At the risk of an unpardonably remote digression from the texts of the Cloud-author, it is difficult not to indulge a digression on tasting.
In the first part of this post we encountered the line certes he may not taast of goostly felyng in God bot only by grace. In the interest of full disclosure, it must be admitted that taast may not mean “taste”. The University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary reports a complex semantic web around this word, which includes:
- Taste as an inherent property of matter; the perceived flavor or taste of food, drink, etc.; the sense or faculty of taste, ability to taste; and so forth.
- The sense of touch; the ability to feel or perceive; the act of touching or an instance of it, a touch; also, hostile contact, opposition.
- The sense of smell; an odor, a scent, smell.
- The discriminative faculty, perception; also, an artistic sensibility.
- The fact or condition of liking or preferring something; an inclination, appreciation, a partiality; heed, attention.
- An attempt, a trial, test.
The range of this word will be useful later; for now I want to pretend, in the interest of drawing a most cool parallel, that taast means taste.
In Islamic “mysticism” (tasawwuf), some of the earliest written works on otherwise secret esoteric doctrines were combinations of hagiography and glossary. The earliest Persian manual of this sort, called Kashf al-mahjûb, was written by al-Hujwiri in the 11th century. It remains not only in print, but in use, and its author an object of intense veneration. (If you have Pakistani or Afghan friends, ask them to tell you about Daata Ganj Bakhsh.) A contemporary of al-Hujwiri writing in Arabic was al-Qushayri, author of something called the Risâla, translated under many names. Less extolled, I think it is the better book. (I know of a circle of friends in my town who are currently reading it in Arabic alongside this, the one fair translation of it.)
In Qushayri’s manual, there is a glossary entry on dhawq, a technical term typically translated as tasting. Concerning this Qushayri writes (in Knysh’s translation):
Among the words that they use are “tasting” and “drinking”. They use these words to describe the fruits of God’s self-manifestation, the results of God’s self-unveiling and God’s unexpected visitations, which they experience. The first of these is tasting, then comes drinking, and finally, the quenching of thirst.
They attain the taste of [true] meanings through the purity of their pious deeds; they attain the drinking [of true meanings] through fulfilling the requirements of their spiritual stations; and they quench their thirst [for true meanings] through their constant search for God’s presence.
To say that one may attain the taste of [true] meanings through the purity of pious deeds is to say a great deal. As so often with translation from Islamic texts to the languages of secular Western readers whose commercial cultures are at war with all forms of truth-seeking, some things are missing here.
The Arabic reads: mucâmalâtuhum yûjibu lahum dhawqa’l-macânâ. The word mucâmalât is a technical term from Islamic law. It refers to “pious deeds” in a very restrictive sense, namely, those that are expressly prescribed as religious obligations incumbent upon the believer. This does not mean nice, but ultimately voluntary, things. It absolutely does not mean that if you volunteer at a homeless shelter you will get to know God. It means that any sort of esoteric insight is absolutely conditional upon the prerequisite of meticulous and conscientious orthopraxis, of fulfillment of commands (to pray, to give charity, to make pilgrimage, etc.) and avoidance of prohibitions.
The other word of interest here, macânâ, translated as “[true] meanings”, makes sense only in the context of the typically Islamic doctrine of the world as divine semiosis, with its outward forms concealing inner realities [macânâ] of the life of God.
Thus, if one were to translate this at all — and keeping in mind the elegant terseness of the Arabic, which manages to convey all this in five words — it would need to be approximately as follows: “The primary experience of divine self-disclosure, called tasting, is attained contingently upon the rigorous fulfillment of religious obligations.” (And remember, there are still two steps of esoteric insight superceding this!)
It is remarkable to me that words for such primary and irreducible sensations as taste recur in mystical traditions so far removed from each other in description of what must be essentially the same experience. Doctrinally and dogmatically, Muslims and Christians have a great deal standing between them. In esoteric experience, however, it seems this is far less so. Two points need to be made: As primary, subjective theophany, it is only one God who is made known to the seeker. Otherwise, why such convergence in description. And, at least as significant, this primary, subjective theophany is not the privileged domain of any single faith tradition. In every generation, without exception, and presumably including our own, there have been fully realized Christians and Muslims and others who are God’s intimates, dwelling in divine proximity within the heart. The confirmation of this is not in texts, though it is implied in them. It is in practice. And none of us has any right to say of another — or of ourselves — that she cannot be among the friends of God.
