‘Begegnung Im Licht’,

by Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken,

a.k.a. Bo Yin Ra.

Picture from the Kober Foundation.

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With today’s sharing from the Blue House of HYGEIA we are finally resuming our translation of Sohravardi’s treatise, the ‘Book of the Temples of the Light’ (Kitab Hayakil al-Nur) as it is a dear project of ours, with the Prolog, the ‘First Temple’ and the ‘Second Temple’, following the earlier publication of the the ‘Fifth Temple’  & the ‘Seventh Temple‘(of Seven). From Page 41 to 46,  in the 1976 Fayard French edition by professor Henri Corbin. ‘Third, Fourth & Sixth Temples’ will follow soon, as God allows.

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Prolog

In the name of God, the most Compassionate and Merciful. Lord of the Worlds, O Eternal!  Strengthen us, reinforce us, gather us into the Light. May the end of our search finds Your agreement, and that our supreme aim is to prepare for our encounter with You. ‘We have wrong our own souls (Qur’an, 7:23). You are not stingy in the effusion of your overabundance!

The captives of the darkness remain before the threshold, awaiting your mercy and their deliverance from captivity. Goodness is the result of Your pleasure-in conformity of your essence-while evil, is, O my God, the consequence of fate. You exist in supreme majesty, constantly bestowing grace and mercy. Those who confine themselves to worshipping matter and the body are not worthy of Your closeness.

Grant us the necessary wisdom to remember You with reverence. Lift the veils of ignorance from among us.  Guide those who perform righteous deeds to the fulfillment of their aspirations. May prayers and praises be upon our Prophet, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa (pbuh), and upon all his loved ones.

This work is the treatise ‘Kitab Hayakil al-Nur’—The ‘Book of the Temples of the Light’. May it be a blessing to those who possess the ability to walk the right path and to those who guide them toward enlightenment !

(A Via-Hygeia note: Alternative sentence proposed by professor Henry Corbin: ‘This is ‘The Book of the Temples of the Light’. May God bless the souls accepting to be guided in the straight path and the hierarchical Intelligences leading them towards Him!‘)

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First Temple

Of certain things valued as principles in regard to the coming discussions.

Anything that may be the object of a perceptible indication by the senses, is a body comprising length, width and depth. Bodies all participate to corporeity. But, when two things participate to a same thing, it is necessary for them to be differentiated, one from the other by something else. Therefore, the participating bodies that partake together to the corporeity must be differentiated between themselves by certain other things. It is by their figure, their respective external form (which is never separable) that they can be differentiated. (Note by Henry Corbin: We will see later, in the ‘Fourth Temple’, chapter II, that for bodies sharing between themselves their corporeity, what does differentiate them is their capacity, more or less great, to welcome and receive light. The ‘Fourth Temple’ will be part of our final Sampler devoted to ‘the Book of the Temples of the Light’).

What is inherent by essence to a reality, is inseparable of it. Some time the qualification of a thing is necessary to that thing; for instance, parity for the number 4, corporeity for a person. On one hand, it is of the domain of possibility, such a the ability for somebody to stand or to be sitting. While on the other hand, it is of the domain of impossibility for such as for person to be a horse.

Finally, what is represented as un-dividable, can neither enter the dimension of space, nor being the object of a perceptible indication by the senses. Otherwise, the part of a thing that is located in one side (above, for instance), is necessarily alien to the part that is located on the opposite side (below, for instance); such a thing, is indubitably represented as dividable.

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Second Temple

Where it is demonstrated that the soul is separated from matter.

1. The incorporeal. You are never without the feeling of yourself, while there are some parts among others of your body that you happen to forger for a while. Therefore, the whole can only be perceived by the parts that are constituting it. But if your essence consisted only of this totality, how could it ever be possible to sometimes forget and sometimes not forget? What you call ‘I‘—this self—is far superior to the body and its parts.”

A variant in our demonstration. Your body is submitted to a continuous process of elimination and dissolution. The nutritional function bringing what it brings, if the old nutrient hasn’t been evacuated from your body when the new batch comes in, your body will reach enormous proportions. If you would be your body or a random part of it, the core of yourself (ana iya, your egoity) would be alien at each moment, and inside of you, the knowing subject would be without continuity. Therefore, you are not your body (nor a part of it). And how could you be? Does your body not journey towards dissolution without you even noticing it? No, you and your self are beyond these things.

Another variant in our demonstration. You perceive a thing only because its form (sura, species, appearance) is actualized in you; consequently, what you have in you of that thing you are perceiving must correspond to that thing; otherwise, you would not perceive it as it is. Further more, you fathom the concepts to which many beings participate, for instance the animal realm. You fathom it in such a way that there is an equal relationship between the elephant and the fly. The form (species) of any animality, such as in is in you is therefore deprived of measure, because it corresponds at the same time to what is big and to what is small. Its substrate in you is also not measurable. This very substrate, it is your thinking soul, because what is not itself measurable cannot immanate a body nor anything measurable.

Your thinking soul is neither a body, nor any other corporeal object. We cannot point at it with a finger like any object falling under your sensible perception or gaze, because it is free from spatial dimension. It is of a monadic and unfathomable nature. It cannot be divided by our thought. You know very well that we do not speak of a wall ‘as being blind‘ and that it does not see, because  blindness can only be linked to a being that is, under normal circumstances, able to see.

The Creator, the thinking soul, other beings-we will mention later in our exposition- are neither bodies nor corporeal objects. They are neither within the world, nor outside. They are, in relationship with this world, neither in continuity, nor in discontinuity. All this are the effects of the accidents of the bodies, from which what is not a body is deprived.

