Category Archives: Sufism

Psychology, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The Four Klesas

Leave a comment

The Four Klesas and the Four Responses

The Buddhists have a lot of interesting classifications for states of mind. Most of them are completely consistent with Sufi Islamic principles and in some sense provide a unique and clear formulation that is “actionable” on the spiritual path. One of these formulations is  the 5 klesas.

The 5 klesas (obstacles to Enlightenment) are Attachment/desire, Aversion, laziness,agitation and doubt.For the sake of clarity I have reduced the list to four.I consider both laziness and agitation to be a derivatives of the others-laziness being a product of doubt and desire and agitation being a derivative of fear and anger.I  have also divided Aversion into its two distinct components of Anger and Fear.

So we are left with 4 klesas that we need to struggle against-Desire; Anger/upsetness; Fear/worry and Doubt. So here are the responses we can use as we come up against these four states on a daily basis. This is a formula for serious and effective spiritual struggle that can be done by anyone serious about their path.

1-Desire:

Response: This thought is a lie, a trick of my mind .Even if I managed to obtain the object I am wishing for,I would still not get the ultimate satisfaction it is promising!

2- Anger (upsetness):

This too is from God and has a purpose. How could this have been worse?Allah will bring this matter to its proper conclusion!

3-Fear/worry:

Allah is aware of everything that is happening including this. Do your “due diligence”, follow your inspirations in managing it and trust in God.Tawakultu aleyhi wa hua rabbal Arsh al Atheem.(Trust in god and He is the Best of Managers)

4-Doubt:

There is no Doubt. God Exists, He is aware of everything ,He is Just and He will bring it all to the right conclusion.

So try it out and see how much you can shift your consciousness with this simple formula!

Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

 

 

3

Psychology, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The “work” trap

3 Comments

Notes on the Spiritual Process

Asalamu aleykum,brothers and sisters. . It is so easy to slip in this way! Once we are solidly set in our goals, we may well be free from major sins like zina and alcohol and drug addiction. However the four klesas of desire, anger, fear and doubt are never far away and we have to be vigilant! That is arguably the biggest part of our work!

However, there is another danger that may be greater than either of the two aforementioned ones! And that is “ghafflat” ((negligence, unawareness) and ironically that “ghafflat” may be about what is perfectly halal or even obligatory! Like doing our work or our studies or taking care of our family . Good works, no?! Yes, but only within proper limits.

When I reflect on North American society ,and this is probably true in all “developed “ countries, there is only one virtue left! All the classic ones of piety and modesty and humility and obedience have been put aside. And all that is left is hard work. An excess of that is called “workaholism” in modern psychology. But it is much more common than many people think. For now, my definition is “any productive activity that sucks up all your energy(which may include getting to work and recuperating from work and preparing for work) and leaves your energy tank empty for your relationship with your Creator. More than 100 years ago the sociologist Max Weber wrote about this subject in a famous book called “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”. However this problem now applies to all religions- not just Protestantism. In fact, because of the hegemony of the Anglophone culture first via Great Britain and now via the U.S.A. we could say we are all Protestants lol

So what do I propose here? We must certainly be vigilant. But I will go further and suggest a potential structural solution to this-in two parts. The first being basic Islam and the second being Sufi practices.

1) We have the salat five times daily. However, I would like to reframe this practice -less about obligation and more about opportunity-the opportunity to take a break from work and refocus on our relationship with our Creator (the spiritual project!). Forget about everything else-your worries, your deadlines, your finances) and at five points during the day commune with your Creator. And watch the effects!

2) Dhikr (Sufi practice).Set aside two time periods  in  24 hours  to do your dhikr practices. One of them  should be tahhajjud time and the other a time of your choosing. Some of the Sufis have suggested the time between Asr and Maghrib but that might not work for your schedule. So it could be in the evening-if you have the energy(remember we need to be honest with ourselves as well!).Or after your siesta in the early afternoon. Whatever works for you. The time interval could be anything from one-half hour(least amount to get benefit) to one and a half-half  hours(a total of 3 hours as recommended by the Tijani people and Kundalini Yoga alike).See what you can manage .Build this two-faceted structure into your daily schedule and commit to it -as you commit to your work deadlinesJust don’t slip into ghafflat because your ‘hal’ will definitely suffer for it.

Salaams, keepimg you AND me on our toes lol. Sufi Ibrahim

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The Greeks, Oy!

Leave a comment

Someone else*(first ever!) has understood the limitations and potential harm of the adoption of Greek Philosophy by the Muslims! Mashallah. There is hope in the Universe lol!
Aanand Krishnan posts:
·
Vedānta, and the Advaita kind in particular, is a fountain of wisdom and looks at reality from within and offers an alternative to the Greek way of philosophy, which focuses on the study of the external universe primarily.
Islamic metaphysics developed under the light of Greek Philosophy primarily due to historical factors. If Islam had conquered the lands to the east before turning westward, things might have been different.
There is no particular reason why an Islamic metaphysics guided by Vedānta could not be developed more fully. And I think it could provide an even more comprehensive system of metaphysics that is consistent with the Qur’ān and the Sunnah of the holy prophet.
He is after all not just al-Zāhir but also al-Bātin. The Greek system enabled Muslims to develop a metaphysics of external manifestation but layers about what lies inside of us perhaps haven’t been fully developed.

P.S. The author goes on to say that the Vedanata makes a distinction between pramata(what I call Epistemology!) and prameya(logical proof).Finally someone else is getting it!

