Mary: “If your soul is pure enough and full of love enough, it becomes like Mary: it begets the Messiah”.

And al-Halláj also evokes this idea: “Our consciences are one Virgin where only the Spirit of Truth can penetrate”

In this context, Jesus then symbolizes the cutting edge of the Spirit present in the human soul: “Our body is like Mary: each of us has a Jesus in him, but as long as the pains of childbirth do not appear in us, our Jesus is not born” ( Rumi, The Book of the Inside, V).

This essential quest is comparable to suffering of Mary who led her under the palm tree (Koran XIX, 22-26): “ I said:” 0 my heart, seek the universal Mirror, go towards the Sea, because you will not reach your goal by the only river! ”

In this quest, Your servant finally arrived at the place of Your home as the pains of childbirth led Mary towards the palm tree “(RÛMi, Mathnawî, II, 93 sq.)

Just as the Breath of the Holy Spirit, breathed into Mary, made him conceive the Holy Spirit, as so when the Word of God (kalám al-haqq) enters someone’s heart and the divine Inspiration purifies and fills his heart (see Matthew V, 8 or Jesus in the Sermon of the Mountain exclaims: “Blessed are pure hearts, for they will see God! “) and his soul, his nature becomes such that then is produced in him a spiritual child (walad ma’nawî) having the breath of Jesus who raises the dead.

“Human beings,” it says in Walad-Nama ( French translation, Master and disciple, of Sultan Valad and Kitab al-Ma’ârif the Skills of Soul Rapture), must be born twice: once from their mother, another from their own body and their own existence. The body is like an egg: the essence of man must become in this egg a bird, thanks to the warmth of Love; then it will escape its body and fly into the eternal world of the soul, beyond space. ”

And Sultan Walad adds: “If the bird of faith (imán) is not born in Man during its existence, this earthly life is then comparable to a miscarriage.”

The soul, in the prison of the body, is ankylosed like the embryo in the maternal womb, and it awaits its deliverance. This will happen when the “germ” has matured, thanks to a descent into oneself, to a painful awareness: “The pain will arise from this look thrown inside oneself, and this suffering makes pass to beyond the veil. As long as the mothers do not take birth pains, the child does not have the possibility of being born (. Rumi, Mathnawî, II, 2516 sq.) (…) My mother, that is to say my nature [my body], by his agony pains, gives birth to the Spirit … If the pains during the coming of the child are painful for the pregnant woman, on the other hand, for the embryo, it is the opening of his prison ”(Ibid., 3555 sq)

Union with God, explains Rûmi, manifests itself when the divine Qualities come to cover the attributes of His servant:

“God’s call, whether veiled or not, grants what he gave to Maryam. 0 you who are corrupted by death inside your body, return from nonexistence to the Voice of the Friend! In truth, this Voice comes from God, although it comes from the servant of God! God said to the saint: “I am your tongue and your eyes, I am your senses, I am your contentment and your wrath. Go, for you are the one of whom God said: ‘By Me he hears and by Me he sees!’ You are the divine Consciousness, how should it be said that you have this divine Consciousness? Since you have become, by your wondering, ‘He who belongs to God’.

I am yours because ‘God will belong to him. Sometimes, I tell you: ‘It’s you!’, Sometimes, ‘It’s me!’ Whatever I say, I am the Sun illuminating all things. “(Mathnawî, I, 1934 sq).

Once the illusion of duality has been transcended, all that remains in the soul is the divine Presence: the soul then finds in the depths of its being the divine effigy.

It has become the place of theophany. This is what Rumi calls the spiritual resurrection: “The universal Soul came into contact with the partial soul and the latter received from her a pearl and put it in her womb. Thanks to this touch of her breast, the individual soul became pregnant, like Mary, with a Messiah ravishing the heart. Not the Messiah who travels on land and at sea, but the Messiah who is beyond the limitations of space! Also, when the soul has been fertilized by the Soul of the soul, then the world is fertilized by such a soul “( Ibid., II, 1184 sq.).

