Knowledge & Wisdom

Knowledge & Wisdom; New Site

2005-11-01T09:51:00.000+08:00

Assalaamu'alaikum.

Dear visitors,

Knowledge & Wisdom has moved to a new site. This blog will no longer be updated. Please update your links if you had linked this blog before. My apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Thank you for those who have been visiting this blog. May Allah bless you.

Wassalaam.

Anecdote

2005-10-26T20:45:00.000+08:00

A man rose up where Jonaid (Jonaid al-Baghdadi) was preaching and began to beg.
"This man is perfectly healthy,'' thought Jonaid. "He can earn his living. Why does he beg, and impose on himself this humiliation?"
That night Jonaid dreamed that a covered dish was set before him.
"Eat," he was bidden.
When he lifted the lid, he saw the man who had begged lying dead on the dish.
"I do not eat the flesh of men," he protested.
"Then why did you do so in mosque yesterday?" he was asked.
Jonaid realize that he had been guilty of slander in his heart, and that he was being taken to task for an evil thought.
"I woke in terror," Jonaid recollected. "I purified myself and said two rak'as, then I went out to search for the beggar. I saw him on the bank of the Tigris, picking out of the water scraps of vegetables people had washed there and eating them. Raising his head, he saw me approaching and addressed me.
"Jonaid," he said, "have you repented of the thoughts concerning me?"
"I have," I replied.
"Then go. It is He who accepts repentance from His servants. This time keep a watch over your thoughts."

- Tadhkirat al-Auliya', Farid al-Din Attar

Transforming The Self

2005-10-09T02:47:00.001+08:00

The goal of all mysticism is to cleanse the heart, to educate, or transform, the self, and to find God. The lowest level of the self is dominated by pride, egotism, and totally self-centered greed and lust. This level is the part within each person that leads away from Truth. The highest level is the pure self, and at this level there is no duality, no separation from God.

The self is actually a living process rather than a static structure in the psyche. The self is not a thing. The Arabic term is related to words for "breath," "soul," "essence," "self," and "nature." It refers to a process that comes about from the interaction of body and soul. When the soul becomes embodied, it forgets its original nature and becomes enmeshed in material creation. This creates the self.

The lowest level of the self, the ego or lower personality, is made up of impulses, or drives, to satisfy desires. These drives dominate reason or judgment and are defined as the forces in one's nature that must be brought under control. The self is a product of the self-centered consciousness - the ego, the "I." The self must be transformed - this is the ideal. The self is like a wild horse; it is powerful and virtually uncontrollable. As the self becomes trained, or transformed, it becomes capable of serving the individual. Sheikh Muzaffer has written,

The self is not bad in itself. Never blame your self. Part of the work of Sufism is to change the state of your self. The lowest state is that of being completely dominated by your wants and desires. The next state is to struggle with yourself, to seek to act according to reason and higher ideals and to criticize yourself when you fail. A much higher state is to be satisfied with whatever God provides for you, whether it means comfort or discomfort, fulfillment of physical needs or not.According to many Sufi teachers, there are seven levels of the self. They are seven levels of development, ranging from absolutely self-centered and egotistical to purely spiritual.

The Commanding Self

The first level has also been described as the domineering self or the self that incites to evil. The commanding self seeks to dominate and to control each individual. At this level there is unbridled selfishness and no sense of morality or compassion.

Descriptions of this level are similar to descriptions of the id in psychoanalytic theory; it is closely linked to lust and aggression. These have been called the swine and the dogs of the self - the sensual traits are like swine, the ferocious ones like fierce dogs or wolves. Wrath, greed, sensual appetites, passion, and envy are examples of traits at this level of the self. This is the realm of physical and egoistic desires.

At this level people are like addicts who are in denial. Their lives are dominated by uncontrollable addictions to negative traits and habits, yet they refuse to believe they have a problem. They have no hope of change at this level, because they do not acknowledge any need to change.

The Regretful Self

People who have not developed beyond the first level are unaware and unconscious. As the light of faith grows, insight dawns, perhaps for the first time. The negative effects of a habitually self-centered approach to the world become apparent to the regretful self.

At this level, wants and desires still dominate, but now the person repents from time to time and tries to follow higher impulses. As Sheikh Muzaffer points out,

There is a battle between the self, the lower self, and the soul. This battle will continue through life. The question is, Who will educate whom? Who will become the master of whom? If the soul becomes the master, then you will be a believer, one who embraces Truth. If the lower self becomes master of the soul, you will be one who denies Truth.

At this second level, people do not yet have the ability to change their way of life in a significant way. However, as they see their faults more clearly, their regret and desire for change grow. At this level, people are like addicts who are beginning to understand the pain they have caused themselves and others. The addiction is still far too strong to change. That requires far stronger medicine.

The Inspired Self

At the next level, the seeker begins to take genuine pleasure in prayer, meditation, and other spiritual activities. Only now does the individual taste the joys of spiritual experience. Now the seeker is truly motivated by ideals such as compassion, service, and moral values. This is the beginning of the real practice of Sufism. Before this stage, the best anyone can accomplish is superficial outer understanding and mechanical outer worship.

