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Holistic Medicine, Modern Living, Psychology

Autism is Everywhere!

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Autism /Aspergers is Everywhere!

According to current medical statistics, Autism Spectrum Disorder is now at 1/32.That is in contrast to the 1/2500 we were taught when I studied psychiatry in the 80’s.. The sceptics say that this is just because we are looking for it more or alternatively because the diagnostic criteria have changed.

Rubbish! In fact according to my observations, the rate of Autism is much, much higher than that! In fact, I would argue that every single child exposed to the equivalent of the American Vaccine mandate schedule has some features of autism!

As an example of the underdiagnosis phenomenon during my practice as a psychiatrist I remember having referred at least two clear-cut cases of autism to specialty clinics to confirm the diagnosis. Both cases were told they didn’t have Autism. In one case the man was superbly rational and knew how to avoid the specific criteria thinking it would be detrimental to his career aspirations. In the other case, of a Muslim man, who oddly fasted Monday and Thursday but didn’t do his salat on any regular basis. Any practicing Muslim could have told them that this was odd indeed. So  they also could have confirmed this oddity, amongst others, if they had asked his wife! But they never did.

All of this brings me back to the comments of my highly esteemed psychiatry teacher, Dr.Heinz  Lehman, when the DSM catalogues of diagnosis were first being used on a systematic basis .”We are now going to enter a period of ‘cookbook medicine” he stated. And sure enough we can see that all over the medical field.

So , bottom line a whole generation of children, possibly now the beginning of a second generation, is being seriously harmed! When confronted with these oddities, especially amongst young boys , another explanation given is that its due to “the screens”. It’s all because of too much technology, they would say. Oddly enough ,there is some truth to this hypothesis. Actually the vaccine-injury syndrome (mostly as there are other toxins that contribute), and the universal presence of electronics, are synergistically interacting. The more autistic features, the more interested in screens. and the more screen-time the more the children begin to look autistic!

Funnily, the Imam at our mosque has noticed this as well! .Not usually very aware of psychological issues lol,he recently stated in one of his khutbahs: ”How come there are so many cases of autism in our mosque?!”. He noticed but the doctors and pediatricians barely notice. Bring on the bonuses for more vaccines?!

So why are the numbers so underestimated. Now RFKjr. gave a presser recently on the more severe forms of autism, which he claimed were 25% of the group(an overestimate in my view). Many autistic people were very offended because he was saying that this group had no prospects for the future. They would never have careers and families and be independent. These were, in fact, the types we saw hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals when I was studying psychiatry! Now many of them are in group homes or under the care of exhausted overstressed parents. RFKjr. was trying to indicate that Autism was a serious problem and needed to be attended to. And I congratulate him for that effort.

However, the vast majority of Autistic spectrum/Aspergers are much more subtle. And that is why they go unnoticed. In fact there is a tendency to normalize the problem. And we all pay the price for that normalization- by continuing to deny the real cause(causes).”O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive (or to deny in this case)”!

So, what are these subtle signs of Autism. Many of these do NOT figure in the DSM criteria or do so in a very non-specific way. In a more global view, the central defect of the Autistic person is that “they don’t get it”. This is often extremely frustrating to their partners. So if we look at the world of politics, for example and some hugely successful Autism/Aspergers people, we see that Bill Gates did not get what evil was lurking in Jeffrey Epstein. It ended up destroying his marriage. And yes, there were others like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump who didn’t get it either-but for other reasons. Then there is Elon Musk who didn’t get it about Trump until well into his mandate. And then he didn’t get the proper way to leave either. Or how he cannot manage relationships with women whom he was well able to inseminate lol  but unable to maintain relationships with.

                                                                 Soft Signs

Even before the specifics, someone with inner vision can see the autism in the facial expression of the person and in the way his body moves-the gait. Dr. Lehmann claimed he could diagnose schizophrenia just by the gait of the patient as he walked in the office, He didn’t need the DSM criteria! The same is true for Autism.

1-Pickiness in eating. Yes, many children have some of this when they are very young. Much of this diminishes as we grow older. I remember myself as a child, I would only eat meat and potatoes lol.I hated fish and seafood was anathema. As I grew older, most of these preferences diminished and died away. But often I had to work at it. I still remember when pizza first came to Montreal. It was made with strong parmesan cheese as the Italians do. The first two or three times I ate it, I vomited it up. But because everyone around me was enjoying it, I persisted. The same with fish. But the Aspergers personality often maintains these preferences throughout life!

 

2-Incapable of genuine emotional expression -either love or sadness or anger or enthusiasm.( This feature can be worked on however as we will mention in the later part of the article)

3-Oddities of behaviour. (The DSM does mention that one but the oddities can be subtle) Think of Mark Zuckerberg’s hairdos lol .It’s a giveaway. Or Musk coming on stage with a chain saw! Or people who insist on wearing the same clothes all the time. I once had a brilliant psychoanalytic teacher who only wore a dark-blue blazer and grey pants. When asked about it, he said he wanted to keep the environment stable so he could correctly observe “the transference” lol Is psychoanalysis an Autistic cult then?! Some would argue such!

4-Unwittingly saying the wrong things in public-often things that are offensive to others! We had one of those in our medical school class. When I mentioned the possibility to another of our colleages at our 50th year graduation celebration, he would hear nothing of it. He wanted to continue hating on the man.

5-Having difficulty finding partners-especially for the males. The females do not have the same difficulty as men tend to be lacking in the same social awareness as ladies: ”If she’s sufficiently hot, he’s into it-regardless lol .The women, however, pick up on the oddities and have a negative reaction. They prefer a full-blooded macho braggard to a gentle, subtle soul-despite all their protestations!

I’m sure there is a lot more to this part of the story but let’s leave it there for now!

 

The Positive Side:

When I looked back at my friendships over my life history, I realized that most of my long-term friends were in all likelihood Aspergers people?! Why is that?!

Let’s look at the alternatives lol. There are the Personality Disorders- Narcissistic and Psychopathic like Trump. No thanks. Then there are the Obsessional Rationnalist Organizer types .They are the ones I find most annoying lolAnd then there are the “hale and hearty” athletes and party-goers. How boring and tiresome.! So Aspies may in fact be one of the better options. They can be….

1_ Intelligent  -a la Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

2- They are often enough spiritually open-unlike the Rationnalists -my favourite group to hate on- especially since they have so much credibility in this messed up society!

3- Not aggressive as opposed to the Narcissists and psychopaths. They rarely bear grudges and can easily move on after argumentation despite their inherent stubbornness.

 

                                                           Treatment

Autism and Aspergers are notoriously hard to treat! I think that this is because our current paradigms are inappropriate. In children the ABB treatment is more like dog-training then pediatric therapy. And in adults neither psychoanalysis nor CBT has much to offer. So what can we do?!

I would propose a regimen of humanisation which would include the following

1-Staying away from “screens” and IT as much as possible. Unfortunately many of the most talented people in this area including A.I. have autistic features. For those who earn their living in this way, the therapy will have to take place outside of work hours lol .Alternatively if it is possible for these people to earn their living in more concrete ways like the trades or the heath professions or in services it would probably be more healthy for them to do so!

2-Engage in Relationships. This, of course , will be difficult-especially for the partners lol.

3-Spend time in nature or with animals. Anything that is ”organic” is likely to be helpful. Anything unreal and synthetic like videogames and board games and card games is likely to be harmful,

4-Identify emotions. Anyone spending time with an Aspergers person will begin to see glimmers of emotion-which the autistic person is likely to be unaware of. ”I saw some irritation in your face” you may say. Or “you seemed to really like that idea”(after seeing a hint of a smile).The Aspie will deny it, of course. But don’t be discouraged. Ultimately you will have some impact! Nothing like persistence! Especially if it doesn’t cross the line into harassment. You can also model for the “normal “emotions-like enthusiasm and sadness and even anger if it is not directed at them personally.

All of this is a beginning. As say the French: ”Ce n’est qu’un debut. Continuons le combat” (This is but a beginning. Continue the battle)

Salaaams, Sufi Ibrahim

 

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology

“Facts are Facts” Really!

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Context: A discussion about the state of the American economy after a Rachel Maddow opinion piece on the internet

This discussion involved a couple of old friends, both trained in well-respected MBA schools and with a long history of investment portfolio management( i.e much better informed then me about business and economics!). Both still believe in “facts”- whether they be government reports such as the Labour Board statistics or other economic reports or private company reports. Both are still Empiricists-despite decades of feedback by yours truly about the limitations of that approach lol!

I, myself, was very fortunate. At a young age I was confronted by a clever girlfriend for being a Positivist( another form of Empiricism) That challenge changed my life-over 50 years ago! But most of the people I know ,educated in the West, still believe in “facts” .In medicine they call that “objective evidence”. In science it is called statistical analysis in peer-reviewed journals .In politics it is whatever suits your political narrative lol

Getting back to Rachel Maddow for a minute, her thesis was that, as opposed to the Trumpian narrative that the U.S. has all the cards in its trade deal with Canada, America was going to suffer more from the tariffs than either Trump or many of the economists think and that Canada might actually gain an advantage in asserting its own independence.

