This thesis compares the mystical experiences of Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz as an extension of traditional devotion to God. Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz believed that both knowledge and love were achieved on the path to mystical experiences. For Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz, ritual mystical practice enabled the dissolution of the material self through purification and perfection.
This methodological approach, for Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz, ultimately enabled mystical experience. Katz, and Reza Shah-Kazemi.1 From these initial manuscripts, Aldous Huxley wrote one of the most influential works on the study of mystical experience with his expansion on the philosophia perennis. San Juan de la Cruz sees the virtue of Faith as a garment that must be worn to act as a protector against the temptations of the devil.
Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz both believe that mystical experience depends on the application of the guidelines laid down by religious traditions, as well as the measurement of one's intentions and deeds.48 Only after the soul has experienced an education in moral conduct and true devotion, God will acknowledge faith and hope with the benevolent gift of grace. Therefore, God will answer the prayers of the devotees, of those who sincerely seek Him. Meditation consists of the constant focus on the divine, combined with contemplation of all mysteries therein.
San Juan de la Cruz also regards meditation or contemplation as an important technology for mystical experience.
Chapter Two
Knowledge by Presence
As the philosophical schools grew, so did the influence of Christianity on the central authority of the Roman hierarchy. Platonism within its philosophical structure, so it is likely that the Suhrawardi had fragments of the Greek works. Suhrawardi was one of the intellectuals who rediscovered or reintroduced this system to the Islamic world.
Like al-Ghazālī's Tahāfut al-falāsifa (The Inconsistency of the Philosophers), Suhrawardi criticizes the philosophers in the first part of the Philosophy of Enlightenment, called the sophismata. Peripatetics.47 This experience convinced Suhrawardi of the reality of Platonic forms as well as of the epistemological merit of intuitive philosophy. In this area, he writes: "In every searching soul there is a part of God's light, be it small or large.
As a result, the Light of Lights, thanks to the Managing Lights, is able to rule immanently with a thorough knowledge of the particulars; and thanks to the Managing Lights, people are able to discover the absolute 'ilm' through knowledge through presence. The commanding lights are attached to the heavenly barriers. But because of the darkness or lack of light in the world, the fitrāh is forgotten and the commanding light becomes clouded. There it will behold all the veils of light as if they were transparent in relation to the glory of the eternal, the all-encompassing Light: the Light of Lights.
The Sufi path of fanā and its rediscovery of fitrāh re-establishes the true human condition, ready for mystical experience through presence knowledge. This point was innate within the unity of the human being and his individual archetype, for this unity allowed for pure vision. Since there must be a reality of the Light of Light, and all things are gradations of light emanating from the Light of Light, the lowest emanation must have the ability to see all the higher light.
Suhrawardi claims that humans are only veiled from their archetypes because of the perfection of the light of the archetype and the lack of light within. When this unity arises, man as manifested light is able to imagine the ascension of the higher lights leading to the Light of Light. As a result absolute truth or 'ilm is seen and God's knowledge of the details is witnessed.
14 John Walbridge, The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the Greeks, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 7. 26 John Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhrawardi and Platonic Orientalizem, (Albany : State University of New York Press, 2001), 51.
Chapter Three
Unio Mystica
The Carmelites write that mysticism depends on the margins of true principles and that one should not venture into the study of mysticism unless one knows the dangers and stands firmly in the truth.2 But despite the dangers, mysticism offered San Juan the la Cruz a feeling of escape or comfort. For San Juan de la Cruz, belief in God, as well as the purpose of humanity's ontological existence, thus extended beyond the traditional ideals and liturgy of the time. The capture of San Juan de la Cruz demonstrated the reaction of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, for this motif warned discalced priests and admonished them to maintain traditional practice within their worship.
One scholar in particular, Miguel Asin Palacios, argues in his book Saint John of the Cross and Islam that Islamic mysticism or Sufism is a direct influence on San Juan de la Cruz.21 This argument is actually very plausible because. For San Juan de la Cruz, the many doctrines and theologies of the great Christian theologians were not sufficient to explain the emotions he lacked in Christ. True worship therefore instinctively depended on the esoteric nature of the purification and perfection of the soul, as well as on the erotic love promised in the unio mystica union of bride and groom.
For both the scriptures and creation prove the existence of God and the truth of the other. San Juan de la Cruz agreed with Aquinas' idea that the soul was not two separate beings, but rather simply one. But for San Juan de la Cruz, the realization of our senses and experiences is revealed within the imaginative faculty of the soul instead of the intellectual or rational faculty.58 The process of preparation for receiving truth was also an arduous and ascetic journey of inner dependence.
Eventually, the new version of the soul will be internally perfected and purified to the truth or. It could have been the concept of the creation process or the atonement of Jesus Christ. For San Juan de la Cruz, his background was the concept of the Trinity.61 After this background was constructed, it acted as a beacon that attracted God.62 The next step was therefore to remember the Trinitarian , to recognize and recreate, retrain. experience.63 So with the background determined, San Juan de la Cruz.
This rebirth of the soul arose in perfection and was ready for union.65 The union between San Juan de la Cruz and God was the union of both wills, a mutual love relationship which led to knowledge and truth. This transformation of the human soul is the direct reason why God desires the unio mystica. God is the author of this union and of the purity and perfection necessary for it.
Moreover, the unio mystica remained a relationship that arose from the will of the soul as well as from the will of God to form a union, transform the soul, and redeem the final ecstasy in life. 13 Kieran Kavanaugh, John of the Cross: Doctor of Light and Love, (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1999), 51.
Chapter Four
Post-Experiential Comparisons in Mystical Experience
I have said that God is satisfied only with love.”10 San Juan de la Cruz assumed that the mystic's relationship to God was determined by love. For both Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz believed that mystical experience depended on the dissolution of the material self and its replacement by a perfected image of the spiritual self. Plotinus did articulate the process of the soul's descent into the temporal sub-lunar realm.
Plotinus advised on the process the Soul entered into when it united with the One and separated from the material self. The dissolution of the material self was pleasing to the soul and absolutely necessary to make the connection for the mystical experience. Plotinus exemplified this process of disintegration of the material self in his philosophy and was a significant influence on Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz.
Fanā thus describes the process of dissolution of the material self through perfection or purification. Nevertheless, the revelation depends entirely on the dissolution of the material self and the perfection and purification of the soul. San Juan de la Cruz also believed extensively in the dissolution of the material self to enable mystical experiences with the divine.
As San Juan de la Cruz writes: “Thus the first night, or sensual purification, in which the soul is purified or detached, will be of the senses and subjecting them to the mind. For San Juan de la Cruz, the phrase “Disguised by the secret ladder” describes the ultimate nature of the purification process. Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz both incorporated these concepts into their post-experiential elaborations of the mystical journey.
Regardless, Suhrawardi and San Juan de la Cruz contested the nature of mystical union as a pleasurable or erotic expression, apart from the actual site of union. Once the material self is purified, the infinite illuminations of the Lights of Lights will shine upon the soul. Suhrawardi received a luminous vision of the Light of Light through soul purification and self-awareness.
The mystical experience of San Juan de la Cruz depended primarily on the purification of the soul and the discovery of the reality of self-consciousness; but most importantly, mystical experience was a state resulting from the fusion of two testaments. Suhrawardi refers to the dissolution of the material self as the destruction of the human fortress.