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Paths to Transcendence: According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi & Meister Eckhart
In our day when there is much strife between factions, this work illuminates the theme of transcendence as understood by the saints of the religious Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 22, 2006
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About the author
Reza Shah-Kazemi
31 books36 followersDr. Reza Shah-Kazemi writes on a range of topics from metaphysics and doctrine to contemplation and prayer. He is presently a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, where, amongst other projects, he has been working on a new, annotated translation of Nahj al-Balagha, the discourses of Imam ‘Ali. Dr. Shah-Kazemi is also the founding editor of the Islamic World Report. His degrees include International Relations and Politics at Sussex and Exeter Universities, and a PhD in Comparative Religion from the University of Kent in 1994. He later acted as a consultant to the Institute for Policy Research in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.
Dr. Shah-Kazemi has authored and translated several works, including Paths of Transcendence: Shankara, Ibn Arabi and Meister Eckhart on Transcendent Spiritual Realization (World Wisdom Books, 2006), Doctrines of Shi‘i Islam (I. B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2001), Avicenna: Prince of Physicians (Hood Hood, 1997) and Crisis in Chechnya (Islamic World Report, 1995). Reza Shah-Kazemi has edited several books, including Algeria: Revolution Revisited (Islamic World Report, 1997). He has also published numerous articles and reviews in academic journals.
Dr. Shah-Kazemi has authored and translated several works, including Paths of Transcendence: Shankara, Ibn Arabi and Meister Eckhart on Transcendent Spiritual Realization (World Wisdom Books, 2006), Doctrines of Shi‘i Islam (I. B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2001), Avicenna: Prince of Physicians (Hood Hood, 1997) and Crisis in Chechnya (Islamic World Report, 1995). Reza Shah-Kazemi has edited several books, including Algeria: Revolution Revisited (Islamic World Report, 1997). He has also published numerous articles and reviews in academic journals.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 23, 2021
Shankara:
“Though it is experienced, and though it is serviceable in relativity, this world, which contradicts itself in successive moments is unreal like a dream.”
“That which is non-existent at the beginning and in the end is necessarily so in the middle”
“When there is a difference between a meditator and that on which he meditates, the meditator may change into the object of his meditation. But no action on one’s own Self is possible or necessary in order to change into one’s own Self. . . . If it were thought that anything were needed to become one’s own Self, it would not be one’s true Self that one was aiming at.”
“My mind has vanished, and all its activities have melted, by realizing the identity of the Self and Brahman; I do not know either this or not-this; nor what or how much the boundless Bliss is!”
“negate the world and know it”
“Just as one does not identify oneself with the body of another, so does one not identify oneself with one’s own body after vision of the Supreme.”
Ibn Arabi:
“part of the perfection of existence is the existence of imperfection within it, since, were there no imperfection, the perfection of existence would be imperfect”
“The cosmos is, in relation to the Reality, as a shadow is to that which casts the shadow. . . . The thing on which this divine shadow, called the cosmos, appears is the [eternally latent] essences of contingent beings”
“Thus, the recipient sees nothing other than his own form in the mirror of the Reality. He does not see the Reality Itself, which is not possible . . .”
“wujud [Being] is finding the Real in ecstasy”
“The Real is sheer Light, while the impossible is sheer darkness. Darkness never turns into light nor does light turn into darkness. Creation is the barzakh (isthmus) between Light and darkness. . . . In himself, man is neither light nor darkness, since he is neither existent nor non-existent.”
“For my voyage was only in myself and pointed to myself, and through this I came to know that I was a pure “servant” without a trace of lordship in me at all.”
statement attributed to Job by Ibn Arabi: “That which is far from me is close to me by reason of its power within me.”
“But a person who is ignorant does not witness the renewal of bliss so he becomes bored. Were this ignorance to be lifted from him, so also would boredom be lifted. Boredom is the greatest proof that man has remained ignorant of God’s preserving his existence and renewing his blessings at each instant.”
“My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka‘ba and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”
“Beware of being bound up by a particular religion and rejecting others as unbelief! If you do that you will fail to obtain a great benefit. Nay, you will fail to obtain the true knowledge of the reality. Try to make yourself a Prime Matter for all forms of religious belief. God is greater and wider than to be confined to one particular religion to the exclusion of others. For He says: “To whichever direction you turn, there surely is the Face of God.”
it should be noted that this counsel resonates with a Quranic warning to the same effect: “And they say: None entereth Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian. These are their own desires. Say: Bring your proof if ye are truthful. Nay, but whosoever surrendereth his purpose to God while doing good, his reward is with his Lord; and there shall be no fear upon them, neither shall they grieve.”
Meister Eckhart:
“God is a word, an unspoken word. . . . Where God is, He utters this Word—where He is not, He does not speak. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is a speaking work and the Son is the speech at work.”
