The Intellect & the Inner and Outer Senses
... if we try to use external senses to perceive anything other than
their own objects they will not understand them at all. On the contrary;
as far as the senses are concerned, anything else simply does not exist... if we used them to try to perceive hunger, anger or shame, it would take these things to be totally non-existent and would be able to gather nothing whatsoever about them.
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... the inner senses, such as imagination, fantasy and volition, also have
their own perceptions... If these faculties are used for perceptions other
than these , they will merely become bewildered, and their own properties
will be disturbed...
The intellect, which is the tongue of the sublime spirit , has a certain
range of perceptions, within which it may freely move and act . But once the intellect moves beyond the range of what it can perceive , then it becomes perplexed and its properties are disturbed ...
Men of intellect habitually dispute amongst themselves over subjects such as these; and it even happens that a single intellectual will contradict himself on two separate occasions.
Meanwhile, the knotty problem remains and no progress is made.
The actual cause of the dispute lies beyond the scope of the intellect
and is reckoned, by way of analogy and resemblance, to be one of the
concepts...
The fact of the matter is that it does not belong to any conceptual category whatsoever. The analogies which have been drawn are fallacious, or else are simply some poetical fancy remembered from somewhere or other. It is this that lies at the root of all their disputations; and those who have failed to grasp this point , are as a consequence, forever locked in conflict.
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An entity cannot perceive other than itself or what is like itself.
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... at the very point where multiplicity should be cast aside,
and the unity within unity should be perceived, the intellect is crippled
and handicapped...
There does exist a path from contingent accidents back to their
essential substance . Instinctively, the source extricates itself from the
accidental and approaches the essential....
[the intellect can become] aware of the error of the intellect, and is thus
not deflected from the Path. In short, we may describe the intellect as a
faculty in which primary and secondary concepts are represented . It is here that the analytical teachings and proofs of the law belong. The intellect can comprehend certain realities directly and certain others only behind a veil. However close it may come to subtlety, it is connected and its attention is directed to the faculties of comprehension and thought which have been located in the center of the brain.
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The intellect is the tongue of the sublime spirit and is one of its
faculties . Whatever involves discrimination and investigation is entrusted
to it. Its inward aspect is the secret faculty. At the time of unification
with the supreme manifestation or the exalted assembly, the intellect
perceives that inward aspect, but its perception is mixed and confused.
When it comes down a little from this state, that same perception becomes the hearing and vision of the spirit. If anyone uses the word intellect instead of the word "taste" , his speech does not accord with conventional language, but there is no harm in that.
According to us the word "taste" is used to describe perception in which there is no abstraction of concepts and no room for the analytical teachings and proofs of the law. Such a perception is in fact " the presence of a thing by itself, for itself, in itself and of itself."
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The Universal Soul
There is nothing perceptible to sense or reason alongside the universal soul so that in keeping with the dictum "things are known by their opposites" men's minds might act freely within it and might be able to tell it apart from other things. For all of time it is by itself and in itself never has it turned towards itself with renewed attention. In no circumstance has it ever sought to reinvestigate itself, and yet from all that it is subtlety within subtlety, simplicity within simplicity "... exempt from any taint of attachment" even if the intellect were to try it could never attain to this grace. The only result would be bewilderment.
However those who are endowed with the faculty of taste can in fact
perceive this by way of "the presence of a thing for itself, with itself and
in itself." As a result, their intellect receives a hint of that condition.
Such people are thus like the man who has a squint and yet is aware of the fact.
... philosophers have failed to establish the true common factor between the essential substance and the contingent accident and have thus not recognized the universal soul as the highest genus. The reason for this is the total annihilation which supervenes in the presence of the universal soul. According to their intellect , the testimony of someone concerning that which is witnessed for and by itself and which cannot be known to the intellect is simply not to be credited.
In the world of ideas, accidents become essential substance; and conversely, essential substances become accidents in the domain of imagination with the mental picture accurately matching external existence.
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When certain people of intuition look deep within themselves, the universal soul appeared to them. They gave it the name of "being" and discerned in it such subtlety and simplicity, far transcending the scope of rational thought, that they supposed it to be precisely the self-existent divine being.