This birth of the spiritual Child occurs out of time, and therefore it occurs in each man who receives him with all his being through this “Be!” that Marie receives during the Annunciation: “From your body, like Maryam, give birth to an Issa without a father! You have to be born twice, once from your mother, another time from yourself. So beget yourself again! If the outpouring of the Holy Spirit dispenses again his help, others will in turn do what Christ himself did: the Father pronounces the Word in the universal Soul, and when the Son is born, each soul becomes Mary (Ibid., III, 3773.)

So Jesus can declare: “O son of Israel, I tell you the truth, no one enters the Kingdom of Heaven and earth unless he is born twice! By the Will of God, I am of those who were born twice: my first birth was according to nature, and the second according to the Spirit in the Sky of Knowledge! » (Sha’ranî, Tabaqat, II, 26; Sohrawardî, ‘Awarif, I, 1)

The second birth corresponds to what we also gain in Sufism as the “opening (fath) of the eye of the heart“: “When Your Eye became an eye for my heart, my blind heart drowned in vision ; I saw that You were the universal Mirror for all eternity and I saw in Your Eyes my own image. I said, “Finally, I found myself in His Eyes, I found the Way of Light!” (Rumi, Mathnawî, II, 93 sq.)

This opening is the promise made by God to all those who conclude a pact with the spiritual master, pole of his time, like the apostles with Jesus or the Companions when they pledged allegiance to Muhammad: “God was satisfied with believers when they swore an oath to you under the Tree, He knew perfectly the content of their hearts, He brought down on them deep peace (sakina), He rewarded them with a prompt opening ( fath) and by an abundant booty which they seized ”(Coran XLVIII, 18-19).(The abundant loot indicates Divine Knowledge (mari’fa).

“‘Peace’: is the word from a Merciful Lord (for them).”

سَلَـٰمٌۭ قَوْلًۭا مِّن رَّبٍّۢ رَّحِيمٍۢ Salaamun qawlam mir Rabbir Raheem – Surah yasin 36-58

This enlivening and pleasant call, which is full of His love and affection, attracts the man’s attention to itself so deeply, and gives him joy, happiness and spirituality, that does not match any other bounty.
Yes hearing the call of the beloved one, is a call filled with love and mixed with grace which causes the people of Paradise to be thoroughly rejoicing, a moment of which is superior to the whole world and whatever exists in it.
A tradition narrated from the Prophet of Islam (S) indicates that he said:
“While the people of Paradise are busy enjoying the bounties of
Heaven there will appear a light above them”.
This is the light of Allah which is cast upon them and at the same time a
call will be heard saying: ‘Peace and greeting on you, O’ the people of Paradise!’
And this is the same thing which has been mentioned in the Qur’an. It is here that the view of Allah attracts them so strongly that they neglect His all other things and, in that state, they forget the whole bounties of Paradise.
It is here that the angels come out from every door and say: ‘Peace upon you’.”
Yes, the ecstasy of the intuition and presence of the Beloved and the visit of the Lord’s Grace are so delightful and gratifying that a moment of which is not equal with any blessing, even with the whole world.
The lovers of visiting Him are so that if this spiritual gift might be ceased from them, they would die. Amir-ul-Mu’mineen Ali (as) in a tradition said: “If I remain walled from the visit of the Lord for a moment, I will die.”

It is interesting that the apparent of the verse is that this greeting of Allah unto the believers in Paradise is a direct greeting without any intermediator.
It is a greeting from the Lord, Allah, the greeting which originates from His special Mercy, i.e., the rank of His specific Mercy, and all grace and favours are gathered in it. Oh, what a blessing it is!
In principle, Paradise is ‘the Abode of Peace’, as Surah Yunus, No. 10,
verse 25 says: “And Allah does call mankind to the Abode of Peace…”
And the people of Paradise, who are the dwellers of this abode, will sometimes face with the angel’s greeting.
At the time of arrival into Paradise, the angels arrive to them from every door and say:
“Peace (be) upon you (saying) that you persevered in patience! (And
now) how excellent is the Ultimate Abode.”
And sometimes the dwellers of ’A‘raf call them and say:
“…Peace be upon you!…”
And sometimes they will be faced with the angels’ greeting after entering
into Paradise: “…and the warders thereof say unto them: ‘Peace be unto you…”
Sometimes, at the time of taking their souls, this greeting is delivered to them from the side of the angels of death. They say: “…Peace be upon you! Enter the Paradise because of what you used to do.”

