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    Glimpses to a genealogy of sufi heritage in the poetry of spanishamerican culture

    By Ignacio iguez

    Islamabad 16 de marzo de 2010In some of the pages of Don Quixote de la Mancha, the memorablenovel that marks the consolidation of the Spanish language, there is astatement that sustain that what is too much known it is silent andafter silent forgotten, meaning that normally human being wants tobelieve that only contemporary presumptions are correct, and that anyelement that can put in danger such believing is a distortion that tries toconfuse him.

    But often happens also that there is this precise fact or detail -lost in thepast and which almost no one remembers - that allows us to glimpse, asfrom Plato's cavern, in the distance, the real nature of things in whichwe never have had a chance to doubt, so our eyes can be suddenlydisclosed.

    Fine words in Spanish language are the heritage from the language of AlAndaluz Emirate, that was part of the Umayyad Caliphate in Andalusia.Words like pillow (Almohada), I hope (Ojal), sill (alfizar), are a livingproof that one day, christians and muslims shared a common cultural

    space, and despite the distance claimed by their faiths, they had time toshare what the Chilean poet Jorge Teillier has called "a little bit of airmoved by the lips-Words / to hide perhaps the only truth: / that webreathe and we stop breathing".

    As these words say, we live inside language, and the past is a privilegedwitness of that. So, if we retrace the path of languages and cultures, wecan quickly realize that the connections between the Sufi wisdom andChristian mysticism are far more than some wants to acknowledge. And

    since this point until the arcane world of poetry, there is only onesecond that takes us to get to the language of the heart, in wich Sufismand poetry have citizen cards.

    Even before the coming of Prophet Muhammad, blessed be his name,the spiritual brotherhood of godly men in the world, were alreadyseeking a synthesis between Pythagoras numbers and cosmic dualism

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    of Plato and Aristotle. Before Spain or Islam even existed, these Greeksand Gnostics scholars had the feelling that first Christ was the finalsynthesis, until they chose the exegesis of Islam to be the seal of theprophets, as it is written en the Holly Qoran.

    According to the Turkish scholar and writer Edmund Kabir Helminski,"Sufism can be seen as a way of realization in two fundamental ways:One is a path that comes from, and carries to the humanconsummation, the complete human being. On the other hand it is apath that uses all possible effective means to orchestrate thetransformation of a human being. "

    The act of rebirth, or rather, die and reborn for the Divine, is a path thatalmost all mystical disciplines share in every culture, and in that sense,

    the Sufi path is also an expression of human nature hungrier for spiritualtranscendence.

    The traditions of this spiritual knighthood go hand in hand since then,and -for the first time in history-, Sufism and Christianity became tworeligions stating the same path, as the Spanish scholars GermainAncochea and MaraToscano say:

    "In Occident, knight errantrys ideal is well beyond the physicalexistence of the knighthood. In fact, Christianity was introduced by

    military orders that come in contact with Islamic tradition and theyspread at the same time of the tradition of the Holy Grail. By contrast,in the Islamic tradition, especially in the Sufism of Iranian tradition(which itself dates back to the Zoroastrian tradition), knighthoodappears to be very soon linked to the spiritual path and, as the Sufissay, the birth of their own tradition. Before the appearance of Islam, thetradition of knighthood in the Middle East was preserved only throughthe training of men to be knights. "

    Knighthood values include respect for others, the sacrifice of oneself,

    devotion, support the weak and the helpless, kindness to all creationand preserving of the word. All qualities that later emerge as attributesof the perfect man from the point of view of Sufism. Islam quicklygained membership of these knights, who worked to found the Sufismon common bases to Islam and Knighthood.

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    In the West, the Templar Order were inheritors of St. Bernards rule,who incorporated some of these ideals. In Chapter XIII of his book"From Bethany, St. Bernard's turns knight faith on words like this, sosimilar with those from the prophet: "The Lord is my strength, myrefuge and my deliverer. And also: "Not unto us, Lord, not us, but untothy name give the glory."

    According to Alexander Seleukis in his Book of Alchemy "it was in HolyLand where Sufis and Templars found a suitable framework forconnecting the respective traditions. There was also, where the chargesthat culminated in the dissolution of the Order in 1307 began. Accordingto several authors, the Knights Templar held a deliberate brotherhoodwith Sufis and Kabbalists, being the most known the connection with theorder of the ismaelitas knights called assacis that means guardian.

    On the other hand, we have the testimony of the murcian master IbnArabi, known as Sheikh of Akbar, (The greatest of Sheikhs), who wasknown in Europe as "Doctor Maximus", an important reference to thetasawwuf, the history of Sufism and, as we will see later, the keymaster in the birth of some christian secret orders. Ibn Arabi formulatedthe existence of "the sacred pillars", as we can see in his work"Illuminations":

    "Every Pilar (watad) is a corner of a house: The one that depends on

    Adam corresponds to the Syrian angle; the one that depends onAbraham corresponds to the Iraqi angle; the one that depends on Jesuscorresponds to the Yemeni angle, and the one that depends onMuhammad is the angle of the black stone, this is mine, praise be theLord "

    In another text of Ibn Arabi called The Truth, it is stated about him:

    He confused to scholars of Islam,

    To all those who studied the Psalms,

    To every rabbi,

    To all Christian priest.

    So, there was and there is a tradition about spiritual initiationspreserved over the centuries, common to all three religions of the Book

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    and that can be accessed with humility and purity of heart. The search isoften confusing, as happened to the women who went at dawn to thetomb of Jesus and didnt found his body, so the Angels said to them:Why seek ye the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5).

    A few years after Ibn Arabi described that four pillars supporting theworld, a Christian mystic would have an encounter that would radicallychange his perception of the world.

