LECTURE – 35 : CIRCLE AND TRIANGLE

The great Sufi poet Mulana Roomi has said, ‘Man is nothing but sight and the rest of him is just a body of flesh and bones that is perishable. And the sight is to witness the friend.’

Witnessing the friend is the poetic way of suggesting the common level of the universe, which is controlled by God. Whether it is a single person or a multitude of people, the sight is of individual or collective nature, it’s functioning remains the same. Another interesting aspect of the sight is that whatsoever it witnesses individually remains obscure from the others.

Technically the common characteristic of the sight, in Sufism, is called Unity and the diversity and individual characteristic is called Plurality. But, the plurality is the sight of the unity, all the same. As regards to the cosmic relationship the sight is unity but when it gets into the angle of plurality, it looks at things in a diversified manner and understands them differently. This diversification in the sight is the plurality.

God has stated, “I was a Hidden Treasure, I created the creatures with love so that I be recognized.” Analysis of this statement tells that four agencies have been mentioned here in this statement of God, Almighty. First one is the Supreme Being of God, second one is the Hidden Treasure, third one is the process of creation and the fourth one is the creature. In all these four agencies, only the angles of the sight are different. The first two agencies, in fact, are the two angles of unity and the other two are the angles of plurality.

God is the hidden treasure. Being the Hidden Treasure, in Sufism, God is the Indispensable Being (Wajib-ul-wajood). When we try to understand the Indispensable Being, it is observed that the Conscious of the Indispensable Being is repeating itself and is busy in inculcating itself. The Indispensable Being is a point (the Conscious). When this point repeats itself it becomes two, these two become four. It is just like the process of cell division in living organisms. It is happening since Eternity and resulting the repetition of the Conscious, incalculable points are coming into being that arrange themselves in the form of a circle. Every point is also a circle at its own place and all these points unite together to become a larger circle, which we know as the universe. This means that the program that is there in the mind of God, is reduplicating itself and resulting this repetition this program is multiplying itself in a geometric progression.

Resulting the expansion and contraction, each and every circle becomes dihedral or is divided into two portions. Each of these two portions is a triangle.

God has stated, “Verily, It all belongs to God that is there in the day and the night. And, it is He who is All-Hearing and All-Knowing.” It simply means that all that is there during the day and the night is the sole property of God Almighty. All that enters the human senses and perception is under the control of God, because, He owns them and is the circles that have come into being because of the Conscious of God or the Indispensable Being. These very circles become the perception in the mankind. And, these are the circles that give us senses. God has divided, all that is there in the human perception in two parts of the nocturnal and diurnal senses.

Both these two circles are the two planes of a circulatory movement, which are the source and origin of the senses of all types. God has given them two different names of ‘Lail’ (Night) and Nehar (Day). One is the circle of dreaming and the other is the circle of awakening.

Man thinks that the nocturnal senses are unreal because according to him these are darkness, drowse and sleep. It is not so. God has refuted this concept of considering them as unreal and told that the senses of the Day and Night both are solid senses. There is no doubt that the diurnal senses have the support of the collective evidence whereas the nocturnal senses are witnessed only at individual level. But, this fact also cannot be ignored that the collective evidence is prone to make many mistakes.

The individual and collective level of the sight lays the foundation of Time. When a person introduces with the other person, this very phase of introduction becomes the Time. Introduction means that when a person gets acquainted with the other person there has to have a hidden affinity between them, if there is no hidden linkage between them then it is not possible for them to be familiar with each other. This very hidden relation or the affinity is the Time. When a person comes in contact with another person and the Time is the common hidden relation between them therefore the two Selves meet and stays at one point.

Individuals of the universe are inscribed somewhere and the place where these are inscribed is known as Time. Passing by or staying at one point is the way of the Conscious; otherwise, it has no significance whatsoever. Everything exists by its Self, i.e., every individual of the universe is incorporated on a base. The sight observes all that is inscribed upon the base and the Conscious understands it.

God say, “I am All-Hearing. I am All-Seeing.” It means the faculties of the Sight and the Hearing are the sole property of God Almighty and no one shares this right with Him. Then this also is the statement of God, “I granted sight and hearing to man.” Now, it is not very difficult to have this conclusion that man sees and hears by virtue of God’s Sight and God’s Hearing. Whether a person is making us of this faculty for his individual purposes or uses it to witness the Supreme Being of God, whether a spiritual associate sees into the Serial Time or witnesses the Non-serial Time, all these forms of sighting are the seeing by God, or to say, it is seeing using the sight of God and hearing using the hearing of God.

The act of seeing into the Serial Time in individual capacity is an imperfect viewing. When a person uses the God given faculties of seeing and hearing and considers them to be his own merits and thinks that he sees or he hears at his own, he starts committing mistakes. It is the fact that a person sees or hears because of the faculties of God but when he ascribes them to be his own merits a chain of unending mistakes is switched on in giving meanings to the things seen or heard.

When the sight is used, whether it is at the individual level or it is collective level, the sight witnesses alike. It is the law of God. When a person in deviation to this law, starts considering the God given abilities to be his own and associate them to himself, he starts committing such mistakes that take him away from the Non-serial Time and the cognition of God becomes an unachievable task for him. It is not possible for any person to see an almond tree as a fig tree because the almond, fig and man exist on the same one plane and all use the sight in the same one way. This is quite possible that a person might be declaring the fig as a useless thing because of his own misinformation but the properties of the fig would remain what they are and these would not change because he considers them to be useless.

