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calls attention to the meaning of hope in man’s journey of actualising the
self as a personality (that is, in his metaphysical journey) as well as in his
journey of actualising the self in the physical world as an entity “in the
state”. Hope is the tie holding between the Absolute Being and us. This em-
phasis is apparent in his work Homo Viator. Man, as an entity of becoming,
is a traveller passing from one state into another. He is a “homo viator”. Ho-
mo viator avoids estrangement from the self in this “broken world” which
has lost its ontological meaning with hope, and this hope is the cause of his
setting out on the road. Indeed, the hope itself is almost the realization of the
integration or the “participation” in this journey aiming direct integration
with the Absolute Being. Man is an existence facing towards the other with
hope and is available for the other with hope.
According to Marcel, a way of participating in the entity is engage-
ment with love, hope and loyalty. The one to be engaged is the Absolute
Thou. In Islamic mysticism too, we face towards “Him” and are committed
to “Him” by means of “thou”- with hope, trust and as a matter of fact, love.
Marcel says that he comprehends the thou entity directly, with no me-
diators. This is one of the probable definitions to be made for love. Love is
comprehending the other without mediators. When the love for the Absolute
Being is in question here, the thou entity is an entity of love in which I com-
prehend “Him” without mediators, rather than being a mediator.
On the basis of Marcelian metaphysics, a mysterious relation holds
between the existing man and the Absolute Being. We can learn about the
Absolute Being because the journey is towards absoluteness, it originates
from absoluteness, it is together with absoluteness, and more importantly, it
is a reflection of absoluteness. For man, the Absolute Being is not just an
entity standing there. Absolute Being is rather an entity for which I feel an
ontological need, and which I need to make the journey towards so as to ac-
tualise myself. Indeed, He summons man to this road. Therefore, responding
to the summon means setting off the journey; it is an attempt at participating
a Being and it may only be fulfilled with hope and by adhering to it with
confidence. The metaphysical value of man’s experience, or his journey, lies
here.
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Marcel maintains that the road is just like paths leading man to a far
away country which has never been discovered so far. The term “path” here
is an expression connected with the desire to attain a goal. It is for emphasi-
sing the fact that it is not random but myterious and challenging. It may be
said that heading for the place to be reached- or setting out the journey- is
the first act in self-realization. Here facing towards is facing towards the ot-
her, the thou entity. It is towards the Absolute Thou, and man’s facing to-
wards is, in fact, the consequence of the summon made by the Absolute
Thou. To state in Islamic mysticism terms, it is addressing to man. Thus,
walking on this road means moving in the direction of the addressing, or
responding to the call. Man finds his meaning in the response he gives to the
summon. In other words, the road on which he walks is his meaning.
In Islamic mysticism, “thou” is the one that sheds light on my road,
the one that accompanies me on the road, and it is almost the road itself. The
road is “thou”. Walking is finding the self in “thou”, finding “thou” in the
self. The road can only be pursued with love, because it is due to love, with
love and towards love. The number of roads is as many as the number of
travellers. Furthermore it is as many as the number of breaths in Islamic
mysticism. The roads leading to God are as many as the number of respirati-
on made by all the creatures, but it is said in Islamic mysticism that thou s-
hould be in the heart of the perfected man. As a matter of fact, the truest
path leading to God is the perfected man’s heart because everything meets
God there. No road is any worse or any better than another road since all of
them lead to the same place. Everyone follows his own road. Yet, the only
thing common to all is that the guide to illuminate the road is another per-
son. Co-existence with another person here finds its metaphysical meaning.
The road is referred to alongside the guide (we call it “mentor”) in Islamic
mysticism; and thus the mentor is the road and the disciple is the traveller.
Marcel’s emphasis that “I” cannot travel on that road with no accompani-
ment by “thou” makes us set up this connection readily. The road reaching
God passes through another person’s heart , or rather that heart is the road
itself; or the road is the heart. The reason for this is that there is a road lea-
ding to God in each person’s heart. Hence, the journey means travelling in
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that heart. The road is the heart, and the traveller is the man. Entering into
the the heart of a perfect man in particular is essential, but entering into the
heart means having taken that road.
Even though road and journey associate with the idea of time and spa-
ce, Marcel abolishes the idea that our companion should be at the same time
and place. What is essential is the “thou” which is available for me. There-
fore, the main interlocutor in the journey is the Absolute Thou, because it is
the owner of an unchanging call.
If read from the perspective of Islamic mysticism, all “thou”s are
mediators for the Absolute Thou calling man to Himself.
The “other” is the possibility of being “myself”. I co-exist with the ot-
her. This is the condition for my existence. I can establish a mutual facing
and calling relation with it. Such a relation makes me “identical” with “the
other”. For this, it is necessary to recognize the transcendental meaning fo-
und in “me” and “the other”.
To state in terms of Islamic mysticism, it could be said that man re-
cognizes himself as an insufficiency in himself. This recognition is, indeed,
a search for an interlocutor, or a “thou”. Just as God transcendes himself
with a state which we call mercy and recognizes the self in the non-self,
man also recognizes himself as the fundamental insufficiency which is not
himself. Man wishes to make up the insufficiency, which he realises ontolo-
gically. The required complementary is the “thou” entity. Therefore, the per-
fect man is an existence of love who can find the meaning of his transcen-
dence in another person. Once the “I” finds the meaning of the self in
“thou”, the “thou” will find the meaning in “I”. At this point, both of them
co-exist; now this is a state which transcends both the “I” and the “thou”
and which embraces both of them. Such an interrelation between me’s -
which we also call the “me” and “me” tie- is a doctrine of all encompassing
existence. To make the “I” and “thou” unified takes “man” to “unity”, that
is, “Absolute Unity”. To unify “I” and “thou” is, however, possible to unify
them in the transcendent meaning of the term.
In Marcel’s view, humanbeings participate in the world by perceiving
the objects classifying them as “it is mine” or “it is not mine”, or by perce-
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