And yet I must go further: Imam Khomeini broke into my heart and my brain with a current of emotion that I can only describe as extreme positivity, what I prefer to call 'love'. Yes, despite his call for Islamic executions (and in his very speech that day he called for a pardoning of thousands of prisoners who were amenable to change of allegiance), his unwavering stemness of mien, his invulnerability to individual feeling, he was charged with a love that actually seemed to purify my heart, to fill it with a bliss that I had not known before. Even while he just sat there - before he spoke, while one of the mullahs gave the predictable tirade against the superpowers, the predictable paean to Islam - I found myself gazing upon his face (and the light that surrounded him) and at the same time being filled up with that energy that I associated with the most vital kind of creativity and power. He was a generator of the energy and feeling that overwhelms the heart and cleanses the - if I may say it - soul. I had wanted to retain my disinterestedness, my critical detachment when seeing the Imam. I had known myself to be not capable of being dominated by another human being; I had taken a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing that my inner integrity could not be disturbed by some experience outside of myself. Yet here I was losing the boundaries of my own individuality here I was discovering feelings and refined sensations that had been unknown to me. Here I was being filled up by a mad Muslim holy man, the individual who was thought least likely perhaps in the whole world to be capable of conferring upon a Western journalist the sense of divine happiness, divine clarity of awareness. But this was my experience; Imam Khomeini was experienced to be that singular reality which could expand my consciousness, purify my heart, clarify my brain, and leave in his wake the sense of an undiminishable grace, a grace that somewhere I still carry with me, however overshadowed it might be by present preoccupations.
Feeling the energy of Behesht-e-Zahra Cemetery had drawn out pure emotion from me; here in the presence of the fierce embodiment of militant Islam I had reached the flowering of my own individuality, the vision of bright integrity that reached up towards heaven itself. There were no metaphors for the sense of reality that swept over me, and it can only be carved in the memory of the universe that what I saw that day, what I experienced in my heart - the meaning that articulated itself spontaneously and irrevocably in my soul - was the single most important fact of this revolution, but more still, the single most important fact about existence itself. A human being could after all achieve a greatness that proclaimed contact with a Creator. Imam Ruhullah Al-Musavi Al-Khomeini might be declared insane, a monster, a killer, an enemy of freedom and light; he was nevertheless a supreme testimony to the power of man to achieve a perfect integrity, and within that integrity, the most awesome kind of personal beauty and grace. Since [Imam] Khomeini was indeed a man of God, since [Imam] Khomeini did embody the truth of Islam, since indeed [Imam] Khomeini deserved to be loved with Shi'a martyrdom passion, it behooved us on the outside to try to understand this revolution and to see why it might be possible that God would visit such a reality upon us. The reality I have described here is the reality that is at the very center of the future of the Middle East. I believe that until someone can recognize the truth of what I have written here, he or she cannot comprehend the design of destiny, nor the forces that now shape the events of the Middle East. The face of Jerry Falwell in comparison to the face of Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini is for me the difference between the pudgy Bible salesman and John the Baptist.
Of course since there is no consensus about the nature of God, or in fact whether He even exists, therefore there is little chance that there can be any sort of significant agreement about whether He is found manifesting in the consciousness of a human being, the one creature in this world whose nervous system would seem capable (because of its self-conscious reflectivity) of conveying or embodying the finest expression of intelligence. If God is anything He is Intelligence. The accounts of Christian mystics, the saints of the East, and of course the Sufis (not to mention the prophets) make it quite clear what the evidence of a God-shaken, God-possessed human being is: the actions of such an individual are taken over by an intelligence that seems to be computing the activities of the larger world; the specific and localized ego of such an individual no longer determines or controls the actions which flow from his or her individuality. That individuality has been universalized and the physical, mental, and emotional character of such an individual must necessarily reflect the universal reality now embodied in his or her consciousness. Did Imam Khomeini fit this description, these criteria?
So much did he conform to these standards that even if one did not have any religious frame of reference, or any kind of touchstone for the mystical, the transcendental, one would still witness a torrential energy, an unshakable stillness, and an indefatigable love and compassion. Yes there was the austere, unrelenting point of concentration in his countenance, but even if ignorant of its cause, one still sensed the oughtness of this expression: i.e. its configuration, its character was being determined by Necessity. True, if one has achieved a state of equilibrium with the Divine such that one's resistance to the force of God's intelligence no longer exists (the false ego has been annihilated) then the method through which such a state has been achieved will be reflected in the face, in the personality of the individual. Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini's march towards the realization of his own unbounded nature the awakening of himself to pure consciousness, to the Absolute, had not been through effortless pleasure, through some simple and natural technique of transcendence; no, it had been achieved through the most indomitable, titanic will, through the most exacting and unswerving devotion to the rules and ceremonies of Islam. One experienced, in looking up at him, how [Imam] Khomeini had as if from the first breath he drew as an infant, been one-pointedly living his life for the highest purpose and within the most universal tradition. Like the famous saints of India, he
had, right from the beginning, sought enlightenment giving up all the idle pleasures of youth to concentrate his intention upon the goal of all human life, the fully realized Self. His individuality was still there, and that individuality because of its conditional and contingent nature, could not be made of the Absolute however his individuality was now held inside that absolute, now had its purpose in serving that absolute, and my impression was that I had never seen such an uncompromising expression of the Absolute...
