The Ocean

One of the most dangerous traps into which the seeker of truth can stumble is to form rational concepts of absolute reality. Instead of carving and worshipping idols, one creates images of the mind. Many modern concepts are even supported by scientific findings, especially those from quantum physics, in order to make them more credible.

A popular concept, for example, is the parable of the ocean.

The vastness and depth of the ocean has inspired many to take it as a symbol for the primordial ground of all being, for true reality, for unity, and for the "I-am-that-I-am". While the ocean itself is eternal and unchanging, the surface of this ocean symbolically stands for our universe. Living beings are like waves that identify themselves as individuals because they are spatially separated. In reality, they are one, for they are all parts of the ocean or of the one reality. They wander about on the surface for a time and interact with one another, before finally returning to the eternity and unity of the ocean.

The ocean is spiritual in nature, which means that the spirit creates form, and not matter the spirit. Our own individual world is determined by our individual consciousness. Our true self thus partakes of the reality and eternity of the ocean, but our individual everyday consciousness deceives us into thinking we are finite and limited.

There are several scientific theories that support this esoteric view. Professor Robert Lanza, of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, for example, claims that life creates the universe, not the other way around, and that our consciousness determines the shape and size of objects. He calls his theory "biocentrism", which he substantiates with the well-known double-slit experiment:

When scientists observe a particle passing through two slits, the particle goes through either one slit or the other. But when no person observes it, it acts like a wave and can go through both slits simultaneously, forming an interference pattern on a wall behind. This means that the behaviour of the particle changes depending on a person's perception. Or, to put it differently: consciousness determines reality, and space and time are merely tools of the mind.

Other scientific theories also support the view that consciousness influences or even creates matter, such as the Quantum Zeno Effect and aspects of quantum entanglement. The former CERN scientist Dr. Bernardo Kastrup even said that our physical universe is the image of the sum of our mental processes.

A logical consequence of this worldview is that "I" and "you" and all duality as such are merely illusion. There is only the eternally One: "I am you!" Furthermore, it is logical that if God is one, there can be nothing truly beside Him, and that we therefore must be one with Him. We are all one with the primordial ground of being, and only the illusion of our individual consciousness separates us! But ultimately we all return to unity, after we have made our learning and consciousness experiences: "Verily, we are God's, and to Him is the return!" Is this not the esoteric statement of all religions?

Have not Sufis also expressed this deeper truth, such as Mansur al-Hallaj, who coined one of the most famous sayings of a Sufi: "Ana al-Haq"? (This saying translates as "I am the Truth", whereby Haq not only means truth, but is also one of the names of God. Thus one can also translate: "I am God" or "I am true (absolute) reality".) He was thus one who had realized unity and true reality, just like those who have attained Nirvana or Samadhi, were they not?

Well, Mansur al-Hallaj was executed for blasphemy. He was not only condemned by Islamic orthodoxy, as is often portrayed today, but was also sharply criticized by the Sufis of his time. The famous Sufi master al-Junayd of Baghdad, with whom Hallaj wanted to study, rejected him on the grounds that he did not teach madmen. To the utterance "ana al-Haq", Junayd replied: "Not so! But through al-Haq you exist."

It is true, Tasawwuf, as taught by Junayd and the great Sufis of that time, speaks of a spiritual state of union (Jam'), in which one is no longer able to contemplate the created world, is excluded from one's own self, and stands under the complete power of the Real. But even here the principle applies: "The servant remains the servant, and the Lord remains the Lord!" During the mystical state of Jam', the servant experiences ecstatic divine experience, which is not mixed with any mental concept.

Why the above example of the ocean and other concepts of unity, true reality or God are strictly rejected, and indeed in all monotheistic religions ("Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness"), is in principle easy to understand:

God is one. But every "pre"-sentation is dual and implies subject and object. Even a symbolic image needs a viewer. One cannot think unity, and therefore every image of unity is a deception, and especially of God a blasphemy.

