| 51 - Sobriety/Intoxication |
Page 26 - Chapter
Two: "In order to describe the psychological concomitants of these two
standpoints, the Sufis spoke of various pairs of ‘states’ (ahwal)
experienced by the travelers on the path to God. One of the most instructive of these is
‘intoxication’ (sukr) and ‘sobriety’ (sahw).
Intoxication follows upon being overcome by the presence of God. It designates the joy of
the seekers in finding the eternal source of all beauty and love within themselves. The
travelers see God in all things and lose the ability to discriminate between Him and
creation or to differentiate between correct and incorrect. Intoxication is associated
with expansion, hope, and intimacy with God. It is the human response to the divine names
that declare God’s compassion, love, kindness, beauty, gentleness, and concern.
"In contrast,
sobriety allows for a clear differentiation between God and the world and a calm and
careful discernment between right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. It correlates with the
absolute distinction between Creator and creatures and is associated with wonderment, awe,
contraction, and fear. It is the human response to divine names that designate God’s
majesty, glory, splendor, magnificence, might, wrath, and vengeance.
"If perceiving
God’s aloofness allows for a clear understanding of the difference between servant
and Lord, seeing His nearness blinds the discerning powers of reason. Neither standpoint
is complete in itself. The vision of things as they truly are demands a balance between
seeing God distant and finding Him near, or between rational understanding and imaginal
unveiling."
Commentary:
‘Intoxication’ and ‘sobriety’ are not
"psychological concomitants of" Divine ‘Immanence’ and
‘Transcendence’. ‘Intoxication’ and ‘sobriety’ are spiritual
conditions, and spirituality cannot be reduced down to a set of psychological
concomitants.
There is a field of study
known as ‘trans-personal psychology’ which seeks to explore various kinds of
religious, spiritual, and/or mystical phenomenology, as well as such things as anomalous
experiences induced through breathing techniques, ingestion of substances with
hallucinogenic properties, biofeedback processes, meditative practices, sensory
deprivation, and so on. Nonetheless, in general, psychology - both currently and
historically - tends to try to explain consciousness and its contents as expressions of
either biology and/or something called ‘mind’ and/or what is referred to as the
‘soul’ or ‘psyche’, and irrespective of which terminology is adopted,
the underlying assumptions of psychology are: (a) all cognitive and emotional states or
conditions can be understood through rational methods; (b) ultimately, all psychological
phenomena are a function of physical and/or material processes.
When Sufis speak about
instruments of understanding such as: ‘heart’ ‘sirr’ (mystery),
‘ruh’ (spirit), ‘kafi’ (the hidden), and ‘aqfah’ (the more
hidden), they are not referring to processes which are capable of being accessed by reason
or rational methodologies. In fact, when the term ‘trans-rational’ is used in
conjunction with such processes, the intention is to stipulate that although mystical
states and stations are not irrational in nature, at the same time, these states,
stations, conditions, and experiences cannot be subsumed under, or accessed by, this or
that modality of rational activity, and, consequently, fall ‘beyond’ or outside
the framework of reason.
Consciousness is capable
of being fed by many streams. Psychological processes constitute one set of sources out of
which arise some of the contents of consciousness, awareness, or phenomenology.
Nevertheless, there are other non-psychological realms which are capable of serving as
sources that generate various kinds of content which may surface in awareness, and,
furthermore, some of these non-psychological realms are not functions of biological,
material, or physical processes.
Of course, there could be
different psychological phenomena occurring in response to, say, spiritual experiences. In
addition, psychological phenomena may color and filter the manner in which spiritual
experiences are understood.
However, despite the
possibility of such correlations and interpretive filtering or coloring, the spiritual
cannot be reduced to the psychological. Furthermore, the psychological realm does not
‘cause’ the sort of spiritual phenomena about which the Sufis sometimes speak.
The author of Sufism
- A Short Introduction claims that ‘intoxication’ and
‘sobriety’ are ‘states’ or ‘ahwal’. His claim is in
need of correction, qualification and elaboration.
More specifically, on
occasion, spiritual ‘intoxication’ may be given expression through a state -
that is, a transitory, experiential phase of phenomenology. On the other hand, spiritual
intoxication can last for a very extended period of time (for which the term
‘state’ no longer seems appropriate), as well as be a permanent condition.
There are some
individuals - known as ‘mathzub’. who are spiritually intoxicated to varying
degrees, and this condition is manifested, in different ways, through their behavior.
Depending on the extent of spiritual intoxication, an individual may display just
relatively ‘mild’ forms of intoxicated behavior, or the individual may give
expression to the kinds of behavior that are at considerable odds with what is taken to be
the normal boundaries of ‘proper’ or acceptable conduct.
Many Sufi shaykhs are in
a permanent condition of spiritual intoxication, but, for the most part, this condition is
never disclosed through behavior, or it is never disclosed in a way that the vast majority
of people would recognize as being a manifestation of an underlying spiritual
intoxication. The reason for this is that such shaykhs conduct themselves in accordance
with the adab, or spiritual etiquette, of ‘sobriety’ which requires that one
constrain or mask the presence of spiritual intoxication.
Consequently,
‘sobriety’ is not a ‘state’ or ‘ahwal’. Instead,
‘sobriety’ is, in part, an exercise of spiritual discipline in which the
individual complies with a set of principles that are entailed by the shaykh’s
insight into what constitutes appropriate behavior under various circumstances.
The Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) is reported to have said: "Surely, your soul has a right against
you, your Lord has a right against you; your guest has a right against you, and your
spouse has a right against you. So, give to each one who possesses a right against
you." Adab is the art of recognizing the ‘rights’ of all with whom one
comes in contact - directly or indirectly, and, subsequently, pursuing a course of conduct
which honors such rights to the best of one’s ability to do so.
