Seeing the light

(Quotations from Titus Burckhardt)

If ... the Spirit gains the victory over the soul, then the heart will be transformed into Spirit and will at the same time transmute the soul suffusing her with spiritual light. Then too the heart reveals itself as what it really is, that is as the tabernacle of the Divine Mystery in man.
(p. 27)

Paraphrased: A spiritual state (al-hal) is a passing immersion of the soul in the Divine Light. Acording to their intensity and duration 'states' are spoken of as 'glimmers', 'flashes', 'irradiation', etc. A spiritual station is a state that has become permanent.
(p. 88)

The vital spirit, called ar-ruh by analogy with the transcendent Spirit ... is a subtle modality intermediate between the immortal soul and the body... This vital spirit is relatively undifferentiated; it includes not only the spatially delimited body but also the sensory faculties with their spheres of experience. Ordinarily man is not aware of it, but in certain states of realization this spirit becomes the vehicle for a diffused spiritual light which may even radiate externally.
(p. 97)

Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi:: the 'spiritual state' (al-hal), the sudden illumination of the heart, is brought about by the reciprocal action of the divine irradiation and the predisposition of the heart. According to the point of view adopted, one or the other of these two poles will appear as the determining factor and the other as determined...; (p. 108)

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