The Mood of No Mood

In the writings of the Persian mystic, Suhrawardi (ca. 1153-1191), we encounter the “Eighth Climate”; he also calls it Na-koja-Abad, translated as “land of No-where” (link). The word utopia is equivalent, taken from the Greek for “no place,” but Suhrawardi refers to the regions on the other side of the border, thus what we often refer to as the Beyond. Antiquity counted seven climates on the earth; hence, similarly, Suhrawardi’s Eighth Climate refers to one beyond those found in this dimension.

Got to thinking this morning that the first step in reaching that Land of No-Where while still in the prison of this dimension is by cultivating the mood of no mood. It comes when we make an effort to achieve a contemplative state. That state, simply put, is one in which we stop identifying with all that we hear and see and become clearly self-aware. It differs from the ordinary state in which we live, call it our habit mood. That last is not a bad state, by and large. We’re there, we’re aware, we’re acting—but the object of our awareness is out there, in the world. The best way to experience the mood of no mood is when we happen to be in a dark or somber state. Then the effort, in practice reachable by meditation, say, or writing a diary entry in which the focus is our own state of mind, produces an interesting result. In a short while the dark mood recedes, indeed it disappears. We find ourselves in a state often labeled as detached. The world out there remains the same. The problems or conditions that plagued us are still there. But the self seems as if it now floats above the fray. We are temporarily out of this world—and the winds of the Na-koja-Abad can touch our face. We’ve just made an elementary move towards another climate. Frequently repeated, it becomes a journey.

Of interest here is that the practice of recollection, concentration, meditation has palpable results. And the Eighth Climate is not empty either. It is very real—more real than this dimension. Our deepest longings are to return there. Curiously, when in a state of contemplation, that longing is also absent. Is that because, although we are still blind to it, we are already there?