One of the questions that most obsesses spiritual seekers is the issue of how to realize what they wish to achieve. How to realize the person you wish to be, how to create a lifestyle that is characterized by states of love, prosperity and peace, how to materialize something that is still only an idea.
Renowned thinkers and authors such as Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Yogananda, and many, many others, have sketched out insightful ideas in this regard; however, it was within Sufism and Dervish cosmogony that I found the resonance I had been searching for. When we perceive ourselves as separate from the world, watching it pass by as if it were a cinematic projection, we miss the experience of dancing with it. The dervishes are known for their fabulous whirling dances in which they incorporate energy from the environment, while manifesting realities with this energetic raw material.
The first thing a dervish dancer does is to know the one who dances, that is, to know himself. As the Delphic oracle “Know thyself” invites, it is essential to identify the starting point of what you want to achieve. And the starting point of what I want to achieve can only be myself, therefore, I must begin by knowing myself: my limits, my sensations, my breaking points, and my truths without pretense. On this particular point, Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way suggests the observation of oneself, subsequent to the memory of oneself, what Siloism in Argentina calls “Self-consciousness”.
The dervish dancer, once he has centered his attention on himself, directs his inner gaze to the high, to the superior, to those omnipotent elements before which he inevitably has to surrender due to the recognition of his own inferiority and limitation. It is a kind of “asking for help” from the invisible. At this point, alchemists and esotericists of all times have recognized a void of specific knowledge, something like a Bermuda Triangle of available information because, really, no one knows what happens at that moment, much less how it happens. What is certain is that it does happen. In the theory of the three forces (active, passive and neutralizing) it is what is called “magic”, because it is the point where all the forces begin to work in unison for a certain objective.
Finally, he begins to dance. Neither as a pretext to release his bodily tensions nor as aesthetic training. The dervish dancer, from his own center and deeply connected with divinity, exercises his will as the only act possible for him. Thus, at each turn he creates a new reality. The interesting thing about this is that, when the will of a man centered in himself and surrendered to something superior, prevails, the elements that compose his reality meekly submit to its sovereignty.