All posts by jebrahim2@gmail.com

Suffering in Life

Every difficulty in life is both a test and a teaching. Most practicing Muslims are aware of the former.Allah tells us to be patient when we are being tested and to be grateful when we are receiving “niamat” (gifts).But these same Muslims are often unaware of the second part-that these difficulties have meaning(ma’ana).

The meanings ,when we are able to figure them out-which is not always possible,are also in two parts.What have we done wrong to cause the problem and how are we to proceed in a way that is more in line with the will of God.A point of clafication here.If you are undergoing suffering it does not mean necessarily that you have done something wrong.Often,that is the case but it could also be your Lord raising your rank as He has done with his beloved Prophets.In that case it is mostly a test for them although they still have to figure out how best to proceed-something they have in common with all of us!

The answers are not always easy to find.Sometimes ,they are obvious.You ate too much.Now you are having heart problems.You treated your partner badly.Now they have left you.Easy-peasy,right lol? Often it is not so simple.And then the Istikhara practice(see the text on this blog) may be of help to identify the factors that need to change.

What I am trying to underline here is that it is ALL meaningful.We just need to figure it out.Some times it takes a while to do so! May Allah guide us all! Salaams,Ibrahim

Conspiracy Theories Unpacked

Conspiracy Theories Unpacked

Fareed Zakaria, one of the more intelligent representatives of the politically- correct, Ivy League Universities of America, dealt with conspiracy theories on todays GPS show on CNN. So it’s time to comment lol.

He talks about “Pizzagate” and Qanon  and the “birther” conspiracies but the one conspiracy that he never addresses is the conspiracy of political-correctness and social, scientific consensus. Of course, he cannot address that as he is completely immersed in it! That is the one that tells us that we live in a truly democratic society, that “Due process of the Law” gives us justice and that man can figure out everything he needs to know through Science and Reason. Ever run into that one lol?! Ever notice how much falseness lies therein.

Well, if you don’t or won’t see that, many other people do. They see the lies, the half-truths, the deceptions and they then try to figure out what is going on. Many diverge into the realm of imagination, fantasy an d sometimes pure projection known affectionately as “paranoia”. But you can’t totally blame them as the mainstream media do.They are being lied to, they know it and so they invent their own lies to compensate. Stated simply, the most important cause of conspiracy theories is the lying and deception promulgated by official sources! All part of a very sick and troubled society!

Now, there is another social myth contributing to this problem. That myth is that our educational system teaches us to think! Wrong! Our educational system teaches us to think in a very outward, Empirical, supposedly logical, way that more often than not leads us away from the Truth rather than closer to it. Our educational system does NOT teach us discernment. It does not teach us basirat (insight, inner vision). It does not teach us true listening and hearing. It does not teach us intuition and insight. So, in effect, our educational system is actually a sophisticated form of brainwashing that few, even those who have designed it, are aware of.

Let me give you a couple of concrete examples to hang your pegs of understanding on. In the late 1970’s Raymond Moody came out with his book: ”Life after Life” analyzing his collection of what became the near-death experience “.Since then I have had an avid interest in these accounts to the point where I wrote a book about them called “The Big Questions-Evidence Based Faith” in 2007. (The second Edition is now available on Amazon.)Almost universally, when you present this evidence of the After-Life to “well-educated” people, they respond the same way: ”But isn’t that just because there are biochemical changes in the brain at the time of death?” For someone slightly more aware than that  you could be thinking “Wha-a-at?!”.Here are people telling you they left their bodies, they met angels and deceased relatives and even God, confirming ALL the teachings of the great religions of the World, and all you can think of is “Are these biochemical changes in the brain?!” This is Empiricism at its most perverse and pernicious level. In my understanding, this reflex is entirely generated by our educational system.

A second example: When I was working as a psychiatrist, at one point I had a number of patients suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. In many cases, it became obvious that the source of the problem was environmental issues like mould or chemicals or insecticides at the workplace or in the home. I would often have to work as well with the partners of these patients as the consequences of these problems affected them as well. After awhile I noticed a pattern. The partners who understood best (some of them had understood even before the patients came to consult!) were almost invariably workmen in the trades! The professionals (doctors and lawyers and even engineers)and other random intellectuals and administrators rarely got it. They were too stuck in their concepts. Many of them had concluded it was all “psychosomatic”-another of the abused terms of the politically correct class. (To be addressed in a future article).

