Spiritual Wisdom of the Week
by: Rabbi Michael Lerner on April 30th, 2010 | 14 Comments »
This week’s spiritual wisdom is a passage entitled “The Cosmos and Revelation” from Islamic Spirituality: Foundations by philosopher and professor of Islamic studies Seyyid Hossein Nasr:
The revelation that comes from Him to Whom belong the heavens and the earth and all that is between them and below the earth also addresses itself to all these realms of the cosmic hierarchy as well as to man. The Quran is, in a sense, a Revelation unto the whole of creation, and one of its primary functions is to awaken in man an awareness of the Divine Presence in that other primordial revelation which is the created order itself. Primordial man saw the phenomena of nature in divinis, as the story of Adam in paradise reveals. Islam, in bestowing upon man access to this primordial nature and in addressing itself to the primordial man within every man, unveils once again the spiritual significance of nature and the ultimately theophanic character of the phenomena of the created order. It enables man to read once again the eternal message of Divine Wisdom written upon the pages of the cosmic text.
Islamic spirituality is therefore based not only upon the reading of the written Quran (al-Qur’an al-tadwini) but also upon deciphering the text of the cosmic Quran (al-Qur’ait al-takwini) which is its complement.” Nature in Islamic spirituality is, consequently, not the adversary but the friend of the traveler upon the spiritual path and an aid to the person of spiritual vision in his journey through her forms to the world of the Spirit, which is the origin of both man and the cosmos. The Quranic Revelation created not only a community of Muslims but also an Islamic cosmic ambience in which the signs of God (ayat Allah) adorn at once the souls of men and women and the expanses of the skies and the seas, the birds and the fish, the stars and the creatures living in the bosom of the earth. As the text of the Quran is woven of verses (ayat), which are the words of God, so are the events in the souls of men and the phenomena of nature so many ayat of the Supreme Author, Who caused the reality of all things to be written upon the Guarded Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfuz) by the pen (al-Qalam). As the Quran itself bears witness, We shall show them our portents |ayat] upon the horizons and within themselves, until it becomes manifest unto them that it is the Truth [41:53], and also, And in the earth are portents for those whose faith is true. And (also) in yourselves. Can ye not see? [51:20-21]. The inner relation between man, the cosmos, and Revelation is clearly demonstrated in the use of the same term (ayah, pl. ayat) to designate the verses of the sacred Book, the inner reality of man, and the verses written upon the pages of the cosmic book…. To the extent that man turns to the spiritual world within, nature unveils her inner message to him and acts as both support and companion in his spiritual journey.
Since all levels of cosmic existence belong to God, all creatures also praise Him with their very existence. The Quran says, “The seven heavens and the earth and all that they contain praise Him, nor is there anything that does not celebrate His praise, though ye understand not their praise. Behold, He is clement, forgiving” [17:44]. Also, Hast thou not seen that unto God prostrate themselves whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth – the sun and the moon and the stars and the hills and the trees and the beast and many of mankind? [22:18]
The Breath of the Compassionate
According to a Sufi doctrine expounded especially by Ibn ‘Arabi, the very substance of the universe consists of the Breath of the Compassionate (nafas al-Rahman) breathed upon the archetypal realities (al-a’yan al-thabitah). The very substance of things is, therefore, the breath that issues from the Divine Compassion (al-Rahmah) while every creature praises the Lord through its very existence. The sage hears in the existence of every creature of nature the invocation (dhikr) of His Name and in the qualities of the created order reflections of His Attributes. He sees upon the face of all things the sign of His Oneness, according to the well-known Arabic poem: “In every creature there exists a sign (ayah) from Him, Bearing witness that He is Unique.” The Quran emphasizes the Divine Origin of all the order that is observed in the universe. “He it is who appointed the sun a splendour and the moon a light, and measured for her stages, that ye might know the number of the years and the reckoning. God created not [all] that save in truth (bi’l-haqq). He detaileth the portents (ayat) for people who have knowledge” [10:6]. The Muslim mind is, in fact, much more impressed by the order and regularity of the natural order than by those extraordinary events that break that order, that is, miracles. It is just as miraculous that the sun does rise every morning from the east as it would be if it were to rise suddenly from the west. Islam does, however, accept the existence of miracles and believes that a day will come when, according to a hadith, the sun will rise from the west.
