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
Category Archives: Psychology
It’s NOT all about the money
It’s NOT true that it’s ALL about money! That is another contemporary myth! In the guise of fighting materialism,that affirmation is actually supporting it?!Greed is only one of Seven Cardinal Sins in Christianity lol.Actually ignorance ,as the Buddhists rightly point out,in all likelihood has more to do with people’s mischief than greed itself.Take Fauci for example.I really don’t believe his mistatements are about greed.That’s not my reading of his personality(even if he has financial interests in vaccine development as one of the “money causes all evil” ideologues is likely to point out).No.Fauci is limited mostly by his scientific ideological framework sometimes referred to erroneously as “evidence-based medicine”.Actually people like Fauci are UNABLE to read the evidence because of their narrow intellectual paradigm.That paradigm excludes anecdotes,excludes individual case histories especially of the patients themselves! and excludes studies that don’t have large populations or expensive statisticians onboard.Science has lost its capacity for the pillar of Clinical Observation and replaced it with an obsession about study design and complex statistical analysis.In that way they OFTEN get things wrong.P.S. There may well also be embarassment about his role in developing this virus! But for now,he seems to be in complete denial(unconscious?) of that connection.
Timely Living
One of the most important skills in life is knowing when to act and when to wait and be patient.Most people I observe are either compulsively acting( and planning their future actions)-a state we could call agitation-or waiting too long to act by procrastinating.- to the point that their actions lose their potency! One of the few people I have met who was capable of timely action was Sheikh Nazim al-Qubrusi.He was more Zen than the Zen Buddhists lol. Mashallah that I had the honour of spending time with him.
The Problem of “Tarbiya”(Training)
My current sheikh,Abu Qassin Bilkhairy of Erdeyf ,Tunisia makes an important distinction between the shuyukh of “barakat”(good vibes) and the shuyukh of “tarbiya”(training)It is the first time I had heard of this classification and it makes a lot of sense.However ,it is not as cut and dried as it would seem at first blush.
When one goes to the sheikh of barakat, it is a pleasant experience or or even an elevated one- of ‘hal’ and everyone is happy.But the question remains:”Are we really advancing?” Is this really “Sufism” or is this mere spiritual entertainment?Often enough the answer is the latter.This is probably the reason our sheikh talks about the “shuyukh of barakat”.
Now even if the teacher sets out to do “tarbiya”(training,raising up as we do with children) is that really what is happening? Note: we are a long way from the tales of Abu-Hassan Ash-Shadhili and Ibn Mashish or Jellalludin Rumi and Shems Tabriz. They seemed to be almost alone as students with the full attention of the Master upon them.Now we have turuq with hundreds if not thousands,even tens of thousands of murids! How can the same instruction occur?!
As soon as we “scale up” the operation(to use a modern M.B.A. term lol), we run into problems.We then need a managerial structure.There needs to be muqaddams(local representatives) who take the place of the teacher and these muqaddams need to be competent and humane and sensitive-which often they are not! And the Sheikh needs to monitor them.That is one of the places where we find the most problems ! The notion of “accountability” has not yet arrived in the Sufi world lol! Some of the muqaddams are slackers,others are tyrants and others are simply out of their depth.They are usually chosen because they have been around the longest or because they are the most earnest in their practice.Neither of those are satisfactory criteria for such a role.So the management structure is seriously defective to begin with.And often,the supervision is spotty at best.Bring in the consultants! lol. Not going to happen in Sufi groups!
I have noticed these problems for a long time.However recently I have been Graced with two students of my own who seem sincere in their desire to learn about Sufism and advance spiritually.That has given me an “in vivo” experience from the other side of the “sheikh/murid” equation.And it has put me in touch with a whole other set of problems.This “tarbiya” stuff is no easy matter! I believe it was Freud who once said:”I believe I have discovered in psychoanalysis a third human activity that is both necessary and doomed to failure-the other two being raising children and governing nations”. So we can well ask whether guiding people in the Sufi way, or any spiritual way for that matter, is not a fourth such activity?!
