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T R AR S = ey,

144 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

master goes on to explain that the predisposition is
based on the being’s essence (al-‘ayn ath-thabitah) and is
thus the expression of what this being is in himself as a
permanent possibility contained in God. In this sense it
is in the principial state of non-manifestation (al-ghayb)
that the “heart,” the essential and imperishable “kernel”’
of the being, receives its ¢ predisposition.” God “com-
municates ”’ it to him in the mystery of the pure Aseity
(al-huwiyah) and then reveals Himself to him in an
““objective ”’ manner by imprinting on him the  forms ”’
of His ““Names ”’ or “‘aspects > “‘in such wise that the
one sees the other and the heart in its turn manifests
itself in the aspect of that which is revealed to it...”
(Chapter on Jethro).

Thus, the spiritual polarity of ‘“irradiation’® and
“predisposition” finally appears as the purely meta-
physical polarity of Being (al-Wujad) and the “immut-
able essences” (al-a‘yan ath-thabitah) included in the
unmanifest ‘“‘abyss” of Essence. Being “‘overflows”
(afada) into the immutable essences inasmuch as these
posit implicitly the constitutive distinctions or limita-
tions of the world, but of themselves these distinctions
are nothing and add nothing to the light of Being, just
as the immutable essences are not really distinct from
the One Essence (adh-Dhat). From another angle it may
be said that it is by refracting Being that the relative
possibilities contained in the archetypes are realised in
their various modes, and it is in relation to these same
relative possibilities that Divine Being is in Its turn
polarised as so many personal aspects. It must be