ONENESS OF BEING

ONENESS OF BEING

'Since Mysticism in all ages and countries is fundamentally the same, however it may be modified by its peculiar environ­ment and by the positive religion to which it clings for support, we find remote and unrelated systems showing an extra­ordinarily close likeness and even coinciding in many features of verbal expression. . . . Many writers on Sufism have dis­regarded this principle; hence the confusion which long prevailed.'

In the light of this timely remark by Nicholson!, no one should be surprised to find that the doctrine of the' Oneness of Being (Wahidat al-Wujud) , which holds a central place in all the orthodox mysticisms of Asia, holds an equally central place in Sufism.

As is to be expected in view of its centrality, some of the most perfect, though elliptical, formulations of this doctrine are to be found in the Quran, which affirms expressly:

“Wheresoe'er ye turn, there is the Face of God."

"Everything perisheth but His Face.”

“All that is therein suffereth extinction, and there remaineth the Face of thy Lord in Its Majesty and Bounty."

Creation, which is subject to time and space and non­terrestrial modes of duration and extent which the human imagination cannot grasp, is 'then' (with reference to both past and future) and 'there', but it is never truly 'now' and 'here'. The True Present is the prerogative of God Alone, for It is no less than the Eternity and Infinity which transcends, penetrates and embraces all durations and extents, being not only 'before' all beginnings but also 'after' all ends. In It, that is, in the Eternal Now and Infinite Here, all that is perishable has 'already' perished, all that is liable to extinction has 'already' been extinguished leaving only God, .......

“Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century” p 121, Martin Lings