In a short and very challenging text Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan takes us from material creation to consciousness to what some mystics call the eternal unconsciousness.

The problem of illusion and reality can alone be solved by the study of nature; in nature especially is the realization of the self. The wise understand that the consciousness is covered under all the garments of man’s planes of existence. In fact the sources such as mind and body, which build up the personality of an individual, are changeable and liable to destruction. Therefore, neither the body nor the mind can be called a reality, as such is the nature of their functions, their work and their outcome. 

The nature of illusion is such that the facts of nature lose their importance after passing from their present state. For instance, you are not suffering the pain which you may have suffered yesterday or you may not feel the comfort you may have experienced formerly. And if your past condition is of no importance to you just now, the joy or sorrow that you may be experiencing just now will not be with you tomorrow. Such is the case with every moment of life; that which at present seems a reality, when past, becomes a dream and an illusion. This shows that there is nothing within or without which you may call a stable state of existence, but it may be found in consciousness alone.

The loss and gain in life performed its part, and disappeared, did good or bad, and was finished with. The one came and the other passed away from your sight. If you can say that anything ever remained with you constantly it would be none other than consciousness, although it is difficult for every person to know even what is meant by consciousness. Because of its mind-like nature, it has no color or form by which it may be distinguished. The consciousness is the only function by which a person experiences all planes and phases of life. And being occupied with names and forms reflected in it, it loves its own sight, just like a mirror which shows the object reflected in it instead of its [own] existence that has witnessed all coming and going and yet is as it has ever been. 

Therefore the Sufi centers his delight in consciousness, the permanent beloved, instead of running after passing shadows. But consciousness also shows its limitation, its time of becoming conscious and again its nature of ceasing to be the same. This shows that its origin must be in its opposite state, meaning unconsciousness, which is called eternal consciousness by mystics and darkness in the Quran. This state can be realized as the most real, steady and unchangeable one existence. The seekers of this never cast even a glance towards illusionary existence. “We shall lift the veil from thine eyes and thy sight shall be keen.” Quran. This shows that the lifting of the veil of illusion is the illumination or the keen sight.  “Come o friend from thy illusionary prison, if thou once happenest to be here thou wilt enjoy it so much, that thou shalt never more desire to return to the same illusion.”  – Bedil

The spirit of consciousness has formed all things and beings, from negative to positive existence, out of nothing else but its own essence. This shows that all the things capable and incapable of analysis are the manifestations of consciousness. The positive existence can be analyzed by the material self of man, but that self is unable to analyze the negative things and beings, for they are out of reach. The Sufi therefore attains the freedom of his consciousness first, and thus liberating his view, he can analyze both by staying apart from them. This idea is taught by Christ in the phrase, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto thee.”