Dear Sadiq, Thank you for this very nice post. I...

2010-07-07T05:01:53.433+06:00

Dear Sadiq,

Thank you for this very nice post. I very much enjoyed the invocation of Shaykh Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari.

Kindest wishes,

mo'in

The effect the heart experience in such gatheri...

2010-07-06T14:54:01.866+06:00
The effect the heart experience in such gatherings, usually in the presence of the guide and the collective energy that rise from the zikr, the moan of spiritual ecstasy, the invocation, the tears that flow as one connects with one's innermost being - the cumulative effect is something totally out of this world when one experience it from the readiness of the inner heart.

Which all sounds terribly exciting and moving, but seems to have more connection with those kinds of Christian Revivalist meetings - where people profess to be 'born again' - than with the Way of the Sufis.

It's a relatively easy thing for people to whip themselves up into 'ecstasies' by the heightening of emotion - and communal ceremonies fuelled by extravagant expectations, dressing-up, rhythmic chanting, drumming etc. - have, over the ages, been used in most societies to achieve just this.

"When you have observed or felt emotion, correct this by remembering that emotions are felt just as strongly by people with completely different beliefs. If you imagine that this experience - emotion - is therefore noble or sublime, why do you not believe that stomach ache is an elevated state?" states the eighteenth counsel of Bahauddin Naqshband.

By contrast, the exercises of the Sufis - those who haven't fallen prey to the lure of emotionalism - can seem positively underwhelming. The atmosphere is one of sobriety, attention, focus, dedication, presence. The aim is to carry out the exercise to the best of one's ability, not to feel 'sublime' emotions or experience 'altered states'. And it has more in common with the studied professionalism of - say - a group of dancers performing a complex choreography, than with a bunch of enthusiasts 'getting high on God'.

"I am with him when he makes mention of Me" doesn't mean "only when he is getting carried away in transports of emotion". It means that the One who is remembered is the One who is remembering: I AM with him, that in the depths of "I AM" is "He". And "He remembers Himself in Himself through Himself".

The purposes of the zikr - which are "His" purposes - are fulfilled when it is done attentively and professionally. If one tries to turn it into "an experience", one is trying to get something for oneself out of it - to hijack "His" purposes for "my" purposes. And "my" purposes, in this context, are always to attempt to reify the sense of "myself" through the feeling of emotion: "I get excited, therefore I am". This runs directly contrary to the intention of the zikr.

It is for this reason that the Naqshbandis have - since the time of Bahauddin Naqshband - practiced silent zikr. The idea of a "Naqshbandi hadra" is thus a bizarre contradiction in terms.

Comments on Technology of the Heart: my sweetest moments are when i am one with my esse...

Dear Sadiq, Thank you for this very nice post. I...

The effect the heart experience in such gatheri...