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology, Sufism, Uncategorized

Lamentations of an Aspiring Spiritual Teacher

1 Comment

Towards the end of his life, Freud made the following statement concerning his discovery of psychoanalysis; “I believe I have discovered the third type of human activity that is both necessary and doomed to failure.The other two being raising children and governing nations” Lol. Well I may have uncovered the fourth- Being a spiritual teacher!

Now, classically, the métier of spiritual teacher was considerably simpler.The teacher spoke and instructed and the murid(student) listened and obeyed.” Listen and obey” That is the instruction both in the Quran and in most Sufi tariqats.But somehow things have changed.That model seems to be outdated.It is still being attempted in many spiritual circles but I myself and many others in modern times have found it unworkable.For example,when we discover the teacher has made a mistake,sometimes a serious one,do we just keep quiet?! Or, even worse, do we deny that it occurred as many murids do? What do we do about it? Unfortunately denial is a very commonplace reaction.

I had a very good friend whose teacher was doing wrong things( many actually haram) on many levels.The evidence was growing by the year and the documentation became overwhelming.But he wouldn’t leave! It got so bad,I eventually had to terminate the friendship as the level of “falsehood” had become unsustainable.This is not uncommon btw!The loyalty to corrupt spiritual teachers is unbelievable at times.and the justifications are as clever as they are disingenuous.

I would like to backtrack a moment to my personal experience here.I say often and I believe it that I would have almost no understanding of life and spirituality if it were not for some extraordinary beings I have met along the route.These extraordinary beings include my first Sufi teacher-Pir Vilayat Khan-my first Tibetan Buddhist teacher,Geshe Lama Gajan, my fist Muslim teacher Sheikh Muhammad Jumal, Sheikh Bawa Muhayideen, Sheikh Nazim al Qubrusi,S heikh Nuh and my current teacher Sheikh Abu Qassim of Erdeyf,Tunisia and many others along the way.I learnt so much more from these people than from my miserable 12 years of University education lol! I would be nowhere without them.

And yet….they were all imperfect.And it usually didn’t take me long to detect their faults and their limitations.However,we were absolutely forbidden, by context,to raise these issues.”Our teachers are perfect.We need to idealize them and obey them” That was the Gestalt of it. No ‘ifs’,’ and’s and ‘buts’ lol.

Eventually,I had to break away from this Absolutist approach to spiritual development.It was not an easy decision.Most of my Sufi colleagues would consider my position as heretical.But my entire path seemed to be leading me in that direction-developing a more comprehensive,all-inclusive model.My heart led me there and my Istikharas confirmed it over and over again.Little did I expect what happened next?!

Once I took on this new role ,I was confronted quickly with a dilemma that I had not expected.The opposition forces grew and grew.Like our blessed Prophet saws I confronted the opposition-as he sal  confronted the ways of the Qurayshi ancestprs!I began to regret the loss of the “Listen and obey plus idealization” approach! So much easier.Excludes all opposition by diktat.But it was not to be.  These were new types of ancestors however- the ancestors of the modern world! And two of these “modern ancestral opponents” stood out from the crowd.One was “transference” (courtesy the psychoanalysts) and one was social-conditioning( social brain-washing if you wish). Let us explore these two in a little more detail.

1-Tranference: Transference was a deep secret in the human unconscious that Freud and his fellow analysts discovered by doing therapy with psychologically troubled people.What they found ,to their surprise initially, was that no matter how neutral and relatively silent they were,the patient eventually reproduced their parental relationships in the consulting room.Then it became the analysts job to “interpret the transference” and that would ultimately be the most important tool for healing.Until they came across the borderlines but that is another story Lol.

As a spiritual teacher,one comes across the very same phenomenon,in a different context.The teacher is trying to transmit knowledge and understanding and practices and even love only to come across reactiveness and obstinacy and stonewalling! “What is he is thinking?! I am trying my best to transmit goodness and life  and I am getting “flack” instead?!” What is happening?” he asks And the answer is usually transference!

The transference can take several forms.If we are talking about a male teacher it will often involve a father transference.”My father is critical,so you are critical.My father is explosive so you are explosive.My father puts me down so you,the spiritual teachers are putting me down” The themes are endless.Occasionally a gender shift may be operative.For example if the mother was domineering and harsh or the micro-managing type, the transference can be a maternal one.

The other possibility, in the domain of the unconscious, comes from the school of “object relations” in psychoanalysis.They clearly identified the process of identification or parental internalization(the inner parental imago). So, in that case, the murid,instead of reacting to the parent becomes the parent.This often happens in marriage,unfortunately.But it can also happen within a teacher/student relationship!

In a classical Sheikh/Murid relationship this phenomenon is either hidden or short-circuited but in the newer model I am presenting it needs to be addressed.This makes the work a lot more difficult but on the other hand more complete and more satisfying.In other words, with this approach we are doing psychotherapy at the same time as spiritual work.Very satisfying for someone who has been advocating the bio-psycho-socio-spiritual approach(i.e a complete approach to human development) for decades!

2_ Social Conditioning: I realized quite quickly that there was another adversary in this process that was at least as formidable ,if not more so,than the transference.And that is social conditioning- the way we have been trained by our parents ,the society around us, and most notably our schools, to think.And that thinking involves at least three elements- Rationnality/Logic; Democratic values(what I call the Democratic Illusions); and Secularism. I am convinced there is much more to this story but let us start with those three;

a) Rationnality/Logic: From an early age, and certainly as soon as we start our formal education, we are trained to be Reasonable and Logical. I only really became aware of this bias when I did an EST training in San Francisco in the 70’s and the trainer at the front began unpacking “the stages of spiritual development“Reasonableness is the lowest level of spiritual development” he stated  i.e. just one notch above animality lol.And yet all around us we can see this emphasis-not only in our schools but in our businesses which are constantly calculating their self-interest and in our governments that are always looking at “the data”. You see gathering of the data and then analyzing it or “crunching it” as they say is one of the most basic aspects of our social processes and our decision -making .