If [Imam] Khomeini, who is viewed as the exemplar of Islam, as the most realized of all Muslims living in the world, as the shadow of the Twelfth Imam, if such a person as he, has not reached that "absolute light" Where one is "effaced in God" how can we believe the Imam when he promises that Islam and the Prophets existed for this very goal?
The Imam may, for obvious reasons, draw people's attention away from the notion of his own successful inner jihad, but the very fact that he allows his portrait and his own reputation to stand as being the supreme expression of this revolution is a tacit admission that he has in fact achieved this state in which he, as a drop, has merged into the Absolute (Allah), the ocean. The clue to the sternness, the sense of implacable will and hardness in his face is the fact that the means to this goal have come about through a perpetual jihad, which is "inconceivable unless a person turns his back on his own desires and the world." [Imam] Khomeini has defined "the world" in the context of this analysis as "the aggregate of man's aspirations that effectively constitute his world, not the external world of nature with the sun and the moon, which are manifestations of God. It is the world in this narrow, individual sense that prevents man from drawing near to the realm of sanctity and perfection.
We agree that coming close to and eventually reaching God must be, if there is such a thing as God, the highest pursuit of man, since this logically is what God seeks for man, this logically, because it ends in deathlessness and bliss, is what man seeks for himself. [Imam] Khomeini in one of his speeches relates a tradition of the Prophet:
When anyone leaves his home, migrating to God and His Messenger, and then overtaken by death, it is incumbent on God to reward him.
However, it is obvious that in order to reach this goal much has to be sacrificed. The goal is the completion of man for the source of "all true knowledge" dwells there, and "objective reality belongs exclusively to that light"; "our origin is that light." God, it would seem, rewards us with the summit of His love only if we prove we are willing to forego so many of the experiences that He has made available to man on this earth. And this is the source of an earlier denunciation of [Imam] Khomeini's puritanism as "a joyless and morbid devotion to a God who demands constant sacrifice." [Imam] Khomeini has interpreted the will of God through the Qur'an, through the principles of justice of the Prophet and the Imams; there is no suggestion that one could achieve the climax of Being through some path or system of devotion that did not demand "constant sacrifice." Now whether it is true that God ultimately has created this universe solely to have man transcend it, and much of man's earthly pleasures to ensnare him, to tempt him into sin, is a question presumably only answerable by God. In my own intuition about this matter I believe there may be ways towards God (the Absolute, the Divine Essence), which may be more compatible with the desires of man, which may not demand such control and discipline. One thing is obvious, however: Imam Ruhullah Al-Musavi Al-Khomeini has achieved his goal, since although he still strived for the perfecting of his own country and the establishment of the primacy of Islam throughout the Middle East (and of course the world) he was entirely detached from all inner anxiety, inner turmoil, inner strife. The profound discipline and austerity of his whole life might reflect itself in the adamantine features of his character and even his face, but the magnificence of the fullness that had overtaken his whole being left no doubt about the reward, nor the reality that now was his. From this writer's perspective Imam Khomeini radiated everything promised in the scriptures of Islam, and that which he radiated was what was absolute in this universe. It was the source of the universe-biased as I have said, through the idiom of Islam-that directed the course of the revolution; it was the source of the universe that determined the adoration of the people; it was the source of the universe that directed the resurgence of Islam. However much we in the West might decry [Imam] Khomeini, however much [Imam] Khomeini's countrymen - many in exile - might condemn, and attempt to destroy this revolution, and however much even persons such as Ebrahim Yazdi might issue their very qualified approval of what was happening in Iran, the primary impulse was being directed by something absolute, as that Absolute passed through the person and consciousness of Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini. All his writings, his speeches, and now this performance (as I said, one didn't even have to listen to the content of this present talk) pointed towards the confluence of the successful outer jihad and the successful inner jihad. Imam Khomeini was the embodiment of that fusion (the establishment of an Islamic Republic, the conquering of external enemies, the victory of Islam in other parts of the world-and the establishment of that inner condition of integration and union which was the victory of the higher self over the lower self, and the mergence of the individuality into God); this revolution was the enactment of that fusion. To doubt [Imam] Khomeini's state of consciousness, or his understanding of and devotion to Islam was to entirely miss the essence of this revolution and the future of Islam in the Middle East. I, who could not surrender my own intuition of the more cooperative, intrinsically supporting nature of the universe towards the completion and fulfillment of itself within the microcosm of man (and thus the final and essential justification for the primary impulse of Western civilization with its emphasis on and over-glorification of the individual and the uniqueness of the personality), could not become a Muslim, could not join in the