Appreciating the sayings of Jesus(Isa Ibn Mayram) more and more these days.“Seek ye the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added unto thee” Ajib.I realize that most people, including most of the so-called ‘believers’, are operating on the opposite principle: “Seek ye the kingdom of Earth( optimize your worldly conditions) and heaven (well-‘being) will be added unto you” No wonder we are in such a mess!
Category Archives: Spiritual Practice
“Experts” and Wise Men and Women
Watching General Matis being interviewed on MSNBC.An intelligent,principled,well-intentionned man.Full of clever formulas like”you recruit for attitude;but you train for skill” and “there are three things important in leadership,supposedly military, but generalizable: competence,caring and conviction”.Sounds good ,eh? Well,anything that doesn’t refer back to the Divine Will and presumes we humans are in charge is bogus to me!That was the genius of the Sahabbas(The Companions of the Prophet sal).They understood well that it all happens via the Divine Will(“Musabib al asbab”-the Causer of Causes).And they had a great teacher in Mohammed-one of the most aware beings concerning this aspect of reality and arguably its greatest teacher.This aspect of reality has not changed one iota in 1500 years! Alhumdulillah that there were people who have taught us this! We need less “experts” and more wise men and women(i.e. God-conscious ones).
Spiritual Methodology
As I study the non-dualists i.e. the people who express most clearly the Ultimate Spiritual State(we call it fana and baqa in Sufism) one thing becomes apparent.None of the teachers I have studied came to their Realization by the methods they themselves are espousing ! Intriguing! So Ramana Maharshi had a sudden “fear of death” and a feeling of a “force or current” that he identified as the I. Nisardgadatta Maharaj describes his “opening” at the hands of his guru(so it was guru Yoga or transmission from the teacher),Eckhart Tolle was in the midst of a psychological,suicidal crisis when his enlightenment occurred and Adyashant ,one of the popular California types, gave up on his intense Zen Buddhist practice and felt he was dying when he”arrived”! So none of them came by the same method they are proposing! Intriguing.
So what do we make of this?! Rick Archer (“Buddha at the Gas Pump” guy) quotes some sage as saying”Enlightenment is an accident;we do spiritual practice to make ourselves accident prone”! Very clever,even eloquent but is it True?!
Personally, and I believe this is true for all Believers,there are no accidents.Not only do the revealed Scriptures tell us so but so do the n.d.e. experiencers.There are no accidents.That is an agnostic,atheistic idea.Everything is from the Will and the Wisdom of God.That is my personal conviction.
So what can we conclude from that .Firstly that” there is no set methodogy for Enlightenment”! IMHO even the Sufis,my preferred spiritual orientation,get that one wrong! Just because the Master arrives at his opening through certain practices is no guarantee that his disciples will do likewise.I have seen that over and over again on the spiritual path!
So what do we do?The only thing we can do is pray! So,like in everything else in life,pray for what you want and rely on God(tawwakkul) to give you the most suitable result.And if you really want to be “accident-prone” ,be on your best possible behaviour- relative to God and your fellow man-an age-old technique called Virtue lol
Advaita Vedanta/The Non-Dualist Approach-An Analysis
The Advaita Vedanta /Non-Dualist Approach-An Analysis
Recently, I have been exploring an increasingly popular spiritual approach known as Non-duality or Advaita Vedanta. Although the tradition has roots going back millenia, the traditional modern representatives of this tradition are people like Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Papaji. More recently still the tradition has been revived by people like Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle and Rupert Spira . Eckhart Tolle has been particularly popular writing some bestseller books like “The Power of Now” and being interviewed on the Oprah Show. Other names associated with this movement are Richard Rose, Brad Marshall, Douglas Harding, Fred Davis and my favourite Richard Adams. All of these people, very different in character one from the other, have some genuine spiritual attainment and authentic spiritual experiences. None of them, from the Sufi point of view, look quite right. Mostly this is because they have fallen for the Indian subcontinent distortion which puts too much emphasis on the transcendent and not enough on the right and blessed way of being in the world. But more about this later.
