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From Adventures in Arabia – W B Seabrook
In the Palace of the Melewi
Sheikh el Melewi

All paths can lead to God, and each must choose the one seeming best for him. But you would have me speak of the path we Melewi have chosen - how, through rhythm, we seek to merge ourselves with the divine harmony.  We have found that it leads to three stages or conditions.

• The first is simple bliss. The soul is exalted, yet at peace. It seems to lose identity, to become nothing in itself, yet to embrace all creation. We name it negative unity.

• The second is power, and not all men can attain it, for it requires a deliberate use of consciousness and will at a moment when the soul has lost all ordinary desires. In this state are performed the so-called miracles. They include power to understand the thoughts of others, knowledge of far off events, but never of future events , sometimes the power to influence a material event. These powers are mysterious, but no more so than your Western wireless or telephone, which by tuning in with a certain vibration can make you materially aware of a far-off event; nor than the string of a great harp, which, toned and set vibrating at a certain rhythm, can smash a crystal glass at a distance.

• The third state is positive unity, in which the soul is flooded not merely with a sense of emotional beatitude, but creates conscious visions of beauty and glory, and is aware of its own high state. In this state and beyond lies the final mystery, which is ineffable, and also dangerous to certain minds, for it frees mighty forces, potent both in good and evil.