With respect to the
‘adab of sobriety’, one refrains from giving overt expression to an underlying
condition of spiritual intoxication. In fact, masters of the Sufi Path maintain that
spiritual instruction should be given through the adab of sobriety since instruction
arising in the absence of such sobriety easily can be misunderstood by a seeker and,
thereby, result in mis-guidance rather than guidance.
There can be no
observance of sobriety if spiritual intoxication is not present. The former presupposes
the latter.
Therefore, the author of Sufism
- A Short Introduction is incorrect when, in the earlier quote, he gives the
impression there are Sufis who are in a condition of sobriety without, simultaneously,
being spiritually intoxicated. While one can be spiritually intoxicated without being
‘sober’, there is no need to observe the adab of sobriety if one is not
experiencing the condition toward which such etiquette is directed.
In the foregoing quote,
the author also claims: "Intoxication follows upon being overcome by the presence of
God. It designates the joy of the seekers in finding the eternal source of all beauty and
love within themselves. The travelers see God in all things and lose the ability to
discriminate between Him and creation or to differentiate between correct and
incorrect." The above way of stating things is problematic since, among other things,
it tends to cut all instances of ‘intoxication’ from the same cloth, when, in
fact, there are many different levels and degrees of intoxication.
Not all conditions of
spiritual intoxication necessarily involve seeing ‘God in all things’, nor does
intoxication necessarily involve an awareness of ‘the’ presence of
God - although intoxication is certainly indication of ‘a’
presence of some Divine manifestation. The following story helps demonstrate this point.
There was a seeker who
came rushing to his shaykh in an extreme state of happiness, joy and excitement. The
seeker kept exclaiming he had seen God.
When the shaykh queried
the individual concerning what had happened, the student talked about the tremendous light
he had seen while washing up and preparing for prayers. The shaykh responded with:
"You silly fool, all you saw was the nur (spiritual light) of your ritual
ablutions."
Now, while the nur of
ablution is one expression, among many other possibilities, of the presence of a Name of
Divinity, nevertheless, realizing God’s presence to the extent that one sees God in
all things, as well as all things through God, is a spiritual condition which extends far
beyond being witness to this or that manifestation of Divine light. There are many kinds
of Divine manifestation which may descend on an individual’s consciousness, and any
one of these may trigger a state of intoxication, so while all conditions of intoxication
arise from one Source, not all such conditions give expression to the same Divine
manifestation.
Consequently, contrary to
the contention of the author in the foregoing quote, intoxication need not be restricted
to just "finding the eternal source of all beauty and love within" oneself.
Intoxication is a condition of unveiling in which some dimension of Divinity is given
manifested expression through the consciousness of an individual, and the scope,
intensity, richness, subtlety, and so on, of whatever is manifested overcomes the
individual.
Intense wonder and awe
concerning the majesty, grandeur, and uniqueness of Divinity could induce a condition of
intoxication just as easily as realizing the Presence of God’s love and beauty.
Indeed, all of the Names and Attributes of Divinity - either singly or in combination -
are capable of bringing an individual into a condition of ecstasy and intoxication.
Moreover, intoxication is
not necessarily a matter of losing "the ability to discriminate between Him and
creation". On the one hand, intoxication is a condition of consciousness, and in such
a condition, one may not so much lose the ability to distinguish between Creator and
creation as be oblivious to all aspects of creation and totally caught up in whatever
manifestation is being displayed on the screen of consciousness. On the other hand, the
issue of losing one’s ability to discriminate between God and creation is something
of a red herring since such discrimination entails the perpetuation of an illusion which
is at odds with God’s actual Oneness.
The author also claims in
his book that intoxication causes a person to lose the ability to "differentiate
between correct and incorrect". A better way of saying this might be to say that
spiritual intoxication expands one’s horizons concerning the question of what might
be meant by the ideas of ‘correctness’ and ‘incorrectness’, since the
way one engages such issues often is relative to one’s spiritual condition.
There was a shaykh who
was sitting with a group of people when a person came into the room and began to complain
to the shaykh about some individual with whom the person speaking was having an
altercation. The shaykh listened to the individual’s story, and when the latter
person had concluded and asked the shaykh whether his side of things was right, the shaykh
agreed with the individual and said that the person was right. This individual left, very
happy that the shaykh had agreed with him.
A little while later, the
person about whom the first person had complained entered the room where the shaykh was
sitting and proceeded to lodge his complaint against the first person. Upon hearing this
person’s side of things, the shaykh agreed with the second individual that the latter
person was right. Soon, thereafter, this second man left, very happy that the shaykh had
agreed with him.
Following the departure
of the second individual, one of the people spoke who had been sitting with the shaykh
throughout both stories. This person wanted to know how the shaykh could possibly tell two
people that they were both right when their stories were diametrically opposed to one
another. The shaykh smiled at this individual and said: "You’re right."
Does a person who is
intoxicated lose the ability to discriminate between right and wrong or are the lines of
demarcation governing rightness and wrongness merely redrawn in the light of the Divine
disclosure which is dominating his or her present, spiritual condition? The adab of
sobriety comes into play at this juncture for such spiritual etiquette indicates that
irrespective of the truths and realities which are being disclosed to an individual
through that person’s condition of intoxication, nonetheless, the person must govern
herself or himself in accordance with the spirit of the previously cited Hadith of the
Prophet in which one is counseled to honor the "rights" of whomever, and
whatever, that arise out of any given set of circumstances.
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