Category Archives: Psychology

Modern Living, Psychology, Spiritual Practice

Confronting the Fear of Death

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Despite overwhelming evidence from some of the most trustworthy sources,such as Prophets ,mystics and saints and most recently near-death experiencers, one still can encounter episodes of fearing death in one’s being. It comes up insidiously, like an uneasy feeling accompanied with a thought pattern that sounds something like this:”What is going to happen to me when I leave this earth-bound body?How can I possibly live otherwise”. Given what we should know about the after-life from even a cursory look at the data that is out there,this reaction makes no sense.I have concluded that it is actually some kind of programming in our D.N.A. designed to preserve the specious.Nevertheless,we have to deal with it without freaking out.

In fact,whole schools of psychotherapy, like Yalom’s Existential Therapy, have been developed on the basis of “fear of death”. We can fully understand why.However,their enterprise is futile as it is based on spiritual illiteracy- modernistic tendencies towards atheism and agnosticism. I often told my own patients”You cannot cure the fear of Death with psychotherapy,nor with medication.It is ultimately a spiritual question.Only faith or actual spiritual ,mystical experience can cure it!

If we go back to the evidence for a moment, we will see that a theme that emerges on a regular basis,both from the experience and teachings of mystics and from n.d.ers is that this world is not our real home.We are here,so to speak,on a mission-actually kind of like sub-contractors of God.Like any sub-contractors we are accountable for our actions,our behaviours and our attitudes.Ultimately our purpose is to learn,-about the basic principles of existence and about love,and to accomplish our mission,which we had,in fact, agreed to before coming.The consequences of us doing our job properly is literally cosmic.So this is serious stuff-not to be taken lightly-as entertainment for example.

Given theses realities,what do we do about our intermittent bouts of fear of Death.Here is my suggestion.It comes from two sources.1)Humanistic Psychology which developed the technique of ‘affirmations where we affirm what we already know about ourselves to’ combat our neuroses.Example:”Despite what my parents told me, I am not a complete incompetent(perhaps because I left some film on the glasses I washed lol) but am capable of doing good things with my life”2)The other source is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy where we address dysfunctional beliefs.In this case the dysfunctional belief is: “After death I enter a permanent void of non-existence”.

I once met one of the leading practitioners of CBT in Quebec,someone I had studied with during residency training.After we completed our studies,he had sub-specialized in CBT and had become somewhat of a celebrity on the Quebecois psychology teaching circuit. I confronted him with the limitations of his approach and CBT in general in my own experience .Despite all the hype and the manipulated research surrounding it,it was never as effective, in reality, as the research seemed to imply! His answer was interesting”Forget about all those techniques and use what really works-“Self -Talk”.

So the methodology presented here is a combination of affirmations and self-talk.It goes like this:You say to yourself-in writing or out loud or silently, in whatever situation you find yourself in:”This is not my permanent abode.I am here on a short-lived visit -on contract.I am ready to go back home when my Lord calls me”. ( If you are adverse to religious terminology you can replace the word Lord with Universe lol) This practice can be done anywhere and is more effective the more you do it.It is like the spiritual practice of contemplating death that so many traditions including our own- Sufism- recommend.” Try it out.You may be surprised at the results.Salaams,Ibrahim

Modern Living, Psychology

Choosing the Light!

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Every Saturday I meet with an old friend. His two parents were University professors but he himself is a self-taught philosopher.”Tom”,I said”How come when people are confronted with the choice between light and darkness, more often than not, they choose darkness?! “That’s an easy one “ he responded. “Because choosing the light requires courage”He’s not a Sufi but that was a Sufi statement if ever I heard one and I immediately recognized its veracity”Exactly”I thought. The darkness is social conformity. And going counter- current requires courage. Ajib!

Modern Living, Psychology

Don’t Worry about what Others Think!

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It has been a very icy winter in Montreal-probably in Toronto as well.It has given me the chance to recount the story of my grandfather.He came from Russia in the early 20th century(1906 I believe) and was in the habit of screwing cheese-graters into the bottom of his boots in the winter to get more traction.They didn’t sell boot crampons then like they have now.He was in his eighties by then ,but his Canadian neighbours convinced him that we didn’t do that in Canada and it looked foolish.He listened to them,fell on the ice the first winter he didn’t wear his cheese-graters,broke his hip and died within a few days.He was my favourite person in the family,the only other Truth-seeker I knew, so I was very sad.

