The biggest problem in the modern world,besides a wrong conception about our relationship to our Creator-a whole other subject, is that we are taught to put theory before Reality.And we can see that on every level of societal actions -in politics,in the legal system and even in Science which has become more like theology than about the experimental methodology from which it began..
All posts by jebrahim2@gmail.com
Businessman and Lawyers
And so”yes” maybe the cut-throat world of business IS the best preparation for the presidency! The lawyer types have been coddled for years by a judicial system that protects itself and its agents(the lawyers and judges) far more than it protects the rights of victims and the perpetrators of crime-which it falsely claims to do.So the lawyers are more like pampered children than responsible adults!
Shaytan , anyone?
In the modern world , the use of the term ‘devil’ or ‘Satan’ or ‘Iblis’ is seen as a sign of fanaticism and backwardness . I shared that point of view when I first entered Islam. Although I recognize that there are certain evangelical sects of Christianity that overuse and even abuse the term, I have come to see over time that the forces of evil in the world are real, and I can often see them in action all around me. So when Sheikh Nazim said to us over 30 years ago that Shaytan (Satan)now has hegemony in the world, I now see what he meant. Here is ImamGhazzali talking about the same phenomenon hundreds of years ago.
This is Sheikh Hamza Yusuf quoting Imam Ghazzali speaking to the ‘debaters’,the ‘reflex disagreers’ “If you are not fighting shaytan and he has your heart, he has occupied your heart and he’s the worst enemy you have and he’s calling you to your own destruction and you are preoccupied with debating other people and your own heart is in peril… then you are a joke to shaytan and a wondrous lesson to the people of sincerity” So please beware. The time of the flower-children is over!
Borderline Personality-Three Other Characteristics
Ever since Elizabeth Zetzel published her ground-breaking article “The so called good hysteric” in 1968, there had been increasing interest in what we now call Borderline Personality Disorder. When we factor in the distraught psychiatric personnel trying to deal with their frequent visits to the E.R., the advent of the film “Fatal Attraction” and the frequent experience of male partners trying to deal with their over-wrought female companions, we can begin to understand the bandwidth that this diagnosis has taken on in the public mind.
Because of this, it has become incumbent on us to try to understand what is going on with these people and how we can cope with their ‘emotional dysregulation’ as Marsha Linehan likes to call it. In that spirit and in an attempt to go beyond the empirically-based DSM5 I have discovered three mostly unmentioned characteristics that may help us to better understand and deal with these people.
1)An excess of pride that makes it almost impossible for the Borderline to admit their mistakes. This characteristic is well-known in the sister diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality -a diagnosis that has taken on a life of its own since the advent of the Trump presidency. For some reason its’ presence in the Borderline has gone largely unnoticed. Perhaps this is because other characteristics like suicidality and angry outbursts are so much more dramatic.
However, in dealing with these people, the fact that they almost never say, like the stereotypical alcoholic”I’m so sorry for losing it.. I’ll never do that again” makes it all the more difficult to make any progress. Perhaps it is the presence of such low self-esteem that makes the admission of guilt so problematic. It’s as if admitting one more error would be too crushing to their sense of self-worth.
2)Consistent bad decision- making. I think this is related to the power of the forces of desire and aversion which regularly overpower both their reason and theirintuition. So in a way this is also a derivative of emotional intensity and dysregulation.
3) An overconcern with the opinion of others. This is often counter-productive as these ‘others’ are often out of touch in their opinions and certainly, in most cases, not a good source of advice. In fact, these opinions may not even be those of the imagined ‘others’ but rather projected ones of the borderline themselves. This aspect can probably be traced back to the identity diffusion of the borderline pathology. The borderline typically has a weak sense of self. They do not have well-supported opinions of their own. So they become reliant on others points of view -regardless of the level of wisdom or ignorance of the other. In fact, borderlines tend to choose the least wise advisors the same way they often choose the most inappropriate partners.
This is by no means the definitive answer to dealing with this problematic phenomenon. But hopefully it will add to our capacity to cope in a relationship-context-both for the partner and the borderline themselves.
Salaams,Ibrahim
The Chain of Causation!
Ok. Here it is!
Everything comes from God.He is the Original Cause,the Real Cause of everything.It comes from His Will but also from His Wisdom and Beneficence.
All the causes that we identify and that science is preoccupied by are “intermediary causes” i.e. they are not the real causes.They are being used by the Creator to accomplish his purpose.So if He has ordered,from His Wisdom,a tsunami to occur in a certain area He will use the shifting tectonic plates as his means of accomplishing that.If He has ordered a certain psychological suffering for you,for whatever reason,he will use your predispositions,whether genetic or biological or environmental;whether anxiety,depression or psychosis, to implement that suffering.