One of the first questions that arises is how soft or how tough to be:-loving or setting limits,comforting or provoking.We have examples of most of these attitudes from Sufi history! When Ibn Ataillah came to see his grandsheikh, Abu-Hassan, the second time complaining about ‘waswas'(obsessional doubts around the question of wudu),he was told.”Stop that behaviour or don’t come back to our Zowwsiyya”! Talk about tough love! Then there is the iconic story of Shems Tabriz throwing all of Rumi’s books into the well and saying”Do you want these books or do you want Real knowledge”? No small deal for a life-time scholar.Not to mention the Sufis of malamatiya(the way of blame) who would curse at their new students and send them packing until they had proved their mettle.
Nowadays, however,we have the opposite-sheikhs who coddle their students,who enable them in their slackness,who never call them out on their bad behaviour and their spiritual faults.Yes,I have seen a lot of it over the years.The results are never good! The people around often justify it by saying that the sheikh is too loving or too compassionate to scold his students.I don’t buy it!
So how do we arrive at a balance?And can we or is it just “aspirational” to use another modernistic term.I believe it is conceivable and possible even if I haven’t seen it yet.But it requires a lot of effort and discernment and observation.And the idealization of the sheikh as well as the infantilization of the murids is a definite obstacle.In all honesty,medical school,with all its dunniyawi limitations,did a much better job of this than the turuq.If you didn’t do your work or weren’t prepared for your presentations,you were called out on it.If you did a good job,you were told so .And if a teacher was out of line by being too tough OR too soft,they were often enough replaced by others- in the good schools at least..In all fairness,it is a lot easier to teach medicine than Sufism but I think the comparison is useful nevertheless.
One of the most important questions in the teacher/murid relationship is that of dependency.The Sufi metaphorically falls at the feet of his sheikh as the Hindu chela does literally at the feet of his guru.Fine and well,but what after that? Does he just sit their suckling at the sheikhs breast so to speak.When is he weaned and how? When does the sheikh say:”Now you have to do some work on your own”.Or even “Now is the time to leave” as Ibn Mashish said to Abu-Hassan when he sent him to Tunisia.Many murids will stick around the sheikh’s presence until they are forced to leave by an action similar to the cat that chases off one of its kittens who is lingering too long at the nipple or as the mother bird chases the chick out of the nest.But it musn’t be too early or the fledgling will die!
Another important aspect of this “tarbiya” work is the complex world in which we now live.It is no longer sufficient to say the Sufi needs outer knowledge(Islamic sciences) and inner knowledge to be complete.Now he needs multi-dimensional knowledge! He needs to know about psychology and Comparative Religion and the toxicity of our surroundings as taught by Environmental Medicine.I cannot see how a Sheikh can properly guide people in their lives if they do not have at least a minimum exposure to these new forms of knowledge.This,alone, is a considerable challenge to the modern spiritual teacher.
Now,inevitably when one is guiding people,one comes up against unique ,multivariant, specific challenges.This is not unique to spiritual teachers.It comes up in medicine,in psychiatry and even in building problems(a whole other dossier there).So how can we manage this kind of complexity.All the general rules of behaviour and jurisprudence fall by the wayside when confronted by the complexity and specificity of each new situation.And this is where the Istikhara prayer and dream interpretation comes in.Of course,Allah is Aware of all of this.And often enough,He is the only One with the right answer! So we need to consult with Him. And the best means I have found is the Itikhara prayer and the interpretation of dream symbols t.hat follows(I am in the midst of gathering materials for a book on this very subject so stay posted!).
Ok.That’s a start on a fascinating but difficult and subtle subject-How to Raise a “Mensch”,a true “Insan” who is true to his deepest nature(fitra).More to come inshallah.Salaams,Ibrahim
The Covid Pandemic: An Occasion for Educational Initiaves
All over the world, but especially in America,we are hearing the same lamentation:”We need to open our schools.But how can we do that safely?!” Trump says the schools need to open.But the public health officials, including his own, say it’s not possible.
