Faadil's question on identity & beingness

 After reading my Blogpost 'B & B', Faadil, a friend from South Africa, wrote to me with this question:
  
'The self is inextricably linked with the social organisation. Identity is derived from the contrasts of the "otherness" of social organisation. So much of Sufism centres around this theme," See creation as yourself or even better than yourself", says Shaykh Fadhlalla. So, is the experience of  identity also the experience of "otherness" of the social group? How does  this relate to "beingness"?'

Having not actually defined anywhere what I mean by 'being and becoming' (I rather thought to let this drip-feed through the posts!), here's a response to Faadil's question that was specifically triggered by my statement: "And yet. and yet. The only aperture through which you can experience this 'beingness', this miracle of existence, is the self, your 'self'."

That blogpost was only a cursory glance at identity.  I would certainly agree that our identity does derive part of its contours and textures from the 'otherness' of social organization. Aspects of our identity are defined in relation to our role in other people's lives, or larger social units, or organizations. We are each sons or daughters, mothers or fathers, brothers or sisters, friends or co-workers, and so on. We are also teachers, artists, lawyers, counsellors, doctors, sweepers, factory workers, craftsmen, sailors etc.

How we define ourselves is often in correlation to archetypes, stereotypes and human 'tropes' if you like. Psychology has given us several typographies we can subscribe to  - like the Myers Briggs - to help chart our personalities and locate ourselves in relation to others, or how we are perceived by others.

But is the sum total of our identity dependent on the 'otherness' of 'social organization'? To some extent it is dependent on the perception of 'otherness' coming from within ourselves. Carl Jung wrote: 'Not only can you analyze your unconscious, you can let your unconscious analyze you.' Our self-awareness, like the torchlight of a third party on the cavern of our own psyche, can be perceived as an 'other' in relation to an Essential Self - a non-changing background of soul-energy that is linked to Higher Consciousness that is just that - Pure Consciousness,  unlimited, undefined, eternal.

Conscious awareness of beingness, of existing both in time and space and yet somehow connected to something that transcends the limitations necessarily imposed by by these dimensions,  is not limited by the shadings and colourings of our individual identity. Nor is it separate to it. Rather, it is woven through the warp and weft of it. This is part of the dazzling, endlessly interesting paradox of the human condition. 

Your quote of Shaykh Fadhlalla's statement is possibly taken from a discursive context of how one should approach one's 'self'.  He implies seeing things with the eye of tawhid, in which there is no separation between you and anything outside of yourself. Failing that, if you cannot stop seeing yourself in separation, then at the very least you should see yourself  as wanting in relation to the perfection saturating creation, thus placing yourself on the carpet of humility that is per se the portal to higher knowledge and freedom from the illusion of separation. Shaykh Fadhlalla often exhorts us to have least concern with the self. If you are least concerned with the ego-self, or micro-self, the idea is that you should be most concerned with the macro self, the ONE SELF from which Allah created all selves. And what is that but light reflected from Him, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and refracted through the prism of our individual identities.

Hopefully I've answered in part your questions, Faadil. Apologies if I haven't or I misunderstood. I'll leave you with something from the supreme poet and realized master, Maulana Rumi:

We are from above and up we will go.

We come from the sea, we'll go to the sea.

We're from there, not from here.

We are from nowhere, to nowhere we'll go.

Like Noah's ark in the flood

we must move without legs.

Like a wave, we grow out of ourselves.

When we want to feast our eyes, we withdraw.

The way to God is narrow as the eye of a needle. 

We slip though alone like a single thread.

Remember home and companions

knowing that we leave them behind.

You have read: 'We return to Him,"

so you know where it is we are going.

Our star isn't found in the turning wheel.

We're bound to venture past the Pleiades.

O words, stop. Don't come with me - 

I'm leaving even my self behind.

O mountain of self-existence, stay out of our way.

We're on our way to Mount Qaf and the Anqa.

(From: Say Nothing, Poems of Jalal al-Din Rumi in Persian & English', Iraj Anvar & Anne Twitty, Morning Light Press 2008)

Glossary:

Tawhid: unity, the underlying connectivity of everything seen and unseen.

Subhanahu wa ta'ala: May He be glorified and exalted.

Mount Qaf: Mystical mountain that surrounds the world, metaphorical destination of the journey to Divine presence.

