Ibn Arabi’s “The Universal Tree and the Four Birds” — A Spiritual Commentary
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For those who are not familiar with the name Ibn Arabi, he was a Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, who was extremely influential within Islamic thought during medieval times. He lived from 1165–1240. After he died, and specifically among practitioners of Sufism, he was renowned by the honorific title Shaykh al-Akbar, The Greatest Teacher and the Reviver of Religion. This, in turn, was the name from which the “Akbarian” school of Sufism derived its name, making him known as Doctor Maximus (The Greatest Teacher) in medieval Europe. Ibn ʿArabī is considered a saint by some scholars and Muslim communities.
Ibn ‘Arabi is known for being the first person in Sufi tradition to explicitly delineate the concept of “Unity of Being”, a nondual doctrine which claims that all things in the universe are manifestations of a singular “reality”. Ibn ‘Arabi equated this “reality” with the entity he described as “the Absolute Being.”
In this podcast, I will be sharing a Tree of Life spiritual commentary in honor of Ibn Arabi on his treatise, “The Universal Tree and the Four Birds.” One of Ibn Arabi’s earliest works, the poem begins with a description of The Universal Tree and proceeds with a description of four birds found within its branches: The Ringdove, The Royal Eagle, The Strange Anqa (for which there is no exact translation), and The Jet-Black Crow. Ibn Arabi himself gives us his interpretation of The Universal Tree and the Four Birds at the very end of the poem: “I have explained to you some of the stations of the sources of the creatures: the universal human being, the first intellect, the unique soul, prime matter, and universal body.” So let us dive in and explore the spiritual mysteries that lie within the text.
The poem begins with the description of a great Universal Tree, which is a metaphor for the universal human being:
“I have Spirit and Body.”
Notice that Ibn Arabi states that both the Spirit and the Body are equal parts to this Universal Tree. The nature of Reality is both form and formlessness. In layman’s terms, we can understand that the physical reality we perceive around us is One with the hidden, spiritual kingdom. The two are not separate, but One.
“My fruit is gathered with no hand touching it.”
The fruit of the Tree of Life comes through the spirit, from gnosis, which is knowledge received through the Spirit from the Universal source. This is how it is gathered with no hand touching it.
“My center is the desired goal.”
Reaching the center and merging with the Tree of Life is the desired goal of the Sufi aspirant, and indeed, of anyone practicing a nondual religion. Ibn Arabi is speaking of moksha, Enlightenment, the gnostic Salvation or Liberation. This is attaining union with God or Divine Consciousness. Merging with the Universal Tree of Being represents the perfect human who has received Enlightenment, and has become perfected and whole by receiving God’s spirit.
“Of times, mine is the instant.”
This is because God exists in the Now. All things are happening at once, and time is an illusion, so all knowledge is accessible once God’s Consciousness is received, future, past and present, because one sees that God exists outside of and beyond time, and this great Spirit lives eternally within the instant.
“My shade extends over those whom God envelops in his solicitude and my wings are spread over the people of sainthood.”
The Tree of Life shelters, clothes and protects the illumined soul: those who have attained Enlightenment or union with God. Those who have merged with the Divine Spirit of Life are forever sheltered by the Universal Tree. As they have become the universal human being, this person is One with the Tree of Life and all of creation, and has achieved the highest state of spiritual mastery by receiving Union with God’s Spirit, and the vision of God face to face. Sri Ramakrishna, Ibn Arabi himself, Jesus, Buddha, Abraham, St. Augustine of Hippo, Ancestor Li of Taosim and many others have received this vision of true Reality.
I would like to move now from our discussion of The Universal Tree, which is the universal human being, to our discussion of the next part of the poem: The Ringdove, which is a bird that can be found sitting on the branches of the Universal Tree. Ibn Arabi tells us the Ringdove symbolizes the First Intellect.
Here, the Ringdove has a conversation with the Eagle, which are symbolic of “the first intellect” and “the unique soul.” It is written: “As soon as [the eagle] had seen me, he fell in love with me. The beauty God had surrounded me with made him mad with love. Passion made him groan with pain: “I’m burning! I’m drowning!” He was like a nightingale, warbling his plaint, trying to heal his condition, but the burning only became more extensive and solace more impossible. I would not permit him to kiss me, although his cure was in lying with me and embracing me. The veils of doubt were raised, and from behind the pavilions of the Unseen someone called: “what is wrong with you that you don’t regard her lineaments and the performance of her song? Why have you not looked upon her qualities and the marvels of her wisdom?”
In this commentary, I propose that “the first intellect” is Love itself. And doesn’t this sound quite a bit like how we mistake spiritual love for earthly love? A man sees a woman and lusts for her, wants her as an object, without ever stopping to consider the wisdom of love, the beauty of love, the divine Power and Knowledge that is Love itself?
