Soren: So I take it that you think that Shah did Sufism a disservice?
WE: No, that is too flat a statement. Shah was a great teacher, and a fine intellect. But he left his readers in the West in a box. He danced around whether Sufism was an exclusively Muslim sort of craft, or was in fact Universal. He pointed out the preponderance of false teachers, but other than himself, identified no other veritable Sufis, other than the classical masters. He stated repeatedly that seekers could only progress under the tutelage of a true master, of which he said there were either few, or none resident in the West. Best of luck, and good hunting! Which accounts for the number of inquiries we receive from exhausted Shah readers, who have been searching for decades for the way to start upon The Way."
Soren: And the Blaketashis help them start upon the Way?
WE: There is no need. Having been born, they are already upon it.
Soren: In what sense are they already upon the Way?
WE: As a consciousness sandwiched between the Unity of God, and the multiplicity of the world, their lives are already the point of their lives, and the full living of their life their Way.
Soren: What is it you are saying? There is nothing for people to learn?
WE: Not at all. There is everything to learn. People must learn to grow, if they are to meet the fuller potential of those lives. But that growth tends to occur whether or not one has ever heard of Sufism.
Soren: So you are saying that the growth promised by Sufism is in a sense a fraud?
WE: No. Sufism has a greenhouse effect on people’s growth. Helpful, but not necessary. People in Samoa turn into wise and spiritually competent Samoans very nicely on their own, thank you. At least some of them.
Soren: But we seem to have lost our track. We were discussing the styles of messages you get from people, and I believe you said that you also get many messages from people who are interested in the hidden things and in the esoteric. I take it that the Blaketashis primarily put their emphasis on poetry, and not upon things esoteric?
WE: Poetry, rightly understood, is in fact esoteric. Real poetry, properly understood, occurs in a dimension which is outside the world. As we develop in that dimension, our capacities as human beings grow, until we can absorb matters of great significance with but an inward glance. The capacity to do this represents the operation of the lataif within traditional Sufism, although all these subtleties or powers are really only the outward reach of our inner persons.
Soren: So the lataif are a certain sort of perceptual capability?
WE: The lataif are coherent energetic structures, other than Sirr that is, and one aspect of at least some of them is perceptual. They are also active in shaping the perceptions of others whose lataif are not fully operational, and have other dimensions more important dimensions as well.
Soren: You talk about real poetry being outside of the world. What is real poetry?
WE: Real poetry is the poetry which written in representation of a poetic state. There is a poetic state that real poets enter, in the same sense that a mystic enters a mystical state. Like the mystic state, the poetic state is something that the poet wanders into…a periodic state of being that a poet is subject to. Real poetry is the art of the conveyance of that state, by the vehicle of words.
Soren: So what is your opinion about the state of poetry today in the west? Do you consider the poetry that is being written today to be real poetry?
WE: Well, if Rumi were writing today in the west, he would live in obscurity. For you see, in the west since the 1950s, any overt reference to God, or to underlying Unity in a poem is enough to disqualify it from consideration as a serious work. It’s one of modernity’s many little conceits. That having been said, there is still real poetry being written in the west, although the spiritual bones under such works need to be well disguised in order to pass editorial muster.
Soren: And is this tendency changing? Will western poetry return to its spiritual roots?
WE: I see no sign of that happening yet, although I do note that Rumi has, for the last few years, been the most published poet in the US. One of the good things, I suppose, about being an exotic and long dead person. Your marketability goes way up. If he was living today in Cleveland, he’d be hard pressed to have anyone give him a second look… But in regards to your question, at some point, I suspect that poetry will return to its spiritual roots, if only in response to market forces. And we Blaketashis are in the process of, well… I suppose you could say infiltrating… the editorial staffs of various opinion setting magazines and book publishers… but I say too much.
Soren: You are infiltrating the editorial staffs of magazines?
WE: No, I never said that. No. Nein. Nyet. That is a very nice shirt you are wearing, by the way.
Soren: Yes, uh. I would suppose it is.
WE: Nice and blue.
Soren: Yes.
WE: (rising) Thanks for coming today.
Soren: But I am not done with my interview yet!
WE: I’m sorry. I kind of have some Qutb business to attend to. You know. Call Sarmoun and stuff.
Soren: But I flew here from Stuttgart! Expressly for this interview!
WE: Then you must be very tired, my child. Perhaps we had best pick it up again tomorrow?