The Garden of Gnosis

1. Abu ‘Umara al-Husayn ibn Mansur Al-Hallaj, may Allah purify his soul, said:
   The definite noun is included in the understanding of the indefinite noun, and the indefinite noun is included in the understanding of the definite noun. Non-definiteness is a mark of the gnostic and ignorance is his form.

   The external form of gnosis is concealed from the understandings and returns to them. How does he know Him where there is now ‘how’? Where did he know Him where there is no ‘where’? How did he reach Him and there is no idea of union? How did he separate from Him and there is no separation. Pure definiteness cannot be the object of any limited or numbered object, nor does it have need of maintenance nor is it worn out.

2. Gnosis is beyond the idea of beyond, and beyond spatial limit and beyond the intention, and beyond awareness, and beyond received traditions, and beyond perception. Because all of these are something which was not in existence before being, and came into being in a place. He has never ceased to be, was and is before dimensions, causes and effects. So how can these dimensions contain Him, or limitations comprehend Him?
   
3. He who says: ‘I know Allah by my lack of Him,’ how can he who lacks know Him who always is?
   
4. He who says: ‘I know Him because I exist’ - two external absolutes cannot co-exist.
   
5. He who says: ‘I know Him because I am ignorant of Him’ - ignorance is only a veil, and gnosis is beyond the veil. If not, there is no reality to it.
   
6. He who says ‘I know Him by His Name’ - the Name is not separable from the Named because He is not created.
   
7. He who says: ‘I know Him by Himself’ - this alludes to two objects of recognition.
   
8. He who says: ‘I know Him by His works’ - that is suffice oneself with the works without looking for the One who made them.
   
9. He who says: ‘I know Him by my inability to know Him’ - this one is unable to cut off, so how can the connected perceive the known object?
   
10. He who says: ‘As He knew me, I know Him’ - that is to allude to formal knowledge (‘ilm) and to return to the known which is different from the Divine Essence. Being distinct from the Essence how can it perceive the Essence?
    
11. He who says: ‘I know Him as He has described Himself.’ It is to be satisfied with traditional authority without immediate confirmation.
    
12. He who says: ‘I know Him by the anti-thetical Attributes’ - the known is one thing which does not admit of being confined or cut into sections.
    
13. He who says: ‘The object alone knows Himself’ - He confirms that the gnostic is tied by his difference, because the object never ceaces to know Himself in Himself.
    
14. Oh Marvel! Man does not know before a hair of his body how it grew black to white. So how will he know He who made things exist? He who does not know the summary or the analysis, nor the First and the Last, nor changes, nor causes, nor realities, nor devices, it is not possible for him to have knowledge of He who does not cease to exist.
    
15. Praise be to Him who veiled them by the Name, the definition and the mark! He veiled them under a word, a circumstance, perfection, and beauty from the One who always was and will be! The heart is a piece of flesh, so gnosis cannot take residence there, being a divine substance.
    
16. Understanding has two logical dimensions: extension and breadth. The pious spiritual life has two aspects: traditions and obligations. The totality of the creatures of creation is in the heavens and on the earth.
    
17. But gnosis has neither extension nor breadth, no seat in the heavens nor on the earth, it does not abide in the exterior forms nor in the interior intentions as do traditions and obligations.
    
18. He who says: ‘I know Him by His reality’ - he makes his existence superior to that of the Object. Because whoever knows something in its proper reality becomes more powerful than the simple object of which he has knowledge.
    
19. Oh man! Nothing in creation is smaller than the atom, and you do not perceive it. How can one who cannot recognize the atom be able to know He who is subtler than the atom to perceive?
    
20. What is exluded goes to the side which perishes and that which is enclosed remains on the side of the essential knowledge. The essence of gnosis is concealed in its name by its gnosis. It remains disjoined and severed from the thoughts, objects of distraction, and forgetfulness.
    
21. He who wants gnosis fears them, and he who fears them frees himself from them, and draws apart from them. Its East is West and its West is East. It does not have a place above the higher world and it does not have a place below the lower one.
    
    Gnosis is removed from the existential things, it remains constantly with the Divine permanence. Its paths are narrow, and there is no road of access to it. Its meanings are clear but there is no guide to it. The senses do not perceive it, and the descriptions of men do not attain to it.
    
22. He who possesses it is solitary and he who mixes it becomes a heretic. He who strips it away becomes blind and he who attaches himself to it, perishes. Its lightning is an unceasing supply of water, its blow gives freely, and its arrow sticks, and when it throws to the ground it silences. One who fears it becomes an ascetic and it makes a watcher of the careless. Its tent-ropes are the gnostics and the means of ascent.
    
23. Gnosis has no other analogy that itself. Allah has no other analogy than Himself, and He resembles it. He is like it and He is like Himself, as it is analogous to itself. He is only like Himself and it is only like itself.
    
    Its edifices are its supports and its supports are its edifices. Those who possess it are those who possess it, and its edifices are to it, in it, and by it.
    
    It is not Him, and He is not it. And there is no He except it and no it except Him. There is no gnosis except Him. There is no He except Him!
    
24. So the gnostic is ‘the one who sees’ and gnosis resides in ‘he who remains.’ The gnostic stays with his act of cognition because he is his cognition and His cognition is him and gnosis is beyond that, and the Object is still further beyond that.
    
25. The story is the business of the story-tellers and gnosis is the business of the elect, and affectations of behavior are the business of individuals and utterance is with the people of delusion, and meditation is with the people of despair, and negligence with the people who are wild.
    
26. Allah is Allah. Creation is creation.
    And it does not matter!

[Table of Contents]
Previous: The Ta-Sin of the Disconnection-From-Forms