All of the” musibah
(difficulties,sufferings) are purposeful! They are tests but they are not random,accidental tests.They are specifically designed to teach you something, to change something in your thinking or your behaviour or both.Seeking the meaning,therefore,of these tests, through contemplation, is one of the most rewarding and transforming of spiritual practices.
“And zo ve may to begin”.Alah be with you!
PS Please note that the Will of God is not like our will. Our will is based on desire and thinking. His Will is based on Real Knowledge and Wisdom. What a difference!
Agitation- The Epidemic of Modern Times
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf states” If there is one characacteristic of modern times that stands out ,it is “ajal”(speediness, restlessness, agitation” ) The Prophet saws said “agitation is from the devil” . And Marie-Louise von Franz author of “The Way of the Dream” and leading exponent of Jungian analysis says in her book:”The most general neurotic symptom today is restlessness. That isn’t yet looked at as a neurosis because everybody is so restless.” I call it the Manhattan Syndrome lol but it is much more widespread than NYC . So what to do about it. Here are s few suggestions:
1) Be fully ware of your agitation in all its manifestations: cognitive, emotional, and physical
2) Use CBT self-talk stratégies to tell yourself things like:”It’s not really that urgent” or “ It can be done later” or “I’m exaggerating the harm of not doing this.” Remember the Caribbean slogan”Don’t worry , be happy”. They have a point! And of course, every situation is unique so you need to be practical and reasonable here. Except what you usually call “ practical and reasonable” is usually obsessional and overambitious in terms of productivity and efficiency.
3) Reorganize your life and your time. Don’t try to do more than is reasonable to do in a given period of time. Look at your to do list . Postpone one- half to one- third of what you have written/ day. This is going to take a lot of self-observation . The models for proper time management are few and far between.
4) Change your life circumstances if need be. Most people need to do this as they are in situations that regularly generates stress!You may have to change jobs or move to another place where people are calmer or move to the countryside. As opposed to what your mind is telling you, you actually have lots of options!
5) If none of this works, you may have to take up meditation lol. But don’t do that as a substitute for the other necessary changes. The society would like you to be stressed out most of the time and take breaks meditating or alternatively watching spectator sports and then back to the stress.The méditative effect , which is real, usually wears off quickly as soon as you are back to your stressful life, na matter what the teachers, who usually wisely avoid those situations , tell you about “generalization” .
Anything else you have discovered , please share with the readers of this blog. Salaams, Ibrahim
There ARE no Perfect Guides,only Guidance
(Special thanks here to Munirah Maclean who is one of the few,if not only, persons able to follow my unfolding process.)
In 2001 shortly before his demise,we visited Sheikh Mahshur al-Haddad one of the great awliya of the Habaib tradition of Yemen.He told us that the process of ‘bayat'(sworn allegiance to the Sheikh) was over.He explained that people in this time were not able to carry that level of surrender.Ahmad Zerrouk,one of the great sheikhs of the Shadhili lineage, had made a parallel statement several hundred years earlier,claiming that there were no people left who could carry the mantle of Sheikh.
I have come to the conclusion that,in fac t, the problem,metaphysically if you wish ,goes beyond the weakness of the murids and shuyukh -to the very nature of Truth itself..Since all people,including legitimate awliya an d Prophets themselves make mistakes,if we are determined to be with the Truth as much as possible,we would be called upon to disagree with them at times.There were several incidents like that in the life of our own Prophet Mohammed saws where he had to give way to the more accurate understanding of one of his followers.So we shouldn’t be surprised.
However, for Sufi zealots ,this truth is anathema.They are of the “The Sheikh is always right,we have to obey him because he is systematically Divinely inspired and every contrary idea or action is treachery and apostasy”school of belief. I,personally have never been able to accept that point of view.At numerous points in time my Sheikh,for whom I had the greatest respect and from whom I learnt enormously,was wrong.My Istighara told me so.Each time the Istikhara proved right.And I never regretted following the latter.Why should I ? The latter was from God!
