Alchemy in the sufy literature

1. Alchemy

Alchemy arrived in Europe thanks to the sufis that had been taking it through the south Spain, domain of the muslims in the Middle Eve. The Alchemy is a science of transforming brute metals into gold, but it isn’t about the physical metals, but it’s a metaphor for saying: transforming the brute interior, the lead of the personality into the Gold of the Spirit. A deep study into the alchemist doctrine reveals that indeed this is a science to be made between a man and a woman through the Perfect Matrimony, through Love, transmuting their sexual energy.

Therefore, the word Love in the sufi poems is not only a symbol of the incessantly seek of the Beloved, but also a symbol of how we can incarnate Him, through Perfect Matrimony between a man and a women or else said: Escape in the name of Love for God, through terrestrial Love of the Perfect Matrimony.

The Lover is ever drunk with Love. He is mad, she is free. He sings with delight, she dances with ecstasy. Caught by our own thoughts, we worry about everything. But once we get drunk on that Love whatever will be, will be. If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead, don’t try to explain the miracle. Kiss me on the lips. Like this. Like this. Love is best when mixed with anguish. In our town, we won't call you a Lover if you escape the pain. Look for Love in this way, welcome it to your soul, and watch your spirit fly away in ecstasy. Jalaluddin Rumi

2. Alchemical symbols

The Fire

In many civilizations and religions, the Divinity is also symbolized by a Fire. It dosen’t represent only a methapor to express the arduous Love for God, but it represents also God himslef awakening in the body and Conscious of the Lovers as a Fire. The Perfect Matrimony, the Alchemy combined with self-anihilation has as result the awakening of the Sacred Fire. This Fire is called in the hindus thelogy Kundalini, the Fire of Kundalini, a representation of the Divine in its feminine aspect. The Fire has the characteristic and purpose to burn from inside all the impurities, to distroy the Ego and unify the Soul with Divinity.

Oh Beloved, take me. Liberate my soul. Fill me with your love and release me from the two worlds. If I set my heart on anything but you let fire burn me from inside. It is your turn now, you waited, you were patient. The time has come, for us to polish you. We will transform your inner pearl into a house of fire. You're a gold mine. Did you know that, hidden in the dirt of the Earth? It is your turn now, to be placed in fire. Let us cremate your impurities.
I wish I could give you a taste of the burning fire of Love. There is a fire blazing inside of me. If I cry about it, or if I don't, the fire is at work, night and day. People make clothing to cover their intellect, but the heart of Lovers is a shroud, inflamed in golden hues of Love. Jalaluddin Rumi

The Wine

Alchemy represents, as stated above, the transmutation of the sexual energy. This transmutation it is made towards the brain. All this with the purpose of destroying the roots of the Ego and awakening with the time the Sacred Fire and bring Illumination. In the sufi poetry and alchemist texts, the transmuted energy is symbolized by the wine that the lovers must drink, and the chalice by the brain. Being drunk with the wine of Love is equal of having achieved higher level of conscious, ecstasis, illumination through transmutation of the energies.

The Cross

The Cross doesn’t symbolize only the burden of the life that one must take on his sholders, but also the union lingam-yoni, man-women, the Perfect Matrimony.

Mortal never won to view thee,
Yet a thousand lovers woo thee;
Not a nightingale but knows
In the rose-bud sleeps the rose.
Love is where the glory falls
Of thy face: on convent walls
Or on tavern floors the same
Unextinguishable flame.

Where the turban'd anchorite
Chanteth Allah day and night,
Church-bells ring the call to prayer,
And the Cross of Christ is there.

Hafiz -"Persian Poems" - R.A. Nicholson

The Transmigration of the Souls

We don’t have only one life, but many more. Every human being is an essence, a sparkle of the Divine, and it doesn’t come to manifestation directly as a human, but first must pass through different cycles of living: from mineral to vegetal, then to animal and only after receives the title of human, this is the theory of the Transmigration of the Souls. As a human, everyone has 108 existences, 108 possibilities to achieve re-unification with the Divine, or what is called in Gnosis, Auto-realization of the Being. If at the end of the108 existences this wasn’t achieved, then we enter the cycle again, and we have 3000 such opportunities.

I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels bless'd; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones,
To Him we shall return.

Jalaluddin Rumi

The Absolute - The Final Liberation

Being conscious of its own happiness in the Absolute. Not all the spiritual streams teach the final liberation. Many of them show only the path to some superior states of conscious, to some superior worlds, known in the religious jargon as Paradise, Heaven, Nirvana, etc. Beyond these worlds there is something much greater, the Absolute, the Source of Everything, or what Rumi named Non-existence.

In the esoterism appear therefore two paths as a symbol for the stated above, the humid path- that leads the Soul to paradisiac levels, and the dry path, or the christy path - that leads the Soul to the supreme liberation of the cycles of transmigration, of the Wheel of Samsara, translated into Gnostic principles as the enter into the Absolute as a complete auto-realized Soul. Translated into the sufist speach, giving up the angel-soul (paradisiac state) for Non-existence.

You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So- I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me. Jalaluddin Rumi

The fallen

The fallen of the angels indeed represents the fallen from superior states of conscious to inferior ones in a certain period of our history, the lost of the Divine Fire from ourselves, the lost of the connection with the Divine; that’s why we don’t just have to ligare, but to re-ligare, return to be one with the Being.

Didn't I tell you not to go to that place?
It is me, who is your intimate friend.
In this imaginary plain of non-existence,
I am your spring of eternal life.

Even if you lose yourself in wrath
for a hundred thousand years,
at the end you will discover,
it is me, who is the culmination of your dreams.

Didn't I tell you
not to be satisfied with the veil of this world?
I am the master illusionist,
it is me, who is the welcoming banner at the gate of your contentment.
Didn't I tell you
that they will kidnap you from the path?
They will steal your warmth,
and take your devotion away.
I am your fire, I am your heartbeat,
I am the life in your breath.

Didn't I tell you?
They will accuse you of all the wrongdoings,
they will call you ugly names,
they will make you forget
it is me, who is the source of your happiness.

Didn't I tell you?
Wonder not, how your life will turn out,
how you will ever get your world in order,
it is me, who is your omnipresent creator.

If your are a guiding torch of the heart,
know the path to that house.
If you are a person of God, know this,
It is me, who is the chief of the village of your life.

Jalaluddin Rumi

Given the enormous possibilities that the sufi sources open in order to be analyzed and comprehended, we end our study here, leaving the theories behind, with the only wish to ask ourselves every minute of our lives:

And You? When will you begin that long journey into Yourself?

Jalaluddin Rumi

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