Some years ago I went to Fez, Morocco, to deepen my practice under the tutelage
of a Sufi shaykh of the Qadiri order. Although I am not formally a Muslim,
I was welcomed by him and in the dhikr circles I attended. One day, however,
when I was visiting the house of one of his students, the student turned on me
angrily for not being a real Muslim, and insisted that the only true Sufi path
could be found by following the Shari’a—the laws of Islam. Some months later
the shakyh told me he had heard of this conflict and had been furious at his
student for his narrow-mindedness.
But the shaykh’s accepting view is less common than his student’s. One often
reads in current books on Sufism repeated and harsh attacks on what the authors
perceive as “pseudo-spirituality” masquerading as Sufism in the
Western world. They are especially sensitive about any suggestion
that Sufism could function as an authentic path of awakening outside
the Shari’a and doctrine of Islam, or that it could look for any
of its origins prior to the revelations of the Prophet Mohammed.
In my view these authors are quite right in affirming that Islamic
Sufism is Islamic Sufism, which naturally takes for its primary reference
the Qur’an, hadith, and the treasury of Sufi mystical writings
that have formed the body of Islamic Sufi doctrine through the
past fourteen centuries.
Universal Revelation
But when the Sufi mystic Inayat Khan brought Sufism to the West in 1910,
a major watershed occurred in the history of Sufism. Himself a Muslim Sufi
initiated into the four primary Sufi orders—Chisti, Suhrawardi, Nakshibandi,
and Qadiri—Inayat Khan revolutionized and re-expressed traditional Sufism by
releasing it from an exclusive relation with Islam. “Sufism has never been owned
by any race or religion,” he wrote. “Sufism itself is the essence of all the religions
as well as the spirit of Islam.”
But it is unlikely the critics who condemn the “pseudo-spirituality” of our times
have Inayat Khan or his message of universal Sufism in mind when they write.
After all, the several Western Sufi orders that follow in Inayat Khan’s lineage
amount to no more than a few thousand people. Rather I think they are responding
to an unmistakable drift in Western spiritual culture away from adherence
to a single religion and dogma, and consequently many people’s
spiritual openness toward the inner teachings of several religions.
It is this more pervasive cultural movement that disturbs the religionists.
The well-respected writer William Stoddart sums up their objections
in this way: “One cannot take the view that, since mysticism or
esoterism is the inner truth common to all religions, one can dispense with
religion (exoterism) and seek only mysticism (esoterism).” Or, as other authors
repeat, “There can be no esoterism without an exoterism,” that is,
there can be no authentic mystical path without a “divinely revealed
religion” to ground it and inspire it.
I would like to explore this issue here because it causes much confusion in those
who find themselves outside a formal religious tradition but who are nevertheless
dedicated to a rigorous spiritual aspiration and path. Specifically I would
like to look at what is meant by the exoteric, especially its ethical dimension,
and how we might understand the source of exoteric forms in revelation, which
is the arising of what we experience as true.
If the function of the esoteric refers to a path of mystical realization, of interest
to only a few, the function of the exoteric refers to (at least) three areas of benefit
to a more general audience of humanity. These three areas are:
1. Ethics. The provision by formal religions of codes of social conduct
to promote peace, fairness, and social and personal well-being.
Here we have the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the
Mount, the Shari’a, Buddhist precepts, Jewish law, etc.
2. Doctrine. The doctrine of a religion unites us with the divine or
ultimate reality through the view it gives us of our place in the cosmos,
the meaning of life and our mortality, as well as the spiritual
lessons given through its symbolic narrative. When it claims to
be based on divinely revealed scripture, religious doctrine carries a
profound power to engage people and to secure their commitment
to its view and teachings.
3. Worship. Formal religion also provides inspiration and a channel
for our reverence and our desire to express it. Awe, intimacy, longing,
love of beauty, praise, and thankfulness are given a context and
focus through communal ritual and prayer.
Hence the charge by religionists is plain: those who follow a mystical path not
faithful to a single formal religion are separated from any authentic source of
ethics, doctrine, and worship, and are therefore relegated to a “cafeteria-style,”
“pick-and-choose” religion that has no depth, roots, or obligation.
I wish to affirm here, in the strongest possible terms, that in my experience
exactly the opposite is true. We—and now I use “we” to include all those who
follow a sincere path of spiritual awakening outside the definitions of a single
faith—we are blessed with nothing less than a source of ethics, doctrine, and
worship that arises from the Universal Revelation of All of Existence. It is sufficient
to inspire our lives with all the guidance and reverence we could hope
for as human beings.
Universal Revelation
What is Universal Revelation? It is both the source of the vast heritage of guidance
and wisdom we have received from the past and the source of our everevolving
awakening. Ultimately it is Life and the source of Life. Through the
grace of Universal Revelation we receive ethical guidance, a meaningful world
view, and a communion of worship which is non-exclusive in its scope and
profound in its realization.
Typically “Divine Revelation” is understood as a transaction that has occurred
sometime in the distant past between God and a prophet or other holy figure.
Through that transaction a message is given of benefit to a certain people or to
humanity as a whole. In speaking here of Universal Revelation I am not implying
there are two kinds of revelation, divine and universal. They are the same.
My point in using the word “universal” in the context of revelation is to free
the notion of revelation from its associations with exclusivity and with the idea
that only the great prophets of humanity could ever receive revelation from the
Divine.
Even the idea of revelation as a transaction is questionable. After all, what we
mean by God or the Divine is Oneness, Unity, the Only Being. There are not
two, a Divine Giver and a mortal receiver. The Divine reveals through Creation
immanently, not transactionally. This point is crucial in understanding
Universal Revelation: it is immanent. Immanent in the waves of the sea and
in the joy of the heart, immanent in the gaze of our eyes and the understanding
of our minds, immanent in birth and immanent in death. Both of these
words—“immanent” and “revealed”—describe the same intimate experience of
a depth being recognized out of the Very Nature of Things. The subject-object,
knower-known relation is not how this is experienced—rather the recognition
is revealed immanently and what is immanent is the transcendent.
I think that Baha'i would have been a different religion -- or no religion at all -- if not the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh had been so inspired by Sufism and the great Sufi poets who wrote poetry about Oneness 500 years ago.
Mi Randa
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