So the Greek Philosophers and particularly Aristotle have found their way into our thinking-actually into our unconscious! And this internalization raises its hoary head as soon as you begin trying to teach people.One of the first manifestations of this is “the contradiction detectors”.They are on all the time in hyperactive,hypersensitive mode!Remember Aristotle taught us that A could not be not-A. Unfortunately it often is lol. “But teacher, you said this yesterday and now you are saying that.How could that be?! It’s a contradiction!” Yes,we are all playing  “gotcha”CNN games with each other and with our teachers.

For the Muslims amongst you and even the sincere Christians ,try to find those kind of interactions amongst the disciples of Mohammad saws or Jesus a.s. or Moses.I have been unable.Take note that we are not talking abort Muslim scholars or Talmudic traditions or Christian theologians.They are all infected with the Aristotelian virus and its variants lol.We are talking about original sources.I have not been able ,in our Islamic tradition, to find one interaction and there were many ,many of those reported,of one of the Sahhabbis saying to the Prophet saws”You said this,but the Quran said that.How could that be.?” Thank God,they had no contradiction detectors as far as I can see.That would come much later! (PS some obsessive scholarly type is sure to contradict me here lol)

2- Democratic Illusions: Make no mistake about it .Our schools are centers of indoctrination! And one of the forms of indoctrination is transmitting “Democratic values“..Some of these include ” We are all created equal”; the best way to arrive at Truth or make dicisions is through discussions”.”All opinions are equally valid”: Each of these is demonstrably false.But that in no way prevents the promoters of democracy from believing them.After all it’s an article of faith,no.

So,for example,all men are created equal” Really?! Have you not noticed?! Want to come to the Children’s section of  the Douglas hospital where I worked and taught  for several years and see the multiply -handicapped(May Allah have Mercy upon them) from birth?Have you not noticed that some people are tall and others short,some are strong and others weak,some are smart and others stupid.How can you possibly believe in this equality.And the same holds for opinions,Many are outrightly wrong and some are really primitive and foolish! So give me a break. And btw an old aphorism of mine “any system or person that denies reality is unlikely to succeed”! Any wonder that we are in such a state in the world?!

And how does this play out in a context of spiritual teaching?! Well,the Westerner believes firmly that his ideas are as good as anyone else s-including,of course the teachers. If they happen to be talented at robotic schoolwork and thus get excellent grades at school,they are even more arrogant.I had  a 19-year old niece who had just taken her first Comparative Religion 101 course vociferously arguing with me about Buddhism! The “chutzpah ” of it is astounding.But, democratically, her opinion is as valid as someone on the path of seeking truth for the last 50 years?! Her democratic right,no?!

c) Secularism; This is another huge subject, all around us, that merits more attention at another time..Fortunately most of the students that enter a spiritual path have graduated from that low level of understanding.But vestiges do remain! And those vestiges often take the form of “doubting”. It is a short step from doubting the existence of God to doubting that the teacher in front of you basically knows what he is talking about-even if he errs on the details at times. PS Obsessionalism, which is another derivative  of doubt is one more obstacle.”How could my teacher be authentic if his Arabic pronunciation is not perfect?” could be an example in the Islamic context.Or ” his pants go beyond his ankles” or “her hair is appearing beneath her hijab” .Yes,I have heard it all, lol

Given all these obstacles,this is ceratinly not a path for the frail-hearted or the weak and weary.This is a path for the “rijal”(the men and women of courage and integrity). Join us if you have the desire and the sincerity to do so.We will welcome you with open arms and  stern admonishments lol

 

 

Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The Efficient Cause

Leave a comment

The Efficient Cause!

N.B. This reflection was triggered by three separate ‘khalewah” experiences-one three day retreat in the countryside of the Gatineau region at a Wellness centre, one three-day retreat and one six-day end of Ramadan retreat at my apartment with Hadi. All three had a notable effect on the participants “hal” (inner state).The project manager/  MBA types  would call that “proof of concept” lol

Aristotle is one of those personalities I love to hate lol. I consider his contributions to modern “civilisation’ (specifically at the level of syllogisms and logical analysis) to be amongst the most corrupting and disruptive influences around! Surpassing that of many other “geniuses” like Marx, Freud and Darwin! Nevertheless, he, like those just mentioned, also has articulated valuable concepts that can help us make sense of the world around us.

In the case of Aristotle, I am referring here to his classification of the Four types of Causes: 1) Material causes(the body);Formal causes(paradigms or blueprints like the species homo sapiens);Final causes(which are really purposes) .In this light, Islam would say that the purpose of man is worshipping and serving his Lord and finally “Efficient Causes” those that lead regularly to specific consequences. It is the efficient causes that we are addressing in this article.

I realized, in my recent reflections, that I have spent the last 45 years searching for the “efficient cause” of spiritual development. In this search I have tried everything I could find! From meditation, a very popular contemporary answer to this quest, seminars and conferences of all sorts, to sitting with the guru/sheikh to individual retreats of varying lengths. All of them have had some effects-some more spectacular than others- some leading to various “hals ‘(spiritual states) but none of them reliably and stably leading to the desired effect-a long-term persistent internal state of connectedness with the Divine!