The reality is that we cannot open the schools as usual! They are designed as “concentration” camps”(yes,that’s exaggeration lol)for children.That is ,they are intended to house(baby-sit is the operative term)as many children as possible,as economically as possible for as long as possible-to allow their parents to work.That is not consistent with social distancing and spacing.Similarly,restaurants and bars cannot be profitable without crowding and intimacy.
We shouldn’t forget, as well,that schools,while they have a captive audience,use the time to ideologically program the children (brainwashing is probably a more apt term even though it would be more controversial).By the end of the program, the children leave with the official seal of Empiricism,Rationalism ,secularism and Humanism(the right-wingers are right on that one) called a graduation certificate.That way we produce the perfect workers and clients for our “democratic,industrial complex”!
The problem is that many parents are not really in agreement with this programming.They have other values-perhaps more religious,more conservative ,more creative.But by the time they realize their kids have been cloned,it is too late! Now they are stuck with ideological opponents-often for life!
Now, some people think that the answer is religious schools.But the latter are only marginally different.Yes,they add an extra layer of morality and some teachings about obedience.But they don’t teach “seeing” and “hearing” and “feeling”. So the children don’t really understand the purpose of those rules and the purpose of obedience to them.Many of them end up rejecting the religious paradigm,others follow blindly or half-heartedly. Some even become fanatics.But very rare is the youngster who comes out a self-actualized,spiritually subtle or enlightened(“tanwir” as Ibn Ataillah calls it) being.At best they are religious clones.
So what are we proposing,then? This is the way it would operate,as I currently conceive of it.(For more ideas about the kind of teaching that would go on ,look at the two articles previously published on this blog called “Call to Action”. )The overall project could be described as “Collective Home-schooling”.It would be constituted by groups of 3-6 parents(the ideal number will have to be tested in practice).They would take on the teaching of all the children of these families in a cooperative effort for most of the teaching from elementary to Middle school.( Morally speaking, the years around puberty will probably be the most challenging.)When it comes to specialized,professional or even advanced academic education(God forbid lol) we will have to send them ,at least for now back to the Universities and colleges ,but by then they should be prepared to deal with it even if the process of transition may be painful.Personally I would prefer the professional and trade learning to be on a master/apprentice basis but that is a long way off-for now at least.
In the practical day-to-day teaching, the different parents who have skills in one subject in particular like those who excel in math and science and those who excel in literature and languages can take it upon themselves to teach those subjects.Many other more subtle subjects will be taught as well-as outlined in “The Call to Action”
This type of organization will allow working mothers and fathers to be able to continue much of their work with the help of the other parents.It will also prevent the traumatization of children being separated from their parents at day-cares and experiencing the anxiety and upsetness of entering a new school with large numbers of strangers at the beginning of elementary school or high school or after any other moves.The community of learners should be relatively stable and seamless inshallah.The children will know the other parents and know most of the other children and be familiar with the community around them in most instances.
Sound good? Well, we need people with commitment and initiative who are willing to try this out-people who are willing to resist the social currents and disrupt their current lives to try something new.This will not occur automatically. People will have to move,as this cannot be done without physical proximity.We are talking “village” here. So lots of effort and optimism will be required. The alternative ,staying in the socially-determined track, is unhappy,miserable,stressed-out children with little sense of direction and lots of anxiety.That’s the norm! Is that what you want for your children?If not you can contact me on this blog or at jebrahim2@gmail.com. Ahlan(welcome). Sufi Ibrahim
State of the Nation-Muslim AND non-Muslim
Most people in the modern world are unwittingly affirming and defending the humanistic,secular,Empiricist,Rationalist social consensus.At the same time they are refusing to develop the insight(firasat),discernment(furqan),inner vision (basirat) and real hearing(samia) that would lead them to the Truth- on all levels.Dangerous state of affairs,really! Btw ,this includes most of the Muslims who often have the right ideas,but the wrong instincts! That is, they are consciously believers but unconsciously Rationalists and believers in self-direction(tadbir).
The Contemporary Zeitgeist
People nowadays( the good ones lol) are so concerned about expressing themselves,about being heard, about having their opinions respected( all progressive,humanistic,democratic principles) that they have a lot of trouble hearing the Truth.It is all well and good to be respected and heard but this is NOT the way the deepest truths are transmitted!
