Asalamu aleykum or Bonjour/Hi (now illegal in Quebec lol).This may sound very odd for a spiritual teacher to state but”I think it is important to watch the Impeachment hearings” and here is why. As people who know my overall thinking are aware I promote a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual understanding of our human existence.In recent years the socio (read sociological) dimension has become more and more salient in my overall understanding. This is because each of us,whether we know it or not, are deeply conditioned in our thinking and behaviour by the societies that we grew up in and are now living in.And nothing i know of can give you a better understanding of contemporary Epistemology ,M.O. (modus operandi) and assumptions about how to get to Truth than these senate hearings.Sitting on a high-level government committee might be equivalent but few of us have that opportunity.So this is a live television demonstration of The Sociology of Leadership in our current societies!Yes, it is boring,tedious,obsessional and often irrelevant but that is the way it works! At the end of this article I will provide an example of an alternative approach from another epoch-the exchange between the Byzantine emperor and Abu Sufyan about the reality of our Prophet saws,so that you can see that there are other options that are arguably better and certainly more efficient for getting to the Truth.

Epistemology;the science of knowledge-how you get to the Truth.You will notice that the contemporary idea of getting to the Truth of a matter is via an adversarial process.So there are two sides-in this case the Democrats and the Republicans.They each choose the smartest,most eloquent spokesman able to ask the most pointed questions and the game begins.The art of the game is to get the witness,whoever that may be, to say what you want them to say that will most advantage your particular point of view.You will notice the cleverness,the slyness,the manipulations in that direction in every question and statement by the lawyers and the politicians.You should also notice that stating ‘the truth .the whole truth and nothing but the Truth” is a total sham an d a coverup.If such were the case there would be no need for lawyers or politicians.So the notion of ‘The Truth,the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth” is just as much a sham as “Due Process of the Law” and “Equal Justice before the Law’ and”Equality of Opportunity”(see my writings on the Democratic Illusions‘)

After you hear the statements,the questioning and the cross-examinations,you are now supposed to understand what really went on! Really?! If you are not completely confused by now,it is because you have already taken sides or you have an extraordinary capacity for discernment -something very rare  -at least in contemporary society.

Obsessionality and Hypercerebrality.Another characteristic of societal leadership is its obsessionality and its attempt to figure everything out rationally.The appetite for details and cognitive elaboration of those details seems to be infinite.On and on.The same questions posed over and over again in slightly different ways.Everyone(almost lol) is smart and alert.Everyone is determined to cross the t’s and dot the i’s and yet things get cloudier and cloudier if you are listening carefully.Actually ,one should be able to arrive at a conclusion after an hour or two of testimony-max.But ‘no’ that doesn’t satisfy the modern decision-making protocol .If we did it that way we would be accused of being”impulsive” or “impatient’ or worst of all”unscientific”(horror of horrors!)

Boredom: By hour two ,if you are normal and these people are not!, you should be bored out of your mind! Not these people.They can go on and on and worst of all think that is necessary.They are doing their “due diligence” no?

An interesting personal anecdote.While I was in medical school, I went with my friend Alan,to see a play by one of the authors of the Theatre of the Absurd(The Existentialists)- I believe it was by Harold Pinter.The play went on and on…By the time we were 11/2 hours into the performance the theatre was 2/3 empty but me and Alan were still sitting there dutifully!i looked at him and said:”medical school is making us insane,Alan! This is unbearable.Let’s get out of here” And we did.So I know well how we can train ourselves to endure boredom.Luckily I never became a politician or lawyer.

This may sound amusing but irrelevant.But it is not! These same people,the lawyers and politicians,our leaders!,are actively involved in a deep-seated training process of becoming insensitive! How well does that bode for their future empathy and leadership capacities?.Not well I would argue.And btw,the same is true often with doctors! They desensitize themselves to the point of deafnesss and blindness!

An Alternative Approach-We can call it Leadership,Listening and intelligence. Cesar examines Abu Sufyan.

Read this and tell me what is more efficient-a clever,sincere-hearted individual like Cesar questioning a relevant person ,Abu Sufyan or a committee,of clever,befuddled at least partially compromised individuals holding  an “objective” enquiry?!

How Heraclius examined the Prophet

By: Thomas Cleary

The Prophet Mohammed wrote to the Caesar of the Byzantine Empire, inviting him to Islam, sending a letter to him with Dihya al-Kalbi. The Prophet directed him to present the letter to the governor of Busra, who would forward it to Caesar.

When God had relieved him of the Persian armies, Caesar walked from Emesa [in central Syria] to Jerusalem, out of gratitude to God for having inured him to trial. So when the letter of the Prophet reached him, Caesar read it and said, “Look for someone from his people around here, so that I may ask about this Messenger of God.”