I got interested in this non-dualist approach because they seemed to have a more direct method to Ultimate Reality than most of the schools of mysticism I have been involved in. The Sufi, Buddhist and Christian contemplative ways require long and arduous years of practice and abstinence. Even then, in the majority of cases, they fail to bring their adherents to the final station. So I wondered if this way might not be a simpler, more direct path. A path called Self-Inquiry.
The name for this Ultimate state varies from path to path. In Hinduism, it is called Samadhi, in Buddhism Nibbanna, in Zen it is Satori and in Sufism we call it fana and baqa.All of the descriptions of this end-point are similar. One gets to a place where the ego is effaced and the Divine luminous truth with Love and Compassion shines through. But for those of you have have made serious efforts in this direction, you know that this is no easy matter. Most of the gurus and masters and Shuyukh who make claims of getting you there most often fail-even if they, themselves, have arrived. So the question becomes: ”Is there a better way?” That is what I have been exploring recently.
Let me backtrack here a bit and explain my own learning process. I like to use the analogy from our Biology 101 course of the one-celled organism called the amoeba. The amoeba sends out a pseudopod to trap a food particle. It then takes the food particle into its body and metabolizes it to become part of itself. That is my own learning model. I explore things and then integrate what seems true and useful and expel the rest. So recently I have been having a feeding frenzy with material from the non-dualists. In that “frenzy” I went through audiotapes, videotapes, articles and books on Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, Papaji, Richard Rose and finally Robert Adams who became my point of reference. The Gretsky or Michael Jordan of the non-dualists lol. I had previously been through much of the material of Krishnamurti who I visited in 1975 and Eckhart Tolle when I read and listened to most of his material several years ago . I should include Byron Katie whose seminars I attended twice a long time ago and can also be considered a non-dualist.
To be clear at this point, I am not only speaking purely intellectually and theoretically on these issues. I have had my own personal experiences of one-ness with the Absolute. Although they never remained for long, they did shape my understanding of Existence. And I still get subtle flashbacks on a fairly regular basis(sometimes in the form of what I call ‘the pristine state’-free of all thoughts and at other times with the feeling that all is right in Existence, something Robert Adams and the non-dualists mention often) although not enough to keep me in a state of permanent satisfaction. So I keep trucking along as they say.
As I explored the subject of Advaita Vedanta ,the field narrowed more and more until I found Robert Adams, a man of undeniable spiritual attainment and unlike many of the others ,a man of unquestionable integrity. So I decided he was the one to learn from. Unfortunately ,he died in the 1990’s so I was left learning from his writngs and his audiotapes and his Association-The Infinity Institute. I am still working with his spiritual practices and will write an update as the results unfold.
What I realized, however, was that there was a systematic, cardinal mistake in the point of view of the non-dualists! Philosophically the way we can frame the mistake is as the confusion between phenomenology(experience) and Ontology(Actual Existence or Existences).We could also describe this as “a Dimensional Confusion”.I will elaborate further on this issue by taking Robert’s Four Principles and commenting on them(from his major book “Silence of the Heart”).
1)Principle Number One: The realization that everything you see, the universe, people, worms, insects, the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, your body, your mind, everything that appears, is a manifestation of your mind.” Wrong! Now if, in Reality, you are speaking from the position of God, it could well be argued that all of Creation is a manifestation of His mind. The Quranic and Christian point of view may be more that everything we see is a manifestation of His will.”Kun fayakun” says the Quran. Be and it is . So everything comes from His word which could be said to come from His mind. But it certainly doesn’t come from our minds .So this statement can create a lot of confusion. It is a product of an altered state of Consciousness where one is fused with the Divine mind. Thus it is only true experientially but not so in Reality. I hope the reader is beginning to understand what I mean by “Dimensional Confusion”. In reality (the Buddhists are not going to like this one lol) there is a Creator and a Creation. And actually(this comes from experience, not theory!) the Creator does not dismiss His Creation as non-existent. He loves His Creation! And I have seen that!