And sometimes they themselves greet each other. And, in principle, in their greeting there is ‘Peace’, the Qur’an says: “…their greetings therein is: ‘Peace!’.”
And, finally, the superior and above all of these is the greeting of Allah:
“‘Peace’: is the word from a Merciful Lord (for them).”
Briefly speaking, there will be heard there neither a vain word nor a sinful thing. There will be only ‘peace’ and ‘peace’. The Qur’an says: “They shall not hear therein vain or sinful discourse,”
Of course, it is not a greeting in mere pronunciation, but it is a greeting the effect of which penetrates in the depth of man’s soul and makes it thoroughly full of tranquillity, peace, and health. See comment Surah 36 Yasin

Shaykh Nazim (ق) — Peace and Tranquility Loop. 1. Surah Yaseen 2. Verse 36:58 (111x) 3. Beautiful Dua (+Salawat Fatih)

Surah Yasin: Heart of the Quran

It has been proposed that yā sīn is the “heart of the Quran”.The meaning of “the heart” has been the basis of much scholarly discussion. The eloquence of this surah is traditionally regarded as representative of the miraculous nature of the Qur’an. It presents the essential themes of the Qur’an, such as the sovereignty of God, the unlimited power of God as exemplified by His creations, Paradise, the ultimate punishment of nonbelievers, resurrection, the struggle of believers against polytheists and nonbelievers, and the reassurance that the believers are on the right path, among others. Yā Sīn presents the message of the Qur’an in an efficient and powerful manner, with its quick and rhythmic verses. This surah asserts that Muhammad was not a poet, rather he was the greatest and the Last Messenger of Allah (the “Seal of the Prophets”)

There are three main themes of yā sīn: the oneness of God (tawhid); Risala, that Muhammad is a messenger sent by God to guide His creations through divine revelation; and the reality of Akhirah, the Last Judgment.^[12] 36:70 “This is a revelation, an illuminating Qur’an to warn anyone who is truly alive, so that God’s verdict may be passed against the disbelievers.” ^[13] The surah repeatedly warns of the consequences of not believing in the legitimacy or the revelation of Muhammad, and encourages believers to remain steadfast and resist the mockery, oppression, and ridicule they receive from polytheists and nonbelievers.^[14] The arguments arise in three forms: a historical parable, a reflection on the order in the universe, and lastly a discussion of resurrection and human accountability.

The chapter begins with an affirmation of the legitimacy of Muhammad.^[12] For example, verses 2-6, “By the wise Qur’an, you [Muhammad] are truly one of the messengers sent of a straight path, with a revelation from the Almighty, the Lord of Mercy, to warn a people whose forefathers were not warned, and so they are unaware.”^[15] The first passage, verses 1-12, focuses primarily with promoting the Qur’an as guidance and establishing that it is God’s sovereign choice who will believe and who will not. It is stated that regardless of a warning, the nonbelievers cannot be swayed to believe. 36:10 “It is all the same to them whether you warn them or not: they will not believe.”^[15]

