Sufi Ways

Thoght plus emotion=belief

Sufism and ideology

Being based on direct experience Sufi thought resists being converted into an ideology. In ideologies, right and wrong, tolerable and intolerable, etc., become absolute categories, already known or written down. What, one wonders, would Bayazid Bistami, as an example, say ? He might possibly direct us to seek the answer in China ( cf. ” seek knowledge even if in China “).

In Lao Tsu’s terms, they, these categories or thoughts/beliefs, become the “named” way, hence not the WAY, anymore.Al Ghazali, perhaps out of caution or fears, , advised against sharing some of these experiences=knowledge with all and sundry, in whose minds, these become equated with the description in words, resulting in potentially, unhelpful, rigid categories, rather than a guide, pointing one toward the experience or, at least, a person who could guide one in the search..It must not be easy to become a Sufi ideologue, of the ” my way or the highway”type.

In order to learn this way of experiencing reality, one needs to learn how to learn ( see Idries Shah‘s volume: Learning How To Learn )).

” Those who seek, should not stop…until they find. When they find they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and they will reign over all”.( Gospel of Thomas ). It is like a therapeutic experience, leading to claiming and integrating a human potential, of the soul, or the total personality, as Dr Zaidi might, I hope, put it.

: Learning How To Learn ).

The Detour

A Japanese proverb : “If you are in a hurry, take a detour, ,” isogaba maware.”

An obscure tappa goes: you have done a great deal of Musulmani, now become a kafir ( non believer or skeptic, or ,in more mystical parlance: disconnected, ungrateful ). Musulmani is a colloquial term, indicating the day to day ,practical, aspects of Islam, that a lot of us have to confine ourselves to, if mundane life has to go on. In other words, to achieve a deeper faith, take a detour through kufr or non belief or, great doubt,skepticism.. This does not, I think mean, that folks who practice day to day Musulmani, are not faithful, or Mu’amin. But a detour, through some troublesome times, with uncertainty, not knowing, are ,apparently, required to achieve Iman, at a different level. It can be compared to ,e.g., a Zen monk, achieving enlightenment and then returning to his quotidian existence.

Or that it is more difficult, if not impossible, to reach out to the ultra-mundane, without great struggles, a journey fraught with painful uncertainty, an existential crisis ( A well known example of this ,that comes to mind is that of Al-Ghazali, in the middle ages ). This struggle is , generally, spared those who are born into the faith.

The economist, Robert Heilbroner is quoted as saying:”What is interesting about logical thought.. is that one having been mastered, its rules master us.” This,it seems to me, applies to idealogy, above all, but also culture,traditions,dogmas,even routines, that have a logical structure..These rules, strictly and slavishly applied, may stop thought,or the capacity for it, especially of out of the box kind.

I recall that it was an ordinary looking, conservative, deeply engaged in the day to day kind of faith, Mullah, who told me about the above tappa , when I was unable to grasp profundities of any kind. I was puzzled and remain puzzled, though when I learned about Zen Koans later on in life, I started to see a koan like element in it, although it is not in the form of a question. It,however, raises a number of questions. It seemed as though, this Khizr-like figure, wanted to shake up my mastery by logical thought, linear, either/or kind thinking and certainties. I have, unfortunately not solved this paradox ( as though, paradoxes of life, or faith or lack of it, are solvable issues ), and keep meditating on this , my task, at least, one of my tasks in life. Another man of faith, deep, I think, thought that atheists were God’s favorite humans, as they were, mostly, sincere, not motivated by desires for something or other, but solely by a search for truth.

In the above anecdote, the mullah and the man of faith, were ,it appeared to me, like Nasruddin, who uses humor, sometimes “crazy” ideas & attempts to bring thought and imagination,intuition,, living reality back into the picture.. A recent example of this is from ” The Nine-Sided Circle “, a very valuable Sufi web side: Nasruddin says to a group of pious people debating about the most important thing to do in daily life, pray,give alms,etc.. The Mullah simply said “stop breathing “‘ ( and you will have your answer ). In another version, as mentioned in a previous blog, he asked them to close their eyes and hurry home.