Now, it happened that Abu Sufyan was then in Syria with some men from the Quraish tribe who had come on business during the truce that then existed between the Prophet and the disbelievers of the Quraish.

Abu Sufyan later said, “The emissary of Caesar found us in a part of Syria, and he took me and my companions to Jerusalem. There we were brought to Caesar, who was sitting at his royal court, his crown on his head, around him the grandees of Byzantium.”

Now, Caesar said to his interpreter, “Ask them who among them is closest in kinship to this man who claims to be a prophet.”

Abu Sufyan [who was not a Muslim at the time] responded that he was nearest of them in kinship.

Caesar asked, “And what is the relationship between you and him?”

Abu Sufyan said, “He is a son of my paternal uncle.” Then Caesar said, “Bring him closer,” and had Abu Sufyan’s companions placed behind him, at his shoulders. Then he told his interpreter, “Tell his companions that I am going to question him about this man who claims to be a prophet; so if he tells a lie, immediately repudiate it as a lie.”

Later Abu Sufyan admitted that he would have lied when asked about the Prophet, if not for the fact that he would have been shamed to have others spreading reports that he was a liar. So he told the truth.

Now, Caesar asked through his interpreter, “How is the lineage of this man among you?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “He is of noble descent among us.” Caesar asked, “And has any one of your people previously said what he has said?”

Abu Sufyan said, “No.”

Caesar asked, “Had you found him a liar before he said what he has now said?”

Abu Sufyan said, “No.”

Caesar asked, “Was any among his ancestors a king?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “No.”

Caesar asked, “And do the highborn people listen to him, or the powerless among them?”

Abu Sufyan answered, “Rather the powerless.”

Caesar asked, “And are they increasing or decreasing?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “Increasing.”

Caesar asked, “And does anyone turn away discontent with his religion after having gone into it?”

Abu Sufyan said, “No.”

Caesar asked, “Is he treacherous?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “No, but we are in a truce with him now, and we fear he may betray us.” Later on, Abu Sufyan admitted that this was the closest he was able to come to putting in a bad word against Muhammad.

Caesar went on, “Then have you fought each other?”

Abu Sufyan said, “Yes.”

Caesar asked, “And how did your wars turn out?”

Abu Sufyan said, “Our contests have had alternating results; sometimes he wins over us, and other times we win over him.”

Caesar asked, “What does he enjoin upon you?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “He enjoins us to worship God alone, not associating anything with the sole divinity. And he enjoins us not to worship the fetishes of our ancestors. He also enjoins us to pray, to give charity, and to be chaste; and to fulfill promises and discharge trusts.”

When Abu Sufyan had said this, Caesar told his interpreter to say to him, “I asked you about his lineage among you, and you stated that he is of a sound lineage. And so were all prophets called forth from sound lineages of their people.

“Then I asked if anyone had said what he said before him, and you stated that none had. I would have said, if someone had said this before, that he was a man following something that had been said before him.

“And I asked you if you had found him a liar before he had said what he has said, and you stated that you had not. So I knew he would not lie about God if he did not lie about humans.

“And I asked you if any of his ancestors was a king, and you stated that none had been. I would have said, if any of his ancestors had been a king, that he was seeking the kingdom of his ancestors.

“And I asked you if the highborn people followed him, or the powerless ones; and you stated that it is the powerless. And they are the followers of the Messengers.

“And I asked you if they were increasing or decreasing, and you stated that they were increasing. And so it is with Faith, until it is complete.

“And I asked you if anyone turns away disaffected with his religion after having gone into it, and you stated that none did; and so it is with Faith, with which no one is displeased when its cheerfulness mixes into hearts.

“And I asked you if he acts treacherously, and you stated that he does not. And so it is with all Messengers; they do not act treacherously.

“And I asked you if you fight with each other, and you stated that you did, and that your fortunes in war alternated, now in his favor, now in yours. And so are all Messengers tried, and final victory will be his.

“And I asked you what he enjoins upon you, and you stated that he enjoins you to worship God, and not to associate anything with God, and not to worship the fetishes of your ancestors. And he enjoins you to pray, to give charity, to be chaste, to keep promises, and to fulfill trusts. And this is the description of a prophet.

“I knew he would appear, but I did not know he would be from among you. If what you have said is true, he will soon rule the ground beneath these two feet of mine. If I could expect to reach him, I would take it upon myself to go and meet him; and if I were with him, I would wash his feet.”

Then Caesar called for the letter of the Prophet, and it was read aloud. In it was this:

 

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. From Muhammad, slave and messenger of God, to Heraclius, ruler of Byzantium. Peace upon all who follow Guidance.Now then, I call you with the call to submission to God. Surrender to God, and you will be safe. Surrender to God, and God will give you a double reward. If you turn away, then the misdeeds of the peasants will be your fault.And, people of the Book, come to a Word common to both of us, that we worship only God and do not associate anything with God, and that none of us takes any for lords but God. And if they turn away, then say, “Witness that we have surrendered to God.”

