Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00041)

Hi all of you,


Maybe the following could be helpfull in understanding at least a part of what Wry is up to.
What do you think Wry ?

I am hereby posting an article by the sufi Idries Shah. It span about 8 pages. So I have cut it in 4 parts, so to be dropping it more politely in the various emailboxes.
I got the following from a friend. It is this friends words in the beginning before the start of the article.

This i part 1 of 4. (just about 2 pages)

Friends, this essay first appeared in "Human Nature" April 1978. CAPITALIZED 
sentences appeared in large type in the article and I will place them in 
approximate position as they appeared in the magazine, except the first such 
entry which appeared at the top of the second page, I will place it directly 
under the title and author.
For your dining and dancing pleasure:

The Wisdom of Sufic Humor by Idries Shah

PRAYERS, RITUALS, AND RELIGIOUS EXERCISES MAY NOT BE THE BEST PATHS TO 
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. SUFIS HAVE FOUND THAT JOKES CAN ASSIST THE TRAVELER.

Sufism is a rich mystical tradition that arose in the Middle East, a 
tradition that promotes an experience of life through dealing with life and 
human relations. Historically, as much research has shown, the Sufis have 
profoundly influenced Jewish, Christian, and Hindu literature and attitudes. 
In so doing, the Sufis have played a unique part, for no other body of 
thinkers has had an analogous effect on this group of major belief systems.

Instead of presenting a body of thought in which one must believe 
certain things and reject others, Sufis try to provoke the experience in a 
person. Why provoke or develop experience instead of teaching dogmatic 
principles or processes? The Sufis assert that knowledge comes before 
ritual. Rituals may become outworn, may not function as intended when 
practiced by communities for which they were not designed. If rituals and 
practices are, as Sufis believe them to be, specially developed psychological 
methods, only those who have the knowledge that lies behind them can confirm 
whether historically notable ones are still functional. Hence priority is 
given to knowledge and understanding over feeling or belief.

Sufis are often compared with the products of other mystical systems, 
but there is little inward resemblance. For Sufis, there are many more 
dimensions, more sides, to the attainment of higher consciousness than are 
found in other systems. Where Sufis insist that ecstatic experience is a 
contaminated by-product, a distortion of experience that never happens in an 
enlightened person, other systems often strive for this ecstasy alone. Where 
Sufis insist that there are all kinds of emotions and that a certain degree 
of emotion, whether perceived as religious or not, is harmful to spiritual 
perceptions, others include many who believe that extreme emotionality, when 
religiously tinged, must be better than anything less intense. Where the 
Sufis state that there are stages in mystical appreciation, and that one must 
not attempt the developments that accompany one stage before completing the 
preparedness that comes from attaining the one before it, numerous other 
systems make no such provisos.

Sufis see many traditional prayers and processes, today more familiar 
than ever to most Westerners, as relics of specific, scripted, and measured 
formulas designed in the past to help people in the past to attain knowledge 
of the absolute and of their real selves. The existence of repetitious and 
automatistic chants, phrases, and dances was often pointed out by the Sufis 
in the past as being the ignorant perpetuation of formerly effective 
instruments. Technical knowledge, instead of being applied, tends to become 
sacroscant and used for a low level of autohypnosis and even ideological and 
community indoctrination: the very reverse of the original Sufic intention.

Sufis maintain that anyone who says that by prayer and exercise he or 
she will storm the gates of heaven is someone not prepared to prepare. Such 
an assault essentially tries to abolish the problem of intricacy by denying 
that it exists: It is like solving the problem of a missing button by sewing 
up the buttonhole.

Sufis do not stress the primacy of teaching, exercises, or dressing 
people in odd clothes. For the Sufis, humanity is already full of 
misconceptions and unsuitable, counterproductive habit patterns that must be 
attended to before there is a fair chance of progress toward a more objective 
understanding. "You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the 
pitcher with clean" is one of the ways they put it.

Since most people's spiritual life is really their 
emotional-psychological-social life renamed, Sufis start with this aspect 
when trying to clear up the confusion that is the usual condition of most 
people's minds.

Their natural allies are modern psychology and sociology, which have 
pointed out something similar. In the past, Sufis lacked the support of such 
parallel research and therefore often had to teach in secret. Hysteria was 
often considered sacred; monomaniacs were sometimes regarded as saints. Only 
recently have most societies accepted the idea that greed, say, is sure to be 
greed, even if it is greed for enlightenment; or that emotion, no matter what 
kind it is, may be harmful.

Sufis traditionally address themselves to the actual 
social-psychological situation, while those who do not understand the 
priorities clamor for "spiritual" teachings. Such teachings are useless if 
floated on top of the psychology of the ordinary individual, however useful 
that psychology is for limited purposes.

Sanctimoniousness, vanity, and self-will must be set aside in Sufi 
studies. For this reason, a person's illusions of self-esteem may have to be 
deflated. Many people cannot endure such an approach, and the result is that 
some leave and set up synthetic Sufi systems, some turn against the Sufis, 
and some become servile because they mistake humility for self-abasement. A 
few, on the other hand, understand what is going on and profit from it. The 
Sufi has no responsibility to work with people who reject his attitude. In 
fact, he is incompetent to do so. This rejection is often unconscious, since 
many would-be learners in reality are seeking social stabilization, comfort, 
or attention, not knowledge and understanding.

A few examples, taken from contemporary situations, illustrate how great 
things depend on small beginnings, and how the base is the foundation of the 
apex. From such entertaining and cynical stories we can also learn something 
about the illustrative value of ordinary tales and jokes in spiritual studies.

Two hillbillies are talking. One asks the other how little Jake is 
getting on at school. "Not so well," says the other, "because they are 
trying to teach him to spell 'cat' with a C instead of with a K."

This story reflects the inaccurate expectations of people who have 
learned things somewhat askew, as well as the need for context and grounding. 
In this case, that need is reflected in the fact that it is essential to 
know the alphabet before rendering a mature judgment.


part 2 of 4 follows shortly

from
M. Sufilight with peace...and love...






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