“[A]ll virtues should be enclosed in you and flow out of you in their true being. You should traverse and transcend all the virtues, drawing virtue solely from its source in that ground where it is one with the divine nature.”
“[T]his and that good adds nothing to goodness, rather, it hides and covers up the goodness in us.”
“They are unhindered who organize all their works guided by the eternal light. . . . [H]e who works in the light rises straight up to God free of all means: his light is his activity and his activity is his light.”
“A man should never pray for any transitory thing: but if he would pray for anything, he should pray for God’s will alone and nothing else, and then he gets everything.”
Herein lies the crux of Eckhart’s teachings, which he expresses by quoting St. Augustine: “What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is what matters.”
“The bodily food we take is changed into us, but the spiritual food we receive changes us into itself.”
“The inner man and the outer man are as different as heaven and earth. . . . [A]ll creatures are savored by my outer man as creatures, . . . but my inner man savors things not as creatures but as God’s gift. But my inmost man savors them not as God’s gift, but as eternity.”
To begin with, the man must strive to take or grasp all things as divine, that is to say, “as greater than they are in themselves”
“[T]his requires zeal and love and a clear perception of the interior life and a watchful, true, wise, and real knowledge of what the mind is occupied with among things and people.”
“Whoever would exist in the nakedness of this nature, free from all mediation, must have left behind all distinction of person, so that he is as well disposed to a man who is across the sea, whom he has never set eyes on, as to the man who is with him and is his close friend. As long as you favor your own person more than that man you have never seen, you are assuredly not right and you have never for a single instant looked into this simple ground.”
“For the reason why God is God is because of His immovable detachment, and from this detachment He has His purity, His simplicity, and His immutability. Therefore, if a man is to be like God, as far as a creature can have likeness with God, this must come from detachment. This draws a man into purity, and from purity into simplicity, and from simplicity into immutability.”
“Our teachers ask, “What praises God?” Likeness does. Thus everything in the soul that is like God praises God . . . just as a picture praises the artist who has lavished on it all the art that he has in his heart, making it entirely like himself. The likeness of the picture praises the artist without words. That which one can praise with words is a paltry thing, and so is prayer with the lips.”
“Though it is experienced, and though it is serviceable in relativity, this world, which contradicts itself in successive moments is unreal like a dream.”
“That which is non-existent at the beginning and in the end is necessarily so in the middle”
“When there is a difference between a meditator and that on which he meditates, the meditator may change into the object of his meditation. But no action on one’s own Self is possible or necessary in order to change into one’s own Self. . . . If it were thought that anything were needed to become one’s own Self, it would not be one’s true Self that one was aiming at.”
“My mind has vanished, and all its activities have melted, by realizing the identity of the Self and Brahman; I do not know either this or not-this; nor what or how much the boundless Bliss is!”
“negate the world and know it”
“Just as one does not identify oneself with the body of another, so does one not identify oneself with one’s own body after vision of the Supreme.”
Ibn Arabi:
“part of the perfection of existence is the existence of imperfection within it, since, were there no imperfection, the perfection of existence would be imperfect”
“The cosmos is, in relation to the Reality, as a shadow is to that which casts the shadow. . . . The thing on which this divine shadow, called the cosmos, appears is the [eternally latent] essences of contingent beings”
“Thus, the recipient sees nothing other than his own form in the mirror of the Reality. He does not see the Reality Itself, which is not possible . . .”
“wujud [Being] is finding the Real in ecstasy”
“The Real is sheer Light, while the impossible is sheer darkness. Darkness never turns into light nor does light turn into darkness. Creation is the barzakh (isthmus) between Light and darkness. . . . In himself, man is neither light nor darkness, since he is neither existent nor non-existent.”
“For my voyage was only in myself and pointed to myself, and through this I came to know that I was a pure “servant” without a trace of lordship in me at all.”
statement attributed to Job by Ibn Arabi: “That which is far from me is close to me by reason of its power within me.”
“But a person who is ignorant does not witness the renewal of bliss so he becomes bored. Were this ignorance to be lifted from him, so also would boredom be lifted. Boredom is the greatest proof that man has remained ignorant of God’s preserving his existence and renewing his blessings at each instant.”
“My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka‘ba and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”
“Beware of being bound up by a particular religion and rejecting others as unbelief! If you do that you will fail to obtain a great benefit. Nay, you will fail to obtain the true knowledge of the reality. Try to make yourself a Prime Matter for all forms of religious belief. God is greater and wider than to be confined to one particular religion to the exclusion of others. For He says: “To whichever direction you turn, there surely is the Face of God.”
it should be noted that this counsel resonates with a Quranic warning to the same effect: “And they say: None entereth Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian. These are their own desires. Say: Bring your proof if ye are truthful. Nay, but whosoever surrendereth his purpose to God while doing good, his reward is with his Lord; and there shall be no fear upon them, neither shall they grieve.”
