How the perfect man reaches this height of spiritual development, the
author does not tell us; but he says that at every stage he has a
peculiar experience in which there is not even a trace of doubt or
agitation. The instrument of this experience is what he calls the _Qalb_
(heart), a word very difficult of definition. He gives a very mystical
diagram of the Qalb, and explains it by saying that it is the eye which
sees the names, the attributes and the Absolute Being successively. It
owes its existence to a mysterious combination of soul and mind; and
becomes by its very nature the organ for the recognition of the
ultimate realities of existence. All that the "heart", or the source of
what the Vedānta calls the Higher Knowledge, reveals is not seen by the
individual as something separate from and heterogeneous to himself; what
is shown to him through this agency is his own reality, his own deep
being. This characteristic of the agency differentiates it from the
intellect, the object of which is always different and separate from the
individual exercising that faculty. But the spiritual experience,
according to the Ṣūfīs of this school, is not permanent; moments of
spiritual vision, says Matthew Arnold,[170:1] cannot be at our command.
The god-man is he who has known the mystery of his own being, who has
realised himself as god-man; but when that particular spiritual
realisation is over man is man and God is God. Had the experience been
permanent, a great moral force would have been lost and society
overturned.
[170:1] "We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides".
Let us now sum up Al-Jīlī's _Doctrine of the Trinity_. We have seen the
three movements of the Absolute Being, or the first three categories of
Pure Being; we have also seen that the third movement is attended with
external manifestation, which is the self-diremption of the Essence into
God and man. This separation makes a gap which is filled by the perfect
man, who shares in both the Divine and the human attributes. He holds
that the perfect man is the preserver of the Universe; hence in his
view, the appearance of the perfect man is a necessary condition for the
continuation of nature. It is easy, therefore, to understand that in the
god-man, the Absolute Being which has left its absoluteness, returns
into itself; and, but for the god-man, it could not have done so; for
then there would have been no nature, and consequently no light through
which God could have seen Himself. The light through the agency of which
God sees Himself is due to the principle of difference in the nature of
the Absolute Being itself. He recognises this principle in the following
verses:--
If you say that God is one, you are right; but if you say that He
is two, this is also true.
If you say no, but He is three, you are right, for this is the
real nature of man.[171:1]
[171:1] Insān al-Kāmil, Vol. I, p. 8.
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