Ironically ,as I am fond of denouncing “democratic illusions’, this all sounds llike the liberal,democratic point of view.’.Abadan”(never) lol.The liberals believe it is all a matter of opinion and that one opinion is as good as another.That is not at all what I am saying.I am,rather,saying that there is an objective Truth in every situation.The real spiritual teacher has regular access to that Truth but not always.Sometimes he,or she,is caught up in his own belief systems, in projections of his own experience or even to some emotional reaction to one reality or another.I wrote specifically about this in my article entitled”Why I had to leave my last tariqat”
Don’t get me wrong here.We need teachers;we need guidance.And we have to show the utmost respect to the true saints and spiritual guides.But we musn’t take them for gods.Doesn’t Islam teach us as much?! But that is exactly the error that many Sufis get involved in.May Allah protect us from ‘shirk'(idolatry) of all types and open our eyes,ears and hearts to the Truth of each and every situation.That is the way of peace and lessening of suffering.Salaams,Respectfully,Ibrahim Kreps As-Sufi
Sheikhs, Gurus And Shady Characters
(From a dream message) “Don’t ever try to be a Sheikh or a guru if you are Narcissistic or Prone to angry outbursts or Corrupt.” But don’t despair. There are plenty of other career options open to you. You can still be a President of a country or a Supreme Court Judge or a banker lol
Obsessional Processes -The Social Norm!
I guess my theory is once again confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Comittee in its decision re Brett Kavanaugh.I used to believe that the American, and by extension most Western judicial systems, get results that are only randomly connected to reality. I have come to believe,on the contrary, that the protocol-based, obsessional processes that are endemic in all our legal and political systems actually come to conclusions that are inversely related to reality. That is, that they get it regularly and systematically wrong. The equivalent process occurs in obsessive individuals , who I have observed over the years in my practice, who regularly make bad decisions because they “can’t see the forest for the trees”! God help us all. And the way He helps us the most is keeping us at a maximum distance from these processes that the “blind, deaf and dumb” lawyers and politicians like Judge Kavanaugh and his Senate enablers call “due process”.
Jihad-a-nafs -2
After publishing my recent post on the battle with the ego,I felt the need to give a more complete version, since I had only really covered 3 1/2 of the 7 cardinal sins.Those were the ones that required the most explanation but let us complete the account here.
4) Anger-2 None of us can avoid totally becoming angry.For sure, there are certain personalities more prone to anger than others. The Greek physician,Galen, called them the ‘coleric’ types.In modern English we could describe them as irascible ,irritable or even ‘paranoid’ at times.Narcissistic people,like the current president of the U.S.A. ,are particularly susceptible to this disease.They regularly feel slighted and then need to reply with Narcissistic rage.This can be done by shouting,by belittling,even humiliating the other and nowadays we have a wonderful panoply of tools like Twitter,to express our hostility whenever we want.
But our question here is: what is the right way to be with this emotion?Should we simply ignore it and repress it or should we look for the kernel of truth within it and try to find a way to communicate that.That was a rhetorical question? I hope you don’t feel slighted lol.
The psychologists teach us that we should transform our aggression into affirmation and there is certainly wisdom in that approach.But even the affirmation has to be appropriately formulated and delivered in a timely fashion.If it is said in the wrong way or at the wrong time,it will just inflame the passions even more.Even at the right time,it may elicit a negative or indifferent response as the ego hates to be corrected(pride is our next subject).
How not to do it! When I first entered the fold of Islam ,I was in Jerusalem.I was eager to read about Islam but could find no bookstores with interesting material.So I used to cross the city from East to West and go to the library at The Hebrew University .There I was able to find the collection of Bukhari hadith -in French!
One day I came into the library and there was a man probably in his early seventies yelling at the receptionist. When he had finished his tirade I went up to the clerk and asked her what that was about.”Do you know who that man is?” she said. “No,not at all” “He’s the head of our history department”. “Oh”,I responded.”What was he so upset about?” “He had asked for a book and it has taken us longer than expected to get it!”. Wow! I knew intellectuals were a dubious lot but that was too much.I confirmed at that point something I had suspected all along.Intellectual training is a weak tool for character development.Got it!
In the Naqshbandi protocol of the night prayer,we are called upon to repeat Ya Halim (O Gentle One) in order to calm our anger.There is a hadith reported by Abu Dharr,one of the most ascetic of the Sahhabbas which says””If one of you is angry when he is standing,let him sit down so that the anger will leave him .Otherwise let him lie down.” In all honesty ,I have not met many Muslims,including pious ones able or willing to do that.That is because anger has a way of taking us over that is hard to resist.It is a formidable opponent.
So the first and perhaps the best thing to do is quickly identify it.That is called mindfulness.(You can look up the posting on Mindfulness Practice on this blog for further details.Then we have to make a conscious decision not to act on it. And then be patient as anger is an emotion like several others and it tends to come in waves and then die down.When it does so,then we can decide what to do with its content.
