‘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 completing our English working translation of Suhrawardi’s treatise, the ‘Book of the Temples of the Light’ (Kitab Hayakil al-Nur) as it is a dear project of ours, with the Third, Fourth & Sixth Temples, following the earlier publication of the Prolog, First & Second Temples, of the Fifth & Seventh Temple‘(of Seven). From page 46 to 53 and then from page 61 to 63, in the 1976 Fayard French edition by professor Henry Corbin.

The next phase is to prepare its publication as an e-book and a on-demand-print. For this we will assemble a review group to finalize the translation.

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The Third Temple

Of a few questions regarding general metaphysics

The dimensions of Intelligibility are three in numbers: the necessary, the possible and the impossible. The necessary is when being cannot-not-be. The necessity of the impossible is of not being (not able to be). The possible is when both being and not being are not necessary. The possible is necessary only through another, ‘ab alio‘ (originating from another, ‘aseity’). Its non-being also (its power to not be) is necessary only through another. This is why the possible does not have ‘being’ by itself; if it would by itself postulate to the act of being, its being would be the necessary being and not the possible being (who can not be). Therefore, it needs a cause that makes that its postulate to be overcomes its non-being status.

When the cause is fully displayed, the caused at once start to exist, without any delay from its cause. Everything that conditions in one manner or another the existence of a being enters in the causality (sababiya) of this thing; this could be a will, or a moment of time, or adjuvant, or a place, or a substrate and a receptacle. As long as the cause does not exist, or one or the other of its integral parts is missing, the caused thing is not actualized. But, when everything required for the existence of a thing is actualized, and all interfering obstacles are abolished, the caused exists of an existence we call ‘necessary’ (cannot not be).

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The Fourth Temple

Of a few questions regarding the particular metaphysic

(‘philosophia specialis’ in Western philosophy.

Properly, they are the ‘Ilahiyat’, the ‘Divinalia’)

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Pronaos of the Fourth Temple

Chapter 1: That the Necessary Being is One and Unique

There can’t be two Beings whose existences are necessary; both would have in common the necessity to be. So, there would be a need for a differentiator. The existence of everything conditioned by something else is called a possible existence (that can-not be), and of a not necessary nature (that cannot-not be). It is impossible for two things to exist without having a differentiator between them. Otherwise, they would be the same and only thing. But, the bodies and the figures are multiple, and we just have shown that the Necessary Being is unique. Neither the bodies nor the figures have a necessary existence; they are possible; they themselves need a sufficient reason (morajjih, that enables their being to be risen above non-being).

The Necessary Being cannot be composed of parts: he would be the ‘caused‘ (the result) of them. Furthermore, these composing parts would not exist themselves of a necessary existence, because we have shown there cannot be two Necessary Beings.

As for the qualifications or attributes (sifat), they are not necessary by themselves; otherwise, they would not be in need of a substrate to support them. This is why the Necessary Being is not a substrate supporting qualifications;  it is not possible that it let qualifications live in its essence, because a thing that is one by itself-and because it is one, cannot bear an action proceeding from itself. For instance, ourselves when we imprint a action upon a limb, the agent that imprints the action is a thing (the intellect), and the patient or receptacle that bears the action is another thing (the limb). But, the Necessary Being is  absolutely One in all aspects.

Of two opposite terms, it is the superior term and the noblest that fits it, because it is the Giver of all perfection. Therefore, then how would the one that is deprived of it bestow perfection? The only thing that would happen is a multiplication of the Necessary Being and as far as He is concerned any idea of corporeity and composition is strictly impossible.

It has neither opposite nor similar. It does not correspond to a place (a ‘where‘). It possesses supreme Glory, the most complete Perfection, the most sublime Nobility, the most intense Light.

It is not an accident, because It would need a support to foster its existence. It is not a substance, because it would participate together with the other substances into substantiality and it would need something that would  properly distinguish it from the others. On the opposite, the bodies, through the diversity of their figures that are actually referring to it (the Necessary Being), because if they would not have a differentiator for each, they would not possess neither the diversity of their figures, nor their dimensions, their accidents, their movements, degrees and order of the composing parts of the universe (the pillars, the elements). In fact, if the corporeity as such stipulated modalities, we would find them identical in every bodies.