    Giovanni Bernardone, best known as St. Francisco of Assi, was in fullstage of defining his mission on earth when he joined what is known asthe Fifth Crusade. It was 1219, when he tried to fulfill the biblicalprinciple to evangelize in Holy Land, so he joined an expedition arrivedto Damietta, Egypt. During his travel he has to share with murderers

    and thieves and then have to live for months with christians whoembarrassed him because of their lust, all of them were there just bymere interest. So he asked permission to cardinal Pelayo, chief of theexpedition, to meet the Sultan of Egypt, Palestine and Syria, known asal Malik al Kamil, in order to convert him to christianism. Al Kamil hadgiven several samples of being a peaceful and devout man, evenoffering rewards to the Christians in exchange for peace, offers thateven included the control of Jerusalem, receiving negatives in all of thecases.

    The historian Donald Spoto tells about this interview between SanFrancisco and Malik Al Kamil:

    "The visit of Francisco to the Sultan Malik al Kamil is narrated not only inmedieval French and Italian papers, but also in islamic chronicles. Thesetexts tell that Francisco and Iluminado (his disciple) left the Christiancamp in early September and went to the headquarters of Al Kamil.When the Sultan's guards saw their arrival, they were confused becausethey didnt know if they were messengers to negotiate, or "sufiyya",mystics who were also dressed in rustic tunics. So quickly the guards ledthem to the sultan's presence.

    "The muslim ruler of Egypt, Palestine and Syria was the same age ofFrancis, he ran his empire's forces since 1218 and like Francisco, helived entirely dedicated to his faith. Although he hated war and violencein case of trouble, Al Kamil was an expert in warfare educated by his

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    famous uncle, Saladin, Al Kamil called his religious advisors to meetFrancisco who knew a peaceful man who also believed in one God."

    After hearing the brief account that Francisco gave him about the Bibleand faith in Christ, the advisors resolved that visitors had to be

    beheaded in the act for trying to convert them to Christianity.

    But the Sultan could appreciate the real faith where he saw it. Headmired also the character of Francisco, his unconditional surrender tothe faith and his disregard for the luxuries of the world. "This time I willgo against the law," he said. I will not sentence to death to whom hascome to save my soul, risking his own life".

    Finally Francisco and his disciple Iluminado stayed for a week in thecourt of Malik al Kamil, as an example of interfaith dialogue, a truly

    lesson for our times, Kamil finally dismissed him with a pass toJerusalem and as the historian Spoto sais, "although Francisco went tothe Sultan's camp with the intention to convert him or die in the intent,his writings since then reveal that he left the Sultans camp with acompletely different attitude. We could even say that was theconversion of Francisco himself which was strengthened. PerhapsFrancisco realized in his return among the crusaders that not muslimsbut Christians were the ones who really needed to be converted.

    The butterfly effect theory sustain that sometimes the more subtilechanges have unexpected consequences, and we might say somethinglike that is what happened that day. His experience in Damietta allowedhim to develop his doctrine of absolute detachment, sine glossa"(without commentary).

    The message was clear, says de the chilean philosopher HumbertoGianini, leaving everything, and sine glossa, as true apostols of God.This included not only material goods, but the detachment of the imagesand memories that link us to the world, in order to still save things;

    detachment of contentious knowledge that keeps us in the vain disputeand the desire to succeed; detachment of arguments, principles,reasons that hold us in a speech without meaning. Francisco haddiscovered that the poverty of spirit that is promoted by the gospelsconsists in being a jugglar in order to make happy the heart of the men

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    The effects of Francisco in christian western philosophical tradition, wasthat for the first time a rejection to the Thomistic dialectic that prevaileduntil then. A second consequence was the revaluation of thecontemplative life as a link with other human beings. And finally, thanksto Francisco, the current scholastic motto since Augustine "Fidesquaerus intellectum (Faith seeking understanding) which had helped tobuild the cathedrals of Christian scholasticism even at the expense ofreason, would lead place to the investigation of nature, turning thebeliever into someone who can talk to the animals, in other words, afaith that seeks in external phenomena signs of an universal love knowby intuition, anticipating the scientific curiosity of the Renaissance.

    A fourth consequence to Christianity of the figure of Saint Franciscomight be that the Gnosis (God's existential knowledge), again gradually

    acquire citizenship card in occidental culture under the name ofmysticism, almost a millennium after the first patriarchs diverge of thisway declaring the Christian Gnostics as heretics. With San Francisco itwas opened again a path for mystics as Juan de la Cruz or Teresa deAvila, as long as for spanish language in the frame of Catholic Church toexplore mistiscism.

    We culd say that this spiritual knighthood shared between Sufis andchristian knights, came to these mystics transfigured by example in"The Mansions" of Santa Teresa with her proposal of an interior castlethat we have to defend from the attacks of the tempter. This analogycan also apply to symbols like the mystical marriage of the soul withGod in San Juan de la Cruz.

    We read in "The Mansions" of Santa Teresa:

    "While praying to our lord now speak for me, because I could not seemanything to say or how to begin serving this obedience, he offered mewhat I shall say to start with some foundation, that is to consider oursoul, like a castle made of clear diamond or crystal, where there aremany mansions. That if we consider, sisters, is nothing but the soul ofthe righteous ..."

    The reference of St. Teresa of Avila could not be more direct to theGospel of St. John 14.2:

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    In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would havetold you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.

    San Juan for example expresses this same approach to Divinity in hisSongs of the Soul in intimate communication, a union of love with God.

    Oh flame of love alive,

    Tenderly hires

    Of my soul in the deepest center!

    As you are no longer elusive,

    Just as, if you want;

    Breaks the clothe of this sweet encounter!Maybe we'll find in the words above reminiscent of the famous Sufimaster Adawiyyah Rabee'ah who have transmitted the sublime and loftymystical poems, which was an important benchmark for Christiandevotional poetry by his prodigious spiritual states:

    I love you in two ways: selfishly,

    and also in a manner worthy of you.

