Ponencia IslamabadOKOKenglish

8/6/2019 Ponencia IslamabadOKOKenglish

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Glimpses to a genealogy of

sufi heritage in the poetry of

spanish american cultureIn some of the pages of Don Quixote de la Mancha, the

memorable novel that marks the consolidation of the Spanish

language, there is a statement that sustain that what is

known is silent and after silent forgotten, meaning that

normally human being wants to believe that only

contemporary presumptions are correct, and that any element

that can put in danger such believing is a distortion that triesto confuse him.

But often happens also that there is this precise fact or detail

-lost in the past and which almost no one remembers - that

allows us to glimpse, as from Plato's cavern, in the distance,

the real nature of things in which we never have had a chance

to doubt, so our eyes can be suddenly disclosed.

Fine words in Spanish language are the heritage from thelanguage of Al Andaluz Emirate, that was part of the Umayyad

Caliphate in Andalusia. Words like pillow (Almohada), I hope

(Ojal), sill (alfizar), are a living proof that one day, christians

and muslims shared a common cultural space, and despite

the distance claimed by their faiths, they had time to share

what the Chilean poet Jorge Teillier has called "a little bit of air

moved by the lips-Words / to hide perhaps the only truth: /

that we breathe and we stop breathing".As these words say, we live in language, and the past is a

privileged witness of that. So, if we retrace the path of

languages and cultures, we can quickly realize that the

connections between the Sufi wisdom and Christian mysticism

are far more than some wants to acknowledge. And since this,


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until the arcane world of poetry, there is only one second that

takes us to get to the language of the heart, in wich Sufism

and poetry have citizen cards.

Even before the coming of Prophet Muhammad, blessed be his

name, the spiritual brotherhood of godly men in the world,

were already seeking a synthesis between Pythagoras

numbers and cosmic dualism of Plato and Aristotle. Before

Spain or Islam even existed, these Greeks and Gnostics

scholars had the feelling that first Christ was the final

synthesis, until they chose the exegesis of Islam to be the seal

of the prophets, as it is written en the Qoran.

According to the Turkish scholar and writer Edmund KabirHelminski, "Sufism can be seen as a way of realization in two

fundamental ways: One is a path that comes from, and carries

to the human consummation, the complete human being. On

the other hand it is a path that uses all possible effective

means to orchestrate the transformation of a human being. "

The act of rebirth, or rather, die and reborn for the Divine, is a

path that almost all mystical disciplines share in every culture,

and in that sense, the Sufi path is also an expression of

human nature hungrier for spiritual transcendence.

The traditions of this spiritual knighthood go hand in hand

since then, and for the first time in history, Sufism and

Christianity become two religions stating the same path, as

the Spanish scholars Germain Ancochea and MaraToscano

say:

"In Occident, knight errantrys ideal is well beyond thephysical existence of the knighthood. In fact, Christianity was

introduced by military orders that come in contact with

Islamic tradition and they spread at the same time of the

tradition of the Holy Grail. By contrast, in the Islamic tradition,

especially in the Sufism of Iranian tradition (which itself dates


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back to the Zoroastrian tradition), knighthood appears very

soon linked to the spiritual path and, as the Sufis say, the

birth of their own tradition. Before the appearance of Islam,

the tradition of knighthood in the Middle East was preserved

only through the training of men to be knights. "

Knighthood values include respect for others, the sacrifice of

self, devotion, support the weak and the helpless, kindness to

all creation and preserving of the word. All qualities that later

emerge as attributes of the perfect man from the point of

view of Sufism. Islam quickly gained membership of these

knights, who worked to found the Sufism on common bases to

Islam and knighthood.

In the West, the Templar Order inheritors of the rule of St.

Bernard of Clairvaux, would have already incorporated some

of these ideals. In Chapter XIII of his book "From Bethany, St.

Bernard's turns knight faith on words like this, so similar with

those from the prophet: "The Lord is my strength, my refuge

and my deliverer. And also: "Not unto us, Lord, not us, but

unto thy name give glory."

According to Alexander Seleukis in his Book of Alchemy "it

was in Holy Land where Sufis and Templars found a suitable

framework for connecting the respective traditions. There was

also, where the charges that culminated in the dissolution of

the Order in 1307 began. According to several authors, the

Knights Templar held a deliberate brotherhood with Sufis and

Kabbalists, being the most known the connection with the

order of the ismaelitas knights called assacis that means

guardian.

On the other hand, we have the testimony of the murcian

master Ibn Arabi, known as Sheikh of Akbar, (The greatest of

Sheikhs), who was named into the Christian West as "Doctor

Maximus", an important reference in the tasawwuf, the


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history of Sufism and, as we will see later, the key master in

the birth of some christian secret orders. In 1201 he makes a

trip across the south Mediterranean toward the Middle East

that took him up to Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus. Ibn Arabi

also formulates the existence of "the sacred pillars", as wecan see in his work "Illuminations":

"Every Pilar (watad) is a corner of a house: The one that

depends on Adam corresponds to the Syrian angle; the one

that depends on Abraham corresponds to the Iraqi angle; the

one that depends on Jesus corresponds to the Yemeni angle,

and the one that depends on Muhammad is the angle of the

black stone, this is mine, praise be to God. "

In another text of Ibn Arabi called The Truth, it is stated

about him:

He confused to scholars of Islam,

To all those who studied the Psalms,

To every rabbi,

To all Christian priest.

