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