2)Principle Number Two: You are not born, you have no life, and you do not die. Clearly wrong! Of course, you are born, you have a life and you die! The One who is not born and does not die is God! That is true. But you are not God except experientially during a mystical state. This problem is not confined to Vedanta. There is an iconic Sufi story of Mansur-al-Hallaj who went around the public squares of Baghdad claiming: ”An Al Haqq”.I am the Realty. He was executed as a heretic and his teacher Junayd al Baghdadi did not dispute the judicial decision. In fact he had warned al-Hallaj not to make these statements publicly because it sowed confusion in the public. Fortunately for the non-dualists of today ,they are not living in a traditional Christian or Islamic or Judaic society or they too would be executed!
3) Principle Number Three: The egolessness of all things; everything has no ego. Tell that to Trump lol. But humour aside, there is only one Absolute Being. But there innumerable individual relative beings. You and I are but two of those! Btw, I wrote an article that will be published in my upcoming book on “Proofs for the Existence of the Individual Self”. This was written in response to the Buddhist idea of ‘anatta’-no self- but applies equally well to the non-dualists. The followers of Ibn Arabi in Sufism had a similar idea called “wahadat al wujud” the singularity of Existence but this idea was challenged by many scholars and Sufis most notably Ahmad Sirhindi and has never received the same general acceptance in the Islamic community as Advaita Vedanta did in the Hindu world.
4) Principle Number Four: You can only know Absolute Reality by knowing what it is not(net-neti). Maybe… That is certainly one possible way, although many people have been led to Absolute Reality without that step including, ironically, Robert Adamas himself if you study his biography. So that is not necessarily true.
So where does all of this leave us? We first have to realize that we cannot accept the Aqida (articles of Faith or Theology) of Advaita Vedanta at face value. We DO exist, life does exist, problems do exist and perhaps most important of all good and evil do exist and we have to manage our lives accordingly. However the non-dualists may well have one of the best methodologies for experiencing Absolute Truth. We need to explore that further. It is incumbent on us to do so. But we must not throw out the baby (Divine Realization) with the dirty bath-water(wrong conceptions about our worldly life). God and His Mercy be with you. Salaams, Joel Ibrahim Kreps
The Mind!
Do not analyze what I say. When you begin to analyze anything I say, your mind will contradict. The nature of the mind is to contradict. The nature of the mind is to upset you. To make you feel out of sorts. To make you believe something is wrong someplace. That is the nature of the mind. The mind always leads you astray. You cannot have faith in your mind. You cannot believe in your mind. Remember what your mind is. It’s a conglomeration of thoughts of the past and worries about the future. That’s all your mind is. But to come into truth, you have to stand naked before God. By naked I mean you have to give up everything. All your wants and desires.
I don’t mean you have to be like Ramana Maharshi. When he came to the temple in the beginning when he was a boy. He took off all his clothes and stood naked in the street and it started to rain and he shaved his head. I’m not referring to that, you do not have to do this. But what you have to do is to empty your mind. You have to empty your mind of all thoughts. It’s not that hard, really.
– Robert Adams, CW, Ts 19
Ramadan Musings
As we begin our Ramadan process,it is worth reflecting on what the right way to approach this holy month is.Ramadan,in my understanding,is a complete program of spiritual purification(tazkya).The program includes getting up in the middle of the night for the Suhoor meal, fasting during the day,reading and studying as much of the Quran as possible,doing the iftar in the spirit of gratitude and remembrance and going to the mosque for Tarawih prayer to join with the other fasters.This is the outer aspect.
Now,all of this practice depends, of course, on the circumstances of the individual believers.Evening and night workers may not be able to make it for the Tarawih prayers as may be the case for mothers with young children.Some people,because of medical conditions, are totally unable to fast so each situation is unique.What I am describing here is an ideal model.Like with all ideals,wisdom and discernment is needed to put them properly into practice.