Anqa: another name for the Simorgh, the mythical bird that lives on Mount Qaf, symbolizing Divine presence, wisdom and truth (Anvar & Twitty, 130)

Violence, Resilience, 'Beingness' & Light

Lately I've been reading a lot about what women in conflict zones go through and it leaves me feeling as if my solar plexus has been gouged out. The sufferings of women in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Congo, Sudan (the list goes on and on)... seems endlessly awful. Here in Pakistan a war of attrition is visited upon women, and not just of the underprivileged classes. To traditional cultural practices of  honour killings  (Karo-Kari, Watta Satta) and other suffocating social customs, are added other ills like acid attacks, social inequality, collateral damage from the 'war on terrorism', mishandled rehabilitation post-'natural' disasters, and the ghastly misinterpretation of religious precepts in frankly nonsensical laws (e.g. the Hudood Ordinance).

Given my nature, my training, and the purpose of this blog, how does this have anything to do with the idea of living life at a higher vibrational frequency? How can the profound ugliness of rape and violence connect to the quest to live life in a loftier, purer, happier state of beingness? Surely all this grossness is evidence of what beingness is NOT about: injustice, disharmony, prejudice, vilification, implosive destruction?

My daughter's high school recently put on a play that drew you in to literally taste the personalized trauma which Bosnian women went through during the four years in which the rest of Europe ignored them, while the Serbs waged their genocidal war against them (Eve Ensler's play 'Necessary Targets'). You might think that a bunch of privileged teenagers wouldn't be able to do justice to the depth of trauma and suffering needed to be conveyed to make for good theatre, but you would be wrong. They performed astonishingly well. The hairs on my arms stood up for hours beyond the curtain call. 

Maybe it was talent and excellent direction, but maybe also the fact that growing up in Pakistan, human suffering is not removed from their lives; they can witness it all around them, and experience it through the characters populating their daily experiences. Contrary to the consistently skewed slant on news bulletins on Pakistan, the philanthropic element in human nature is thriving in this country, though it is certainly still insufficient. Without the numerous private charitable and developmental enterprises sustaining and bolstering the human will to survive and develop, the true extent of the government's manifold shortcomings would be even more obvious. As it is, the good works of such non-governmental agencies (not just NGOs I must add, but 'unregistered' private citizens) remains the secret key to why this nation is not a 'failed state'. The resilience and perseverance of Pakistanis is admirable.

And this is what I want to talk about here: the will to live, human resilience. It is so deeply connected to the root of our being. In extremis the will to survive can become a purely selfish end. More often than not, however, we are surrounded by examples of selfless service where the efforts of one, or several individuals coming together to work as one, help to give others a chance to live and thrive and do more than just survive. There is an instinctive sense at play that once we are assured of our survival, we need to share with others, that somehow our own fortune is tied to the fortune of the greater collective - 'no man is an island unto himself.'

Deep within us there is something that never dies: a life-line called soul, breathed into our forms from beyond time and space by Divine Command - or however you may label it. As a Muslim I am naturally awed by the Qur'anic account of the moment when Divine Will is manifest in creation: 'Kun fa yakun!' Be and it is! [2:117]

We come into existence, into form bound by time and space and are governed by the persuasive illusion of chronology, by the Creator (Al-Khaliq), the Originator (Al-Mubdi'). We are kept alive by the Ever-living (Al-Hayy), the Eternally Self-Subsistent (Al-Qayyum). The human soul knows, understands and hankers for the Ever-Alive and seeks the impeccable self-sufficiency of the Eternally  Self-Subsistent.

It seems to me that the soul energy of our 'beingness'  gives rise to our resilience. It lends power and energy to the will to survive. As long as the decree favours breath, we humans have no option but to struggle and strive, to recover, to mend, to adapt, to grow, to heal, to make changes, to ameliorate, to share. 

Resilience is something that may be weakened or bent, diminished or increased, but rarely expunged. There is always an exception to be found, however, like the case of Fakhra Yunus, a woman disfigured by acid thrown on her by a vengeful husband and who, after 12 years of plastic surgery could no longer muster the effort to live and threw herself out of her apartment building in Rome.  I cannot conjecture what limit she had reached that pushed her literally over the edge. I cannot help feeling that she was not solely responsible for her own death; the society that allowed this to happen, and enabled the perpetrator to go unpunished, and still allows this heinous crime to occur, must surely also bear the guilt of a slow murder.

Equally there are other stories like Mukhtaran Mai's or Waris Dirie's. There are no happy endings, just catalysts for ongoing change - slow, painful, but necessary change. Being resilient means hovering between fragility and strength, and above all being tenacious.