But the lesson was screaming out to me! “Don’t worry about what others think!” That is an important lesson for many,many Muslims nowadays amongst others and of course,for the reader as well.Shakespeare was right on when he said”To thine own self be true”.I hope you can do that in whatever way seems right to you.The only ‘other’ that counts is Allah,himself. Salaams,Ibrahim

Modern Living, Psychology, Spiritual Practice, Uncategorized

Travel- the new god!

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People have traveled throughout the ages,for many reasons,but never to the extent of nowadays.Now one might think this is just because the technology(specifically airplanes) has gotten so much better but actually the reason is much more insidious than that.Travel has become a cult-a form of worship, the highest order of activity that man can aspire to.So when I say,i am retiring a lot of people say”Are you going to be traveling?” My answer is  emphatic on that point: “No! Only if there is a good reason.I did that when I was younger and had the time to apply whatever learning I got from the travel.As an exercise in entertainment, I will take a pass”

Allan Bloom,the American philosopher from the University of Chicago, wrote a book in the eighties called”The Closing of the American Mind”.In it was a chapter entitled “From Travel to Tourism”. This title summarizes the whole problem.Traveling, that used to have a specific purpose to it, had now become a consumer item. It is promoted by”The Tourism Industry” that is one of the largest industries in many countries.This encourages people to travel as a form of entertainment, much as they go to the cinema or perhaps even more aptly as they go to the circus.I remember my own parents,may Allah forgive them for their misdeeds and reward them for their good ones, caught up in this maelstrom.”So what did you learn ,Dad?” I would ask him after his trip to Mexico.”Oh there were beautiful ruins and ,even better,the price of food was so much cheaper”.I see” I thought.”So you spent $2000.00 to save $1 on a loaf of bread” I thought, without saying it out loud.

I am ,of course,oversimplifying but the point is well taken,nevertheless.I remember the young Americans in Europe “doing” countries’! “Wow,we did 12 countries in 13 days” they would say .Impressive!The most ” impressive’ travellers I met were the Australians and New Zealanders.They would go traveling for years( ‘chronic travellers’ I called them) with the justification that they were so far away that they might never get the chance again.I had never seen people in such a deplorable state(outside of U.S. slums) in my entire life!They looked haggard,miserable,alienated.And they seemed completely unaware of their state! They were convinced,like the proverbial donkey chasing the carrot, that their next destination would bring them happiness! Rome,that’s not where it’s at. But Florence,that’s where I’ll discover glory.Italy, pfff! Greece is the place to be etc.,etc.Hedonism,all over again and doomed to failure as always.

Of course,there are valid reasons to travel.Visiting family members(although the reason relatives are often so far away is part of the modern dysfunction),studying a subject one needs to know about,spending time with a spiritual teacher,helping refugees,peace-keeping missions,pilgrimage etc.Yes,there are valid forms of travel.But they need to be purposeful not spurious.And much travel nowadays is of the latter sort.

I remember one of the first forms of the traveling bug that I found interesting.They were Québecois people(we called them French Canadians in those days lol).Instead of ‘doing’ as many countries as they could or catching some rays of sunshine in a southern destination for a week to escape from the doldrums of their life in Canada,they would take off the winter and spend it in one place-like Mexico for example.They would then rent an apartment(this was before Airbnb!) and learn the local cooking,study the language and try to mix with the people there.They came away with some real learning and expansion of consciousness.Far different from The American Tourist.

My first trip overseas was to Europe.I was conceiving of the ’10 countries in 5 weeks’ kind of imbroglio when the absurdity of it dawned on me.It started as a vague sense of alienation.I looked at my friend Alan(we were both taking a break from med school at the time) and said:”This is not the right way to do it,Alan.Let’s make this into a learning experience.”We were quite compulsive at the time. So we decided we were going to make it into a history of art course.And it worked! I immediately felt a sense of relief. Our trip had become purposeful.And I never forgot the art I learnt about on that trip.