So… in the spirit of scientific enquiry, not the science of peer-reviewed journals and obsessive statistical analysis but the science of observation and experimentation of Francis Bacon, I stumbled across another methodology! I call this approach the Modified Collective Khalewah! (MCKh if you need an acronym to remember it) That might sound like a mouthful but let me go over it word by word- in reverse order..

Khalewah is an Arabic word meaning retreat or isolation. Classically, the Sufis retreated into the mountains or the caves or in their individual retreat cells in the zawwiya and did their dhikr(meditation) practices for various lengths of time. In the case of Grandsheikh Abdullah Daghestani(the sheikh of Sheikh Nazin) he spent seven years in the mountains of Daghestan doing “laillaha illala’ 99.000 times per day ,fasting, doing “ghusl”-the major ablutions- with melted ice from the mountains! And breaking his fast with seven olives and a cup of tea and restarting the process the next day! Sheikh Abu-Hassan Ash-Shadhili did something similar in the hills around Tunis. And Abdul-Qader Jilani is reported to have done a total of 25 years of khalewah before he finally settled down into his role of teacher and father of a family of 49 children! Personally, I don’t think we are up to those standards nowadays lol!

I have tried these kind of individual retreats but nowhere close to those extremes. The longest retreat I have done is 40 days. But inevitably they all ended up at the same place-tired , burnt-out and discouraged. Didn’t work for me and I imagine the same is true for many other people if they reflect on their own experience

Collective:  I have struggled with the Islamic injunction about the jamaat (collectivity) for years. As many other people have said to me as well: ”I am not really a groupie”. I get it. On top of it, we were raised in the West in a very individualistic mindset and although that can be problematic in some ways, it is salutary in others. When I travel to other countries and see the uniformity of the mindset of “traditional ‘ cultures ,it often shocks and dismays me. These countries mostly have the same thinking and the same opinions-about almost everything . I like to say: ”The Quraysh (the original opponents of our Prophet saws) are alive and well in the midst of the Islamic community! i.e. objecting to anything new!

But that is not the whole story about community.! There is an energy in the “jamaat” that you cannot find on your own! Through the support, encouragement and supervision of the group, we can find the motivation to keep going-something difficult to do by ourselves. So, when Islam and its Prophet saws encourage people to pray together, it is not just about group cohesion and community-building as I had previously thought. It is also about the group energy and transmission. That force needs to be harnessed for maximum “efficiency” of cause.

Modified: Why modified? Because we need to go on living our lives and interacting with the community around us! That is what the Prophet saws did. And that is what some of the cultish groups like Jim Jones in Guyana and Rajnessh in Oregon did not do! We must interact with the individual neighbours and the surrounding community- but with the spirit of “khalewah’(isolation in the crowd) and taqwa(God-consciousnes) animating our every effort. If we do that right, we should feel the effect inwardly and that is our most cherished goal-to improve our inward state!That is what we are aiming at ultimately.

Actionable Intelligence:(more American wisdom lol) At this point the specter of Empiricism raises its hoary head lol and asks:”So what do we do now?” Not wanting to disappoint the activists who need to concretize things quickly, here is the plan… We start with short sessions of modified khalewah- in peoples’ homes, in retreat centres that are willing to accommodate us-for short periods of time-from 2-10 days- and we observe the effects. Eventually, my hope is that we can form a community of like-minded people so that we can live this approach on a 24/7 basis .It is the closest thing I can imagine to the community around our Prophet saws in Medina!

Important Caveats:

1.Obviously a lot of glitches and problems will come up in the process of realizing this project. We must be prepared for that and not get too easily discouraged. If you need a model for how that occurs ,study the events that occurred in the life of our Prophet saws when he moved to Madina. Life is never easy or without its challenges. Courage and wisdom and even diplomacy will no doubt be necessary!

2.Attitude : The fundamental attitude needs to be “taqwa” God-consciousness, surrender to the Divine Will. Nothing else will work. Many communal projects have failed because they were based on individual or group ambitions(“good ideas but not perfect ones as Sheilh Nazim said about the project of Dar al Islam in New Mexico that eventually failed.)Other reasons for failure are addressed in the next section-on leadership.

  1. Leadership! This is the most difficult of all -as competent, skilled leadership is one of the rarest commodities on the planet! Many spiritual communities fail because the leader is corrupt in one way or another-the three most popular forms of corruption are around money, sexuality and power! But there are other forms of corruption around various forms of psychopathology-like obsessionalism(micromanaging and overcontrolling peoples lives);Aspergers(the leader being out of touch with the lived reality around him) and even ethnocentricity-the community only works for a particular nationality with a particular mind-set..

So.. there are many ways this can go wrong and only a very few options that can work .I am betting on that rarety in this project!

Ahlan. please feel free to comment and contribute to this process.

Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

Addendum.I had a dream in which I saw a world-class clinic that was installing artificial limbs.But these limbs were not the usual ones of plastic and steel .Instead they were made of comfortable materials like organic cotton and flannel!

What I understood, from this dream, was that the limbs referred to the Modified Collective Khalewah I have been talking about.I have done many khalewahs in the past but there was always some obstacle that prevented me from arriving at the goal.

I realized that the major obstacle was that the process was too uncomfortable!For example,in the khalewah I did in Jordan the sheikh locked the door to the cell so that I not be disturbed. I told him I was afraid I couldn’t escape if there was a fire.But he made light of it saying that the materials of the building were not flammable! So much for empathy lol Needless to say,the result was less than satisfactory!