From everything exposed before, we can see that there was

and there is a spiritual and initiatory tradition preserved over

the centuries, common to all three religions of the Book and

that can be accessed with humility and purity of heart. The

search is often confusing, as happened to the women who

went at dawn to the tomb of Jesus and they did not found his

body, and the Angels said to them: Why seek ye the living

among the dead?" (Luke 24:5).A few years after Ibn al Arabi described that the four pillars

supporting the world, a Christian mystic would have an

encounter that would radically change their perception of the


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world the same world that, in turn, would dramatically be -

thanks to him - renovated.

Giovanni Bernardone, best known as St. Francis of Assisi, was

in full stage of defining his mission on earth when he joined

what is known in the West as the Fifth Crusade. It was 1219,

and the third time that he tried to fulfill the biblical principle to

evangelize in Holy Land, and when the expedition arrived to

Damietta, Egypt, after sharing galley with murderers and

thieves who joined the Christian expedition by mere interest,

and living for months with the Crusaders that embarrassed

him because of their profligate behavior, he asked permission

to cardinal pelayo, who headed the expedition, permission for

being interviewed by the Sultan of Egypt, Palestine and Syria,

known as al Malik al Kamil, who had given samples of being a

peaceful and devout man, on having offered repeatedly truces

and compensations to the Christians among them even had

been the right on the city of Jerusalem. Offers that the self-

seeker Pelayo had rejected for his excessive pride and

ambition.

the historian Donald Spoto tells about this interview betweenSan Francisco and Malik Al Kamil:

"The visit of Francisco to the Sultan Malik al Kamil is narrated

not only in medieval French and Italian papers about the

crusades and Celano's biography, but also in Islamic

chronicles. These texts tell that Francis and Lit (his disciple)

left the Christian camp in early September due to the

headquarters of Al Kamil. When the Sultan's guards saw their

arrival, they were confused or by messengers who came tonegotiate, or by holy men as their "sufiyya" (Sufis), mystics

who were also dressed in rustic tunics with rope tight and

begging to survive. So quickly led them to the sultan's

presence.


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"The Muslim ruler of Egypt, Palestine and Syria was the same

age of Francis, he ran his empire's forces since 1218 and also

as Francisco, he lived entirely dedicated to the traditions and

the disclosure of their faith. Although he hated war and

violence, Al Kamil did not hesitate to call on them to achievetheir religious and political aims. Educated by his uncle, the

redoubtable Saladin, Al Kamil was an expert in warfare, but he

preferred the disciplines of prayer. Five times a day, when he

heard the call to worship Allah, he was the first to adopt a

more humble position. In addition, Francis was now before a

peaceful and deeply religious man who believed in one God. "

After Francisco spoke through an interpreter, Al Kamil decided

to call their main religious advisors. After hearing the brief

account that Francis gave to him about the Bible and faith in

Christ as soon as the prayers for peace in the name of God

and His son Jesus, the advisors resolved that visitors had to be

beheaded in the act by trying to convert them to Christianity.

But the Sultan could appreciate the true faith where there

was. He admired also the character of Francis, his

unconditional surrender to the faith and its blatant disregardfor the luxuries of the world. "This time I will go against the

law," he said to Francis when they were alone. I will not

sentence to death who has come to save my soul, risking his

own life. "

Finally Francis and his disciple Lit stayed for a week in the

court of Malik al Kamil, as an example of interfaith dialogue

that even today carries more than a lesson for our times,

Kamil finally dismissed him with a pass to Jerusalem and asthe historian Spoto said, "although Francis went to the

Sultan's camp with the desire to convert him or die trying to,

the years immediately after writings reveal that he left there

with a completely different attitude. We could even say it was

the conversion of Francis himself which was strengthened.


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Francis perhaps saw in his return among Christians that, most

Muslims, were Christians who really needed to be become to

christianity, but, anxious for material rewards promised by the

Crusade, they were not prepared to accept peace. Spoto

continues saying that "the blessing of Francis and his prayersfor peace of the Lord never been as neglected as in 1219,

when his own invocation and the Salam from the Arabs fell on

deaf ears among the officers and troops.

According to the butterfly effect theory, sometimes more

subtle changes have unexpected consequences, and might

say something like that went to Westal thought and culture,

after this event, the figure of Francis of Assisi. His experience

in Damietta allowed him ultimately develops his doctrine of

absolute detachment, sine glossa" (without commentary),

perhaps mimicking the figure of Sufi: sort of holly beggar who

in that moment form the basis of his thought and legacy.