The usual “ad hominem” critique then followed. Rachel Maddow is a well-known leftist with MSNBC , a Trump-hater and on top of it not that well-informed about the “facts”. in this particular dossier. However, despite all of that, her primary thesis may well be correct. Why do I say that?

As those who have been following me for awhile know, I reject the contemporary Epistemology of “objective evidence” and favour an Epistemology of “seeing ‘,”hearing” and “feeling”( in Quranic Arabic that is “basirat”, samiyya” and “fuad”)This way of accessing Reality includes looking at peoples hearts ,listening carefully to anecdotes and “searching the neighborhood” to see what is really going on!

When I apply this model ,I notice the following. Many, many people in both Canada and the U.S. are worried. Only 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. I hear more and more stories of people having a hard time finding jobs( I believe this is not only true in Canada but in the U.S. as well).I see more and more stories of small businesses having a hard time with the tariffs. Some are even closing down.” Poppy-cock” say the Empiricists .”The macro picture is unchanged” i.e. more government statistics lol.

And perhaps most of all, Americans are unhappy! They are now divided into Trump-haters, who are unhappy because he is in power and Trump sycophants who are unhappy because they have to embrace his lies as part of the package and embracing lies and denial is NEVER a formula for happiness!

Then there is the rest of the World that is increasingly anti-Trump and anti-American. The Canadians who are avoiding travel to the U.S. and plenty of other countries’ citizens doing like-wise I am sure. Being hated is rarely a formula for success! America which once was a beacon of freedom and success is now seen as tyrannical, bullying and manipulative.

None of this augurs well for the future of America. But so-called “experts” fixated on macro-economic data ” can see none of this! Empiricism and its sister philosophy Materialism has done so much harm! We can see this so clearly in the countries that embraced “Dialectical Materialism’. Now we can see it coming in those countries that have embraced “Scientific Materialism”. God help us all!

 

 

Comparative Religion, Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology

The Cause of Suffering

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The Cause of All Suffering-

Individual and Collective.

Context: Looking at the horrible suffering in the world around us.

Byron Katie is a non-sectarian New Age spiritual teacher similar in her evolution to the better-known Eckhart Tolle of “The Power of Now” fame. I attended a couple of her workshops in America in the past. She made  the following statement in front of a mid-sized auditorium.It was like a thunderbolt for me when I first heard it.! “All your problems come from the same place: You believe in the contents of your own mind”. Wow! Ajib. The Truth of it  resonated deep within.

When I then looked at the international situation, I realized that this truth applied to collectivities as well as individuals. Let us see how that plays out.

But before we do, let me situate this statement in a theological Comparative Religion framework. The traditions that understand this statement best would be the Hindi-Buddhist tradition- not my chosen path however. These traditions understood and still understand that the mind (“manas” in Sanskrit ) is not our friend but our enemy!  The reason that the Western traditions are not aware of this is that they have all been corrupted to a certain extent by Greek Philosophy which worships the mind, rationality and logic. Christianity grew up in the midst of this Greek culture(Greek was the intellectual language at the time of Jesus).In much the same area the Jews as well were absorbing the Greek mind-set. We can see this in the elaborate mind-productions of the Talmudists ( third to sixth century C.E) Btw there is no common measure between the statements of the great Jewish Prophets like Jacob and Moses and David and these Talmudic cerebralized scholars-except perhaps their belief in One God Lol!

And finally, the Muslims began translating the Greek texts into Arabic beginning during the Abbasid period and it reached its apogee during the time of Andalusia. For Muslim readers if you don’t believe me, read the hadith and the statements of the Sahhabis and contrast them with any of your preferred scholars and you will see the contrast. And btw ,it was not arbitrary that Allah chose Mohammed, saws, an unlettered man,for his final Prophetic Mission! I have seen the same phenomenon manifest amongst the shuyukh I have studied with and followed. There is an inverse relationship between their level of scholarship and their spiritual hal. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, O admirers of Harvard and Oxford and Al Azhar lol.

Before continuing, it must be stated that these “mind-productions” of the collectivities are also underpinned by very strong emotions. That is why it is often so difficult to untangle them from reality.

Now let us see how this plays out on the international front. Three situations of utmost misery will be highlighted although there are many more-beyond counting!

The Middle East-Specifically Gaza :

Israeli Jewish Thought: “This land was promised to us by God in the Bible. The greatest error of Israel is to push its military to harsh and unusual punishment out of what can only be termed vengeance.

Arab Muslim Thought:” This land is ours. We have settled here for hundreds of years.There is no place for Jews here. The Jews are colonialists from Eastern Europe. Thus: ”From the River to the sea” The greatest error of the Palestinians and the Arabs was to not allow for the legitimate presence of Jews on their territory.

Reality: The Children of Israel and the Arabs have been fighting about this land over and over again since Abraham had two sons-Ismail-the father of the Arabs and Issac-the father of the Jews. That’s about 4000 years! The Jews had been mostly absent for a long time because of political and religious oppression. Now they were called back by Divine destiny (Muslims should not be denying the hand of God in all of this as the concept of ‘qada’ is basic to our religious beliefs!) But the Arabs and Islam have their rights as well. Did Allah not tell us in the Quran that he made many nations-so that they would know each other?!  Bottom Line: the Arabs and the Jews need to make a just arrangement. Everyone outside of the Muslim and Jewish tribal world knows that! But these outsiders are not subject to the same collective, tribal ideologies and sentiments as the latter two.

 

  1. B) The Russia Ukraine Conflict

Russian Thought: Ukraine is not a real nation. They should be part of the Russian Empire as they were in the past

Ukrainian Thought: We are a sovereign country We want to be part of the Western world

 Reality: Russia and Ukraine have a lot in common. They are both adherents to the orthodox Church. They both have a long history of corruption and anti-Semitism. Even their languages sound similar. A suitable arrangement needs to be made that allows for their similarities and differences.

N.B. As a Canadian I think we have a workable model to present to the World-the arrangement between the English and the French Canadians who also have a lot in common and notable differences.(  For the naysayers, we will leave aside for now our treatment of the indigenous people which Canada is trying to come to terms with just as America is trying to come to terms with its history of slavery)

 

The Mass Deportations of Illegal Immigrants in America:

 

 Government Thought: We have far too many illegal immigrants in our country. Many, if not most of them, have criminal records. We need to get them out as soon as possible. We were elected to do that

 

Immigrant Defenders’ Thought

Many of us have been here for a long time. We have worked hard and raised our children here to build a new life. This mass deportation is cruel and unjust.

Reality:

For whatever reasons, America has allowed in more immigrants than they can manage. ( In Canada which has been more honest about this issue, if not more generous, we have no such problem. So America brought this upon themselves) Whatever the reasons, they are unlikely to be of the benevolent nature. Many were allowed in to furnish cheap labour or for a political calculus by the Democratic party who saw future left-wing voters. In any case, they are here. Now that the borders are more or less sealed, America needs to do whatever it can needs  to do about  deeportations in a manner that is judicious, law-abiding and humanitarian. Treating all immigrants prima facie as if they were criminals does a disservice both to the immigrants and to the traditions of the founding of America itself.

As you can see from these few examples, ideology, principles, beliefs with all the emotions that underpin them leads to more and more suffering.

The only solution possible is to observe Reality clearly. Once properly perceived, that Reality will lead to proper decision-making. May Allah help us all !

 

 

 

 

Comparative Religion, Modern Living, Psychology, Spiritual Practice

Spiritual/Religious Bypassing

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Spiritual/Religious Bypassing

As opposed to most of the articles on my blog, which come from my own observations and inspirations, this article is written due to a special request from an old friend who feels it is an important issue to address .I felt that my own writings on the bio-psycho-socio-spiritual model were sufficient to prevent people from a uni-dimensional approach to practice. Obviously that has not been the case lol. Old ideas and habits die hard. So let us proceed to formulate this same teaching in another way.

So what is “spiritual bypassing”? This is a quote from Wikipedia; Spiritual bypass or spiritual bypassing is a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”. The term was introduced in the mid 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist.( A Buddhist?! No surprise there lol. Anyone refusing to believe in God, and by extension Divine Law, is at risk to justify any errant behaviour as a justifiable personal choice!)

On this particular question I have concluded that the Dalai Lama is the second-best marketer in the history of religion lol. He saw that most Westerners were inclined to atheism, so he made a point of saying repeatedly that Buddhists don’t believe in a Creator God, despite the fact that the Buddha himself never made such a categorical statement! So who was the best marketer of religion?” you may ask…. Paul of Tarsus lol .He similarly observed the sociology around him and concluded:  ”The Greeks and Romans with their long polytheistic traditions will never accept Mosaic Law! So let’s drop that as a criterion for being a Christian and say that all you need is to love Jesus and you are a Christian. This, despite the fact that Jesus a.s. himself said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).Talk about not listening to your teacher?! But he was wildly successful lol! Just look at the world around you! Christianity remains the most numerous in followers!

