Readings: Ying-Yang Sufi-style

from Chapter 5 -- “The Heart” -- of the text What is Sufism? by Martin Lings:

When it is said that God is Love, the highest meaning this can have is that the Archetype of all the positive relationships—conjugal, parental, filial and fraternal—are Indivisibly One in the Infinite Self-Sufficing Perfection of the Divine Essence. A less absolute meaning is that the central relationship, namely the conjugal one on which the others depend and in the background of which they are already present, has its Archetype in the polarization of the Divine Qualities into Qualities of Majesty and Qualities of Beauty. It results from this Archetype that mutual concord depends on likeness and unlikeness, affinity and complementarity. Both the Majesty and the Beauty are Infinite and Eternal, whence their affinity. But one is Active Perfection and the other is Passive Perfection, whence their complementarity. On earth the human pair have affinity through their vice-regency for God, and they are complementary through being man and woman. The harmony of the universe depends on analogous samenesses and differences not only between individuals but also between worlds. …Thus it is possible to speak of ‘the Marriage of Heaven and Earth’…

Readings: Religion

One the things that kept Simone Weil, that most orthodox of non-Catholic Catholics, from being baptized and partaking of the Eucharist, was what she saw as the rejection by the Church of eternal Truths as expressed by other religions. A Christian Platonist, she learned Sanskrit in order to study the Hindu scriptures, particularly the Bhagavad Gita, in their original language.

I am currently reading, at the pace of about two pages per day, The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah. The quote below expresses very well, I think, the dangers of orthodoxy and organized religion to the quest of the spiritual pilgrim:

Religion

All religions, as theologians – and their opponents – understand the word, is something other than what it is assumed to be.

Religion is a vehicle. Its expressions, rituals, moral and other teachings are designed to cause certain elevating effects, at a certain time, upon certain circumstances.

Because of the difficulty of maintaining the science of man, religion was instituted as a means of approaching truth. The means always became, for the shallow, the end, and the vehicle became the idol.

Only the man of wisdom, not the man of faith or intellect, can cause the vehicle to move again.

--Arif Yahya

It is my understanding that the "man of wisdom" referrred to in the final sentence is a teacher, or spiritual guide--a guru if we want to admit that much-abused word. I do not take it to mean that men of faith, or even intellectuals, are forever barred from the Kingdom.

Sufism, which is often understood to be the "mystical expression of Islam," is similar to Christianity in its emphasis on love. This would seem to position it well as a possible mediator in the current troubles between Islam and the West.