The Chilean philosopher Humberto Gianini says that "the

legacy (of Francis) was clear: leaving everything, and sine

glossa, as true minstrels of God, but the loosening which

symbolizes the new minstrel goes even further (as exclusivelymaterial ): a detachment of the images and memories that

bind us to the world, ways to retain and still have things;

detachment of contentious knowledge learned that keeps us

in the vain dispute and the desire to excel; detachment of

arguments, principles, reasons that hold us in a speech

without beginning or end. And this one is principally the

interior detachment of which the poverty of the spirit consists

and that allows to the jongleur to be a jongleur and to makethe heart of the men happy

Poverty of spirit that has been blessed by Jesus in the New

Testament was also impressed by San Francisco to the

Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral, who in her

poem "La Caridad" she sings to the saint:


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"And so, Francisco, you spent as the moons in its last quarter

(...)

You discovered a hidden truth: we have no right to give, but

To ourselves. Other things are of the earth. "

For Humberto Giannini, the importance of Westal thought of

Saint Francis was that first meant a rejection of the Thomistic

dialectic that prevailed until then. A second consequence was

the revaluation of the contemplative life as a link with other

human beings. And finally, thanks to Francis, the current

scholastic motto since Augustine " Fides quaerus intellectum

(Faith seeking understanding) which had helped to build the

cathedrals of Christian scholasticism even at the expense of

reason, would lead place to the investigation of nature , the

merry intuition of the one that talks with the animals, whom

preaches of equally to equally, supported by a faith that seeks

in external phenomena signs of a universal love that is

sensed, thus anticipating the scientific curiosity of the

Renaissance.

A fourth consequence to Christianity may be that with SaintFrancis the Gnosis (God's existential knowledge), again

gradually acquire citizenship card in Westal culture under the

name of mysticism, almost a millennium after the first

patriarchs diverge of his way to the Christian Gnostics

declaring them heretics. With San Francisco remains open a

path for mystics as Juan de la Cruz or Teresa de Avila, appear

within the Spanish language and the Catholic Church a couple

of centuries later.Somehow, thanks to Francis and his poor monks, the heritage

of spiritual knighthood Sufi, came to these mystics to be

transfigured by example in "The Mansions" of Santa Teresa or

in her mystical proposal of an interior castle in which we must

feverishly defend from the attacks of the tempter, and the


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same situation exists when we talk about symbols like the

mystical marriage of the soul with God in San Juan de la Cruz.

We read in "The Mansions" of Santa Teresa:

"While praying to our lord now speak for me, because I couldnot seem anything to say or how to begin serving this

obedience, he offered me what I shall say to start with some

foundation, that is to consider our soul, like a house of a

diamond or crystal clear where there are many mansions.

That if we consider, sisters, is nothing but the soul of the

righteous ..."

The reference to St. Teresa of Avila could not be more direct

to the Gospel of St. John 14.2:

In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I

would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for

you

San Juan for example expresses this same approach to

Divinity in his Songs of the Soul in intimate communication, a

union of love of God.

Oh flame of love alive,

Tenderly hires

Of my soul in the deepest center!

As you are no longer elusive,

Just as, if you want;

Breaks the clothe of this sweet encounter!

Maybe we'll find in the words above reminiscent of the famous

Sufi master Adawiyyah Rabee'ah who have transmitted the

sublime and lofty mystical poems, which was an important


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benchmark for Christian devotional poetry by his prodigious

spiritual states:

I love you in two ways: selfishly,

and also in a manner worthy of you.

This selfish love dominates my thoughts,

dedicating it to you completely.

The purest love is when you lift

the veil from my eyes of worship.

For neither I deserve praise,Are to you the praises of these two loves.

The Mansions of Santa Teresa is equivalent to an interior

castle, which is also internal fighting, and where the enemy

iare the own weaknesses and passions, and all kinds of

selfishness, vanity and pride. The book describes the beauty

and dignity of our souls and explains that the door of this

castle is prayer. That is why when Santa Teresa launches this

true mystic war cry, actually is referring to the peace of the

Lord:

All that you fight

Beneath this flag

No more sleep, no more sleep

because there is no peace on earth.

Not without reluctance and many ecclesiastical supervision, is

that mystics as Teresa and John, survive from his time in

medieval Christendom. They, along with Francis of Assisi,

Bernard of Clairvaux, his Cistercians and Templars, also of St.

Benedict and Benedictine monks is that scholars are slowly


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recovering Spain and the West the personal experience of

divinity.

In this regard we would add that perhaps the culmination of

this process could be established with the publication of The

Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, a book that in

1605 marks the final consolidation of the Spanish language,

as the way will eventually be considered to Goethe's Faust for

the German or Dante's Divine Comedy for the Italian.

And if we look more closely at Cervantes' Don Quixote, we see

that its author shows no little heritage of Arab culture to the

point that you imagine the chronicler of the colorful Christian

knight is a Muslim scholar named Hamete Benenguelli. Butthe humorous image of a Knight of the sad figure and his

chubby squire, is enigmatic to this day even the mystics, for

the depth of his commentary about the human condition.