    This selfish love dominates my thoughts,dedicating it to you completely.

    The purest love is when you lift

    the veil from my eyes of worship.

    For neither I deserve praise,

    Are to you the praises of these two loves.

    The Mansions of Santa Teresa is equivalent to an interior castle, which isalso internal fighting, and where the enemy is the own weaknesses andpassions, and all kinds of selfishness, vanity and pride. The bookdescribes the beauty and dignity of our souls and explains that the doorof this castle is prayer. That is why when Santa Teresa launches thistrue mystic war cry, actually she is referring to the peace of the Lord:

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    All those you to fight

    Beneath this flag of truce

    No more sleep, no more sleep

    Because on earth there is no peace

    Not without reluctance and many ecclesiastical supervision, is thatmystics as Teresa and John could achieve their commitments. They,along with Francisco of Asis, Bernard of Clairvaux, his Cistercians andTemplars, also of St. Benedict and the Benedictine monks is thatscholars in al Europe could recover that personal experience of Divinity.

    In this regard we would add that perhaps the culmination of this processcould be established with the publication of The Ingenious Hidalgo DonQuixote de la Mancha, a book that in 1605 marks the final consolidationof the Spanish language, in a similar way as sometime is considered tobe the Goethe's Faust for the German or the Dante's Divine Comedy forthe Italian.

    And if we look more closely at the Quixote of Cervantes, we see that itsauthor shows no little heritage of Arab culture to the point that hecreates a supposed chronicler of the colorful adventures of this Christianknight who is a Muslim scholar named Cide Hamete Benenguelli. The

    humorous image of the Knight of the sad figure and his chubby squire,is enigmatic until our days even for the mystics, for the depth of hisglossa about the human condition.

    In this respect let me draw the attention to one of the many episodes inwhich Cervantes and Don Quixote seems to pay tribute to Islam. In thesecond part of the novel, Don Quixote suddenly goes to the Cave ofMontesinos , where he is informed of a mission that awaits him becauseof his great courage and skill, expected for the far future and consistingin disenchant the knights Durandarte and Montesinos, accompanied ofDoa Belerma, Doa Ruidera and seven daughters and two nieces. All ofthem were already for 500 years encharmed, with disenchantmentannounced for the end of the time. Montesinos tells him this:

    This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of true lovers andvaliant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here, as myself andmany others by that French necromancer called Merlin, whom, they say,

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    was the devil's son; but my belief is that he was not the devil's son, buthe knew, as they say, a point more than the devil. How or why heenchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and I suspect that thattime is not far off.

    This mysterious mission of Don Quixote to disenchant captives knightsof the times and the wizards, it sounds vaguely familiar to the episodeof The sleepers of the Qur'an (Sura The Cave 18.8), in which sevenmystic knights are also inchanted, waiting to wake up sometime to jointhe spiritual Futuwah, or spiritual chivalry.

    According to the Spanish Hermetist Alexander Seleukis, there is anislamic tradition that says "when Moses asks what is Futuwah?, he isreplied: You give to God the soul pure and immaculate, as those man

    have received it. Seth, the son of Adam, is the first knight dedicated tothe service of divinity, while his brothers are dedicated to mastering theworld. The angel Gabriel comes to Earth in a green wool tunic with wichSeth is dressed, and returns to heaven with the news that there is aman entirely devoted God. These are the men of the Futuwah, spiritualknights that will be neither secular nor monks, in a new category of menthat goes beyond the time of the cloisters, which will be called TheFriends of God.

    This is also the ideal that Christian writers like Chretien de Troyes and

    Wolfram von Eschenbach propose in their stories of the quest for theHoly Grail. Somehow, spiritual chivalry of Islam and Christianity meet atthis point. Seleukis adds that "according to Islamic tradition, we findAbraham as the continuing of Futuwah, becoming in the founder andfather of all the mystic knights of faith. The Futuwah then covers all theheroes of the Bible along with Christian knights and the Seven Sleeperswhich are mentioned in the Qoran. The Sufi ideal of chivalry is acommunity of knights that continue with all the Abrahamic tradition.

    Many Sufi authors have identified the Imam expected in Islam, with theHoly Ghost of John's Gospel, so that Sufi and Christian chivalry matchover religions. The spiritual Knights, "friends of God, eternally young,they are generation after generation, the lineage of Gnosticism neverinterrupted but ignored by the mass of men. This lineage is the traditionitself. In order to occupy a place in it is necessary go through a second

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    birth. You can not enter the kingdom if you are not born for a secondtime, says the Gospel of John".

    SUFISM AND ILLUSTRATION

    Beside the mystical poetry of authors who - like Santa Teresa and SanJuan - are now Doctors of the Church, the Sufism legacy in Westernculture seems to be submerged since the IX to the XVII centuries, insome secret societies of ritual vocation through initiatives such as theMasons or the Rosacrucians, which would subsequently have significantinvolvement in history and culture of Europe.

    According to the Iranian Ayatullah Morteza Mutahari in his book "TheScience of Gnosis", one of those figures who made the link with westernsocieties like the Rosacrucians, was Abd al Qadir al Jilani, founder of the

    Sufi order Qadiriyyah or Quadiri.

    "This is one of the most controversial figures in the Islamic world. Manyprayers and sublime saying from him exist. He was a Sayyid descendantof Imam Al Hasan. His order was organized by his followers, who used avery similar terminology to what later would use the Rosacrucians inEurope. Abd al Qadir specialized in the induction of spiritual states,called the Science of States. Their acts have been described by hisfollowers in so exaggerated terms that his personality, by all accounts,

    has little resemblance to their own definitions of the nature of a Sufimaster.

