Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00064)

Hi all of you,

Here is part 4 of the article "The Sufi Tradition" by Elizabeth Hall on Idries Shah.

Article originally published in Psychology Today, July 1975
Copyright Elizabeth Hall


Part 4 - with about 2 pages:


Hall: Let's get back to your main work. What is the best way of 
introducing the Sufi way of thinking to the West?

Shah: I am sure that the best way is not to start a cult, but to 
introduce a body of literary material that should interest people 
enough to establish the Sufi phenomenon as viable. We don't plan
to form an organization with somebody at the top and others at the 
bottom collecting money or wearing funny clothes or converting people 
to Sufism. We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the 
right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can 
exert a beneficial influence on individuals or societies, in 
accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies.

Hall: Does Western society need this infusion of Sufi thought?

Shah: It needs it for the same reason that any society needs it, 
because it gives one something one cannot get elsewhere. For example, 
Sufi thought makes a person more efficient. A watchmaker becomes a 
better watchmaker. A housewife becomes a better housewife. When 
somebody said as much in California last year, 120 hippies got up and 
left the hall. They didn't wait to hear that they weren't
going to be forced to be more efficient.

Hall: But there must be more than efficiency to it.

Shah: Of course. I wouldn't try to sell Sufism purely as a means
to efficiency, even though it does make one more effective in all 
sorts of ways. I think Sufism is important because it enables one to 
detach from life and see it as near to its reality as one can 
possibly get. 
Sufi experience tends to produce the kind of person who is calm, not 
because he can't get excited, but because he knows that getting 
excited about an event or problem is not going to have any lasting 
effect.

Hall: Would you say that it might give a person an outlook on the 
problems of this time similar to the outlook he might presently have 
on the problems of the 16th century?

Shah: Very much so. And such an outlook takes the heat out of almost 
every contention. Instead of becoming the classical Oriental 
philosopher who says, "All reality is imagination. Why should I
care about the world," you begin to see alternative ways of
acting.
For example, some of the finest people in this country spend a great 
deal of their time jumping up and down waving banners that condemn 
the various dirty beasts of the world. Such behavior makes the dirty 
beasts delighted at the thought that they are so important and the 
jumpers are so impotent. If the Trafalgar square jumpers had an 
objective view of their behavior, they would abandon it. First, they 
would see that they are only giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and 
second, they would be able to see how to do something about the dirty 
beasts-and if it were necessary to do anything about them.

Hall: In other words, Sufism might help us solve some of the enormous 
social, political and environmental problems that face us.

Shah: People talk about Sufism as if it were the acquisition of 
powers. Sufi metaphysics has even got a magical reputation. The truth 
is that Sufi study and development give one capacities that one did 
not have before. One would not kill merely because killing is bad. 
Instead, one would know that killing is unnecessary and, in addition, 
what one would have to do in order to make humanity happier and able 
to realize better objectives. That's what knowledge is for.

Hall: When I read your books, the message came through very clearly 
that you are not interested in rational, sequential thought-in what 
Bob Ornstein calls left-hemisphere activity.

Shah: To say that I'm not interested in sequential thinking is
not to say that I can live without it. I have it up to a certain 
point, and I expect the people I meet to be able to use it. We need 
information in order to approach a problem, but we also need to be 
able to see the thing whole.

Hall: When you speak of seeing the thing whole, you're talking
about intuitive thought, where you don't reason the problem out
but know the answer without knowing how you got it.

Shah: Yes. You know the answer and can verify that it is an answer. 
That is the difference between romantic imagining and something that 
belongs to this world.

Hall: Ornstein, who seems to have been profoundly influenced by Sufi 
thought, has suggested that most people today tend to rely on 
logical, rational, linear thought and that we tend to use very little 
of the intuitive, nonlinear thought of the brain's right
hemisphere. 
Would you say that Sufism can teach one to tap right-hemisphere 
thought?

Shah: Yes, I would. Sufism has never been overimpressed by the 
products of left-hemisphere activity, although it's often used
them. 
For instance, Sufis have written virtually all the great poetry of 
Persia, and while the inspiration for a poem may come from the right 
hemisphere, one must use the left hemisphere to put the poem down in 
the proper form. I think that the behavior and products of Sufism are 
among the few things we have that encourage a holistic view of 
things. I don't want to discuss Sufism in Ornsteinian terms,
however, because I'm not qualified to do so. I can only say that 
insofar as there is any advantage in these two hemispheres acting 
alternately or complementing one another, then Sufi material 
undoubtedly is among the very little available material that can help 
this process along.

Hall: Why are the traditional Western methods of study inappropriate 
for the study of Sufism?

Shah: They are inappropriate only up to a point. Both the Western and 
Middle Eastern methods of study come from the common heritage of the 
Middle Ages, when one was regarded as wise if he had a better memory 
than someone else. But some of the teaching methods that Sufis use 
seem rather odd to the Westerner. If I were to say to you that my 
favorite method of teaching is to bore the audience to death, you 
would be shocked. But I have just results of some tests, which show 
that English schoolchildren, when shown a group of films, remembered 
only the ones that bored them. Now this is consistent with our 
experience, but it is not consistent with Western beliefs.
Another favorite Sufi teaching method is to be rude to people, 
sometimes shouting them down or shooing them away, a technique that 
is not customary in cultivated circles. By experience we know that by 
giving a certain kind of shock to a person, we can-for a short period-
increase his perception. Until recently I wouldn't have dared
speak about this, but I now have a clipping indicating that when a 
person endures a shock he produces Theta rhythms. Some people have 
associated these brain rhythms with various forms of ESP. No 
connection has been made yet, but I think we may be beginning to 
understand it.

Hall: Recent studies of memory indicate that unless adrenalin is 
present, no learning takes place, and shock causes adrenalin to flow. 
We also know from experience that when you find yourself in a 
situation of grave danger, you tend to notice some very small detail 
with great clarity.

Shah: Exactly. Concentration comes in on a strange level and in an 
unaccustomed way. But using this knowledge has traditionally given 
Sufi teachers a reputation for having bad manners. The most polite 
thing they can say about us is that we are irascible and out of 
control. Some people say that a spiritual teacher should have no 
emotions or be totally balanced. We say that a spiritual teacher must 
be a person who can be totally balanced, not one who cannot help but 
be balanced.





Part 4 of 6 follows shortly. 

from
Sufilight with peace and love...



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