The predisposition for resilience is there within each one of us, reflecting the ongoing nature of the soul which, though it may slough off its mortal coil at some point, continues to radiate beyond the confines of cellular life. Our resilience is coded into the very blueprint of our soul. Allah is the 'Light of the Heavens and Earth' [24:36]. Nothing will satisfy us unless we have some of this light in our lives. We can never be satisfied with the darkness that lurks in the tenebrous depths of human nature. Like moths impelled to lamp-light, we too seek 'Nur', for this Light is beautiful, luminous, glorious and eternal.


Glossary:
Nur: Light; Allah's Light.

Heart Radar

Heart radar sweeps
acid white line
strips shadows away
The field is clear

Sonar echo senses
submarine contours
in heart terrain
The field is clear

Sodium torch
scours the perimeter
fences unbreached
The field is clear

Flames frame face
by fireside revealing
still waters
This heart is clear

This heart turns
This heart is free
One axis

One praxis

Prophetic

(Sultan Bahu, Garh Maharaj, Punjab 2010)

Recipe: Dhokla

Recipe: DHOKLA

Recently I’ve gone a bit bananas about this dish. It’s cooked at least once a week, every week in my house and because it’s both so easy and so tasty it’s become my favourite dish to share with my dhikr ladies.

This simple, classic Gujarati savoury snack called Dhokla  feels to me like soul food. I originally got it off the net, but we’ve cooked it so many times now it’s a staple of my cuisine. In other homes I’ve mostly eaten it made with gram flour, but this one is made with suji (semolina). The tastiness belies the ease. You will need a steamer and pyrex dish to fit. This version is a fairly low-fat one. If you were to add a fried garnish, the extra oil would bump up the calories. I sometimes do a fried garnish of mustard seeds and curry leaves, because I adore the flavor of curry leaves, but if my chutney has them in it, then I rarely do. Ideally you should mix the semolina with the yoghurt and leave it to ferment together for an hour or two. I rarely plan that far ahead; beating the ingredients well together works just fine.

DHOKLA Ingredients:

1 cup/mug suji (semolina)

1 cup/mug yoghurt, whisked

1 heaped tsp ginger paste

1 minced green chilli

1 Tbs chopped coriander

1 Tbs flavourless cooking oil (fresh, not previously used for frying)

1 tsp soda bicarb

½ tsp salt

Red chilli pepper to sprinkle.

DHOKLA Garnish:

                           Some fresh Coriander leaves chopped

1 TBS desiccated coconut (unsweetened)

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients well, pour into an oiled glass dish, sprinkle lightly with red chilli pepper.

2. Place in steamer, cover & steam for about 25 minutes.

3. Remove, sprinkle with desiccated coconut & the fresh coriander & leave to cool.

4. Serve either slightly warm or cooled. Slice into diamond shapes (easy way:  after scoring in straight lines, next score across at a 45 degree angle). Arrange pieces on a platter with space for a ramekin for the chutney.

DHOKLA chutney:

             1 cup coriander leaves

1 cup mint leaves (or I cup fresh curry leaves – don’t bother with dried ones)

1 whole green chilli or more to taste

Juice of two limes

1 Tbs desiccated coconut

1/4 tsp salt

Method:

Blend all ingredients together in a blender (not in a food processor if it will only chop it fine as the texture you are looking for is creamy and smooth).

Drizzle some chutney over a piece, eat & feel good!

Bismillah!

Cooking with Presence ©

The Two-fold Courtesy to Cooking

As a very young woman with a keen love of cooking and breaking bread with family and friends, a sheet of paper came into my possession on which was written something by Rumi’s cook. In it he spoke about the two-fold courtesy towards food. It struck a chord deep within me - for being an instinctive cook, it mirrored an awareness that I had unconsciously been bringing to my cooking -  and still do though now more consciously.

The first courtesy, he wrote, is the courtesy towards the food ingredients themselves, for through the process of preparing and cooking you are giving the raw materials the chance to become part of a higher order of being – to transform from the vegetable or animal to the human. And in Islamic cosmology there is no higher being created that inhabits this dimension, the world of the Seen. Notwithstanding the complaint voiced by the angels when Allah informs them that He is to create a steward on earth and they object, knowing full well the bloodshed and destruction we would wreak, the potential lies within each of us to become consciously godly, refined souls, contented and self-realized.

