One of my dear heart friend passed this question to me to ask sufi teacher(s) I know:what is Nur or Inner Light?
who sees it, and how?
who sees it, and how?
I had the opportunity to ask this question to Hakima, a sufi teacher and healer from the Shadhiliyya Sufi Order. The following writeup is based on a conversation and Hakima's answer on the topic.
What is Inner Light | The inner light has to do with walking (spiritual journey to know God) and what one need. Inner Light can have different manifestations. There can be light which is almost blinding, pure bright light and then there is also perceived light.
In group work in the sufi university (1), while taking turn in sharing, 'seeing' light is also used as an exercise in feeling and being perceptive.
So if you actually begin to quiet yourself and tune-in, you begin to feel kind of what feels right. And my feelings of inner light is not always you have to see the light that is blinding or inner light that is blue light or yellow light or whatever light, but its a perception of something being "lighter", ("bright", "right"), or a perception of a light bulb going on, or a perception of something being the 'next stop' (next sign-post).
... Its like an energy or lightness or in healing when we walk a person into his or her inner heart, when we ask a person, "what do you feel right now", "what are you aware of?" its not necessarily what he or she sees, it might be a thought that goes through, it might be becoming more preceptive to body, mind or heart. So there are different things that can go on and to me all of them are in a way, you could call them the light.
Who sees the Light? | Nobody knows. There will be people who claim to see it, who don't. Then there is the difference or distinction between real light and non-real light. There is illusory white light. Things that are not quite true and not of God, there could be so much apparent goodness about it while they are not real, but it won't have that pure bright light.
And we never know who "deserve" to see it. One might think 'people who has done all the (spiritual) work and who has reached that station should see it', is not true. However Sidi (2) would tell you, seeing light and seeing things from the malakut (3) is a station you walk through and its a matter of progression. My feeling is that there are people might see that and get stuck there. There are people who see that who have no idea about spiritual thing.
But I can tell you whether its light or whether its malakut, most children see that. You see, little babies and their eyes sparkling and their eye moving around, they are usually watching things; angles or light or something totally unknown to us. There is something going on because they are so straight from that world. And then as they get older they begin to say, this person was talking to me, or talking about angel or other things or prophets - their parents tell them stop talking that way and don't tell lies. And so they begin to lose what they see. Going to the sufi school (1) or being in a sufi group is often about reclaiming that.
# Footnotes1. The University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism
2. Sidi Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Jamal ar-Rifa‘i ash-Shadhuli, the guide of the Shadhdhuliyyah Tariqah, head of the Higher Sufi Council in Jerusalem and the Holy Land and Teacher at the Masjid al-Aqsa, the Dome of the Rock, resides in Jerusalem.
3. In Sufi Cosmology, Malakut or Alam-i-Malakut is the world of angels. This term is also interchanged by Alam-i-Mithal / the world of similitudes. In other tradition its Mundus imaginalis / world of imagination, Tantric Antarloka (the intermediary world), or subtle / astro-mental world of Western occultists.
art collage: Journey into Primordial Light by mysticsaint
photo: Hakima (Debbie Graefer) / you may drop an email to me to connect to her. Hakima is based in San Diego and events / workshop with her are posted in Sufi Center San Diego website.
COMMENTS