Tasawwuf: Metaphysics - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Tasawwuf: Metaphysics—Gatha with Commentary Series I
Toward the One, the Perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty,
the Only Being, United with All the Illuminated Souls
Who Form the Embodiment of the Master, the Spirit of Guidance.
Gatha with Commentary Series I: Number 9
Temptation
GATHA: Temptation is a momentary illusion; the beauty of some object covers the eyes of reason
and man is drawn back or pushed aside from the track which he follows in order to arrive at his
desired destination, whatever it may be.
TASAWWUF: The Greeks used to posit Reason as against Evil of any kind, but they also used to
consider that that which is beautiful might be that which is good. Therefore when one was affected
by the beautiful he might also be that his Reason was pushed aside. This is part of the desire nature
and all efforts have been made by the wise of all ages to curb the desire nature.
What the desire nature does is to take us out of our universal purpose by some particular; and when
we are drawn to or by the particular, whatever pattern we have is affected, and often we are drawn
away from our ultimate goal. In other words, Temptation sets up a temporary goal in place of an
ultimate one. The very word “temptation” indicates we are pulled from the sphere of spirituality by
the sphere of time.
GATHA: Therefore what is a temptation to one person is not necessarily a temptation to another.
The same object which is a temptation to one may be a goal to another. One cannot wisely point out:
“This is a temptation, that is not.”
TASAWWUF: From the standpoint of unity, the ultimate goal may produce a harmony in life. But
for reaching it each one has not only a purpose, but a way which is consonant with his very being.
Therefore if there is doubt, the disciple repeats a sacred phrase. And there is no doubt but that the
constant repetition of the sacred phrase not only protects one against Temptation, but with regard
to what seems to attract, if one calls upon God, anything that is needed by a man will be drawn to
him. It is as if God had had for each and all a harmonious path, a way to and with “love, harmony,
and beauty” and each real step forward increases the capacity for love, harmony, and beauty; what
tempts decreases these and the momentary satisfaction is followed by unhappiness.
GATHA: In reality, all is a temptation and nothing is. It is not the object or the action which forms
the temptation, but the situation.
TASAWWUF: Sufis teach: “Nothing exists but God.” When attention is paid to anything in particular,
the consciousness is drawn from the Universal. This can be called a “Temptation.” It is not necessarily
an evil. The Christian Lord’s Prayer says: “Thou leadest us not into Temptation.” For when the
attention is on God it is on nothing else; it is not on any thing, it is on allness and thus in a sense on
the Kingdom over the Heavens. The attention is therefore on particularity or universality. And in this
sense any attention to any thing with or without reason may be called a Temptation. Or in another
sense it takes us out of the eternity into the time, the temp-ting. And when we turn from the spheres
of time and samskara to universality we are above the karmic complex into nishkama karma.
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