The second is the courtesy towards those for whom you are preparing the food, for you are helping to nourish and sustain them in this process of living life and awakening. Thus cooking can be considered a sacred act, a foundational alchemy for enabling humans to reach their full potential – after all,  'you are what you eat'. 

For years I had observed the meticulousness with which my Danish mother used to prepare our meals, organized, clean and tasty repasts of Danish, European and Iraqi dishes. I had participated in the abundant and loving chaos generated by my Arab paternal grandmother as she stuffed vegetables (Dolma) or made a delicious marga. 

After I was married I learned even more about Cooking with Presence from my mother-in-law. Khala-jan's Indian cuisine was the refined UP (Uttar Pradesh) variety, more Mughal and Persian influenced than the southern, more coco-nutty states. She would always approach her cooking in a state of wudu', incanting 'bismillahi 'r-rahmani 'r-rahim' over every  stir of the pot or addition of an ingredient, and would extract whole and powdered spices from her cupboard with the confidence and glee of a culinary sorcerer. Nothing would please her more than to have her food appreciated and lips licked with satiety, and indeed nothing still does so at the ripe old age of 83!

As an instinctive cook, I mostly allow the ingredients to 'speak' to me. They tell me what to do with them. Does anyone else converse with their food? I recall my grandmother good humouredly making kissing sounds at her pot of freshly made yoghurt, in the hopes of getting it to set well, always a gamble in cold weather. She'd then wrap it up in blankets and place it near the Aga or in a closet. The climate I live in now makes home-made yoghurt a foolproof enterprise. I don't so much rely on kiss-coaxing the lactobaccilli into a happy state of fermentation as on my housekeeper's wonderful trick of whipping in the starter with a whisk for a good few minutes before leaving it aside to set. This helps to break up the thick cream molecules of the fresh buffalo milk we get and reduces the creamy thickness of the crust, the mouthfeel of which I don't particularly like.

I love it when the experience of cooking becomes a meditative act. Surely this is how it is meant to be – not some daily drudgery. Losing yourself in the crunchy slicing of crisp Chinese Cabbage, inhaling the green scents of freshly chopped dill, coriander or mint, boiling chickpeas in anticipation of a pleasing softness suitable for hummous or chaat, working butter through flour to achieve a light pȃte sucrée as an honourable base for a  seasonal fruit tart. I love the comforting sauna humidity of a kitchen filled with the steamy exhalations of a simmering stock pot, the chocolaty aromas given off by Boston brownies when they are just done, the elevating perfumes of saffron or rosewater as they waft off rice or milk pudding. From the washing of the ingredients, to the prepping, to the actual cooking and finally the serving, it’s a delight to forget oneself in the very process. As I work with intention, ingredient and process, my self is set aside, a new mode of beingness arises that is alive, creative and fun. Sheer alchemy!

Naturally, it’s not always possible to have the luxury of conditions congenial to a nirvana ecstasy of aashpazi, but if that is how cooking is experienced on a regular basis, then one will never stray far from good results. Having cooked with presence, you can easily find your way back to that state,  like building a muscle and finding it ready to regain its tone after a little neglect. 

Now, after this purple paean to cooking, read the next blog for a simple soul-food recipe for an easy to prepare savoury snack that’s become awfully popular among my friends. You’ve been asking me for the recipe: check the next blogpost! Noosh-e Joon!

Glossary:

Dolma: vegetables like onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, aubergines and young marrows excavated and stuffed with rice, herbs, meat, spices and other ingredients.

Marga: Iraqi word for stew or dish with gravy (MS Arabic: Marqah or maraq)

Wudu’: Islamic ritual ablution which consecrates one for prayer.

Bismillahi’r-rahmani’r-rahim: In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Hummous: ubiquitous chickpea paté, often made with the addition of tahini, sesame seed paste.

Chaat: Indo-Pak ‘salad’ of chickpeas, onions, tomatoes, coriander, green chillis and with dressing of tamarind and/or yoghurt.

Pȃte sucrée: Sweet pastry

Aashpazi: Persian for cooking.

Noosh-e Joon: Bon appétit.

Fan hums 'One'

Often when I go
to wake up my daughter for school,
I lie next to her for a bit.
Today I did.
The ceiling fan was turning
languorously, humming lazily,
crescendo,
diminuendo,
and slowly the pulse
drew my attention.
As I tuned in
to the ball-bearing drone,
I heard it say
'We are one, we are one'.
I smiled.
Then tried to hear it differently.
I couldn't.
It kept on humming
'We are one, we are one.'

