An overview is provided concerning different kinds of knowledge -- both secular and spiritual. During the course of this overview a number of anecdotes are related, and, as well, several Hadiths and an ayat of the Qur'an are also provided.
An overview is provided concerning different kinds of knowledge -- both secular and spiritual. During the course of this overview a number of anecdotes are related, and, as well, several Hadiths and an ayat of the Qur'an are also provided.
Different Kinds of Knowledge
When I was a high school freshman and sophomore, I participated in an experimental educational program that was sponsored by the Maine Department of Education. The program had two courses -- one dealt with science, while the other course covered topics in mathematics.
The program was one of many nation-wide responses to the fact that Sputnik had been launched several years earlier. As a result, Americans had entered into a catch-up modality of existence.
From time to time, students from different schools in the region that were participating in the experimental program would come together for presentations and discussions. This was done in conjunction with an itinerant instructor who served as a supplemental resource for the television shows that were being produced in science and mathematics and which all the participating students were watching on a weekly basis.
During one of those gatherings, the instructor posed to the class a question concerning infinity. I volunteered to answer the question and indicated that there were different kinds of infinity, and the teacher replied words to the effect that someone had been doing some reading, which, in fact, was true because at some point prior to that class I had taken a look at a book that had explored different ideas concerning a mathematical approach to the notion of infinity.
Fast forward a decade, or so, later – a time that coincided with the very early days of my stepping onto the Sufi path. This was prior to my becoming initiated a year or more later.
On Christmas Eve, I met with the individual who would become my shaykh. The meeting took place in what was one of the first mosques in Toronto, and I seem to recall that it occurred somewhere during the last ten days of Ramadan.
However, at the time I had not begun to observe the five pillars of Islam. Or, at least, I had not, yet, begun to observe the process of fasting.
I was taken to a spot toward the center of the main floor of the mosque where no one else was present or engaged in any sort of activity. After we sat down, I was given instructions for observing a certain zikr or form of remembrance, and as I began doing the zikr, a state came upon me that was quite pronounced.
I didn’t know what was happening. Nonetheless, although inwardly things were transpiring in a strange way, outwardly I don’t believe I was showing any indication of what was taking place within me.
I continued doing the zikr in the company of the shaykh. The session went on for an indeterminate period of time, and the state that had descended upon me continued on as well.
At some point, we stopped doing the zikr. The aforementioned state continued on for a while after we stopped and, then, gradually subsided altogether. I didn’t mention anything to the shaykh about what had, or was, happening.
I can’t tell you why I proceeded in the foregoing fashion. I suppose I was trying to get my head around what was transpiring, and I really had no reference point from the rest of my life that would provide guidance with respect to how to handle the situation.
Mystical experience of any kind had not been a part of my life or, to the best of my understanding, part of the life of anyone that I knew prior to that time, despite having lived in several cities in Maine as well as several cities in Massachusetts, lived for a time in New York City, and had lived in several cities in Canada. This was the case despite the fact that while I had been moving about here and there, I had met a fair number of individuals – both students and non-students, both religious and non-religious.
I stayed with the shaykh for some time following the zikr session. However, prior to coming to the meeting, I had come across information earlier in the day that one of my favorite science fiction movies – ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ – was going to be shown later that night on a local television station, and since this was prior to having any means to record the program, I chose, at some point, to leave the meeting and asked for permission to do so.
The shaykh looked at me in what seemed to be a sort of strange way and said: “Are you sure?” I, then, answered in the affirmative, and, thus, the meeting came to an end.
Through the zikr I was, among other things, being called to begin waking up. Yet, my nafs was calling me to go back to sleep, and, on that occasion, my nafs was, unfortunately, the voice to which I listened. Ironically, on the very day in which – spiritually speaking -- my earth actually came to a standstill, and I say this with a considerable sense of chagrin but, perhaps this is also why I have the name Anab (that is, one who turns to God in repentance) -- I opted for a mere fictional, illusory creation concerning a similar theme -- namely, ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still.’
Some years later – but a number of months after my initiation – I mentioned the previous experience to my shaykh. He explained to me some of its meaning, but because I was still spiritually groggy while trying to wake up a little, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of what he told me.
Nonetheless, the foregoing experience has played an important role in my life. However, to help put things in proper perspective, I am reminded of a story that my shaykh once related following a Thursday night fatiha session or gathering.
If I remember the story correctly, and I might not, a person who was an initiate of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (may Allah be pleased with him) – a very well-known spiritual guide of the sixteenth/seventeenth century – came to the compound of the shaykh late one night causing a disturbance, yelling again and again that he had seen God. The shaykh finally managed to calm the man somewhat and asked the individual to explain what had gone on.
The man related his experience, and the shaykh responded with something to the effect of ‘You silly fool, all you have experienced is the light or nur that was emanating from your state of ritual cleanliness.’ The man was told to go home … perhaps he watched some sort of science fiction movie when he got there.
Prior to stepping onto the Sufi path, I went to Harvard. After becoming an initiate in a Sufi Order, I did graduate work at the University of Toronto.
Although both institutions are among the best schools in the world, and although many people might consider me to have become an educated person because of the time spent at those institutions and because of the people to whom I was exposed at those institutions, the truth of the matter is, however, that I learned more about myself, other people, the world, and life as a result of the 15-16 years during which I toiled in the fields of my spiritual teacher than I ever learned as a result of any formal process of education I had undergone.