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The Center

Of The  Fourth Temple

Chapter II: Of the Metaphysical Reality of the Light

Bodies have in common their corporeity; they differentiate from one another according to whether they receive the light or not. Light is an accident in the bodies. Luminosity of the bodies is their manifestation (zohur). But, for a light to be accidental, it means that it must exists through another, ab alio (originating from another, ‘aseity’), and it does not exist by and for itself. It is therefore not a light by and for itself. If a Light subsists by and for itself and is manifested to itself. It knows itself. But, as our thinking souls are manifested to themselves (they know themselves), they are therefore called substantial Lights (subsisting by themselves). We have shown above that they have an origin in time and that they postulate a principle that makes their being prevail against non-being. But, it could be that it is the bodies that make them exist (deciding of the prevalence of their being), because nothing can give being to something that is superior. Therefore, the principle that makes their being prevail upon non-being is also an immaterial Light (mojarrad). If this Light separated from matter is the Necessary Being, then our problem is solved. And if it is from the possible being, then it is connected to the Necessary Being, by essence the Living and the Eternal. Therefore, the thinking soul is a living and subsisting being, referring to the subsisting Living and Eternal. And the subsisting Eternal means the One who is essentially manifested by Itself, to Itself; it manifests in such an intensity that it is veiled by the very intensity of its manifestation.

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Chapter III: That the First to be emanated from the First Being is a unique immaterial Light

The One which is undeniably One excludes from itself any multiplicity by diversification of motifs and wills, implying a diversity of causes, like the material bodies need. Therefore, its immediate action (without intermediaries) must be unique. In deed, if it could be composed of two things in its essence, what the first of these things would postulate would be different from what the second would. Therefore, what would follow is, due to the different demands of these two things-also produced without intermediaries- is a pluralization and composition withing the essence of the absolutely One. Therefore, the First emanated, whose being is necessarily founded without intermediaries by the First Being, must be a unique being, without any plurality. It is not a body, because it would include a diversity of forms and figures. It is not a form or a material figure, because it would need a substrate to support it. It is not also a soul, because it would need a body. No, none of that. It is a subsisting substance by itself, knowing itself and its principle. It is the First Light produced without intermediaries, such as we cannot conceive a more noble one, because it is the outmost limit of the non-necessary beings by themselves.

This substantive essence is possible by itself (can-not be); It is made necessary (cannot-not be), by the First Being. By contemplating is own degrees in perfection or in deficiency, It gives life to something perfect or to something deficient. By perceiving its relationship with the First Being, and in contemplating the Rigor (jalal) and the Beauty (jamal) of the divinity (lahut), It gives life to another immaterial sacrosanct substantial being (jawjar qodsi mojarrad), which is the Second Intelligence. By considering the non-necessity of its proper being and the deficiency of its own essence in relationship with the sublimity of the First Being, it gives existence to a celestial body (the sphere of spheres). By contemplating itself (its own essence as necessity by the First Being), it gives life to a celestial soul: The Soul of the World.

In turn, the second sacrosanct substantial being (the second Intelligence) gives life, due its three degrees to three things: a superior thing ruling a superior degree, an inferior thing ruling an inferior degree, and an intermediate thing ruling an intermediate degree. By contemplating what is above itself, it gives life to another immaterial substantial being (the third Intelligence). By contemplating the deficiency of its non-necessary being by itself, it gives birth to a celestial body (the fixed heaven, the firmament, the korsi). By contemplating is own necessitated essence through its Principle, it gives life to the second Anima Caelestis and so on, unto the tenth intelligence. This is how the hierarchy of the sacrosanct spiritual beings (the Intelligences), the simple bodies (the celestial Spheres) and the Animae Caelestis (the Moving souls of the spheres) are being born in all of their multiplicity.

And these substantial, intellective and sacrosanct beings (the Intelligences, jawahir ‘aqliya moqaddasa) are the mediators of the generosity of the First Being. It is the agent (fa’il) acting through them. Likewise a stronger light does not allow the lesser light to shine over the things in an independent mode, likewise, the necessary victorious Might (Qowwa qahira wajiba) does not grant to the intermediary beings a complete independence in their actions, because of the over-abundance of its effusion and the perfection of its might. How could it not be so? When it outreaches the infinite itself! Therefore, it is itself in situation in every situation.

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Closing (or Sealing) 

of the  Fourth Temple

Chapter IV: Of the Hierarchy of the beings of Light and of the Holy Ghost

Know that the worlds are three in number, according to the Philosophers.