BUT: The Qushayri text also calls us to something very challenging: We do not abandon a religious tradition and follow only the practices of mystics. We do not fall for the lie that religion divides and is, therefore, the problem, to which an unchurched spirituality is the solution. We become, instead, the most meticulous of practitioners of our faiths, as a prerequisite to divine pleasure and disclosure.
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Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi, II: Digression
At the risk of an unpardonably remote digression from the texts of the Cloud-author, it is difficult not to indulge a digression on tasting.
In the first part of this post we encountered the line certes he may not taast of goostly felyng in God bot only by grace. In the interest of full disclosure, it must be admitted that taast may not mean “taste”. The University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary reports a complex semantic web around this word, which includes:
The range of this word will be useful later; for now I want to pretend, in the interest of drawing a most cool parallel, that taast means taste.
In Islamic “mysticism” (tasawwuf), some of the earliest written works on otherwise secret esoteric doctrines were combinations of hagiography and glossary. The earliest Persian manual of this sort, called Kashf al-mahjûb, was written by al-Hujwiri in the 11th century. It remains not only in print, but in use, and its author an object of intense veneration. (If you have Pakistani or Afghan friends, ask them to tell you about Daata Ganj Bakhsh.) A contemporary of al-Hujwiri writing in Arabic was al-Qushayri, author of something called the Risâla, translated under many names. Less extolled, I think it is the better book. (I know of a circle of friends in my town who are currently reading it in Arabic alongside this, the one fair translation of it.)
In Qushayri’s manual, there is a glossary entry on dhawq, a technical term typically translated as tasting. Concerning this Qushayri writes (in Knysh’s translation):
To say that one may attain the taste of [true] meanings through the purity of pious deeds is to say a great deal. As so often with translation from Islamic texts to the languages of secular Western readers whose commercial cultures are at war with all forms of truth-seeking, some things are missing here.
The Arabic reads: mucâmalâtuhum yûjibu lahum dhawqa’l-macânâ. The word mucâmalât is a technical term from Islamic law. It refers to “pious deeds” in a very restrictive sense, namely, those that are expressly prescribed as religious obligations incumbent upon the believer. This does not mean nice, but ultimately voluntary, things. It absolutely does not mean that if you volunteer at a homeless shelter you will get to know God. It means that any sort of esoteric insight is absolutely conditional upon the prerequisite of meticulous and conscientious orthopraxis, of fulfillment of commands (to pray, to give charity, to make pilgrimage, etc.) and avoidance of prohibitions.
The other word of interest here, macânâ, translated as “[true] meanings”, makes sense only in the context of the typically Islamic doctrine of the world as divine semiosis, with its outward forms concealing inner realities [macânâ] of the life of God.
Thus, if one were to translate this at all — and keeping in mind the elegant terseness of the Arabic, which manages to convey all this in five words — it would need to be approximately as follows: “The primary experience of divine self-disclosure, called tasting, is attained contingently upon the rigorous fulfillment of religious obligations.” (And remember, there are still two steps of esoteric insight superceding this!)
It is remarkable to me that words for such primary and irreducible sensations as taste recur in mystical traditions so far removed from each other in description of what must be essentially the same experience. Doctrinally and dogmatically, Muslims and Christians have a great deal standing between them. In esoteric experience, however, it seems this is far less so. Two points need to be made: As primary, subjective theophany, it is only one God who is made known to the seeker. Otherwise, why such convergence in description. And, at least as significant, this primary, subjective theophany is not the privileged domain of any single faith tradition. In every generation, without exception, and presumably including our own, there have been fully realized Christians and Muslims and others who are God’s intimates, dwelling in divine proximity within the heart. The confirmation of this is not in texts, though it is implied in them. It is in practice. And none of us has any right to say of another — or of ourselves — that she cannot be among the friends of God.
BUT: The Qushayri text also calls us to something very challenging: We do not abandon a religious tradition and follow only the practices of mystics. We do not fall for the lie that religion divides and is, therefore, the problem, to which an unchurched spirituality is the solution. We become, instead, the most meticulous of practitioners of our faiths, as a prerequisite to divine pleasure and disclosure.
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