    Exaggeration of mystical states in his followers, apparently caused thedegradation of these teachings, transforming those experiences into anend and not the medium that really is, which should also be adequatelycontrolled by a master. But in his story, "States and jackals" Abd alQadir himself specifically warns against this:

    "The Jackal thought has been given a banquet, when in fact it has eaten

    remnants left by the lion. I transmit the science of producing "states."But this can hurt if it is used in isolation. Anyone who uses it well canstill be in control of his power. But these states will take men toworship until a point when he will be incapable of returning to the SufiWay.

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    The lessons from this and from other Islamic masters like Ibn Arabi arein the origins of the Rosacrucians, who are defined as an occultbrotherhood of spiritual seekers that emerged in Germany during theseventeenth century, but whom however there are first news in Europeon the XIV century. The first public manifestation of the RosacrucianOrder is a publication in Paris in August 1623, on some walls of the city.It said:

    "We, members of the principal College of the Brothers the Rosacrucian,take visible and invisible residence in this city by the grace of theAlmighty, to which becomes the heart of the Righteous ..."

    In the introduction to "The Alchemical Wedding of ChristianRosenkreutz" by Jean Valentin Andreae (1616) we learn that the Fama

    Fraternitatis, the first publication of the Rosacrucian secret, speaksabout a secret fraternity founded by Christian Rosenkreutz throughouthis travels through the Muslim East, where he received the revelation ofthe secrets of the "universal harmonic science.

    Based on these teachings, Christian Rosenkreutz planned to reform theworld in philosophical, religious, artistic, scientific and even politicalterms, for whose implementation was surrounded by some disciples.Christian Rosenkreutz would then come into contact with "The Brothersof Purity" philosophical society formed in Basora in the first half of the X

    Century.

    The doctrines of this society were not quite in accordance with Islamicorthodoxy, but relied heavily on the ancient Greek philosophers and theNeopythagorics. Although the "Brothers of Purity" they difer on some ofthe Sufi on some points, they agreed on many others. For example the'mystical theology deriving from the Qoran'. The dogma is supplantedhere by faith in the Divine Reality.

    But the real Rosacrucians always remained anonymous. If any of them

    played an important role in history, he was careful of not presenting likethis. As the Sufis in Islamic esoterism claim, authentic Rosacruciansnever use in public their title. As Ren Guenon writes "If someone hasdeclared himself a Rosacrucian or a Sufi, we can say that he really wasnot, but it seems undeniable that there was, on the origins of theRosacrucians, a collaboration between the two esoteric movement.

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    Ayatullah Morteza says that progress on Sufism had always beengradual until those days. And adds: "But in the XIII centuries, with theappearance of Ibn Arabi, 'irfan, the theoric sufism, gave a sudden leapand reached its peak of perfection."About this new phase, and the roleof Ibn Arabi, Morteza writes:

    "Ibn arabi was an amazing person, and this has led to the existence ofwidely divergent views about him. Some saw him as 'the Wali to Kamil'(the Holy Perfect) and the 'Qutb al Aqtab' (the Pole of Poles). Othersdiscredit him like if he was an heretic, and called him 'Mumit al Din' (themurderer of faith) or Mahi al Din (the draft of the faith). Sadr alMuta'allihin (Mulla Sadra), the great Islamic philosopher and genius, hehad great respect for Ibn Arabi, saying he was far above Ibn Sina(Avicenna) and even the philosopher Al Farabi, who was known as

    "Second Master", four centuries before, referring to Aristotle like beingthe first master.

    Ibn Arabi wrote over two hundred books and although there are manycomments about them, it is a common tell that "there must have notbeing more than two or three people in every age that had reallyunderstood him"

    For the present time is really unusual to hear that a Sufi master of sucha high rank like Ibn Arabi had promote the integration of the abrahamic

    tradition in those four "spiritual pillars" described above. And as theirteachings are also on the basis of secret societies like the Rosacrucians,in the practice that means that there was a parallel development ofChristian philosophy, theorical Sufism and even jewish kabalism in asort of syncretism between ancient hermetic teachings. In the FamaFraternitatis of Rosacrucians for example it is said the Adept is supposedlook forward to the East, where the souls are collected.

    Of course it is referred to a mystical east, where de adept must find his"Liber Mundi", a spiritual book that, according to Corbin is the totalman supported on his own substance, beyond the limits of this life."

    Shortly after this founding junction in XVII century, members of theRosacrucian were introducing in the european masonic orders to thepoint that in 1787 the Masons recognize as part of the Scottish Rite in

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    its grade 18, the so called "Sovereign Prince Rose-Croix Mason, Knightof the Eagle and Pelican.

    If we have to believe those who think that it was under the influence ofthese secret societies which came to be realized a social phenomena like

    the French Revolution and the American independence, and if we addthe never denied rumor that many of the Masonic societies were actuallyspiritual inheritors of the Templars, we may understand this part of thehistory in another context. We will be able to understand for examplethat story about an anonymous man who shouted out loud in 1793when King Louis XVI was beheaded at the Bastille, "Jacques de Molayyou are avenged!", refering to the execution of the last Grand Master ofthe Templars by King Philip IV of France four centuries before in 1314.

    A current publication about the Rosacrucians ranks among their mastersof all time Islamic philosophers like al-Razi, Al Farabi and Ibn Sina,which appear to share fellowship with people like Roger Bacon,Raymond Lull or Paracelsus, a mix of alchemy, mysticism andphilosophy that is really surprising. Along with them, Sufi masters likeIbn Arabi and Abd al Qadir are so to speak as the missing links betweenWest and East from the perspective of religious mysticism.