In this respect let me draw attention to one of the many

episodes in which Cervantes seems to pay tribute in Don

Quixote to Islam. In the second part of the novel where he

wanted to refute all the novels of knighthood (then

transformed into a discredited genre) and yet be transformed

into the quintessential novel of chivalry, Don Quixote

suddenly goes to the Cave of Montesinos , where he is

informed of a mission that awaits him because of his great

courage and skill, expected in the future and it consist in

disenchant the knights Durandarte and Montesinos, who also

Doa Belerma, Doa Ruidera and seven daughters and two

nieces, were already 500 years encharmed, with

disenchantment announced for the end of time. Montesinostells him this:

This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true

lovers and valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted

here, as I myself and many others are, by that French


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enchanter Merlin, who, they say, was the devil's son; but my

belief is, not that he was the devil's son, but that he knew, as

the saying is, a point more than the devil. How or why he

enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and I suspect

that time is not far off.

In the eyes of this century, the mysterious mission of Don

Quixote to disenchant captives knights of the times and

wizards, it sounds vaguely familiar to the episode of The

sleepers, the Qur'an (Sura The Cave 18.8), in which seven

knights mystic are also excited, waiting to wake up and meet

the spiritual Futuwah cavalry.

According to the Spanish Hermetist Alexander Seleukis, thereis a tradition that "when Moses asks" what is Futuwah? "He is

replied," You give God the soul pure and immaculate, as the

man has received. Seth, the son of Adam, is, according to

Islamic tradition, the first entirely dedicated knight to the

divine service, while his brothers are dedicated to mastering

the world. The angel Gabriel comes to Earth a green wool

tunic with Seth is dressed, and returns to heaven with the

news that there is a man entirely devoted to divine service. The men of the Futuwah, spiritual knights, will be neither

secular nor monks, is a new category of men that goes

beyond the time of the cloisters, which will be called "Friends

of God".

This is also the ideal that Christians writers like Chretien de

Troyes and von Eschenbach propose in their stories of the

quest for the Holy Grail. In this meet, somehow, spiritual

chivalry of Islam and Christianity. Seleukis adds that"according to Islamic tradition, we find Abraham as the

continuing of Futuwah, becoming in the founder and father of

all the mystic knights of faith. The Futuwah then covers all the

heroes of the Bible along with Christian knights and the Seven

Sleepers which are mentioned in the Qoran. The Sufi ideal of


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chivalry is a community of knights that encompass all the

Abrahamic tradition.

Many Sufi authors have identified the Imam expected in Islam,

with the Paraclete of John's Gospel, so that Sufi and Christian

chivalry match over religions. The spiritual Knights, "friends of

God, eternally young, form, generation after generation, the

lineage of Gnosticism never interrupted but ignored by the

mass of men. This lineage is the tradition itself. In order To

occupy a place in is necessary undergo a second birth. "You

can not enter the kingdom which is not born a second time,"

says the Gospel of John. "

SUFISM AND ILLUSTRATION

Apart from the mystical poetry of authors who - like Santa

Teresa and San Juan - are now Doctors of the Church, the

Sufism legacy in Westal literature and culture seems to be

submerged in the West from the IX to the XVII centuries, in

some secret societies of ritual vocation through initiatives

such as the Masons or the Rosicrucians, which would

subsequently have significant involvement in history and

culture of Europe.

According to the Iranian Ayatullah Morteza Mutahari in his

book "The Science of Gnosis", one of those figures who made

the link with western societies like the Rosicrucians, was Abd

al Qadir al Jilani, founder of the Sufi order Qadiriyyah or

Quadiri.

"This is one of the most controversial figures in the Islamic

world. Is kept many prayers and those sublime says from him.He was a Sayyid descendant of Imam Al Hasan, who died in

560/1164 or 561/1165. His order was organized by his

followers, who used a very similar terminology to what later

would use the Rosicrucians in Europe. Abd al Qadir specialized

in the induction of spiritual states, called the Science of


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States. Their acts have been described by his followers in so

exaggerated terms that his personality, by all accounts, bears

little resemblance to their own definitions of the nature of a

Sufi master.

Exaggeration of mystical states in his followers, apparently

caused the degradation of these teachings, transforming

those experiences into an end and not the medium that is,

which should also be adequately controlled by a master. But

in his story, "States and jackals," Abd al Qadir himself

specifically warns against this:

"The Jackal thought has been given a banquet, when in fact it

has eaten remnants left by the lion. I transmit the science ofproducing "states." But this can hurt if it is used in isolation.

Anyone who uses it well and still managed to hold power. But

it will take men to worship the "states" until they are almost

incapable of returning to the Sufi Way.

The lessons from this and from other Islamic masters are for

the origins of the Rosicrucians, who are defined as "an occult

brotherhood of spiritual seekers that emerged in Germany

during the seventeenth century, in which there are however

first news in Europe on the XIV century. The first public

manifestation of the Rosicrucian Order as charter school

seems to have taken place in Paris when, in August 1623,

appeared set a few signs on some walls of this city that said:

"We, members of the principal College of the Brothers of the

Rosicrucian, take visible and invisible abode in this city by the

grace of the Almighty, to which becomes the heart of theRighteous ..."