Think of how the Prophets taught.Did our holy Prophet Mohammed go around saying;”What did you think about my latest revelation.I want to hear your opinion” lol.Did Jesus say to his apostles”Let’s have a vote.How many of you think we should confront the Pharisees?” Did Moses say”O.k. guys.The majority of you don’t want to enter Palestine.Let’s wait on this for awhile”.Ok.You get the gist of it.
The same is true with the saints and awliya and gurus.They don’t wait to do polls on their students as to how to proceed.They rather call on their own inspirations or that of their teachers and everyone follows from there.Sometimes they get it wrong,in which case if they are sincere,they backtrack and look for a better way to proceed.If they asked for everyone’s opinion ,they would be paralyzed and the entire movement forward would come to a halt.
Even in the domain of science,the democratic.Empirical way doesn’t work.Science advances through geniuses like Archimedes and Galileo and Newton and Einstein not through a consensus of mediocrity.
One of my favourite science-oriented people these days is Chris Martenson of peakprosperity.com(forget the financial stuff,for now.Look at the science) Especially look at the Epistemology.He looks around at all reports and emails sniffing around for the Truth.He has developed what I call “The Ear of Truth”-in science! Then he puts it all together and he is very often right.As opposed to the bureaucratic W.H.O and CDC who,despite their billions of dollars of resources, seem to get it wrong more often than not.I really like his epistemology.Check it out.
And why can we not use a similar epistemology in spiritual matters? We can, I believe!That is precisely what I am trying to do-look at the other religions,look at psychology, sociology,the n.d.e experiences and put it all together in a coherent package.
But then there is the delivery.Then you come up against the “But what about my opinion? Does it not matter what I think” Actually not! l remember my first spiritual seminar with EST in California.The trainer at the front held up a pencil and dropped it on the floor.”That’s gravity” he said.It doesn’t matter what you think.The pencil drops anyway.A law of nature” And a lot of reality is exactly like that.It doesn’t matter what you think! Put that in your democratic peace pipe and smoke it lol.
And then there is the diplomacy of it all-the relationship aspect.Most people have trouble with the Truth.They react-from personal offense,from social-conditioning,from prior mindset.And they get upset and angry.So the message needs to be diluted and sugar-coated in order to pass.The danger there is that ,like a lot of sellers and marketers,you lose the essential truth of the product.In any case,that is what I am working on.Wiser people than me have “failed” at this project.( Think John the Baptist.Of course”failure” is a very relative term.His apparent “failure”-being beheaded- may well have been ultimately a great success!)So I am trying to remain humble and maintain my bodily integrity lol.Salaams.And pray for the success of Truth over falsehood.
Judgment vs. Discernment
As Westerners,most of us were raised with the Christian slogan “Judge not,that ye be not judged” Matthew7:1 as a basic teaching of Jesus.This concept has echoed throughout history so that even nowadays we hear people saying “Don’t be so judgmental” as if this was an obvious truth.
In Islam, as well we are taught by the scholars to have a good opinion of people( Husn Al Thann) although most of the textual evidence actually refers to having a good opinion of our Lord rather than of humanity.Also we are told to make 70 excuses for our brother or sister if we see them doing wrong although this is not really an authentic hadith.On the other hand, at the same time, we are encouraged in the Quran to practice “amr bil maroof and nehi al munkar”(enjoin the good and prevent evil).How can we possibly do that if we don’t acknowledge and state to others the good and evil of their actions.So,this is a much more problematic question than meets the eye at first glance!
If we go back to the Biblical references to start with we have in Genesis of the Old Testament Adam and Eve being forbidden to eat the fruit of a particular tree.This fruit is from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.The punishment for this act was being exiled from the heavens and sent down to earth!
If we reflect on this story ,which is very deep indeed ,what can we understand?This is what I would propose as an explanation.1) That having ideas about good and evil is inconsistent with being in the heavens.Makes sense ,no?There is only positivity,light and love in the heavens.No need for judgment,no need for discernment.
