Vessel of Light
The ineffable ingredient that makes the mystic's expression come to life.
By Hillary Keeney
Brad and I are on our second round of watching the Turkish television series, Yunus Emre: Journey of Love. Yunus Emre (1238-1328) was a Sufi mystic whose special means of transmitting divine love through poetry made him famous throughout Turkey and beyond. In those days, Islamic poetry was mainly crafted in Arabic or Persian. But Yunus roamed the cities and countryside reciting heartfelt verses in folk Turkish, the people’s language. His poems poured into their hearts like a cool glass of sherbet on a hot day. The series is a beautiful portrayal of Yunus’s life as a disciple of Sheikh Tapduk Emre, who shines as a beacon of heart-opening wisdom.
The show often depicts the dervishes performing zikr (or dhikr), which means “remembrance.” One of the core practices of Sufism, here the name of God and other prayer lines are recited or chanted continuously to remind the dervish of God in every moment. Though in one episode of the series, Sheikh Tapduk Emre assigns Yunus the phrase, “I don’t know.” The aim is to help an inflated Yunus forget the self, which helps him remember Allah.
Zikr is not only a means of remembering God, but a reminder of how easily we forget and lose touch with the big room. Over 700 years have passed since the disciples of Tapduk Emre struggled to overcome self-absorption, self-assessment, self-inflation, self-deprecation, and distraction on their journey of Love. Yet today we are just as much in need of diligent remembering as they were, if not more so. We have access to more tools and gadgets designed to help us forget.
I write this newsletter to temper my own forgetfulness. Brad recently reminded me about a beautiful visionary story which I share with commentary below. I dedicate it to Tapduk Emre and Yunus Emre, with a gentle dervish bow and my hand over my heart.
Brad once dreamed we were driving through the mountainous countryside in Oaxaca, Mexico. We were in a large white vehicle filled with friends, and there were beautiful cactus and agave plants all around. Eventually, we came across a small shack by the side of the road. It was a shop where they sold many remarkable carved and painted alebrijes, the famous fantastical animal figurines.
Brad reports the rest of the dream:
I went inside the shop to purchase a gift for Hillary who was waiting for me outside in the car. On the right side of the shop I saw the owner, an older man dressed in white linen and standing behind the checkout counter. On the left side of the shop there was a shelf that held many beautiful alebrijes. Each one was very special, unlike any I had ever seen before. They were more complex in design than what one normally sees, but not showy or excessive in any way. I could see they were not made for tourists.
One figure strongly attracted my attention. I couldn’t stop staring at it, but I hesitated to get it for Hillary because it was so unusual. I worried it was not beautiful enough. The moment I had that thought, however, I was flooded with a strong urge to purchase it for her. It was the obvious choice because it had such a powerful hold on me.
I took the object off the shelf and went over to the man at the counter to pay for it. It was the size and shape of an old-fashioned milk bottle, but it glowed with a white luminous fog so that no clear outline of its shape could be easily perceived. On top of the bottle-shaped object there was a carved head of an animal—it felt friendly and kind, like something that would delight a child. It wasn’t clear whether it was a dog, a bird, a rabbit, a person, or an unfamiliar mythical blend of all these forms.
Near the bottom of the luminous white “bottle” there was a protrusion that at first confused me. I couldn’t tell whether it was a tail or a snout. Then I realized it was a spout. If you pulled on the spout, the vessel would release its mysterious luminous contents. That’s when I heard a voice whisper, “There is a shop in Oaxaca. There you can find a vessel of light that brings everything to life.”
Recently a famous artist from Oaxaca, Felipe Morales, painted Brad’s vision for us:
When Brad told me his dream the next morning, I wept because I know his gift contains the most precious elixir on earth: the light of God in liquid form.
Sometimes this light appears as a white fog, sometimes as a liquid, and other times as pure formless luminosity. It is love, vibration, heavenly music, the universal life force, the energy of creation, and the source of healing all combined—the greatest possible gift that anyone can receive.
Tapduk Effendi would likely add, “Though it came through Brad, be assured this gift comes from the Giver, the singular source of all that is given and received.”
We can find reference to this luminous liquid in many spiritual testimonies. In one of our favorite accounts of sacred ecstasy, a woman identified as C.M.C. reports:
. . . The universal tide flowed in upon me in waves of joy and gladness, pouring down on me as in torrents of fragrant balm. The infinite love and tenderness seemed to really stream down me like holy oil healing all my hurts and bruises. There is nothing in the universe to compare with it—such joyous repose and sweet unconcern—saying to us, with tenderest love: All is well, always has been, and will always be.
Mother Samuel, the late Spiritual Baptist pastor and pointer from St. Vincent, once told Brad in her heavy Caribbean accent:
While speaking about Him, it make something vibrate. Sometimes it come like somebody go in there and just pour it into your head and it just run, and while it comin’ down you keep shiverin’ . . . It just fill me, I just get filled all over. . .
The great healer from Brazil, João Fernandes de Carvalho, once prayed passionately to rid a family’s ranch of a bad spirit that had been plaguing their house. Soon after, a bird appeared at their home with an uncommonly beautiful song. The family invited João to come back and hear it for himself:
As I walked in the woods toward the house, the bird came to me and sang its song. It sang it in back of me and then it sang it in front of me. The bird then gave me a spiritual gift. It filled me with a mystical fluid that helped my faith grow even stronger.
Brad once dreamed that Jesus handed him a glass of glowing white light, and when he drank it his body was filled with an indescribable fire. On another occasion while awake, Brad felt that same warm fluid, now more like milk, pour over the top of his brain. It flowed slowly and surely down the rest of his body, all the way to the tips of his toes.
