CHÚ THÍCH

[1] Britannica Book of the Year, 1990.

[2] Dictionnaire des Religions, Royston Pike, Presses Universitaires de France, 108, Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris, 1954, p. 165.

[3] Man’s Religions, John B. Noss, The MacMillan Company, London, 1963, p. 531.

-A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted. 2 vol. Georges Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1955. Cop. Georges Allen & Unwin, London, 1955.

Vol. II, p.344; II, 244; II, 326; II, 388; II, 329; II, 308; I, 319; I, 302; I, 112; I, 117; I,103;II, 245; I, 153; I, 159; I, 161; II, 237; I, 158; I, 194; I, 302; II, 129; II, 155; II, 152; I, 209; II, 209; II, 254 f; I, 270; I, 50 f; I, 304 f; I, 303; I, 100 f; II, 50; I, 60; I, 51 f; I, 127; I, 142; I, 29; II, 31.

[4] There is no modern or ancient Islam, no Oriental or Western Islam -That Islam today is the same Islam as when it was born 14 centuries ago.

Miami-Dade Community College, Student’s guide to The Long Search, A Study of Religion, p. 215.

[5] John B. Noss, Man ‘s Religions, p. 551.

[6] It is interesting then, that the Eastern and Western concepts of God and especially of means of attaining valid information from and about him correspond to the milieu of the arena of greatest freedom. In the West, God is outside man in principle, and communicates by words as do free adult men. In the East he is an interior state which one has once had, and which is one’s true being, but which one has lost and can recover only by going into the depths of the self. Robert S. Ellwood, Jr, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America, p. 87.

[7] The Idea of continuous emanations in constrast to the unique divine act of creation was considered by both Muslim and Christian Mystics, to be incompatible with the Biblico-Koranic idea of a creatio ex nihilo.

Annemaire Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1975, p. 4.

[8]          Come you lost atoms, to your Center draw

And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:

Rays that have wander’d into Darkness wide,

Return and back into your sun subside.

Farid Al-Din ‘Attar Mantiq al-Tayr.’

SUFI , Expression of the mystic quest , Laleh Bakhtiar, p. 10.

Sufi chủ trương Vạn Vật Nhất Thể. Và Vạn thù qui nhất thể. Chủ trương Vạn Hữu là do một bản thể, phóng phát, tán phân ra.

The goal of Sufism is to gather all multiplicity into Unity, with the totality of one ‘s being. Như trên. 10.

[9] God, Tillich was saying, is not a projection out there’ , an Other beyond the Skies, of whose existence we have to convince ourselves, but the Ground of our very being.

Honest to God, John A. T. Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1963, p. 22.

[10] Such is a case with Sufism, the generally accepted name for Islamic mysticism... Mysticism has been called “the great spiritual current which goes through all religions.” In the widest sense it may be defined as the consciousness of the One Reality -Be it called Wisdom, Light, Love or Nothing.

Annemaire Schimmel, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1975, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 4.

[11] Their movement, originating as a protest against the formalism of orthodoxy in Islam, gradually developed into a rebellion against the decadence, corruption and tyranny of a sick, material society. Sufism was the antithesis of arrogance, intolerance, demagogism, hypocrisy and inhumanity. The Sufi’s purpose was to create a renaissance of man’s spirit through which he might live a simple, innocent. and harmonious life. They hope to open men’s eyes, that they might see that egoism and greed, pride, and strife are folly, that the universe is spiritual, and that men are the sons of God.

Martin Lings, What is Sufism, p. 27-28.

[12] To some, it connotes humanitarism, tolerance, harmony, defiance to the chuch and its rituals, love of mankind, and the attempt to achieve spiritual fellowship. To a few, Sufis are dreamers, rebels, and meddlers who interfere with the serious rituals of the church and the business of the state.

Như trên. p. 28.

[13] The questions they repeatedly asked were: ....”Isn’t the purpose of religion to unite, to comfort, to improve, and to bring all races and peoples of the world together in love and brotherhood, or is it to divide, to tyrannize, to shed blood of the innocent in futile wars, to mesmerize, to commit all kinds of crime in the name of Allah and to exploit our fellowmen?

Như trên. p. 29.

[14] One of the most persistent doctrine of Sufism is inwardness. They despite outward piety and shallow religious rituals.”Direct thyself to the inward and thou shalt see thy God.”

