Self-awareness is a foundation for mental well-being and meaning in life. From an Islamic perspective, it is also a spiritual path toward divine awareness that fosters tranquility, resilience, and emotional balance. This conceptual paper integrates contemporary psychological theories with Islamic spiritual values, drawing on the Qur’an, Hadith, and works of al-Ghazali. It proposes the Model of Divine Self-Awareness, which combines cognitive, emotional, moral, and spiritual dimensions across four stages: muhasabah (self-reflection), tazkiyah al nafs (self-regulation and purification), muraqabah (awareness of God’s presence), and ma‘rifatullah (divine awareness). The model suggests that Islamic self-awareness complements autonomy-oriented positive psychology by centering God as the orientation for well-being, meaning, and resilience, with implications for Islamic psychotherapy.
Trance in Javanese traditional dance is an artistic communication with the supernatural, rooted in local traditions, not a psychological anomaly. Using ethnographic methods and the Solah Ebrah model, the study documents and analyzes cultural behaviors during trance states in performance. It examines possession from psychological, Islamic, socio-cultural, and performative perspectives, broadening understanding of trance in dance and offering a reference for future studies.
This article argues that the paradoxical language used by mystics is not a verbal trick or a sign of language's failure to express mystical experience, but rather a faithful reflection of the experience itself, which is inherently paradoxical. It reviews competing theories—some claiming paradoxes are merely verbal, others that they result from linguistic inadequacy—and rejects the latter. The author concludes that mystical language is paradoxical because the experience it describes is paradoxical, and language can accurately mirror that experience. The final stage of mystical language is symbolic speech, identified with the experience of Shath, or meeting God in speech, which represents the highest union of mystical experience and paradoxical statement.