Pure Doing

 I have barely started wandering through the scented garden of 'being' or 'becoming' but thought to share something about 'doing'.

‘One of the signs of dependence on one’s own actions is the loss of hope when mistakes occur.’

This aphorism or Hikmah is from the great 13^th century Moroccan Sufi Ibn ‘Ata'Allah's* collection of spiritual maxims entitled the 'Hikam', or the Wisdom of ibn ‘Ata’Allah. His book offers a compendium of deeply insightful guidance on the path of self-awakening, decoding the higher order of reality that underlies apparent existence, the nature of the Sufi path and highlights the trickeries of the self. The tone and spare elegance of his writings have helped characterize the Shadhili tradition as a path, above all, of sobriety, austerity even. Not for them is the display of inward states of intoxication; these are to remain hidden and allowed to increase in density and intensity so as to obliterate the shadows of the self in the effulgent luminescence of Divine Light. It has also been the subject of several illustrious commentaries (like Ibn 'Abbad al-Rundi's or Ibn 'Ajibah's),the most recent of which has been done by Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri, simply titled 'The Hikam - The Wisdom of Ibn 'Ata' Allah'. This book is without doubt one of constant recourse in my life. Its truisms have many a time lifted me out of the mire of forgetfulness or self-pity and helped fine-tune my ability to decode the true nature of what is going on with me.

This maxim identifies a litmus test of how pure our intention was behind any action, in particular when a mistake is made and the outcome isn’t what was wanted. Feeling disheartened indicates stock placed in unmet expectations, rather than in Allah’s power alone. By contrast a neutral reaction implies equanimity born of having done one’s best and having left the rest in Allah’s hands, trusting that whatever the outcome would be for the best, and never wavering in that resolve.If an error has been made and acknowledged and thereby humbled us, then, according to another Hikmah (number 96), it is far preferable to an act of obedience that engenders arrogance.

No matter how competent we may be, no matter how skilful, the teaching in this saying points to the reality that as long as you identify with yourself, as long as you see actions originating from ‘you’, you are consigned to remain at the mercy of the self, the apparent 'other', rather than experience the liberation of pure action. The wise place their faith utterly in Allah, while undertaking action as informed and well-judged as possible.

There is an echo of this teaching in the diwan of another great Moroccan master,  Shaykh Muhammad Ibn al-Habib (d.1972), in the qasidah of ‘Astaghfirullah’ – ‘I seek forgiveness of Allah’, which it is our tradition to sing in our circles of invocation:

‘I seek forgiveness of Allah for any act done without intention and for dismay which flows quickly into the heart.’

If the intention was clear and pure, no dismay would flood the heart. The action would have been free of any expectation. So if you find yourself suffering disappointment after disappointment, shine the light of honesty on your intentions. Without judgement. Just witness. See the connectivity.

Equally, if and when you make a mess of things, check within. Were you acting freely, without expectation? If regardless of the outcome you know you did your best, then be content with that. Let the voice of trust speak. Attachment to outcomes is still an attachment, and attachment is truly the source of our suffering. And Allah knows best!

Paradoxically, we fallible beings cannot function without patterns of expectation (baby cries, gets attention, thereby learning its needs are met; work hard and you will be rewarded; be nice to your neighbours and they will be nice to you). The whole stuff of life is warp and weft expectations! It’s what gives civil society order. And yet, in order to be free of their binding ties, the true seeker will find ways to let go, to simplify life, to be vigilant and self-aware, and hopefully to laugh and forgive herself. For this is the gift of our lifetime: time to learn, let go, forgive and bask in the love of the Source of all, the pure ‘Beingness’ at the core of creation.

* Full name Abu’l-Fadhl Ahmed ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abdu’l-Karim ibn ‘Ata’Allah al-Iskandari.

Glossary:

Hikmah: wisdom, wise saying.

Diwan: collection of poetry.

Qasidah: ode of 7 of more verses.

Quis nos es futurus nos es decens

Given my blog’s theme it’s a happy coincidence that the Latin motto of my daughter’s school roughly translates as: 'We are going to be who we are becoming' (apologies to classicists – my Latin O was a long time ago). It’s a hopeful message, alluding to the fulfilment of potential. The school’s mission claims to prepare the students for 'international institutions of higher learning and [to] become global citizens.' Reasonable and worthy goals. We’ve certainly signed up for them, though I’m not exactly sure what a global citizen is? Someone who can order from a menu in French, German, Spanish, Arabic or Mandarin? Someone who cares enough about their patterns of consumption and carbon footprint to live an eco-friendly, fair trade life? Someone whose cyber-activism can bring about welcome change thousands of miles away?

