I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart
I said: ‘Who are You?’ He said: ‘You!’
But for You, ‘where’ cannot have a place
And there is no ‘where’ when it concerns You.
The mind has no image of your existence in time
Which would permit the mind to know where you are.
You are the one who encompasses every ‘where’
Up to the point of no-where
So where are you?
And in my annihilation my annihilation was annihilated and in my annihilation I found you!
Al-Hallaj (ابو المغيث الحسين بن منصور الحلاج)
Tawasin of Mansur Al-Hallaj
Translated by Aisha Abd Ar-Rahman At-Tarjumana,
Last line translated by Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion YouTube channel)
Once again – my dear friend, al-Hallaj (ابو المغيث الحسين بن منصور الحلاج)!
How he dances deftly around this Nondual knowing, to point directly to what cannot be spoken of!
I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart
There’s such a different knowing in the nondual traditions to the more dualistic ones. It’s not so much a subject seeing and object, whether an object of mind, or seemingly of the outside world (God or not). Much more of the nature of what happens when you allow the focus of concentration to drop from these objects, and recognise the field of awareness within which all these things arise?
Can you recognise that awareness within which each of these appearances arise? This naked awareness itself?
Can you recognise that this awareness is empty, entirely groundless? It’s not a thing amongst things. It’s not like all those objects that you can recognise with attention. That arise and cease. And it’s not a subject either, not the ‘you’ that recognises them. This naked awareness is not a subject. Both subject and object have been dropped. Like the the binding around a sheath of wheat being snipped, and the wheat just falls open, naturally, and without effort.
There are so many metaphors for this naked awareness, so many ways to point to something that is entirely beyond description. One of those is the ‘heart’. Not our physical heart for sure. Not even the heart chakra, though that too has significance. This is the heart that Nondual Shiva Tantra describes, which is this empty, luminosity, the field within which all manifestation plays out it’s drama and game.
If you can recognise ‘the heart’, this naked pristine, empty awareness, then you can learn to see from that heart, instead of from attention which creates subject and object.
What does Mansour al-Hallaj see with his heart? He sees his Lord, he see that which looks, and sees that that which looks, which is seen, and the looking itself are not separate, they are mere designations from one nondual reality, the primordial ground.
I said: ‘Who are You?’ He said: ‘You!’
It’s such a strange thing at first, when you recognise this. When you look from this place that has dropped all dualistic subject and object you see yourself! How bizarre.
Perceptually it’s as if you are looking from the tree you are looking at. Looking back at yourself. Or from anything else you look at – there’s no location to your looking from. You are everywhere (and yet nowhere).
That which is beyond ‘you’ is ‘You’. Not a self, not a bigger or real self. Just how things truly are. The nature of mind. The nature of reality. Whatever you wish to call it. My Lord, if you wish.
But for You, ‘where’ cannot have a place
And there is no ‘where’ when it concerns You.
Why is there no ‘where’? Where – here or there arise within conventional mind, arising alongside whatever things we conceive of as arising. They have a place, whether inside ourselves or outside.
But where is only a property of that mind, and no ‘wheres’ can be found in that pristine, naked awareness that is beyond all place and location. Indeed, location and place are unknown to that primordial base, as you enter that seemingly vast, open awareness, that is actually beyond all vast or small, open or closed.
There’s no ‘where’ for this awareness. It’s entirely empty of place. There’s no ‘where’ for this ‘Lord’ or ‘God’ – entirely beyond such conventional notions that mind can grasp.
Try to let go of the laser light focus of attention which sees ‘this’ happening ‘there’, and rest and relax back into that which is beyond ‘this’ and ‘there’, which is primordially beyond all of that.
Recognise that which ‘creates’ all that appears. All your experiences. All that seemingly arises and ceases.
Yet all those appearances never leave the nature of that which ‘births’ them. Are nondual to that primordial ground. That nature. That which is entirely beyond words and concepts.
The mind has no image of your existence in time
Which would permit the mind to know where you are.
Just as this is beyond space or location, so too it is beyond time. It’s not past, or future. It’s not even now, despite the focus in spiritual traditions with being in the present moment, the here and now.
Timeless.
Deathless.
Self-arising.
Self-liberating.
All that appears to your mind is beyond time.
And that groundless ground itself is beyond time. (and itself-ness!).
You can’t know God by thinking of something in time. You can’t know God by imagining a place for God, whether heaven or anywhere else.
Entirely beyond all designations. Entirely beyond how the conventional mind works. Beyond all the things we’ve learnt in our lives which help us function in our ‘normal’ lives, to date.
That ‘mind’ cannot know God, cannot know the primordial ground. That mind is helpless before it. Yet you can harness that mind in the seeking, as long as you know that the game that ‘mind’ plays needs to be entirely transcended at the right time. Like jumping hyperspace in those movies. It’s entirely beyond our usual realm. Yet it gives birth to that realm, and that realm never leaves it’s true nature. It cannot be otherwise.
You are the one who encompasses every ‘where’
Up to the point of no-where
So where are you?
When you recognise this Rigpa, this recognition of your basic state, of the nature of reality or mind, then you will know why al-Hallaj says you are the one who encompasses every ‘where’.
Everywhere. And no-where. These both make us much sense to the conceptual mind of this recognition, this nondual beyond-ness, yet entirely immanent-ness. In al-Hallaj’s language Allah is entirely Transcendent of all of manifestation. Yet equally, Allah is the true reality of all of manifestation – they are all just metaphors for Allah.
I’d only say that this that is pointed at is not anything at all, however exalted. So many descriptions in spiritual traditions describe super beings, or super places or states.
This is not that. This is beyond all of that. Yet all that manifests never leaves the nature of that which is beyond all of that. How wondrous indeed!
And in my annihilation my annihilation was annihilated and in my annihilation I found you!
Drop the objects of mind, however rarified.
Drop the sense of ‘I’, however elevated.
Allow yourself to be annihilated, no more you and not-you.
Then what is there? Which has always been there, obscured by our intoxication with all that arises and ceases.
When all the solidity is dropped, and your ‘self’ is annihilated, and all objects of knowing are annihilated, then what is there, shining forth? Radiately pure, yet utterly groundless?
Allow the annihilation to be annihilated. Rest open. Relax in that which is beyond the games of this or that, now or then, coming or going.
And you will find what you were looking for all along, without ever going anywhere other than where you’ve been all along.
Beyond you. Beyond all. Beyond beyond.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi, Svaha!