At this point, my well-educated readers lol are going to reflexly ask the same question! “So what is the solution?!” This too is part of the socially-conditionned thought processes. As if the solution does not emerge spontaneously from a correct understanding of the problem. Which it usually does!

Nevertheless, since peoples’ thinking processes do not change easily or quickly, I will address this issue as well. The answer is that people need to be educated in discernment and all of its doors(what I call Epistemology for lack of a better term).That should be one of the principal goals of education. And I do not know of a single educational institution ,outside of some advanced Sufi circles, that is teaching this very thing that we need so much in the modern world.

This is a very long and complex discussion-full of all kinds of confusions, ambiguities and misunderstandings. So, to avoid the risk of remaining in the abstract and nebulous let me go back to one of the main problems at hand- the Covid epidemic. The conspiracy theories are all over the place on this one. ”This is a “plandemic”-orgainized by some cabal of business and political leaders to control the world”. ”The Covid pandemic is not real. Only 6% of the deaths are really Covid deaths. The epidemic is no worse than the annual flu”.( Ask the doctors on the ground if you need to dispell that one!)”This was a bioweapon developed either by the U.S. military or the Chinese to be used for warfare”. The list goes on and on.I am still waiting for the theory that this is a plot from extra-terrestials lol.Soon to come on your favourite conspiracy web-site.

Then we have the lies of the official classes-somewhat more subtle but toxic nevertheless. Let’s start with the original lie:”This is a naturally occurring virus that transferred from an animal to a human at the Wuhan market”. Almost every serious viral geneticist like Dr.Luc Montaigne French Nobel prize-winner in looking at the genetic sequence can tell that there is human intervention. For those who love the science of it the insertion is called a “polybasic furan cleavage site”. It was produced by “gain of function” research in America which became a hot potato in the U.S. where it was banned and  transferred to Wuhan China in 2014. America knew of the danger after a report to the State Department in 2018 but did nothing about it. When it finally emerged in 2020, the Chinese covered it up at first but shut down the whole area around Wuhan. This is not the place to go into the entire history of this virus but suffice it to say for our purposes here that much of the Truth is not being told to the public. Likewise for the efficacy of Hydroxychloriqine and /or Ivermectin used properly.(Both are being used effectively in Third World Countries!)Both denied by official, social consensus science. Then there is the whole question of the safety of massive vaccine programs. Again either the proper research is NOT being done or it is not being used properly. So people have reason to be suspicious! Not to be paranoid but to be skeptical.

For those who are still determined to find solutions, another element would be true transparency by government officials. That, however, is,despite the rhetoric, highly unlikely given the adversarial nature of current democratic politics and the strategic manipulation of information by one interest group or another.

So, we are by no means out of the woods! Of course, the best weapon against conspiracy theories is Truth! But that Truth can only be discovered through discernment and dispassion. And our current leadership, both in politics AND in science and the professions, has neither of those. They are blind, deaf, insensitive, greedy and ideological-a toxic brew like no other we have seen in history!

Modern Education Revisited

I have listened to and analyzed the reports of many,many students in their experience of academia and have come to the inevitable conclusion that the unconscious intention of almost all schooling is to make students as miserable as possible! This would support the theory which I have, up to now at least, considered conspiratorial that school is designed to prepare people for the workforce.After that painful educational process almost any job,no matter how stressful or boring seems like liberation lol.At least ,at the end of a day of work you are free.And you get paid!At school,you are never free until the semester ends or you get the degree! Welcome to the modern world.But before I leave you on this question,I should mention the cognitive dissonance caused by social conditioning.In this social conditioning,people are taught that school is the best time of your life and the key to happiness. Simply put,that is hogwash!

Epistemology Unpacked -The Covid-19 pandemic

I guess philosophy is important after all lol.My two favourite terms these days are Epistemology and Empiricism and its sister Philosophical Materialism.So my apologies to Wittgenstein and John Stuart Mills after all lol.

So( not supposed to use that word according to current anal grammarians lol.Another form of political correctness-this time in the  world of grammar.).And yet(probably also banned as a term lol) it is SO useful lol.Maybe that’s why they want to ban it! (the conspiratorial epistemology-to be unveiled shortly).So,I repeat,the current pandemic gives us a chance to examine different forms of Epistemology.Epistemology basically means “how do you get to the Truth,The Realty of any situation or question?”(same word btw in Arabic-Truth and Reality=Haqq!)