Or just someone who can serve the global banking fraternity equally productively in whatever hemisphere, continent or country they are posted?

We live life under a spell of linearity and purposefulness. Start here, end there. Make an intention, set a goal, take steps towards the goal, arrive! Bingo! Start again.  Branch out. Which one of us doesn't entertain multiple goals on multiple levels? 

The last several decades have seen the influence of traditional organized religion morph extensively and the whole self-actualization scene proliferate. Becoming something better, something ‘more’ than we ‘are’ seems to drive us all. The chronology of life is mimicked by our notions of progress. A lot of it revolves around how to 'get' what you 'want' - dream-weaving into actuality. The commercial success of enterprises like 'The Secret' have tapped into the realization that subtle universal laws govern our earthly experience – Allah’s ‘sunnah’ as it were. In this instance the attitude of gratitude is the key and keeping a gratitude journal is supposed to keep the law of attraction fizzing away in your favour and sending you all the things you want. The Qur'anic equivalent is of course ‘la'inn shakartum, la azidannakum’ -‘Give thanks and I shall increase you [in favour]’ [14:7]. What all the babble about the power of attraction doesn’t elucidate is the concomitant law of repulsion. But I digress.

I can't help feeling that the idea of arrival is a false one. Is there ever a point reached that is conclusive and final? (Yes, yes, death is pretty final, I know! Or is it? More on this another time!) Isn't the nature of our life-experience more organic? Our goals often seem to evolve. What was the stuff of dreams as a teenager changes in one's twenties, thirties, forties and so on. 

Often when we 'achieve', the sense of achievement isn't as satisfying as we thought it would be. The hole isn't filled, and so we move on, seeking something that will sustain us fully. This questing impulse in the core of our being impels us to become, to evolve, grow, change, strive. The becoming is a process. Maybe it reflects what the Qur’an says: ‘Every day He is in a [new] state [of glory]’ [55:29]. Every day is fresh, every moment new, every second a new moment in which to be!

p.s. For some delightful musical accompaniment to this blog, here's a song by Alexi Murdoch, 'All My Days' which my daughter just made me listen to. Rich mellifluous acoustics, honest lyrics...('Yes, even breathing feels alright...') Definitely a track to help you savour the moment. Thanks darling!

Glossary:

Sunnah: way, custom, pattern of behavior.

A Common Mis-Take

A few days ago I was visited by two delightful and profound women, one Muslim, the other Hindu, both of whose lives revolve around the quest for being true to their spiritual evolution. In the course of our intimate and heartfelt conversation, the Muslim friend expressed the need for continuing to conquer and overcome her ego. The twists and turns of her life had already demanded so much of her in sublimating her personal desires for the sake of a greater good, that it surprised me slightly that she, of all humble people, could still be yearning for that. It was of course a mark of her sincere humility and taqwa, of realizing that no matter how much one might think one knows or has mastered, what one doesn’t know is yet greater and that the ego is pernicious. The control she was referring to was, of course, over the negative aspects of the self, the parts that interfere with trusting in Allah, that fill one with fear, grief and anxiety – in short, the untethered ego-self (nafs) that makes you feel separate, alone, forgotten and forgetful.

Over the years I’ve found there’s a lot of confusion about this very idea of controlling the ego, particularly among aspirants on the Sufi path.  There is a notion among the sincere adherents or zealously inclined that the goal should be to extinguish the ego-self, to ‘kill’ it and stamp out its traces. Sufi poetry abounds in references to the extinction of the experiencing self, to 'fana''. The very concept of ‘fana’ implies death, after all. The groundwork for enabling such an experience is understood to be constancy in the full practice of Islamic rites of worship and, in addition to that, meditative reflection, invocation of litanies and Divine Names, serving brethren on the path and humanity, and acting against the ego-self. Fana' is rarely a once in a lifetime experience, though it could be. More often it is a state visited and revisited until daily consciousness is shifted from seeing everything in separation to witnessing with the eye of unity.

