THE SUFI WAY OF SELF-UNFOLDMENT
By: Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri

Conclusion

Every conclusion has its root in its beginning; so to conclude this brief book we are reminded of the root of every motive that lies within each human being. At all levels of our growth and development we are driven by desire for good health, appropriate relationships, comfort, security, love. The beginning is therefore common to all of us. The child's horizons are limited, his expectations are small, and he operates within a very short time-scale. As the child grows the horizons widen, the depth of vision becomes more perceptive. Therefore, he encompasses a wider world but the same rules apply, in that the person wants to relate in a harmonious and balanced interactive fashion.

Life is a journey from dispersion and diversity to convergence and unity. We begin to perceive, through our outer senses, different signals and meanings which we try to relate to what we have already experienced in the past, and then build upon this past. This is how we widen the scope of the world of our comprehension. Our intellects grow as these experiences relate and multiply, while our outer reasoning expands as a result of our intellectual development.

Our inner integration and harmony develops with the growth of that phenomenon of insight or higher intellect that is often referred to as the awakening of the heart. As a person evolves and as his life unfolds we find greater interrelationship between the intellectual understanding, the causal understanding and the inner awareness and awakening. This phenomenon is what we are all after in our human journey. We all desire total, integrated self-unfoldment whereby the human being is the interspace between intellectual, mechanistic, logical understanding and an inner, purer, not so quantifiable awareness and awakening. Thus man is at all times leading towards this total interspace situation, part of him is intellect, part of him is the inner, unfathomable, indescribable reflector of another zone of consciousness – a person who will eventually reach the shores of an infinite Reality.

In the early stages we perceive physical and material realities and will pursue them. As we progress we touch on increasingly subtle realities, which all impinge, interact and interrelate with the outer realities. The separation between them is not discernible or measurable and the barrier between them is the interspace that constitutes the human being in his totality.

Man's need to make sense of his physical, material environment and the causal relationships of this world is a prelude and necessary condition for the development of the powers of reasoning and intellect which will ultimately lead him to the awakening of those higher faculties which lie dormant within him. It is as though man has grown from a mineral background into a plant background, from plant towards an animal form and eventually to a higher human state which reflects the story beyond.

In a great many mystical heritages and religions we find the analogy that man is a reflector of the cosmos and everything that is perceivable outside lies dormant within man, and that life on earth unfolds until that point when one perceives and hears completely the echo of total creation within oneself. This is the ultimate gift that will bring contentment and satisfaction to the heart of man. No material, physical or intellectual achievement will bring that self containment and self contentment with its true and voluntary submission to Reality in its totality.

We are all enslaved by our material and physical limitations, yet we detest limitations. This is the proof that ultimately within us lies a door that opens up onto a limitless horizon. The approach to this door is through increased limitation and abandonment. Man's innermost desires will guide him towards the Path that will save him from the terrors of darkness and ignorance. He desires tranquility, contentment, love and harmony. He will learn to achieve these objectives first through outer physical limitations and ultimately inwardly, which goes beyond the physical and material barriers. Man is in this world but he does not belong to it. He has come here on a journey in order to discover his Source and his ultimate destiny.