So let us examine four forms of Epistemology as applied to the Covid pandemic and  try to see their relative value.I will personalize these approaches in order to make the point more vividly and graspable(sorry again grammarians-probably not a legitimate word!).

  1. The Didier Raoult paradigm-information on the ground.For those that don’t know this fascinating character from Marseilles,he is one of the first doctors to promote hydroxychloriquine as a Covid treatment-mostly based on his clinical experience at a hospital in Marseilles.He even took the trouble to document his cases and show that at his clinic ,they had reduced the death rate by about 70% by this approach.Further studies done in the right way,using HCT early in the illness with azithromycin and Zinc came to similar conclusions-anywhere from a 60-80% reduction! All of this based on exanining the facts on the ground.This principle is applicable to many other situations .Ask the people who are there experiencing it.But no! The current Epistemological paradigm forbids this It is dismissed either as subjective or anecdotal or some other disparaging term.         I was pleased to hear from my brother in NYC whose future son-in-law was himself working on the ground in a Brooklyn hospital where the doctors noticed that HCT was useful early in the illness and they were not even using it with antibiotics and zinc! But no,the CDC and WHO will hear nothing of this .They need their prospective, double-blind ,placebo-controlled peer-reviewed i.e. non-existent studies lol to arrive at conclusions.)
  2. The Chris Martenson(peakprosperity.com) paradigm.Unlike the former paradigm  Chris is working from outside the battlefield.But he uses the on the ground workers as one source amongst others.Then he interviews people who have experienced the illness,looks at the research including the less high-profile journals and the non-statistical scientific reports.He scours the newspapers,TV Cable News and radio reports.From this vast array of sources he is able to discern the chaff from the wheat,pick out the B.S. even in hot-shot journals like Lancet and JAMA and then come to conclusions.He is almost invariably right and when he isn’t he admits it.   Oddly enough I have seen judges in the courts using a very similar process of teasing out the reality from an abundance of sources.And they consistently understand the Reality better than the expert doctors who are supposed to be experts in the area. That is because the doctors are using the next paradigm-the Fauci approach lol
  3.  The Fauci and his acolyte Sanjay Gupta approach- also known as current scientific consensus.These people only believe in peer-reviewed,placebo-controlled,double blind prospective studies and Cochrane database metastudies and official organizations like WHO and FDA and CDC..They are very often wrong as has been Fauci all along in this pandemic.He got the mask issue wrong(not enough studies?!)the hydroxychloroquine issue wrong(looking at the wrong studies and ignoring the right ones) and the man-made nature of the virus(how he could get that one wrong is beyond me as HE was instrumental in creating it!). The problem is that most medical personnel and certainly the formal afore-mentioned institutions(WHO,FDA,CDC,NIH) are all using that paradigm! No wonder we are in such confusion and such trouble.
  4. I can’t complete this abbreviated list of Epistemological approaches without mentioning the Brian Rose,Sayer Ji Plandemic conspiratorial epistemology.These people see the lies and the deceptions of the official stories of government and health institutions but go way beyond the facts into paranoid projections.So the fact that there was a 201 Event meeting of government and public health officials and businessmen Organized by John’s Hopkins University  in October 2019 that simulated a pandemic to try to develop strategies to deal with such an event means for them that the pandemic was planned.Wrong! The fact that the Wuhan lab was under the control of the Chinese military means that this virus was a bio-weapon of war.Wrong again. The fact that Bill Gates screwed up with vaccines in India and Africa means that he is trying to depopulate the world so that he can better control it.Anyone with familiarity with the paranoid mind-set(I was a psychiatrist for 45 years lol) can recognize the cognitive errors in these kinds of distortions and projections.On top of it,they may be dangerous as they stir up unnecessary fear and anger in a situation where there is enough realistic fear and anger to go around already!
  5. Btw, each of these types of Epistemology can be used in many other areas of life as well.As I have indicated in other articles on this blogsite-which you are free to explore.In fact,I consider myself to be an Epistemologist of Spiritual Reality and Truth.Keep reading and keep in touch if this interests you in any way .Salaams,Joel Ibrahim Kreps

Bureaucracy,Empiricism and the American Election

Republican Convention: Some mediocre speeches,some reality.As opposed to the Democratic Convention.Better,more intelligent speeches.Less reality! Fascinating this play between theory and reality.Most people believe in theory! Yes,theory.Because that’s what we’re taught to believe in at our schools.You know- like double-blind ,randomized placebo-controlled studies.That is bureaucratic theory and it has cost thousands of lives! One thing I must say in Trump’s defense.He is THE ONLY politician who sees through bureaucracy-sporadically for sure,but nevertheless from time to time.Everyone else just accepts it.I consider bureaucracy and its natural allies-Empiricism and so-called Rationality THE biggest problem of our times-far beyond even corruption because bureaucracy and Empiricism corrupt our vision and make it impossible to see Reality and act accordingly.This phenomenon is in full view in the current Covid-19 crisis! God help us!

