Ups, Downs, Dangers and Distances On the Sufi Path
One of the
individuals who e-mailed wanted to know something about the dangers, pitfalls, and the ups
and downs of the Sufi path. This person also wanted to know if being at a physical
distance from the teacher might be a problem to a prospective seeker on the mystical path.
With respect
to your first question - namely, "could you share with me some of your personal
pitfalls and dangers you faced during your Sufi path" - I will approach your inquiry
obliquely but, hopefully, not opaquely. Part of the reason for doing this is because the
pitfalls and dangers which occur along the way are very contextual and, consequently, tend
to be a function of the unique way in which personal history engages particular
circumstances. This makes things a little bit too complicated and boring to relate.
In reality,
however, the pitfalls and dangers which exist on the path are all variations on a set of
central themes. The axis about which these problems rotate is known as the
"nafs", or the seat of our tendency to rebel against acting in accordance with
our essential nature and spiritual capacity.
Every human
being, without exception, is born with the same capacity for rebellion. The human
inclination toward envy, greed, hatred, pride, jealousy, arrogance, ignorance, darkness,
desire, density, heedlessness, dishonesty, selfishness, and so on are inherent in the
nature of being human, and it is the circumstances of our life history which shape how,
and to what extent, and in what directions, we are shaped by these tendencies.
We are
vulnerable to these forces. Furthermore, there exist forces in the universe - both within
us and without us - which attempt to enhance the scope and intensity of this
vulnerability.
When a
person steps onto the spiritual path, one does not leave the aforementioned rebellious
inclinations behind. They are baggage which we bring on board, along with our spiritual
aspiration.
One of the
purposes of the spiritual journey - although many people do not fully realize this at the
beginning of the undertaking - is to come to realize how worthless such baggage is in its
unredeemed form. As long as we continue to carry our rebellious tendencies around with us,
then we stand in peril and danger of falling off the spiritual express on which we have
booked passage to take us to our destination.
When we are
under the influence of any of the hydra-like aspects of the nafs, or when we are under the
influence of those forces which seek to incite and manipulate these sorts of vulnerability
within us, we are not able to see the incorrectness of what we are doing. As a result,
when we are in this state, we prefer our own opinions to that of the spiritual guide or we
begin to believe that we see things more deeply and clearly than our teacher does.
This
condition brings the spiritual journey to a screeching halt. If this condition should
persist, then rebellion soon leads to criticism of the guide, and from there, it is just a
hop, skip and jump to criticizing God.
Naturally,
there can be no question of making spiritual progress under such circumstances.
Furthermore, if one is unlucky, then one may not only just fall away from the spiritual
path, but one can become an active antagonist of that path as well.
Such
antagonism can range from a disbelief in , and opposition to, all things spiritual, to the
invention of one's own "mystical path". The proliferation of spiritual paths
which is being observed today is not necessarily a health sign and in many cases may, in
fact, be a reflection of the activities of the nafs as it seeks to arrange the spiritual
realm according to its own likes and dislikes, and the whole concoction is made to be fair
seeming in its eyes.
Although
there is certainly more than one legitimate way to God, not everything which calls itself
a path is capable of assisting the individual to realize her or his spiritual potential
and true identity. It simply is not true that all paths lead to the same End.
There are a
small number which do, and they do so because they come from a Divine Source. Most do not
because they are merely expressions of human speculation and ignorance.
Anybody can
fool around with chemicals. Not everyone knows how to combine things in precisely the
right manner for each unique individual case in order to be able to, God willing, set in
motion a process of healing and curing of the spiritual diseases which afflict a given
individual - a process of healing and curing without problematic, debilitating and
destructive spiritual side-effects.
Moreover,
some people have removed certain facets of spiritual wisdom from the original context in
which that wisdom-fragment is rooted. Such individuals are operating under the influence
of mechanistic and technological thinking which presupposes that everything consists of
modules which can be transferred from one context to another without any problem.
