146 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

tent of his own immutable essence.” (from the chapter
on Seth). ¢

This knowledgs of one’s own archetype is indeed
knowledge of Self (4Atman), to use an expression bor-
rowed from Hindu doctrine, or the Aseity or Ipseity (al-
huwiyah), to use a Sufi term. Such knowledge may be
called divinely ‘“‘subjective’ since it presumes a defini-
tive or incidental identification of the spirit with the
Divine “Subject” and in it God does not appear as the
“object” of contemplation or knowledge. It is, on the
contrary, the relative subject, the ego, which is—in its
principial possibility—the ‘““object’” in relation to the
Universal and Absolute Subject, the only Subject there
is, in so far as such distinctions are still applicable on
the ‘“divine level.””! Thus the “point of view” implied
in knowledge of the Self is in a way the inverse of that
implied in ‘“‘objective’” contemplation of God in His
Names and Qualities, though this latter ““vision’ cannot
be attributed to the relative subject as such, for in
reality it is not we who contemplate God but God
Himself who contemplates Himself in His Qualities for
the manifestation of which we are supports.

In His Infinite and Impersonal Essence (Dhar) God
does not become the “object’” of any knowledge. He
always remains the implicit witness (Shahid) of every
cognitive act, that by which or in which every being
knows itself. “Vision comprehendeth Him not, but He

1. They are applicable in their principial reality, but not as regards the
psychological and mate:ial Jimitations to which they are subject on the level

of the creation. In the principial order ‘“‘subject’ and ‘“‘object’ are the two
poles of all knowledge—:he ¢ knower"’ (al-‘@gil) and the “‘’known”’ (al-ma‘qul),