Subsequently, whenever any simple or subtle thing reached them they made it accord with that being and were content to remain forever with this degree of knowledge... These people contented themselves with what was merely one of its aspects and did not encompass all of its dimensions . Had they understood the universal soul in depth they would never have called it the origin of origins. There are others who have passed beyond the universal soul and understood the Pure Essence as the first of the first and the universal soul as the first emanation and unfolding of being into the manifold forms of existence. However, they mixed all of this together, gave it one name and lumped it altogether under one heading. They mixed up some realities with others and classified the most subtle of them as the inward aspects of the others.
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Thoughts
Any thought which occurs within a man's mind partakes of one of the
following three situations:
It takes place in the heart alone. Thoughts of this kind are called "states"
and "moments": such emotions as fear, hope, depression, elation, love,
regret and grief.
Alternatively it may take place in the intellect alone, sometimes in the
form of a disclosure of future events , sometimes as a premonition .
The third situation arises when it is located in both the heart and the
intellect. The intellect imagines and formulates a certain thing while the
heart provides the necessary resolution. Such thoughts are known as
impulses. ...
Sometimes the occurrence of a thought is the result of the way in which the intellect, heart and self are constituted-- just as, for example , hunger, thirst, lust or coldness give rise to a particular impulse. It may be that love for someone calls for a meeting; or perhaps the black humour spreads
dark temptations which lead to like actions; or else the yellow humours occasion bilious fantasies, leading to depression, hard-heartedness or garrulousness.
Habit also serves as a cause for the behavior of the self. The intellect has been given the power of perception, while the power of decision and intention is located in the heart; and it is in accordance with this disposition that they exercise control .
However, all of this produces a confused jumble of thoughts which the seeker is at pains to avoid. Indeed, he suppresses and eradicates anything which may hinder the fruitful use of his time.
... ['demonic' impulses] always create melancholy, indecision and hardness of heart, and divert the individual from acts of kindness.... calculated to produce base actions and the breakdown of good order... full of fear and horror and all of it is a sheer deception.
Sometimes thoughts come from the "world of ideas"
[two types of communications from world of ideas]
1. There is a particular conjunction of the stars as a result of which a universal event is represented and established as an ideal with an existence of its own in the presence of the supreme manifestation. In such a case, people say, "God wrote such and such, or decided such and such".
This universal event then descends at the proper time and place. The angels in the service of that descending event strive hard on its behalf and if they intuitively recognize anyone who is by nature equal to that event they bring him closer to it by means alternately of contraction and expansion. Thus from their own aspirations are effective the necessary transmission and aspiration and the desired object is achieved.
2. ... human souls have their own particular destiny. Thus the
universal soul does not come down itself into the particular soul, but
rather adapts itself to the form of the world obtaining on that particular
day. The requirement of the particular soul, which will inevitably be
modeled on the actual form of the world, is called destiny, and each man will fare according to his own particular destiny.
...a decree pours down from universal nature and hosts of angels adapted to that inspiration hasten to be present in the battlefield and control the situation by means of inspiration, transmission, contraction and expansion, until that decree is made manifest and the imagined form comes into existence.
It is according to such a pattern that impulses descend into the hearts of
mankind. Sometimes the angels contrive a stratagem to save someone from destruction, sometimes they make a person aware of the real situation by means of dreams or voices, at other times they may uses someone else as a means to convey some information to the individual or to do something for him....
Most of such thoughts percolate through via the energies of the world of
ideas . The angels make no distinction between good and bad in their work of transmission and inspiration....
In addition to the many angels of humanity , there is also a band of pure
souls who do the work of angels and are thus counted among their number....
The science of talismans, the science of letters, and the science of the
'names of god' all derive from a knowledge of this system, or from a branch of it....
Impulses or thoughts which are numbered among the stages of perfection:
1. The first category is when a thought descends from the major self-hood into the minor selfhood ... When the form of the world changes, and the condition of its basic components also changes , then it follows of necessity that the supreme manifestation should also move from one state to another. This is the meaning implied in the words, "every day He is in a new state". The exalted assembly takes on this same coloring. There can be no affinity with pure goodness except by immersion in this influence. Hence it is essential in this case that human souls should be tinged with the coloring of this holy presence, and that it should permeate them through and through ...