The thinking soul is an essence, of which it is unheard of being the object of a perceptible indication by the senses. Its condition (its state) is to rule the body, to understand itself and to fathom other things. How to represent to ourselves that this sacrosanct quiddity (mahiya qodsiya), is a body, when under the shock of  spiritual emotion, not much is left to keep it grounded while it is anxious to abandon the universe of bodies in its aspiration towards the world of things infinite?

II. The faculties of the soul. This soul possesses faculties. There are the faculties of external perception, which are the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight. And there are the faculties of internal perception:

1. The is the sensorium, which is, in its relationship with the five external senses, like a basin towards which five rivers converge. It it through the sensorium that the forms we see in a dream are contemplated, through a direct vision, not in the manner of un-ruled and passive phantasy (takhayyol).

2. There is the representative imagination (khayal), which is simply the treasure-chest of the sensorium. in this chest are kept the forms (sowar, species), after they have disappeared from the reach of the external senses.

3. There is the cogitative or meditative faculty (fikriya, mofak-kira), which function is to compose, separate and invent, in other words, active imagination, as being guided by the intellect.

4. There is the estimative faculty and it happens some time, that is may enter in conflict with the intellect. For instance, it may happen that a man finds himself alone at a night vigil with a corpse; his intellect tells him there is nothing to fear, while his estimative faculty fills him with terror, to such a level that he becomes overwhelmed and flees away. Also, it happens that the estimative faculty contradicts the intellect in matters of things that are not perceptible through the external senses, to such a point when they become complaisant with the estimative faculty’s judgements, and start to deny and reject everything that dwells beyond realities perceptible by the senses. They do not realize that their intellect, or rather their proper estimative function, their soul and their imagination are not, also, perceptible by the external senses. Further more, they even do not understand that their visual faculty only catches in a body its mere surface, and not its hidden depth.

5. Each of these internal senses possess in the brain a proper place. It’s activity will be confused, if any perturbation affect that specific area, while the activity of the other functions remain unaffected. This is precisely how we have been led to recognize the  diversification of the faculties of the soul and the possession by each of them of a specific region of the brain proper to it.

Also, living beings do possess: 1. the appetitive faculty (qowwa shawqiya), which itself is divided in two branches: the concupiscible appetite (qowwa shawwanyia) & the irascible appetite (qowwa Ghadabiya), which has been created to repel improper things. 2. The moving faculty (qowwa maharrika) which function is to put things into action, for instance, the organs & the limbs.

III. The vital Pneuma. The support for all of these faculties, moving faculties & perceptive faculties, is the vital pneuma (ruh hayawaniya). This pneuma is a subtle body of a vaporous nature, brought together by the volatility of the humors. It emanates from the left cavity of the heart and spreads in the whole body, after having been coated  by the might of the light originating from the thinking soul. If this pneuma did not have this subtleness, it would not be able to spread out everywhere it penetrates (in the bones-for instance). When an obstacle comes to obstruct and prevents it to enter a limb, this limb dies.

This vital pneuma is the steed that carries the will of the thinking soul. The will of the soul rules the body, as long as the vital pneuma is in good health. When it comes to be ‘broken‘, the action of the soul acting upon the body is also broken.

This vital pneuma is not the divine Spirit (Ruh Ilahi) that we meet and witness in the Living Word of the prophecies and in divine Revelation, as we comprehend the ‘Spirit’ to be the thinking soul, which is a light among other lights in God-a light that does not dwell in any place of space, but has its East & West in God.

IV. Doctrines of the soul. A school of thinkers, having learned that this thinking soul was not corporeal, has estimated that it was God Him-self. These thinkers have pushed quite far the limits of their ramblings. Because, as God is unique, while the souls are multiple. If the souls of two men, for instance Amru &of Zayd, where but one soul, each of them would perceive everything what the other one does. Each of these men would be informed about everything the other souls would be informed. And, it is not so. Further more, how would the physical faculties of the body entrap the God of all gods? How would they subdue Him? How would they make Him the hostage of their passions, the focal point of all trials? How would He be overthrown by their blind blows? How would the revolutions of the celestial Spheres impose upon Him their rule?

Another school of thought have estimated that the thinking soul exists ab-aeterno, but then, if the soul would be eternal, then a question does arise: what would be the necessity, the drive, that would have drawn it to depart the sacrosanct spiritual world and the world of the true Life, to penetrate into the dependence of the world of death and darkness?

Who is the individual that has tamed and retained captive the eternal soul? How would the strength of a nipple sucking toddler compel the soul in such a manner that it would be torn out if the sacrosanct world of the Light?

How would the souls be differentiated one another in the pre-eternity (azal), when their species would form a one & only reality, and the soul cannot be subject, before the linking to its chosen body, to any substrate, action or suffering, to no acquired figures, as it is so after the existence of the body?

How to admit there exists a unique soul, that would then be divided and spread among bodies, because what is incorporeal cannot be divided? No, the thinking soul starts to exist at the same time as the body it will have to steer.

Do you not see, when the wick of a lamp has been prepared, we lit it with some fire without it to be subject to a diminution or loss? Then, do not be surprised, if at the moment when the body has reached its aptitude, the thinking soul is actualized without the Donor, from which it is emanated, bears any actual loss or diminution.

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Source

Coming soon:

Henry Corbin & Suhrawardi:

From The ’Book Of The Temples of The Light’,

Third, Fourth & Sixth Temples.

(Which will complete our translation project of this impressive treatise)

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