Hal (states), Maqam (stations), and Seeking Spiritual Guidance - Part Two
In your previous e-mail to me you seem
to be under the misunderstanding - although it may be purely a matter of terminology -
that the Sufi path focuses on the purification of the ego. Depending on what you mean by
ego or what is entailed by this notion, this is not necessarily what the Sufi way is
about.
There is only one I. This
is Divinity.
The ego - at least as it
is commonly used in everyday language, is really the false self. The 'nest of rats' to
which you refer in your e-mail is as good a way of describing it as any.
The Sufi term is nafs, or
the seat of those tendencies in humankind which tend toward rebellion against Deen and
fitr, and, therefore, God's intention for human beings. While it is true that these
tendencies must be constrained, purified and re-directed to constructive activities rather
than destructive ones (for oneself as well as others), it represents only one of the
dimensions of the human being with which the Sufi path is concerned.
Within the human being
are many other spiritually related potentials. These are: the heart, the sirr or mystery,
the ruh, (spirit), the kafi (the hidden), and the aqfah (most hidden) which is intimately
related to our essential fitr or original nature.
Purification of the nafs
is but a very early precondition, if you will, of proceeding on with the rest of the
spiritual journey. Without purification of the nafs, further progress is unlikely.
You "started"
with a very intense experience and have been trying to integrate this into your waking
life. However, proper integration of such an experience cannot take place without
attending to the stages of the path which involve purification of the nafs, as well as
bringing online, so to speak, one's other spiritual modalities.
The reason why your
attempt at integration and reconciliation have never succeeded is because, in my opinion,
you lack the proper methodology to do so, and, even more importantly, you are trying to do
so in a spiritual void - that is, without the help, support, guidance and protection which
comes from an Order or silsilah (or its counterpart in other mystical traditions) and
which is transmitted through one of the spiritual guides who has been appointed to serve
as a locus of such transmission - a transmission extending back through all of the shaykhs
of a given Order, to the Prophets of God, and, ultimately, of course to Divinity Itself.
At the end of your
initial response to my e-mail to you concerning your experience during your teenage years,
you inquired about whether or not I, or my designate, would be willing to take on the
responsibility of providing spiritual guidance for you. You indicated you "understand
somewhat ... what it takes to be a reasonable student".
My own personal
experience, along with that of others I know who are on the Path, suggests that most of us
don't really know what it takes to be a 'reasonable student' prior to the fact of stepping
onto the Path. This is something one tends to learn, if one is lucky, as one goes along.
Many things which we take
to be reasonable about ourselves in the beginning often turn out to be quite unreasonable,
if not burdensome, later on. If one knew, prior to the spiritual quest, where, precisely,
one was going, or how, or if, one would get there, or what one would find out about
oneself when one got there, there would be no need for such a venture.
The nature of our
essential spirituality is, with apologies to a Star Trek movie, the real
‘undiscovered country’. The great cloud of unknowing which shrouds this country
both attracts and terrifies us.
Sir Alec Guiness said at
the beginning of his autobiography, when he was invited to jot down thoughts on his life
and career - 'my ego was flattered, but I was terrified'. When one contemplates the
possibility of setting out on the great spiritual voyage, there are many facets of the ego
which get enamored with the idea of mystical pursuits, but there also are deeper, more
knowing dimensions of the self which have good reason to feel an intuitive terror since
the journey often tends to be long, difficult and rigorous, with many pitfalls along the
way.
Like Dorothy, we all feel
the ecstasy of setting out on the yellow brick road with the whole town of Munchkins to
see us off - singing, waving, laughing and dancing. But, soon the town and its people are
left far behind, and we have only the unknown with which to deal, and we begin to realize
that we are not in Kansas any longer.
Not everyone who starts
out, finishes. And, of those who do finish, everyone of them is slain.
You spoke about your
absolute attraction to, as well as your absolute terror of, your experience.
