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The Eighth Lesson: Sufiism.1279
the Universe as a passing show, because: “I was a Hidden Treasure, and I
wished to be known, so I created The Universe that I might be known, and
know that I am known,” —God is not only Absolute Being, but also Absolute
Truth, Absolute Love, and Absolute Beauty. The Second Truth (tariqat) or
the Way to the One, is akin to the Hindu teachings on the subject. Instructed
by his “Pir,” teacher, or Guru, the disciple ascends the Steps of the Ladder of
God, discarding his material ideas, desires, tastes and attachments—freeing
himself from illusion—regenerating himself anew, and sanctifying himself
by devotion, contemplation, meditation, and right thinking and right living.
There are many mystic practices familiar to Hindu, Ancient Greece, and
some of the Modern Western cults and mystic orders—dances there are,
rhythmic and graceful motions accompanied by chants—”silences” there
are also, in which the soul may enjoy mystic communion with higher planes
of being—ecstatic states are frequent, and Cosmic-Consciousness frequent
among the higher students.
The Sufis hold that man is miniature God, in relation to his body, which
is his miniature universe—hence the statement of the authorities that
Sufiism teaches that Man is both, and at the same time, a Microtheos, and a
Microcosmos. They hold that there are Five Planes of Being, namely: (1) The
Absolute Invisible; (2) The Relatively Invisible; (3) The Plane of Similitudes;
(4) the Plane of Visibility; and (5) the Plane of Below-Visibility. These Planes
are sometimes roughly classified as “The Three Planes,” styled, respectively,
the Invisible; the Intermediate; and the Visible. The uneducated and simple
followers after the advanced teachers, speak of but “Two Planes,” the Visible
and the Invisible, respectively, so that there seems to be an esoteric as well
as an exoteric doctrine concerning these planes. But, this is not all—the most
advanced speak of a Plane vastly higher than even the Absolute Invisible,
which they speak of as above words or thought, arid which one authority
has compared to Dante’s “Spaceless Empyrean.” The Spirit, or as some call
it “the soul” is of course conceived of as immortal and pre-existent, in the
sense that before it started on its round of incarnations it was in the Bosom