Perfect man from theophany to incarnation

Man is the ultimate end in creation although ranked as the last. In Mowlana’s view, although fruit is produced from a tree, yet the ultimate purpose of the tree is its fruit. However, entangled in the nitty gritty of the material world he has remained ignorant of his spiritual truth. The purpose of creation is the manifestation of God’s attributes, and actions hence man is the embodiment of such manifestation. The seeker of God must die to self before he can shine with the divine light. After putting out the fires of ego, the divine light of the soul shines through, when burnished of all its rust, the mirror of the soul perfectly reflects the attributes of God. By bringing such stories as Merchant and the parrot, Mowlana illustrates that the ultimate end of the Mystic path is this conscious death. This annihilation in the Beloved’s being facilitates the union. In this station, if the mystic wishes to give voice to his most intimate experience, his saying would come out as the ‘shath’, the ecstatic utterance and only a true mystic could perceive that state. In this stage, the traveler reaches an ecstatic state completely intoxicated and bewildered faced with the glory of God. Although in Mowlana’s view the melody which is inside the Perfect man, is the reflection of the eternal melody and Hallaj’s words were in fact the resonance of his own chords of existence which experienced selflessness, he was not, but the truth was. Mowlana believed that what the mystic attains in this ascent is total absorption in God and must not be confused with the incarnation of a spirit in a body because in this stage, the mystic merges in God, the part partakes the whole and not becoming whole.