A Light Case of DURD

I confess it: I have a mild case of DURD (pronounced almost like 'dirt' in a scots brogue). To an Urdu speaker 'durd' means pain. A Persian speaker would pronounce it 'dard' (almost like 'dad'), but it would mean the same thing.


DURD is actually my contribution to the burgeoning DSM list of mental health syndromes. In my world it stands for: Disaffection Upon Reentry Disorder.

Its a mild case of losing that unitive way of perception I try hard to maintain. Hence the disaffection. Whenever you see two, there is conflict and confusion. The reentry is returning to my habitat of the last decade: Karachi. The twoness comes from being plucked out of one environment - in this case South Africa over the last two weeks -  and thrust back into my usual orbit of mundane existence.
 
You may conclude that I am experiencing grief because of comparing the two places. Not so. I actually appreciate each on their own merits. I love Karachi. I love SA. You will have to trust me on this for to make my case would be to deflect from this post. I'm too old to believe any longer that any one place is better than another. Comparisons usually boil down to being six of one thing and half a dozen of the other. And I'm comfortable with the idea of trade-offs. Contrasts in time and place provide the texture of life - the silks, the rough weaves, the intarsias, the devorées - without which everything would be boring old cambric. C'est la vie!

The Durd I experience is akin to a space shuttle returning to the earth's atmosphere. If a space shuttle could talk, I'm sure it would grimace with the loss of a few tiles and sealants as it bursts through into our oxidizing atmosphere. It might even weep. I have done neither. I merely feel disconnected, like a non-participant observer. Moving as if in a dream. Maybe a slither of jet lag lends a certain fuzziness. Or soul lag. I heard somewhere that for every hour flown it takes a day for the soul to adjust and catch up. Maybe I should write this post in two weeks then?

Why mention my private ailment at all? There was a time when my DURD would have been located in my heart strings - the heart being wrenched from its attachments. These days, it is merely a certain creeping sadness at parting from some of my beloveds. My father, mother, family and close friends on the path. With them I am privileged to share such a communion of the spirit and soul that every nook and cranny of life - ie life as I perceive it - becomes suffused with joyfulness.

Among the people of the path, the degree of reflectivity is so intense that all shadows are banished. Light dominates and intoxicates. To dive further into this: it is the light of the Shaykh that banishes our ego-shadows. So pure and polished is his reflective mirror, so unconditionally loving is his gaze, we are rendered pure and ennobled by it. Remove it and the tenebrous tones of selfhood start to creep back in. The nafs rears its head and reclaims its territory. We are prisoners once more as heedlessness (ghaflah) takes over.

While he was among his people, the Nur (light) of the Prophet Muhammad (S) enrobed everyone around him in nobility and honour. Once that light dimmed, egos once again reasserted themselves to varying degrees. And our history is made up of those battles between the higher and the lower forces impelling man into history.

There's good news for sufferers of DURD, however. No shaykh worth their spiritual salt seeks to maintain a coterie of hangers on. The teacher is there to help you learn and own that knowledge for yourself, not to create co-dependency. His task is to help dis-illusion you from the self's multiple veils. Shakyh Fadhlalla often humorously alludes to his failure as a shaykh for when he looks around the room he sees the same faces. Clearly they have not got the message and moved on yet, he has often commented laughingly. That may be true, for our path pivots on acknowledging our helplessness and neediness. Being faqir is that: poor in one's need of Allah.

But our seeking to be in his company is more often the pull to feast at the banquet of love that his presence cannot but help show us. Where we see through a glass darkly, the shaykhly presence illuminates and scintillates. He helps us see that, after all, 'And Allah's is the East and the West, and wherever you turn there is the face of Allah; indeed Allah is all-Encompassing, all-Knowing.'[2:115]