(Review and comments by by Ziauddin Ahmed)

Dear Mr. Rashid Mughal

Just when I thought I had done my bit of reviewing all the papers read out at the Seminar, in came your address, so full of vibrant thoughts and promptings. I have to sit down and reply to you so that I feel some contentment at having grappled with your rhetorical musings. Your comments remind me of a verse from Ghalib, where he says:

             Herchand subukdast huaye buth shikani mein

            Hum hein to abhi rahh mein hai sangg giran aur

            Despite the swift-handedness and

             that most idols were destroyed;

            As long as I remain, there is,

            a mighty stone to be buoyed.

(This verse is in reference to Muslim’s having destroyed stone idols of  the Kabah. Here Ghalib says that though all other idols and statues may be done away with, yet as long as the lover exists the final idol remains.)

Despite differences in culture and religion, mystical experiences are universal, and share some common traits. They are invariably spiritual, yet not necessarily religious. One need not be a monk or priest in order to have a mystical experience, which is a state of knowledge, insight, awareness, revelation or illumination beyond the grasp of the intellect.

 ( In my opinion mystical or self-fulfilling experiences are not limited to only spiritual or religious but can be experienced by someone who drowns himself headlong into any pursuit where he can lose his identity and merge with the process itself. See the workaholics who immerse themselves in their pursuits which makes them loose their very identity. This is perhaps the real meaning of self-fulfillment, which comes only after practicing  self-consummation.)    

In his famous book, THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, the American psychologist and philosopher William James noted that mystical experiences are fleeting in linear time, though they seem to be eternal, e.g., Muhammad's flight of fancy to the Seven Heavens, and R. M. Bucke, a Canadian doctor who studied mystical experiences, called it cosmic consciousness, i.e., consciousness of the cosmos and of life and order of the universe.

 ( Why can’t such experiences be real and why should we doubt them just because we do not understand or comprehend them. Did humans comprehend the various natural phenomena a thousand years ago, those that we do now, e.g. did we understand the laws of aerodynamics as we do them now and which has made flying in aircraft  a common place an experience as walking or riding a horse was in the old days?. Did we know the process of genetics engineering which can feed the world population if we choose to? These things are easily accepted as they are a common experience and we have actually begun to take them for granted. Experiences like ascension to heaven are doubted because every one can’t experience or accomplish them, and they seem super natural to most of us.)

It is common knowledge that, at age 40, Muhammad entered a life of asceticism by withdrawing to the mountains near Mecca to pray and meditate. Also, we learn he was awakened one night by an overpowering light, marking the first revelation to him of the Koran. That night the angel Gabriel appeared in his dreams as the messenger of Allah to give him that first mystical experience known as revelation. Muslims attach much mystical significance to that nocturnal astral journey known as the Night of Power, and we are told the 6,666 verses of the Koran were composed by Allah who revealed them to Muhammad, piecemeal by piecemeal, taking just over 20 years from that first revelation.

That's a mighty long time and a lot of hard work for a book, believe me, for Muhammad was sometimes assisted in its unfoldment by God and His angels, and sometimes by his own clairaudience during his famous trances, which are quite well documented. For instance, it is common knowledge that Muhammad's mystical experiences were often torporous, and left him red-faced and breathless.

( Muhammad must have been a deep thinker and keen observer from the start. At 40 he surely took up asceticism to look for answers to his thoughtful queries, which were deeply rooted in his being. Now, perhaps at that level of mysticism one looses the baser level of existence and acquires oneness with the Over-self, that Self which reveals the commonly called ‘unknown’. There is hardly need for surprise at the compilation of the 6,666 verses, longer books and poems have been compiled by other humans, Shakespeare being one of them.)

Now, passivity is one of the hallmarks of a mystical experience. The individual feels swept up and held by a superior power, and this may be accompanied by a sensation of separation from bodily consciousness, e.g., as in an out-of-body experience, trance, or such phenomena as prophetic speech, automatisms, mediumistic hallucinations, healing powers, visions, and voices. Mystical experiences flood an individual with a sense of well-being, joy, and optimism.

In the case of Muhammad, it is documented, the ecstasy often reached such heights as to become almost unbearable torment and pain.

(This could have been so because the total process of the experience was completely conscious, and the person going through it was fully aware every step of the way.).

As I noted at the outset, mysticism can be either nonreligious or religious. Nonreligious mysticism derives much of its experience and content from Nature, as Ziauddin Ahmed keeps reminding us, though many religious mystics have found their way to God or the Absolute through Nature. What Mr Ahmed hasn't told us is that Nature mysticism is actually called pantheistic mysticism, in that God or the divine being is in everything and everything is divine.

(Thank you for adding the pantheistic bit. The concept of Wahadat Ul Wajood, as so clearly covered by Farzana sahiba in her paper, is worth another browse.)

Also, not all transcendent experiences with Nature are mystical, however, but may simply be overwhelming joy or ecstasy. I believe that in a mystical experience the boundaries between subject and object disappear: one becomes one with Nature as opposed to having a heightened appreciation for it. 

(Just read this verse of Ghalib, where he heightens a human ego, which can convert even the negatives to the positive and vice versa, depending which angle one is approaching from.

Dard minatkashay dava na houa

Mein na achha houa bura na houa

The pain did not have to beg

the remedy for cure.

That I did not get well,

was not bad for sure.

(  The self pride of the poet is praising his endurance and, that he did not have to stoop low and plead the medicine for relief. That the important thing is that his self respect was preserved,  it does not really matter that he did not get well or cured.)

.Kind regards

Ziauddin Ahmed