Though one is not free from desires and ego, this new level of motivation and spiritual experience significantly reduces the power of these forces for the first time. What is essential here is to live in terms of higher values. Unless these new motivations become part of a way of life, they will wither and die away. Behaviors common to the inspired self include gentleness, compassion, creative acts, and moral action. Overall, a person who is at the stage of the inspired self seems to be emotionally mature, respectable, and respected.

This stage can be the most dangerous stage of development of the nafs. For the first time, we are capable of genuine spiritual experiences and insights. However, if these experiences and insights are filtered through the ego, we can become tremendously inflated.

This can be observed among creative artists, writers, musicians, and scientists. Such people may experience inspired states and creative breakthroughs. The danger is that they may think that they themselves are the source of inspiration.
Most therapists and spiritual guides have to struggle with issues of inflation and the desire for fame and fortune. In evaluating psycho-spiritual guides, we need to use our intuition and our best powers of discrimination and discernment to distinguish the sincere from the phony, the gifted from the charlatans, the knowledgeable from the half-trained. A particular danger is that people at this stage believe they are finished, done with the need for any more spiritual training.

There are many charismatic but misguided self-appointed spiritual leaders who decide they are fully enlightened when they achieve this state.

The Contented Self

The seeker is now at peace. The struggles of the earlier stages are basically over. The old desires and attachments are no longer binding. The ego-self begins to let go, allowing the individual to come more closely in contact with the Divine.

This level of self predisposes one to be liberal, grateful, trusting, and adoring. If one accepts difficulties with the same overall sense of security with which one accepts benefits, it may be said that one has attained the level of the contented self. Developmentally, this level marks a period of transition. The self can now begin to "disintegrate" and let go of all previous concern with self-boundaries and then begin to "reintegrate" as an aspect of the universal self.

The Pleased Self

At this stage the individual is not only content with his or her lot, but pleased with even the difficulties and trials of life, realizing that these difficulties come from God. The state of the pleased self is very different from the way we usually experience the world, focused on seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. A Sufi story illustrates this:

Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna once shared a cucumber with Ayaz, his most loyal and beloved companion. Ayaz happily ate his half of the cucumber, but when the sultan bit into his half, it was so bitter he immediately spit it out.

"How could you manage to eat something so bitter? the sultan exclaimed, "it tasted like chalk or like bitter poison!"

"My beloved sultan," answered Ayaz, "I have enjoyed so many favors and bounties from your hand that whatever you give me tastes sweet."

When a person's love and gratitude to God reach this level, he or she has reached the stage of the pleased self.

The Self Pleasing to God

Those who have reached the next stage realize that all power to act comes from God, that they can do nothing by themselves. They no longer fear anything or ask for anything.

The Sufi sage Ibn 'Arabi described this level as the inner marriage or self and soul. The self pleasing to God has achieved genuine inner unity and wholeness. At earlier stages, people struggle with the world because they experience multiplicity. A broken mirror creates a thousand different reflections of a single image. If the mirror could be made whole again, it would then reflect the single, unified image. By healing the multiplicity within, the Sufi experiences the world as whole and unified.

The Pure Self

Those few who attain the final level have transcended the self entirely. There is no ego or separate self left, only union with God. At this stage, the individual has truly realized the truth, "There is no god but God." The Sufi now knows that there is nothing but God, that only the Divine exists, and that any sense of individuality or separateness is an illusion.

Rumi illuminates this state for us:

If you could get rid
Of yourself just once,
The secret of secrets
Would open to you.
The face of the unknown,
Hidden beyond the universe
Would appear on the
Mirror of your perception.

- Essential Sufism, part of the introduction by Robert Frager
Taken From Katinka Hesselink Net

2005-10-06T03:09:00.000+08:00

What sort of Beloved is He? As long as a single hair of love for yourself remains, He will not show His Face… You must be completely repelled by yourself and the world and be your own self's enemy… So when our religion resides in a person's heart, it stays right there until it takes his heart to God and separates it from everything unworthy.

- Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi

2005-10-06T03:08:00.000+08:00

All the hopes, desires, loves, and affections that people have for different things -- fathers, mothers, friends, heavens, the earth, gardens, palaces, sciences, works, food, drink -- the saint knows that these are desires for God and all those things are veils. When men leave this world and see the King without these veils, then they will know that all were veils and coverings, that the object of their desire was in reality that One Thing… They will see all things face to face.

- Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Anecdote

2005-09-17T20:57:00.000+08:00

Once Hasan al-Basri went to Habib al-'Ajami at the time of evening prayers. Hasan heard al-'Ajami mispronounce a word during the prayer. He considered it improper to say his prayers with him, and therefore said them separately. During the night he dreamed the Lord spoke to him: "Hasan, if you had stood behind al-'Ajami and said your prayers, you would have earned Our pleasure, and that single prayer of yours would have borne thee greater benefit than all prayers taken together that you have offered in your lifetime. You found fault with his pronunciation but ignored the purity and excellence of his heart. Know it that We cherish a contrite heart much more than the correct pronunciation of words.

