A Sufi View of Nature

By: Ayesha Foot

"There is one Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of Nature, the

only scripture which can enlighten the reader."

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I write, not as a scholar or spiritual teacher, but as a very ordinary woman for whom the introduction to Sufism eight years ago was like coming home. Restricting myself to one aspect of a subject on which many volumes of poetry and prose have been written, I want to stress that this is my personal experience. Where I quote the writings of some of the great Sufi masters it is because they have touched me deeply.

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In "Spiritual body and Celestial Earth", Corbin traces a development from Zorastrianism to Iranian Sufism, in which a comprehensive theology of light was developed. Many would agree that Sufism originated in Zoroastrianism, though some say it goes back to Abraham, for it is concerned with the mystical heart of religion. Although best known as the esoteric aspect of Islam, it is much broader than that. In fact it is not a belief system, for it is the path towards finding and fulfilling one's true purpose in life, and there are as many paths as individuals. It is rooted in experience rather than in books and is traditionally passed from teacher to pupil, who function as the two poles of a battery. Neil Douglas-Klotz, a Sufi murshid (teacher), believes that the need of the world is now so great that he has broken new ground by making Sufi practices available to all in his recent book "Desert Wisdom". A review will follow in a later issue.

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An ancient Zorastrian prayer may be translated :

æMake me an instrument of the transfiguration of the world.Æ

It is my practice to say this at dawn, at that moment when we are conscious of turning towards the light, before we see the glory of the sunrise. If we allow our senses to open to the essence of everything we see, that experience becomes part of our consciousness, and through our consciousness the world is transfigured. Once this happens, our whole relationship with the environment changes, a sense of the sacred is recovered, we reconnect with the earth, we remember our connection to the Source.

Ibn Arabi developed a cosmology of great relevance to our times, taking as a starting point the Hadith (saying attributed to Mohammed) :

æI was a hidden treasure yearning to be known. Therefore I created creatures.Æ

Within the One, the Absolute, there exists the potentiality of all the Divine qualities. Ibn Arabi expresses in a poetic way the sadness felt by the One arising from the hidden beauty of these qualities, or Names, which resulted in a sigh of compassion, the Nafas rahmani. This condensed in a cloud from which the whole of creation evolved. Thus the cosmos is not merely a reflection of the One, it is the One made manifest, the solid appearance which veils the unimaginable reality. Yet most of the time our senses are blind to it. In the final canto of his "Book of Theophanies" the divine longing to be known is expressed.

æDearly Beloved!

I have called you so often and you have not heard me.

I have shown myself so often and you have not seen me.

I have made myself fragrant so often and you have not smelled me.

Savorous food and you have not tasted me.

Why do you not see me? Why do you not hear me?

Why? Why? Why?Æ

from Corbin: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan was sent by his teacher, Sayyad Abu Hashim Madani, of the Christi line to bring Sufism to the West. One of his ten Sufi thoughts is quoted at the beginning. In his æNature MeditationsÆ he describes the four ways the mystic can learn from studying Nature: first the beauty of the mountains, seas and rivers, the trees and plants, all of these can be read as symbols; second animal nature; third human nature and finally the study of the unseen Hand behind the other three. If one can recognise this, one sees the world in a different way and is enabled to rise above all the pain and suffering.

The Nature Meditations are intended to be done silently on the breath, often while walking in Nature. An example is:

Let my heart reflect Thy light (in breath)

As the moon reflects the light of the sun.(out breath)

As one begins to open to this form of contemplation, every experience can carry oneÆs awareness back to the Source of all, returning to embody the vision of oneÆs daily life

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