After publishing my recent post on the battle with the ego,I felt the need to give a more complete version, since I had only really covered 3 1/2 of the 7 cardinal sins.Those were the ones that required the most explanation but let us complete the account here.

4) Anger-2 None of us can avoid totally becoming angry.For sure, there are certain personalities more prone to anger than others. The Greek physician,Galen, called them the ‘coleric’ types.In modern English we could describe them as irascible ,irritable or even ‘paranoid’ at times.Narcissistic people,like the current president of the U.S.A. ,are particularly susceptible to this disease.They regularly feel slighted and then need to reply with Narcissistic rage.This can be done by shouting,by belittling,even humiliating the other and nowadays we have a wonderful panoply of tools like Twitter,to express our hostility whenever we want.

But our question here is: what is the right way to be with this emotion?Should we simply ignore it and repress it or should we look for the kernel of truth within it and try to find a way to communicate that.That was a rhetorical question? I hope you don’t feel slighted lol.

The psychologists teach us that we should transform our aggression into affirmation and there is certainly wisdom in that approach.But even the affirmation has to be appropriately formulated and delivered in a timely fashion.If it is said in the wrong way or at the wrong time,it will just inflame the passions even more.Even at the right time,it may elicit a negative or indifferent response as the ego hates to be corrected(pride is our next subject).

How not to do it!  When I first entered the fold of Islam ,I was in Jerusalem.I was eager to read about Islam but could find no bookstores with interesting material.So I used to cross the city from East to West and go to the library at The Hebrew University .There I was able to find the collection of Bukhari hadith -in French!

One day I came into the library and there was a man probably in his early seventies yelling at the receptionist. When he had finished his tirade I went up  to the clerk and asked her what that was about.”Do you know who that man is?” she said. “No,not at all” “He’s the head of our history department”. “Oh”,I responded.”What was he so upset about?” “He had asked for a book and it has taken us longer than expected to get it!”. Wow! I knew intellectuals were a dubious lot but that was too much.I  confirmed at that point something I had suspected all along.Intellectual training is a weak tool for character development.Got it!

In the Naqshbandi protocol of the night prayer,we are called upon to repeat Ya Halim (O Gentle One) in order to calm our anger.There is a hadith reported by Abu Dharr,one of the most ascetic of the Sahhabbas which says””If one of you is angry when he is standing,let him sit down so that the anger will leave him .Otherwise let him lie down.” In all honesty ,I have not met many Muslims,including pious ones able or willing to do that.That is because anger has a way of taking us over that is hard to resist.It is a formidable opponent.

So the first and perhaps the best thing to do is quickly identify it.That is called mindfulness.(You can look up the posting on Mindfulness Practice on this blog for further details.Then we have to make a conscious decision not to act on it. And then  be patient as anger is an emotion like several others and it tends to come in waves and then die down.When it does so,then we can decide what to do with its content.

Now,sometimes the anger can turn into resentment and bitterness and grudges and hatred.Then it becomes a long-term problem which can be even more serious.If we study the lives of some of those American mass murderers,like the boys at Columbine,we will discover people whose bitterness and hatred of others had been building up over years until it gets acted upon.Often,the people queried about these massacres will say”But he seemed like such a quiet,well-behaved boy!” So the anger is hidden.Other people,of course,erupt regularly and create a lot of social chaos around themselves.Some lose jobs or partners or friends because of their bad character.So the consequences are serious indeed.Ya Halim!

A few hadith related to this issue.

a)”A man said to the Prophet,’ Give me advice’ The Prophet saws said: ‘Do not get angry'(Meaning ‘Don’t express your anger’)The man asked repeatedly and the Prophet answered each time:’Do not get angry”

b)from Abu Hurayra”The Prophet saws said”The strong man is not the one is is able to defeat others in wrestling:the song man is the one who controls himself at times of anger”

c)”Anger comes from the devil,the devil was created of fire,and fire is extinguished only by water:so when one of you becomes angry,he should perform ablution”.(Sunan Abu Dawood)This is another hadith that is rarely applied,in my experience, because the anger tends to be such an overwhelming sensation.However,the indication of fire and thus heat within gives us a tool by which to identify it and track it which makes it easier to resist.