Notwithstanding what has been said above, it is your ruh or spirit which is absolutely
attracted by that to which you were given a brief opening so many years ago, and it is
your nafs or carnal soul which is absolutely terrified by what it senses to be the
significance of the potential which was given expression by the experiential portal to
which, by the Grace of God, you were given a threshold exposure.
Your spirit wishes to
return to it original relationship with Divinity - the one which it enjoyed in
pre-eternity prior to coming into this world. The nafs is terrified because it must become
completely transformed if the ruh is to be able to return 'Home'.
For the nafs,
transformation is death. This is why I said earlier that every individual who reaches the
desired goal of spirituality or mysticism is slain.
All that we think of as
‘me’, ‘I’, or the ‘self’ must be effaced and reconstituted.
One must become absent from the influences of self, so that one can become open to the
Presence of Self.
The Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) has said the movements of the nafs or carnal soul within us is more
difficult to detect than the movements of a black ant on a smooth rock in the dead of
night. We must surrender to Haq or Reality, and, yet, more often than not, every time we
feel we are surrendering fully, we come to learn we only are surrendering to one or
another concept of things which we have, or to one or another attachment which we have, or
to one or another orientation of the nafs.
The nature of the
phenomenology of experience is there always tends to be a sense of fulness about it. The
fetus has no conception of the external world, and, yet, there is a fullness about its
experience in the womb.
The child has no
conception of adult love and feels that whatever is experienced during childhood has a
fullness to it. The adult gains success, fame and material goods and wonders what more
could there be?
The one who aspires to
heaven and listens to the descriptions of paradise says, surely, there could be nothing
beyond this. A person falls madly in love and believes this is the be all and end all of
experiential possibility, until the same individual falls even more deeply in love with
something or someone which had not been conceived at the time of initially falling in
love.
The fact your spiritual
experience had a sense of fullness about it is like the foregoing. You may feel there is
nothing more that could be added to it, but you are being influenced by the phenomenology
of that experience and not by the Nature of Reality.
The Sufi Masters speak of
"bewilderment" being one of the highest stations or maqams. Those who are in
this station are bewildered because they cannot keep up with the openings of the Infinite
which are being disclosed to them on a continuous basis.
The very nature of
Infinity is to be inexhaustible and uncircumscribable. Whatever one's experience may be,
and as full and complete as it may seem at the time one is undergoing it, nevertheless,
will, in time and if one is blessed, be shown to be but one of an endless array of
possibilities.
And, prior to arriving at
the station of bewilderment, there are many other maqams or stations which must be
experienced in order for the individual to become complete and fully operational, so to
speak. Different individuals have different ways of "talking" about this journey
of stations.
For instance, one way of
describing the stations is as follows. First there is compatibility, then inclination,
fellowship, passion, friendship, exclusive friendship, ardent affection, enslavement, and,
finally, bewilderment.
Another approach to the
same sort of journey of stations uses a different vocabulary. Thus, there is repentance,
longing, fear, sincerity, patience, dependence, and love.
Whatever the vocabulary
which may be used, there are a number of things which are going on during the journeying
from station to station. The nafs, heart, sirr (mystery), ruh (spirit), kafi (hidden), and
aqfah (more hidden) - which are different instrumentalities, if you will, of human
potential - are being calibrated and brought on line so that the individual becomes, God
willing, a fully functioning and realized servant of Divinity.
This process of spiritual
journey or suluk is not a matter of one or a small handful of experiences. In fact, there
may be no "mystical" experiences, per se, attached to such a journey.
It is faith,
understanding, certainty, and commitment which is being alchemically transformed. This
transformation may, or may not, be accompanied by mystical experiences of a particularly
intense and overwhelming sort.
The experience which you
had was, as indicated in my previous e-mail, not a maqam. It was a harbinger of
possibility.
A maqam is a very great
thing in which, by the Grace of God, one abides on an on-going basis. Its influence is not
that of a distant experience which still reverberates in one' s memory, but of a fully
present companion that informs the individual directly, presently, and intensely according
to the nature of that station.