In other khalewahs, as well, the rules were so strict that the nafs revolted.Even the ones I designed myself contained rules that were too harsh -like doing dhikr at every moment that I was awake! May have worked for Grandsheikh but not for me or I assume most of us “normal folk”!

So,we need to design a ‘comfortable ” khalewah-not a slacker one but not an overly super-egoic one either.It should,despite the necessary effort of course,be enjoyable.Then people will want to do more! Rest assured that we are working on it. And long live psychology lol! Salaams,Ibrahim

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Politics, Sufism

Europeanism-The Great Scourge

1 Comment

Disclaimer: This article will fly in the face of everything you have been taught to think AND all your subliminal conditionning!You may already be reacting-just by the title! But hold on. It could also change your life in a positive way!It has done so for me- for the last 30 years!

Samuel Huntington(“The Clash of Civilizations”) was right! There is a clash of civilizations.But it is not the one he was pointing out-between Islam and the West.It is actually the clash between the secular point of view and that of the believers-regardless of which religion one adheres to.It is a clash between logic and faith.A clash between the mind and the heart.And ultimately the clash between good and evil- even if that evil hides itself behind a veil of “reasonableness” and “political correctness” lol

This “Clash’ was brought to my attention in stark relief by the profound teachings of my most long-standing spiritual teacher-Sheikh Nazim of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order.For the first time in my life ,I was confronted with someone with an alternative view of history-alternative to what we had all been taught in public school.According to Sheikh Nazim, the French revolution(Égalité, Liberté and Fraternité) was NOT the beginning of a great chapter in human freedom but rather the beginning of the end! The beginning of the descent into decadence and corruption and capriciousness which emerged from the denial of all forms of conventional authority-both religious and monarchic.According to him,we were now on a slippery slope to the Apocalypse of the end of times.Everything I have observed since then,has been a confirmation of that vision-even if it is taking some time to unfold!

Now all of this was the opposite of what I was taught to think !Our particular form of social conditioning(brain-washing if you wish) began in grade 6 of elementary school.We were taught that the Golden Ages of Athens and Rome were what we needed to emulate.The Europeans of the 17th and18th century heralded the Age of Rationalism or the Age of Enlightenment as a return to the Golden Ages of Classical Cultures! After sitting with Sheikh Nazim on multiple occasions, ironically mostly in London-one of the giant centers of Europeanization, I began to rethink my positions.

Greece and Rome,really?! Greece which was a pseudo-democracy where only its own citizens had power and where having relations with young boys was considered more honorable than relations with adult women?! Where a slew of dubious philosophical schools like hedonism and cynicism and stoicism(probably the best of the lot) fluorished .Greece where Socrates was poisoned to death for speaking the Truth.And Rome?! One of the cruellest civilizations known to man- where criminals- were crucified and Christians were fed to the lions! Yes,they developed roads(so the engineers can feel uplifted lol).And set up a Code of Law so our legal scholars can feel vindicated.For the Christians amongst you, reread the New Testament if you need any proof of the inhumanity of the Romans!

Now ,we can fast forward to the 20th century.The most deadly and devastating wars of all times!According to the historians, 100 million people killed! And endless destruction and misery.Almost all initiated by Europeans(yes,the Japanese climbed on board but they are well-known imitators lol,)No other civilization-neither the Chinese nor the Persians nor even the Mongols ever created so much death and havoc for humanity! And this is what we are supposed to honour.In the words of the current leading destructive empire,America lol,”Give me a Break”!

Another thing working in favour of the European delusion is “branding”. There is a whole series of catchwords that hide its nefarious influences- in all areas of life. Amongst them we have “Democracy”, “Rationnality”,  “Due Process of the Law”, “Science”(yes even the hallowed science is a misnomer), “Freedom”,Evidence-Based”, “Progressive”-the list goes on and on.Behind each of these ideological slogans is a harsh and contradictory reality.The “democracy” is another pseudo-democracy like that of Athens,where the political agendas are manipulated an  perverted by monied interests.”Rationality” which should have been  discredited a long time ago by even a superficial reading of Freud and the psychoanalysts and which we can now see unveiled by the pro-Trump Republicans just to mention one clear-cut example.The examples are legion! “Due Process of the Law’ is systematically undone by an onerous bureaucracy in the courts of law,by obscene fees for legal services and by clever lawyers who are able to turn black into pale grey and turn white into dirty beige.Go figure!”Science” Another huge distortion.The original science of Francis Bacon et al. involved careful observation and controlled experimentation.Current “science” is about obsessive statistical analysis and ,research funded by biased corporations and government bodies with vested interests in the economy and often carried out by ambitious academics looking to increase their publication profiles!”Progressive has come to mean what is politically correct in liberal,left-wing circles.And “freedom” is the freedom to buy what you want -if you have the money. “Freedom” of speech” itself has been eroded by cancel culture.And “freedom” of action is limited by what the economy will allow you to do- unless you are hyper-courageous which is not the case for most people! So all of these slogans, when analyzed and investigated, turn out to be bogus!