    DE IBEROAMERICA

    In Chile as in whole Latin America, after independence from Spain in1810 popular Poetry and music had the privileged heritage of that richpoetic material inherited from the peninsula and turned out into oraltradition. The popular artists administrated this legacy coming from themotherland, incorporating the necessary changes to integrateindigenous roots and new urban and rural experiences of the newcontinent, with elements that were virtually forgotten.

    According to what the scholar Ins Dolz says, in Chile, "the so-calledChant to the Divine will have its natural expression in the so-called

    Tenth glossed, sung to the tune of a guitar, bass guitar or a rebec. Ascomment, we can say that these Divine Songs are performed by the'puetas' (popular poets) in the usual environment of a daily and familyatmosphere, which develops the dialogue between human and celestialbeings. Both live in the same sphere of existence, sharing the same

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    happy and pain and expressing with the same words. About Jesus, forexample, we can say:

    De pequeo ya sufri / el Mesas prometido / padeci algunos resfros/y despus se mejor / y al Diablo el Seor le dice / te vai a acordar de

    m / yo no voy a permitir / esta falta de respeto / y a lo ms alto delcielo / suba el que quiera subir.

    'As a child he had suffered / that promised Messiah / he had had somelittle colds / but afterwards he was recovered / To the Devil, the Lordsays / youre gonna remember me / I'm not going to allow / this lack ofrespect / cause to the top of the Sky / whoever wants to raise gets ".

    Through religion, all religious calendar with songs and folkloric customspassed from Spain to the colonies. However, during the eighteenth

    century the extra religious brotherhoods grew so much and their extra-demonstrations became in conflict with the official church, so that in1763 it was establish through a formal synod that "only devotionalmusic will be permitted only in temples so it doesnt cause distraction.

    So the oral tradition inherited from Spain went out of the churches andwould soon give birth to what is the Call Human Chant, a sort of aphilosophical poetry in order to put away the disturbance of life withoutreligious supervision. For example in 1893, Rosa Araneda had this real

    declaration of principles about human wisdom in verses that somehowresonate like the Sufi perspective about Knowledge. The poem isentitled "Verses from the ignorance of the singers":

    Aquel que pisa encumbrado / Viviendo sobre la Ciencia, / Conoce suincompetencia /Cuando se ve derribado. / El que profana en el canto, /Sin seguir un fundamento, / Recorre en su pensamiento / La esfera conataranto, / Causando temor i espanto /Al hablar en alto grado, / I ya almirarse enredado, / Por ms que lea en la historia, / Ve turbada sumemoria, / Aquel que pisa encumbrado. / Si poetiza sin recelo / I quiere

    ser ms que Homero, / Hay que fijarse primero / Para no venir alsuelo. / Si se remonta de un vuelo / Por encontrar la elocuencia, / En lams alta eminencia, / Con el diccionario en mano, / Se contar soberano/ Viviendo sobre la Ciencia. / Si encuentra algn consonante / Que seapoco dudoso, / Ah queda el estudioso / Sin pasar ms adelante; / Comoperegrino errante / Vagar con tal demencia, / Pidiendo por Dios

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    audiencia / Para su mayor pesar, / I no pudiendo avanzar / Conoce suincompetencia./ En ms de treinta cantores / He observado estecaso, /Que hasta llegar al Parnaso / Cometen miles de errores;/ Uno delos ms mejores / Bastante moralizado / Cientfico y educado / I deharta capacidad, / Llora su fatalidad / Cuando se ve derribado. / Al finpara ser poeta / Se quiere estudio bastante; / Pero hoy cualquierignorante / Quiere llegar a la meta; / En hablar no se sujeta / Porquetiene lengua y boca; / Si se dan contra una roca / Queda el sentidocambiado, / I al ponerles un fundado / No saben lo que les toca.

    One who steps in the highs / Living over the Science, / knows of hisincompetence / When he is forced to get down. / Anyone who discreditin songs, / Without following some rule / Gives the path of histhoughts / the earth turns up down with his moves.

    The crossing between this Canto a lo Pueta and the rogue Spanishpoetry is also an important feature of this period of the Chilean andAmerican poetry. For example in the tenths El Diablo, an anonymousauthor called JM jokes this way about the devil:

    El diablo muri atorado / Con un hueso en el hocico: / Quedaron losdiablos chicos / Hechos unos condenados / Deca un diablo cojuelo / Quecuidaba la despensa: / por goloso y sin vergenza / Se muri mi taitaagelo. / Los dems diablos chicuelos / Decan: Mi viejo es rico. / Se

    hallaron en el bolsico / La cdula de un masn. / Ya se muri estebribn / Con un hueso en el hocico.

    The devil just died stucked / With a bone beneath his mouth: / Therewere the little devils / Convicted without a rest / then a lame devil Said/ taking care of the pantry: / "By greedy and shameless happens / Mygrandfather dady died. " / Other youngsters told at him / They said:"My fathers rich." / cause we found here in his pocket / a hugemasons wealth / He is already dead this rascal / With a bone beneathhis mouth.

    Somehow we might affirm that the tradition of the human and the divinechants belongs to what is called popular lyra reaches its masterfullyexpersion in the immortal figure of Violeta Parra, in her real anthem tothe human condition that is Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life). Violeta

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    has certainly many mystical take-offs that are conjugate essentially inthe poetry of this song:

    Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto. / Me dio dos luceros que,cuando los abro, / perfecto distingo lo negro del blanco, / y en el alto

    cielo su fondo estrellado / y en las multitudes el hombre que yo amo. /Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto. / Me ha dado el odo que, entodo su ancho, / graba noche y da grillos y canarios; / martillos,turbinas, ladridos, chubascos, / y la voz tan tierna de mi bien amado. /Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto. / Me ha dado el sonido y elabecedario, / con l las palabras que pienso y declaro: / madre, amigo,hermano, y luz alumbrando / la ruta de al alma de quien estoyamando. / Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto. / Me ha dado lamarcha de mis pies cansados; / con ellos anduve ciudades y charcos, /

    playas y desiertos, montaas y llanos, / y la casa tuya, tu calle y tupatio. / Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto. / Me dio el corazn queagita su marco / cuando miro el fruto del cerebro humano; / cuandomiro el bueno tan lejos del malo, / cuando miro el fondo de tus ojosclaros. / Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto. / Me ha dado la risa yme ha dado el llanto. / As yo distingo dicha de quebranto, / los dosmateriales que forman mi canto, / y el canto de ustedes que es elmismo canto / y el canto de todos, que es mi propio canto./ Gracias a lavida que me ha dado tanto

    Thanks to life that has given me so much. / She gave me two starsthat, that when are open, / perfectly I can distinguish the black fromwhite, / and in the high heaven its starry background / Thanks to lifethat has given me so much. / It has given me ear that, in all its breadth,/ night and day recorded crickets and canaries; / hammers, turbines,barking, rain, / and so tender voice of my beloved. / Thanks to life thathas given me so much. / It has given me sound and the alphabet, /with him the words I think and declare: / mother, friend, brother, andlight illuminating / the path of that soul that I'm loving. / Thanks to lifethat has given me so much. / It has given the course of my tired feet; /with them I walked cities and puddles, / beaches and deserts,mountains and plains / and the house of yours, your street and youryard. / Thanks to life that has given me so much. / It gave me theheart that shakes its frame / when I see the fruit of the human brain; /when I look the good so far from the mean, / when I look at the bottom

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    of your eyes. / Thanks to life that has given me so much. / It has givenme laughter and also the tears. / So I distinguish this from brokenness,/ the two materials that are my song, / and the sing of you thats is thesame of me / and the song of every one, thats my own singing. /Thanks to life which has given me so much /

    It was in this way that the Chilean poetry inherits directly from theSpanish poetic tradition that mystical dimension which in turn hadenjoyed of the spiritual contact between Christians and Sufis in thesouth of Spain and northern Africa. During the twentieth century thistradition in Chile becomes a more personal voice, whose exponents arenow relevant mystic writers as Eduardo Anguita, for example who leftus his work "the only reason for the NSJC passion." (Unica razn de lapasin de N.S.JC.)

    Nuestro Seor Jesucristo padeci nicamente por Jenaro Medina /Nuestro Seor Jesucristo subi al Calvario por la seora Hortensia /Nuestro Seor Jesucristo muri exclusivamente por el chipo Cruz /Nuestro Seor Jesucristo Eli Eli lama sabajtani- por Alemparte por /Gaete por los hijos de Weir Scott / Por m y por todos los chilenos todoslos uruguayos, los suramericanos los /Norteamericanos los ingleses losfranceses los alemanes los espaoles los / Italianos los rusos los ciegoslos gordos los sabios los egipcios los atletas / Los caldeos los militareslos iranios los liberales los lisboetas los utopistas / Los explotados loscondenados de la tierra los explotadores los esclavos / Sin pan losmormones los vendedores los productores los consumidores/ Los suizoslos msicos los gobernantes los sordos, ay / Sus llagas se hicieron portodos ellos por todos nosotros / Y todos cabemos en ellas y todos somosredimidos / Pero Jenaro Medina solo / O yo solo / O la simple seoraHortensia / Es la causa de toda la Pasin y Muerte de Nuestro SeorJesucristo.

    Our Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary by Hortensia / Our Lord Jesus

    Christ died only for the chip Cruz / Our Lord Jesus Christ "Eli Eli lamasabajtani-by Alemparte by/ Gaete by the children of Scott Weir / For meand for all Chileans all Uruguayans, the South Americans / FrenchAmerican British the Germans the Spanish / Italians Russians the blindEgyptian scholars fat athletes / The Chaldeans the Iranian military'sliberal utopians Lisbonese / The exploited the wretched of the earthslaves operators / Without bread vendors Mormons consumer

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    producers / The Swiss musicians rulers deaf, ay / His wounds weremade by all of them for all of us / And all fit in them and we are allredeemed / But Genaro Medina only / Or I just / Or simply Hortensia /she is the cause of all the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Another who also cultivated in Chile mystical streak was the founder ofMandragora Group, Braulio Arenas, attached to the surrealismmovement in the 50s of the last century. His poem "Saint John of theCross" goes like this:

    Pjaro sin color determinado/ De tanto unirte al cielo a cada hora / Bajahasta el mundo tu fascinadora / Cancin, y canta en todo fascinado /Opera con la gracia y el pecado, / Con la sombra del mundo en estahora, / Opera con el alma encantadora / Y con el cuerpo de mortal

    anclado / Es la hora sta pues, que ya levante / El alma la cancin comosu vuelo, / Rumbo al oriente de su paraso. / Aydala por fin, que no laespante / Dejar esta miseria de su suelo, / oh San Juan de la Cruz unoy diviso!

    Bird colorless / From time to join the sky every hour / Lower until yourfascinating world / Song, and sings in all fascinated / Opera with thegrace and sin, / With the shadow of the world at this hour, / Opera withthe lovely soul / And with the mortal body anchored / It's time for this,which raise / The soul of the song as their flight, / Heading east of

    paradise. / Help her by order and is not afraid / Stop the misery of itssoil, / O San Juan de la Cruz one and divisible!

    The Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas has said about his poetic: "In my rolevery close to the religiosity of Sufi thought. Constantly returns to thesethemes of sacredness. For example, I speak in my poetry ofAlumbrado (Enlighted). The enlighting is a way of ilumination. It is thekind you see further than ordinary mortals. The lighting Arab ancestryare mystical, Sufi. In this regard I believe that San Juan de la Cruz isquite linked to the Sufis, that's why I love you so much to San Juan.

