In spiritual circles, people often speak of unity and absolute reality. And yet, again and again, human beings quarrel — about God (“my God is greater than yours”), about religion (“my religion is better than yours”), and even about spiritual teachers (“my teacher is the most enlightened of all”). Wars have been — and still are — fought over these very things.
How refreshing, then, are the words of the Islamic mystic Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi, who lived and taught in the 13th century.
It is said that his work inspired the whole stream of medieval mysticism. Ibn ʿArabi was the first Sufi master to teach the absolute unity of all existence and the many ways in which that unity reveals itself.
The following poem, taken from his Tarjumān al-Ashwāq, gives a glimpse of his spiritual mastery:
O Marvel,
a garden among the flames!My heart can take on
any form:
a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for monks,for the idols, sacred ground,
Kaʿba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qurʾān.I profess the religion of love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
that is the belief,
the faith I keep.— Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi, Tarjumān al-Ashwāq, Poem XI (A Garden Among the Flames), trans. Michael A. Sells, Ibn Arabi Society