Based on personal experience, I would like to broaden the category to Religious Bypass as well. My definition: ” Religious bypass involves people practicing the outward form and rituals of a tradition without paying attention to the deeper issues of self-awareness and self-control (what we in Sufism call “jihad -a -nafs-the battle with the ego) which inevitably overlaps with a lack of morality and ethics.

Let’s start with a few examples… While I was on Sabbatical in Damascus in 2007-2008, I had a good friend who was an Egyptian engineer. He kept insisting that I go pray with him the Fajr prayer at the other end of the city. Usually we prayed at the Sheikh Muhyideen mosque near my house. But he wanted me to experience a certain Imam who gave lectures every morning after the Fajr prayer. So one day I accepted his invitation. My Arabic was not good enough to understand what was being said but my friend did his best to translate what he could. Honestly, not very impressive lol( the Eastern scholars all sound the same. It’s the echo-chamber of the ulema- no place for original thinking! but that is not the point here.

As we left the mosque to have some breakfast, he said to me: ” Did you see the man sitting right next to the Imam.?” I had seen him but had no particular impression that I could acknowledge. ”Well, that man comes here every morning without fail -as an act of piety. In the past, I worked on contract for three months for him but he never paid me! He always had reasons not to pay” H-m-m. So this pious man was cheating his employees as did Trump with his contractors building the Casinos in New Jersey lol. At least Trump makes little pretense of being pious. Although his near-death assassination experience got him thinking lol.

Another example in the same spirit from the same time period. During Ramadan that year I would have people over for Iftar -to break the fast .One of them was a very studious, pious man- an Indo-Pakistani man living in England who knew a lot more Arabic and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) than I will ever know! He came to break fast regularly at my place during Ramadan. At one point I noticed that he never brought anything himself. So I mentioned it to him. No response. Then I told him that if he didn’t bring something, anything, I would no longer receive him. He tried again! So I put him out-never to be seen again. It should be mentioned here that this same man was bragging to me about his various properties in England-so he was no pauper or I would have fed him willingly!

Now these are the kind of stories that non-believers use to show how bad religion is. My own Dad would tell me stories of men who prayed regularly at the synagogue but would cheat people in business just as regularly So these are the religious bypassers- people who do the outer practices but are missing the essential attributes-like generosity, compassion for others and kindness.! But what about the spiritual ones?!

For that let’s go back to the sheikh who probably had the greatest influence on my understanding of our religion and of Sufism-Sheikh Nazim I followed Sheikh Nazim for 12 years in the eighties and early 90’s. Whenever I would arrive at his zawwiyah or mosque in Peckham, London, he would say “Dr. Ibrahim. We are so happy to have a psychiatrist here. Welcome to our Mental Hospital “lol. Outwardly, this was a joke but if we dig deeper, as in many of the statements of the sheikh, there was a deeper meaning. Many of the people that came to be with him had mental health issues. Now, there is nothing wrong with people seeking spiritual help for their psychological issues. And many of them did need that help. But generally, that is not enough. Some could have benefitted from psychotherapy, others clearly needed medications and still others might have better started with job training so that they could earn a living for themselves and their families.

A related anecdote…Just before I embraced Islam in East Jerusalem, I met a teacher of Kabbala at the Western Wall. I asked him what it would take to study with him and he said that first I would have to be married, have a job that would allow me to provide for my family and have studied Torah for seven years! Then and only then would he teach me. My first thoughts were that this man had no idea about Western spiritual seekers lol We are way too impatient for anything like that. And I went on my merry way to find a Sufi teacher who started the journey right away. In retrospect, though, I realized the wisdom of what this Kabbalist was saying. No spiritual bypassing for him! Get your feet on the ground and then we will embark on the spiritual journey. Much misery and even tragedies could be avoided with that philosophy!

Ok. Let’s get back to the Wikipedia definition: “avoiding facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”. I would add in here moral issues ( “superego lacunae” the psychoanalysts call them lol.)

Another story. I had a good Sufi friend who lived in upstate New York and drove a taxi in Manhattan for a living. Nearby where he lived in South Fallsburg was a Hindu Guru known as guru Mayi- Swami Chivilisanada. She had lots of followers in America as well as in Quebec. One of them had a used car to sell and my friend bought it from him without having it properly checked out by a mechanic- believing that the seller was a moral person-being a spiritual-seeker.. After a short time, he realized that the car was full of defects and wanted to return it. The Yogi aspirant outrightly refused saying: “The God in me (a very Hindu concept) sold it to the God in you (are you kidding?!) So how could there be anything wrong with it?!” Can you believe it?! Unfortunately, I don’t know the end result to this story but that is not the point here. The point is that one can use spiritual terms to do very unspiritual, even evil things.

But what about the issues of emotional development that the Wikipedia definition points out? One of the most common places it shows up is in marriage and other relationships. Now, the Islamic tradition encourages us to look for partners who have piety. But often that turns out not to be enough. It must be said that many of the Ethnic Muslim parents prioritize wealth and social status before piety! That is even worse! What is really needed is an overall assessment of” fitness to marry” but very few people are able to do that .So conflict and misery and failure ensue in many cases.

So what may be some of these factors that overshadow the spirituality of the partner and cause havoc in the relationship. Probably the most common ones are personality disorders! There are Narcissists galore amongst the outwardly pious, psychopathy is by no means rare also (from whence the sexually abusive gurus like Mooji, Swami Muktananda and Sai Baba.) We have them as well in Sufism but the adherence to Shariah does limit some of the more obvious manifestations. Then there are the dysfunctional males who are not able to earn a living or think that having a second or third wife will solve their problems-whereas that usually ends up multiplying them, As well, there are the unempathic-completely unable to put themselves in the other persons shoes.

So what are we to do about all of these issues? Many spiritual seekers are unwilling to undergo psychotherapy. Many of those who do end up outwitting the therapists who believe in their narrative and end up colluding with their clients in “other-blaming”.  Job training is fine, but then the individual needs to exercise initiative in order to translate that into a regular income stream. And empathy? That is a tough one-hard to teach and hard to learn. Some people just don’t seem to have it. More “Swiss-cheese brain “- like the ones with superego lacunae?! Not usually observable on MRIs lol

At this point, many people are sure to ask me:  ” So, what do we do about it”? Good question, I guess. But we have to start with observation-to see what is really going on- besides projection, distortion and self-justification. Then we need to proceed. But there is one element missing most of the time in both psychotherapists AND spiritual teachers alike-appropriate confrontation “Nehi al Munkar” (forbidding vice -in Islamic terms) .Both therapists and spiritual teachers like to take the “nice-guy” approach and thereby enable their clients and followers.

Many years ago, a young Italian lady came to see me for relationship issues. These had been going on for more than ten years! I asked her why she had not come earlier and she said that her best friend told her not to saying:” It’s no good. Because even if you do something wrong. they will tell you that you are right”! I complimented this lady’s friend : ”Your friend is spot-on “I told her.  She has seen an important flaw in the therapeutic process. But don’t worry” I’m not like that” lol. Which is why some clients choose to leave. Sorry, I am not going to avoid “the elephant in the room”. In my defense Terrence Real the well-known and brilliant Couple Therapist tells similar stories from his practice! Some people can’t deal with the Truth!

The exact same thing can happen in the Spiritual Process! My last sheikh Abu Qassim Bilkhairy was the first one I met to articulate this clearly: “There are sheikhs of Barakat (read good vibes, good feelings) and sheiks of Tarbiyya (training)” he stated. And he was of the latter. But most of the shuyukh are people-pleasers-despite Islamic teachings to the contrary. And, in that way, they enable their disciples in their bad behaviour.

Another form of spiritual bypassing, other than simply not fighting their desires, can only be described as “hypocrisy”. How many times have I seen murids who praise their shuyukh to the heavens but, when they are told to do something they don’t like, they completely ignore the instructions. My medical practice taught me the need for “follow-up” and if you don’t watch closely you could easily miss this one. But it is an essential error. And it occurs much more often than you imagine. In all fairness, some of this is due to the subtleness of the instruction. And that can be the fault of the teacher who “doesn’t want to upset” his student. I remind people regularly that the Prophets a.s. all of them, upset a lot of people! So getting people upset is not a sign of vice! May Allay protect us from all of these  deviancies.

.Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

 

 

 

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Politics

“Lies,Damn Lies and Statistics”

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“Lies, Damn lies, and Statistics”: Multi-Disciplinary Debate

This is from a conversation with an old friend of mine-trained in the Epistemology of MBA school at McGill and Concordia University while I was being similarly brain-washed in  McGill’s medical school lol. See if you can follow the logic/illogic of it. I am responding here to his assertion that according to “the facts’ the Trump initiatives are not having as much effect on the economy as were predicted.

When I heard this hypothesis, I immediately heard the inner voice saying ”false” lol and started scanning my experiential  world and the first thing that came to mind was Vermont!

Just one example-the effect on Vermont ! I am sure there are many others-like scientists and hard-working federal employees who lost their jobs without justification and hard-working illegal immigrants trying to build a life in America. Much of this may not show up in the official figures. That’s why I don’t believe those figures are ” The Realty” In fact many of those figures are designed to hide reality rather than expose it! 

 

From AI!( verified by yours truly lol)

Yes, Vermont is experiencing a noticeable decline in Canadian visitors, impacting the state’s tourism and economy. This drop is attributed to a combination of factors, including political rhetoric and uncertainty surrounding tariffs. 

 

 

 

Reasons for the Decline:

  • Negative Political Climate:

President Trump’s rhetoric and trade disputes with Canada have created a negative perception among some Canadians, leading them to reconsider travel to the U.S. 

 Economic Concerns:

Potential tariffs and trade tensions have made some Canadians hesitant to spend money in the U.S., impacting spending habits and tourism. 

  • Shifting Travel Patterns:

Some Canadians are choosing to travel within their own country or to other destinations, rather than visiting Vermont. 

  • Reduced Cross-Border Traffic:

Official data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows a significant decrease in travelers crossing into Vermont from Canada, especially during peak travel periods. 

Impact on Vermont:

  • Tourism Revenue Decline:

Reduced Canadian tourism is hurting businesses, particularly in northern Vermont and towns near the border.

  • Reduced Spending:

Canadian credit card spending in Vermont has decreased significantly, impacting local businesses and economies.

  • Economic Downturn:

Tourism is a vital part of Vermont’s economy, and the loss of Canadian visitors is having a noticeable effect on the state’s overall economic health. 

That’s why, in my Epistemology, personal experience, anecdotes and even hearsay are much more significant than official figures. Wasn’t it one of our Yiddishe ancestors Benjamin Disraeli who talked of” lies, damn lies and statistics” lol Still relevant 150 years later!

 

PS I think you could do us all a service by doing a “deep dive”, as they call it, into many of these official economic statistics to see how they are jerrymandered and manipulated- most of them I suspect.

I am by no means an expert (as if that gave someone any credibility nowadays lol) but I remember hearing about how they generate unemployment statistics! They don’t count the underemployed (part-time people or people not working in the area for which they were trained) So a licensed engineer working as a pizza deliverer is considered fully employed?!  As is a part-time Taco Bell employee! And then they also don’t count those who have given up looking for employment-for whatever reason. Thus the statistics becomes very misleading at best.

So if I want to understand what is going on in employment I watch those people around me looking for jobs and see what happens.

Just ran into an old friend who was trained in heating and air-conditioning but was never able to find a job in that area despite being assured by the trade school he attended that there were jobs for ALL graduates. So he worked at slightly above minimum wage at a finance company for years. Then he lost the job and it took him 18 months and numerous applications to finally get a job as a greeter at Walmart! He seemed happy to get anything he could!

Then there was my Sufi student who entered the job market as an IT programmer. Our prime minister was touting the field and saying Quebec needed many more of them. But each time he applied there were 200 other applicants! Not exactly a sellers’ market lol

Where does that show up in the employment statistics?

I would be interested to see what you find if you really look seriously into how these statistics are generated. I think you will discover a lot of surprises-as I did when I first looked into medical studies and listened to others who had done likewise.

Let me complete my thought here. So, if we begin looking at the employment situation, and start with “the facts” lol( which is what we see on mainstream media all the time) we conclude “best employment situation ever! Lowest unemployment rate ever!” But if we look at it from my Epistemology (my experience and the many people I am in touch with) I would conclude “Difficult, perhaps very difficult employment situation”. Who is right lol? Can there be any doubt?! And then you ask : “Why do people not get it?! Because they are being lied to on a daily basis, since birth! It’s the lie of Empiricism. And it needs to be challenged over and over again if we are to break the spell!

 

Happy Trails to you lol, Joel Ibrahim AKA Sufi Ibrahim

 

 

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology

Data!

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As opposed to the current consensus I see data as toxic! It clouds the heart ,dulls the spirit and stresses the mind. But we need some of it ,not nearly as much as the scientific mind-set thinks, in order to proceed.So I recommend doing what we did in psychopharmacology lol Using the lowest ,effective dose!I call that attitude “Essentialist” and that is where I stand Think about it.

Comparative Religion, Islam, Modern Living, Spiritual Practice

Super-egoic Distortions in Islamic Fiqh

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Super-egoic Distortions in Islamic Fiqh

Yes, that’s a mouthful lol. Let’s break down the vocabulary before we get started! Freud separated consciousness of human beings into three parts-ego, id and superego. (We will not address his lack of understanding of spirituality and religion at this point. But his psychological understanding was ground-breaking.) So, for him, the ego was our rational aspect, the id was our desires (“hawa’ in Arabic) and the superego was our conscience. Then he went further and saw that in some people the conscience, which although deficient in some, like psychopaths, could also be overactive in others- those we are going to address in this article. He then labelled those superegos as “punitive” or “sadistic”. And that-the sadistic superego- is one of the major toxins in all religious communities and one of the many reasons why people reject religion!

Now let’s be clear. The founders of our religion-the true Prophets and saints had no need for this overactive superego. They were universally energized, uplifted, even ecstatic beings by definition. That’s why they were appointed to those high positions in the spiritual hierarchy. But amongst their followers and often amongst the priestly class were people of lesser upliftment and less transcendent motivations. We can consider them as the religion’s bureaucrats and like all bureaucrats they get bored and unmotivated. So they need some “juice”. And the juice they get is from making other adherents guilty and miserable and afraid. In that way they are manifesting their “sadistic superegos”.

And don’t be fooled! All religions have them-not only Islam. I remember as a Jewish secularist, seeing young boys at their Bar Mitzvahs going up to the altar to recite the Torah from memory and being harassed by elderly parishioners for mistakes they made in the recitations! In Islam we could call these “tajweed” lessons lol! They are all fine and good if carried out with wisdom and kindness. I remember literally losing it with my tajweed teacher in Jordan when, after reciting two ayats perfectly, I tripped up on the third and he pounced on me -as was his habit! “You have no idea of pedagogy “ I said to him in my weak Arabic. ”At least the Western teachers know how to congratulate you when you do something right”. He was dumbstruck-because that is the way he was taught. My father told me that, in his days if you got something wrong, the rabbis would twist your ear until it really hurt. And we wonder why the conflict in the Middle East persists lol. In these two anecdotes, you have the entire story. But let’s not deviate into politics for now! It’s too tempting and too controversial!

Christians, of course, are not immune from this phenomenon. Catholic sisters used to whip their thighs, much like the Shia do on Ashura, until they bled. Priests would go around their neighbourhood,  threatening women if they had not had a child that year, with the hellfires. And God only knows what went on in the Missionary schools as expressions of the teachers and administrators “sadistic superegos”.

For the sake of brevity ,I am not going into details about the Hindu-Buddhist lineage .More of the same I am certain. We all know about Zen masters and their nasty bamboo sticks. The Chinese showed us pictures of the Tibetan Buddhist cages where they kept their prisoners(not that the Chinese do any better1 The atheists are just as cruel. Often more so. And the Hindus have some of the most painful ascetic practices as well. While visiting a guru in Kerala I was told that one of her German disciples was living in a hole underground for the last several months. That was considered a high-level spiritual practice!

Ok. That’s the intro. I think by now you get the point. But what I really wanted to do here is give more ordinary examples of this phenomenon-things that we may encounter on a regular basis in the practice of our religion. What triggered my reflection on this subject was something I noticed every year during Ramadan. Towards the end of the fast the Imam would almost inevitably say something like the following. ”Ok It’s all fine and good that you have now been fasting for 25 days. But many of you will slip after Ramadan into your previous behaviours and it will all be for naught. If you don’t continue with your Ramadan level of piety, all is lost” That all seemed to me cruel and heartless! How about instead  “Congratulations for all your efforts -fasting for three and a half weeks. You will certainly be rewarded for it. And I hope you keep it up”. Never heard it in 48 years of Ramadan. No the superego has to chime in and say “it’s still not enough. You could be doing better.”!

Now, the second term that may be unclear in the title is “Fiqh”. Usually translated as Jurisprudence-the rules of the religion and how to apply them. Let us take three examples of how the superego surreptitiously creeps into the equation.

  • The Niqab(face-covering) .(We will not discuss the issue of the hijab at this point. Almost all religions, Buddhism may be a notable exception, require head covering-both for males and females!) But the niqab is special. And many of the shuyukh recommend it or even require it. Yet if we go back to the two most important scriptural references on the question Quran 24;31 and the Asma hadith ,in both cases the face is excepted from the covering .In 24:31 it says: ”They should not display their adornments except what ordinarily appears( (most of the traditional scholars said that refers to the face and hands).The Asma hadith is even more clear! The Prophet tells the older sister of his wife Ayesha to cover everything except(again!) and then he points to the face and hands.
  • So where does the niqab idea come from. A strange twist of logic, where A becomes not-A lol. And I thought “mantiq”(logic was one of the Islamic sciences that scholars were supposed to study! One of the possibilities is the “more of the same” logical error. If something, like covering the head is good, then more, covering the Face, must be even better. That is patently bad logic. Ask a toxicologist if you need more proof lol P.S. I once had a patient who almost died from an overdose of water which gave her cerebral edema1 even too much water can be dangerous.

The other explanation I have heard from Taliban sources. That “zinat” the word in the ayat for ornaments also can refer to beauty. And the beauty of the woman is in her face. Interesting twist, no doubt, but a twist nevertheless. That is not what the ayat says!. So more misery for the l,adies from the superegos of male scholars.

 

2– The Time of Fajr prayer.

N.B. I was put onto this problem by none other than the somewhat unorthodox Trinidadian sheikh Imran Hossein. I am not very impressed by his politics and his eschatological theories where Russia saves the world?! But he does have other more valid theories and an interesting way of approaching studying the Quran. I think this insight about Fajr came from his studying what the Quran and hadith actually said rather than how the ulema have interpreted it!

 

Nowadays most Muslims use a printed or online calendar to determine their prayer times. And these times are mostly generated by astronomical calculations. It appears that for fajr there is some debate about 15 degrees and 18 degrees. I haven’t got into the minutiae because I disagree with the premise of using science when we have clear-cut sunnat to follow.

When the ayats appeared about prayer time and the beginning of fasting the Sahhabbas were not clear. The Quran stipulated 2:187  that it was the time when you could see the difference between a white and black thread. Still it was not clear how to use that directive so the Sahhabbas asked the Prophet saws. Then the Prophet saws explained that it was at the appearance of the first light on the horizon (the scholars call that the second dawn).

Now, if you use the calendars that are provided to us , you will never see that light at the given times. The scientists got it wrong again! Any surprise after Covid?! A friend of mine claimed that was due to light pollution in the city. Possible? But I have now verified it in the countryside on several occasions and in Third World countries-like the Tunisian villages. And it remains true in each of those contexts. The light is never there at the times on the calendar! For the ulema, this should be a serious concern. After all, it means that many Muslims are praying fajr during the time of Tahhajjud. Personally, I am not such a stickler for details but many of them are.      On a sidenote here, but one that gives us some context, Western meteorologists also try to determine the time of dawn and their definition is similar to ours-“the first appearance of light”. However if you look it up in your local area, you will be shocked. It is often at least an hour later than our calendars say about fajr. So twice the time gap that Imran Hosein is claiming. Much to reflect on!

 

3-Miscellaneous issues-all involving the operation of the punitive superego

 

  1. a) The Habashi sect have their own qibla calculations. According to them if you are off by a few degrees your prayer is not accepted. So go back and do your last thirty years of prayers?!
  2. b) One of the scholars from the Sheikh Nuh community went to Pakistan to study Islamic finance. He was shocked by the rigidity of the students around him. They were more or less condemning him to the hellfires for his pants going down beneath the ankle. He came back quickly to Jordan lol
  3. c) Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen bank. The economist Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize for the development of microcredits with the Grameen Bank. (Yes, I know he has become a controversial figure in his own country but that is not germane to our present discussion) With this tool many of the poor citizens of Bangladesh and India were helped out of poverty. This did not prevent him from being severely chastised by the Islamic scholars of Bangladesh as interest is considered by most of them to be prohibited in Islam. They couldn’t factor in all the benefit people were getting. Fortunately the Bangladeshi people are of a mild temperament. If this had happened in an Arab or Afghani context ,he may well have been assassinated!

The list goes on and on…I hope the overall message is loud and clear. As Sheikh Nazim used to tell us: ”Wear your religion lightly-not like a heavy cloak that burdens you” Otherwise you may become one of those religious malcontents whose only real plaesaue is in making other people miserable.

Joy and Happiness and Upliftment to you all, Sufi Ibrahim

Islam, Metaphysics, Politics, Psychology

Materialism-The Second Scourge of the Ummat

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Materialism: The Second Biggest Scourge within the Islamic Ummat

We have already written about the First Scourge- Islamism or Political Islam. This is the Second. In a way it is the deeper of the two and underpins the first one in terms of attitude. We shall explain this in the ensuing article.

This hadeeth was narrated by al-Tirmidhi (2352) from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), according to whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “O Allah, cause me to live poor and cause me to die poor, and gather me among the poor on the Day of Resurrection.”

This hadith is not saheeh. It is considered gharib which means part of the chain has only one transmitter. That does not by any means mean that it is untruthful! And boy do the ulema have a problem with it- doing all kinds of intellectual acrobatics to not take the most obvious meaning of ”miskeen” which is poverty. So instead they say “miskeen” means humility which is a secondary meaning of the word!

Yet, they know well that the Prophet himself saws lived in poverty , died in poverty and said when he saws visited the heavens that most of the people there were from the poor folks.

So what’s the problem?! There seems to be a current within Islamic fiqh of wanting to justify wealth if not justify seeking it outrightly. Perhaps this is simply to distinguish themselves from the pious Christians who praised and practiced renunciation. But in that approach they seem to forget all of the teachings about greed and worldliness. Remember the four enemies?! One of them is ”dunniya” (worldliness) and a large part of this dunniya is about wealth.

The following sahih hadith should, in fact, close the argument!

Amr ibn Awf reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “By Allah, it is not poverty that I fear for you, but rather I fear you will be given the wealth of the world, just as it was given to those before you. You will compete for it just as they competed for it, and it will ruin you just as it ruined them.”

Or alternatively this hadith Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3158, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2961

One day he (Abdur Rahman Ibn Awf) heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) saying to him, “O lbn `Awf, you are a rich man, and you are going to crawl into Paradise. So lend to Allah in order to set your feet free.” Ever since he heard this advice from the Messenger of Allah, he started lending to Allah a goodly loan. He was being warned about the dangers of wealth.

Or from a previous Revelation…Jesus a.s. said  “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” from Matthew 5:3 in the Bible- part of the Beatitudes.

 So what is this materialism that is so endemic in the modern world- including amongst the Muslims? Ever noticed lol? The opulence of the lifestyle of The Saudi Royal family and the kingdoms in the Gulf. The great buildings and towers in that part of the world.The sultanat of Brunei and its petroleum resources. Qatar -its buildings, its institutions it’s attempts to join the Western intelligentsia with its financial perks  and it’s World Cup hosting. The list goes on and on! In this article we will look at three forms of materialism and its implications.

 

  • Obvious Outward Wealth

This is what we just mentioned. No one can miss it!  It is most obvious. And although people like Trump may love it and be obsessed by it, most Muslims are wary. They know the dangers of excessive wealth. The Quran is full of stories of previous empires that had such wealth and then crumbled-sometimes in one fell-swoop catastrophe.

 

  • Ideological Materialism

This is what we were talking about in the previous text about the scourge of Islamism or Political Islam. In this form of Ideology the belief is that by establishing a Muslim state i.e. outer Islam, people will submit and become good and pious by default! What Tarek Fatah calls the “Chasing the Mirage”. All the  historical evidence-think Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran -not to mention ISIS! -all those countries and movements that declared themselves  Islamic states and look at their records .Like the previous Materialistic philosophy, Marxism, it has all failed to live up to expectations. For those who need to be reminded Marxism was a form of Materialism, called Dialectical Materialism   It, too, believed in the state as the solution. In that case it called the State “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. And I think it is not unfair to call the Islamic state “The dictatorship of the ulema”. In fact in Iran they call it such “Velayat e Faqih.” (Governing by Jurisprudents)
There is an interesting corollary to this “Materialistic” philosophy. It is often, if not always, coupled to the ideology of Rationnalism. I have often been surprised to hear The Wahhabbis and more recently the Ikhwanis(Muslim Brotherhood) to claim to be the most Rational of Muslims. If they mean “most over-thinking”, “most hypercebral”,”most out of touch with the inner dimensions of Faith and spiritual experience”,then ,for sure lol, they are right. Sheikh Nazim liked to refer to these approaches as “mind-productions” and he taught us to distinguish them from truly sacred knowledge.

Materialists and Rationalists. What I call the “no-nur” people of Faith. Get me out of here!  Anecdote: I was once trapped in Amman by a group of Wahhabbi (Salafis)s who had invited me into their home for lunch.They were very critical of my sheikh of the time, Sheikh Nuh Keller, and of Sufism in general. At first I argued back but then I realized it was fruitless. So in one last attempt to affirm the Truth, I looked at the whole group and said; ”I don’t see any light in any of your faces! So how can I possibly accept your words?” And I ran out .What chutzpah! But I was proud of myself.

 

3)The most pernicious of all aspects of materialism and it’s real philosophical meaning-seeing only the outer (In Arabic that would be “thaheeri”)

Now Muslims are by no means unique in this outlook. We can see it in the atheists and the agnostics. We can see it in the science types (Philosophically called “scientism” or making science into a religion).We can see it in the data crunchers-the government officials, the news reports about polls and economic numbers, demographics, statistics. It is all around us -polluting our thinking as surely as burning coal pollutes the air!

But what form does it take in our religion?! Let us look at a few examples:

: The emphasis on outer form rather than inner essence. How many times during my Islamic career have I been corrected on details of ritualistic practice. ”You didn’t make sure the water went between your toes”, ”your ruku didn’t have enough of an angle to it”. “Your hair is too long”, ”.Your mustache isn’t clipped enough” etc. etc. Not once, not even once, has someone ,outside of sheikh Nazim lol, said to me “your face is illumined” OR the contrary “you are looking darker than usual today” Not once. They don’t notice. They don’t notice the scholars with “nur” in their faces and the scholars (more of them actually) with darkness. Who needs to notice that when you can check how well their nails or their mustaches have been clipped lol

: Then there is the obsession with the hijab! Is it perfect? Does it cover every single strand of hair? Is any of the neck exposed?. And in that obsessional vigilance, the fact that the perfect hijabi lady is exposing every curve in her body below the neck by her tight-fitting clothing is completely bypassed So what is the “hayat” (modesty) that our religion speaks of. Too subtle for many. Too inner a concept.

: And the marriage negotiations. Does he have a good job? Does he own his own apartment? Does the family have money? Is he tall enough? More materialism. How many Muslim ladies have I counselled whose family foolishly pushed them into a marriage that they themselves felt was wrong, because the man had financial stability?!

When I was living in Jordan, I rented an apartment upstairs of a man who had 3 daughters in their mid to late thirties. When I asked them why they were not married, they said their father required their suitors to have a good job, an apartment that he owned and $25,000 in U.S. cash. Very few people, outside of the Royal family lol, could meet such conditions.

On an alternative note, when we were honeymooning in India , we met a family with five unmarried daughters! They claimed their father was too busy with dhikr to arrange marriages for them?! But they seemed quite happy in comparison to the Jordanian ones. I guess they knew that they had avoided a lot of grief lol

And yet, our religion is full of the “inner” in its doctrine and language. In fact, the Quran begins in surat al Baqarah by Allah saying the believers are those who believe in the “ghaib”( the unseen). There is “Iman” (Faith), ”khushua” (sacred humility in prayer), ”tawakuul” (trust in God) .

Particularly in Sufism, we find terms about the inner. We talk of “hal” (spiritual states), ”afiya” (inner well-being), “basirat” (inner vision ) and “samiyya” ( inner hearing) and “fuad( the subtle feelings in the heart), “muhabbat( love)  and “sir”(the mystical secrets). These terms exist all through the sacred texts. But who needs that if you have measurements-concrete, empirical realities  that you can rely on- just like the Materialist scientists?!

God help us to recover our souls and spirits!

 

 

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology, Uncategorized

The Epistemology Hierarchy

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“Many scientific-minded persons have even sacrificed their religious and philosophical leanings for fear of uncontrolled subjectivism. By way of compensation for the loss of a world that pulsed with our blood and breathed with our breath, we have developed an enthusiasm  for facts-mountains of facts  far beyond any single individual’s power to survey. We have the pious hope that this incidental ( or intentional for that matter) accumulation of facts will form a meaningful whole. ”  C.G. Jung-Psychology and the East 

At least one intellectual amongst thousands is prescient and get’s it! Kudos to you C.G.!

And to the readers, don’t get scared by  esoteric Greek terms like Epistemology. I wouldn’t use them, myself, unless they were irreplacable – which is the case here!

Epistemology is officially the “Science of Knowledge” .What it really refers to is how we access Reality i.e. how do we figure out what is really going on!. And mostly we are doing it the wrong way! The social consensus is that the way to do this is to gather as much “data” as possible and then to analyse the data via statistical computation and logical analysis. Wrong! This is a very unreliable approach- advanced by the believers in Empiricism and “evidence-based ” conclusions”-the Materialists!

Ever hear that term “evidence-based” lol? It is thrown at us at every turn of the road of knowledge: “Evidence-based ,evidence-based” as if it were the holy grail of Truth. And not only by the bad guys. The good guys like Pierre Kory and Paul Marik and Peter McCullough and Paul Thomas, all of whom I love and respect ALL use it as if it were part of the Ten Commandments. In this article I am going to turn the entire Epistemological edifice on its head and argue that we are mostly going about this the wrong way and I will try to show you why that is and how we can correct course.

So let me explain to you why this is a faulty protocol and what the options are. Firstly  we have to realize that we are socially conditioned  from the git-go, especially in our educational  institutions  to privilege outward knowledge – also known as “being  objective”. And we are taught to be biased against the subjective. And the “subjective ” is denounced as ” subjective”,  “unreliable” ” “anecdotal” ,”unscientific” and all the other curse words our Empiricist thinkers can come up with!

Philosophically this approach is known as Empiricism or Positivism or Philosophical Materialism and it is probably the greatest impediment to finding Truth in the  modern world. For those of you who are scratching their heads at this point and wondering what I am talking about, let me repeat. Our greatest enemy is NOT subjectivity at this point. Our greatest enemy is objectivity, the outward, the measurable! 

 

.As we begin to investigate this denunciation of the subjective, we will see that, actually, the subjective is the more reliable. In fact the ultimate knowledge, the essential mystical knowledge- Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Fana,  Marifat-whatever tradition you choose to formulate it in-  is subjective. The ultimate Reality is not the “it”(  (third person, object ) but rather the “I”( first person subject.)  Remember the great Vedantic statement.” Tat Tvam Asi” (I am that.) The end-goal of ALL quests for knowledge is the “I” !  The subject reins supreme. Awesome once you get it

Given this realization how do we locate reality with this new understanding ? Here is the hierarchy!

1) Personal experience first!

I am surely going to be accused of heresy here by my scientific colleagues lol. But that’s O.K. with me. I am much more interested in truth then “political correctness” of any kind-whether political, medical or spiritual.

In fact we all know this. Whenever something is told to us, we check back with our personal experience and see if it fits. Often enough, that is all we need to do! We have just been coerced into believing that our experience is unreliable and we should believe the experts! I think the Covid fiasco has led most of us to begin questioning that trope!

So as to bring  all of this back to the ground level, let me give you one concrete  example where both the “good guys” and the “bad guys ” got it wrong- the question of masks! Even the ultimate villain of the Covid debacle-Fauci- flip flopped on this one. Why did they get it so wrong? Because they didn’t have any quality studies that showed positive efficacy for masks. The fact that Orientals have been using that method of protection for decades didn’t matter. The fact that doctors and nurses were pleading for that form of protection(Remember: “PPE. We need PPE!”) in the hospitals and still use masks to protect themselves in various situations didn’t matter! But -no good studies, their ultimate Epistemology , told them they were useless!

So here comes the subjective. That annoying, irritating, contrarian reality of personal experience, to the rescue. I got Covid 5 times during the pandemic! Each time I was NOT wearing a mask! And I never got sick while wearing one. I also remember the famous Harvard professor of Law Alan Dershowitz  showing his more or less airtight mask on Fox News and saying that despite having several risk factors and flying all around the country, he, too never got sick with Covid( He was clearly more disciplined than me about his mask-wearing behaviour lol). For me THAT is a data point-in fact an example of the second level of Epistemology-the Anecdote!

Another example, in a different dimension: the n.d.e.rs ( near-death experiencers)..Once they have seen the other side there is no  longer any doubts. Any of the  “scientific” attempts  to discount their experience through neuroscience, neurotransmitters, E.E.G. results, doppler ultrasounds, cerebral hypoxia, endorphins leave them cold They have experienced Reality! No amount of neuroscience can talk them out of it! No amount of theological postulates can change their beliefs. The Sufis call it Haqq al Yaqin( The Certainty of Truth). Once you have it , you cannot turn back. And “science” as we know it, looks so pitiful from that vantage point!

2) Anecdotes!

Those most maligned of entities in the “scientific ” mind-set.! ” “Oh, that’s only anecdotal” they like to chime. Wrong ,again! Anecdotes are awesome. If we look at our own experience, we use them all the time. A friend says: “I went to the Bahamas for vacation this year .And I loved it”. No more Miami and Cuba this winter. Bahamas it is. Someone says to an eager male “My wife has a friend from work that I think would make a good partner for you”. We’re off and running lol. No obsessional searches on Tourism websites for the best winter getaways. No joining up the latest dating app and scrolling through hundreds of profiles(the scientific comprehensive”(another dirty word in my vocabulary). We’re into it. Let’s go! 

Let me give you a couple of other examples. When the possible link between vaccines and autism came out, I was sceptical at first. I searched through the Pubmed literature and could find nothing compelling. I even, mistakenly, told my sheikh of the time who had asked me the question that I didn’t see anything to worry about. Mistake which I tried to correct several years later. By that time many of his murids had figured it out themselves, so they didn’t need my advice. Then a patient came to see me .She had a husband who was in all likelihood a functional autistic. But her son was a more serious non-verbal screaming, head-banging type and that was the reason she needed therapy.

She told me  the following: ” I knew my son was not well the moment he was born. So it’s not from the vaccines. But I participate in a support group for mothers of autistic children .In that group we are 14 mothers. our of them swear that their babies were completely normal until they had one of the many vaccines on the schedule. They regressed quickly within a few days and have never been the same since !” 4/14! Bazinga! End of story. Over the years despite all the manipulation and pressure and gas-lighting the research has proved this to be true. But they are still trying to hide the reality behind vacuous statements like “Vaccines are Safe and Effective” Liar ,liar, pants on fire lol  Instead the institutions in place are trying to set fire to the practices of the doctors who have discovered the Truth!

So we now have RFK jr.( Secretary of Health) who  has stated that by August, through honest. scientific analysis, he will have the answer?! But we already know! Listen to the mothers, listen to the clinically astute doctors, listen to the aware teachers. Listen to the highly credible Dr. Andrew Wakefield, one of the first to discover the connection. We already know! I get that RFK jr. has to prove it-for political reasons! I get all the forms of objections he is receiving and btw will continue to receive. But we already know! All this “scientific” mental gymnastics is unnecessary! But we are not there yet in our Epistemology!

Another anecdote. The O.J. trial- for those of you who have been around for that long! Seemed quite clear from the beginning. But when I heard the following anecdote it was “Bazinga” again. Or for the science buffs who love Archimedes it was Eureka lol.! When a long-time friend of O.J. heard the news of the murder he exclaimed without a moment’s thought:” He finally did it!”. Case closed, for me anyway. T hen the long, long trial in which the lawyers managed to confuse the jury with more and more “facts” and he was acquitted! What a travesty. What a disillusioning proof against “due process”. Due process is a sham  actually. We can see that with the Trump deportations. We can see that with the poor black and Hispanic people who are defended by public defenders who have neither the time nor often the capacity to do a proper defense. And we can see that with the length of time it took them to catch up with Jeffrey Epstein of more recently with Pudd Diddy!

Third anecdote: When Covid had barely started in the middle of January 2020, Luc Montagnier the Noble-prize winning virologist looked at the gene sequence and said; “no doubt! This has to come from a lab”. That was it! Case Closed . Then the entire French medical establishment attacked him, as they did Didier Raoult ,one of the first successful treaters of Covid. “Oh, he’s old ,demented beyond his prime.” Liar, liar, pants on fire”. At that point the whole world was on fire-thanks to American “gain of function” research that was transferred to China. No, not the Chinese Virus, the American one, Trump. Reproduced in China like everything else-good or bad- that comes from America. A pirated copy of the genetically transformed Corona virus-made in the U.S.A.! No tariffs required lol

As you can see, it’s quite simple actually or as Erving Polster used to say to us in his Gestalt Therapy seminars: “It’s simple ,but it’s not easy”. Right on Erving! When I told my Nobel-track science cousin that for me three credible anecdotes were worth more than 100 double-blind studies, she said she was not shocked .But, I’m sure she was! Denial is one of the most toxic wea[pons in the plots of the villains. And denial is endemic in our so-called democratic society- which is becoming more and more authoritarian. Reality that is also being denied!

3)Reports on the Ground  We will use medical contexts here although it can equally well apply to many other situations- like business and travel and spiritual seeking. So during Covid there were people, admittedly a minority and more likely nurses than doctors, who saw what was going on. These reports “on the ground” have to be from people with good observational skills and a non-ideological mind-set. The “vaccines are safe and effective” people, the “follow the protocol or the algorithm” people, the obedient rule -following people(read doctors lol) will not do! .But if we can find these fore-runners ,we can get valuable information. Unfortunately ,most of the people on the front lines are already “brain-washed” by their education. The “We need large-scale double blind randomized trials confirmed by the Cochrane Data-base ” people are of no use here. By the time they arrive at their conclusions, the crisis is over! And that is exactly what happened and is still happening to some extent with Covid. The others, the clear-minded observers are at risk to lose their jobs and their professions, unfortunately. and that adds in another layer of complexity!

4  ) Using Basic Principles of Science .Like no vaccines during pregnancy-an age-old principle that was completely overthrown during the Covid hysteria.

But let me give you a simpler example of how this works. I was at a Passover seder at my parents house when one of their Christian friends started coughing spasmodically. The conversation went like this

“What’s going on, Henry”

“I have this terrible cough and none of the doctors can figure out what is going on”

“So what did they do about it?’

One of the specialists I went to see had seen an article where this kind of cough could be caused by Hiatus Hernia. And so I was operated on! A four-hour long surgery that took me weeks, if not months, to recuperate from!”

“Did it help?” I ]enquired. “Not at all All it did was give me digestive problems on top of my cough”

” Look Henry, cough is a respiratory symptom. Let me refer you to the Royal Edward Chest Hospital” (too good a service for our medicare system so terminated and merged with another inefficient service at our superhospital since).Subject for another article!

So the next week he went. Was seen quickly, was diagnosed with asthma! Given anti-asthmatic meds and his symptoms were gone! Simple biology. Cough does not come from the gut. It comes from the Respiratory system. Problem solved.

5) Scientific Studies- Last AND least in my Epistemology-despite the social consensus! Why is that? I have written a more elaborate piece on this in my article( on this blog) called “Science, Scientism and Studyism” -the latter being my own term for The Cult of Studies lol Here is a brief resumé of the problems with studies!

Now “the good guys” -RFKjr,  Paul Marik , Peter McCullough would like us to believe that the only problem with scientific studies is corruption of one form or another-whether it be financial or academic ambition or political bias. But I beg to differ! So let us go through the different problems and pitfalls  in “the scientific” approach.

  1. The initial intellectual bias of the authors. When I was asked to teach a course at McGill in research in psychiatry I found an article by a brilliant researcher who showed that in the previous ten years none of the most read papers came to a conclusion opposite to what one would have expected knowing their track record in academia! ( unfortunately I have not been able to relocate this article but for the curious you are welcome to research it and get back to me .It was probably published in the late 70’s or early 80’s as I taught this course in the mid-80’s. So this problem has been going on for a long time! And there are no signs of improvement. In fact, it seems that scientific fraud has been increasing rather than decreasing!

2) The hidden and less hidden financial and academic motivations of the companies, institutions and universities financing this research. (Btw this is what most of “the good guys” are focused on. Not realizing that there are deeper ,more intrinsic problems in the scientific model) Everyone knows how hard it is to get financing for studies about non-patentable, natural remedies. But come out with a new class of pharmaceuticals(Try GLP1 agents for example lol) and the money is flowing feely.

3)The constant bugaboos of Statistical Analysis-selection bias and confounding variables- errors you will find in even the most sophisticated of studies published in the most prestigious of peer-reviewed studies. One of the best examples of this is the waves of propaganda against benzodiazepines. In most of the studies the benzo group is already more at risk than the comparator .This is very important clinically  as the alternative (often SSRIs) have considerably more troubling side effects. Yet they are still “the gold standard” in treating anxiety.

4) The law of Diminishing returns in data collection. Just as The New Age thinkers would remind us; “More is not better” Despite what the statisticians tell us! The prestigious medical journal Lancet had to retract a hydroxychloroquine study when it became evident that the data was not only faulty. It was fraudulent. But when the editors saw the huge numbers of cases reported ,they became as excited as an adolescent boy seeing big breasts for the first time! How could they resist lol?!

5) Sophisticated randomized, double-blind studies are VERY expensive. We can only study in that matter a very small selection of decisions that medical doctors face in their practices on a daily basis. It is NOT a reliable source of information for most of our practice.

6 )The studies are statistical. But medical practice is individual-case by case. If a medication is 60% effective, like many of our antidepressants, how do I know whether my patient will be in the 60% or the 40%. And how do I even know how well she or he corresponds to the treatment group in the studies which may have excluded all kinds of comorbidities that my own patient has?!

We could easily go on and on. But let me summarize by saying that we need to seriously challenge the Cult of Science. It has brought us some benefit but also MUCH harm.( If you need proof, think of all the deaths being caused by missiles and explosives and drones -all developed by science! Also almost every single carcinogen in the Environment-from glyphosate, to pesticides to radio-frequency waves  and other EMFs as well as formaldehyde and other chemicals in our construction materials was  all developed by science! So be sceptical. Don’t join the Cult! Think it through .Develop your inner vision, your Ear of Truth and your heartfelt intuitions and see where that leads you  I am available if you need further guidance. Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

Important Addendum: I realized after completing the first draft of this article that I had forgotten a very important source of Knowledge- Trusted Sources! That is largely because I was focused on medicine and science. After the Covid debacle, there were very few sources I could consider reliable .Even the most prestigious scientific journals like Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine were playing games with the data. Let alone the so-called authorities like Fauci and the heads of CDC and FDA. Nothing reliable there!

However, in the domain of spirituality, we cannot ignore the real sources. We cannot rely only on ourselves. When I confronted one of the major players at the annual FLCCC (now IMA) conference with his lack of spiritual content, he gingerly  took out a small cross from beneath his undershirt and said: “I have a personal relationship with Jesus” .” That’s not enough, Chris” I said .We need a teacher, an intermediary. I forgot toi mention that even Jesus needed someone to initiate him-John the Baptist in his case! .Our Prophet Mohammed saws was invariably accompanied by the angel Gabriel on his journey. And Moses had his brother Aaron. So bottom line, despite the modernist agenda of individualism, we can’t do it on our own- not in this domain for sure!

That doesn’t mean we can always trust the Sources either. The books of Moses were only written down several hundred years after the revelation, the Christian texts that we have are written in Greek-not the language of Jesus. And even in Islam with the most reliable and authentic of the books ,the Quran, the scholars and the translators play around with its meaning in a way that is distorting and misleading.

Our spiritual teachers that we love and trust are themselves fallible as well. On my own path, my first Sufi Muslim teacher turned out to be breaking many rules of Shariah with the female murids. My second teacher Bawa Muhyideen was so transcendent in his state that his worldly advice, especially about marriage, was mostly wrong.S heikh Nazim ,who is probably the person I learnt most from in this life and carried the most palpable form of Love I have ever seen, was notoriously bad in his medical advice lol. And my last teacher ,who was obviously in a very high spiritual rank, was unable to break out of his ethnic background to be able to advise  people from other backgrounds on their path.

So even there, with some of the most spiritually advanced beings on the planet, we need to exercise our judgment and discernment if we are to avoid painful consequences. May Allah guide us and protect us! Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim

Counselling, Modern Living, Psychology

Dealing With Emotions

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Dealing With Emotions-Active and Passive

In my current work as spiritual counsellor and in my previous work as a psychiatrist, I realized that one of the most common problems that people deal with is how to manage emotions- both ours and those of others. This article, as indicated by the title, will be about two subjects 1) How do we handle our emotions when they get intense and 2- how do we handle the intense emotions of others. This is what I am referring to by the terms “active” and “passive”.

The first part of the challenge is what do we do when our emotions are out of control. This part is based on the work of Marsha Linehan ,the developer of DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) -often used to treat Borderline Personality Disorder. These are people who suffer from “Emotional Dysregulation” a term Dr.Linehan developed to describe what is going on in these patients, without over pathologizing or over-medicalizing the phenomenon.

The second part which I refer to as “passive” is when we have to deal with people in our environment who themselves suffer from “Emotional Dysregulation”. Here we will rely on a formula developed and described by Lindsay Gibson in her book “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.” Although the title refers to parents, in fact this formula can be used with many other people as well-such as spouses, friends, colleagues at work and even children although we have less expectations of emotional self-control in this latter group.

N.B. This presentation is not meant to be a panacea for what is often a very complex phenomenon- underpinned by psychopathology, genetci predispositions, childhood trauma and actual abuse of all sorts. Nevertheless, these strategies have proved to be useful and even life-changing for many of my clients andcan be potentially for people all across the globe.

Anecdote. (People who know me know that I love anecdotes!) I once had a client who was in a relationship with a paranoid partner.Paranoid people, by definition, have very strong emotions.I felt that my simple techniques were not enough to deal with this dangerous situation. And I had an inspiration. She was in fact hostage to her partner’s emotional state.So I suggested that she get in touch with the local police hostage intervention squad. I was sure that the competent ones are really good at de-escalating emotions. Probably more expert than any psychiatrist or psychologist. Needless to say, they refused to help her.I had the same experience trying to contact the Canadian Military hospital near me for help with a trauma case.”Sorry, not our mandate” they responded. The ugliness of bureaucracy. But “that is another conversation for another time” as say the American newspeople when they don’t want to deal with something! lol

 

 

Dealing With Emotions-Your Own

The Linehan Approach

These are some of the major strategies that DBT recommends:

1-Stop!

:Do not just react. Stop! Freeze! Do not move a muscle! Do not follow the commands of your emotional state

This is probably the most difficult and the most critical step of all. First you have to be acutely aware of what is going on in your being. And then, you have to exercise self-control. Not an easy matter especially since your whole being is telling you to do otherwise .In Sufism we call that “jihad-a-nafs’( the war with the ego)

:Step back. Take a deep  breath. Let go.

: Observe. What is going on inside of you? Thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations( CF the article called “Mindfulness Practice” on the blog-a system developed by Jack Kornfield ,also based on mindfulness like DBT)

: Proceed Mindfully .  Ask “wise mind” which actions will make things better or worse.

2-Mindfulness of Current Emotions

: Experience your Emotion as a wave

:Don’t block or suppress the emotion

:Don’t hold on to it

: Be mindful of the accompanying bodily sensations (a key to getting distance from the energy and objectifying it)

: Remember that you are not the emotion

:Practice loving your emotion and radically accept it

3_ Self-soothing:

: With Vision: Look out the window at the nature or the stars or the people

With Hearing: Listen to soothing music or the sounds of nature

With Smell. Use your favourite soap or shampoo or incense

With taste-eat some of your favourite foods or drinks .Men are often fond of “having a beer” .Spiritual people will go back to their beads and prayers.

With Touch: A long bath or shower. Wrap yourself in a blanket  .Pet your dog or cat.

 

 

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4_ Distract Yourself-With Physical activities

: Take a long walk

: Go to the gym. I had one client who got triggered easily by his wife and her family. He learnt to catch himself quickly and then simply leave home for the gym It saved his marriage. In the olde days the men ran to the tavern where only males were allowed. I had an upstairs neighbour like that. The tavern saved his marriage lol

: Do some compulsive cleaning lol

: Leave the situation(often a very important strategy!)

Refuse to think about it not an easy matter)

Notice that these techniques will only work if you are conscious , humble and wise. Conscious because you have to be acutely aware that it is happening. Humble because you have to accept your own faults and emotional limitations. And wise, because then you can see the difference between what your emotion is saying and what is best for everyone concerned!

  1. B) Dealing with The Emotion of Others

This part comes from the work of the psychologist Lindsay Gibson. In most cases, when we are confronted by strong emotions in the other, either we are triggered as well and respond in kind. Or we freeze out of the fear and intimidation that is engendered by these emotions. Neither of those reactions are helpful! If we respond in kind, we are adding fuel to the fire and things that happen can be harmful in the short and long-term. Words can be as injurious as physical blows so these are precarious situations. If we freeze, we may be giving the impression to the other that their emotional outburst is justified and thus acceptable. Neither response is helpful.

What Dr. Gibson proposes is the following:( N.B. Although Dr. Gibson has some terrific insights on this matter, I found that it was not obvious to my own clients how to operationalize her writings on the subject. So I have tried to simplify her instructions and make them easy to operationalize. This is my summary)

1-Become Observational (The Buddhists like Jack Kornfield might well call this “Investigate’ or “ to become curious”) Observe both the other and your own reaction to them. Notice everything about them-the tone of voice, the body language, the vibe. And similarly notice your own reactions -your thoughts, your emotions, your bodily sensations.
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2_Stay detached Tell yourself: ”Detach, detach, detach” as in the “Stop” part of the previous text.  Don’t react in any way. Just watch. And certainly don’t fall for “the healing fantasy”-that somehow you are going to fix them. Not going to happen. Or even that you need them to be otherwise! Radical acceptance is called for!

3- The “truth dump” Express clearly and calmly what you are seeing and release. Example” ’It looks like every time I criticize your mother, you get angry with me”. And then drop it.  You may consider the NVC approach of Non Violent Communication, in four steps.It is summarized in another article on our blog entitled: ”The Fabulous Fours” .Check it out. .They will deny, justify “yes but” you but your observation has been registered.

I learnt this particular matter from the psychoanalysts. They told us “Don’t worry if your original interpretation is refused. ”No doctor, you don’t understand at all! It’s not like that….”).Then watch the effect of your intervention over time. So don’t argue or get into a debate or even repeat your assertion .J ust let it sit there and make its own way forward.

Dr. Gibson has an interesting insight here. She says that the Emotionally Immature person cannot deal with the perseverance of the other party. So you can exercise patience and steadfastness to get to your goal-provided the goal is not personality change!

 

4) Management:

: Set a time limit(“Ok I’ll listen to your complaints but only for 10 mins. And then we have to move on to something else.”

: change the subject

: leave the situation

: change the communication media-from telephone to text to email(the least immediate of the three). The possibilities are endless, so use your creativity! And to end with a quote from the bard “And he just said- Good Luck” lol

 

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Understood and applied, any one of the posts on this site could change your life-forever!