Democratic Politics

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(Watching bits of the Democratic Convention) Politics,Oy! America has deep problems on almost every level of social existence.There are serious epidemics all over America- of cancer and Alzheimers and autism and auto-immune disorders! And all the politicians are talking only about is Covid-19.There are serious problems of stress at the workplace and all its detrimental health effects downstream.And all the politicians can talk about are trade deals and increasing efficiency! There are serious problems in relationships.60% of marriages end in divorce(John Gottman) and many people no longer even bother to get married.And all the politicians can talk about is uniting the people! Those people are not even united with the people closest to them in their lives!And there are very serious problems with horribly inefficient bureaucracies in many areas of society including the legal system and the income tax system.And all the politicians can talk about is better training for police and reducing incarceration(two good ideas that barely touch the surface of the problem!) Bottom Line.These politicians are seriously out of touch with Reality.It’s a subtle form of psychosis-IMHO.The covid-19 pandemic is only the first sign of the dysfunctionality.Much,much more to come if these problems are not handled.And the politicians don’t seem to have a clue!

Vaccine Development! The Corona Crisis

Kudos to the Russians for the rapid vaccine development i.e. circumventing the obsessional regulatory vaccine process.I did not use vaccines in my medical practice but I can tell you that each time a new anti-depressant came out,I did not need 30,000 cases to tell me if it was safe and effective.By less than ten cases and CERTAINLY by 100,I was well aware of the cost/benefit therapeutically of the new meds! And btw (please turn off your contradiction detectors here.They are not useful lol!) with all this obsessive testing of the regulatory agencies many vaccines have shown harmful effects down the road anyway.What is really needed here is not greater numbers, as the Empiricists like to believe,but better observational skills among the scientists-something sorely lacking in modern medicine- lacking because of this very emphasis on measurability rather than “seeing”!)

Epistemology 101

Beginning to formulate the contours of a diplomaed course in Epistemology lol.Epistemology 101 will be titled “The Myth of Rationality: The Superheroes of the Rationalist movement”.In this first and introductory course we will study the statements of Bill Gates(Remember perfect 800 SAT scores lol),Antony Fauci,who is still in denial about his role in creating the Covid crisis in the first place and ex-president Obama who had the chutzpah at the end of his presidential reign to say:”We did the right thing in Syria”! (At least Clinton had the humility to say he messed up in Rwanda).That should be a good start!Applicants will be screened to test if they are able, in the smallest way, to demonstrate associative and intuitive thinking rather than the “rationalist” sort.Needless to say we will be fighting against decades, if not centuries, of social conditioning so I expect lots of pushback lol

The Pandemic in a Nutshell

(This is from my FB post in early July.Remains just as relevant one month later!)

July 8 at 11:11 AM

Shared with Public
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The pandemic in a nutshell-Ok. This is the scoop as I understand it.They were doing this research(“gain of function”) so that the virus penetrates more easily into human cells(specific affinity for ACE receptors).That allows them to have more research subjects who are infected so they can test vaccines on them.American scientists realized how dangerous this could be so it was banned in the U.S in 2014 by Obama after numerous scientists(?200) wrote a letter to the State Department. They(Antony Fauci?) transferred the research to China where they don’t care about human beings but are more interested in money and reputation, and the Americans kept financing it through the N.I.H to the tune of $200 million. In 2018 a group of American diplomats and scientists visited the Wuhan lab for an inspection.They wrote a report to the State Dept. saying how dangerous it was and that the security was too lax at the lab.The State department ignored the report! And the rest is history.The entire world had to suffer the consequences and they(The Chinese and the Americans) are not acknowledging their mistakes and their negligence and hiding the evidence.No conspiracy theories,no bio-weapons.Just simple recklessness and negligence combined with “Science” that has lost its moral compass!That’s it in a nutshell.

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

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