Izutsu • The Theophanic Ego
Description:
Toshihiko Izutsu: The Man of Light, the “Witness in Heaven” is, Najm Kubra emphatically asserts, no other than your true self — Anta huwa literally meaning “You are He”.
This alter ego at the final stage of dhikr-practice completely absorbs into itself what has falsely been posited as the empirical ego, the ordinary I. The mythopoeic experience on the part of the Sufi of the unification of these two egos which is effected as the alter ego absorbing into itself the empirical ego, marks the birth of the Theophanic Ego.
It is called “theophanic” because the celestial Witness of man as conceived by Najm Kubra is the inner locus of tajallī, “theophany”. Metaphorically it is a Mirror in which the Hidden God reflects Himself, thereby changing Himself into the self-revealing God. This Mirror is like transparent water; it reveals something beyond itself. That Something is God as He manifests Himself (mutajallī) through the Mirror. The Ego of the mystic thus actualized as the divine Mirror is the Theophanic Ego. At first, that is, from the viewpoint of the ordinary man, it was his alter ego. But now it is no longer his “alter” Ego, for it is the only Ego that subsists in this dimension, there being no trace here of the empirical ego.