    Indeed, in his book, "illumination" (Alumbrado) Rojas admits preciselythat:

    Al mundo lo nombramos en un ejercicio de diamante, / Uva a uva de suracimo, lo besamos / Soplando el nmero del origen / No hay azar, /

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    Sino navegacin y nmero, carcter / Y nmero, red en el abismo de lascosas / Y nmero.

    We name the world what an exercise of diamond / Grape to grape of hisbunch, we kiss it / Blowing the number of origin / No chance / But

    sailing and number, character / And number, network into the abyss ofthings / And number.

    A century before him in Chile, Eduardo de la Barra poet (1839-1900)had confessed in his poem "The Jordan" his aversion to by two famousinquisitors who refused to Christ with their trials:

    Oh Jess!, oh, Rab!, de tu divina / Palabra a orillas del Jordnsembrada, / Jams pudo salir la cruel doctrina / Que conduce a Loyola yTorquemada! / Tu palabra fecunda / De dulce claridad el alma inunda, /

    La infunde noble anhelo, / Sus alas abre y la remonta al cielo /

    Oh Jesus, oh, Rabbi!, Your divine / Word spoken at the Jordanseeded /He could never leave the cruel doctrine / That leads to Loyolaand Torquemada! / Your word fruitful / Light sweet soul flooded, / Theinfused noble desire, / Their wings open and back to heaven

    Another who paid tribute to the Spanish mystical poetry is Pedro AntonioGonzalez (1863-1903) in the poem "A Santa Teresa de Jess"

    Oh casta Belleza! / Oh mstica Virgen, Oh Santa Teresa! / Hossanna alceleste, divino perfume / Que esparce la hoguera que tu alma consume

    Oh caste Beauty! /Oh mystical Virgin, Oh Santa Teresa! / Hossanna thecelestial, divine perfume / That spreads the fire that consumes yoursoul.

    While Pedro Prado (1886-1952) contrived impressed about the mysteryof the Resurrection:

    Quin me llama? Y Lzaro saliendo / De la tumba, / Mir a Jess y locomprendi todo. / eres t oh sol! El que alumbras? / Eres t, o todoes un sueo? Mara, / Mi hermana! Marta, hermana ma

    "Who calls me?" And Lazarus went out / From the grave, / He looked atJesus and understood everything. / "Art thou O sun! The shining? / Is

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    that you, or everything is a dream? Mary, / My sister! Martha, mysister ... "

    Poverty of spirit that has been blessed by Jesus in the New Testamentand that San Francisco developed impressed to the Chilean poet and

    Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral, who in her poem "La Caridad" she singsto the saint:

    Y por eso, Francisco, te gastaste como las lunas en su cuartomenguante () / T descubriste una verdad escondida: que no tenemosderecho a dar, sino / A nosotros mismos. Las dems cosas son de latierra.

    "And so, Francisco, you spent as the moons in its last quarter (...) / Youdiscovered a hidden truth: we have no right to give, but / Ourselves.

    Other things are of the earth. "

    Gabriela Mistral dedicated several poems to the figure of Saint Franciswhose conversion was strengthened by his contact with Islam when wasin Damietta with Sultan Malik al Kamil. This poem is called "Namingthings":

    T, Francisco, tenas don de seleccin y don de elogio. T amaste/aquellas cosas que son las mejores; caminando por la tierra todo lo/conociste, pero elegas las criaturas ms bellas. Y adems del don del/

    largo amor, que es el ms rico de cuantos podemos recibir, te fue dadala / gracia de saber nombrarlas donosamente. / Amaste el agua comoTeresa, tu muy sutil hermana, el sol y el fuego, y el / pardo surco de latierra. Tres bellezas diferentes que slo son hermanas / por ser cadauna perfecta.

    You, Francisco, you had the gift of choice and a gift of praise. You loved/things that are best; walking on the earth all / met, but I chose themost beautiful creatures. And the gift of / long love, which is the richest

    of all those we receive, we were given the / grace to be able to namethem gracefully. / Loved the water as Teresa, your sister subtle, sunand fire, and the / groove brown earth. Three different beauties aresisters only / because each one perfect.

    Another grater of the list of Chilean writers was Pablo de Rokha who hasfor many critics- the same size of a Neruda but without his Nobel Prize

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    "Between shadow and space, between garrisons and maidens, /endowed with an unique heart and these disturbing dreams / abruptlypale, withered in the face / mourning widower and furious for every dayof life, / ay, for each invisible water that I drink sleepily / and of allsound which I receive trembling, / I have the same annoying thirst andthe same cold fever "

    Neruda does not want to be a believer, the Faith to him is in theproletarian men and their causes, not in things that come from themystery and so declares in this poem, where declares however, itsmission of a sensitive almost prophet the words:

    pero, la verdad, de pronto, el viento que azota mi pecho, / las nochesde substancia infinita cadas en mi dormitorio, / el ruido de un da que

    arde con sacrificio / me piden lo proftico que hay en m, con melancola/ y un golpe de objetos que llaman sin ser respondidos / hay, y unmovimiento sin tregua, y un nombre confuso.