Even when
such uprooted wisdom-fragments still retain some partial efficacy, they can never, in and
of themselves, bring an individual to the point where the person comes to realize his or
her true identity or comes to realize one's essential spiritual capacity - a capacity
which is duplicated nowhere else in the universe. And, the realization of true identity
and essential capacity are the woof and warp of the mystical path - everything else is
purely peripheral, and as such, a distraction away from the proper destination of the
mystical path.
My response
to another of your wonderings - more specifically, whether I "wouldn't mind sharing
some of your ups and downs of your path" - is similar to the foregoing. In other
words, I will respond, but, perhaps, not in the way in which you would like or for which
you might be hoping.
In reality,
there are no downs to the mystical path - only ups. We learn from experience - both
difficult ones, as well as those which are felt as being easy.
If the
significance of what is learned is taken to heart in terms of what it says about
ourselves, or the human condition, or the nature of existence, or our relationship with
Divinity, then the experience becomes a constructive influence during our journey on the
path. Anything which is constructive in this fashion is an up, irrespective of its
phenomenology being pleasant or painful.
The
"downs" of the path are when we forget the foregoing perspective and try to
impose our own moods, attitudes, limitations or agenda upon the mystical journey. We all
do this in different ways, and, thus, it does not necessarily help another person to
describe the biographical details of how a particular individual came to lose one's focus
in a given set of circumstances.
Having said
this, nonetheless, many of the aphorisms, poetry, stories, and anecdotes which are related
by the Sufi masters are often designed to help remind us of what the proper "up"
perspective is. These teachings tend to help deflect us from our all too frequent
condition of being "down" and push, or drag, us back toward an upward direction
with respect to the way we go about interpreting and understand the spiritual significance
of the events in our lives.
As far as
your query about the issue of physical distance between an initiate and a spiritual
teacher is concerned, there are several things which can be said. First of all, one of the
hardest lessons to learn for many who set foot on the mystical path is for these
individuals to come to appreciate and truly understand is that the relationship with the
teacher has nothing to do with physical/material contiguous affiliation.
That such an
obstacle should play so prominent a role in the journey of so many individuals is rather
ironical. The path is about spirituality, not physical or material reality.
If
spirituality were a physical force which was subject, like most such forces, to the
inverse square law and, consequently, diminished with the square of the distance from the
epicenter of the locus of boson exchange, then, perhaps, physical proximity might be an
important spiritual issue. This, however, is not the case.
The issue of
physical juxta-positioning is a psychological issue, not a spiritual one. Psychologically,
and emotionally, people like to have a sort of hands-on relationship with their teacher.
This tends to provide individuals with a sense of access, immediacy, security, belonging,
and participation - all of which are important to the individual's psychological
equilibrium, but none of which are spiritually essential.
Notwithstanding
the foregoing remarks, the actual nature of a relationship between a Sufi shaykh and an
initiate is probably a compromise between the two positions outlined above. In other
words, the relationship consists of a mixture of physical proximity and physical
separation.
What the
precise ratio of these two will be in any given instance will vary from case to case. This
always has been the way of things since even the days of old there would be those
initiates who would visit, or be visited by, the shaykh only once or twice in their lives,
whereas other individuals would be in the company of the shaykh on a much more regular
basis.
One thing is
certain, however. There is no necessary relationship between physical proximity and
spiritual progress.
There may be
some who, although quite close to the shaykh physically, do not, for whatever reasons,
make a great deal of spiritual progress. On the other hand, there may be those who are
physically far removed from the shaykh who, nonetheless, make tremendous spiritual
progress.
In time, if
God wishes, one comes to understand that although one may enjoy and treasure one's
opportunities for physical proximity to the shaykh, this enjoyment should not be confused
with what is necessary for spiritual progress. In truth, the shaykh is with one all the
time, but in all too many cases, the reverse is not so even when there may be physical
proximity.
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