The Mosque: The Heart of Submission

Introduction

Introduction Man exists in space and time. At any space and time we can turn in any number of potential directions—but none can bring us fulfillment, for nothing that happens to us is enough in itself. But all boundedness in space and time has the potential to direct us toward the Boundless, that which lies beyond all boundaries. As each place receives us, each moment leaves us behind: we are travelers in search of an outer world and an innermost self that constantly eludes our grasp. As long as they elude us, we are guests, not prisoners, in a world of signs which, near and far, all point toward the Destination. And every voice, every sign, merges with that Destination, in celebration and praise of the One who manifests Himself through the myriad signs in the outer world and the inner self. The process of selfrealization in the world is a struggle, a ritual at the threshold of the forbidden, the inviolable.1 The inviolability of the forbidden, and our relationship to it, means that we can never define ourselves, but also that we have no existence beyond what defines us, beyond the boundaries within which we exist. Oneness is the source and purpose of all the myriad signs. But Oneness lies hidden, and cannot be reduced to any one sign, nor to all of them combined. It is this same Oneness which forms man’s xviii / Introduction innermost reality. In discovering and opening ourselves toward the unity of everything in the outer world, we can come to recognize at any time and place that everything stems from that Oneness, and exists for it. Whatever our attitude toward this Center, it remains inviolable . It cannot be destroyed or altered. But we cannot achieve self-realization without the teachings that arise from it and are one with it, without worship at the threshold of the unattainable, or without the virtue which is inseparable from both. Whenever we actualize the center of our being, we become a guest at the Table which was sent down so that God might manifest Himself. This Table is also the world’s masjid, its mosque, for there is nothing that does not show submission to God. Any resistance to this universal reality stems merely from the delusion that the boundaries of phenomena are impassable. This essay discusses the relationship between Oneness, as the innermost center of the human self, and its signs in the outer world—in the unspoiled natural world, and in all the diverse houses built and maintained in order to call the Name of God. Most of the text was written between 8 and 12 October 2003 in Fátima in Portugal. An abridged version was presented on 12 October at the Congresso de Fátima on ‘‘The Present of Man—The Future of God: The Place of Sanctuaries in Relation to the Sacred’’; the remainder was completed between 13 and 15 October, also in Fátima. The Mosque ...