Now,what about the Earth-plane? It appears that discerning good and evil is fundamental to existence on this plane! Is that not your experience?!Common sense,no? How can we possibly manage our lives in this world without being able to discriminate between the two? Ever known people who are too unaware or too naive to make those judgments lol?Ever noticed all the trouble they get into ?!
So how do we resolve this apparent contradiction- between being forbidden to judge and needing to judge in order to survive?!Let me propose a potential solution.It has to do with the difference between discernment (‘furqan’ in Arabic- also one of the names of the Quran ‘Al Furqan” so it can’t be bad) .Discernment is necessary.Judgment may be optional .
And what is the difference between the two.”Aye,there’s the rub” (That’s Shakespeare.Let’s bring in some secular wisdom as well lol).This is how I see it.With discernment,you can see clearly the difference between good and evil.But at the same time you don’t denounce the evil.You take note of it and you manage it,you try to inoculate yourself against it,you detoxify it, you mitigate it-call it what you will..But you don’t denounce it because it,too,is from God.One of the recitations we did with the BaAlawi people of Yemen said “Al Khair wa shaar fi mashiat Illah” Both good and evil are from the will of Allah.Sorry for the moralists amongst you but that is the reality.Evil has it’s purposes!We need to confront it without denying it.
So every time you come in touch with evil,remind yourself that it too is purposeful.It might be designed as a test,it might be there to teach you something,it might purify you and raise your rank.But it needs to be there for this life’s purpose to be realized.And when you get to the other side you will know why!
Now ,one of the main practical aspects here is how to manage this evil- or this ignorance or this untruth(‘batil’ in Arabic). The first step is not to deny it!That just makes matters worse.The second step is to develop discernment and use use your wisdom .This is no easy matter.It requires a life-time and more.Our parents should be our first teachers but,in all honesty,most of them,caught up in their social conditioning ,daily worries and unresolved conflicts and desires,are woefully inadequate on this score!
So we have to seek out teachers of various sorts.Sometimes ,if we are lucky,we may meet them in our daily lives and during our professional training but most of the time,we need to seek them out.And that is a whole other subject and many go awry on that path.It’s somewhat like a Catch-22! You need discernment to find a wise teacher so if you don’t have it to start with,how can you possibly get there?! The answer is the Mercy of Allah who will grant you this great ‘niamat'(gift) of a wise mentor if you are sincere and worthy.May you all be granted this Mercy. Without it, life can easily become a shipwreck! Salaams,Ibrahim
Schools,Oy!
CNN “Everyone agrees that getting kids back to school is important”. One moment……Not me! Schools are the epicenter of a transmission of an atheist,Empiricist, corrupt hedonistic,overintellectualized culture.The more we can avoid them and develop more healthy,organic educational alternatives the better off we will be! Let’s stop idealizing academia.That is the contemporary version of idol-worshiping!
Science? Oy,vey!
Science,Oy vey!
Eldridge Cleaver.one of the originators of the Black Panther party, wrote a long time ago:”You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution!”.We now have to stop parroting our so-called leaders who keep telling us how wonderful science is and ask ourselves:”Is science part of the problem or part of the solution?”What chutzpah to raise this question?! But think about it.Look at every modern problem that surrounds us-an epidemic of cancer,Alzheimer’s disease and Autism.Global warming,polluted waters and air and food-even the current pandemic of a GMO corona virus(yes,man-made undoubtedly!) and behind it all ,in every case!,you will find a scientific,technological origin! We are literally playing with fire(yes,that too is science-driven O Californians and Australians) and surprised that we are burnt.And NONE of our political leaders,even the most conservative ones,are telling us this story! Does this mean we should abandon science?! No,not at all.But it has to be MUCH better managed and its side-effects much better controlled.As long as economics and lobby groups are in charge we are doomed! We need a better leadership model,for sure.And the other question:”Is there an alternative to this destruction?”Yes,there is.We need to return as much as possible to nature,to natural means-God-given means and ways.Otherwise we are on the eve of destruction.And science,itself,will be impotent to change that! Just look around if you don’t believe me lol