Moreover, the world is created in truth and by the truth (bi’l-haqq) and not in vain. We created not the heaven and the earth and all that is between them in play [21:16]. The study of nature can therefore reveal an aspect of Divine Wisdom provided that study does not divorce the world from its Divine Principle. The Islamic view of nature permitted and encouraged the cultivation of the sciences of nature but never as profane knowledge. Even particular branches of the Islamic sciences such as physics and botany possessed a spiritual aspect as well as a rational one. Being created in truth, nature reflects the Truth on its own level of reality and this Truth can be contemplated by the sage gazing upon a flower as well as by a student of the traditional sciences studying the works of the Muslim scientists, who carried out their study of the natural order always in the light of discovering the vestiges of the Hand of the Divine Artisan.
The Fragility of the World
While it emphasizes that God has created the world by the truth, the Quran also asserts over and over again, especially in the last chapters, the fragility of the created order. A day will come when all the earth, from the mightiest mountain to the lowliest rock will be rendered unto dust before the Majesty of God. “And thou seest the mountains, which thou deemest so firm, pass away as clouds pass away” [27:88]. The spiritual significance of nature resides not only in conveying the message of the One through its beauty, harmony, order, and the symbolism of its forms, but also in being witness to the grandeur of the One Who alone abides while all else passes away. To stand before a mighty mountain and to meditate upon its passing away before the Divine Majesty are to gain a glimpse of that Divine Face which alone subsists while all else dies and perishes, according to the verse, “Everything perishes save His Face” [28:88]. But this fragility of the natural order is not as immediate as that of the world of man, and Islamic spirituality emphasizes over and over again that in the span of the ordinary life of humanity the works of man perish while the order of nature abides. Islam has always inculcated the importance of man’s being the custodian of nature and has instructed man not to struggle to destroy it but rather to live with it in peace, aware that if man seeks to annihilate and subdue nature he will inevitably fail and that it is always nature that will have the final word.
We must tread carefully upon the earth, treating it with the same respect that we show to the Book of Allah, for although He hath made the earth humbled to you, and although we are free to walk in its tracts and eat of His providing, yet: Are ye assured of Him that is in heaven that He might not cause the earth to swallow you? For behold! The earth is quaking [67:15-16].
Nothing is farther removed from traditional Islamic spirituality than the raping of the earth in the name of man’s earthly welfare and without consideration of the welfare of the whole of creation.
Nature as Support in the Spiritual Life
Virgin nature is a source of grace in that in its bosom the Muslim contemplative senses the presence of God and the resonance of the world of the Spirit. He hears the prayer of creatures and sees reflected in their complete surrender to the Divine Will the perfection of the state of islam, which itself is complete surrender to the Will of God. The saint is the person whose will is perfectly integrated into and in harmony with the Divine Will and is therefore, in a sense, the counterpart of the creatures of nature whose very life is in accordance with His Will. The prayer of the saint is in fact the prayer on behalf of all creation and for all creation in the same way that the Muslim canonical prayer addresses God using the plural form of the subject to emphasize that man prays as representative of the whole of creation.
Nature, moreover, is the sanctuary in which the supreme Muslim rite of salat takes place. These canonical prayers can be performed anywhere in nature, for the whole earth was sanctified by God to allow Muslims to pray on it. The mosque does not in fact seek to create a “supernatural” space but to recreate within the man-made ambience of the urban environment, the harmony, tranquillity, peace, and equilibrium that characterize virgin nature. Being the creation of the Divine Artisan, virgin nature is the supreme work of art, a source of inexhaustible beauty, and the ally of man in quest of God. She remains an ever present witness to the cosmic and metacosmic reality of the truth of Islam, and although man may waver in his faith and religious practice, she abides in her perfect surrender to the One in her perpetual state of being muslim.
Nature is also a source for gaining knowledge of God’s Wisdom as reflected in His creation. The laws, activities, energies, forms, forces, and rhythms of nature reveal a knowledge that possesses a spiritual significance lying beyond the domain of nature itself. In fact, nature is also the source of metaphysical knowledge in the sense that there exists a symbolic science of nature that is of a metaphysical character. There is, moreover, an immediate knowledge of a purely spiritual character imparted by nature to those qualified to receive such a knowledge. For the contemplative, nature provides not only such a knowledge but also an aid for the spiritual life. In her embrace man is already freed from the pettiness of the human world and savors the foretaste of paradise. The grandeur of nature – the incredible beauty of her forms and harmony of rhythms and cycles – can help to melt the hardened heart and untie the knots in the soul so that man comes to see nature as the counterpart of that primordial revelation of which the Arabic Quran is the final crystallization in the life of present humanity.
As I have said before:
“There is more wisdom in the wild wood than in all the collected words of men.”
Question:
Why is “God” always “He?” Is “God” a biological male being, or are men merely male-centric, creating “God” in their own image?