In the introduction to "The Alchemical Wedding of Christian

Rosicrucian" by Jean Valentin Andreae (1616) we learn that

Fraternitatis Fame, the first publication of the Rosicrucian

secret, alludes to a secret fraternity founded by the character


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throughout his travels through the Muslim East, where he

received the revelation of the secrets of the "universal

harmonic science.

Based on these teachings, Christian devised a plan to reform

philosophical, religious, artistic, scientific, politically and

morally the world, for whose implementation was surrounded

by some disciples. Christian Rosicrucian would then come into

contact with "The Brothers of Purity" philosophical society

formed in Basra in the first half of the IV / X.

The doctrines of this society were not quite in accordance with

Islamic orthodoxy, but relied heavily on the ancient Greek

philosophers and the Neopythagoreanism. But this is how the"Brothers of Purity" differs with the Sufis on some points,

agree on many others. Both are 'mystical theology deriving

from the Koran'. The dogma is supplanted here by faith in the

divine Reality.

From their precursors mainly Greeks and Alexandrians, Islamic

scholars studied and developed astrology and alchemy,

through the Crusades, Europe again transfigured. Many of the

main ideas of these two sciences are not only Fraternitatis

Fame, but also in "Alchemical Wedding" of the Rosicrucians.

But the real Rosicrucians always remained anonymous. If any

of them played an important role in history, was careful not to

stand as a Rosicrucian. As the Sufis in Islamic esotericism,

authentic Rosicrucians never use in public this title. As a

Gunon writes bluntly, "If someone has declared himself

Rosicrucian or Sufi, we can say, no need to consider thingsmore deeply, which really was not."

But it seems undeniable that there was, on the origins of the

Rosicrucians, a collaboration between the two esoteric started

in the Christian and Islamic worlds, and this collaboration

would continue to take place, in other forms, since their


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purpose is precisely to maintain the bond between the

initiations of East and West.

Ayatullah Morteza says that progress Mutahari Sufism had

always been gradual. "But in the seventh century / XIII with

the appearance of Ibn al Arabi, 'irfan and sufism theorist, gave

a sudden leap and reached its peak of perfection." About this

new phase, in which Islamic esoteric tradition is mixed with

similar Christian Mutahari Ibn al Arabi says:

"It was an amazing person, and this has led to the existence

of widely divergent views on it. Some see him as 'the Wali to

Kamil' (the Holy Perfect) and the 'Qutb al Aqtab' (the Pole of

Poles). Others will degrade to the point considered a heretic,and call him 'Mumit al Din' (the murderer of faith) or 'Mahi al

Din "(the draft of the faith). Sadr al Muta'allihin (Mulla Sadra),

the great Islamic philosopher and genius, he had great

respect for him, considering it far above Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

and even the philosopher al-Farabi, who was known as the

four centuries before "Second Master", referring to Aristotle,

for that matter, was considered the first of its kind. Mutahari

says that Ibn al Arabi wrote over two hundred books andalthough there are many comments that have been written

about "may not have been more than two or three people in

every age that may understand."

How not to be grateful of that wise Al Farabi, without being a

Sufi, sought nothing less than understanding between Plato

and Aristotle, which Westal philosophy has already failed in

assimilate, and that only after recent discoveries of particle

physics -the fabulous neutrinos that pass through the materialat the speed of light- report us that inexplicably each of us is

in direct contact with the sun, in the middle of the

astonishment of our scientists, who are amazed how light and

matter can share the same space, matter and spirit, idea and

form.


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For the present time is really unusual for a Sufi master of such

high rank as Al Arabi promote the integration of four biblical

peoples by the spiritual "pillars" described above and if their

teachings are also on the basis of secret societies like the

Rosicrucians, that in practice they developed a Christianphilosophy bound to secrecy and even Kabalism seems to

coincide with a likely syncretism between ancient Hermetic

teachings and Christianity. Indeed, Fraternitatis Fame (as in

the "Confessio" and the "Alchemical Wedding") naturally

secretive and cabalistic doctrines that the Adept is to go

looking to the East, are collected.

But do not concern the Rosicrucians to the east of our maps,

but the mystical East. The so-called "Liber Mundi", a spiritual

book that, according to Corbin is the "concrete totality which

man feeds on its own substance, beyond the limits of this

life."

Shortly after this founding junction in the eleventh century /

XVII, members of the Rosicrucian lodges would be joined by

the nascent European Masonic orders to the point that in 1787

the Masons recognize as part of the Scottish Rite in grade 18,the so called "Sovereign Prince Rose-Croix Mason, Knight of

the Eagle and Pelican.

If we have to believe those who think that it was under the

influence of these secret societies which came to be realized

as the French Revolution and the American independence,

and if we add that it never denied the rumor that many of the

Masonic societies were actually spiritual heirs of the dissolved

Templars, we may understand that story in another contextthat speech hat tells that, in 1793 when King Louis XVI was

beheaded at the Bastille, there was a voice in the crowd who

shouted their lungs "Jacques de Molay is avenged !, "alluding

to the execution of the last Grand Master of the Templars by

King Philip IV of France in 1314.


