Which role does (communicable) knowledge play for you on a spiritual path? What should one know?
There are only two beings in the whole universe: the lover and the beloved. “I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be recognized” (Saying of the Prophet Mohammed). This saying states that the whole creation was only made for the purpose that the knower (God / Allah) recognizes himself in the known (creation). Therefore the whole of creation longs to be united with the Creator, because only in Him can it recognize itself. Knowledge of God leads to union with the divine Beloved. The separation from the Creator was necessary for the process of cognition to become possible at all. The journey to the divine Beloved begins when we awaken in the very moment, in the here and now. The journey of gradual awakening leads into the divine presence. In it we recognize that in every moment of awakening we are connected with God, our Creator. This recognition can only happen in the divine presence. The awareness journey into the divine presence begins with the conscious intention of being satisfied with nothing else but the divine Beloved Himself. The search for Him leads to union with the divine source of man. Only in union with God / Allah can the separation from this source be annulled. Man attains perfect bliss when he has found himself, his own divinity within himself, at the very basis of all being.
What is there to know? – What is inner knowledge and until where does it reach? Is it possible that not-knowing can play an important role?
The state of unity can only be attained through the drunkenness of the heart. Drunkenness through the wine of love leads to perfect union with the divine Beloved. In the Koran, the holy word is “La Ilahe Ilallah”. This means: nothing is, no reality except God. Only he who is intoxicated by the wine of God’s love can truly understand the beauty and meaning of these words. All holy scriptures testify to the perfect unity of God with all of His creation. The mystery of the unity of all Being can be attained only in a state of perfect drunkenness. He who is intoxicated with love can experience the divine Beloved in the drunkenness of his own heart.
In being extinguished by perfect drunkenness, the negation of all created things can happen. By being drunk with the wine of the love of God, the Sufi reaches the state of “Fana”, of being extinguished. After the Sufi attains the vision of God and the opening of the eye of the heart through drunkenness by the wine of love, he is struck like lightning by absolute sobriety and clarity, the vision of God that leads to the affirmation of all created things. This true sobriety is the greatest ecstasy of drunkenness, in which the Sufi recognizes the beauty of God in his own heart.
Only through the state of being extinguished and drunk on the wine of God’s love can the “subjective I”, the ego-personality (ego), the animalistic instinctive soul, be overcome. Only in the state of highest ecstasy and drunkenness can the divine higher self, the divine spark in the fifth ventricle of the heart, be recognized. Real knowledge is knowledge through love. For the Sufis, one’s own body is a cross of light, a map of consciousness.
What is your most important guiding star? How do you experience the transformative aspect of the path?
In order to be able to awaken, man should detach himself from the sensual world of the body, with his animalistic instinctive soul and the attachment to it. It is a rising out of oneself. Man should learn to rise up in order to reach the divine source of his heart (see Master Eckhart’s work on emptiness and fullness). Real knowledge is the knowledge of the spark of God in the heart of man.
The Sufis believe that Jesus Christ did not die on the wooden cross, but on the cross of light, the essence, the light of God.
On this cross of light, the animalistic instinctive soul of Jesus died and Christ was resurrected in “dying before dying”. When the fifth chamber of the heart opens, the divine seed, the divine spark, rises and germinates into the rose of love, into the burning heart of Jesus. The rose unfolds its petals and emits a wonderful fragrance of God’s eternity.
Only now is the hidden black light of God revealed, unveiling the mystery of love in the rose garden of the heart. The rose blossoms because it is inflamed by pure love of God. By being annihilated in God, Fana, the Sufi reaches the black light that shines in the darkness of the heart and reveals the essence of God. For the Sufis, the color of Jesus is a luminous black. He is considered a prophet of spiritual poverty among the Sufis. For he speaks of himself in the Sermon on the Mountain:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The complete annihilation of the animalistic instinctive soul from all its desires describes the process of Jesus’ death on the cross. By the death on the cross through love, we are on the way to spiritual poverty, and the black light reveals the secret nature of God, which is revealed in the burning heart of Jesus. Recognition of the luminous black colour in the fifth ventricle of the heart leads to salvation from the death on the cross. By being completely extinguished on the path of poverty, the Sufi attains the emerald vision of the heart. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit fills the goblet of the heart with the black light of the knowledge of God. The essence of God always remains hidden and is therefore the shining black light for which the Christ Consciousness stands. The Holy Spirit can be received in a heart burning with passionate love of God. This leads to complete poverty and extinction in the presence of the divine Beloved. When the seeker follows the path of poverty, the path of Jesus Christ, he reaches his real home, the Kingdom of the Light of God.
