UNION IN THE DOCTRINE OF MUHYI-D-DIN IBN ‘ARABI 99

arises spontaneously from this identification) he knows
(in a global and undifferentiated way) all that of which
he is ignorant by his bodily constitution (which is subject
to the conditions of time and space) ... He knows
and at the same time does not know ; he perceives and
at the same time does not perceive (his principial know-
ledge being beyond distinctive perception) ; he contemp-
lates (the Divine Realities in his spirit) and yet does not
contemplate (them individually) ...” The Wisdom of
the Prophets, the chapter on Seth).

In the man who is spiritually perfect the relation-
ship between the Divine Reality (Hagiqah) and the still
subsisting individuality is one of the most difficult things
to grasp.! For the man who has arrived at this perfec-
tion the Divine Reality is indeed no longer “veiled” by
anything, whereas individual consciousness is by very
definition a “veil”” (hijab) and exists only in as much as
it “refracts’ the blinding light of the Divine Intellect.
Ibn ‘Arabi compares the individuality of a man who
has “realised God™ to a screen which colours pure light
by filtering it and is, in the case of such a man, more
transparent than in the case of other men. In the
chapter on Joseph of his Wisdom of the Prophets he
says: “It is like light projected through shadow, for the
screen is of the nature of shadow which is itself luminous
by its transparence. Such also is the man who has
realised God ; in him the ‘form of God’ (i.e., the sum of

1. Moreover it is for this reason that the Christian dogma of the two
natures of Christ, as well as that of the Trinity which is intimately linked with
it, is a ““mystery,”” which means that it is beyond the reach of discursive
reason.