In the spiritual tradition that I practice,Islamic Sufism,wasting time(‘lawh’ in Arabic) is prohibited.We are here for a purpose and that is our contract on Earth.We have the right ,even the obligation,to rest and relax,But we do not have the right, which has now become a social norm, to waste time and frame our lives around good times and recreation.That is the way of “loss” in our tradition.Think about it! Salaams,Ibrahim

 

Modern Living, Psychology

Our Deaf and Heartless Society

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Statement by Michigan State University’s Board of Directors after sex abuse scandal of its young gymnasts.”This Board has come across as tone-deaf,emotionless and lacking in empathy”.! One moment here.Firstly this is not “coming across as” .This is the Reality.But, even more importantly, this is the attitude of ALL our large -scale institutions.I saw it every day in my psychiatric practice.The problem here is HUGE! Much,much more than the Olympic athletes involved.This concerns the M.O. of our entire society!There are many reasons for this of course-greed,ambition and self-will to start with.But one of the main problems is what many regard as the solution-Reason or in this case one of its derivatives-rationalization.”Lose your mind and come to your senses” Fritz Perls of Gestalt Therapy urged us all.But with all the cerebrality of our educational process we have lost our perceptual capacities and with it our common sense.These complaints should have been heard and acted on immediately.Instead they were denied,minimalized and put aside.We seriously need to recover our hearing and our sight AND our Compassion..God help us all.

Modern Living, Psychology, Sufism

The Aesthete and the Truth-Seeker

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The Aesthete and The Truth-Seeker

In Islam, and particularly in Sufism, Allah has 99 names. They are called the “Asma al Husna”(the beautiful names).Amongst them are ”al Haqq”(the Reality, the Truth);Al Adil(the Just) and Al Rahman(The Compassionate). Al Jemal (The beautiful) is not officially one of the ninety-nine names although it is implicitly because of a hadith of our Prophet sal saying ”Allah is Beautiful and He loves beauty” .The beauty is also in the Asma al Husna(The Beautiful names) although the Arabic hassan at the origin of husna is another name for Beauty which can be used instead of Jemal. The Sufis often talk about the two contrary names of Allah-The “Jellal(“Severity or Majesty)of Allah and the Jemal(Beauty and Softness) as complementary qualities. So beauty is very present in the Islamic lexicon.

This classification of names of Allah has helped me to clarify issues that were formerly obscure. I will try, here, to share that insight with the reader. Please note that some of these names come up more frequently than others.”Jemal” is not one of them. In fact Al Jemal (The Beautiful) is not one of the classical 99 names! It is by no means given the same prominence as Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim(The Compassionate and the Merciful) or Al Haqq (The Reality, The Truth) There is no reference that I can find in the Quran itself to the Beauty of Allah although it is implied throughout. All of this should give us pause.

In the same vein, another very important Islamic term, to help our overall understanding, is “shirk” -literally “partnership with God” but used in the sense of idolatry or worshipping of other than God. So we may, for example, have people that are in love who care more for their partners than the Creator. That is “shirk”. Or we may have people whose profession, like medicine, becomes a God in that all their energy and all their attention is taken up by this activity. That also is “shirk” A more common “shirk” in the modern world and probably since the beginning of time is money or nowadays physical prowess like in athletes or sex( the sensualists) or fine food (the gourmet God that we see so much on television like”
The Master Chef”.) Whenever the activity in question becomes more important in the heart of humans than their relationship with the Creator, it becomes ‘shirk”.

A personal anecdote. For about 12 years, while I was following Sheikh Nazim, I would go to London every year during Ramadan. One of my in-laws there was intrigued with all the energy I was devoting to this path and began questioning me and my wife of the time about it. At the end of the conversation, he concluded in the following way. ”I see” he said. ”So you do Sufism and I do narrow-boats (his passion).So fundamentally we’re the same!” I wanted to say: ”No, it’s not at all the same. Your preoccupation with boats cannot be compared to being preoccupied with our relationship to the Creator” but in one of my rare moments of discretion lol I abstained.