Như trên. p. 31.

[15] The Sufis wore coarse woolen robes and lived as hermits in isolated places away from people and believed in salvation through poverty (Fagr), meditation (Fihr), fortitude (Sabr), renunciation (Zuhd), good works, and service to the community. Recognizing that God’s presence was felt everywhere in creation, they became increasingly mystical, pantheistic and ascetic.

For Rabia, one of the founders of Sufism, who died at Jerusalem in A.D. 757, love and its the unquenchable flames were the torch which kindled the world of Sufism. It was she who laid the foundation of its mystical ideas. She as succeded by Adu Hasham (d. A.D. 770), who established the first convent (Khaneqah) for the Sufis at Ramaled in Palestine. Soon the movement spread to Persia. “Hand in hand with the Persian revival under the Abbaside Caliphs, the Soufis developed a new current of ideas. Speculations take a bolder flight, and essay to reconcile the creature with his creator, to bridge the chasm between the finite and infinite.

Then followed thev doctrine of ectasies, mystical stages, unification and pantheism. Though the Sufid always confessed outward connection with orthodox Islam, nonetheless they would efficially undermined its foundation. They attacked the religious institutions by claiming that religion exists only to keep mankind in order and to make all men merit the grace and love of God by their service and virtues. Every religious institutions which does not tend toward these goals is not divine but profane and dangerous. Scorning the barren desert of legalistic tradition, meaningless rituals, and the hypocrisy of the clergy, admitting no guidance but the pole star of illumination, they press the Islamic establishment to the very brink of madness. The Muslim leaders considered Sufism as a grave scandal, demoralizing the national character, undermining law and order, and subverting tradidional society. Yet the Sufis produced a literature and a doctrine of universalism and love which is considered the noblest heritage and the great contribution of Persia to world civilization.

Sufism, Message of Brotherhood, Harmony, and Hope, Nasrollah S. Fatemi, Faramarz S. Fatemi, Fariborz S. Fatemi, South Brunswich and New York, A. S. Barnes and Company, 1911, p. 33.

[16] Sufism is knowledge of oneself to Marafat (gnosis) or knowledge of God. Man’s whole life is dominated by two realities:” Thou”and “I”, the lover and the beloved, God and man...

Know thyself, for knowing true thine own heart

Thou knowest that good and ill in thee are part.

Discern the worth of thine own being, and then

Walk with pride amist the commun run of men.

Know thyself, and the whole world thus discover,

Then from all ill, they shat thyself deliver,

Thow knowest not thyself for thau art lowly,

Thou shouldst behold God if thou thyself couldst see.

             From Nasir Khosrow, the famous Persian Poet (A.D. 1004-88)

Như trên. p. 37.

[17] Prof. L.F. Rasbrook Williams Ed; Sufi Studies, East & West; ÉP. Dutton Co, Inc.,New York, 1973, p. 57..

[18] Ib. p. 70.

[19] Les doctrines de Ben Aliona? Unité de Dieu (le monde temporel n'est qu'un ensemble de voiles,” barrakh “, nous cachant le monde réel: L'Infini. Univers emané de Dieu ( l'inverse du Coran créationiste pour la masse des foqara, croyants ordinaires, le sirr (caché) est réservé à certains disciples capables de saisir le bathen (sens occulte); Émanationisme s'accordant avec l'immanentisme (qui pourrait connaitre son proprium, connaitrait Dieu; qui le scrute avec attention, s'approche de Dieu); doctrine de l'immanence n'excluant pas la transcendance; ichraq ou illunimation dont se réclament tous les grands hommes musulmans: Avicenne, Ghazali, ou Ibn Tofail... (Gabriel Gobron, Histoire du Caodaisme, p. 92)...

Les Prophetes, fussent-ils dix mille, dit l'aphorisme soufi courant, ne sont qu'un seul, rayons multiples du même feu. Ib. p. 91

[20] Les doctrines de Ben Aliona? Unité de Dieu (le monde temporel n'est qu'un ensemble de voiles,” barrakh “, nous cachant le monde réel: L'Infini. Univers emané de Dieu ( l'inverse du Coran créationiste pour la masse des foqara, croyants ordinaires, le sirr (caché) est réservé à certains disciples capables de saisir le bathen (sens occulte); Émanationisme s'accordant avec l'immanentisme (qui pourrait connaitre son proprium, connaitrait Dieu; qui le scrute avec attention, s'approche de Dieu); doctrine de l'immanence n'excluant pas la transcendance; ichraq ou illunimation dont se réclament tous les grands hommes musulmans: Avicenne, Ghazali, ou Ibn Tofail... (Gabriel Gobron, Histoire du Caodaisme, p. 92)...

