38 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

to deny higher realities. Impulsions which come from
the individual or collective soul insist tirelessly on the
same object—the object of some desire—whereas the
satanic influence only makes use provisionally of some
lure of passion: what it really seeks is not the object of
the passion but the implicit negation of a spiritual reality;
that is why the devil routs discussion by changing his
“theme’” every time hisargument is destroyed. He argues
only to trouble man whereas the passional soul has a
certain logical consecutiveness so that its impulsions can
be directed into legitimate channels by dint of sufficient-
ly decisive arguments, whereas satanic impulsions must
simply be rejected in foto. The three tendencies in
question respectively correspond to reintegration into
the Essence, to a centrifugal dispersion and to a ““fall”
into sub-human chaos, and they have their analogies in
the universal order. Hinduism calls them sattva, rajas
and famas.

It may be surprising that so many Sufi books treat
of the virtues when Knowledge (al-ma‘rifah) is the only
goal of the way and perpetual concentration on God the
sole condition needed for arriving at it. If the virtues
can certainly not be neglected, it is precisely because no
mode of consciousness can be regarded as being out-
side total Knowledge—or outside Truth—nor any inner
attitude as being indifferent. “Sight of the heart”
(rw’yat al-qalb) is a knowledge of the whole being. It is
impossible for the heart to open up to Divine Truth so
long as the soul retains, in point of fact if not conscious-
ly, an attitude which denies that Truth, and avoidance