It should be noted here,that those people who should naturally be on the side of the believers as opposed to the secularists are not necessarily so.That is because the school of Rationnalism has penetrated into the very fabric of all the major Western religions! We’ll set aside the religions of India(Buddhism and Hinduism ) for now.For example the traces of Greek philosophy can be clearly seen in the work of the Talmudic scholars of Judaism.In fact “traces’ is a serious understatement.The Talmudic approach to scholarship is more Greek than Judaic.If you need any proof compare the thinking of Moses and Aaron to that of Rashi and Hillel to name a couple. Christian theology,itself, is largely Greek thinking applied to the Judaic tradition that Jesus was trying to promote and elevate.And Islam itself began this process of degradation when the Greek texts were translated into Arabic during the Andalusian period.Islam has never been the same since.Again you can compare the Quran and hadith to the writings of scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Ghazzali to see the difference.Muslims believe that the only sect guilty of this deviation were the Mutazilis(The Rationnalists) but that just indicates the extent to which this was a covert if not unconscious operation.

So…once we see this- and “seeing” is key,what can we do?! The Hindu/Buddhist answer here would be “meditation” or “mindfulnesss practice’. That is not a bad place to start! Especially if you don’t get lost in their philosophical and theological distortions -like Advaita Vedanta or the non-existence” of the self” in Buddhism or the Dalai Lama’s proclamations of “We don’t need a personal God”. Yes,we do! However meditation can give us some distance from our thoughts so we can see them for what they are and not reify or deify them.

Another form of practice that can be very helpful is “tazkiya”– the purification of the heart.Once we can see and hear and feel again,we are much less subject to the vagaries of the mind.This is hard  work however-involving a lot of “jihad-a-nafs” struggling with the ego.

Then again we can do any of the endless “mindless” activities like going into nature,planting a garden,praying,”falling in love”,having children,taking care of old people.Anything to avoid the plague of overthinking.

While I was conceiving of this article,I watched a recent n.d.e of an American lady who met her Guide on the other side She asked about the Covid epidemic and the Guide said the following”Don’t worry so much about the details of what is occuring.The real cause of this pandemic is the hardening of human hearts“! Ajib! Exactly what I was intuiting.The outer is a reflection of the inner! The Sufis tell us this It is the opposite of the current European Empiricism-that the outer is determinant.And the Virgin Mary in her apparition at Medugorge said more or less the same”If mankind continues on its way of materialism and nationalism,there will be more and more natural disasters”,she said.Not because of tectonic plates or global warming or El Nino wind patterns. .Because of mankind’s internal states.

So…. Time for a turn-around.It can only be helpful-if not in this world then the next! Will you join me?!

 

 

 

 

Islam, Metaphysics, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

Ramadan-A Newer and Deeper Perspective

Leave a comment

I have been struggling to get my head around our Ramadan practice for as long as I can remember.Yes,I know the Quranic injunctions and I am aware of most of the hadith and the scholarly analysis around this month. But I have never felt quite satisfied.For most people, it is simple,I understand.Allah says to fast,it is a religious injunction and we follow and thus get the rewards.And the reward is with Allah.I get it!

But there must be more! Allah does not prescribe things without reason and purpose.So what is the deeper reason and mystery here?!

And this morning while on my dhikr walk that is part of my daily routine,it came to me ! The “aha” experience.In essence Ramadan is a khalewah-a retreat- a time to go within ,to disengage from our social activities and to connect with our soul and with its Divine source!

Remember the first Ramadan!? It was our Prophet saws doing a retreat in the cave of hira in the mountains around Mecca.That is when the Quran came down and that was the start of our religion.So that is the quintessential Ramadan-the essence of Ramadan. After that the Prophet saws had a mission! He had to teach and build a community! So he could no longer do a monthly retreat like he had done in the past..But that doesn’t change the spirit of the practice-to renounce worldliness,to go within and contact the sacred.

Now,for most of us, we have obligations-whether work or family or study.We can’t stop doing those.But we can reduce the workload,we can certainly reduce socializing and we can change our focus.Some of us, like us retired folks, can even spend most of the time alone lol.And that is the spirit of the month-“azhod”-giving up.

I can already hear the naysayers lol.”What about Tarawih prayer? What about joining family members for iftar?What about doing good deeds-like feeding people during Ramadan?Yes,all of that is true.But the spirit is still that of khalewah.If you are able to go to tarawih and feel it incumbent on you ,then do so.But I would suggest using the Naqshbandi adage”alone with your Lord in the crowd”.Turn your focus away from the people and towards your Creator and the ruh that he has breathed into you.

Sometimes,in understanding matters,we need a “foil” i.e. the opposite of the truth that reflects back to us what we shouldn’t be doing! For me,all due respect to its depth of history and pious people,in this matter the foil was Cairo during Ramadan.All day the city was dead and after the call to prayer of Maghrib it converted into a Mardi-Gras like atmosphere! It is surely not the only Muslim community to do so! For me that is not the right attitude just like the Bacchanalian Mardi Gras of Rio de Jameiro is not fitting for the Christian tradition.So take this month to be quiet and contemplative and tune in with your Lord,as much as possible .You will not regret it.

This understanding has brought a certain comfort to my heart.I hope it does so for you as well.Salaams and Ramadan Kareem and Saleem, Sufi Ibrahim

Comparative Religion, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The Five Klesas: A Complete program for Islamic ‘Tarbiya”(Training)

Leave a comment

People ask me why I think Comparative Religion is an important subject for all to learn.Here is a wonderful example!

Today, as I was doing my morning walk,on the fasting day of Arafat,I came upon the usual challenges that Muslims are confronted with during the summer months in North America.The Quran tells us to “lower our gaze” and yet we are challenged with lovely-looking, skimpily clad females all around us! Yes,even during the pandemic lol.

And then I had an inspiration(‘ilham’ in Arabic).Why this ruling of loweing the gaze?! These rulings are not just capricious or arbitary as some may think.Hasha,abadan,never! They come from wisdom.

