THREE ASPECTS OF THE WAY 107

foothold for theoretical intelligence. The fact that the
Divine Truth infinitely surpasses its prefigurations in
the mind must of necessity be marked in the economy
of the spiritual life. In this connection one can even
notice a certain inversion of relationship, for it is those
supports which are the least discursive and the most
“dark™ from the point of view of reasoning which,
generally speaking, are the vehicles for the most power-
ful influences of grace. At the borderland of pure
contemplation symbols become more and more synthe-
tic and likewise more and more simple in their form.

The Divine Reality is at the same time Knowledge
and Being. He who seeks to approach that Reality
must overcome not only ignorance and lack of con-
sciousness but also the grip which purely theoretical
learning and other “unreal” things of the same kind
exert on him. It is for this reason that many Sufis, in-
cluding the most outstanding representatives of gnosis
such as Muhyi-d-Din ibn ‘Arabi and ‘Omar al-Khayyam
affirmed the primacy of virtue and concentration over
doctrinal learning. It is the truly intellectual who have
been the first to recognise the relative nature of all
theoretical expressions. = The intellectual aspect of the
Way includes both a study of the doctrine and getting
beyond this by intuition. If error is always strictly ex-
cluded, the mind, which is both a vehicle for truth and
at the same time in a certain sense limits it, must itself

also be eliminated in unitive contemplation.
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Virtue is a qualitative form of the will ; to speak