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A current publication about the Rosicrucians ranks among

masters of all time among other Islamic philosophers like al-

Razi, Al Farabi and Ibn Sina, which appear to share fellowship

with people like Roger Bacon, Raymond Lull or Paracelsus, a

swarm of alchemy, mysticism and philosophy that we aresurprised. Alongside them, Sufi masters like Ibn Arabi and Abd

al Qadir are so to speak as the missing links between West

and East from the perspective of religious mysticism.

Thus we see how the mystical poetry of the Sufis expressed

not only the human soul experiences in its encounter with

God, but also shows that everything is related to the mystical

and ecstatic experience is always personal but are possible

shared with the brothers who also seek such experiences of

union with the Divine.

DE IBEROAMERICA

In Chile as in whole Latin America, after independence from

Spain in 1810 Poetry and song were popular as privileged

heritage of the farmers who cherish the rich poetic material

inherited from the peninsula and turned it into oral tradition.

The man of the people forward, compose and administer at

home since this legacy, incorporating the changes necessary

to integrate indigenous roots and new urban and rural

experiences of the new continent, even as the airtight

element pass virtually forgotten.

According to what the scholar Ins Dolz says, in Chile, "the so-

called Song of the Divine will have its natural expression in

the so-called Tenth glossed, sung to the tune of a guitar, bassguitar or rebec. As comment, we can say that the divine song

is performed by the 'puetas' in the usual environment of a

daily and family atmosphere, which develops the dialogue

between human and celestial beings. Both live in the same


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sphere of existence, sharing the same happy and pain and

expressing similarly. About Jesus, for example, we say:

'As a child he suffered / promised Messiah / suffered some

colds / and then improved', and the Devil, the Lord says' you

re gonna remember me / I'm not going to allow / this lack of

respect / and the top Sky / whoever wants to raise up ' ".

Through religion, all religious calendar with songs and folkloric

customs passed from Spain to the colonies. However, during

the eighteenth century so religious brotherhoods grew and

their extra-demonstrations in 1763 that would lead to

establish through a formal synod that "only devotional music

were permitted in temples and that does not causedistraction.

The oral tradition inherited from Spain and in which the Song

of the Divine in Chile was born and would soon give birth to

the Call Human Song as two compartmentalized specialties

available to the popular minstrel. For example in 1893, Rosa

Araneda had this real declaration of principles on the wisdom

in verses that somehow resonate with the Sufi perspective to

address the issue of Knowledge. The poem is entitled "Verses

from the ignorance of the singers:"

One who treads lofty

Living on Science,

knows his incompetence

When he is down.

Anyone who desecrates in song,

Without following a ground,

Walk in his thinking

The area with dazed,


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Causing awe and terror

Speaking to a large extent,

I already to look messy,

For more read in history,

Go troubled memory,

Lofty One who treads.

If unsuspecting poet

I want to be more than Homer,

We must look first

Not to come down.

If a flight goes back

By finding the eloquence,

In the highest eminence,

With dictionary in hand,There will be sovereign

Living on Science.

If you find any consonant

That is little doubt,

There is the scholar

Without going further;

As a wandering pilgrim

With dementia may wander,

Asking for God audience


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For your sorrow,

I can not move

He knows his incompetence.

In over thirty singers

I have watched this case,

That until the Parnassus

They make thousands of mistakes;

One of the best

Enough moralizing

Scientific and educated

I had enough capacity,

Mourns his fate

When he is down.

In order to be a poetYou want to study enough;

But today any ignorant

He wants to reach the goal;

Not subject to talk

Because it has a tongue and mouth;

If you are a rock

The meaning is changed,

I founded to give you an

Do not know what's their turn.


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The crossing between this Canto a lo Pueta and the

picaresque Spanish poetry is also an important feature of this

period of the Chilean and American poetry. For example in the

tenths El Diablo, an anonymous author called JM was joking

this way of the personage

The devil died stuck

With a bone in his nose:

They were the devils children

Facts about convicted

And then in the development of the tenth:

Said a lame devil

Guarding the pantry:

"By greedy and shameless

Grandfather died my daddy. "

Other youngsters hell

They said: "My father is rich."

Were found in bolsico

The charter of a Mason.

The rascal is dead

With a bone in his nose.


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Somehow we might affirm that the tradition named popular

lira reaches masterfully the immortal figure of Violeta Parra,

the authoress of this real anthem to the human condition that

is Gracias a la Vida. Violeta has certainly many mystical

take-offs that maybe conjugate essentially in the poetry ofthis song:

Thanks to life that has given me so much.

I gave two stars that, when open,

perfectly distinguish the black from white,

and in the high heaven its starry background

and the multitudes the man I love.


It has given me ear that, in all its breadth,

night and day recorded crickets and canaries;

hammers, turbines, barking, rain,

and so tender voice of my beloved.


It has given me sound and the alphabet,

with him the words I think and declare:

mother, friend, brother, and light illuminating

the path that I'm loving soul.


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It has given the course of my tired feet;

I went with them cities and puddles,

beaches and deserts, mountains and plains

and the house of yours, your street and your yard.