From the point of view of psychology:I went to a seminar in  Berkely,California, of all places, in 1975.The seminar was given by an avant-garde chiropractor/therapist named Stanley Keleman.He had been a student of Lowen and Pierrakos who were direct stidents of Wilhelm Reich,the developer Of Bioenergetic Therapy and himself a student of Sigmund Freud.(I guess there is a silsila-chain of transmission in psychology as well lol) He made a statement that shocked the group of New-Age Humanistic therapists who had been taught that the key to managing anger was to express it by hitting pillows and shouting it out- which was common in both Gestalt Therapy and Bioenergetics.

He said the following:”I have been doing this catharsis stuff for years but it doesn’t work! The more you express the anger the more it just comes back like a deep well from which you have drawn water.” So what do we do?” the audience responded,taken aback by his claims.”Just observe it and it will slowly abate” This may well have been the first whiffs of the Mindfulness Movement in America.Keleman had somehow stumbled his way into Buddhist practice- which in this case is the same as Islamic practice.

We may all do well to stumble into the same behaviour,despite our nafs lol

5)Pride-The Biggie The Christians consider this one the biggest of the big. In the Quran Satan refuses to bow down to Adam because he considers himself superior to him.In that way he becomes disobedient to his Lord.Then he becomes ‘adoo mubin” -a clear-cut enemy to man.The result of this pride and Satan’s vow to make us miserable and wretched is all around us.

Now pride can often be subtle.Most proud people are not aware of being proud.They think it is normal.After all they are so good shouldn’t they be proud?And there are probably things that are ok to be proud of.Our own Prophet saws said to his companions”And I am the best of you with his family” and also “And I am the most God-fearing of you” so appropriate recognition of our qualities is not always a bad thing.In modern parlance,we could say it is good for our self-esteem and self-esteem is important, up to a certain extent.

But we all know people who have an inflated sense of self(which psychoanalytically usually represents an inner insecurity). The current president of the U.S.A. is a perfect example.We should be thankful for him lol.There is so much to learn about how not to be from him!One of the problems with this pride is that the person is unwilling to accept criticism,unwilling to examine his own behaviour and attitudes.Then he becomes unable to improve,unable to evolve properly.

Also ,he may be seriously deficient in problem-solving as he cannot integrate the ideas of others into his plan of action.Doing so would make him feel inadequate.The other effect of this attitude is in his/her relationships.Around the proud person, others feel put down and belittled constantly.At some point they just give up and leave!

So what is the solution? Self-awareness,humility.God-consciousness.None of those are easy.When I first came to Jerusalem,I started my explorations on the Jewish side as that is where I came from in my family.I met a holy Rabbi of the Reb Nachman of Bratislava Hassidic tradition.He seemed to have clairvoyant powers as well.He looked at me in the eyes and said: “Yossef (my original Hebrew name) I can see that you have very good potential for gaining knowledge.But remember that no matter how much knowledge or understanding you gain,it will be a drop in the ocean of the Knowledge of Ashem(god).” That puts you in your place quickly lol! but in fact,that is a good strategy for attaining humility.If you ever feel too good about yourself-your strength,your wealth,your cleverness, think about God,the Infinite and you can only become humble.I use that technique regularly when I encounter human stupidity which otherwise could make one smug and self-satisfied.If you read the ‘seerat’ (biography) of our Prophet saws ,you will see that he was constantly aware of this dichotomy-us vs. our Lord.Only humility can issue from that awareness.

6) Envy After the creation of the Universe and the fall of Adam,we find one of his sons murdering the other-out of envy.Able had earned the favour of his Lord,and Cain could not tolerate it,so he killed him.And envy has continued to plague mankind ever since.The brothers of Joseph could not tolerate him being the father’s favourite so they planned to kill him but relented and sold him into slavery instead.In more recent times we had the Olympic skater Tonya Harding who could not bear being outdone by Nancy Kerrigan.Her husband hired a thug to break Nancy Kerrigan’s leg! We hear similar stories abut mothers attacking cheerleaders in Texas because they won a place on the team over their own daughters.There are soccer Moms and hockey Dads with the same kind of envy. The stories of envy are legion throughout history.Often it exists between children in families-then known as “sibling rivalry”. But it is more than rivalry.It is envious resentment.

