The Splendor of the Fruits of the Trip

What Arabi calls deity or spirit is not static quite the contrary. In fact it is as variable as our mind or our soul, which is terribly labile. Moreover, our soul 'moves' as much as do, because 'the spirit of the universe' moves it, he says. 'Divinity itself 'travels'. And it does so by way of life-giving 'blow', breath, giving live and keeping all creation as a great blower without location or form. But the divine journey is not, however, a route or a linear displacement, like the creatures experience, but a renewed creation at every moment, a sort of pumping or beating, than a moment after another, as a heart present everywhere and nowhere, keep alive and awake the cosmos'. So clever summarizes Carlos Varona Narvión, from the meticulous knowledge of the translator, in the introduction to El esplendor de los frutos del viaje.

There is always in creation (and all creation is creation of our mind) a mixture of body and spirit that is where it reaches the 'blow'. We are body and spirit. The blow reaches each of us, our body, and manifests in our mind, pumping, breathing it. It is said that the spirit is everywhere, lighting and covering all the created, because the air covers us all and creates everything in our psyche. This is how 'Allah' illuminates the universe by his blow, renewing the creation (our thoughts) at every moment by the blow at every cycle of our breath.

'God' is a pulse that reaches the entire cosmos. God has no form but is everywhere shaping the world in the minds of us thinking beings. 'It is a center of the universe that is everywhere and circumference nowhere' style to Leibniz says Carlos Varona.

'The origin of life is movement. It can not be immobility, then it would be back to its source, which is the absence. Never ever ceases trip, nor the upper nor the lower world, and even the divine truths do not complete their journey, coming and going. (...) The movement at every moment of the four elements, and created beings, changes and the transformations generated with each breath, as well as the journey of the mind, both as laudable as reprehensible, trip of blows of who breathes, and of the looks of seen things in waking or sleeping, as the crossing from one world to another with its weighting, all this is definitely a trip to the human mind. Never in all eternity we cease to travel, from the moment of our conception, and the first creation of our foundation. When in front of you appears a house, you affirm that this is the end of your journey, while, in reality, it opens another path to you. In fact, when you see a house, you say, "This is my goal!" But it just come, you do not delay in starting again.' (El esplendor de los frutos del viaje, Chapter 3)

Our minds, along with everything that they creates, do not stop 'traveling'. Truths, even the 'divine', are not static, but vary continuously as much as our head produces. Changes are generated with each breath: in thoughts, morally good or morally bad ('both as laudable as reprehensible'), in perception and dreams ('the looks of things seen in waking or sleeping'), in our will and our motivations, the 'houses' that have to safeguard us in a stable environment, we believe, but just achieved they fade away to open new ways into previously unforeseen goals... The ideas and experiences, by nature, by definition, they come and go.

'Therefore, there is no immobility in this world, but their movement is constant; succeeding the day and night, as do thoughts, states and forms, by alternating, according to the divine truths.'

The breath is air and spirit. It is spirit when it manifests in our mind, but is physically the air of sky. Depending on how it blows this air is manifested in one way or another in us. So Arabi distinguishes different 'skies' or 'divine names' which are a kind of 'celestial' archetypes through which the first essence, 'Allah', reveales in all its creation in general and especially in our minds. Thus our mental states and our experiences take shape, evolve and change. (These are the "seven skies", each with its guardian angel who prints their own mental states and knowledge in us, of the Koran, but they also appear in Christianity, see for example Eckhart.)

'Divine truths descend on the divine name the merciful, as well as on the caller's name to repentance, and the merciful, the provider, the donor, the avenger, and all other names. They also act which falls on you of gift and forecasting, revenge, repentance, forgiveness and mercy.' (Chapter 5)

From this basic configuration of the universe Arabi infers the attitude we should keep to behave in an appropriate way in life: 'The faithful should use on his side thought and reflection, so differentiate into the way, which the divine law will forces, and where happiness resides, between the journey towards Him, in Him and from Him. He must also discern in all these journeys both the law imposes him as not, what it is the duty to walk on earth for the lawful, the travel trade of worldly lucre and other similar gears, or the travel of the breath itself, with its inspiration and expiration. This is, in effect, as no imposed or not determined by law, but is its physical constitution which decides.' (Chapter 6)

In this connection we can distinguish two groups of people, Arabi said. 'The travelers in Him are divided into two groups: the first is that of those who travel in Him by the thoughts and the mind, and have deviated from the path, not finding as a guide in their search than his reason. These are the philosophers, and those who are in this aspect. The second group consists of those who travel with Him, the group of the messengers and prophets, that of the elect among such saints, what are the men of Sufism.' (Chapter 7)

All persons we travel by pure physical nature 'in Him'. But only a few get to understand enough to adapt and travel 'with Him' in fact. Putting on his side, carried away by his movements, knowing them.

Ibn Arabi: El esplendor de los frutos del viaje. Edición de Carlos Varona Narvión. Siruela. Madrid. 2008.