1. There is a world the philosophers call ‘the world of Intelligence’ (alam al-‘aql, the Neoplatonic Nous). The word ‘Intelligence’ in their technical lexicon designate any substance (or substantial beings) that cannot be the object of a possible perceptible indication by the senses, and which does not have to use a body for its actions.

2. There is the ‘world of the Soul’ (Alam al-Nafs). Even though the thinking soul is neither a body nor embodied, and not provided of a sensible spatial dimension, it must exercise its action in the world of bodies. The thinking souls are distributed between those that have to exercise their actions in the sidereal regions (the Animae Caelestis, movers of the Spheres), and those who exercise their action into the human realm (the Animae Humanae).

3. There is the ‘world of bodies’ (alam al-jism) that is distributed into the etheric world (athiri, the sideral world), and the elemental world (‘onsori).

And within the hierarchy of the victorious archangelical Lights (Amwar qahira)-the immaterial Intelligences-there are those which relationship with is is similar to the relationship of a father with his children. It is our ‘Father‘, the Lord of Theurgy, who is for our human specie (rabb tilism nu’i-na), at the same time the Giver from which our souls are emanated, and their perfector. It is the HOLY GHOST (Ruh al-Qods), which, according to the philosophers, is called ‘acting Intelligence‘ (al-‘Aql al-fa’al).

All of these Intelligences are immaterial divine Lights. the first is the one by which being finds itself split in two. The First Light illuminates it from the East of a rising light (ishraq), and the Intelligences multiply themselves through the multiplications of the lights of the East (ishraqat) and the more they venture down the more they re-duplicate them.

Even though the intermediary beings are closer to us, due to their causality and their mediating position, however, those furthest from us in the order of causality are also the closest, because of the might of their epiphany (zohur); which mean that the closest of all is the Light of all Lights (Nur al-anwar). Do you not see that if there is both black and white on the same surface, the whiteness will look closer to us because it is sorted with manifestation (it is corresponding to the manifested state)? Therefore, the First Being is at the same time the highest of heights & the closest of proximities. Glory to the one that is, due to its highest rank, the most remote of all the remote, but is at the same time the closest of all closeness due to its omnipresent Light and an infinite Might.

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Chapter V: That the creating Act is without a beginning

It is the First Being who confers to all the other beings their being-necessity. It is the one that makes their being prevail against non-being, and it is eternal. The preponderance granted to their being against non-being is also Eternal in itself. Otherwise, the whole of the non-necessary beings by themselves would be conditioned by something else that itself (the First Being). But, before the tonality of the non-necessary by themselves, there is nothing else than it: no time, no condition whatsoever its action would depend upon; likewise it is similar with our own actions when we are postponing them to Thursday for instance or that we subordinate them to the arrival of someone, or to the availability of an instrument-because before the totality of the possible (the non-necessary being by themselves), there is no such thing.

Further more, The First Being is exempted of all changes that it would make, or that it would like something it did not want before, or to be able to do something it was not able to do before. And as you very well know, it is the rays of light that originate from the Sun and not the Sun that originate from its rays; so, do not be surprised if the First Being eternally ensures the balance of being. How would the sun be hurt by the eternity of its rays, or by the perpetuity of dust made iridescent by its light?

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The Sixth Temple

Of the spiritual joys and suffering

and of the return of the perfect souls to the Holy Ghost

I. Know that the thinking soul is not destroyed by the destruction of the body (at the time of death), for the simple reason that it does not possess any substrate (the body of flesh being not the substrate of the spiritual substance). Therefore, it has no opposite and nothing is obstructing it. The Principle that gives it being is eternal; the soul perpetuates its duration through the perpetual action of its Principle. There is nothing between the soul and the body of flesh but an accidental link, caused by a accidental desire. The disappearance of this link does not mean the disappearance of the substance that was accidentally baring this link.

You also know very well that the pleasure felt by each faculty is proportional to its perfection and of the perception of which it is able. It is the same for suffering, because the pleasure and the suffering of each being corresponds to what it fits the most; for instance, for the sense of smell, it is all about smells; for the sense of taste, it is all about tastes; for the sense of touch, it is all about palpable things; and so on: to each its fitting lot.

But, the perfection of an intellective substance, is to carry in oneself the imprint of high knowledge: personal knowledge of God, of multiple universes, of the cosmic order-in short, everything that is connected with the origin and the return (genesis and eschatology)-but also, the conscience of its transcendence in opposition to the organic faculties of the physical body, the conscience of its dire status contrasting with its qualifications, and finally, the conscience that its feeling of joy and its suffering both depend from its own perfection, or the absence of it.

