The Juncture Between the Realms

Selfhood is a place of order and enlightenment, but it is also inclined toward the evil commanding self. If it is tempted, then it loses its purity. All things are from God — it is he who made the commanding self desirous of evil, and it is he who made human selfhood bent from time to time to evil as well as to good. When the self is rational and heedful, it is pure and in order.

Ibn Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti. p. 45

…do not ever forget the evil-commanding ego which you carry within yourself.

Do not ignore its presence. Instruct your most valuable minister, reason, to treat it well, to be in continuous contact with it, because it knows best how to govern the barren desert of your realm. It has power, and it lies in its hands to do good, if it so wills, or to cause disasters, if it so wills. If it is treated well, there will be peace in the land.

Ibid, p. 71

The juncture between the set of 24 spiritual laws and 24 natural laws is the location where humanity finds itself in the cosmos. The diagram indicates the dominant features affecting mankind.

The lowest law in the angelic hierarchy – that is, the law ”closest” in metaphysical terms to the human realms—is compassion. The proximity of this law indicates its nature as the first and most important quality we should strive for in our effort to come under higher influences.

The law at the highest level of the natural hierarchy is rejection. This law governs the properties of all the laws below it, which will turn out to be very important. The point is that in the natural realm, everything flows from its highest law—which is a law of rejection. A man or woman is primarily under this influence unless he or she develops.

Broadly speaking, this diagram is the idiot’s guide to inner work. Compassion is a holy affirming force; rejection is a holy denying force. Humanity is the reconciling force meant to bridge the gap between the two realms of laws. An individual human life is lived out in an eternal (that is, for that entire lifetime) moment of choosing between these two forces: compassion or rejection. Compassion is always a movement in the direction of the greater good, of society, humanity, one’s fellow man or woman, and God. Rejection is always a movement in the Direction of self love, self interest, and self infatuation, which leads away from good towards evil, away from society towards individualism, and away from the forces that make us human. It also drives us away from fellow human beings.

For this reason, we need to develop a feeling capacity for life. Compassion is a quality not of resonance with the other, but of consonance. 

Consonance is a convergence of tone in harmony. It represents togetherness, and the caring for of others, as well as oneself. This, in turn, leads to the next highest angelic law above it, which is truth. It tells us, equally, that we need a feeling-quality – a loving quality – in order to acquire a capacity to see truth. If we reject, if we go it alone, our tendency will always be to go in the direction of lies that serve only themselves. If we move downwards in the hierarchy from the law of rejection, the next law we encounter is ignorance. 

If we reject, we become ignorant. The more we reject, the more ignorant we become. If we're compassionate, we become more and more truthful. The idea of becoming "more open" is aimed at illustrating this need for compassion, which opens us to truth. We aren’t just becoming "more open" to some ephemeral, vague, and undefined higher energy which will bring us bliss; we become more open to compassion and truth. While it’s true that spiritual energy helps with this action, and that it's a benefit of becoming more open to these forces, one becomes open to the forces because it's right and a good thing to do, not because one gets benefit from it.

All of us have a very powerful rejecting part that we wear like armor on the front of our Being. It prevents life from entering us; we hide behind it and do everything we can to preserve it. 

Anything that breaks through that barrier is perceived as a threat. That barrier doesn't go away; it's still in me today, many years after I first saw it, and its action is constant. As a lawful part of this world, it's impossible to fully remove while on this level. All of us have this part; and one of the first things it does is convince us that it doesn't exist. (Everyone else has it, but not me!) One of the most persistent laws in the tool kit of the lower orders is used to achieve this: denial. Although this law is considerably lower in the hierarchy, it's also in nearly constant action.

There's good news, however. The action of rejection can be recruited. As the dominant law on this level, if one opens oneself to enough compassion, the law of rejection can be recruited to serve it. This is exactly what Ibn Arabi meant in The Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom when he said what he said about the ego. 

The law of rejection is the chief feature of the "evil commanding ego;” if it's recruited to our cause, it can rule all the other negative laws... and reject them, one by one. 

Since the action of the 24 laws belonging to this level are essentially  inimical to Being, this is both critical and necessary.

The above text is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, Metaphysical Humanism.

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.