HERMETIC  - ESOTERIC - MYSTICAL PHILOSOPHIES

PERFECT MODEL AND COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi and the Perfect Model

If He is not in your eye,
If His image does not immediately appear
before your eyes,
Still, look for Him with patience.
Stay in the eye.

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

Many devout people especially in the East create personal shrines or meditation and prayer rooms putting sacred Images or statues of their Gods, Goddesses or their chosen Divine and symbolic Perfect Model. In India for example darshan is a popular practice and often occurs in the home of the teachers. Teachers usually sit on a slightly raised platform so that  their disciples could concentrate on their teacher's gaze... These teachers sometime speak but real darshan is a silent communion between teacher and disciple... While sitting silently, the teachers pour out their gazing onto their disciples, inviting them to merge their gaze in the eyes of their teachers... By this way silent gaze disciples hold contact with the Presence of God within their teachers. Thus, darshan practice allows the Divine to enter the awareness of the disciples. Ramana  Maharshi for example who was one of the great darshan givers said: "When the eyes of the student meet the gaze of the teacher, words of instruction are no longer necessary".

In the Greek Orthodox faith icons of Jesus and of saints are also used as a kind of a personal "darshan"  this type of exercise is especially practiced in monasteries. Indeed,  it is a very common practice amongst monks and nuns... they meditation or pray with great veneration while gazing for long hours on their chosen    icons gazing especially at the eyes of the saint or Jesus... They fix their gaze entirely on these images as a Buddhist monk would do with a mandala until these icons and images begin to come to life for them. However, these sacred Images and icons are projections of their own Higher Self.... the Spirit of God - the Source of Being... pure Absolute Consciousness... Hence, this method of spiritual work on icons or consecrated images are for some mystics a sacred "tool" as they help them enter in a dialogue with their own Divinity... The icon or sacred image grows to become a sacred Mirror projected knowingly or unconsciously in front of mystic. This kind of rapport with the image or icon sets in motion a level of communion and a refined level of consciousness unveiling within pure inspiration and divine Awareness... 

Rumi said:

A saint went on a retreat to seek a sublime goal: A voice came to him, saying. "Such a sublime goal cannot be attained by means of solitary retreat. Leave your retreat so that you can encounter the gaze of a great man and, through that meeting, reach your goal."

Other sayings by Rumi:

O God, help me against this self of mine
that is seeking help from You;
I seek justice from no one but from
this justice-seeking self.
I shall not get justice from any one except from
Him who is nearer to me than myself;
For this I-ness comes moment by moment from Him.

The spiritual heir of Muhammed is seated in front of you,
but where indeed is "front"?
He is before you, but where is the soul that thinks "before"?
if you fancy you have a "before" and "behind",
you are tied to body and deprived of spirit.
"Below" and "above", "before" and "behind", are attributes of the body: the essence of the bright spirit IS.

Everything is perishing except His Face;
unless you have that Face, don't try to exist.