    "But the truth, suddenly, the wind that whips my chest, / nights ofinfinite substance fall in my bedroom / the noise of a day tha burns insacrifice / Im asked for the prophetic in me, sadly / and a stroke ofobjects that call but can not be answered / there is a relentlessmovement, and a confusing name. "

    Neruda connects better with the planet, its mountains and rivers, whomhe understood in each of its secrets, and especially our Americancontinent, which describes in the poem "Love America":

    Tierra ma sin nombre, sin Amrica, / Estambre equinoccial, lanza deprpura, / Tu aroma me trep por las races / Hasta la copa que beba,hasta la ms delgada / Palabra an no nacida de mi boca

    Land of mine without a name, without America, / equinoccial Stamenpurple spear, / Your scent climbed up through my roots / Until the cup

    that I was drinking, the thinnest / Unborn word from this my mouthHis American love is perhaps the connection with the intangibles for thebiggest poet who called himself atheist. But it can not be completelystranger to God who understands at this point to Mother Nature, as thispassage from "The stones from heaven" that describes the sacred stonethat exists only in Chile and Pakistan, called lapislzuli:

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    Ronca es la americana cordillera, / nevada, hirsuta y dura, /planetaria:/all yace el azul de los azules, / el azul soledad, azul secreto, / el nidodel azul, el lapislzuli, / el azul esqueleto de mi patria. / Sagrado es esteazul como de catedrales, / Oh catedral de azules enterrados, /sacudimiento de cristal azul, / ojo del mar cubierto por la nieve / otravez a la luz vuelves del agua, / al da, a la piel clara / del espacio, / alcielo azul vuelve el terrestre azul.

    "Snoring is the Mountain of America, / Snow, hairy, hard, /planetarian / there lies the bluest of the blue, / blue of loneliness, blueof secret / the nest of the blue, lapislazuli, / blue skeleton of mycountry. / Sacred is this blue like the cathedrals / Oh cathedral ofburied blue / blue glass jar, / eye of the sea covered by snow / againback to the light water a day to clear skin / space, / the blue sky turns

    to blue ground.

    Cathedrals stone is something that in South America inherited fromCatholic Spain. But the blue is older, because in the cosmology of thenative peoples of Chile and the Mapuche, this used to be color ofthehouse of the ancestors, or as they call the "land above", where theywill dwell those who, having gone through this earth below, havehonored his people and his race to get the prize of eternal life, a song ofthe Blue believers, that is praying listened at least by Mapuche ElikuraChihuailaf:

    Cabalgo en crculo, llevado por el aliento, / De los animales / que teofrec en sacrificio / Galopo galopo, soando voy / por los caminos delcielo/ De todos lados vienen a saludarme / las estrellas /Oo!,Anciana, Anciano / Doncella y joven de la Tierra / de Arriba / envuestro Azul se regocija mi sangre

    "I ride in a circle, led by the breath, / of the animals / I offered insacrifice / / Gallop gallop, dreaming I go / by the ways of heaven /From all sides they come to hail / the stars / Oo!, Elder, Elder / Maidand Young Earth / of above / In your blue enjoys my blood

    But even as a confessed atheist, Neruda has the genius to put in wordsthat detachment that Francisco and the sufis propose, when he writeshis poem Si dios est en mi verso ( If god is in my chant).

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    Perro mo. / Si Dios est en mi verso, / Dios soy yo. /si Dios esta en tusojos doloridos / tu eres Dios. / Y en este mundo inmenso nadie existe /que se arrodille ante nosotros dos.

    Dog of mine. / If God is in my chant, I am God. / If God is in your

    painful eyes / You are God. / And in this whole big world there is nobody/ who kneel down in front of both

    Sufism can be for me now like a vineyard, that grew and spread sincethe medieval Spain to our America, transfigured into poetry, traditionand even politics and institutions. Following the dog path of Neruda, Iwill conclude by quoting de sufi master Al Shibli, who left us thefollowing story:

    I asked a wise man, who guided you in the way?

    The wise man answered. It was a dog. One day I found him almost diedof thirst near the banks of a river. Whenever he saw his reflection in thewater, became frightened and walked away thinking it was another dog.Finally, such was his need, overcoming his fear plunged into the water,and then the other dog was gone.

    The dog had discovered that the obstacle was himself and that thebarrier that separated him from his path was gone.

    In the same way my own obstacle disappeared when I realized that myego was that obstacle. It was the behavior of a dog which first showedme my path.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha, Clsicos AdaptadosVicens VIvens 2004

    Miguel de Cervantes, El ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, B.Cervantes Virtual

    Donald Spoto, Francisco de Asis, el santo que quiso ser hombre, VergaraEditores, 2004

    U, Pablo de Rokha, Coleccin entre Mares, Lom ediciones 2001

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    Braulio Arenas, La mandrgora y otros libros, Braulio Arenas, Pehun1998

    Gonzalo Rojas, Oscuro y otros cuentos, Pehun 1999

    Elicura Chihuailaf, De sueos azules y contrasueos, EditorialUniversitaria 1995

    Diego Muoz, Poesa Popular Chilena, seleccin, Editorial Quimant 1972

    Dr. Spence Lewis, Antigua y Mstica Orden Rosae Crucis A.M.O.R.C.Rosacruces, 2001

    Miguel Arteche y Rodrigo Cnovas, Antologa de la Poesa ReligiosaChilena, Ediciiones UC 1989

    Humberto Giannini iguez, Breve Historia de la Filosofa, EditorialUniversitaria, 1985

    Gabriela Mistral y Pablo Neruda, Canto a Mxico, Santillana, 1995

    Jorge Elliot, Antologa crtica de la nueva poesa chilena 1957, LomEdiciones 2002

    Pablo de Rokha, Cuarenta y un poeta joven de Chile 1910-1942, LomEdiciones 2002

    Eduardo Anguita y volodia Teitelboim, antologa de poesa chilena nueva(1935), Lom (2001)

    Julio Molina y Juan Agustn Araya, Selva Lrica (1917), Lom Ediciones,reedicin de 1995

    Ren Gunon, Aperus sur lInitiation, Pars 1976

    Revista Innconnues, n 4, pg. 8, De Forigine Islamique des Rose-Croix

    Henry Corbin, Limagination cratrice dans le soufisme dIbn Arabi(Pars 1977)

    R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic mysticism, 1921

    Santa Teresa de Jess, Las Moradas Edicin Biblioteca Cervantes Virtual

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