The tales are individual descriptions of an internal journey

ray harris Says: November 10th, 2006 at 5:29 pm Hi Alan, I have great sympathy for the revelation of the Heart and we could wax lyrical about the Heart as THE organ of realization, in Sufism, Kashmir Shaivism, etc. The difficulty I have is that in the end nothing can be said about the opening of the Heart, other than tell one’s own tale. And that is the ‘heart’ of the problem, the tales are individual descriptions of an internal journey.

I’ve mentioned it before but it’s worth mentioning again, and that’s the concept of ta’wil, found in Shia philosophy and elaborated by Ibn Arabi and that is that the Divine reveals itself to individual in a unique hermeneutic. The problem with any system is that it can dull the individual’s own unique understanding. A key event in Ibn Arabi’s life was the meeting of a young girl called Nizam, which he understood to be a visitation of Sophia. Ta’wil, being individual, means that this experience was unique and it certainly fits with my own experience. In my case it was a beautiful Italian/Brazilian girl I’ll call Gulabi. The goddess appeared through her and I had an overwhelming experience of the goddess through her that no one else, not even Gulabi, could understand. (Gulabi had a different experience).

It may be possible to create a more definitive map but it will be difficult. I believe much more needs to be done in the field of comparative mysticism amongst genuine mystics freed from any need to defend a particular map. I’m writing this at the same time as I’m revisting the various Platonic variations in the Abrahamic traditions, Sohrawardi, Ibn Arabi, Gnosticism (several variations thereof) etc. Ray’s Integral Blog Integral Metatheory