In considering how the human being can embody both self and selflessness, let’s begin with a metaphysical perspective on the position that human consciousness occupies in cosmic existence. The human consciousness is a presence suspended between the Divine Absolute and a Cosmic-Life-Force that is associated with our intention, thoughts, and feelings. That’s a mouthful, I know. God is sufficient in the sense that when “I” am embracing what is, being grateful by seeing its inherent value, placing complete trust in the Divine Intelligence and the Life Force that serves it, then that Infinite Intelligence will do the appropriate and necessary thing.
Shams of Tabriz says it with remarkable simplicity and clarity: all your problems are the result of your reading “your own letters” all the time, instead of paying attention to your Beloved.If we analyze this situation we may see that what we take to be “I” is not our witnessing self which is aligned with Spirit, but a “me” constructed on the basis of pernicious dualities such as: always gaining pleasure and avoiding pain, always receiving attention and never being ignored, always gaining approval and never being criticized.This “me” arises from a sense deep inside ourselves that somewhere, somehow, we can know a state of ultimate well-being, peace, and security. It is in our very nature to long to be connected to that state of timeless, unconstricted, happiness—happiness without death as Mawlana Asad Ali has named it. But the mistake is in thinking that this ultimate well-being is to be found in circumstances and conditions—in other words in attaining a life without disturbance and difficulty. Seeking satisfaction in worldly conditions alone is a betrayal of the spiritual nature of reality.In such a state, the consciousness of “I” is entangled and absorbed in various “me’s” and these “me’s” are living our life, speaking in the name of “I” but if one could truly hear them it is clear that when things are not going well they are complaining, judging, blaming, rationalizing, and if things are going well they are claiming credit, seeing “miraculous signs”, and other self-justifying non-sense.Our involvement with “me” is a betrayal of that Divine Reality, the “me” of the moment replacing the objective witness that serves Central Intelligence, the Command of Love. These “me’s” offer a false, fragile and temporary sense of well-being and security. It is the Real, the Divine Reality (Haqiqah) that can give meaning to all the circumstances and conditions of our lives, and it is this that we can find as the self is purified of these false selves and values. In this process of purification, the self is drawn to higher forms of being and ultimately absorbed in God.At an advanced stage of perfection the mystic who is, in Abu’l-Ḥosayn Nūrī’s words, “fashioned in the attributes of God” (al-taḵalloq be-aḵlāq Allāh)ʿ begins to manifest the divine attributes. In Najm-al-Dīn Kobrā’s view, he or she becomes the subject of divine attributes and capable of “creating, bringing forth, giving life, causing death, having mercy, punishing and other things that belong to the divine attributes of bounty and justice” .
The awakened human consciousness, seeing objectively, free from the hypnotism of the nafs, responding with appropriateness according to the divine qualities needed at that moment, lives according to the Divine Mercy, guided by the Divine Intelligence, resting in the open-ended certainty of Submission and Trust.
