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