Continuing his description of the soul, Hazrat Inayat Khan helps us to understand the body and the mind as instruments through which the soul experiences life, although the longing of the soul is for peace. The ‘mystical experiences of anvar and anzar’ is a reference to clairaudience and clairvoyance, in which the soul experiences the abstract independently of the physical senses. The first post in the series is here.
The work of the soul is to know and to see, and the work of the mind and body is to act as a magnifying glass for it. Yet they in their turn also see and hear what is external to them, as the consciousness works through them also. The soul sees the play of thought in the mind, the mind perceives the pains and sensations of the body, the body is conscious of heat, cold, and touch. Its consciousness may be seen when something is accidentally about to fall on it; before the mind can think of a plan for safety the exposed part of the body instantly contrives its escape.
The mind sees the body alone, but the soul sees both the mind and the body; neither the body nor the mind is able to see the soul. The soul is accustomed to see what is before it, and so it cannot see itself. Our soul has always looked outward, that is why our eyes, nose, ears, all our organs of perception are outward. It is our mind and body that attract our soul outward. And as the eyes, which see all things, yet need a mirror to see themselves, so the soul cannot see itself without a mirror.
When the eyes are closed, do you think that the soul sees nothing? It sees. When the ears are closed, do you think that the soul hears nothing? It hears. This proves that it is the soul that sees and hears. In the meditative life, by the mystical experiences of anvar and anzar, a Sufi realizes the fact that there are objects which the soul can see without the help of the eyes, and that there are sounds which it can hear without the help of the ears. The great poet Kabir has said, ‘What a play it is that the blind reads the Quran, the deaf hears the Gita, the handless is industrious, the footless is dancing.’ He refers to the soul which has the capacity of working even without instruments, such as the organs of the body and the faculties of the mind.
Sleep, the unconscious condition, is the original state of life from which all has come. As the body sleeps and the mind sleeps, so the soul sleeps. The soul does not always sleep at the same time as the mind and the body. This sleep of the soul is experienced only by mystics; they are conscious of this experience in themselves, and so can recognize it in others. The body sleeps more than the mind, the soul sleeps much less than either the mind or the body. When a person is fast asleep his soul does not lose its contact with the body. If the soul lost its contact with the body, the person would die; if the soul withdrew from the mind, the mind would be dispersed, the collection of thought would be scattered, it would be like a volcanic eruption.
The soul takes pleasure in the experience of the senses, in eating and drinking, in every experience. It indulges in this, and the more it indulges in it, the more it becomes bound to it. All that we eat and drink contains a narcotic, even pure water. Therefore after eating and drinking a sort of sleep comes upon us, the soul feels a little relieved, it feels rather detached from the body.
The soul cannot easily be free from the body and the mind. Though its real joy is to attain peace by being free from experience, yet it has forgotten this. ‘He will indeed be successful who purifies it, and he will indeed fail who corrupts it.’ There are people who take strong drink, hashish, opium, drugs, and all such things. Under their influence the troubles of the body are felt less and the thoughts are blurred, the soul feels relieved; but it is a transitory happiness because it is dependent upon matter instead of upon spirit.
To be continued…