II. It happens that the pleasant or, on the opposite the dreaded reach a being without determining in it neither pleasure nor suffering. If, for instance, a man is hit by apoplexy, or if he has sunk into a deep intoxication, he would not suffer any violent stroke someone would cast upon him, or feel any pleasure in the presence of the object of his love. Hence, the soul, as long as it remains absorbed by the worries of the body, neither suffers any vices or baseness nor it takes pleasure in the acting virtues and eminent qualities. This, because human nature is prone to intoxication. (A note by Henry Corbin: From Davani: ‘According to some Ta’wil masters (esoteric interpretation of the Qur’an), this is the intoxication symbolized by the Tree in the Garden of Eden, Adam was forbidden to approach’). When they separate from our world (their intoxication been dissipated), the souls of the cast-outs are tormented by their ignorance, by their vicious and dark ways, by their unsatiable aspiration to everything material perceptible by their senses, but ‘then an obstacle comes in the way between them and the object of their desire‘ (Qur’an, 34:54) (A Via-Hygeia note: It reminds us of the Classical world’s iconic punishments of hubris and other similar defects, like ‘Tantalus’ torture‘, etc…). Their sensitive faculties of perception have been in deed stripped off: No more eye that sees, no more ear that hears. They are cut from the clarity of the sensible world, without the light from the sacrosanct world reaching them: haggard and hopeless, they remain in the shadows.

The darkness mean nothing else but a negativity: the absence of light. Therefore, those souls are cut from the two lights (light of the senses & the spiritual light of the intellect). They are then prone to all the avatars of fear, because they belong to darkness. This is the case, for instance, of those who the complexion of the vital pneuma has been altered in them, and who became dark and troubled-it is the case with hypochondriacs-and they are dominated by fear and restlessness. What then happens to those who have fallen into darkness, without hope of redemption, left out with for only company their sorrow and the only too familiar anguish?

III. As for the souls which have been purified by their virtues and their knowledge, they receive, in the proximity of God, what no eye has ever seen, nor no ear has ever heard, all that hasn’t emerged in the heart of any Man: a direct contemplation of the divine Lights, an immersion in the sea of Lights. Only then the ‘angelical state‘ (malakiya) is duly actualized, and the sweetness of this state is infinite, its pleasure never ending.

Therefore,  these souls return to their Father from which they have  been emanated: The One that has victoriously risen against the heads of the dragon of darkness, the Angel with the invincible force that crushes them, the very Lord of the highest Theurgy (in its human form), the one close to the merciful God, crowned of the tiara of proximity in Malakut to the Lord of all worlds, THE HOLY GHOST. They return to this Holy Ghost, attracted like the iron needle is irresistibly attracted by the magnet.

IV. And because there is no common measure between the sensitive faculties of perception and the soul itself, or between the divine Lights-the sacrosanct spiritual entities (al-qiddi-siyun)- and the objects of the sensible perceptions, likewise, there is no common measure between spiritual pleasure and the pleasure provided by the physical senses.

The First Being is it own ‘love’s faithful‘ (A Via-Hygeia note: literally: in Islamic chivalry, futuwwa, it is the fata. we draw here a connection with Dante and his ‘fedeli d’amore’ ); and he is at the same time his own love object (ma’shuq) and the ‘beloved’ of the other lower beings. No joy and no pleasure are comparable to the bliss of those who become his entourage (moqarrabun). So, to the perfect souls, when they surge out of their temples of flesh into the splendor of Jabarut, the fires of the eternal dawn illuminate the towers of Malakut: this is what is revealed by the divine Light, things without any parallel with the vision we have of the things of our world, even at the time when the light of the rising sun reveals them. (A Henry Corbin note: It is the world of the souls. the towers of Malakut designate the Angeli or Animae Caelestes. The splendor of Jabarut can be understood as the Lights of divine Glory (the Xvarnah, Khurrah), and the towers of Malakut as the Intelligences and the Animae Caelestes). The person who denies the existence of spiritual joys & pleasures is similar to the sexual impotent denying sexual pleasure. This blind denier limits himself to the bestial realm and is deprived of any connection with the Angels and the sacrosanct spiritual beings.

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Source

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