Now,sometimes the anger can turn into resentment and bitterness and grudges and hatred.Then it becomes a long-term problem which can be even more serious.If we study the lives of some of those American mass murderers,like the boys at Columbine,we will discover people whose bitterness and hatred of others had been building up over years until it gets acted upon.Often,the people queried about these massacres will say”But he seemed like such a quiet,well-behaved boy!” So the anger is hidden.Other people,of course,erupt regularly and create a lot of social chaos around themselves.Some lose jobs or partners or friends because of their bad character.So the consequences are serious indeed.Ya Halim!
A few hadith related to this issue.
a)”A man said to the Prophet,’ Give me advice’ The Prophet saws said: ‘Do not get angry'(Meaning ‘Don’t express your anger’)The man asked repeatedly and the Prophet answered each time:’Do not get angry”
b)from Abu Hurayra”The Prophet saws said”The strong man is not the one is is able to defeat others in wrestling:the song man is the one who controls himself at times of anger”
c)”Anger comes from the devil,the devil was created of fire,and fire is extinguished only by water:so when one of you becomes angry,he should perform ablution”.(Sunan Abu Dawood)This is another hadith that is rarely applied,in my experience, because the anger tends to be such an overwhelming sensation.However,the indication of fire and thus heat within gives us a tool by which to identify it and track it which makes it easier to resist.
From the point of view of psychology:I went to a seminar in Berkely,California, of all places, in 1975.The seminar was given by an avant-garde chiropractor/therapist named Stanley Keleman.He had been a student of Lowen and Pierrakos who were direct stidents of Wilhelm Reich,the developer Of Bioenergetic Therapy and himself a student of Sigmund Freud.(I guess there is a silsila-chain of transmission in psychology as well lol) He made a statement that shocked the group of New-Age Humanistic therapists who had been taught that the key to managing anger was to express it by hitting pillows and shouting it out- which was common in both Gestalt Therapy and Bioenergetics.
He said the following:”I have been doing this catharsis stuff for years but it doesn’t work! The more you express the anger the more it just comes back like a deep well from which you have drawn water.” So what do we do?” the audience responded,taken aback by his claims.”Just observe it and it will slowly abate” This may well have been the first whiffs of the Mindfulness Movement in America.Keleman had somehow stumbled his way into Buddhist practice- which in this case is the same as Islamic practice.
We may all do well to stumble into the same behaviour,despite our nafs lol
5)Pride-The Biggie The Christians consider this one the biggest of the big. In the Quran Satan refuses to bow down to Adam because he considers himself superior to him.In that way he becomes disobedient to his Lord.Then he becomes ‘adoo mubin” -a clear-cut enemy to man.The result of this pride and Satan’s vow to make us miserable and wretched is all around us.
Now pride can often be subtle.Most proud people are not aware of being proud.They think it is normal.After all they are so good shouldn’t they be proud?And there are probably things that are ok to be proud of.Our own Prophet saws said to his companions”And I am the best of you with his family” and also “And I am the most God-fearing of you” so appropriate recognition of our qualities is not always a bad thing.In modern parlance,we could say it is good for our self-esteem and self-esteem is important, up to a certain extent.
But we all know people who have an inflated sense of self(which psychoanalytically usually represents an inner insecurity). The current president of the U.S.A. is a perfect example.We should be thankful for him lol.There is so much to learn about how not to be from him!One of the problems with this pride is that the person is unwilling to accept criticism,unwilling to examine his own behaviour and attitudes.Then he becomes unable to improve,unable to evolve properly.
Also ,he may be seriously deficient in problem-solving as he cannot integrate the ideas of others into his plan of action.Doing so would make him feel inadequate.The other effect of this attitude is in his/her relationships.Around the proud person, others feel put down and belittled constantly.At some point they just give up and leave!
So what is the solution? Self-awareness,humility.God-consciousness.None of those are easy.When I first came to Jerusalem,I started my explorations on the Jewish side as that is where I came from in my family.I met a holy Rabbi of the Reb Nachman of Bratislava Hassidic tradition.He seemed to have clairvoyant powers as well.He looked at me in the eyes and said: “Yossef (my original Hebrew name) I can see that you have very good potential for gaining knowledge.But remember that no matter how much knowledge or understanding you gain,it will be a drop in the ocean of the Knowledge of Ashem(god).” That puts you in your place quickly lol! but in fact,that is a good strategy for attaining humility.If you ever feel too good about yourself-your strength,your wealth,your cleverness, think about God,the Infinite and you can only become humble.I use that technique regularly when I encounter human stupidity which otherwise could make one smug and self-satisfied.If you read the ‘seerat’ (biography) of our Prophet saws ,you will see that he was constantly aware of this dichotomy-us vs. our Lord.Only humility can issue from that awareness.