And the wisdom is the following.If we do as Westerners are inclined,even urged to do,and “check out” the members of the opposite sex,then we are generating desire .And desire gets in the way of our path to Allah.It is a big distraction.

This thinking led me to reflect on the Buddhist teaching of the Five Klesas(Obstacles on our path to Enlightenment,in their way of thinking.) And what are these five obstacles?

1) Desire/Attachment

2) Aversion(Anger and Fear)

3) Laziness(and its sister procrastination)

4) Agitation(goals and ambitions) and finally

5) doubt( something often promoted by the scientific mind-set)

“What a wonderful formula for Islamic”tarbiya” I thought-succinct and comprehensive and even “actionable” as American politicians like to say lol.

Let us take them one by one;

1) Desire. Ramakrishna called them “women and gold”(There I go.More Comparative Religion lol).Yes,Sexual attraction to the opposite sex,or even,dare I say in this age of political-correctness, to the same sex.And greed-the love of money(and material possessions) symbolized by gold.

2) Aversion– a) Anger.Did the Prophet of Islam saws not warn us?! “Don’t be angry” he repeated three times to the man asking advice.And b) Fear– which comes from lack of Trust in our Lord(tawakuul.”Everything is in good hands,the hands of Allah”.He is the Controller,He is the Determiner of Affairs,He is the all-Powerful,He is the Provider.What is there to fear?!

3) Laziness-which is from the ‘nafs’ ego.Sheikh Nazim used to say: “The ideal of the nafs is to lie under a fruit tree and wait,without any effort whatsoever,for the fruit to fall into our mouths”lol. So instead,as seekers,we do “jihad-al-nafs”-the great struggle against our ego and its laziness.

4) Agitation; Which usually comes from self-will and self-direction;from thinking we can control things ,that we are in charge.That is a recipe for anxiety and stress and misery.If you don’t believe me, just look around you lol.It is every where-because we have been trained to think WE can control matters when mostly we can’t and we are better off surrendering to What is rather than shaping it.This leads us inevitably to the issue of the Will of God but that is a discussion for another time.

5) Doubt. Another Biggie! Doubt is cultivated from the first day we enter our schooling system.We are conditioned to trust our mind and our mind productions and the mind productions of our so-called experts but we are not conditioned to trust in the Only Truly Trustworthy one-the Divine,God,Allah.So most of us modern people have our work cut out for us on this one.Big struggle.(See my article”The Process of Deprogramming from the Cult of the Intellect” on this same blogsite)

How elegant and sublime?! Buddhism provides us with a road-map to become true Muslims.Put that in your pipes and smoke it O Wahhabbis ,Salafis and Ikhwanis.As Sufis,we have less of a problem with this as we have in common with the Buddhists the mystical quest-that is the quest for Ultimate Reality.(If you are concerned that I am losing my Islamic identity lol,you can read the Chapter in my last book  Understanding Life called”Unpacking Buddhism” to see where I disagree with the Buddhists).

After I shared this understanding with one of my students who has a knack for calling me out on my slips and my omissions,he said to me”What about ‘shirk'(idolatry).The Buddhists don’t have that ,do they.”At first,I just let it pass and then it came to me.Yes,there is plenty about “shirk’ in this model of Five Klesas.Let me explain.”Shirk” (idolatry) is the cardinal sin in Islam just as Pride is the cardinal sin in Christianity.Literally it means partnership.So Muslims are taught not to make partners with Allah.The idols of Mecca can be seen as partners as can all the gods of the polytheist pantheon.

But mostly,we no longer have concrete idols, in the Western world at least.But we do have many “idols of the heart”.What are these idols?! They are all there in the five klesas.The idol of money,the idol of sexual pleasure,in fact the idols of all sorts of pleasures.Anything that takes priority over our concern with our relationship with our Lord,becomes an idol.Laziness can refer to the “idol of recreation”for example.There are many,many people who believe that the purpose of life is to have as many good times as possible.A current tragic consequence of that mentality can be seen in the surge of Covid cases in the southern U.S.- linked to beaches and parties and bars.So these are not just abstract ideas.They have very serious consequences.

And lastly there is doubt! Broken down to its essence,doubt means that we trust too much in our own mind-productions.It is the opposite of Faith (Iman) and Trust in God(Tawakuul.)

There you have it .A complete Program for spiritual hygiene.Time to get to work,n’est-ce pas?! Salaams,Ibrahim

Modern Living, Psychology, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

Timely Living

2 Comments

One of the most important skills in life is knowing when to act and when to wait and be patient.Most people I observe are either compulsively acting( and planning their future actions)-a state we could call agitation-or waiting too long to act by procrastinating.- to the point that their actions lose their potency! One of the few people I have met who was capable of timely action was Sheikh Nazim al-Qubrusi.He was more Zen than the Zen Buddhists lol. Mashallah that I had the honour of spending time with him.

Psychology, Spiritual Practice, Sufism

The Problem of “Tarbiya”(Training)

Leave a comment

My current sheikh,Abu Qassin Bilkhairy of Erdeyf ,Tunisia makes an important distinction between the shuyukh of “barakat”(good vibes) and the shuyukh of “tarbiya”(training)It is the first time I had heard of this classification and it makes a lot of sense.However ,it is not as cut and dried as it would seem at first blush.

When one goes to the sheikh of barakat, it is a pleasant experience or  or even an elevated one-  of ‘hal’ and everyone is happy.But the question remains:”Are we  really advancing?” Is this really “Sufism” or is this mere spiritual entertainment?Often enough the answer is the latter.This is probably the reason our sheikh talks about the “shuyukh of barakat”.

