I recall a class in Sufism that I took many years back. (I also recall the Final Exam, where I had forgotten what the word "suf" meant - it means "wool", since that's what a lot of sufis wore.)

Later on I visited a conclave where Surat Shabd Yoga (literally, "soul sound union") was practiced. It's the yoga of the cosmic sound current - the mysticism of Omar and Kabir. I had first become aware of it through Sant Kirpal Singh when he spoke in San Francisco.  As I entered, and as I left, I saluted the pyr's photo. That night as I meditated I found myself immersed in the heart center, which is the basis of the type of yoga they use.  It was a literal location of awareness, together with awareness of the pulse beat, flow of blood etc. An objective description can be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat_Shabd_Yoga . With theory, try www.ruhanisatsangusa.org/col/col-5a.htm. For technique that actually works try santhakar.tripod.com - The brilliance of the inner light and impact of the whole experience is definitely going to stay with anyone who masters this!

The same technique can be found in the Upanishads, where we are told to listen to the sound of the heart in the right ear, not the left, and to go into the heart, riding the gong-like sound. (In Richard Burton's Khasiddah he refers to it as the "tinkling of a camel's bell".  As the sound develops, it first sounds like a drum, but later on it sounds quite like a baritone cowbell.)

The kind of enlightenment that arises from this type of experience is different in its beginnings, although it moves onward toward more familiar ideas later. One of the interesting things is that there are proposed a large number of levels of awareness, some of which are said to be illusory, and inhabited by a negative demonic being whose task is to confuse us.  The meaning might turn out to be just another way to look at the astral levels, but using different criteria to differentiate them.

I get the impression that all the pathways to the truth eventually lead there, but that they take people through radically divergent experiences. I have a very rare mimeographed article by Swami Naryanananda, "Kundalini, the Primal Power in Man"  in which he points out that there are a very large number of ways to attain enlightened awareness. In specific, drugs, illness, emotional catastrophe and similar events are equally useful and valid as are the more traditional yoga methods. As an old hippie I really liked getting an official opinion that I hadn't wasted my time.

In principle, all these levels of awareness are also available through hypnosis, but I've had poor luck producing them. However, I would guess that most people remain tied to the pathway through which they reached a higher level of awareness, and that this connection is going to color their experiences strongly. The inference is that we have dozens of kinds of enlightenment experiences, all being of the exact same ultimate nature.

Meanwhile, for those who are looking for a new and interesting thing to do, this meditative method is possibly a little easier than "contemplating your navel". (Makes more sense, too.)

Mysticism in Arab lands seems to be pretty much at the same kind of stalemate as for Christian mystics in the Dark Ages - if you deviated from the orthodoxy, they killed you. Same as now in Iran and other related places. I kinda wonder where this is going to lead over the next few centuries. As with Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity, at the end of the Dark Ages comes the Renaissance. Maybe Mullah Nasrudin will mount his mule and ride off into the sunset.   

My URL brackety things don't seem to work very well, but you can copy and paste the addresses. 

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