A Dutch translation of this article is available in the online journal Soefi Gedachtes. The first part of the article is here.

The paradox of the spiritual path is that in order to rise, we must fall.  Speaking of this transformation, the Sufis use the word ‘fana’, or annihilation of the self. It is a term that many find forbidding, as we are generally very infatuated with our own identity, so perhaps to be reassuring, instead of annihilaton we could speak of ‘forgetting.’ All the labels that we rely upon to confirm our identity to ourselves, all the objects, opinions, bodily sensations, experiences and memories, have been acquired, and therefore could be stripped from us at any moment, like so much canvas and paper stage scenery suddenly blown away in tatters by the wind.  If we would recognize the transience of these labels and put them aside willingly, or in other words, forget them, let them go, we would discover that our view could widen infinitely.

Some might fear that to forget in this way we must follow some spiritual rule obliging us to fast for weeks on end, or to live in a cave in the Himalayas, or to face some other extremity, but it need not be so; we see such forgetting all around us every day.  For example we may find it in parents who forget themselves in their devotion to the care of a newborn baby. Many of the behaviours and attitudes by which they identified themselves before the birth fade in a mist like forgotten dreams.  Annihilation  might sound like it should be the path of passive surrender, but the exhausted parents are far from passive. On the contrary, they are very active, devoting all their energy to satisfy the needs of their treasure.  In doing so, being moved by love they have taken a step toward perfection, although they may not recognize it.  This shows us that the path of forgetting, or fana, is best accomplished by love, and perhaps impossible without it.  In Gayan Alapas we find:
For love is resignation to the will
of the possessor of one’s heart;
it is love that teaches man:
Thou, not I.

Forgetting one’s self, therefore, is not only an act of profound surrender, or acceptance of reality, but is also one in which, through service to the ideal of love,  we direct our will power toward something greater than ourselves.  Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan points this out in this passage from ‘Mental Purification’ (chap. Iv, vol I, “The Way of Illumination”) : As long as one’s little personality stands before one, as long as one cannot get rid of it, as long as one’s own person and all that is connected with it interests one, one will always find limitations. That Power is touched only by one way, and that is the way of self-effacement, which in the Bible is called self-denial.

‘Self-denial’ is another term that makes people uncomfortable; they fear that they will be expected to give up all the enjoyments of life, for most are very obedient to their habits of comfort, but such a fear may also be nourished by doubts of one’s own will-power if one should endeavour to change, and by an unrecognized sense of guilt that one has not listened well to the call of the heart.  Hazrat Inayat Khan makes it clear, though, that self-denial does not mean rejection of the world, but denial of our own self.  He says, If it were to deny the happiness and pleasures of this earth, then why was this earth made? Only to deny? If it was made to deny, it was very cruel. For the continual seeking of man is for happiness. Self-denying is to deny this little personality that creeps into everything, to efface this false ego, which prompts one to feel one’s little power in this thing or that thing. To deny the idea of one’s own being, the being which one knows to be oneself, and to affirm God in that place, to deny self and affirm God. That is the perfect humility.

The path of self denial, though, cannot be traveled in a single day.  The seeker faces many battles and will not win every one.  The ‘small self’ is very stubborn, like a garden weed, and when we observe it reappearing in the flower beds it is easy to be downcast. But in all our thoughts and activities we should keep a star of hope shining before us to inspire and guide us.  

To be continued…