So “What does this have to do with the “aesthete?” you may legitimately ask at this point. Well, there is a more subtle form of shirk than loving narrow boats or soccer or Hollywood actresses. It is loving one of the names of Allah to the exclusion of others or prioritizing it in an imbalanced way. This is the nature of the “aesthete”. The Webster’s Dictionary defines aesthete as: ”A person who makes a cult of art and beauty” For him or her, the most valuable commodity, beyond all others, is beauty. You will rarely hear this kind of critical discourse in modern society. For the modern world, cults are fanatical religious groups where leaders exploit and manipulate their followers. No-one talks about the “cult of beauty”. That is because it is a socially approved and even encouraged kind of cult, but cult it is.

This beauty may take the form of a beautiful piece of music or a beautiful work of art or a wonderful play .Whether this is accompanied by corruption or exploitation or injustice of any sort, becomes relatively unimportant .All that really counts is the beauty of the product.

One of the groups of people most trapped in this illusion are the artists themselves. From what I can see, most of them are not in a very good state. Look at their pictures if you don’t believe me. Look at Picasso and Salvador Dali and Ludwig Van Beethoven, Edgar Degas and even Bob Dylan (horror of horrors- my hero at one point in my life-story) and see if you can see what I mean. They do not look like happy campers. In fact there is darkness all around them-despite the beauty of their productions. Many of the lovers of art, or nowadays we would call them consumers, are caught in the same trap-except, in their case, it is more passive. Problematic, nevertheless.

Now ‘Beauty” is not the only trap amongst the names of God. For example, take “Justice”-the way of the revolutionaries and the political activists of all stripes .I was struck in my clinical work, by several patients who were dating people involved in some of the most reputable NGO’s on the planet-Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Médecins sans Frontières, amongst others. What struck me was what poor partners these people were-lacking in some of the most basic human skills of empathy and compassion. At first I was dumbfounded by the apparent contradiction. Until I realized that most of them were ideologues. Since they were lacking in real sympathy for others, they sought out strong sensations and even stronger moral principles to replace their lack of human feeling. None of these relationships ever worked out! That is saying a lot.

In my own journey, at one point I, myself, was a political activist. You wouldn’t have wanted to know me then lol. And you certainly wouldn’t have been well-served by being in a relationship with me. One day I was at a meeting of all the top political activists in my community. I looked at the head table and it became apparent to me, intuitively, that if these people were in power, it would be a lot worse than our current government. It was the time of Robert Bourassa in Quebec and Pierre-Elliot Trudeau- no saints in their own right. But ultimately more responsible and trustworthy than that motley crew before me- with all their supposed principles of social justice. We saw where that led with Lenin and Stalin and Mao!  That was the beginning of the end of my political career. A trip to China during the Cultural Revolution finished it off once and for all.

So much for Justice. There are many other examples of this “imbalance of virtues” for lack of a better term. There are those who appear very “generous”. A recent story in Toronto is of billionaire couple who were known for their generosity were found murdered in their home. We don’t know the final results of the investigation yet but it would not surprise me to find out that they had made numerous enemies on the way to accumulate their fortune and one or several of those enemies could no longer contain their bitterness.

Then there are those who are so Patient (Patience or Sabr in Arabic is another name of God) that they regularly fail to act when it is called for. Or those who are so Compassionate that they miss out on occasions when they need to defend themselves or their families.

So what is the message here? The message is one of balance and completeness. Unfortunately, social forces are such that one or another of the fundamental values gets overemphasized and other, sometimes more important ones, get minimalized. For example, in our current social context, health and physical fitness are emphasized and modesty and piety are under-rated. Ultimately, what is most important is knowing our Creator and getting our relationship with Him right. But that involves humility, obedience and submission, none of which are really valued elements in contemporary society. It also involves faith-a quality which has been much belittled in our “objective, scientific” world-view. Beauty, yes: Success, yes; physical prowess as in athletes yes, Rationality and Analysis, yes. But piety and humility-much less so.