Now, the first question to address in all of this is that of the mind-set that is required-the attitude if you wish.I would formulate the directive here as “Slow down and turn inward”. Slowing down refers to your level of activity in the dunniya.So during my last years in psychiatric practice, I would start work later than usual and finish earlier(not everyone has that option but many do). I would also try to limit certain kinds of work that were particularly stressful or required a lot of concentration and mental effort.The latter is because the brain is the most glucose-dependent organ and the lack of calories means that it’s functioning is sub-optimal.For this reason, the smartest students I knew studied in the evening and night and early morning when the brain could be furnished with an adequate amount of nutrition.
As to the issue of stress-inducing activities,again in my personal experience ,I found I could not work in the emergency room in psychiatry while I was fasting(too much chaos,emotional violence and noise).In the quieter work in private practice ,I tried to keep the cognitively more difficult tasks, like evaluating new patients and writing complex medical reports until after Ramadan.
One of my Facebook contacts was promoting the opposite approach.Not satisfied with the exigencies of the regular fast,he suggested adding elements of the ketogenic diet including calorie restriction and extra cardio exercises to the non-fasting part of the day.I would suggest that that kind of Islamic machismpo is both unnecessary and counterproductive.This is not the time to be asserting our willpower.Rather it is the time of learning to be receptive and practicing surrender.IMHO
The ideal fast would be a sort of khalewah,like the Prophet saws was doing in the cave of al Hira when the revelation first came.That is,it is a form of asceticism(azhud) where one’s focus shifts almost totally from the worldly activities to the dhikr of Our Creator- in whatever form that takes.It may be dhikr itself like repeating the Ism al Adham or prayer or reading the Quran or even reading the stories and teachings of the awliya.This is the aspect I am referring to by the phrase “going inward”.Although the complete retreat is not possible for most people,the attitude therein can be seen as a point of reference.
Of course,whatever we do,even if we retire to a cave,we are going to meet the resistance of the ‘nafs’. It is going to say things like:”this is too hard”;Why are we putting ourselves into so much difficulty?”.Why don’t I find ways to distract myself from this arduous pracice?” etc.,etc.But we must resist., as much as possible.Personally,I do find the need from time to time to take a break and do something irrelevant-not haram but irrelevant,like watch the news or even a sports game.I know that in the Middle East,Ramadan is a time for popular television series -often at the time of the Tarawih prayer.This may well be acceptable if one is stuck at home ,but obviously the salat al Tarawih is better and as I mentioned earlier it is part of the program.I remember one Ramadan being in Egypt and once the sun went down,it was like Mardi Gras(festival-time) in the streets of Cairo..I had no problem finding the celebrants but the sites for Tarawih prayer were less obvious!
In terms of attitude also stay attentive .Much of the time you may feel hungry or weak or anxious but there will be openings (futuhat) where the Divine Presence and the barakat of Ramadan break through- like sun rays on a cloudy days.Those are the signs(ayats) of the rewards that are coming- both in this life and the hereafter.So enjoy the process if you can.It can be like a roller-coaster at times but it is all designed by the Great Designer to get closer and better aligned with our Creator .Ramadan Mubarak.
Podcast – The Sufi Retreat
The New Sheikh
Asalamu aleykum,brothers and sisters.In the early 2000’s I met with one of the great Shuyukh of Islam – Sheikh Mahshur al Haddad r.a.- the sheikh of Sheikh Omar Ibn Hafiz and Sheikh Ali Jeffri ,in Jeddah shortly before his passing.
Although in a weakened state ,he managed to tell us, through his interpreter, that the days of tariqat, as we knew it, were over as people were no longer able to bear the rigour of the sheikh/murid relationship
At the time,I believed he was only referring to his own tariqat, but over the years I have been able to see the general applicability of his statement!
We are no longer in the era of the Insan al Kamil( the perfect man) and the murid with total surrender and perfect adab( if ever that actually existed in reality!).The new sheikh has to be ready to “mix it up”. He has to be ready to be challenged and to be able to assert what is True and to step back if he is in error.And he has to have some understanding of the psychological dynamics in any relationship- including his relationship with his students! Welcome.to the modern world! We should not lament the changes but rather should embrace them.There is something salutary in all of this as there was something problematic in the previous formalism that existed.Long live the Truth.
Salaams,Ibrahim