Perfected individuals... have pores and channels connecting them
with the major selfhood and the supreme manifestation, which last is the
heart, as it were, of the major selfhood. Thus it is that this impulse ,
passing via universal nature, reaches these perfected souls and from there connects up with all other souls.
The aspirations of the exalted assembly, as long as they are not stirred up, they will not stir up by themselves... so long as this general aspiration does not become a particular one, the universal expediency will not descend in the form of a particular expedient act, and the precipitation will not be able to flow.
Such an impulse then selects one of those perfected souls... [there is] an expansion in his pure intellect [which] mingles and associates with the supreme manifestation. The impulse is stamped on his pure intellect.
Then the secret faculty and the spirit become amenable to its will. It goes into the intellect and the heart, colors the premonitions of the mind and the states of the heart. This impulse becomes an authoritative pronouncement and can appear in new forms according to the requirements of
the circumstances.
After that, the impulse descends further to the level of the physical body and induces the people to act in accordance with that truth . Thus a new religion or doctrine or line of succession is organized.
God then pours down a fresh enhancement into the knowledge of the perfect man and inspires his religion and his doctrine so that they may continue through the ages uneffaced. Successive reformers then revive that religion until eventually the complexion of the supreme manifestation changes and this new aspect appears within the heart of another perfect man. Whatever news he gives of the supreme manifestation will contain a hint of that new coloring.
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The best interpreter of the Truth is the one whose intellect keeps silent
concerning the premonitions and thoughts which arise spontaneously within his mind by virtue of his own innate disposition . Apart from the impulse which we have described above, nothing stirs his intellect or prompts him to any original utterance. The most perfect exemplification of this is to be found in Muhammad, the seal of the prophets... Jesus Christ proclaimed the unification of the pure intellect with the supreme manifestation, thereby creating a mighty stir... Whatever [Muhammad] said was said calmly and with complete sobriety of mind.
2. The training of human souls has its equivalent in the world of ideas and this is the concern of the universal impulse. However, it is essential that a particular impulse should be joined with it. thus this impulse percolates
down into the hearts of upright people who are continuously devoted to the world of ideas and to the angels who are the bearers of this secret. The desire to carry out this work arises in a great number of people and through them it is brought to completion.
Spiritual leaders, reformers of religion , even the guide who is the very axis of the earth, all drink their fill at this fountain....
It may even be that perfected individuals , likewise receive this secret from the presence of the world of ideas and exert themselves accordingly. But in such a case they would be working below their true capacity.
... sometimes it happens that inspiration is directed towards a certain
person but that the import of that inspiration is conveyed via the speech of
someone else who may or may not know the underlying situation and the
intention behind what he says... The latter would appear to the former to
be one of the angels... It might even be that he is brought to an
understanding of that inspiration through the cooing of a dove, the chirping
of a sparrow, or the sound made by some object or other...
3. The luminous angels appointed to watch over the exercises of praise and submission circle around whoever performs them and some of their splendor falls upon his intellect and his heart. If the heart is uppermost, then the quality of the resultant state is one of intimacy and tranquility. But if the intellect is predominant, the blessing takes the form of premonitions. Or else the resolve of his heart becomes linked with the intention to perform
good actions. Such an intention is consistent with the understanding of the angels and is therefore known as " angelic thought"
Sometimes this same state or thought is represented to the perception of the seeker in sleep in the [case of the heart type] that sleep becomes a dream of splendor and bliss and everything connected with intimacy and tranquility. In the [intellectual] type, it takes the form of an admonition, the substance of which is a command either to perform a certain act or to desist from doing an evil one. This is in fact a revelation of the mind which has appeared in the individual's intellect and created there the form of an
impulse....
from The Altaf al-Quds of Shah Waliullah
Shah Waliullah of Delhi
TRANSLATED BY G. N. JALBANI
REVISED AND EDITED BY David Pendlebury
The Sacred Knowledge is regarded as a fundamental text in both East and West by students of Sufi thought. Through Professor Jalbani’s rendering, the book shows how the 18th century mystic of Delhi discharged his task. In Waliullah’s own words, ‘The purpose behind writing this discourse is that only those problems pertaining to perception and the mystical unveiling are mentioned.’
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