Many years later, after my first teacher – the authentic one – had passed away but before meeting a second teacher who was not an authentic spiritual guide – indeed, he was a charlatan – but who played a role that helped induce me to learn some additional lessons about myself, other people, the world, and life, I went on a trip to India. While visiting one of the Sufi shrines about which I had been told, I asked the caretaker of the shrine if he knew where the ‘mosque of the jinn’ was located which I understood was somewhere nearby.
The man asked me what I knew. I said, “Not much,” and this was probably unduly flattering the extent of my ignorance.
As a result of my response, he briefly checked the sky, and said that it was approaching sunset, and as a result, he indicated that it might be better if I did not go to that mosque at this time. I thanked him for his counsel, and followed his advi
I recall my shaykh once mentioning a saying of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique (may Allah be pleased with him). The Companion of the Prophet had said words to the effect that ‘even awareness of our ignorance is a kind of knowledge.’
Over the last 4-5 years I have been able to purchase – at a considerably reduced rate – a lot of e-books on an array of topics, ranging from: History, to: Constitutional law, quantum physics, biophysics, medicine, psychology, cosmology, plasma physics, political theory, electricity, epigenetics, sociology, philosophy, biographies, evolution, mysticism, and so on. I have read quite a few of those works. Nevertheless, I know – with a fair degree of certainty – that in the time I have left in life (whatever that might be), I am never going to finish the books that I have purchased, but, nonetheless, I like building the library because I never know where my explorations will take me, and, consequently, I like to have research material on hand to begin such quests as soon as I can.
Notwithstanding the quality of many of the foregoing books, I realize that no matter how extensive one’s grasp of secular information might be, it all pales in comparison with what remains to be discovered in conjunction with the dimensions or realms of Being that lie beyond and beneath the purely surface issues with which secular understanding tends to be entangled.
The Sufi path refers to “worlds” such as Nasut, Malakut, Jabarut, Lakut, and Hahut. Nasut is the realm of the mortal, physical, material world, and its reality extends far beyond the horizons of what most people understand concerning the nature of the world in which we go about our lives. Malakut alludes to the realm of angels and associated realities, while Jabarut and Lahut concern dimensions of manifestation that are even more subtle and profound than that which transpires through the realm of Malakut, while Hahut alludes to the unmanifest realities of Divine Essence or Dhat.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported to have said: “Reflect on all things but reflect not on God’s Essence.” In other words, any reflection concerning the realities of the Unmanifest can lead nowhere but to error and difficulty.
My shaykh sometimes alluded to this when he mentioned that God’s reality is beyond, and beyond the beyond, and beyond the beyond the beyond, and so on ad infinitum. This reminds me of a Hadith Qudsi or saying in which Allah is said to be speaking through the mouth of the Prophet and, as such, the words inhabit a territory of significance that is somewhat between the normal sayings of the Prophet and revelation. The Hadith Qudsi that I have in mind indicates how God said via the Prophet that: “In the beginning, I [that is, God] was alone, and I am now as I was in the beginning.”
Manifestation has a reality, but it is not Reality in Essence. Human beings are made possible by the Presence of Divinity, but we are not Divinity in Essence. The manifest will always be the manifest, and the Unmanifest will always be the unmanifest.
The Prophet is also reported to have said: “God has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness; were they to be removed, the Glories of God’s Face would burn away everything perceived by the sight of God’s creatures.” The Face of God might be experienced in some fashion through an appropriate spiritual capacity such as: Heart, sirr, kafi, or ruh, all of which are mentioned in the Qur’an.
However, sometimes, spiritual states are conferred on individuals and such conditions are independent of the spiritual efforts, or merit, of the people who are blessed with them. As an example of what is meant here, one might cite the state that was conferred on me that was alluded to toward the beginning of this podcast.
Nonetheless, for the most part on the Sufi path, spiritual travel operates on the basis of what is revealed or disclosed to human beings – usually after considerable struggle and austerities have been engaged -- via the dynamics of kashf – or, unveiling – and ilham – that is, brief flashes of insight. However, this is not the spiritual equivalent of storming the Bastille and laying claim to whatever believes one is entitled to based on this or that action.
One must struggle, as best as one can, toward God, but the gifts of tajalli – that is, the Divine disclosures that occur, if God wishes, during different spiritual stations -- must be given by God irrespective of what struggles and austerities one might have gone through. Indeed, as the Qur’an makes clear, Allah: “helps whomsoever He pleases.” (and this is from the 5th ayat or verse of Surah 30, known as the Romans)
The Face of God is the outer (or inner) demarcation/boundary where, in a manner of speaking, the manifest leaves off and, in a manner of speaking, the unmanifest begins even as the Unmanifest is, has, and always will be Present and alone, while the manifest is, was, and always will be a shadowy, pseudo-reality that has been gifted with a mysterious set of capacities that have the potential – if activated – to be opened up to truths concerning the many worlds, realms, or dimensions of manifestation that are made possible by His Unmanifested Presence and to which we are invited to become sincere witnesses concerning those truths.
Since God gave me a wake-up call some fifty years ago, I continue to seek to discover the reality of The Day the Earth Stood Still in my life and have sought to struggle to extract myself from its fictional, delusional, illusory counterpart to which I hurried home to enjoy so long ago. Along the way, I wish I had been a better student because so much remains unlearned.
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