 

 

Now, when Heraclius Caesar finished his speech, a cry arose from the grandees of Byzantium around him. So great was their uproar that Abu Sufyan did not understand what they said; but he and his companions were ejected. When the men of the Quraish had left the court of the Byzantine emperor and were alone, Abu Sufyan said to them, “The affair of Muhammad has grown powerful; even the king of the pale people fears him!”

Later, Abu Sufyan related, “I lay low, by God, certain that the affair of Muhammad would emerge triumphant, until God brought my heart into Islam in spite of my aversion to it.”

 

Excerpted from “The Wisdom of the Prophet” by Thomas Cleary.

PS So even the Byzantine Emperor had to deal with his own political opposition.But not before determining definitively the truth of the matter!

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People who have been following my writings over the years know that I have been very critical of the concept of “Evidence-Based Medicine”. In fact,in my first book,”Snakes and Ladders“,I made the following provocative statement:”There is no Evidence for Evidence -Based Medicine”.You will have to purchase the book to see the argument laid out there lol. I will not go into the details of this critique in this article but suffice it to say that if one applied this principle whole-heartedly one would become a victim of what my mentor in psychiatry ,Dr. Heinz Lehmann,called “cook-book medicine’ something that is all too common in current medical practice-doctors blindly following algorithms and principles that they heard at the last medical conference they attended or the last peer-reviewed journal article they read.

Let me begin this exposé by saying clearly that I am not recommending that one ignore the evidence. That would be irresponsible.Rather one should include the evidence as one of the factors in one’s decision-making process but only one of them.Remember also that the evidence is invariably statistical so it may not apply to the particular individual case you are treating.

So what are the other factors one needs to consider?This is by no means an exhaustive list but highlights some of the important modalities one should consider:

1) Clinical Experience.What have you seen (we will fashion this teaching as one designed for a medical practitioner-for the sake of clarity only.Patients and their relatives can adjust the formulation to their own needs and vantage points) to date in your clinical practice in similar cases.This assumes, of course, that the medical practitioner is treating each case as a scientific,learning process rather than a process of applying robotically what he learnt theoretically in medical school.” Medicine is an experimental process” I repeated to my own students.Obviously here,the advantage is to those practitioners with more experience-provided they have been able to learn from their own experience! This leads directly to the second modality:

2) Wisdom gained in clinical experience by more senior colleagues.This of course happens on a regular basis in clinical rounds and conferences at hospitals and clinics around the nation.Surprisingly,however, it is rarely included in the pedagogical concepts taught to medical personnel.The evidence-base that is emphasized  almost universally refers to formal research studies.

3) What the patients say and describe! Shocking idea to most medical scientists.The patients experience is relevant-often that is what should predominate rather than the medical literature.How many patients have I heard say:”The doctor wasn’t listening to me”. Of course not! Besides the over-ambitious caseload he is carrying he also has the ideological back-drop of “Evidence-Based Medicine”.What can the ‘subjective comments” of patients be worth in that context?!

Btw I could give clinical examples of each of these modalities but for the sake of brevity I will have to forego those examples for now.

4) Intuition.After all medicine is as much of an art as a science.Needless to say,as far as I know, there is not a single medical school giving a course to doctors on developing their intution.Just like there is not a single course in law school teaching human psychology to lawyers.Reality is indeed stranger than fiction!

5) The “scientifically plausible hypotheses”.This is something I heard only once in all my CME courses but it immediately caught my attention.What it means is that one should go back to basic scientific knowledge like physiology,anatomy,histology and biochemistry in trying to analyze what is really going on.This is one case where I will give a clinical example as the idea might not be clear otherwise.

I am at a passover dinner many years ago at my parents place.One of their friends is coughing intensely.”What’s going on ,George?”I asked.”i have this intense cough and the doctors don’t know what to do about it”.”So what did they propose” I asked.”They said there were studies to show that sometimes the cough is related to hiatus hernia.So they did a four-hour painful operation on me for that! ” Did it help?” .”Not at all” he responded.” I haven’t studied basic sciences in a long time” I mused”But if I remember correctly a cough is a symptom in the respiratory tract”.Did anyone refer you to a Respiratory Disease specialist?” No,not at all” So I did. There was a very good specialty clinic at the time called the Royal Edward Chest Hospital in Montreal.He was assessed there.The doctors concluded that he had asthma! And with asthmatic medications his problem was solved! All a question of basic anatomy!

There may well be other considerations in clinical decision-making like cultural and economic ones but the point here is that you cannot solely rely on the peer-reviewed scientific literature in order to be a competent physician.That would be doing a disservice to your patients and yourselves. Salaams,Joel Ibrahim Kreps