Here’s another interesting quote from Mr Hossein Nasr’s creepy apologia for Islamic violence:
“since Islam embraces the whole of life and does not distinguish between the sacred and the secular, it concerns itself with force and power which characterize this world as such. But Islam, in controlling the use of force in the direction of creating equilibrium and harmony, limits it and opposes violence as aggression to the rights of both God and His creatures as defined by the divine Law. The goal of Islam is the attainment of peace but this peace can only be experienced through that exertion (jihad) and the use of force which begins with the disciplining of ourselves and leads to living in the world in accordance with the dicta of the shar’ia.
Here’s the rest of the article FYI: http://www.al-islam.org/al-serat/IslamAndViolence.htm
and here’s a handy reminder of the realities of Sharia in action, just a handful of the atrocities committed in the name of “creating [Islamic] equilibrium and harmony”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1AFi8iYkfU
Rob Fox has it right…all the other writing in the Quaran is deleted by his statement (Hossein) “P’eace can only be experienced with jihad and then use of force”…Rob you are being generous with your descrtiption of “CREEPY” .. I would say ..MURDEROUS! EVIL UNGODLY INHUMAN! The mentality of Jihad is the way to madness!
Westerners; with their roots in Christianity and its scriptures (namely the Bible) forget that Exodus & Leviticus are as blood -thirsty as any statement in the Qoran.
The story of the invasion of Palestine by the Children of Israel fleeing Egyptian slavery, is not one of “peace and blessing!”
Perhaps before we go judging the “sliver” in the other man’s eye, we had better look to the “beam” in our own.
Fear mongering has long been the tool of cowards. Self-defending aggresion will only serve to increase over-all aggresion.
A civil conversation, rather than a tirade, would go a long way to bringing understanding to this subject.
Don Thomann
You appear to assume – erroneously – that anyone who criticizes anything any Muslim says simply MUST be of Judaeo-Christian persuasion, and thus projecting and “fear-mongering” on that basis.
Wrong.
Here’s some interesting material from Islamic Hadith for your edification:
Muslim Book 042, Number 7135 Mohammed: “A tribe of Jews disappeared. I do not know what became of them, but I think they mutated and became rats. Have you noticed that a rat won’t drink camel’s milk, but it will drink goat’s milk?”
Muslim Book 041, Number 6985: Mohammed: The last hour will not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews. The Muslims would kill them, until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree. The stone or a tree would say: Muslim, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him. The tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
What part of “kill” do you not understand?
Rob Fox,
I share in your sympathies, but not in some of your biases. The espousal of violence by any faith or creed (or nation, ideology, political party, text, institution, etc.) ought to be condemned, particularly when it is founded upon hatred. I could not help but notice, however, that this passage which you chose to comment upon focuses primarily on the experience of awe and wonder when confronted by the mystery of creation and of the universe. I do not self-identify as a Muslim, but I am willing to admit that while some facets of Islam may be unseemly or repugnant (which religion lacks its faults?), the wisdom presented in Nasr’s passage is owed a degree of reverence.
Intolerance of intolerance only multiplies intolerance.
Hatred of hatred only multiplies hatred.
Fear feeds on itself.
For what?
Fear is like a mental sickness and a world problem. It is fear that blocks the way to seeing the underlying unity in the diversity of creation. Once we start to see, again, the whole of creation as one, not divided, only then will we be able to re-create equilibrium and therefore peace.
Seyyid Hossein Nasr adresses a world problem when he says: “The study of nature can therefore reveal an aspect of Divine Wisdom provided that study does not divorce the world from its Divine Principle.” Now contemplate the current state of our Mother Nature! What have we done to Her? “Nothing is farther removed from traditional Islamic spirituality than the raping of the earth in the name of man’s earthly welfare and without consideration of the welfare of the whole of creation” says Mr Nassr.
And still, our Mother is ready to serve the needs of all humanity and all other kingdoms, if we only come to our senses and start to share and therefore create justice and peace. Our Mother has been waiting, humbly and patiently. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed” observed Mr Gandhi. Sharing is Divine, as is justice and peace. There can neither be peace without justice nor justice without sharing. Every little child knows that in their heart before they get conditioned by human stupidity which originates from fear.
Let us listen to what Mr Nassr says: “In fact, nature is also the source of metaphysical knowledge in the sense that there exists a symbolic science of nature that is of a metaphysical character. There is, moreover, an immediate knowledge of a purely spiritual character imparted by nature to those qualified to receive such a knowledge. For the contemplative, nature provides not only such a knowledge but also an aid for the spiritual life. In her embrace man is already freed from the pettiness of the human world and savors the foretaste of paradise.”