And who is the Truth-Seeker that is mentioned in the title- The Insan al Kamil, the Complete Man. He is the one who seeks balance and perspective .He seeks to understand this life and the hereafter. He seeks the meaning in everything. And therefore he goes to the Essence of all matters- as opposed to staying at the surface. Ultimately he is not obsessed by any of the names of Allah. He is obsessed by the Source of all the names-Allah the origin of all Being and all Truth. Everything else is contingent reality and thus less important .Salaams, Ibrahim

Modern Living, Psychology

An Educational Challenge to Fault-Finders

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2 mins ·

All those fault-finders out there.Yes ,there are plenty of you, the ones who can’t help spell and grammar checking or correcting the 1% error or missing information in articles and ignoring the 99% truth,I have a challenge for you -a serious one.More educational than all the years of formal education- if you take this seriously!(You’re one of them if you just noticed there’s no proper verb in that sentence lol)

Go out there and challenge the social consensus-yes almost all of it.Leave religion alone for now.It’s too easy to find fault with it and doing so will probably work against you.No,I’m talking about our wonderful “democracy”,our “freedom”,our “due process of the law”,our “equal opportunity capitalism”our “scientific certainty if it’s published in a peer-reviewed journal”(the Cochrane database if you want to get sophisticated),our “every sexual orientation besides pedophilia is ok”,our “always consult with your most reasonable friend” approach or even worse “with the experts”

Go out there and do it and report back your results.Perhaps you could start with”Everything Trump does is wrong or stupid”.I can feel the reaction already.What?! Isn’t that what we’re supposed to believe?Or try this one”Beating up or tying up your partner is fine as long as its consensual.”(Sado-masochism is no longer included in the DSM unless it is imposed on the partner!) Or how about this one.It will shake your deepest belief systems to the very core!”Travelling is always a good and beneficial thing to do” So,get started and report back.You have your work cut out for you! Salaams,Ibrahim

Modern Living, Psychology, Spiritual Practice

Reason-Ugh!

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(FB posting of mine):”Every time I have an inspiration these days, someone has a reason why it isn’t so or can’t be. Reason ,which at some point in history was an instrument of liberation ,has now become a means of enslavement! Because this is so important, I think I’m going to post this every day for awhile. Now, go ahead and tell me why that isn’t a good idea ! I dare you lol”

If one looks more deeply,you can see that, in fact, Reason is a bigger problem than all the other cardinal sins like greed,lust ,envy and pride put together! Why? Because reason is used to justify all the other sins!The psychoanalysts call that”Intellectualization” or “Rationnalization” and it is one of the major defense mechanisms of the ego.

So the greedy person says:”You need money to survive and you have to plan for your financial security.”Even more poignant it will say”the financial well-being of your family”! How can you resist that one.When Mike Tyson bit off part of the ear of his opponent during a fight with Evander Hollyfield,he was asked why he did it”I have to feed my family” he answered.Really! Admittedly there are more clever rationnalizers around but that was a particularly vivid example.Trump will say to the applause of his audience;”Put America first” which is a thinly-covered veil for American greed-on a personal and collective level.Not even the Democrats will challenge him on that policy! After all, we need to be greedy as a nation,no?

Pride will say”But I deserved that.Look how clever I am or look how hard I worked for that”Lust will say: “But women are beautiful: aren’t they the creation of our Lord”? Can you begin to see how sinister this all is.We could go down the list of all the major sins but I think by now the reader is getting the point.Watch it play out all around you in your lives.There’s plenty of it,I guarantee you.

I don’t know about your situation but I am surrounded by this contagion on a daily basis-dealing with government offices and large private institutions,dealing with friends and relatives,going to the market,even.But there are islands of sanity in this sea of obscurity-so there is hope-I think-but not much.

In was initially introduced to this problem at a series of Est Seminars in the 1970’s.The trainer was at the board writing down the stages of spiritual development. In his c;lassification, Reason was the lowest level-just barely above animality! He repeated the phrase several times:”Reason is the lowest level of spiritual development.”It registered in a deep place in m,y being. But if you look around you- at the Justice System,Government Administration,Universities(don’t get me started on them) you will see that it has the most credibility and the most investment.Look how much money is now invested in University education and how much money is invested in building churches and synagogues and mosques.Yes,the Intellect has taken over the role of Temple and faith.

