The Position of the Human in Avicenna's Mysticism

Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 14:87-96 (2008)
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Abstract

In Avicenna's allegorical treatises humans are envoys of two worlds; on one hand, as products of natural evolution they are representatives of the earthly, physical world; on the other, as products of divine emanation they represent the cosmic principle. But in the process of spiritual contemplation they overcome theduality and split nature of their being and restore the fractured harmony between themselves and the cosmic world. Thus, having attained the highest form of cognition and moral beauty, the individual 'self becomes the universal essence identified in the language of Sufism as 'the perfect human'. Avicenna tries in hisallegorical treatises to makes his of becoming a perfect individual is not a sudden act of illumination, but a pyramid-like development, arranged, like the heavenly spheres, hierarchically, and calling for an incredible exertion of followers recognize that each person is able to rise to the level of the 'perfect individual', the road to which lies through moral purification and mastery of learning and the sciences, primarily philosophy. But the process strength, self-limitation and effort of will to pass through the stages of perfection and achieve the aim.

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