by Modaser Shah

There have always been, whether in religious or secular domains, two ways of thought: the scholastic,  where thinking is limited to what has already been “decided” or determined by eminent texts or thinkers, who came before. Here thinking is “permissible”only within set boundaries but not beyond, because then faith might be questioned or become shaky and chaos might ensue, choices have to be made. This can be felt as an unbearable burden of freedom, one might say, a la Sartre or Erich Fromm (Escape from Freedom).
The other approach is to let thought roam free, beyond the bounds of acceptability and comfort making some sense in terms of human reality,  accessible in some way even if not altogether “rational.”  Of course, there are risks involved, in both, of extremism, i.e., loss of balance. Rigidity provides a certain sense of safety and comfort, but its dangers may be less obvious to the “orthodox” . The notion of a flat earth provides a sense of stability and safety, whereas a round earth feels, or at least did, precarious. We are marooned from our firm foundations. But a deeper reality-rooted look ought to convince one that both are equally precarious or secure, in the ultimate sense. It sounds strange to think that somehow, the Almighty  was somehow, less able (nau’zubillah!)  to provide the necessary  degree of security and safety, depending on the geometry of the earth.

At first blush, these two may seem, like the proverbial East and West, subject to “never the twain shall meet.” However, like everything else that has to do with life, matters are more complicated than a simplistic binary; that is the two opposing currents, overlap, intertwine and “inform” each other. That is to say,   there is a dialectical relationship between them, as between faith and doubt, freedom and bondage.

And a figure like Nasruddin, a wise fool, is needed to loosen the unfree, rigid, framework, to enable us to glimpse chaos, the  insecurity of not knowing, so that there is some capacity for a dialectical or transitional space, a la Winnicott, the  psychoanalyst, where thinking can expand and freedom can be glimpsed, savored.  Which can be pretty frightening to most “sane” or ordinary mortals, even angels, apparently,  except for, perhaps,  Satan,or Iblis; but that is a whole separate subject.  Suffice it to say that the figure of Nasruddin  rises to the challenge, but removes some of the fear and loathing, with the use of levity and humor, sneaking in the idea of choice under the guise of good cheer and “madness” or foolishness, reducing the terror that otherwise might scare people away.

His is, I think, an invitation to us to experience the security of not knowing, i.e., being uncertain, in other words becoming  human, an apparently impossible goal. Could this be the wisdom of the foolish Mullah? The impossibility for man to be human (Insaan), was noted also  by Ghalib, the well-known Indian Urdu poet, who lived in the 19th century and struggled throughout his life with existential dilemmas.

Sufism is an attempt to find an alternative way of knowing, and thinking, not theoretically but empirically, through direct experience. “Polishing the heart”, a Sufi trope, with meditation and other exercises, prepares the mind for the experience. But this requires the ability to tolerate not knowing or partial knowing. And balanced thinking.

by Modaser Shah

This is a story related about the Buddha, considered by some Muslim scholars in the Middle Ages as one of the myriad prophets sent by God to various nations.

A farmer came to the Buddha, having heard many stories about his amazing ability to assist people to free themselves from  suffering, looking for help with his never-ending problems. He liked farming but hated that it depended on the whims of nature: rain or no rain or too much rain, each producing different results. He was fed up with his nagging wife and ungrateful, tiresome children.  And there were also unfriendly neighbors and merciless tax collectors and greedy merchants. What were one to do?

The Awakened One listened patiently and said,” I am sorry but I cannot help you. ”

The farmer couldn’t believe his ears and asked for explanation.

The Buddha explained:” Everyone has 83 problems. When you fix one, another crops up.”

The man interrupted,  furious, “You are supposed to be a great teacher.  I  had great expectations.”

“Maybe I can help you with your eighty-fourth problem.”

Incensed, the man cried: ” You are adding to my problems! What kind of help is that?”

Calmly, with a kindly tone, the Buddha said, “It is simply this: that you don’t want to have any problems.”

It is not related how the farmer reacted; perhaps, one hopes, he was silently enlightened, able to face life as it comes, without illusions.

Life without problems! What a dream, but alas,  only a dream. To paraphrase Rumi: problems are like cracks in  the walls, which let the light in, illuminating the inner darkness. As Carl Jung said: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

Of course,  the acceptance of  the notion that  life comes with problems and changes beyond one’s control, the ultimate being death, must not be understood as passive acceptance, but, what one might call, effortful acceptance, as struggling with difficulties is part of life.   Mark Twain (in what I would refer to as a Nasruddinesque moment) said,  “My life has been full of misfortunes, most of which never happened.”