God is furthermore beyond all limitation, thus beyond all definition, and consequently also beyond every mental concept. The most consistent interpretation of the unity of God is therefore the Islamic confession of faith: "La ilaha illallah" - There is no god but Allah, i.e. nothing is real except absolute reality. It begins with a negation, since everything we know and can grasp with our senses, our imagination or our thoughts is precisely not God! No image or parable, however symbolic it may be, can grasp absolute reality.

But one often does not want to admit this. One is too much in love with one's own ideas. It is like a virus. Once one has allowed one's presumptuous intellect to follow the logic: "I think, therefore I am." -> "I am real" -> "There can be only one true reality. This one absolute reality is called God - the ocean." -> "I am one with the ocean!" -> "I am God", it is difficult to free oneself from it again. One is mightily proud to have seen through this openly lying secret, while the masses of people are still caught in blind ignorance and cannot see the forest for the trees.

The Qur'an, however, shows a quite simple means to return to the ground of facts. It tells the story of Ibrahim a.s., who argued with someone who considered himself God.

If one believes that one has the same reality as God and that consciousness determines forms, then let one simply make milk instead of water rain from the sky. The insight into one's own powerlessness is the best means to free oneself from this error.

The presumptuous intellect, however, will probably not surrender so easily and will want to argue further:

"No, no, it is not like that! At the moment we identify ourselves as a wave and not as the ocean. We are trapped in this illusion. That is why we are not omnipotent. But the more we overcome this illusion, the more powerful we become, like Jesus, who raised the dead and walked on water."

Yes, Jesus did perform miracles with the permission of Allah, but he was not omnipotent, nor was he omniscient, nor did he have the same will as God. He was a servant of God and praised God and worshipped Him. Does one want to worship oneself?

How is one to attain all the qualities that are necessary to draw near to God, if one has even the faintest thought that one is God oneself? How can one, for example, have fear of God? Can one be afraid of oneself? How can one have gratitude? Can one be grateful to oneself? How can one develop humility when one believes one is one with the Almighty?

But at least we have already brought the intellect to admit that we are trapped in an illusion! Our own polar-operating thinking namely leads us paradoxically to the following conclusions:

- The rational images of reality are mostly neither false nor correct, but simply inadequate. Light, for example, has the functions of wave and particle. But this makes no logical-rational sense. Something that travels as a straight ray cannot, after all, simultaneously travel as a wave, logic would argue. Natural science, which is built on rational thinking, thus leads itself ad absurdum. Electrons that buzz around the proton as tiny balls do not exist in that way, but are merely man-made images intended to make reality comprehensible (and above all controllable). Based on such images, one can develop astonishing technologies, which promotes the illusion that these images were the truth. But lo and behold, this so-called technical progress destroys the life of our planet! But rational thinking is never held responsible for it!

- In religion, intellectually-generated metaphysical images lead to heresies or even to blasphemy and to a fatal mind-set that destroys the soul on the spiritual level, just as technology based on rational thinking destroys life on the material level.

Here let one remember that God had expressly warned Adam and Eve against eating from the tree of knowledge. But when Adam succumbed to temptation, he began to perceive reality in a polar way (symbolized by the recognition of shame, i.e. the polarity male-female). This was the consequence of eating from the tree of knowledge, for polarity is a condition for gaining knowledge: we can only know what cold is when there is hot; we can only know what good is when there is evil, and so on. And just as Satan had promised, this perception enables man to develop ever more god-like abilities thanks to technology. But Adam recognized that he had trapped himself in duality, and that this kind of knowledge did not lead to bliss, but to self-destruction. With this polar perception he could never find the right path and would be lost.

The descent from paradise into this polar world was an unavoidable result, but Allah spoke:

Deeper insights into true reality are gifts from God. They are not based on rational considerations, one's own ideas and self-made images, but are revealed to one. One experiences truth and recognizes signs of God through lubb, a word that contains 'core' or 'seed', and primarily means an intuitive inspiration and not an intellectual construct. The resulting state is Iman (secure conviction). One "sees" and "hears" the truth or the signs, one does not think them.

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