Your faith,
understanding, and commitment were, to a degree, affected by your experience. But, a great
deal of work still needs to be done. A great many stations remain to be traversed. There
are many dimensions of your potential which have not been calibrated and brought on line.
This is not work which
can be done on a trial and error basis or in isolation. Hazrat Ali (may God be pleased
with him) who was the son in law of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and who is
one of the great Sufi Masters, once said: 'The one who would step onto the spiritual path
but does not have a spiritual guide, has Satan or Iblis as a guide.'
Iblis is not a myth
suitable only for scaring impressionable children. Iblis is a real, metaphysical force
capable of affecting all that we feel, think and do.
The one who seeks to
undertake the spiritual journey without proper support, protection and assistance, has
absolutely no compass, map, or means of determining whether the provisions and drink one
finds along the way will be helpful or lead to one's destruction. As a result, such an
individual is vulnerable to the urges, direction, and whisperings of Iblis to the nafs.
Everything becomes a
mirage. Reality is lost. What seems reasonable, may not be. Judgment becomes suspect.
In such a condition, one
really is not ready to teach others. How can the blind lead the blind?
Under such circumstances,
trying to serve as someone else's guide becomes burdensome because we are being informed
by something true within us that we are not currently suitable for such an undertaking,
and, yet, we are seeking to swim upstream against this current of understanding. When the
time is right, when the call to service has been made, when the proper spiritual authority
and support are present, then sincere seekers are never experienced as a burden, for
service to humanity becomes service to Divinity.
Being a spiritual guide
is not an individual choice to do or not to do. Being a legitimate spiritual guide is an
appointment given through a lineage of spiritual authority which, ultimately, is
sanctioned by Divinity.
The truth, value, weight,
and authoritativeness of guidance comes not from an individual but from Divinity. The
individual is the one which has been selected and prepared to serve as a door of
manifestation of such guidance.
It is the spiritual
lineage which stands behind an individual guide. And, Divinity, in turn, underwrites, all
that is done through the spiritual lineage.
In order to bring balance
into another person's life, one must, first, come to know what balance is, and, one must
struggle to inculcate such balance in one's own life. In this regard, many of us have a
habit of putting the cart before the horse.
We may feel we know what
we are doing when we direct energies toward this or that person, but, more often than not,
we are like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice portion of Fantasia. In reality, it
is more akin to practicing medicine without a license, and the fact no one complains does
not necessarily mean, therefore, no harm is being done.
There is no object and
subject. There is only Divinity.
Object and subject are
experienced in a state of epistemological and phenomenological separation from Divinity.
When, by the Grace of God, full spiritual realization is achieved, then manifestation
comes to understand its essential nature and true identity: in essence we are Divine, but
we are not Divinity in Essence.
There is a sound to one
hand clapping. But, it helps to know whether one is talking right hand or left hand.
The sound of the left
hand clapping is that of misguidance and illusion. The sound of the right hand clapping is
that of God calling us back to our original Home.
Learning to tell the
difference between the two is not an easy task for there are many forces and factors which
impact on this differentiating process. The mystical path is the means by which one comes
to learn, understand and apply the difference between the two sounds of clapping.
I asked you about your
family situation because a person does not pursue the Sufi discipline outside of a
social/family/community context. You should speak to them about what you are thinking of
undertaking.
You should see if they
have worries, concerns or questions about the process. It is always easier to pursue the
Path when you have the support and encouragement of your family.
You don't want to appear
to them like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters who, much to the chagrin of his children
and wife, is constructing strange shapes and forms at the supper table with the mashed
potatoes. Although you will not have to do anything strange like this on the Sufi Path,
nonetheless, to a casual observer, the whole idea of mysticism can seem rather bizarre, if
not irrational, and, consequently, loved ones may wonder if a person who is contemplating
stepping onto the Path has lost her or his mind.
This brings us full
circle to where the present e-mail began and your e-mail ended. As such, it raises the
question of just what do you think becoming a student of a given spiritual guide entails?
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