CONTEMPLATION, ACCORDING TO IBN ARABI 145

evident that this global picture of things is quite uncon-
nected- with any psychological, or even with any al-
chemical or mystical explanation. It has no other
purpose than that of providing an intellectual key which
can help man to pass beyond the antithesis of subject
and object.

Considered in this way the “‘predisposition of the
heart,” or its aptness to receive a particular divine reve-
lation, is not merely psychological. None the less it
has a certain psychological aspect which is like the
shadow of what it is in its essence. One can retrospec-
tively grasp certain modes of the predisposition ; one
can get a glimpse of it by the aid of symbols ; but these
are only imperfect perceptions.! As a whole it must
always elude the grasp of one’s consciousness. The
“predisposition” can only directly be known through
its intellectual integration into the archetype,? an in-
tegration which is outside any created order. ... For
it is clearly beyond the faculties of the creature as such

. to know with Divine Knowledge which embraces
the archetypes (al-a‘yan ath-thabitah) in their unmanifest
state, these archetypes being only pure relationships
(within) the Essence and without form ... (Thus direct
knowledge of the basic predisposition of a being is only
possible through its participation in the Divine Know-
ledge), a participation which represents predestined
divine aid to this being ... by virtue of a certain con-

1. These perceptions are not unrelated to what Buddhism describes as
recollection of existences preceding the individual’s earthly life.

2. Principially speaking potentiality is reducible to possibility, which is
itself permanent, and not potential, in the Divine Intellect,

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