Breath is audible and visible, and when a spiritual person, by spiritual exercises, strengthens and purifies the breath it becomes more intelligible, as a light and as a sound. Life and light, in truth, are one; the breath is the life, and it is the same breath which is light. Breath in fact is the light of all senses; the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch perceive all things by the light of the breath. When the breath is absent from the body, the body, with all its perfect mechanism, becomes useless. It is natural, therefore, that every sense must become powerful and keen if the breath be developed and purified.
The reason why the ill and weak and people physically delicate generally see visions is that by the lack of flesh, fat, and blood the veins and tubes of the body and all the organs of all the senses are free and not blocked as they are in a muscular person. Therefore, naturally, the senses become keen and man perceives more than what is within the ordinary range of perception. Also such a person, when asleep, perceives the impressions from the inner world, because during sleep the inner sense, which may be called the root of the senses, turns its back, so to speak, on the external world and so begins to see the world within.
The mystic, by help of exercises, develops and purifies the breath. Therefore to him, after a certain time, all things become clear in the inner and outer world. There are some who see light before them, there are some who notice colors before their view, also there are some who see forms before their sight. When they talk about it to others who cannot observe the phenomena, they are considered imaginative; people often laugh at them.
The Sufi, therefore, does not speak of any such experience to others. The Sufi thinks it is not their world and they will not be able to understand unless they also rise to that sphere. There is no motive for speaking about one’s experience to others except pride, and if someone does this out of vanity the next step will be exaggeration. If something makes anyone feel oneself above others it is natural for one to feel inclined to make it still more impressive. Besides, it is in human nature to wish to interest one’s friends in one’s pleasures, and if someone is pleased with something one sees one will surely try to make it more interesting by a little added exaggeration.
Therefore there are two dangers on the spiritual path of which the adept must be aware before making the journey. It is for this reason that mysticism has been made a secret cult, that it may not be for everybody to play with.
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