God has stated, “It is He who has created you from one single Self.” It means that God has created mankind with an obscure scheme, which is not visible in the Serial Time because it is kept operative in the background of the manifestations. God has termed this very scheme as the Single Self that creates those impressions in the darkness of the night and in the deeper recesses of light, which are perceived by our senses in the form of manifestations.

Now, this is not at all possible that we could deny the existence of these impressions or refuse to acknowledge their presence, at the most we can do is to declare the right as wrong or wrong as right. And the basic reason for this is the act of associating the gifted faculties of sight and hearing to our own self. When a person considers the personal attributes of God as his own qualities he tends to treat right as wrong and the wrong as the right. This wrong approach of thinking causes us to go astray from the straight path.

According to the statement of God everybody has been given the intuitive ability, which is known by the name of the Conscience. Conscious is the inner light and the voice of the conscience is the voice from God that guides man at every step and when a person refuses to take the advice of the conscience, the conscience starts criticizing him. This criticizing is also a sort of guidance, which helps in having the intentions correct.

If a person does not pay attention to the voice of the conscience, he is deprived of the guidance towards the correct path. And, in absence of the guidance of the conscience one falls prey to whims, doubts and uncertainty.

Administration of Time and Space

Internal self is the base line encompassing the huge heavenly bodies and the smallest tiny particles of the universe, that is, all those lights that form the great and small heavenly bodies and the other particles of the universe are the integral part of the Internal Self. If we want to see the tiny particles otherwise invisible to our sight, we can see them in our imagination by envisioning them. Similarly, when we mention angels we do have some concept about them although we have not seen the angels.

Similarly we talk about the heavens, which we have not seen but we do have some concept about them. These very concepts, ideas and thoughts transfer to the Personal Ego from the Internal Self. Transference of the concepts does not depend upon the Personal Ego rather it entirely depends upon the Internal Self. Personal Ego is duty bound to accept and accommodate the concepts handed over to it by the Internal Self just as these are passed down to it. Rose, for instance, is a Personal Ego; the Internal Self transferred the concepts of its form and features and the rose exhibited itself in the form and features according to the concepts transferred to it.

Similarly, a person exhibits the shape, color, complexion and features that are transferred to his Personal Ego from the Internal Self. Man, in fact, is a collection of those concepts that are conceived by the Conscious and are transferred to it from the Internal Self, the unconscious. The concepts, which are responsible for the creation of the physical body, are the Unconscious.

We think that the physical body is making itself and it is supplied with the nourishing food (lights) from without and this is causing it to maintain the circulation of the blood in the body. Well, this is not the case. Actually the concepts, thoughts and ideas transferring from the Internal Self transform into solid matter, which causes us to feel the gravity. If the Unconscious does not arrange to transform the concepts into matter, death takes over.

Qalander Baba Auliya has said. Man in his lifetime usually suffers, sometimes more than once, from fatal and protracted diseases. His diet is reduced to the minimum or is completely forbidden from taking anything food but this does not result in his death. This thing clearly establishes that the physical body is not responsible for the functioning of life and all that is supplied to the physical body from without is not causing it to live. The only thing that is responsible for our life is the Internal Self. There could be many ways for understanding the Internal Self.

Man, after his birth and infancy attains the age up to sixty or seventy sometimes even ninety. His physical body, his thoughts, his ideas, his approach of thinking, his knowledge and his acts and deeds keep on changing through out his life. So much so that every part and bit of his body changes beyond recognition but the person remains the same who was born say, some ninety or sixty years ago. If his name is Tom, he would always be addressed and remembered as Tom. This establishes this fact that only those concepts are lasting, which transfer to the human conscious from the Internal Self, even if each and every particle of the physical body is replaced, altered or changed. The Internal Self is invariant and unchanging and the Personal Ego is variant and changing.

God has stated, “It is He who is All-encompassing, i.e., the Internal Self is encompassing.

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Now the question is that if Tom is the Internal Self and is encompassing then why he does not have the knowledge of the universe. It is not very difficult to answer this question. The reason for his obliviousness is that he is unconcerned about the Internal Self. He does not want to get out of the limited confines of his Personal Ego. The person who considers the things remaining within the confines of his personal views and interests have a limited approach of thinking and, because of this limitation he lacks in sincerity. But a person after negating his limited approach can manage to have the pattern of collective thinking and is liberated from the limited individual approach. If all the interests of a person are limited to his family alone, his understanding will not exceed beyond the limits of his family. And the limiting understanding will result in the limited observations.

Eyes and ears of a person see and hear within the limits of his understanding, these cannot see or hear beyond the limits of his understanding. Apparently he enjoys a good perception of his surroundings but, in fact, all his interests remain centered at his family affairs and he is least interested in anything else beyond that sphere. The Conscious of a person having individual approach of thinking, is not better than the conscious of a few years child. From the viewpoint of spiritualism a man is considered to be only few years old even in his fifties, if his thinking approach is confined within the limits of his family alone. Conscious of a person remains immature even in his hundredth year if he only cares about his own individual interests. For this very reason, he remains unaware about the Internal Self. He, on the stage of the universe reminds us of a three-year child present in an international symposium.

It is the holy statement of God, “God is the light of the earth and the havens.”

When the light is disconnected the death prevails. Death does not mean that the relation of the Personal Ego with the Internal Self has come to an end forever. Death, in actual effect, is such a veil that covers one level of life so that a person could enter into another phase of the life.