We find a similar testimony in the book, God Struck Me Dead:
I looked up and saw the clear heavens, and it looked milkish and I said, “Lord, what is this?“ and He said, “It is Love.” Then a shower of rain came down on the top of my head and went to the toes and I was light as a feather and I had on a long white robe, and I sailed and floated upwards.
Finally, we have this account from the 19th century revivalist, Charles G. Finney:
Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me—body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God.
Universal tide, holy oil, milk, rain, birdsong, waves of electricity, liquid love, and the breath of God—these testimonies remind us that holiness defies clear outlines and static forms, just like the visionary vessel in Brad’s dream.
In the Yunus Emre series, they often repeat a Sufi term that equally escapes simple definition: himma. My new favorite word, himma is usually translated as intense spiritual resolve. But this doesn’t capture its full meaning. Himma is the concentrated force of the heart’s yearning for God that compels and propels us along the spiritual path. As a divine creative force, himma can also be equated with Kalahari n/om, Holy Spirit, Japanese seiki, and all names for the visceral sacred passion and mystical life force that ecstatics aim to awaken.
Himma is what infuses the mystic’s creative expression with an ineffable quality that makes it radiate and come alive. Now you know the secret ingredient to the paintings of Sister Gertrude Morgan, the Bride of Jesus and Queen of Himma whose inner fire could not be contained!
Somewhere in a dreamland Oaxaca “there is a vessel of light that brings everything to life.” But himma is required to open its spout.
What awakens our himma? Any sincere act of divine remembrance that turns up the spiritual heat, builds concentration, expands the room, and shrinks the self down to size. Imagining the Light is not enough. The real juice is let loose through ecstatic action like a good old fashioned zikr that gets the body moving to the rhythm and tone of prayer. La ilaha illallah!
Tapduk Emre’s disciples in the series often say, “I need your himma, Sheikh. I need nothing else.” They don’t ask for Tapduk’s title, social role, or even his knowledge, as valuable as that is. They want his smoldering, inextinguishable love for Allah. They are asking him to open the spout on the vessel of light inside his heart and pour them a drop of its radiant nectar.
God’s love is a luminous fountain that never runs dry. Every day it’s pouring into somebody, somewhere as water, oil, wine, milk, waves of electricity, or puffs of wind. If you forget this truth and sink back into the selfie-quicksand, then it’s time to fire up that himma—the creative power of the mystical heart. Even a tiny spark is enough to get you unstuck and moving again.
Instead of praying for visions, answers, or big mystical experiences, we ought to be praying for more himma. The true gift inside every spiritual gift, as João reminded us above, is that it strengthens our faith, spiritual passion, and resolve even more.
Yunus Effendi pours the final drop:
We drank wine at the hands of a cup-bearer whose tavern is higher than the heavenly throne
We are drunkards of the cup-bearer, our souls are His winecup.
Here those who constantly burn are wholly transformed into light
That fire is unlike any fire: there are no flames to be seen.
Don’t forget!
Love,
Hillary
P.S. Our next Guild season begins on September 30th! There’s still some room at the lodge if you’d like to sneak in before we head to the spirit lands. More info here.
P.P.S: Most of the testimonies above are referenced in our book, Sacred Ecstatics: The Recipe for Setting Your Soul on Fire.
For more on himma, see Ibn ‘Arabi’s Journey to the Lord of Power: A Sufi Manual on Retreat and Henry Corbin’s Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi
I just stumbled upon another visionary testimony about mystical water that I could have added to this month's essay on liquid light: "God came to me as a little man. He came in my room and said, 'Come and go with me.' I saw the most beautiful rooms, all in white and gold. There was a stream flowing through every room. He said, 'This is the living water that flows from on high.' He told me to taste it. It was the best-tasting water I ever drank. I never tasted anything like it. It was as clear as can be." It's another one from the wonderful book, God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves, edited by Clifton Johnson.
A week ago, I had a dream. I was at a table, like meal-time at one of the Arizona Intensives. I don't remember everything, but do remember the lingering feeling of love after I awoke. In the dream, I was surprised I was there, as usual. Towards the end, I was wanting to leave. Then, Brad walked by and looked at some papers I had -- with something I wrote. They excited him, and he made copies and handed them out. Then, I woke up. But this post reminded me. The last few years, I started doing a lot of Qigong, and it's helped me a lot to go deeper into myself (and with other things). But just as much as that, and maybe even more, what's helped has been listening to Iranian dastgah music -- of Mohammad Reza Lotfi, in particular. This music is, on the one hand, very clearly defined and structured, its set repertoire passed on intact from master to disciple, and on the other hand, it's mainly improvisational -- it's essentially a system of riffing on that traditional repertoire. But the best musicians are not the ones who merely rehearse the repertoire, but the ones who internalize that repertoire and its "language," and then use it to express something new, in a heartfelt way. The music is all sorrowful, in one way or another. It's about lamenting, crying out from the heart for help... to evoke a response from the divine, and to kindle joy, to use sorrow to transcend sorrow. It's inseparable from the mystic poetic tradition of Iran, and its connections to Sufism. To me... M.R. Lotfi was the best of the best -- so deep, so simple, so complex, and so -- raw in sharing his heart. One day, I listened to him, it finally clicked, and I just cried. I've cried and cried listening to his music, over and over again. I love him as much as any other master. Here are two of my favorites performances:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHErD3dNrlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC6B9yO98TE