6) Envy After the creation of the Universe and the fall of Adam,we find one of his sons murdering the other-out of envy.Able had earned the favour of his Lord,and Cain could not tolerate it,so he killed him.And envy has continued to plague mankind ever since.The brothers of Joseph could not tolerate him being the father’s favourite so they planned to kill him but relented and sold him into slavery instead.In more recent times we had the Olympic skater Tonya Harding who could not bear being outdone by Nancy Kerrigan.Her husband hired a thug to break Nancy Kerrigan’s leg! We hear similar stories abut mothers attacking cheerleaders in Texas because they won a place on the team over their own daughters.There are soccer Moms and hockey Dads with the same kind of envy. The stories of envy are legion throughout history.Often it exists between children in families-then known as “sibling rivalry”. But it is more than rivalry.It is envious resentment.
The tentacles of envy spread far and wide.Melanie Klein ,one of Freud’s foremost disciples,developed a whole school of psychoanalysis based on people’s envious attacks- beginning all the way back with the child biting at the depriving breast! And we could see the entire phenomenon of modern-day terrorism as envious attacks by the weak on the wealthy because of their envy of the power of their enemies- like America and Europe.
Hamza Yusuf makes the point in one of his talks that criminals will admit to heinous felonies before they will admit to envy.It often remains invisible to the person experiencing it.There is an apocryphal story about the Spiritual teacher Ram Das going to visit the prisoners at San Quentin prison in California.At the time,Charles Manson,the famous mass-murderer and cult-leader, was one of the inhabitants at that prison but he was not present at the talk.After it was over Ram Das inquired from the prison authorities why Manson was not there.They informed him that they had been advised(?by the other prisoners) not to let him be present as he would be unable to tolerate another person being the centre of attention and would surely disrupt the event. So we find this envy at all levels of society.There is even a dictum in Islam that says that “the jealousy of scholars can be as bad as that of co-wives”. Go figure.
So,how do we deal with envy? One of the best remedies,if not the best,is to realize that whatever we have and whatever the other has is ordained by God.That is our ‘rizq'(provision) and their ‘rizq”.It is pre-ordained and it is perfect the way it is.And sometimes we can even get a sense of the wisdom in it-that what we each have is perfectly right for us.There is no need to compare.We each get what we need.
7) Greed None of these defects are easy to treat but greed has a special status in the modern world.Couched in its own terminology,it often appears as virtue.Some of the modern concepts of”competitiveness” and “efficiency” and “cost-cutting” and financial planning” and even”national interest”can all be broken down into greed!When a politician or economist talks about economic growth and G.D.P. and stock market prices and maximizing profit’ it is mostly all about greed.So greed has become sanitized,even idealized in the modern world.
All around us we are solicited to get the best price on everything and anything we buy..When I used to give talks in the mosque I would explain to the participants that”the lowest price is the law” is not an Islamic principle(immigrants are particularly susceptible to this notion partially because of their relative poverty but mostly due to their naivete about the insidiousness of many Western ideas).They just buy into it.The real law should be “the fair price”. When I say this to people I most often get an empty stare in response.After all,they have been told their whole life that virtue is getting the best price possible!
One day after Jumaa prayer,I gave a ride to one of the congregants who proceeded to explain his story.He had been involved in a factory that produced a “bed in a bag” product-sheets,pillow cases and a mattress cover all in one bag.He had been in discussions with a large retailer who had promised him$19/bag .As his costs were around $16/bag he figured it would be a profitable venture.Not realizing that in this society ,you need to get everything in writing and peoples’ words have little value,he proceeded to invest in the factory.By the time he was ready to sell his product,the retailer informed him that they had found a supplier from China who could do it fo r$15 and asked him if he still wanted to go ahead with the contract. It was no longer viable to do so.And he ended up declaring bankruptcy. Now those “bed in the bag” products are available on liquidation at $12 a piece.And all the consumers are proud of the deals they are getting.Many of the wonderful”liquidation” prices are based on such sorry tales.It is all about greed!
Again, in the case of greed,the solution is ‘rida’-satisfaction.We are each already getting exactly what we need.If that is a lot,we can be grateful.And if it seems too little we can be patient and realize that what may seem like deprivation is actually a means of elevation.The Sufis call that ‘azhod’-asceticism -one of the Sufi virtues and a means,as well, of spiritual upliftment.
So now we come to the end of this teaching.But actually it is the beginning.”And zo, ve may to begin”(courtesy Philip Roth).So,now the program is complete.Let’s get cracking! This is tough work but work of the greatest importance.God be with us all!