Les Prophetes, fussent-ils dix mille, dit l'aphorisme soufi courant, ne sont qu'un seul, rayons multiples du même feu. Ib. p. 91

[21] Constatation universelle: Arrivés une certaine hauteur spirituelle, les religieux exceptionnels sont au-dessus des religions du vulgaire, et reconnaissent comme “Amis de Dieu” tous les hommes sincères et de bonne volonté et fraternisent avec eux.

Ib. p. 94.

[22] Et il nous suffit de rappeler ici un des enseignements du mysticisme musulman pour constater que pas un Caodaiste ne refuserait de reconnaitre là, en cette anecdote du soufisme, l'histoire même de sa propre naissance au divin, de sa metanoia ou renversement des valeurs de l'aâme religieuse:

Le disciple se présente à la porte du maitre et frappe.

Silence.

Il frappe de nouveau. Une voix de l'intérieur:

-Qui est là?

-C'est moi.

Silence. La porte ne s'ouvre pas...

Plus tard, le disciple se présente de nouveau à la porte du maitre et frappe. -

Qui est là?

-C'est Toi.

Et la porte s'ouvre cette fois.

Gabriel Gobron, Histoire du Caodaisme, p. 70,71.

[23]        I am He whom I love,

He whom I love is I:

We are two souls in one body.

If thou seest me, thou seest Him,

And if thou seest Him, thou seest me.”

Như trên. p, 38.

[24] “Beneath this cloak of mine, there is nothing but God”

Như trên. p. 43.

[25] “All this talk, turmoil, rites, ritual, conventions, customs,noise and desire,” according ta Sufis,” is outside the unity of God; remove the veil of dualism then you will find joy, silence, beauty, calm and rest. When you unite with your Beloved then there is neither command nor prohibition.”

Như trên. p. 43-44.

[26] Quran 50:16.

[27] Laleh Bakhtiar, Sufi, Expressions of the Mystic Quest, 1976, p. 7

[28] Sufism, Message of Brotherhood, Harmony, and Hope, Nasrollah S. Fatemi, Faramarz S. Fatemi, Fariborz S. Patemi, 1911, p. 40-73.

[29] Because the Sufis abandoned external form and rituals and sang the praise of universal truth which is within the reach of everybody regardless of creed, color, or nationality, Sufism became a religion which was both international and universal. Its Literature and ideas have had a wide audience in North Africa, India, Malaya, China and Indonesia.

Như trên. p. 65.

In summary, the reader will perceive that Sufism is a word uniting many divergent meanings, and does not represent any particular reliigion or dogmas exclusively. Sufism is not a creed; it has no dogmatic systems; the “ways” by which one seeks God “are as numerous as the number of the people of the world.”

Như trên. p. 71.

“The keynote of Sufism,” according to Reynold Nicholson,”is disinterested, selfless devotion, in a word, love. The whole of Sufism is a protest against the unnatural divorce between God and man.”

Như trên. p. 63.

Man seeks his psychic and spiritual needs outwardly precisely because he does not know who he is . Sufism reminds man to seek all that he needs inwardly within himself, to tear his roots from the outer world and plunge them in the Divine Nature, which resides at the Center of his heart. Sufism removes man from his lowly state of asfal safilin in order to reinstate him in his premordial perfection of ahsan taqwin wherein he finds within himself all that he had sought outwardly, for being united with God he is separated from nothing.

Seyyed, Sufi Essay, p. 33.

The Sufis sought to lose what they currently perceived as labels, knowledge, concepts and to become empty (nothing) and attain the state of “void”; to attain a zero point so that they could become related to any state of being and achieve “everythingness”. Just as the discovery of zero in mathematics made the system possible, so too in the art of rebirth, the discovery of a state of “nothingness”(the void or emptiness) makes final integration a possibility.

Sufies studies East and West,

Pr. A. Reza Arasteh, Psychology of Sufi Way to Individuation, p. 107.