As a highly idealistic young woman, I found it relatively easy (or so it seemed to me at the time) to exert the influence of mind over matter, of going against my ego-self. The adolescent, black-white idealism suffusing my psyche could just cut through any fuzzy emotionality. If X was of the ‘nafs’ and ‘Y’ wasn’t, I’d do ‘Y’ – simple. I saw the logic of the exercise and I practiced it with alacrity.  I kept hearing in talks about the importance of going against the nafs, the ego-self, in order to become a better Muslim, a more attuned Sufi. The lower nafs was the enemy, a satanically inspired saboteur whose grip could be loosened by dosing it with negation. Without sublimating the nafs, awakening to higher consciousness was impossible. I also saw fellow wayfarers on the path struggle with the challenges they faced, but I never seemed to feel it in the same way (my own challenges came later in life, however!).  I remember one day longing for my father to come in and order me to give away my gold bangles (I was wearing about six 24carat ones from the Arabian Gulf). He never did, though I felt quite ready to give them away. Gradually I came to learn that as far as possessions went, it wasn’t so much the object itself, but the attachment to it that formed a barrier to freedom. Imam Ali had once defined zuhd, asceticism, thus: 'Zuhd is not that you should not own anything, but that nothing should own you.'

Possession of, or attachment to, objects or people or reputation isn’t the only way the nafs exerts its influence over us. The ego-self has its weaknesses and strengths. Without it we cannot exist. Without it we would not survive. But without the light of higher consciousness we would not thrive. There are mineral, vegetative and bestial elements to the ego-self – linking us all in common patterns of humanity. All these aspects need their sustenance if balance is to be kept.

In his talks, my father and spiritual master, Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri, has often referred to the inner 'zoo': we each possess a gallery of inner animals, i.e. tendencies characterized by different beasts, maybe one more dominant than others. Learning to recognize them is the key to releasing ourselves from their sway. The superb allegorical tale known as the Conference of the Birds by the twelfth century poet Fariduddin Attar uses the templates of different birds to represent different flavours of the ego-self and how they can hinder or propel one along in the journey to the courtyard of the Divine. 

Like many Sufi masters before him, Shaykh Fadhlalla has also spent a lot of time decoding for his listeners and readers the seven-fold model of the self that devolves from the Qur’an al-Karim, from the basest nafs al-ammarah, the commanding self, to the nafs al-mardiyyah, the self that is pleased and contented (see his book ‘Journey of the Self’ for a complete exposé of ‘Sufi psychology’, or even better, perhaps, study the first module of the Academy of Self Knowledge, for it gives you a fulsome mapping of the human being from its basest metal to its higher consciousness).

I once asked Shaykh Ikram Hussein Rizvi Seekari Chishti how to kill the self. He was a hakim and Sufi master of the Chistiyyah silsilah, based in Hyderabad, Sindh. We often met him when he would visit Karachi where he had a sizable following.  Looking at me with his ethereal and watery eyes, he lifted up a long boney finger and wagged it, tutting, ‘Don’t say that, for the point is not to kill the self,’ and then felt silent, his gaze penetrating me. At the time I was taken aback, given that aspiration to fana’  is a sine qua non goal of our spiritual practice. And from his otherworldly demeanour and isharah, I somehow understood that ‘killing’ the self was not the goal per se, but that the goal was transcending the self. 

So how to do that without aggressively squashing the self, and somehow denying an unalterable and fundamental part of our beingness? I have found the greatest clarity about this from the way Shaykh Fadhlalla has elucidated the relationship of the self to the soul, for though by its nature the self could be an obstacle, it need not be a barrier, if it could but dissolve into soul consciousness. Keep moving towards the light of the soul, away from the turbidities of the self, and somehow the self will align itself to the soul.

Glossary:
Taqwa: Cautious awareness, god-consciousness, a protective fear of disturbing one's connectedness to Divine will.

Fana’: Annihilation or extinction of the self in Allah. An essential phase in awakening to full presence of the Divine in Sufi cosmology. Bestowed ultimately by the grace of Allah, but also striven for by regular invocation, meditative practice and persistent mindfulness of attachments.

Nafs: Self, ego-self; also individual spirit or soul (as used in the Qur’an). related to the root meaning 'to breathe'.

Zuhd: asceticism, abstemiousness or doing without.

Al-karim: noble

Nafs al-ammarah: the commanding self - stubborn, wilful.

Nafs al-Mardiyyah: the self that is pleased or contentedly submitted to Allah - gracious, at peace.

Silsilah: chain of transmission of a particular Sufi tradition.