- Farid al-Din Attar, Tadhkirat al-Auliya

True Man

2005-09-17T19:51:00.000+08:00

If you wish to draw near to God, you must seek God in the hearts of others. You should speak well of all, whether present or absent. If you seek to be a light to guide others, then, like the sun, you must show the same face to all. To bring joy to a single heart is better than to build many shrines for worship, and to enslave one soul by kindness is worth more than the setting free of a thousand slaves.

The true man of God sits in the midst of his fellowmen, and rises up and cats and sleeps and buys and sells and gives and takes in the bazaars, and marries and has social intercourse with others, and yet is never for one moment forgetful of God.

- Abu Said ibn Abi al-Khair

Three Things

2005-09-14T06:46:00.000+08:00

There are three things that save and three that ruin. As for the three that save, they are to fear God secretly and in public, to be moderate in affluence and in poverty, and to speak with justice whether pleased or angry. As for the three that bring ruin, they are greed that one obeys, passion that one follows, and the admiration of a person for himself [and not for the sake of Allah].

- Imam Abdullah ibn Alawi al-Haddad

One

2005-09-06T06:38:00.000+08:00

It is none other than He who progresses or journeys as you. There is nothing to be known but He; and since He is Being itself, He is therefore also the journeyer. There is no knower but He; so who are you? Know your true Reality. He is the essential self of all. But He conceals it by [the appearance of] otherness, which is "you."

If you hold to multiplicity, you are with the world; and if you hold to the Unity, you are with the Truth .... Our names are but names for God; at the same time our individual selves are His shadow. He is at once our identity and not our identity ... Consider!

- Shaykhul Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi

Sincere Truthfulness

2005-08-31T07:27:00.000+08:00

When I want to, I utter good and do good publicly
so that it will be spoken of.
When one day I am charitable to a beggar,
I seek gratitude for it so that it will be spoken of.
When I fast a day in the summer, I complain of hunger
in the evening so that it will be spoken of.
When I pray and people are with me,
I am slow in my prayer so that it will be spoken of.
When I am alone, I do it cursorily
since I do not fear that anything will be spoken of.
My actions are pride, artifice and showing off.
What stumbling blocks which are not mentioned!
Therefore shun me and drive away from you-
my burdens and sins are heavy.
Ask God Almighty for repentance,
with sincere truthfulness,
not so that you will be spoken of.

- Shaykhul Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi

Seeking Knowledge

2005-08-30T04:55:00.000+08:00

With eager desire you are setting out to acquire knowledge, my friend; of yourself you are making clear how genuine is your longing and how passionate your thirst for it. Be sure that, if in your quest for knowledge your aim is to gain something for yourself and to surpass your fellows, to attract men's attention to yourself and to amass this worldy vanities, then you are on the way to bring your religion to nothing and destroy yourself, to sell your eternal life for this present one; your bargain is dead loss, your trading without profit.

On the other hand, if in seeking knowledge your intention and purpose between God most high and yourself is to receive guidance and not merely to acquire information, then rejoice. The angels will spread out their wings for you when you walk, and the denizens of the sea will ask pardon from God for you when you run.

- Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

Trials and Tribulations

2005-08-29T18:19:00.000+08:00

Do not try to run away from trials and tribulations, but endure them with patience. They cannot be avoided, and there is nothing for it but to endure them with patience. How can you expect the whole of this world, and all that has been created therein, to undergo change and transformation just to suit your convenience? The Prophets are the best of all creatures, yet they have always had to suffer afflictions and so it is for their followers, those who thread in their footsteps as they walk along their highway, emulating their example.

- Shaikh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani

The Deceitful World

2005-08-28T04:31:00.000+08:00

The deceitful character of the world comes out in the following ways. In the first place, it pretends that it will always remain with you, while, as a matter of fact, it is slipping away from you, moment by moment, and bidding you farewell, like a shadow which seems stationary, but is actually always moving. Again, the world presents itself under the guise of a radiant but immoral sorceress, pretends to be in love with you, fondles you, and then goes off to your enemies, leaving you to die of chagrin and despair. Jesus (upon whom be peace!) saw the world revealed in the form of an ugly old hag. He asked her how many husbands she had possessed; she replied that they were countless. He asked whether they had died or been divorced; she said that she had slain them all. "I marvel", he said, "at the fools who see, what you have done to others, and still desire you."

This sorceress decks herself out in gorgeous and jewelled apparel and veils her face. Then she goes forth to seduce men, too many of whom follow her to their own destruction. The Prophet has said that in the Judgment Day the world will appear in the form of a hideous witch with green eyes and projecting teeth. Men, beholding her, will say, "Mercy on us! who is this?" The angels will answer, "This is the world for whose sake you quarrelled and fought and embittered one another's lives." Then she will be cast into hell, whence she will cry out, "O Lord! where are those, my former lovers?" God will then command that they be cast after her.

- Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness