| 12 - Authentic Experience |
Page 3 - Chapter One:
"In the early texts, scores of definitions were offered for the words
"Sufi" and "Sufism", just as scores of definitions were offered for
numerous other technical terms associated with the same teachers. Although it would be
possible to begin with one or more of these definitions, it may be more useful simply to
suggest that Gibb is on the right track when he implies that Sufism is equivalent to
‘authentic religious experience.’ In other words, the early Sufi teachers held
that they spoke for the animating spirit of the Islamic tradition. From their point of
view, wherever this spirit flourishes, Islam is alive to its own spiritual and moral
ideals, but to the extent that it languishes, Islam becomes desiccated and sterile, if it
survives at all."
Commentary:
Leaving aside the already noted point that many of the early texts may not have been so
much preoccupied with engaging in exercises of definition which were necessarily to be
considered as absolute and definitive, as much as they just may have been establishing
conceptual starting points through which to provide entry points to further exploration
(after all, one does have to start somewhere), one might also wish to add certain
qualifying considerations for the author’s contention that Gibb is "on the right
track when he implies that Sufism is equivalent to ‘authentic religious
experience’. " In fact, questions can be raised with respect to each of the
three terms in the phrase which the author borrows from Gibb, and, questions also can be
raised as to whether "Sufism is equivalent to" these three terms taken
collectively as the author suggests.
Let us begin with the
word "religious" which is the middle term in Gibb’s phrase. There are a
number of ways in which this word can be understood.
For example, in one
sense, the ‘religious’ concerns any belief system which, on the one hand,
reflects upon the meaning of existence vis-a-vis human beings, as well as in conjunction
with the rest of the universe, and, then, on the other hand, speaks about the nature of
the link between the parties of the first part with ‘Reality’ in some absolute
sense of this latter referent. Often, a word such as "God" or
"Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Allah" (or many other
possibilities) is used to name this Reality, but such a word is not absolutely necessary
as long as there is an understanding that there is some essential or fundamental Ground
which not only underwrites the existence of the universe and the inhabitants of that
universe but which has some sort of relationship with the universe that has been
established - a relationship which stands in need of critical explication either through
philosophical, scientific, psychological, sociological, anthropological, and/or
theological disciplines.
There is, yet, another
sense of the ‘religious’, however, which, initially at least, is not primarily
about belief systems per se. Instead, paramount importance is placed on the role which
phenomenology or the experiential has in revealing various levels of non-conceptually
mediated connectedness between the physically observable universe and the whole of
Reality.
In this latter approach
to the religious, the rational mind plays, at best, a secondary and after-the-fact role.
In fact, within the perspective of this second broad approach to the
‘religious’, the rational mind needs to be transformed and brought into
harmonious alignment with much more essential faculties of knowing and understanding.
In this latter approach
to the ‘religious’, there may be post-experiential attempts to gauge the
meaning, purpose, value, or significance of some given aspect of phenomenology which
appears to have trans-rational, non-ordinary, and essentially transformational currents
running through such an experiential field, but these attempts at reconstruction are
derivative and not always to be trusted as being accurately reflective of what actually is
going on in the realm of phenomenology.
Both of the previous
senses of the ‘religious’ are from the human side of things. In other words,
whether one approaches the ‘religious’ primarily in terms of a "belief
system" or in terms of phenomenological encounters with the ‘Real’, or some
combination of these two modalities of engagement, we are talking about what human beings
are thinking or experiencing about their link with Being considered as some sort of whole,
all inclusive, totality of possibility.
There is a third sense of
the ‘religious’ which is not human-centered but Real-centered. In this sense of
the ‘religious’, how human beings think about, or feel toward, or believe in, or
interpret, or experientially engage existence takes a back seat to the way things actually
are, and the task becomes a matter of realizing, according to capacity, the truth of
‘what is’.
In Islam generally, and
the Sufi Path, in particular, this process of Real-centered, staged, realization is known
as "Deen". Deen is the process of discovering the essential nature of our being,
and the term which is used in relation to this essential nature is "fitra".
Deen is not
‘religious’ in either of the first two senses of this latter term. That is, Deen
is not a belief system, nor is it something which places primary emphasis on experiences
or phenomenology of a certain kind. Deen is a process of taking or guiding one back to,
and bringing to fruition, original, essential nature.
Systems of belief may
spring up in relation to Deen, and, as well, there may be certain kinds of non-ordinary,
trans-rational phenomenology which are experienced while engaged in the ‘way of
deen’, but neither of these is synonymous with Deen, nor can ‘Deen’ be
reduced down to being functions of either, or both, of these senses of the
‘religious’, or some combination thereof.
"Religion" and
"religious" are man-made words serving human purposes - sometimes doing so in a
useful fashion and sometimes doing so in a problematic fashion. Both of these words carry
a great deal of conceptual, emotional, and historical baggage, and, as a result, this
tends to interfere with coming to understand the nature of either ‘Deen’ or
‘fitra’ from the perspective of the ‘Real’.
Consequently, to try to
equate Sufism with "authentic religious experience" may not put us
as much on the ‘right’ track as the author of Sufism - A Short
Introduction might suppose. At the very least, the notion of the
‘religious’ needs to be properly qualified along the lines suggested above.
Now, lets take a look at
the word "authentic" which is the first word of the tripartite phrase
(‘authentic religious experience’) that the author has borrowed from Gibb - a
phrase the author is offering as something which may be synonymous with the meaning of
"Sufism". To begin with, "authentic" is a term which implies there is
a standard or set of standards through which the character of something can be judged as
being "authentic" ... as opposed to being ‘inauthentic’.
There are several ways to
approach this question of standards. For instance, one could set forth some set of
criteria that is to be used in differentiating the authentic from the inauthentic, and
this would require, in turn, a discussion of why one set of criteria was selected rather
than some other such set.
Another possibility is to
begin with the contention that every experience is "authentic". In other words,
in as much as experiences are lived by someone, they are, in some sense, links to what is,
or part of what is, or expressions of what is, and, consequently, all experiences
constitute potential clues in any given individual’s attempt to try to understand
what the significance or meaning of such experience is.
This way of looking at
things assumes that irrespective of what one takes to be the ultimate nature of life or
truth or reality, nevertheless, all experience - no matter how trivial or exalted, no
matter how sordid or noble - has value because all experiences generate data which can be
used for reflection, inquiry, exploration, critical analysis, and so on, concerning the
nature of existence. This shifts the focus away from the issue of "authenticity"
and, instead, directs attention toward the challenge of trying to uncover the meaning
and/or purpose and/or significance of our experience - whatever that experience may be.
All experience has the
capacity to teach. The question, then, becomes whether, or not, we will learn what
experience has to tell us about ourselves and the universe in which we rooted.
Earthly existence is
constrained by two outer boundary markers - birth and death. In between these two boundary
markers is a journey of experience which, according to the Sufi masters, will either take
one toward realizing what is at the heart of this journey, or will lead one away from this
sort of realization.
In this context, guidance
becomes a matter of assisting an individual to work toward developing a sense of
discernment concerning experience and, therefore, how to evaluate this experiential realm
in terms both of what will bring one closer to the aforementioned realization as well as
what will generate problems, confusion, obstacles, and so on with respect to the issue of
realization. All experience is authentic, and all experience is valuable, but one needs to
be able to evaluate experience in terms of its ability to assist or hinder essential
realization concerning the journey of life.
Sufi shaykhs work with a
person wherever that individual may be within her or his journey of experience. They
don’t tell the person that such-and-such an experience is authentic or inauthentic -
rather, they say that all of the individuals experiences are authentic, and, then, proceed
to help the individual understand just what they are authentic expressions of ... the
lower self, the body, the world, the spirit, satanic suggestion, the heart, this
condition, that stage, this state, that problem, and so on.
The Sufi path is a very
long journey. If one had to wait just for the possible experiences of essential
realization before labeling something "authentic", then, seemingly, most people
who step onto the Sufi Path would, for the most part, be immersed in a process which is
deemed to be overwhelmingly inauthentic (a rather depressing thought, to say the least)
and, therefore, of questionable value. Yet, what makes all of the experiences of this
journey valuable is the role they play in pointing out the direction to travel if one
hopes to attain realization concerning the significance of the journey as a whole.