He called to me. “Here I am!” I responded. He commanded me to sit before him. He said; “I was so inflamed with ardor at your form that I overlooked the knowledge of your spiritual qualities. The divine order has come that you make yourself known to me and that a ray of your sunlight shine for me.”
And here Ibn Arabi reminisces about his own vision of the divine, this vision of Love that is Truth, and Purity that is Love, and how it ignites the soul with a devotion so raw and deep that the ends of the earth would be attained and relinquished just for this vision of the Divine. God’s power is Divine Love.
In Ibn Arabi’s Tree of Being, Ibn Arabi called the Ringdove “the first intellect.” The “first intellect” can be understood as spiritual Love or Purity. The Ringdove declares, “I am the essence in the entities. I have nothing but dualities. They call me ‘oh Second!’ — but I am not second. Everything in creation ends up at my existence.”
As the Universal Tree of Being is all encompassing Unity, it transcends the realm of duality. But as we fall away from this unity into the material world of Creation, we see a splitting off of God’s attributes, like pure light shining through a prism. Love is the first intellect, that which reflects upon itself, and can be known as Truth or Purity. The Ringdove represents Divine Love or Purity, as the two can be considered one and the same, for Divine Love is that which is the most pure essence of God. When the first intellect is realized, that which connects us to the Divine is understood to be Love. And the vision of this spiritual purity and beauty imbues the heart with deep devotion to God.
As divine Love, the Ringdove “befriends every friend and repels all the wretched. When Love swoops down low, it is with the spirit of diffusing” or giving peace. “And when Love rises high above, bodily constitutions dissolve.” Meaning, when the spirit rises into the divine Truth that is Love, all bodily attachments and awareness dissolve as we become United within God’s absolute essence. Once this divine Love and Unity is realized, “The [eagle] recovered from his malady and found rest in a desire to answer the divine call.” But first must come the vision of God and the realization of unity, merging with the Universal Tree and that Reality of Love.
The second bird discussed on the branches of the Tree is the Eagle.
Ibn Arabi tells us the eagle is a symbol for “the unique soul.” This takes us one step further into the dual reality of Creation, beyond the Tree of Being. The eagle is the symbol of Righteousness embodied by the Divine Servant or the Messenger. As stated, “I carry out everything according to its determined rank on this world’s shores, but my power is more inaccessible. I am his sublime effusion, the light of his existence. I am he who summons existence and it obeys. I am the one who never ceases to be the handful of my Creator, the instrument of his open-handedness. The realities hurry toward me to seek their feel. I give to and withhold from whoever I wish.” This describes the state of the Divine Messenger, the “unique soul” who embarks into the manifested world after the vision of Divine Love is attained. This soul is One with his Creator or One with God, and his purpose is to carry out Divine work. It is the active fire of serving; the passion of the Self when fully realized.
The Eagle continues to say, “I am the knowledge of creation concealed in the cloak of the Divine inviolability. A band of philosophers invented lies about me and a gang of noblemen tried to capture me. They set up a Fowler’s net of their thoughts to hunt me and used against me the very means that I myself had provided them with in order to gain from my toil. And when their spiritual aspirations were sufficient to grasp me in their Fowler’s net of thought, there fell into it an eagle with my form from the country of illusion. They said, “This is the clear truth!” Would that they knew the Truth is not clear to them and never will be. Knowledge of me and my existence depends upon what is granted as a gift or recompensed for merit.”
This is the knowledge of the prophet that is gifted by God when he is seen face-to-face. In the Discourse of the Royal Eagle, Ibn Arabi casts shade upon learned men who, though knowledgeable about various discourses in philosophy, hold no principle or virtue or righteousness within them, which is the embodiment of the knowledge of God and gnosis. One might go as far as to say that Ibn Arabi is calling out the various con artists and spiritualists who read a few lines of the truth and then claim to know. The eagle itself is righteousness, for only righteous souls may carry the message and do God’s work.
“He illuminated my existence with his knowledge and entrusted me with poverty and weakness, turning me away from might and glory. I am the humble one who has no glory and the powerful one who does not cease to be weak.” As any servant of God will say, it is not I but God who works through me. This state is grounded in humility and realization of our own non-existence before the might of God’s power. All that we are, He IS. All that we do, He DOES. We must have poverty of spirit in order for God’s spirit to dwell within us and to give us strength in the Lord. We must turn away from worldly things. Therefore, the life of the eagle is to remain humble and rely upon the wind of God to carry it, the knowledge of God to lead it, and a heart of righteousness to know where to strike. Ibn Arabi may call this the fully realized soul, but it can also be known as the Prophet or the messenger.
