Dear brother Bhagat ji mundahug
As ever thank you for an insightful and articulate message spoken from a position of respect and cordiality.
On Page 974 Bhagat Baini ji says, and I paraphrase.
Once the gateway to this knowledge is illuminated, the Door has been opened. At the center of the countless petals of the Lotus, God abides with all his powers. From within He radiates these powers and manages things. His mind becomes a jewel, one who comes to realize God.
Beautiful. I particularly admire the use of that image of the Lotus flower and the idea of the liberated mind becoming like a jewel. For me it suggests a certain transparency, since a jewel is a glass-like object through which light shines. When we become lost in the abyss of deity, we effectively become transparent, like a clear glass object, through which our centre which is God in all of his fullness can break out and light up the world.
The great 13th century Italian poet Dante, who composed that epic masterpiece of Western literature the
Divine Comedy, was also an accomplished mystic in the Catholic tradition. His epic poem is so grandiose, sublime in its old-fashioned language and grand that I cannot possibly quote from it as freely as I can from say the other mystics, and neither do I have a copy to hand. However there is this particular sweet image in one of the cantos (can't for the life of me recall which) but I know that it is in the
Paradisio where Dante illustrates the state of being enlightened in metaphorical terms as the holy souls constituting a single flower, where each soul is a petal. The heavenly host (those who have died in an enlightened state) are like the rays of the sun, carrying down the sun's warmth to the flower. God is the sun, which projects His warmth, and offers it without ceasing to the flower. It is an image of being utterly consumed by God. I cannot really explain it but it is striking to read.
Saint Catherine of Genoa (with whom you will likely be familiar by now given my numerous references to her lol), while not of course using the image of a Lotus (such a plant does not grow in Europe and neither would Western mystics have employed the jewel metaphor) nevertheless captured this idea of transparency very well in language more readily intelligible to medieval Europeans that I think your image of the jewel attempts to convey to those in an Indian context:
"...When God sees the soul less transparent than it was at its origins, he tugs at it with a glance, lures it, and binds it to himself with a fiery love that by itself could annihilate it. He continues to draw the soul into this fiery love until it is wholly restored to that state of transparency in which it was born. Divine energies sear and purify the soul until it becomes like gold that has melted in the refiner’s fire. All dross having fallen away. When the gold has come to the point of twenty-four carats, it cannot be further purified. This is what happens in the fire of God’s love. In so acting, God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued. As it is being drawn upwards, the soul feels itself melting in the fire of that love of its sweet God, for He will not cease until He has brought the soul to its perfection. The more the soul is purified, so much the more it annihilates self till at last it becomes quire pure and rests in God...Thus purified the soul rests in God without any alloy of self; my very being is God...Everything to do with self passes away...Just As a covered object left out in the sun cannot be penetrated by the sun's rays, in the same way, once the covering of the soul is removed, the soul opens itself fully to the rays of the sun. The more the rust of ego is consumed by fire, the more the soul responds to that love, and its joy increases. Truly the soul's being united with and transformed into Him is like fire consuming the dampness in logs. Once the logs are heated through and through, the fire burns and changes them into itself, giving them its own color and warmth and power. I have no longer either soul or heart; but my soul and my heart are those of my Beloved. My self is God, nor is any other self known to me except God..."
- Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510), Italian Catholic mystic
John of the Cross also said much the same, using the image of a "crystal":
"...When light shines on a clean and pure crystal, we find that the more intense the degree of light, the more light the crystal has concentrated within it and the brighter it becomes; it can become so brilliant from the abundance of light received that it seems to be all light. And then the crystal is indistinguishable from the light, since it is illumined according to its full capacity, which is to appear to be light...The window of the soul [is] cleansed perfectly and made completely transparent by the divine light..."
[SIZE=-1]- John of the Cross[/SIZE]
I feel (but may be wrong) that this might be a parralel to the "jewel" image in a Western context.
Sounds like the state of Samadhi!
On page 333, Bhagat Kabir ji describes it like so. If only one could experience it they would never forget it.
ਗਉੜੀ ॥
Gauree:
ਤਹ ਪਾਵਸ ਸਿੰਧੁ ਧੂਪ ਨਹੀ ਛਹੀਆ ਤਹ ਉਤਪਤਿ ਪਰਲਉ ਨਾਹੀ ॥
There is no rainy season, ocean, sunshine or shade, no creation or destruction there.
ਜੀਵਨ ਮਿਰਤੁ ਨ ਦੁਖੁ ਸੁਖੁ ਬਿਆਪੈ ਸੁੰਨ ਸਮਾਧਿ ਦੋਊ ਤਹ ਨਾਹੀ ॥੧॥
No life or death, no pain or pleasure is felt there. There is only the Nothingness of Samaadhi, and no duality. ||1||
ਸਹਜ ਕੀ ਅਕਥ ਕਥਾ ਹੈ ਨਿਰਾਰੀ ॥
The description of the state of intuitive poise is indescribable and sublime.
ਤੁਲਿ ਨਹੀ ਚਢੈ ਜਾਇ ਨ ਮੁਕਾਤੀ ਹਲੁਕੀ ਲਗੈ ਨ ਭਾਰੀ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
It is not measured, and it is not exhausted. It is neither light nor heavy. ||1||Pause||
ਅਰਧ ਉਰਧ ਦੋਊ ਤਹ ਨਾਹੀ ਰਾਤਿ ਦਿਨਸੁ ਤਹ ਨਾਹੀ ॥
Neither lower nor upper worlds are there; neither day nor night are there.
ਜਲੁ ਨਹੀ ਪਵਨੁ ਪਾਵਕੁ ਫੁਨਿ ਨਾਹੀ ਸਤਿਗੁਰ ਤਹਾ ਸਮਾਹੀ ॥੨॥
There is no water, wind or fire; there, the True Guru (God's image) is contained. ||2||
ਅਗਮ ਅਗੋਚਰੁ ਰਹੈ ਨਿਰੰਤਰਿ ਗੁਰ ਕਿਰਪਾ ਤੇ ਲਹੀਐ ॥
The Inaccessible and Unfathomable Lord dwells there within Himself; by Guru's Grace, He is found.
ਕਹੁ ਕਬੀਰ ਬਲਿ ਜਾਉ ਗੁਰ ਅਪੁਨੇ ਸਤਸੰਗਤਿ ਮਿਲਿ ਰਹੀਐ ॥੩॥੪॥੪੮॥
Says Kabeer, I am a sacrifice to my Guru; I remain in the Saadh Sangat, the Company of the Holy. ||3||4||48||
If Saint Catherine is a gold mine for you then just let me exclaim: this is a lottery win or a hidden treasure for me! There is such an ample distellation of wisdom in the above passage. It is immensely profound. Kabir has always been one of my favourite mystics of any religion. He earns my admiration not only for his obviously inspired poetry but also for the simple fact that he identified wholly neither with Islam or Hinduism and was actually claimed by both after his death! Such is a testament to his greatness of heart. Who wouldn't want such a one as a member of their own religion? He formed his own path, the Kabir Panth that seemed to wean out the essence of both traditions, while letting go of more or less peripheral trappings in both religions. A stunning achievement, I must say. In fact, he is greatly respected by one of the 20th century's greatest scholars of Catholic mysticism, the wonderful Anglo-Catholic mystic Evelyn Underhill, who mentioned Kabir in an exclusive category of mystics whom she regarded as achieving a "synthetic" vision of divine reality which neatly accomodates both the impersonal/personal and immanent/transcedent aspects of the Godhead seamlessly. She was a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and she wrote the introduction to his translation of and commentary on a series of songs attributed to Kabir in which she wrote:
"... THE POET Kabir, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism...Living at the moment in which the impassioned poetry and deep philosophy of the great Persian mystics, Attar, Sadi, Jalalu'ddin Rumi, and Hafiz, were exercising a powerful influence on the religious thought of India, he dreamed of reconciling this intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional theology of Brahmanism...Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the 'sure true Friend' of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, 'melted and merged in the Unity,' and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole. This proceeding entails for them and both Kabir and Ruysbroeck expressly acknowledge it a universe of three orders: Becoming, Being, and that which is 'More than Being,' i.e., God.' God is here felt to be not the final abstraction, but the one actuality. He inspires, supports, indeed inhabits, both the durational, conditioned, finite world of Becoming and the unconditioned, non-successional, infinite world of Being; yet utterly transcends them both. He is the omnipresent Reality, the 'All-pervading' within Whom 'the worlds are being told like beads.' In His personal aspect He is the 'beloved Fakir,' teaching and companioning each soul. Considered as Immanent Spirit, He is 'the Mind within the mind.'..."
- Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), Anglo-Catholic mystic & (in many peoples' opinion) the 20th century's greatest authority on Catholic mysticism
In my next post, I'm going to go through that Kabir passage from the Granth verse by verse with commentary from the Catholic mystics which I think "gels" with it, so to speak.
This is a gold mine Vouthon ji! I am so happy for you right now. You are connected to such pearls of human history.
Bless you brother Bhagat ji. I am indeed blessed with so many luminous, enlightened teachers whose feet I gladly sit under. If only more Westerners were as versed in their European mystical tradition (and the in Eastern Catholic mystical tradition) as are those of Indian extraction in theirs. The West has went down a different path however. In many ways, I am thankful for the benefits of Western civilisation: secularism, democracy, science, rationalism, psychology etc. but the loss of its spiritual foundations in the Catholic and Protestant mystics of the Middle Ages and post-Reformation era is painful to see.
Your kind sentiment is returned by me to you, who stem from that web of human mystical lore from the Indian subcontinent, finding its most beautiful expression in the numerous writers who make up the Guru Granth Sahib ji, such as Bhagat Kabir and Bhagat Farid before Sikhi and the Gurus.
You remember that poem you posted by St. John of the Cross? That poem has become my favourite in the catholic mystic literature.
St. John of the Cross, Ecstasy of Deep Contemplation
I am so chuffed that you like it so much because it actually happens to be my favourite mystical text of any religious writing I have read so far. It holds so much meaning for me. How Saint John was able to explain that which is beyond understanding so skilfully truly blows my mind. I have shared that poem with Buddhists, Baha'is, non-Catholic Christians and even atheists. On every account it has been received with unprecedented enthusiasm. A life-long Buddhist told me that it was (In his own words), "absolutely exquisite" and "99% the teachings of the Buddha" and another Buddhist told me that it sounded as if it had come "straight out of the Buddha's suttas" (better not tell Confused ji this lol or we will set him off on one again lol).
There has not been one person with whom I have shared that Saint John (or Juan de la Cruez as he is known in his native Spain) poem who has not found it meaningful to their own religious situation.
I think that part of its appeal is that although John is a Doctor of the Catholic Church (actually declared "Mystical Doctor" by one of the Popes) there is nothing exclusively Catholic or Christian about it, nor is there anything even explicitly theistic such that even Buddhists and atheists can understand. Nowhere is God even mentioned, only that knowledge that is known by not knowing, where all human knowing has an end.
Its a stunning piece of literature that has a truly human message transcending religious frontiers.
God Bless Saint John of the Cross and Bhagat Kabir ji! cheerleader
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