This brings us to the
third facet of the phrase "authentic religious experience" - namely,
"experience" - which the author of Sufism - A Short Introduction
is advancing as a possibly synonymous expression for "Sufism", or, at least, an
equation that may help get us started on the right track. And, in view of the stress given
above to the idea that all experience has authenticity, one might suppose the author is
correct to suggest that the Sufi Path is about "authentic religious experience".
However, such is not the case.
Since, as pointed out
previously, all experience has a quality of authenticity, to contend that the Sufi Path
focuses on ‘authentic religious experience’ doesn’t get one very far. In
fact, as important as experience is, what is more important is the character or condition
of the ‘channels’ through which experience flows.
Experience is not an end
in itself but is a means to an end. The end is to return to the potential of one’s
Origins and realize that potential so that experience serves, and gives expression to, the
purpose for which the potential exists.
The nature of experience
is colored, shaped, and oriented by many factors. Physical condition, emotional states,
motivational forces, conceptual biases, beliefs, values, spiritual commitments (or lack
thereof), and so on, all modulate the character of experience.
Therefore, one can
distinguish between, on the one hand, experience and, on the other hand, the faculties or
forces or factors which modulate experience. We learn from experience when there is some
sort of alteration in the process which modulates experience and, as a result, permits
experience to be understood in a different way than previously had been the case.
Experience is valuable
because of the implications, hints, clues, and so on, it carries with respect to our
capacities to modulate experience. Experience is valuable because of the way it tends to
lead to reflection concerning the factors which color, shape, and orient experience.
To be sure, reflection
and thought, for example, have experiential components. However, the capacity
for thought, reflection, and awareness (or emotion, or motivation, or sensation, or
spirituality) are not experiences, per se, but the generators, modulators and processors
of experience.
The quality or character
of experience won’t change until different dimensions of these capacities alter the
manner in which experience is processed and/or understood. The emphasis here is not on
experience, per se, but on the processes surrounding experience and out of which
experience arises.
If one wishes to change
the quality or character of experience, one must, first, change one’s modality of
engaging such experience. The Sufi Path uses experience as a tool with which to probe that
which surrounds experience and, thereby, shapes, colors, orients and qualifies experience.
The Sufi Path is not
about producing certain kinds of experiences. Instead, it is a way of helping an
individual to tap into different dimensions of the very faculties and capacities through
which experience is processed.
Whatever experiences may
come, the Sufi emphasis is on processing or engaging or understanding those experiences in
a manner which is an increasing function of the fully realized essential nature or
‘fitra’ of the individual. Experiences will look after themselves if only we
will look after that which modulates and processes them.
‘Deen’ is the
exploratory journey of transformation of the channel-ways through which experience flows.
Experience in the absence of such transformation will always remain authentic, but one may
never come to understand the significance, nature, and purpose of such experience since
one needs a transformed ‘self’ to appreciate that experiential authenticity is a
spectrum of possibilities pointing beyond the horizons of experience, per se, back to the
Ground out of which all experience arises.
According to the author
of Sufism - A Short Introduction, to say that "Sufism" is
synonymous with "authentic religious experience" is another way of saying that
"the early Sufi teachers held that they spoke for the animating spirit of the Islamic
tradition. From their point of view, wherever this spirit flourishes, Islam is alive to
its own spiritual and moral ideals, but to the extent that it languishes, Islam becomes
desiccated and sterile, if it survives at all."
In truth, the
"animating spirit of the Islamic tradition" speaks for itself, and all
authorized Sufi teachers know this. "Wherever this spirit flourishes" Muslims
are alive to their own spiritual possibilities, and to the extent Muslims fall away from
this spirit, Muslims and Muslim civilization (not Islam) become "desiccated and
sterile", if they survive at all.
Deen, which is the
animating spirit of Islam, is God given. It can never become desiccated and sterile.
Failure is entirely on
the human side of things. Muslims fail in their pursuit of, and commitment to
‘Deen’.
The latter is incapable
of bringing about the failure of anyone who is sincerely committed to its principles and
methodology. Indeed, the One Who has established ‘Deen’ as a means of realizing
the truth about human nature, has an inherent predisposition to be inclined to, and
responsive toward, expressions of sincerity in the pursuit of Deen.
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