Meister Eckhart:
“God is a word, an unspoken word. . . . Where God is, He utters this Word—where He is not, He does not speak. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is a speaking work and the Son is the speech at work.”
“[A]ll virtues should be enclosed in you and flow out of you in their true being. You should traverse and transcend all the virtues, drawing virtue solely from its source in that ground where it is one with the divine nature.”
“[T]his and that good adds nothing to goodness, rather, it hides and covers up the goodness in us.”
“They are unhindered who organize all their works guided by the eternal light. . . . [H]e who works in the light rises straight up to God free of all means: his light is his activity and his activity is his light.”
“A man should never pray for any transitory thing: but if he would pray for anything, he should pray for God’s will alone and nothing else, and then he gets everything.”
Herein lies the crux of Eckhart’s teachings, which he expresses by quoting St. Augustine: “What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is what matters.”
“The bodily food we take is changed into us, but the spiritual food we receive changes us into itself.”
“The inner man and the outer man are as different as heaven and earth. . . . [A]ll creatures are savored by my outer man as creatures, . . . but my inner man savors things not as creatures but as God’s gift. But my inmost man savors them not as God’s gift, but as eternity.”
To begin with, the man must strive to take or grasp all things as divine, that is to say, “as greater than they are in themselves”
“[T]his requires zeal and love and a clear perception of the interior life and a watchful, true, wise, and real knowledge of what the mind is occupied with among things and people.”
“Whoever would exist in the nakedness of this nature, free from all mediation, must have left behind all distinction of person, so that he is as well disposed to a man who is across the sea, whom he has never set eyes on, as to the man who is with him and is his close friend. As long as you favor your own person more than that man you have never seen, you are assuredly not right and you have never for a single instant looked into this simple ground.”
“For the reason why God is God is because of His immovable detachment, and from this detachment He has His purity, His simplicity, and His immutability. Therefore, if a man is to be like God, as far as a creature can have likeness with God, this must come from detachment. This draws a man into purity, and from purity into simplicity, and from simplicity into immutability.”
“Our teachers ask, “What praises God?” Likeness does. Thus everything in the soul that is like God praises God . . . just as a picture praises the artist who has lavished on it all the art that he has in his heart, making it entirely like himself. The likeness of the picture praises the artist without words. That which one can praise with words is a paltry thing, and so is prayer with the lips.”
July 15, 2015
This is one great scholarly work that explores both the conceptions and the realization of the Absolute as described by the three renowned mystics and metaphysicians Adi Shankara, Ibn Arabi, and Eckhart. Being an extension of a Phd thesis, the work is of course not an easy read, as it is not supposed to be considering the topic of the book; but going through it slowly and with great attention, the result is rewarding. The book shows that the metaphysical backbone of authentic traditions is not in mental constructs and wild speculations of their founders but rather they are attempts at describing the essential content of a transcendental experience in which the Absolute is said to be known or realized. The conclusion is that the summit of spiritual ascent is one and the same throughout these spiritual traditions. That it should be the same is obvious because transcendence is precisely a transcending the limits of the individual state and its contingencies.
I very much recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a rigorous and yet experiential approach to religion and metaphysics.
I very much recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a rigorous and yet experiential approach to religion and metaphysics.
January 26, 2022
An incredibly thought-provoking, triumphant book for scholars and spiritual seekers alike. As a Westerner with a fascination for non-duality / Advaita Vedanta and pluralism, this book was right up my street. I had so many epiphanies whilst reading this. So eye-opening- this is a must read if you’re looking to broaden your perspective on Vedanta and mysticism through some of the world’s most popular religions. The unicity is apparent but each teacher offers a new, fresh perspective through their own background and faith. Magnificent.
March 26, 2025
Comprehensive and complete in a sense the author stayed focused on the very core of the teachings of the masters. Concise and precise discussion of this quality is rare indeed.
The second last section of the book where the author discusses the very nucleus of the gnosis of the masters simultaneously is superb, though sometimes it seems as if the author is trying hard to drag all into one and the same box while it is not needed, nor is it a must to establish the transcendental unity at all. Preconceived end and then choosing means accordingly and then knitting arguments in accordance with the preconceived end are the factors somewhat seem alien to the overall landscape of the subject/topic.
Language- syntax- is extraordinarily sublime that suits the nature of the book.
The second last section of the book where the author discusses the very nucleus of the gnosis of the masters simultaneously is superb, though sometimes it seems as if the author is trying hard to drag all into one and the same box while it is not needed, nor is it a must to establish the transcendental unity at all. Preconceived end and then choosing means accordingly and then knitting arguments in accordance with the preconceived end are the factors somewhat seem alien to the overall landscape of the subject/topic.
Language- syntax- is extraordinarily sublime that suits the nature of the book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews