Lesson of the day:It’s a lesson I repeat over and over again:”Respect your own learning style”Seems obvious but most people don’t do it.They submit to the learning style of the collective.Example: I was getting progressively more frustrated with the complexity of the Qigong moves being presented.So were many others.One of the teacher’s senior students suggested we do a supplementary tutorial with her in the evening.I call that” putting the dogs nose in the excrement”- a very popular option for students in difficulty. “Oh you’re no good in French.Then let’s give you more and more French tutoring( So you can feel really bad about yourself)” Being aware of that approach, and knowing that if I did more I would get even more frustrated, I went back to my room and rested.This morning it went much better.Moral of the story:Respect yourself and your process!
About Marriage
The Reality of Allah
(From IANDS- nde of the month)
I had Hodgkin’s disease and was on chemotherapy. I had bad pulmonary toxicity, severe anemia, and fluid around my lungs and heart. I went into respiratory failure while lying alone on the sofa one Saturday morning. Everything, including me, dissipated– became like mist– and I could see beyond the mist, although I wasn’t really seeing anymore.
It was more like knowing what was beyond the mist that made up my body, the sofa, the room, the universe– everything. I slowly realized that these things were insubstantial and that there was only one reality and I could sense the reality behind the insubstantiality of matter. The reality was very strong, overwhelming in fact, and singular. It had consciousness. It was alive. And it had personality– it had characteristics. These were obvious: kindness, joy, love. It was as approachable and immediately lovable as a kitten.
It was clear that the reality was interacting with me, that its attention was directed toward me, although I had the sense that it looked at everything simultaneously in the same way. The reality was not bound by time. Strangely, neither was I. The quality of its attention was like that of a new mother holding her long-awaited firstborn child– love, joy, delight, fascination, indulgence. I got the sense that it was pleased to be perceived.
I did not feel separate from that reality. I felt myself coalesce with it and realized that I had always been embedded within it, bathed in it, cradled by it. As I melted, I was deeply ashamed to have so profoundly underestimated the love and joy of the reality. I wanted to give it something.
I told it that I was sorry to have underestimated its kindness and that I wanted to give it something, anything. I would even go back if it wanted me to, for the tiniest reason at all. I said this because it was the biggest sacrifice I could think of, never ever wanting to feel separate from the reality again, snuggled up so safely and so joyfully in it, I had no desire for anything else ever again.
Time had no meaning. The fog re-formed and rebuilt the world. Gently, I was back in my body. I cried for weeks.
We,the Sufis,call that Reality Allah.That or any translation (Dieu, God,etc.) thereof is its proper name! And the state is called ‘fana'(the annihilation of the small self in the Greater Self)
The Sacred Diet
My last Sheikh,Abu Qassim Bilkhairi often used a medical analogy for his function as teacher and the process of Sufism.He would say that the Sheikh is like a doctor.He makes a diagnosis and then gives a prescription.The prescription involves medicine and a diet(think diabetes-insulin and a sugar -free diet).
In this analogy ,the spiritual practices are the medicine and avoiding negative actions and attitudes(the Buddhists call them klesas or obstacles).Many spiritual practitioners believe that only the practice is important but that is untrue.Self-control and certain forms of abstinence are definitely required.
Some of the most important and difficult ones are the following:1)avoiding irritable outbursts.Our Prophet saws advised us in a very unambiguous way to not get angry.
2)Avoiding desirous glances.This is not easy in our very immodest society which is provoking us-males and females- on a regular basis.Just think about the fact that the most visited internet sites are those on pornography.Let alone the various states of undress all around us.Now secular society tells us that this kind of street-watching from cafés and “checking out” the opposite sex is fine but religion and real spirituality teaches us otherwise.These desirous glances may include those for expensive cars and spacious houses and even people in higher positions at work.All amount to worldly desires.
3)Unnecessay back-biting.I say unnecessary because there are occasions in which it is necessary to speak negatively about someone in order to understand situations and solve problems.One of the ways you know you are on the wrong track is if you are enjoying it too much.”Dissing others” is a blood sport in some communities.Avoid it!For those who have studied Buddhism,the equivalent directives are there.They call them attachment,aversion and avoiding idle talk and gossip. O.K.That’s a good start.Try it out.Tell me about your progress.
Day of Arafat
عرفاة-
Arafat-knowing.So this is the day of Knowing.Knowing what?!There is nothing to distract you at Mount Arafat.You and your Lord,period.And that’s what it all comes down to-you, as relative being,your Lord as Absolute Being and the relationship between the two.Get it and you’ve got everything.Miss it and you’ve got nothing
Mindfulness Practice
Mindfulness Practice
(adapted from the teachings of Jack Kornfield –Insight Meditation Society)
This article is being written because of popular demand. Several people have asked me to explain this meditative practice which is now part of the nine-fold practice of Pilgrims’ Progress. Please give us some feedback, on this blog, after you have tried it out for a while.
The acronym, we are going to use is RAIN-b. The. ‘b’ is my addition but also comes from basic Buddhist practice. This practice is most useful when you come up against negative emotional states , which we inevitably do in our daily lives. It can also be used to deal with stressful situations and overloaded, restless mindsets. As well, it can be built into a daily practice and used to follow our ’normal’ states of mind which , if we observe carefully, can be seen to be constantly changing throughout the day or throughout the period of meditation. Ok. Let’s get going!
R stands for Recognition or even better, Recognize and Name. Let’s say your issue is a boss or supervisor who has criticized you and you are afraid of meeting him again. We could call this state “Boss Phobia” or “Boss Anxiety”(Of course ,you will have to adapt this exercise to whatever issue you, yourself, are confronting but this example should serve as a model.)
A stands for acceptance. You are not accepting the contents of the thoughts. You are accepting the fact that you are in this state. After all, this state was ordained for you to be in by your Creator. This is ,often, the most difficult step as we have a reflex to try to push away the negative state, as with everything else unpleasant in our lives. That will only make it worse. Bawa Muhayiddeen, one of my teachers from Sri Lanka, told us that there wss a plant that grew near the shores in his homeland which was like a thistle. If an animal got it in its skin or foot and tried to shake it off, the more it shook the more the plant dug in deeper. That is a metaphor for our unpleasant thoughts. So don’t try to push them away and don’t try to feed them either. Let them be.
I stands for investigate. Here,we investigate in three dimensions: 1) Thoughts. They may sound like this:”I hate that boss. I wish he’d just leave me alone” or ”That’s so unfair. I really did a good job this time” or “That boss is such an unpleasant person. He’s always negative and critical .I’m glad I’m not his wife or his child ” etc. etc. Don’t argue with the thoughts. Just notice them. 2) Feelings. These may be anger or fear (of being fired) or disappointment( that I always have to work with these difficult people). Then 3) actually the most important-the physical sensations. They are most important because they are the easiest to objectify and thus give you the best possibility of dis-identifying with the state. So you may feel a pressure in the chest, a tightness in the shoulders, queasiness in the abdomen or a clenching of the jaw. There is no right answer. Just notice what you feel in your body.
N is for non-identification. It is the result of doing the first three steps correctly. You are then in the observer or witness position. And the pain is already diminished. Don’t worry if that is not the case immediately. This is a learning process and it may take some time to master it. When you do, you can see the suffering leaving your psyche more and more quickly .So states that may have lasted for days may now leave in hours and eventually even in minutes. Don’t, however, get too attached to the results. Just practice the process.
b is for breathing. Often, by the end of the process, there is still lingering pain especially of the physical sensation source. So now you breathe into the painful area. A long nasal in-breath followed by a more rapid outbreath via the mouth in which you release the tension.
You can do this practice as often as you like-for whatever state you find yourself in. You can even use it for positive states if they are too intense or inappropriate for the context you find yourself in (ecstasy at the workplace lol).Try it out and get back to me. Enjoy your meditation.
Making America Great Again
(Got to get away from this politics,soon lol)
I know how to make America great again! And it’s not what Trump is saying. .All it has to do is act on its own principles! Think of what that would look like.They would be actively supporting the Bulent movement in Turkey(most tolerant form of political Islam) instead of supporting the newly minted Sultan Erdogan,they would be coercing the Israelis into making a decent deal with the Palestinians(aren’t all men created equal according to the Constitution?),they would be refusing to deal with the Saudis and the Gulf oil nations until their human rights record improved considerably including how they treat foreign workers,they would be boycotting China because of its human rights record, its exploitation of workers generally and its genocidal treatment of Tibetans and Chinese Muslims and of course they would be taking on their own greedy,financial sector and the monopolistic practices of their own companies(isn’t there supposed to be equality of opportunity and free competition in America?).Wow! What a world that would be! Donald Trump would have nothing to say,if that is possible! And people could legitimately praise America as a beacon of light instead of a harbinger of darkness..Instead we have these groveling compromisers like Obama and Hillary who will never really stand up for what is right unless it is in their own political and economic interest.Pathetic,really!
The Politics of Deception
Hillary’s speech:”About six weeks ago, Mrs. Clinton started sketching down rough notes about what she wanted to say on the eve she accepts her party’s nomination. A month ago, discussions with her top policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, and the speechwriters Dan Schwerin and Megan Rooney, began to shape the speech, with advice from a variety of friends and former speechwriters. Mrs. Clinton also sought advice from Mr. Obama’s much-admired former director of speechwriting Jon Favreau”.(NYTimes)
And they are surprised we don’t trust them! How can such a contrived,manipulated,overly-scripted speech be authentic?! This is another infomercial pretending to be a heart-felt talk.The problem is very deep, really.It goes into every nook and cranny of modern life.This one is like the student having their parents doing their homework. And there is plenty of that in “The Greatest Nation on Eatrth?!”
I want to underline this point(about Hillary’s speech) as I find often people don’t get what I am saying or think it is obvious,which it isn’t.Here is a person,Hillary,pretending to be authentic and personal( not warm because no-one would buy that lol).But in fact it is mostly pretense and acting.This challenges our sense of “The truth quotient”( an idea in development).It is like that product you have seen on a television ad that looks like a real solution to a problem you have been trying to resolve for years.The testimonials look authentic,the developer looks sincere,the claims seem realistic.You buy it only to find out it’s the same as all its predecessors and it doesn’t work.People have come to see that as”normal”.But it is bad for society! That makes people lose trust,become cynical and close down.And the worst part of it is that they can no longer hear the real truth when you try to tell them it.They just hear it as another infomercial!
Not fixing people
This is a deep teaching which corresponds to something which has taken me fourty years to learn!Please read it carefully and apply.One of my sheikhs,Sheikh Nazim, understood this instinctively!
The Work of Ramadan
The Work of Ramadan
We are coming to the end of another month of Ramadan. For me, I believe it is the 38th! Alhumdulillah .But I am still working on the process, getting better year by year I hope –in small increments.
Nevertheless, I am still investigating the inner dimensions of this holy month, as the discourses I hear from the scholars rarely give me satisfaction. What is really going on? Yes, I know it is the month of patience and self-restraint. And I believe the rewards are from Allah himself. And I know it is from the order of Allah, to the religions before Islam as well.But what else is happening?
Here are some analogies that I have been entertaining:
- It is like the churning of butter. You keep turning the cream over and over again until you have a sweet material that you can spread on whatever you like or use in other cooking
- The alchemical process where base metals (our nafs with its desires) is converted into gold (the pure soul)
- Panning gold-where you have to go through tons of material( the idle thoughts or ‘khawatir’) to find tiny amounts of the desired metal(hal) and
- the process of producing maple syrup where the liquid sap coming out of the tree tastes quite neutral and only through boiling it slowly for long periods of time do you get the sweet syrup that we love so much.
Each of these metaphors has a particular appeal to my heart. But what they have in common is that there is a lot of work that needs to be done for a seemingly small result. But don’t be confused by the quantities. The product is sublime and the result may well be a lot more substantial then we can ever imagine.
So what IS the work? The work is all those moments of discomfort that you experience during the month. For myself ,I think I have experienced almost every ”minor “ symptom known to man lol- headaches, gastric distress, exhaustion(several times a day), weakness(often) difficulty concentrating and remembering, fever(only once this year) etc.,etc. Sound familiar? Don’t say: ”no” or you will be classified amongst the deniers lol.
N.B. When you say “fasting’ to most people they think hunger and thirst”. Actually those are the easiest to overcome .It is the other physical and mental symptoms that one has to struggle with and struggle it is. Ramadan is jihad-a-nafs. No doubt in my mind. But ,with a firmness of intention and a desire to submit one’s ego to a Higher Power ,our Lord gives us, at least most of us, the capacity to do it and the support to carry out this project to the end.
And what is the gold or sweetness referred to in the metaphors? At times we will feel the “nafahat”(sweet breezes) of a hal in which there are no thoughts and worries but only peace. At other times we will experience openings-to other people, to what the Quran is really saying, to words of wisdom we have heard in the past. And then there are the hidden blessings-barely palpable but real nevertheless. And only Allah Himself knows the extent of them. So benefit now from the last few drops of this potent elixir and Eid Mubarak until next year. Salaams,Ibrahim