Surah Yāʾ-Sīn then proceeds to tell the tale of the messengers that were sent to warn nonbelievers, but who were rejected.^[12] Although the messengers proclaimed to be legitimate, they were accused of being ordinary men by the nonbelievers. 36:15-17 “They said, ‘Truly, we are messengers to you,’ but they answered, ‘You are only men like ourselves. The Lord of Mercy has sent nothing; you are just lying.”^[16] However, a man from amongst these people beseeched them to believe in the messengers. “Then there came running, from the farthest part of the City, a man, saying, ‘O my people! Obey the messengers: Obey those who ask no reward of you (for themselves), and who have themselves received Guidance.'”^{[Quran 36:20]} Upon his death, the man entered Paradise, and lamented the fate of the nonbelievers. 36:26 “He was told, ‘Enter the Garden,’ so he said, ‘If only my people knew how my Lord has forgiven me and set me among the highly honored.”^[17] This surah is meant to warn the nonbelievers of the consequences of their denial. Verse 36:30 goes on to state: “Alas for human beings! Whenever a messenger comes to them they ridicule him.”^[18] Ultimately, it is God’s will who will be blind and who will see.^[12]

The following passage addresses the signs of God’s supremacy over nature.^[12] This is presented by the sign of revived land, the sign of day and night, the sign of the arc and the flood, and the sign of the sudden blast that arrives on the day of judgement. 36:33-37 The sign of revived land follows:

There is a sign for them in this lifeless earth: We give it life and We produce grains from it for them to eat; We have put gardens of date palms and grapes in the earth, and We have made water gush out of it so that they could eat its fruit. It is not their own hands that made all this. How can they not give thanks? Glory be to Him who created all the pairs of things that the earth produces, as well as themselves and other things they do not know about.^[17]

The disbelievers do not recognize God’s power in the natural world, although He is the one Creator.^[12]

The surah further addresses what will happen to those who reject the right path presented by Muhammad and refuse to believe in God. On the last day, the day of reckoning, the nonbelievers will be held accountable for their actions and will be punished accordingly.^[12] God warned the nonbelievers of Satan, and yet Satan led them astray. 36:60-63 “Children of Adam, did I not command you not to serve Satan, for he was your sworn enemy, but to serve Me? This is the straight path. He has led great numbers of you astray. Did you not use your reason? So this is the fire that you were warned against.”^[19] Although God warned them against following Satan, the nonbelievers were deaf, and so now they will suffer the consequences of their ill judgements. 36:63 “So this is the Fire that you were warned against. Enter it today, because you went on ignoring [my commands].”^[19]

The surah proceeds to address the clear nature of the revelation and assure that Muhammad is a legitimate prophet.^[12] 36:69 states, “We have not taught the Prophet poetry, nor could he ever have been a poet.”^[13] Yāʾ-Sīn concludes by reaffirming God’s sovereignty and absolute power. 36:82-83 “When He wills something to be, His way is to say, ‘Be’—and it is! So glory be to Him in whose Hand lies control over all things. It is to Him that you will all be brought back.” ^[13] It is to God, the one Creator who holds everything in His hands, that everything returns. The closing passage is absolute and powerful and carries an essential message of the Qur’an. Read more : Commentary of surah Yasin or Heart of the Qur’an: A Commentary to Sura Yasin

“All that is on the earth will perish: But the face of thy Lord willabide forever – full of Majesty, Bounty, and Honor.” (Qur’an, lv. 26-27).

Looking to the Spiritual vertical way, as the Maypole do, gives us an opportunity of discerning an understanding between Non-Virtues and Virtues, developing Spiritual values needed in our times.

We need to be sincere with our selves , to be “upright” strictly honourable and honest, as the symbol of the Maypole is.it is the Axis Mundi, also called the cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, center of the world, or world tree — was greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing “the connection between Heaven and Earth” or the “higher and lower realms.

Together we can initiate and erect a maypole as various European folk festivals do, in respect of the safely coming of Spring. But as many Folklores in Europe did, to keep it more permantly, we can plant a Lime Tree in the center of the village of on squares in the city, to keep the remenbering of “uprightness”,of sincerity in our mind, in our heart and in our allday lives. In this way,as in many folklores of Europe, they recognize their dependance to Nature and their submission to something Higher than themselves. And happy they danced under the Lime Tree on important opportunities. Man has always be in need of a symbol, but certainly a symbol for communality and fraternity: The Path to the Maypole of Wisdom – Forum for Ethics, Virtues and Uprightness.