This is a recent quote from Ram Dass’s Words of Wisdom”If there is anyone toward whom you feel animosity, or anger, bring them to mind and see that your anger is with the form of the incarnation, not with the soul. As if you have x-ray vision look past the incarnation and see the soul that lies within that being, a soul just like your soul. Touch their soul with your mind, with love and peace. ”
Interesting teaching no doubt but I would like to point out one aspect that most people won’t notice.There IS a conspiracy out there, in the ranks of spiritual seekers.It is led by the Buddhists and recently joined by the advocates of Advaita Vedanta( a bit like the theological equivalent of al-Qaida joined by Isis lol) which says the following”There is no soul- no individual self in reality”. Now Ram Das, himself is a bhakti Yogi primarily. So he believes in the relationship of lover to beloved as we do in Sufism. Also in classical Hindu theology there is the ‘atman'(the individual self) as opposed to Brahman,the Divine being.So they are on our side on this one.But the Buddhists say ‘No. It is an illusion created by a misinterpretation of our thought processes.Our own mind creates the illusion of an individual identity by the false logic that if there is thought, there must be a thinker.
“Why is this important?” you may ask.The Indian religions have by now penetrated our psyche and our society in a deep way-for better and for worse.All around us we here people talking about ‘karma’ and ‘reincarnation’ and gurus.I believe that even the process of cremation, which has become so popular, is an Indian import.Some of this is good.It has brought some genuine spirituality to the West which it sorely needed after the effects of the Enlightenment.And what a misnomer that is! Should have been called the Endarkenment! So now we have Yoga(from Hinduism) and Mindfulness(from Buddhism) everywhere in North America and Europe.
But with this spirituality has come contamination and misguidance.At first,on my journey,I gave no importance to theology.”Bah,mental elaborations,” I thought.The only thing important seemed to be experience-preferably of a mystical nature.Since then and after studying Aqida in Islam, my position has changed.I now believe that it is important to get our ideas in order,even if we don’t follow them slavishly or worse still develop fanaticism around them.Just as in medicine and in science we develop theories and conclusions which guide us in our practice so in religion it is important to get the model as close to reality as possible.And the reality is that we each experience our individual selves and that even if at times we are in the reality of the Absolute,the individual never ceases to exist.Allah Hu Akbar(even greater than karma lol). Salaams,ibrahim
As you have said many times, reality is a contradiction…
it is a Rahmah that we are not connected with Reality because if we were we would be totally annihilated and some of us may have met others to whom this has happened. it is very hard for these people to integrate what has happened to them without the correct theology in place.
I do think what Ram Dass says about the passions ex Anger not being part of the Ruh is true, anything that separates us from that holy part of us, our hearts, is not real. However then you have the wisdom of the ‘wrath of God’ which must be different from a temper tantrum or chronic hate surely…lots of interesting points here.
Thanks for the comments.Loch Kelly seems to believe that we can function from the Absolute-what he calls the ‘second operating system’.Of course,there are many tales to the contrary like Eckhart Tolle sitting on a park bench for two years or the Sufi in Sheikh al Haddads account who was in a trance for 17 years! I am not sure what is true here.My best hypothesis for now is that it depends on the intensity of the state.We may be able to function from a low-grade bliss- like those potheads who are always high lol..Whether that is desirable or not is another question.
Salaam, when you say there IS a conspiracy on the part of certain Buddhists and Vedantists, do you mean to imply an organized effort to inject certain ideas into the ‘collective consciousness’ of a targeted group? That individuals holding seemingly diverse and mutually incompatible beliefs have somehow come together to achieve a specific objective? Who or what has brought them together?
I used the term conspiracy in a looser way like when I say cancer is an epidemic.It doesn’t quite fit the narrower definition of the term.They are not consciously planning this together.But they(the Advaita Vedantists and the Buddhists)feed off each other’s theological errors and enjoy their commonality much to the dismay of people like myself who believe the Creator AND His Creation both exist.
Quran 8:19 “you did not throw when you threw, but We threw”.
Correction: ” you did not throw when you threw, but Allah threw.”
Quran 8:19
Also 7:189, ” it is He Who created you (all) from a single soul”.
Also 31:28, “and your creation (all of you) and your Resurrection (all of you) is but as a single soul “. نفس ﻭﺍﺣﺪﺓ
In modern parlance that describes “being in the zone or in the flow” where our individual ego is absent from our consciousness.The Non-dualists go a lot further than that.They claim the thrower(of arrows I believe in this instance) and the target enemy and even the arrow thrown are all one since only One really exists .It is an extreme position.In philosophy we called that”radical monism”
Some say “nafsi wahidatan” means individual soul some say one soul.
I have a strong objection to translating nafs as soul and have had numerous arguments especially with Schuonians about that translation.Soul is used in common parlance,as opposed to Shakespearean English, as the spiritual side of man.And nafs especially for Sufis is something we struggle with as in jihad-a-nafs.So calling it “soul” is highly misleading.One of my favorite translators Mukhtar Holland, may Allah reward him for his contributions and translations often translated nafs as ‘lower self’.Often I ,myself, would use ‘ego’ for nafs.Now in this ayat ,we are dealing with something different.Nafs in this context is more like ‘essence’ or ‘nature’ or ‘identity’.(ah,the scope of the Arabic language!)
In any case,here again we have Allah and the nafs or nufus He creates.So this does not concur at all with the non-dualists.It does concur with my own experience.Alhumdulillah Rabbil Alamin.