There’s a lot of natural disasters now. Why? Because the law of cause and effect (which is also known as the law of Karma) requires to bring things into equilibrium. We humans, willingly and knowingly, brought into disequilibrium this world for us and all other kingdoms of nature. Now it simply pays off. The current disasters are the effects of our thoughts and deeds. Unfortunately, it mostly hits the weak and poor who already suffer. We, the rich countries, have brought this turmoil over our planet. Well, it is not the end, but we have brought ourselves to the edge of catastrophe. Millons starve in a world of plenty. The current desasters are our wake-up call: Save the planet! Make hunger, poverty and war a thing of the past! If we do that, also the forces of nature will calm down.
Since, I believe, God has a plan and that is to spiritualize matter, we can and will bring peace back to earth. It will not be an easy task, but we have to do it ourselves. Why should anyone care wether we call it peace, shalom, islam, shanti or whatever words there are. God is all there is. Fear for what?
Thank you for this article. We (humans) are so ego centric that we only hear ourselves talking and only see what we wish to see. Nature is all around us to bring balance to our souls but we are too busy to truely embrace it since we are to busy finding fault in each other or only see the groups that we identify with as the ones who only have redeeming qualities.
Earth is our canopy and we have not shown as much mercy to it – as we have not shown mercy to each other. It is often dificult enough to balance ourselves and to see G-d in the world we live in … afterall it was G-d’s wisdom to place us all together (and made us different so that ‘we can know each other’)and as time goes on – we are closer to each other then ever in history with communications and travel. Therefore you can choose to see the good or you can choose see the bad. You can choose to see the sunset every night or you could chose see the black spot on your brother eyes everyday(never seeing your own). We are the stewards of the earth but we are also the stewards of each other.
Shalom – Assalamu Alaikum – Peace Be With You
or Shalom Alaikum
Hmmm, here’s an interesting take on a closely related issue from Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi quoted in Boulder Weekly some time ago:
“Although Schachter-Shalomi defends Lerner as a loyal Jew, he’s somewhat critical of the stand American progressives have taken regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
“On our side, we have hawks and doves,” Schachter-Shalomi says. “There are also doves on the Palestinian side but the Hawks there kill them and call them collaborators. But you live in Boulder, you have a very low crime rate, and nobody steals the batteries and tires from your car when you park it. Most people living in our situation don’t understand how parents send their kids out, and then go around collecting 10,000 bucks for having a martyred kid. It’s beyond the ken of the people who are the doves here. What people don’t realize is that when you talk about Palestinians, you have to talk about Palestinians who want to live and work in Israel and have a decent life, and those are the ones who come out in the Arab propaganda. The people who are pushing the propaganda are the people who have factories that make bombs you can strap on.”
That’s the reality of the jihad that Hossein Nasr endorses and enjoins upon Muslims in the statement above.
Rob Fox,
Your hatred of some Muslims is coloring your view of Dr. Nasr. His primary concern is with spiritual jihad, the battle within ourselves which prevent us from completely surrendering to divine will. With respect to society, it is moral jihad which addresses the same concerns for social justice as does Tikkun olam.
Don’t confuse honorable people like Rabbi Lerner and Dr. Nasr with extremists on both sides of the issue. There are those in every religion who distort their scriptures and doctrines to sow hate and mistrust.
Ron Krumpos,
“Your hatred of some Muslims is coloring your view of Dr. Nasr”
Why do those who purport to speak in support of certain religious groups – Muslims in this case – so often confuse vigorous opposition to an ideology with hatred of its adherents?
Even in the complete absence of any evidence to support their claims.
Perhaps because it is rhetorically convenient to do so.
“his peace can only be experienced through that exertion (jihad) and the use of force which begins with the disciplining of ourselves and leads to living in the world in accordance with the dicta of the shar’ia.
Have you witnessed the atrocious violence against women and LGBT people that sharia demands?
What part of “the use of force” do you not understand?
Seyyed Hossein Nasr in his essay, Ideals and Realities of Islam, makes it clear that he is no proponent of some kind of modernized or liberalised reinterpretation of Islam when he says:
“Certain modernists over the past century have tried to change the Shari’ah, to reopen the gate of ijtihad, with the aim of incorporating modern practices into the Law and limiting the function of Shari’ah to personal life. All of these activities emanate from a particular attitude of spiritual weakness vis-à-vis the world and surrender to the world. Those who are conquered by such a mentality want to make the Shari’ah ‘conform to the times,’ which means to the whims and fancies of men and the ever changing human nature which has made ‘the times.’ They do not realize that it is the Shari’ah according to which society should be modeled not vice versa.
If you have the misfortune to be woman victim of gang rape or some other heinous crime, or fall in love with a member of the same gender, and are living under the barbarous rule of Sharia – Hossein Nasr says that’s just too bad for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3M8TwYXZtU