Thoughts on Hassan I Sabbah Quote

Nothing is sacred

Everything is permissible

Everything is sacred

Nothing is permissible

 The quote above is the famous words of the Ismailia Shiite assassin and Master of Alamut with which much has been writing and I am sure much more will in years to come. I have decided to address these words and tell you what they think to me in hopes that we may benefit from the mutual knowledge and experiences that are in public and not so public view.

 To many the above quote seems to be a contradiction how can you have everything and nothing at the same time. The famous quote is akin to the Gospel of Mary where she states that she is the virgin and the whore, death and life, and so on and so forth. What the Gospel of Mary is saying and Sabah is basically the same thing and it all depends on the view you wish to take.

It is unfortunate that many only quote the first two lines using it as an excuse to break the chains of morality to wreak havoc for the mere purpose of destruction while ignoring the second two lines or worse simply being ignorant of them.

 Nothing is Sacred, Everything is sacred these two lines are powerful because they are both equally true the entire earth, universe is both sacred and profane at the same time. Most people like to divide there perception so that a Christian will see Jerusalem as sacred but Mecca as profane and the Muslim will see the Mosque as a sacred space but the Church as an unsacred space. But in my view of the two Sabah was telling us to keep both views as one to see everything we encounter as both sacred and unsacred to look between the two opposing forces to find the very essence of the two now one. When one contemplates on the Unity of all things and makes it apart of their worldview they start the path of Gnostic illumination.

 To view everything has both sacred and unsacred is to also not get caught up in the rhetoric of the day to stay focused on what must be done. This is how the assassins could pledge their allegiance to the Old Man and other authorities yet rise up against those authorities because they were aligned not to the shell but to the hidden essence that many overlook. Your allegiance is to the force of all things that reside in all things yet outside and separate, as does a Gnostic who is surrounded by and part of the social construct while also being part of its destruction.

 Everything is permissible; nothing is permissible like the idea of sacred so the idea of what is off and on limits can bring an awakening to the mind. Everything is permissible for one who studies and absorbed them in the hidden world, the subconscious state of unlimited freedom while nothing is permissible is for those bound by religious and social constructs. Again, we are being told to know both to work with both meaning though we may not need the roles of order we at times must work with them for the betterment of those around us so we must become keen students on both what we see and what is hidden because the two are one and the same. When you see the hidden world and manifest world as one your mind awakens to possibilities yet unknown to those who hide in either the mystical or the manifest. In short, Sabah pushed his students into a complete Monolithic view where duality ceases to exist. This is Hermetic Gnosis at its finest because as most teach from a pole of positive and negative here in these simple four lines we have the original view of the very first humans as the scriptures say: “God brings the good and the evil” or “Bless us from the good you have created and protect us from the evil you have created” or “To save yourself you must die to self” these are concepts that most never want to accept that the source of everything is the same that Chaos is Order and Order is Chaos and we must be both.

 To be both is no easy task because being raised in a concept of either or the more of the Higher Self we become the less we need of the limitations and illusions of the physical world but we must remember that the physical world is also a place of learning and we must never forget to learn from the physical and see its connection to the invisible, the unseen by seeing them, as one you will constantly be learning both and growing deeper and deeper in the knowledge of eternal.

 If one is serious about knowing thyself then one must know there outer flaws and perfections as well as there inner flaws and perfections.

 The energy that flows through every atom of existence bringing life is the same energy that brings its death and continues for all eternity. We are that energy though we do not know it, we are the positive and negative forces of all creation we are the unseen, the seen, and the unseen again over and over whether we want to be or not this is how we are to come and know the Creator because the Creator gave us the keys to come and understand him first by outer forms then by learning the inner forms so that we may be the embodiment of all forms as he is the embodiment of all forms. This is probably why George Lucas in his Star Wars Mythos had the Grey Jedi (Rogue Jedi) the ones who embraced and walked the centered path of light and darkness because the truth is the center, grey is the center between the two vibrations.

 The simple quote of Sabah if meditated upon and incorporated into our being will be the key to unlock not the mysteries but the reality of all because a mystery is reality yet to be understood.


©2015 Abdul Batin Osman Bey