He gave me the heart that shakes its frame

when I see the fruit of the human brain;

when I look good so far from bad,

when I look at the bottom of your eyes.


It has given me laughter and tears have given me.So I distinguish this from brokenness,

the two materials that are my song,

and the song of you is the same song

and the song of all, my own song.

Thanks to life which has given me so

In this way then the Chilean poetry inherits directly from the

Spanish poetic tradition that mystical dimension which in turn

had enjoyed the spiritual contact between Christians and

Sufis. During the twentieth century this tradition in Chile


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becomes a more personal voice, whose exponents are cutting

important writers as Edward Anguita mystic, who wrote "the

only reason NSJC passion."

Harlequin:

Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered only Jenaro Medina

Our Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary by Hortensia

Our Lord Jesus Christ died only for the chip Cruz

Our Lord Jesus Christ "Eli Eli lama sabajtani-by Alemparte by

Gaete by the children of Scott Weir

For me and for all Chileans all Uruguayans, the South

Americans

French American British the Germans the Spanish

Italians Russians the blind Egyptian scholars fat athletes

The Chaldeans the Iranian military's liberal utopians Lisbonese

The exploited the wretched of the earth slaves operatorsWithout bread vendors Mormons consumer producers

The Swiss musicians rulers deaf, ay

His wounds were made by all of them for all of us

And all fit in them and we are all redeemed

But Genaro Medina only

Or I just

Or simply Hortensia


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It is the cause of all the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus

Christ.

Another who also cultivated in Chile mystical streak was the

founder of Mandrake Group, Braulio Arenas, attached to the

surrealism movement in the 50s of the last century. His poem

"Saint John of the Cross" goes like this:

Bird colorless

From time to join the sky every hour

Lower until your fascinating world

Song, and sings in all fascinated

Opera with the grace and sin,

With the shadow of the world at this hour,

Opera with the lovely soul

And with the mortal body anchored

It's time for this, which raise

The soul of the song as their flight,

Heading east of paradise.

Help her by order and is not afraid

Stop the misery of its soil,

O San Juan de la Cruz one and divisible!

The Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas has said about his poetic: "Inmy role very close to the religiosity of Sufi thought. Constantly

returns to these themes of sacredness. For example, I speak

in my poetry lighted. The lighting is a way of lighting. It is the

kind you see further than ordinary mortals. The lighting Arab

ancestry are mystical, Sufi. In this regard I believe that San


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Juan de la Cruz is quite linked to the Sufis, that's why I love

you so much to San Juan.

Indeed, in his book, "illumination" Rojas admits precisely that:

We name the world what an exercise in diamond

Grape bunch of grapes, so kiss

Blowing the number of origin

No chance

But navigation and number, nature

And number, network into the abyss of thingsAnd number.

A century before him in Chile, Eduardo de la Barra poet (1839-

1900) had confessed in his poem "The Jordan" by two famous

aversion to his trial judges who refused to Christ with your

inquiries:

Oh Jesus, oh, Rabbi!, Your divine

Word to the Jordan seeded

He could never leave the cruel doctrine

That leads to Loyola and Torquemada!

Your word fruitful

Light sweet soul flooded,

The infused noble desire,

Their wings open and back to heaven

Another who paid tribute to the Spanish mystical poetry is

Pedro Antonio Gonzalez (1863-1903) in the poem "A Santa

Teresa de Jess"


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Beauty caste Oh!

O mystical Virgin, Santa Teresa Oh!

Hossanna the celestial, divine perfume

That spreads the fire that consumes your soul

While Pedro Prado (1886-1952) contrived impressed about the

mystery of the Resurrection:

"Who calls me?" And Lazarus out

From the grave,

He looked at Jesus and she understood everything."Art thou O sun! The shining?

Is that you, or everything is a dream? Mary,

My sister! Martha, my sister ... "

As already mentioned, that enlightened and generous who

was Gabriela Mistral dedicated several poems to the figure ofSaint Francis of Assisi, founder of the doctrine of evolution

that changed Christianity and whose conversion was

strengthened by his contact with Islam when was in Damietta

with Sultan Malik al Kamil. The poem is called "Naming

things":

You, Francisco, you had the gift of choice and a gift of praise.

You loved

things that are best; walking on the earth all

met, but I chose the most beautiful creatures. And the gift of

long love, which is the richest of all those we receive, we were

given the


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grace to be able to name them gracefully.

Loved the water as Teresa, your sister subtle, sun and fire,

and the

groove brown earth. Three different beauties are sisters only

because each one perfect.

Another grater of the list of Chilean writers Pablo de Rokha

was, for many of the same size as Neruda but without his

Nobel Prize, son of the twentieth century, from the people andtheir revolutions, and although always worried by the social

destiny of its people still had also a time for the inner journey.

In his "Jesus Christ" as he wrote the stone size:

"Jesus grew in spirit and strengthened, adding meat disaster

For addition heroic "

Martyr like Jesus, but of the liberation struggles of the

twentieth century was in Chile the poet Jose Domingo Gomez

Rojas (1896-1920), died at age 24 just days after an obscure

right-wing attack on the Federation of University Students

Chile to which he belonged. He wrote in his poem a

premonitory Miserere:

Youth, love, what you want,

It must go with us. Miserere!

