Creative moment (Sufism)

When the temporal is transcended there arises the timeless moment, the eternal. Time is no longer a never ending succession of events, one after the other, basically dualistic. I becomes identical with not-I, there is no distinction between personal and universal. It is the artistic moment of original vision, the moment when past and future are completely cut away, subject and object are one in "I am". This is the instant of noticing. The process of inner search and inner evolution is a preparation for this experience. In the search for his own origin, the seeker may first turn to natural phenomena; then from idol worship to worship of God; then through patience, persistence, love; then from the senses, reason, imagination, heart. Finally it is the heart that motivates, searching for the object of its desire, which also is subject hitting the heart. In this unity there is [an]

, real knowledge arising in an instant of illumination.

This illumination arises through three techniques: (1) illumination of names, where name is experienced as symbolizing conceptual reality, with awareness not of words in their abstract form but in relation to the original object producing the word; (2) illumination of attributes or qualities, to the original elements, waves, light which produce shape, colour and sound; (3) illumination of essence, a state achieved by very few, miracle workers who had power to move not only their own bodies but the bodies (animate and inanimate) around them.

With purity of heart and intention, and with utter sincerity (not desiring the object for one's self), there is total concentration on unity with an object worthy of desire. Then the "I" and the "thou" become one, duality becomes unity and [an]

arises - the knower, knowing and known or lover, beloved and love being one. [An]

is the moment of conception, of birth and rebirth, of joy and originality, growing by dynamic relation between subject and object, where first subject depends on subject, then there is the moment of union, then object depends on subject. This is the end of the creative process, the perception of a vision, faithfulness to the vision, seeing its distance from one's own reality then, despite adverse opinion, the effort to materialize it through unification with it. [An]

may be thought of as existing in the primitive, childlike state, but not retained due to accumulation of cultural and social experience. Only on leaving this is it possible to become creative and again experience [an]

.