After my foray into Est seminars , I began studying the Vedanta .Aha! These people understood that the mind was a repository of illusion.Is anyone putting that age-old insight into use in contemporary society?No,not even in India! Then there were the Zen Buddhists also trying to escape from the tyranny of the mind.They talk about”Seeing” and “Hearing” an d “Feeling.”(Btw Interesting parallel with the Quran where Allah talks about the people who are blind and deaf and have hardened hearts.It could easily have been talking about the administrators and intellectuals of contemporary society but at the time it was referring to the unbelievers.There are still a few of those around,I believe lol)

And what about the Sufis.Here is a poem by Jellalludin Rumi:

Behind a blood-stained curtain,
Love has spread its gardens.
Lovers are busy with the beauty of the Love
that is beyond explanation.
Intellect says: The six directions are the limit,
there is nothing beyond them.
Love says: There is a road, and I have journeyed on it many times;
Love has detected markets beyond that market.
Intellect says: Do not set foot on the land of annihilation;
there is nothing there but thorns.
Love says: Those thorns you feel are only inside you!
Be silent!
Remove the thorn of existence from the foot of the heart;
so that you may see the gardens within.
Mashallah! And Sheikh Nazim used to warn us about “mind-productions”i.e. most of what you hear in everyday discussions.However many Islamic scholars and even Sufis are caught up with the obsession around reasonableness.I will leave the examples for now.
What I have just mentioned comes from the spiritual domain s.But what about science and psychology? That should be more acceptable,more credible,no?Not really.Freud began developing his ideas in the early 20th century.That’s more than a hundred years ago! He was an acknowledged genius and a great contributor to our “culture”(said with a French accent),no?Now one of his most ground-breaking and revolutionary ideas was the unconscious-more precisely that it is not our conscious mind,our rational thoughts, that are determining our behaviour-but rather the unconscious.You would think that beyond using that discovery in treating patients,society would want to use it in managing it’s affairs.Not at all.The entire discovery is shelved in favour of plodding on with rational procedures and regulations.
Then.of course we get a Trump and all the journalists are scurrying  to find the DSM classification of mental disorders, to explain his behaviour.But even then rarely do they look for the unconscious underpinnings of that behaviour.They are satisfied with the diagnosis-Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which allows them to denounce him even more vigorously!
Is there, then,anything to be done?On an institutional level,I would say a resounding”no”.However, on an individual level, we can begin working on our intuition,on our inner sight and hearing,on the sensitivity of our hearts.All the religions and forms of spirituality have methods for that.After that, we can hope for a snow-ball effect.You could call that bottom-up politics but it’s the only way to go.Happy Trails to you all.Salaams,Ibrahim
Modern Living, Psychology

It doesn’t make any sense?!

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You just lost your job even though everyone told you that you had been doing really good work.A relationship that looked so promising blew up in your face.A project that you have worked on for a long time and you,yourself, are convinced could make a real contribution to humanity, gets no traction.The bureaucratic institution that you are dealing with,is not considering your reality.Ever had that feeling ?It doesn’t make any sense?!

Then a lot of people around you try to convince you there is a good,concrete reason why it didn’t work.The boss was jealous of you and felt threatened so he fired you.You were being a cad in the relationship or your values are too different.That’s why the relationship didn’t work.Your project is too idealistic,too ‘pie in the sky’ that’s why no one is interested.Bureaucracies are like that.They just don’t listen!But somehow the explanations don’t add up.They don’t satisfy your need to understand.

So what’s going on?! You’re asking the wrong question often.You’ve got to formulate it otherwise-in terms of your relationship to the Creator-to God.Ok, you can use the term”universe’ if you want to but somehow that is less satisfying because it is missing the personal sense of intention ,will and wisdom and even compassion(despite the pain) that is implicit within the term God.

So what is the real question? It often sounds like”What is God showing me,what is He teaching me through this apparent failure?Remember Surat al Baqara at the beginning of the Quran”We(god in the plural) know what you know not” So be humble and ask yourself the question.If you do so sincerely, you may be surprised.The answer is subtle ,often,but it’s close at hand.Try it out.Salaams,Ibrahim