Secret_History

66 The Secret History of the World
imperfection of Being Itself, which by definition is nondelimited perfection.
Being’s perfection requires the manifestation of Its properties. The effects of the
Names and Attributes must be displayed for God to be God. […] In other words,
Imperfection is demanded by existence itself. To be “other than God” is to be
imperfect. …But it is precisely the “otherness” which allows the cosmos and all the
creatures within it to exist. If things were perfect in every respect, they would be
identical with God Himself, and there would be nothing “other than God.” But then
we could not even speak about the cosmos, since there would be no cosmos and no
speakers. …So, imperfection is a kind of perfection. [Chittick]
At the particular stage of existence in which man finds himself, he is equally
“receptive” toward the Two primary Faces of God: Being and Non-being. The
Shaykh tells us that whatever property, or trait, any human being ultimately
“chooses” is what it originally possessed in its state of immutability. The task of
the Seeker is to discover what is immutable within, and to purify and amplify it.
This is the development of Will. Will is a relationship, which follows knowledge
while knowledge follows the object of knowledge. In the process of “ascension”,
the object of knowledge is YOU. Knowledge, in and of itself, has no effects.
YOU, however, the seeker, can give to knowledge what you actually are, in
yourself, thereby displaying YOURSELF in knowledge by your actions in concert
with your knowledge.
As noted, there are many Names of God that call to us in our present state of
existence. But you are not required to answer every one that calls. The fact that
human beings are, in general, ignorant of their own true “essence” gives them the
illusion of freedom. And the fact is, all paths come from God, and all paths Lead
back to God, but again, it can be via different faces. As the Shaykh says: “Unto
Allah all things come home, and he is the end of every path. However, the
important thing is which divine name you will reach and to which you will come
home?”
And this brings us to what the Shaykh calls “perspicacity”. This is the special
development of the “eye of insight”, or “seeing the unseen” that is crucial to the
Seeker. Just as the physical eye, with the refraction of light from the Sun, can
discern between the large and the small, the beautiful and the ugly,the shades of
colors, the moving from the still, the high and the low, the ability to see the unseen
is a property of an “inner light”. This light reveals to the seeker things about
external objects that are NOT apparent to the five senses. It reveals to its possessor
when a choice that may appear to be benevolent, is a step on the path of Evil. It
reveals when a choice that may appear to human estimation as negative is actually
a difficult step to felicity for all involved. The Sufis tell us that some individuals
have achieved such a level of “seeing” that - upon seeing a person’s footprint on
the ground, even if the person is not present - they are able to say whether he is
following a life of felicity or wretchedness.
The light of perspicacity seems to be a gift that not everyone has, and those who
do have it, may not have developed it to the same degree. What is evident is that
those who have it possess an immutable nature of Being which is able to “see”
good and evil - they do not see “only good”. Thus, they are able to discern
between the “calls” of Nonbeing and Being, and therefore, are able to strengthen
their Will along the path of intrinsic Being. It then follows that individuals who are