Now even if the teacher sets out to do “tarbiya”(training,raising up as we do with children) is that really what is happening? Note: we are a long way from the tales of Abu-Hassan Ash-Shadhili and Ibn Mashish or Jellalludin Rumi and Shems Tabriz. They seemed to be almost alone as students with the full attention of the Master upon them.Now we have turuq with hundreds if not thousands,even tens of thousands of murids! How can the same instruction occur?!

As soon as we “scale up” the operation(to use a modern M.B.A. term lol), we run into problems.We then need a managerial structure.There needs to be muqaddams(local representatives) who take the place of the teacher and these muqaddams  need to be competent and humane and sensitive-which often they are not! And the Sheikh needs to monitor them.That is one of the places where we find the most problems ! The notion of “accountability” has not yet arrived in the Sufi world lol! Some of the muqaddams are slackers,others are tyrants and others are simply out of their depth.They are usually chosen because they have been around the longest or because they are the most earnest in their practice.Neither of those are satisfactory criteria for such a role.So the management structure is seriously defective to begin with.And often,the supervision is spotty at best.Bring in the consultants! lol. Not going to happen in Sufi groups!

I have noticed these problems for a long time.However recently I have been Graced with two students of my own who seem sincere in their desire to learn about Sufism and advance spiritually.That has given me an “in vivo” experience from the other side of the “sheikh/murid” equation.And it has put me in touch with a whole other set of problems.This “tarbiya” stuff is no easy matter! I believe it was Freud who once said:”I believe I have discovered in psychoanalysis  a third human activity that is both necessary and doomed to failure-the other two being raising children and governing nations”. So we can well ask whether guiding people in the Sufi way, or any spiritual way for that matter, is not a fourth such activity?!

One of the first questions that arises is how soft or how tough to be:-loving or setting limits,comforting or provoking.We have  examples of most of these attitudes from Sufi history! When Ibn Ataillah came to see his grandsheikh, Abu-Hassan, the second time complaining about ‘waswas'(obsessional doubts around the question of wudu),he was told.”Stop that behaviour or don’t come back to our Zowwsiyya”! Talk about tough love! Then there is the iconic story of Shems Tabriz throwing all of Rumi’s books into the well and saying”Do you want these books or do you want Real knowledge”? No small deal for a life-time scholar.Not to mention the Sufis of malamatiya(the way of blame) who would curse at their new students and send them packing until they had proved their mettle.

Nowadays, however,we have the opposite-sheikhs who coddle their students,who enable them in their slackness,who never call them out on their bad behaviour and their spiritual faults.Yes,I have seen a lot of it over the years.The results are never good! The people around often justify it by saying that the sheikh is too loving or too compassionate to scold his students.I don’t buy it!

So how do we arrive at a balance?And can we or is it just “aspirational” to use another modernistic term.I believe it is conceivable and  possible even if I haven’t seen it yet.But it requires a lot of effort and discernment and observation.And the idealization of the sheikh as well as the infantilization of the murids is a definite obstacle.In all honesty,medical school,with all its dunniyawi limitations,did a much better job of this than the turuq.If you didn’t do your work or weren’t prepared for your presentations,you were called out on it.If you did a good job,you were told so .And if a teacher was out of line by being too tough OR too soft,they were often enough replaced by others- in the good schools at least..In all fairness,it is a lot easier to teach medicine than Sufism but I think the comparison is useful nevertheless.

One of the most important questions in the teacher/murid relationship is that of dependency.The Sufi metaphorically falls at the feet of his sheikh as the Hindu chela does literally at the feet of his guru.Fine and well,but what after that? Does he just sit their suckling at the sheikhs breast so to speak.When is he weaned and how? When does the sheikh say:”Now you have to do some work on your own”.Or even “Now is the time to leave” as Ibn Mashish said to Abu-Hassan when he sent him to Tunisia.Many murids will stick around the sheikh’s presence until they are forced to leave by an action similar to the cat that chases off one of its kittens who is lingering too long at the nipple or as the mother bird chases the chick out of the nest.But it musn’t be too early or the fledgling will die!

Another important aspect of this “tarbiya” work is the complex world in which we now live.It is no longer sufficient to say the Sufi needs outer knowledge(Islamic sciences) and inner knowledge to be complete.Now he needs multi-dimensional knowledge! He needs to know about psychology and Comparative Religion and the toxicity of our surroundings as taught by Environmental Medicine.I cannot see how a Sheikh can properly guide people in their lives if they do not have at least a minimum exposure to these new forms of knowledge.This,alone, is a considerable challenge to the modern spiritual teacher.

Now,inevitably when one is guiding people,one comes up against unique ,multivariant, specific challenges.This is not unique to spiritual teachers.It comes up in medicine,in psychiatry and even in building problems(a whole other dossier there).So how can we manage this kind of complexity.All the general rules of behaviour and jurisprudence fall by the wayside when confronted by the complexity and specificity of each new situation.And this is where the Istikhara prayer and dream interpretation comes in.Of course,Allah is Aware of all of this.And often enough,He is the only One with the right answer! So we need to consult with Him. And the best means I have found is the Itikhara prayer and the  interpretation of dream symbols t.hat follows(I am in the midst of gathering materials for a book on this very subject so stay posted!).

Ok.That’s a start on a fascinating but difficult and subtle subject-How to Raise a “Mensch”,a true “Insan” who is true to his deepest nature(fitra).More to come inshallah.Salaams,Ibrahim