Experience of An (Sufism)

is the precise instant, the real time, in transcendental and experiential Sufi psychology. Past and future exist only in the mind; [An]

is the present moment, the moment of fulfilment, appearing when "temporal" time transcends itself and arrives at "eternal" time. [An]

is the sharp sword which cuts the past from the future. "Not-being" in the form of successions of events appear one after the other and touch the shore of "being"; "I" becomes identical with "not-I"; the personal becomes universal. Time is no longer dualistic. This is the moment when the psyche has regained its total harmony and is free from internal conflict. An is manifest in "I am-ness", when knower and known become one and subject and object unite. It is through [An]

that man transcends his inner core. [An]

is instant illumination, through which experience real knowledge comes.

Each experience of [An]

is a great potentiality, it is the mother idea giving birth to form. Each experience is one rung of a ladder up which one progresses, an arrival of one [An]

following the fulfilment of another, each progressively more intense. To arrive intentionally at the experience of [An]

, three illuminating techniques are necessary: (1) The illumination of names. This is the lowest category, where name symbolizes conceptual reality. One is aware of words in their constant relatedness to the objects which produce them. (2) The illumination of attributes, where an object is experienced as an aggregate of qualities. Here one is aware of the waves, light and original elements which are the source of shape, colour and sound. (3) Illumination of essence, unity, one sees an object for what it intrinsically is. This occurs only to the highly sensitive psyche, to the workers of miracles.