Next we have the “Discourse of the strange Anqa.” Ibn Arabi calls this “prime matter.” The Anqa is an unknowable bird that doesn’t have a translation. It’s been suggested by scholars that this bird is the Phoenix, but I disagree. Based on cues within the text, I believe this strange, unknowable Anqa is a symbol for silence or emptiness. “It is that I am the one who bestows gnosis to the innermost beings. Our straight path stretches on, and the wayfarers are each at the levels of their light: the greatest one is he whose light is sheer detachment.” The strange Anqa is named by Ibn Arabi as “prime matter.” If we consider some nondual teachings in other traditions outside of Sufism, such as Buddhism, the true nature of the manifested world is emptiness. Therefore the true nature of prime matter is, in fact, emptiness. And so we ourselves must be completely empty and detached from the world in order to merge ourselves into the the essential One, to receive gnosis and the Light of Knowledge that is given through the Spirit.
“I am the reality that has no character, because of the vastness that I have.” Emptiness is without limitations, attributes, borders or qualities.
“I clothe every condition with either happiness or misery. I am capable of bearing any form. I have no rank in any known form.” Perceived through the lens of the “emptiness” and detachment, we become impartial to worldly happiness and misery. Because the true nature of existence is without quality, it can bear any form, it has no rank, it has no hierarchy yet pervades all. It is in the mystery of silence and utter stillness that we find Union through the heart and know God’s presence. Through silence and stillness arises Life itself.
This concept of “Ma” in Japanese is very similar. It roughly translates into “negative space.” More poetically explained, Ma is the time and space life needs to breathe, to feel and connect. If we have no time, if our space is restricted, we cannot grow. In Ibn Arabi’s writings, the Anqa describes itself as: “I do not receive the unqualified light, for it is my contrary. I am unacquainted with knowledge, for I cannot produce or reproduce. . . but I have received the gift of transmitting the sciences although I am no knower, and of bestowing determinations although I am no judge.” The prime matter of existence has no attribute, no biases, no qualities, and yet, it IS. And by being, encompasses all. This universal principle applies to every aspect of life. So the strange Anqa is similar to this idea of negative space, or the pause of a breath. It is the inner stillness, the emptiness beyond attribute or definition, that resides within our heart of hearts. This emptiness of trait or condition is at the root of our spiritual being. It has no ranking, and it can bear any form, for it is limitless and contains all potentials.
Finally, the final “Discourse of the Jet-Black Crow” is described as the universal body, not to be confused with the universal Tree, which we discussed earlier. The universal body is the natural world perceived by one’s eyes when unveiled by the vision of God’s spirit. Ibn Arabi calls it the universal body, and it is the material aspect of the universe that we are most familiar with, and that we dwell within and perceive through our physical eyes. Yet when we have received gnosis and seen the spirit of God, God’s attributes are seen through nature like water gushing out of a fountain, manifesting themselves from the bonding of electrons to the smallest colony of ants to the greatest dance of stars in the cosmos. But first that Unity and supreme love must be perceived through the heart and illuminated by the Divine eyes in order to be understood in the manifested world.
As the Black Crow tells us, “I am, with respect to my Lord, a wisdom for one who sees me, for I am the secret whose nature was fashioned without fingertips. My Creator ordered everything within himself when he constructed me, for I am a rock, and from me the spiritual meanings flash.” So this is referring to God’s divine attributes as manifested through the universal body. After the vision of God is attained, nature becomes like an open book, and by simply observing the natural world, deeper intuitive meanings and visions flash before us, that reveal the inner spiritual workings of this hidden kingdom in which we live.
The Jet-Black crow goes on to say, “I’m the one who answered my Lord obediently when he summoned me.” The universal body or Universe or Creation answered when God said “BE.” This is when the physical world manifested.
The Black Crow continues, “He who, because of time’s inconsistent fortune, sees my existence like the heart of Moses’s mother, empty of spiritual meanings, is completely void of the verities of explanation.” There was a time that Moses’s mother had much doubt in God, although she was a woman of faith. But the Angels came and taught her and fortified her spirit. This stanza refers to her time of spiritual aridity, when her thoughts were sown with doubt.
So one who looks upon nature with spiritual dryness, and sees only disjointed separation, who sees nature as devoid of spirit, cannot fathom God’s secrets or God’s knowledge. But he who looks upon nature and sees the hidden reality of God knows the universal body and dwells within it, as he is One with it. And by focusing only on the inconsistencies of time’s fortunes, seeing only undulating waves of suffering in the natural world, we will not see God’s immense truth buried within Creation.
This concludes my commentary on Ibn Arabi’s “The Universal Tree and the Four Birds.” I thank Angela Jaffray for her beautiful translation of this poem. I hope the discussion and insights of this podcast have been Enlightening and thought provoking to you.