sweeping, bitter castigations of Western values and metaphysics, and could not even recommend that all of humanity submit to the rigors of Islam. Nevertheless I had to admit that the figure of the man before me in this hall was the figure of a man who enjoyed the total blessings of God, and because he had given up so much, because he had lived his life in absolute devotion to God, his stature seemed to participate in a glorious power, beauty, and dignity that I knew might quite well be denied the individual who achieved - if this were indeed possible - the same goal through means not as demanding and austere. I knew that [Imam] Khomeini was confronting all the evil in the world, and through Islam something was taking place that would forever alter the direction of the script: Imam Khomeini was the counterpoint to brutal secularism, indulgent hedonism, and obsessive egoism, traits that dominated the West. Whether one believed in Islam, however, or whether one agreed with Imam Khomeini's revolution or its policies, or whether one indeed even believed in God, one would have been impervious and crude indeed if one were unable to receive some of the overflowing love, strength, purity, and grace that was the very essence of the man of eighty-one years who began now to speak to us effortlessly, without the slightest harshness of voice, with an almost melodic tone, with all the stillness and vibrancy of the universe itself breathing itself through his being. All the paradoxes I have described were there: the harshness, the serenity; the austerity of expression, the richness of compassion; the absolute rigidity of will yet an apparent infinite flexibility of suggested power; total concentration yet complete detachment. It grieved me to know that this secret - recognizing the nearness to or distance from God of another human being - was denied to virtually all politicians of the world, not to mention the Western media. I was either hopelessly insane - or so were all the mystics, saints, sages, and prophets - for the experience here overwhelmingly declared the supreme integrity of life, of man, and of Imam Khomeini. Naturally it was also part of God's design to enable man to reject the more extravagant aspects of my description of [Imam] Khomeini, to even come to the conclusion that I had come under the influence of something evil (as the Nazis did under Hitler, or as the followers at Jonestown did under Reverend James Jones); however my own confidence in the organized, teleological tendencies of life to acquaint me with the design of what is true, or congruent with Plato's idea of The Good, emphatically declared the spectacle that I had witnessed this day was a spectacle of holiness and truth of the very highest order. And as [Imam] Khomeini spoke I simply listened to the rhythms, the sounds apart from the meaning of the words. There was not one point at which I experienced any diminution of the intensity of his consciousness, the fullness of his heart; his influence upon my own nervous system continued throughout the time that he was sitting on the stage, and throughout that time I felt that I had received the very highest gift that could be conferred upon me, given my own particular development as a human being. Many a reader will wince at this account and may well dismiss this book, since it is clear that I have lost all my objectivity, an objectivity that was more intact up until the meeting with [Imam] Khomeini. But for me, the analysis I have given of my experience is the most objective and objectifying part of this book. The final subjective experience: the encounter with what is absolute-this, and only this can give to the realm of subjectivity its objective reality. I would never become a Muslim; I would never consider all Western culture, philosophy, art, and values to be antithetical to life-as these Muslims did. I would even find myself unable to adopt the stance of hostility towards everything non-Islamic in the world. But I would forever honor Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini as an absolutely pure and remarkable human being, a human being who exalted the vision of man's worth and man's destiny, a human being who demonstrated the glory of God as He manifested through the tradition of Islam. And this was the most important message that was given to my soul in Iran: Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini is hated, reviled, ridiculed in the West; it was much like the Pharisees persecuting Jesus, mocking his words. Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini would survive this constant execration, and his Islamic Revolution, whether it spread to other countries or not, would be triumphant. Those unable or unwilling to weep the design of fate in line - with its uncompromising allegiance to pure Islam - would have to suffer either in exile, if one were an Iranian, or in the West, if one were opposed to mythological absolutism. One thinks of Moses, Muhammad [S.A.W.], Christ, Buddha, or Confucius: would any of these beings compromise with the forces of secularism or materialist atheism? It was just not part of the mythic response to deny the supremacy of that religious structure, and the obedience to that structure was the only absolute. How would Henry Kissinger fathom the author of the Sermon on the Mount or the author of the Bhagavad-Gita? Kissinger was perhaps the exemplar of the tradition of demystification, the tradition of statecraft built upon Realpolitik; such a demythologizing of the cosmos and the realm of political affairs was what had invited the rebirth of myth, the rebirth of scriptural, transcendental politics. The Islamic Revolution in Iran under the leadership of Ayatollah [Imam] Khomeini announced to the world that God still liked the myths He had sent down to man in order that man might know his origin and his final destination. I was a witness to this fact on Wednesday, February 9, 1982.
