“When my heart is asleep, both the worlds slumber.”
The Arabic word wujud suggests three meanings: existence, finding, and ecstasy.
Existence is something we commonly take for granted. You exist, I exist, the world exists, and that is all there is to it—or so it seems. But you and I only exist insofar as we are found to exist. The existence is in the finding. What is a material fact without a conscious witness? What is not known is not.
The mind is the surface of the heart and the heart is the depth of the mind. The knowledge of each is different.
The mind’s knowledge is indirect: the knower and the known stand at a remove. That which the mind perceives obtains a shadowy existence, a pale and fleeting reality destined soon to fade into oblivion. The world known to our minds is a dream world.
The heart’s knowledge is direct: the knower and the known converge in an uncanny union of spirit. This primal encounter is called love. Here, existence, finding and ecstasy are all one and the same. Discovery unveils the discoverer and the discovered in a single stroke, and the heart awakens to the Awake.