Book Review

The Bond with the Beloved: the Mystical Relationship of the Lover and the Beloved
By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Publisher: Inverness, California: The Golden Sufi Center, 2004.
ISBN:0-9634574-0-3

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. (1953- ) is a contemporary Sufi mystic and author. His unique approach integrates insights from Jungian psychology and personal dreamwork with Sufi meditation practice. After a lifetime of effort in self- and God-realization he offers his gratitude to his own teacher: “I know that everything has been given to me by my Sheikh, that I belong to him more than I can ever know. Through him the path has become my life.” The power and intimacy of his relationship with his teacher shapes his spiritual practice and is the cornerstone of The Bond with the Beloved.

The author declares that the disciple’s bond with the sheikh, master, or teacher is unique and has existed from the beginning of time. It has been “imprinted in the substance of the lover’s soul.” It is unlike the worldly loves that come and go because it “exists on the level of the soul and it can never be broken.” Herein lies the peace and certainty that we long for; this union is forever.

The author believes that this individual bond between the disciple and the sheikh reflects the universal desire of the Creator to love and to be loved by his creation. The lover’s responsibility is to become an empty space, empty of self or ego, to be filled with the Creator himself. The disciple’s impetus to do so is love for the Beloved, solely for the sake of that love. The power of this love is the only force great enough to overcome the grip of the ego and our attachment to our individual selves. Then “the grip of the ego is shattered by the need of the heart.” The author explains,

We cannot turn away from the world unless we turn towards God. We can only free ourselves from the desires that imprison us in this world through the greater desire that we have for God. We escape from the gravitational pull of the earth by consciously aligning ourselves with the greater gravitational pull of the sun of suns.

In this process of letting go, he says, we may suffer a sense of desolation and loss, and of grief for losing our individual selves. This turning away from the world and from our attachment to it “evokes an intense struggle as the ego and the mind hold onto the known values and structures of the outer world, resisting the pull of the heart and its deep desire for the formless inner world.” This struggle is “a process that is repeated many times over as the ego gradually loses its hold. Slowly we die to the world and each death is painful.” This pain then carves out a space for our joy. As “the ego holds our attention less, there is more space for the Beloved.” He describes his own experience:

Each time after a period of darkness it always amazed me how He gave more than I could ever imagine. Each time it becomes somehow easier because we consciously come to know the value of our sacrifice – we know that we suffer in order to come closer to Him…. Then He lifts a veil and gives us a glimpse of our real Self and of the infinite tenderness He has for His lovers.

Slowly we develop under his loving care; slowly we turn from separation to union; slowly we comprehend the gift that he is giving to us. The struggle for the survival of the ego is replaced by our longing for him and by the conscious recognition of who he is and who we are in him.

We do not reject the world; rather it falls away and we begin to rest in God…. Gradually the Beloved does more and more and we learn to co-operate. We learn to give space to the Beloved and allow Him to live through us. It is from this relationship of love that the [true] Self is conceived and then born.

Sufis describe this release of ego as entering into nothingness. This nothingness is not a void but an experience of true love, the love that arises from knowing the true self, the self that could never be comprehended or accessed by the mind.

And one of the mysteries of the path is that this Emptiness, this Nothingness, loves you. It loves you with such intimacy and tenderness and infinite understanding. It loves you from the very inside of your heart, from the core of your own being. It is not separate from you.

In this nothingness there is no sense of loss of self; we lose nothing for we have gained him. The drop has found the ocean; it abides now in the fullness of its own nature and is complete.

How does all this happen? The author explains that it is by giving him our attention, turning to him. “The inner attention of the lover is the one thing needful…. In all their outer work the attention of his lovers is inward, their hearts are turned towards the Beloved.” This giving of our attention is made possible through the process of dhikr or remembrance, “when every cell of the body endlessly repeats … His name.” This “meditation of the heart” is

not metaphoric, but a literal happening…. Working in the unconscious the dhikr alters our mental, psychological, and physical bodies…. Through continually repeating His name we alter the grooves of our mental conditioning…. The dhikr gradually replaces these old grooves with the single groove of His name. The automatic thinking process is redirected towards Him. Like a computer we are reprogrammed for God.

Our relationship with our teacher or master makes this possible.

The dhikr is magnetized by the teacher so that it inwardly aligns the wayfarer with the path and the goal. It is for this reason that the dhikr needs to be given by a teacher…. The vibrations of the word resonate with that which it names, linking the two together. Thus, it is able to directly connect the individual with that which it names.

As this practice becomes an integral part of our being, as our consciousness begins to “reverberate at a higher frequency,” it becomes automatic and continual. Then one of its greatest gifts is given: “At the moment of death, with your very last breath you will call out His name…. If your final thought is Allah, His name will take you to Him.”

As we move forward on this journey of God-realization we realize that union is the reality and that separation is the illusion. We understand that we were never apart from each other; there is now and has always been only him. Vaughan-Lee concludes, “In crying out to Him we share in the mystery of His creation, which is that He who was One and Alone wanted to be loved, and so He created the world.” Love created love and then called to love to return. We come to know that our longing is nothing but his call to us. As Rumi says, “Thy calling ‘Allah!’ was my ‘Here I am.’”