Naughting

Drift Smoke from North Rim Fires, Grand Canyon

Tawhid doesn’t descend into you. It is to be naughted.

Do you know what this means? I had to read it a few times before I began to understand its implications. The quote is from Rumi, a Persian mystic. ‘Tawhid’ refers to the unitary nature of existence. It’s expressed by the quote from the Koran: “There is no God but God.”

Rumi seems to be saying that God doesn’t impart to us something we don’t already have within us. As the Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart said: Truth, or God, is found, not through a process of addition, but rather through a process of subtraction.

Through the conditioning of the world, we learn that we are inadequate, that we are lacking. We place an arbitrary barrier between our individual selves and the world. That which lies outside the boundary of the skin is ‘other.’ That which lies inside it is me.

The fundamental condition of I, or me, is that I’m hungry. If I’m hungry, then I must be lacking in some respect. If I lack, then I am limited. If I am these lacks and limits, then I am inadequate. Then the impulse is to acquire, to have, to attain. The object of life is survival, and on a simple level, to survive is to take something from beyond the boundary which separates you from me, and to feed on it. Then, I no longer lack. I’m not hungry anymore.

The idea of Tawhid – the oneness of being – is very different. It erases the boundary between me and the world, and between you and me. If I am one with everything, then there is no inside, no outside.

The bad news? There is no ‘me,’ unless me is considered everything there is. The good news? I really don’t need to be hungry again. There’s no outside, so there’s nothing I need to acquire from out there to put inside myself.  I don’t need to fill myself up. I’m not lacking. I’m not hungry. I’m not inadequate.

But then, you may ask: why do I have this individual body? Why do I get hungry, thirsty, horny, tired? Why is that I suffer from low self-esteem, which is just the idea of lack and hunger expressed a little higher up on the hierarchy of needs. These are really metaphysical questions which are beyond the scope of a short post like this. Yet a part of the answer can be provided. Millions of years of conditioning has convinced you to see yourself as an evolved creature, in an evolved environment, which has many distinct and separate and evolved parts.

The solution Rumi gives us has to do with naughting. It says that we already are everything, have everything, and have attained to our highest state. Truth doesn’t come to us from outside. It’s already within. No one can give it to you. You must find it for yourself, within yourself.

So, what does he mean by naughting? The same thing that Eckhart meant by subtraction. In our case, we don’t have to build a new house of belief. We tear down the house that’s already there. Then, we become aware of what always was, standing invisible within its walls. Or rather, we become aware of what always is, because time isn’t. Time itself is one of the ideas to be naughted. If there is only a unity of existence, then there is a unity of past/present/future which can only be found in the now. So, to naught is to live in the present.

The other belief to be subtracted is the sense of a separate self, which is expressed in the idea of a boundary; any boundary. The boundary between you and me, between you and God, between you and everything else. We then become aware of what we already always are. And this is limitless. In such a reality, there is no thirst, no hunger. There is no inadequacy, no self-esteem which limits our picture of ourselves, rising and falling with our sense of reputation or achievement, of what others think of us, or of what we think of ourselves.

You are submerged in an ocean of peace, not peace which you can become, but which you already are.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within