Clear Speech as a Ladder towards Abstraction

That profound experience proved to me that the word is the most enduring and most influential force in the architecture of human existence. If a single abstract idea could set all those forces in motion, what would be the effect of a complete system of consciousness once people see their essential reality? The danger of searching for the truth is that it restores to the oppressed their firm conviction that they are vicegerents of the Lord, and it shatters the narcissism of the oppressors by exposing the illusion of their material power — a power that can only last as long as the light is kept from people’s insight. I learned that the truth needs no protection from outside. All it needs is clarity of vision and courage of expression. I saw fear written in the eyes of the guardians of inherited tradition. It was not fear of me as an individual. It was fear of the truth I carried: a truth that strips away the false sanctity of human beings and the corruption of sectarianism, and restores absolute centrality to the Creator alone, without intermediaries or veils. That experience was the official stamp on my passport towards absolute Abstraction. It showed me that the search for the essence is the true ascent of the Self, an ascent that requires clearing one’s scales of fear, of ego and of blind dependence. From that point I set out to lay the foundations of my system of knowledge, armed with the certainty that only what is built on truth will stand against the storms of matter. Through that confrontation I found a complete inner peace: no group in control, no veil to block the way, only a spaciousness from the Lord that breathes in the open expanse of Glory be to You. And a single eternal word went on ringing in the depths of my heart, like an everlasting covenant between an independent consciousness and its Creator: “Peace: a word from a Lord Most Merciful” (Q 36:58). Here the noise of the world falls silent, and the pure bliss of perception begins. Hashem Nassar All rights reserved