Concretion: Density, Material Illusion and Individual Determination

Once it had settled in my mind that traditional language cannot carry the abstract transmission of the Qurʾān, that clear Arabic tongue, I began to reflect deeply on the nature of the hidden obstacle that stands between the human being and the witnessing of the Highest Source. I found it lay in what I came to call Concretion. With all the humility of one who fears to stumble, I do not regard Concretion as a dry philosophical term. It is an existential condition, like a prison of density. Over years of observation I found that when human consciousness “descended” to live out the experience of vicegerency, it sank into a heavy material embodiment that led it to imagine that matter is the final reality, and that closed individual determination is the summit of existence and the goal of all goals. This immersion turned existence, in our eyes, from a continuous luminous flow into separate, inert masses. Consciousness is imprisoned within the limits of body, time and place, and the Vicegerent becomes a captive of what his hand can touch, heedless of what his Fuʾād — joined as it is to the Source — can perceive. As the allegory of the cave suggests, we live facing the shadows and take them for absolute truths. Concretion, in essence, is the chain that binds consciousness to the material wall of the cave and keeps it from turning towards the sun of truth rising behind it. I have watched with sorrow how attachment to the illusion of matter produces a kind of dulling of perception — what I call cognitive torpor. Those who concretise themselves in the narrow material ego begin to see the world as separate things crowding in upon them. In this state of Concretion the other becomes a potential enemy, a rival and a stranger; nature becomes mere raw material for utilitarian human consumption; and God turns, in people’s minds, into a distant external being who can be reached only through theological intermediaries. This severs the jugular vein — the supply — that binds human beings to their Lord in Abstraction. I confess that I suffered long within the walls of this dense prison. The earthly matrix is built with a hyper-realistic constitution that leaves the senses unable to doubt the reality of matter, so that breaking free of its gravity takes exceptional courage to purify the scales of knowledge. Concretion is the default state in which we are born into this world. It is a state that calls us to concentrate on material survival rather than spiritual ascent, and so it binds the Spirit to the weights of clay and weakens it, denying it its right to Ascensional Evolution (tamaʿruj) towards the horizons of the first light. What, then, is individual determination, or singularity, from this point of view? It is the existential narcissism that makes a human being see himself as a centre independent of the Highest Source. In the prison of Concretion we fall into the illusion that we are bodies that have spirits, whereas the abstract truth, which reveals itself slowly and with much astonishment, is that we are in origin spirits that have bodies, condensed in order to experience matter. This illusory separation is what turned the experience of vicegerency from a rising journey of ascent into a descending state of flailing within the narrow limits of the ego. Attachment to the illusion of matter is the true root of the moral chaos we witness. Whoever sees matter as the origin sees annihilation as the inevitable end, and so rushes after the debris of this world and wastes his life on what brings no benefit. It was watching this sterile wrangling over the fringes of questions that moved me to point to those invisible bars — the bars of material illusion that hide from us the light of God’s eternal self-sufficiency. Concretion, at heart, is a drop in the resolution of mental processing. When we cannot see the law hidden behind the tree, we settle for seeing its wood; when we cannot see the light hidden in the human being, we settle for seeing his clay. This shortfall is what constitutes the prison of density. To put it simply, matter is light that has slowed down until it has, relatively speaking, frozen, and to remain in that slowness is the true death of consciousness. Concretion is a functional necessity for beginning the earthly journey, but it becomes an existential catastrophe if it becomes the final and only station. We need the body — Concretion — in order to act and fulfil the Trust, but we need the Spirit — Abstraction — in order to rise and connect. We might say that evil in the world is, in reality, an excess of Concretion. Selfishness, tyranny and attachment to material and mental idols are all the inevitable results of attachment to the illusion of matter and to a separate individual determination. In this prison faith becomes mere formal ritual that never reaches the core of change. Here the distinction between Jesus and the Messiah appears as a key to unlocking the prison. Jesus stands for Concretion in all its human limitation; the Messiah stands for spiritual Abstraction in all its loftiness and eternal abiding, which go beyond material Concretion. Without this double awareness human beings go on flailing in the darkness of matter, thinking they are doing good work while they spend their consciousness on what passes away. To leave Concretion behind is the very purpose of existence sown in God — a purpose that cannot be grasped so long as we go on worshipping forms and sanctifying images. Concretion, to put the idea approximately, is a veil behind which the Absolute hides so that we can deal with Him in the environment of interaction, or of testing. But to keep the covenant of vicegerency we must lift the mask and witness the Face that does not perish. Modern science itself has begun to discover that matter is, in essence, nothing but a manifestation of energy, which strengthens the view that we live within a tightly woven material illusion. Independence of knowledge requires us to treat matter as a tool, not as an end, and to understand that our individuality is not separation but a functional specialisation within the great unity of the Source. True sovereignty of knowledge is the possession of a double awareness: living in the world of Concretion with effectiveness and skill, while remaining in constant connection with the world of Abstraction, with a certainty that does not waver. This balance frees us from bondage to what is other than God and returns us to the rank of the rabbānī human being — one who uses the density of the earth to build edifices of meaning without falling into its mire. Freedom from the prison of Concretion is the first step in keeping the covenant of vicegerency, for this world is “the enjoyment of delusion” (Q 3:185): it deceives the senses, which concretise for us what passes away in the image of what endures. True elevation is an ascent of rhythm that goes beyond matter into the space of truth. Hashem Nassar All rights reserved