The tentacles of envy spread far and wide.Melanie Klein ,one of Freud’s foremost disciples,developed a whole school of psychoanalysis based on people’s envious attacks- beginning all the way back with the child biting at the depriving breast! And we could see the entire phenomenon of modern-day terrorism as envious attacks by the weak on the wealthy because of their envy of the power of their enemies- like America and Europe.

Hamza Yusuf makes the point in one of his talks that criminals will admit to heinous felonies before they will admit to envy.It often remains invisible  to the person experiencing it.There is an apocryphal story about the Spiritual teacher Ram Das going to visit the prisoners at San Quentin prison in California.At the time,Charles Manson,the famous mass-murderer and cult-leader, was one of the inhabitants at that prison but he was not present at the talk.After it was over Ram Das inquired from the prison authorities why Manson was not there.They informed him that they had been advised(?by the other prisoners) not to let him be present as he would be unable to tolerate another person being the centre of attention and would surely disrupt the event. So we  find this envy at all levels of society.There is even a dictum in Islam that says that “the jealousy of scholars can be as bad as that of co-wives”. Go figure.

So,how do we deal with envy? One of the best remedies,if not the best,is to realize that whatever we have and whatever the other has is ordained by God.That is our ‘rizq'(provision) and their ‘rizq”.It is pre-ordained and it is perfect the way it is.And sometimes we can even get a sense of the wisdom in it-that what we each have is perfectly right for us.There is no need to compare.We each get what we need.

7) Greed None of these defects are easy to treat but greed has a special status in the modern world.Couched in its own terminology,it often appears as virtue.Some of the modern concepts of”competitiveness” and “efficiency” and “cost-cutting” and  financial planning”  and even”national interest”can all be broken down into greed!When a politician or economist talks about economic growth and G.D.P. and stock market prices and maximizing profit’ it is mostly all about greed.So greed has become sanitized,even idealized in the modern world.

All around us we are solicited to get the best price on everything and anything we buy..When I used to give talks in the mosque I would explain to the participants that”the lowest price is the law” is not an Islamic principle(immigrants are particularly susceptible to this notion partially because of their relative poverty but mostly due to their naivete about the insidiousness of many Western ideas).They just buy into it.The real law should be “the fair price”. When I say this to people I most often get an empty stare in response.After all,they have been told their whole life that virtue is getting the best price possible!

One day after Jumaa prayer,I gave a ride to one of the congregants who proceeded to explain his story.He had been involved in a factory that produced a “bed in a bag” product-sheets,pillow cases and a mattress cover all in one bag.He had been in discussions with a large retailer who had promised him$19/bag .As his costs were around $16/bag he figured it would be a profitable venture.Not realizing that in this society ,you need to get everything in writing and peoples’ words have little value,he proceeded to invest in the factory.By the time he was ready to sell his product,the retailer informed him that they had found a supplier from China who could do it fo r$15 and asked him if he still wanted to go ahead with the contract. It was no longer viable to do so.And he ended up declaring bankruptcy. Now those “bed in the bag” products are available on liquidation at $12 a piece.And all the consumers are proud of the deals they are getting.Many of the wonderful”liquidation” prices are based on such sorry tales.It is all about greed!

Again, in the case of greed,the solution is ‘rida’-satisfaction.We are each already getting exactly what we need.If that is a lot,we can be grateful.And if it seems too little we can be patient and realize that what may seem like deprivation is actually a means of elevation.The Sufis call that ‘azhod’-asceticism -one of the Sufi virtues and a means,as well, of spiritual upliftment.

So now we come to the end of this teaching.But actually it is the beginning.”And zo, ve may to begin”(courtesy Philip Roth).So,now the program is complete.Let’s get cracking! This is tough work but work of the greatest importance.God be with us all!