The beauty of the world and whatever

He will die in the future. Miserere!

The land itself dies slowly


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With the distant stars. Miserere!

And maybe even death hurts us

There will also be death. Miserere!

Pablo Neruda would not like to be called as a mystic, with

many specific emergency and non-ethereal man of the times

to circulate, however, the fact is that from its heights and

valleys, which are only comparable with telluric depths,

marinas and minerals, which comes just connecting with the

world's heart, this heart burning and boiling, Neruda achieves

ecstatic seer trimmed in such works as "Residence on Earth"

in whose poem "Poetic Art" says about himself:

"Between shadow and space, between garrisons and maidens,

endowed with unique heart and dreams dismal

abruptly pale, withered in the face

mourning widower and furious for every day of life,

ay, invisible water for each drink sleepily

and of all sound which I trembled,

I have the same thirst away and the same cold fever "

Neruda does not want to be a believer, the Faith to him is in

the proletarian men and their causes, not in things that come

from the mystery and so declares in this poem, where,

however, sensed, perhaps, its mission of quasi prophet the

words:

"But the truth, suddenly, the wind that whips my chest,

infinite substance nights fall in my bedroom

the noise of a day of burning sacrifice


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I call the prophetic in me, sadly

and a stroke of objects that call not be answered

there, and a relentless movement, and a confusing name. "

Neruda connects better with the planet, its mountains and

rivers, if they understood every last gap, and especially our

American continent, which describes in the poem "Love

America":

Land mine without name, without America,

Stamen equinoctial purple spear,

Your scent I climbed up the roots

To drink he drank up the thinnest

Unborn word from my mouth

His American love is perhaps the connection with the

intangibles of this our poet who called himself atheist. But it

can not be completely oblivious to the Deity who understands

at this point to Mother Nature, as this passage from "The

stones from heaven" that describes the sacred stone that

exists only in Chile and Pakistan, lapis:

"Snoring is the American Cordillera,

Snow, hairy, hard,

planetary

there lies the bluest of blue,

lonely blue, blue secret

the nest of the blue, lapis lazuli,

blue skeleton of my country.


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Sacred is the blue as cathedrals, and sings Neruda

Oh blue cathedral buried

blue glass jar,

eye of the sea covered by snow

again back to the light water

a day to clear skin

space,

the blue sky turns to blue ground.

Cathedrals stone is something that in South Americainherited from Catholic Spain. But the blue is older, because in

the cosmology of the native peoples of Chile and the

Mapuche, the color of the abode of the ancestors, or as they

call the "land above", where they will dwell those who, having

gone through this earth below, have honored his people and

his race to get the prize of eternal life, so he sings Blue today

that the Chilean poet and Mapuche Elikura Chihuailaf:

"I ride in a circle, led by the breath,

Animal

I offered in sacrifice

Gallop gallop, dreaming I

by the ways of heaven

From all sides come to greet

the stars

Oo!, Elder, Elder

Maid and Young Earth


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Arriba

rejoices in your blue my blood

We could say that the spirit of chivalry, the futuwah, also

applied to Mapuche cosmology, heroic people who hasundoubtedly earned the right to fight for that today yearning

for peace from the earth above. Blue Sea then the word that

allows me to conclude this alien look is even closer to the feet

of the elephant which is the Islamic Sufism, that if a tree or

planted a vineyard would be one of Gnostic Christians,

Zoroastrians, Buddhists Greeks, like Plato and Aristotle,

survived thanks to Islam, without accident or by design that

made the first encyclopedia of all things old and was thenfarmed for generations to embrace the world.

Sufism would then be for me a vine that took root, grew and

spread from medieval Spain to our America, transfigured into

poetry, tradition and also a little tight and politics, why not to

say, things that perhaps the King of Spain did not think when

they decided to found this new world, but again told, also has

six or seven thousand years, and although records are scarce

materials we are confident that the archetypes that make us

human are the same as in the rest of the world and to dream

a future, there is only one road, a long, long interior journey.

This is the Sufism of wandering dervishes were contrived to

combine in a unique way of knowing the mass of three or

more civilizations, in order to convey this desire for knowledge

in which peace is the currency.

I will conclude by quoting Al Shibli, who devised the followingSufi story about the brother and companion of the man who is

the dog:

I asked a wise man who guided you in the way?


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The sage answered a dog. One day I found almost died of

thirst on the banks of river. Whenever I saw her reflection in

the water, became frightened and walked away thinking it

was another dog. Finally, such was his need, overcoming his

fear plunged into the water, and then "the other dog wasgone.

The dog had discovered that the obstacle was itself and the

barrier that separated him from what he sought was gone.

In the same way my own obstacle disappeared when I realized

that "my ego was that obstacle. It was the behavior of a dog

which I first pointed out the Way.

A dog that challenges his own fear is against every instinct for

survival is the one to teach in the Sufi path


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