Isharah: indication; subtle teaching, usually wordless.

Poem - Just Be!

‘Just Be!’ -

That was the command of yore

and you came into existence

Or so you thought

‘Just Be!’

was the command before

and still now resounds

if you but listen

‘Just Be!’

is an ocean of infinity

releasing you from the jagged shore

if you but let it

‘Just Be!’

is the gateway to eternity

the connecting thread of then,

now and ever more

‘Just Be!’

is the anchor in the stormy chimera sea

over which swirling and whirling

tainted waters pour

‘Just Be!’

is the balm that blends

the real and unreal

in a blissed out united core

 ‘Just Be!’

so…

Just do it!

B & B

Very early in the morning, the day after I started this blog, my Muse shook me awake, hissing into my ear, ‘It was supposed to be ‘Being and Belonging!’ Oh yes, I mentally murmured, I think it was indeed. And then I went right back to sleep. So how did that happen? Does it matter? I think not! 

The idea of belonging is an adjunct of being and becoming. Belonging is about identity, a sense of self as well as feeling part of a greater whole, having a sense of ‘place’ in the world. Yet the goal of being a Muslim is to yield oneself into the greater will of Allah (subhanahu wa ta’ala), to overcome the smallness of one’s petty, limited nature by aspiring to the godly qualities of Allah’s Divine Names. So surely this means abandoning a personal ‘identity’? Or, to frame it in another way, the path of self-awakening, i.e. Sufism (tasawwuf), takes one along the journey of enhancing insight into the nature of reality, that the so-called ‘you’ is but a part of something far greater, far more sublime and indeed perfect, and that ultimately has no ‘identity’ separate to the vaster ‘entity’ of existence, pure beingness or Allah (I must acknowledge here my father for the dual terms of ‘identity’ and ‘entity’ in relation to the individuated self and Universal Self – which I will revisit in another post). In a nutshell: ‘you’ do not exist! How can you therefore claim what does not exist?! (Patience! More posts on this to come!)

And yet… and yet. The only aperture through which you can experience this ‘beingness’, this miracle of existence, is the self, your ‘self’.

The issue of identity has long fascinated me, for mine has been pliable since I was conceived.  I was born of a Danish mother (Lutheran background) and an Iraqi-Persian father (Islamic background), grew up and was educated in Iraq (Baathist but pre-Saddam), Lebanon (civil war days), England (C of E in the punk rock era), the US (booming yuppy times), and married a Pakistani with whom I have lived in three countries. Throughout I traveled extensively with my family in four continents, largely due to my father’s wanderlust and questing. People with our background seemed exotic and difficult to place. Pity for my interlocutors soon taught me to edit myself into boxes with which they could be comfortable. Of course, if I ever wanted to flummox anyone I’d give them the whole story. Every now and then someone would comment on what a problem it must be to not belong to anywhere. I could never accept that:  it simply was not a problem for me. My upbringing had somehow imbued me with enough confidence and cultural fluency that I felt at ease wherever I was, that I had a right to ‘belong’, in as far as I might want to. Whatever the source of that aplomb – the sense of entitlement born of relative privilege, sound parenting or a strong sense of self – overall I never felt I had to belong to one place or one culture alone and thereby limit myself. I relished the sense of the whole world being my oyster. (There is a dark underbelly to all this of course  - more of which another time!). 

From childhood I have had a sense that the need to belong was a spiritual red herring, even as I have variously tended to identify with one stream of influence over another. And life has unfolded to not only prove that true to me, but also to allow malleable and multiple senses of being at one with ethnicity, nationality, gender, class, religion and, indeed, my human fallibility. Ultimately, a liberating sense of my own identity has come by being true to all the layers in the sediment of my self, without denying one or promoting one over the other. The bedrock, however, has evolved over time to be distinctly Muslim. For now this is all I will say on belonging.

A word about my Muse. I’ve been woefully negligent of her advances. This is because she usually visits me in the wee hours, about one or two hours before fajr. Having lived according to the relentless timetable of school-going children for many years (early starts) and a husband who unlike the early bird I am tends towards the night owl, I have had to ignore her enticements to write in favour of much needed sleep. I’m not going to tussle with her any more. She’ll make me sick if I don’t listen to her.

Glossary:

Subhanahu wa ta’ala: May He be glorified and exalted

Tasawwuf: Sufism

Fajr: dawn, break of day (First Islamic prayer time of the day)