Being & Belonging

I belong nowhere, therefore I belong everywhere. Smatterings of chattering in several languages help me shape-shift at will. I have a saffron-clad Swami to thank for learning as a child the taste of the company of the enlightened. I have the awliya' (awakened beings) of Islam to thank for compass-points on this journey. My heart is a light-detector - it works brilliantly if I keep it tarnish-free. So many relationships have helped me learn this art: my father (he is my 'country'), my mother, my grandmother, my husband, my kids, my siblings, my precious friends, the shayukh & the fuqara, strangers on a plane, the blind beggar two streets away, my saintly helpmates, my cat Sushi. Above all, the irresistible gravity of the soul's light is pulling, inviting me to fall...into oblivion's bliss.*

So much human endeavour is fraught with and fueled by the search for belonging and the need to belong. Books, films, poems, songs, art, buildings… thousands of items reek of this quest. We are all busy fulfilling this impulse and its sister impulse: the need to express this belonging.

Belonging is like a pendulum. It sweeps along an arc that is marked by many shades and textures that render each process of identification unique. Sometimes the markers that stick out are to do with place: the country of birth or childhood or chosen country of residence. Sometimes they are to do with profession: public service, creative arts, medicine etc. Other times they are to do with social constructs: class, tribe; or religious affiliation, or disability, or personality traits, or... The mind boggles at all the DNA permutations of how we envision our belonging.

As someone who has had her sense of belonging challenged by a peripatetic upbringing and lifestyle, I’ve been forced to look beyond static markers. Increasingly as I grow older, the signposts of belonging are becoming unmoored from time and place and circumstance. Even as the markers become more rarified – to do with beliefs, outlooks, affinities, self-deconstruction – they are still morphing ahead into undefined, fluid zones where the markers almost cease to have any form or relevance.

The Qur’an tells us ‘inna lillah wa inna ilayhi raj’iun’ —‘Surely we are Allah's and unto Him we return.' Often the only time we invoke this verse is when someone we know dies. Then it’s like, ‘Ah yes, there was nothing permanent or possessed about this life at all…’, and we sigh wistfully as the  hollowness of a life attached is revealed for the mirage it is. We keep forgetting, so we keep needing to remember.

When I read this verse I am reminded that we are more connected to the Unseen – the ‘alam al-ghayb – than we like to admit or realize. There’s a practical veiling of our consciousness that falls into place – a necessary one for without it likely as not we would unravel and lie there in a pulsating heap of cells, electrical impulses, whimsical fancies and viscera. The power of sight greedily gobbles up the chiaroscuro of waking life to persuade us that everything around us is real and huge and is filling us and our lives to bursting point. And this illusion is shored up further by the conditioned consciousness, individual and shared – all those neural pathways etched and grooved with commonly held truths and facts and factoids about our lives. But the blind lead the way in showing us that an immense world exists that cannot be ‘seen’. Through their other senses – often sharpened beyond the norm – they become more adept at perceiving nuances in tone, alterations in the vibrational energy of a room, maybe more prescient even.

When the power of insight starts to develop we can start to bridge the link between the Seen and the Unseen.  Not everything that we can feel has a form. Not every marker of identity can define us fully. We need to belong, but equally, we need to escape the confines of that belongingness.  We can begin to sense that belonging is not a goal with fixed goalposts. Through refinement of our inner senses we can tap into subtle resources that will begin to reveal to us a deeper awareness of belonging and identity. That can only come through switching off the outer senses. Quietening the mind. Turning inward. Becoming silent. Still. Plumbing the depths of invocation to a zone where no sound is recognized, though indeed a sound may be emitting. 

The Qur’an indicates the methodology or refining the inner senses in numerous places and ways: through reflection (tafakkur), through witnessing (tashahhud), through intellecting (ta’aqqul), and above all through remembering (tadhakkur).  ‘Ala bi dhikri’llah tatma’in al-qulub'  – ‘Is it not by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured and made tranquil?’ This is the supreme technique to reach inner peace: remembrance of Source, of the One and Only Being. 

This by implication means abandoning attachment to any idea of belonging, certainly to any place or time, and more importantly, to the sway of the egotized self. Such invocation leads to an emptying of the small ‘self’, a stripping, a denuding of those illusory veils that enable us to play our part in the theatre of life. With the self made transparent, the soul’s light cannot but shine through.  If that itmi’nan is located – that reassurance, tranquility and peacefulness – then we return to Source as the Qur’an describes, ‘ya ayyatuha’n-nafsal-mutma’innah, irja’i ila rabbika radiyatan, mardiyyah’ – ‘Oh soul that is in inner peace, return to your Lord, pleased and well-pleasing.’

*After I had submitted this paragraph as a background story for IMOW, I was inspired to write the rest of this blog entry. Click here to find out more about this cool project International Museum of Muslim Women

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)

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)