THE SUFI WAY OF SELF-UNFOLDMENT
(Excerpts Only)

By: Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri

Chapter 1
The Model: on Body – Mind – Intellect

Who are we? If we know who we are, then we know everything. Before we can answer that, we must observe our actions, for they are the direct result of our thoughts and our thoughts are colored by our inner make-up. In every culture, system of knowledge or religion, whatever is of any significance has its core self-knowledge. Whoever knows himself knows creation. This is the greatest dilemma which faces man, because no sooner does he try to identify some aspect of himself than he finds another and, since he cannot grasp or pin them down, he is constantly disillusioned.

So, what are we doing about this quest? In whatever we undertake we seek knowledge. Every action man takes, if we observe it deeply within ourselves, points or leads us towards self-fulfillment through knowledge. I imagine, for example, that I will be more fulfilled by speaking to people who are on a similar wavelength. Depending on the level of our intellect, mind, or upon the state we are in, we are always seeking self-fulfillment.

The body

The motivation towards self-fulfillment can be arranged in a hierarchy. The first motivation to act is physical, is that of preserving the body. Every one of us wishes to preserve our body. We need to eat and have shelter. Try to keep anybody hungry for several days, no matter who he is, and the reaction will amaze you. Nature has encoded in the chromosomes of every human being the urge to preserve the body. It is unavoidable.

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The five senses of the body are hierarchically arranged from the gross to the subtle. The crudest is taste; it requires a liquid medium with which to assimilate the object. Then come touching, smelling, hearing, and lastly, seeing. These are senses with which we relate and communicate with our environment. We also have the sculptured part of the body, the hair, the skin, the mucus, the bones, the marrow. And we have something which we call the mind. There is in the Eastern system of knowledge a better description of that; it is called nafs, which can be translated as 'self' or 'I'. One aspect of nafs is mind.

The mind

We all have minds. For the purpose of establishing a basis of communication between us, we will define it as 'thoughtflow'. It consists of a computer-like memory bank, which stores information from our past experience, but is activated by the dynamics of input – process – output. You only call it a mind if it flows, if it has dynamism. Otherwise, it is not a mind, it is a dead data bank. When you say, 'My mind is agitated,' that means the flow is more than you can normally cope with. 'I want to have peace of mind' means that you want to reduce the amount of thought-flow.

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The two aspects of mind

We find that mind has two aspects or characteristics, one being prescriptive, or encyclopedic. It is that part of the mind we use in language, science, technology, electronics, cooking, driving, etc. This part of our mind never causes us harm, as such, because we are using that faculty in a computer-like fashion; it only poses technical problems. If, for example, I am a linguistics expert and point out that you have made a terrible grammatical error, you will readily accept the correction. It will not upset you, because I am a recognized authority in that particular field. If, however, someone suddenly says 'You are ugly' or 'I hate you', your reaction is bound to be different. It therefore stands to reason that we should abandon this second, psychological, or personal, aspect of mind if we seek a rational, balanced and happy existence.

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Pure life and individual personality

The body, the mind, the intellect plus that subtler aspect in us which we call 'life' result in a sentient living person. Every one of us recognizes 'life', for we always talk about 'my life', 'his life', and so on. Life is that element which is untouchable, indiscernible, and undefinable. But without the presence of this system which constitutes the 'I', it would not function or exist. And, depending on the quality of the prism, the light which enters it emerges with a certain color scheme. If it is a pure prism, it produces the full rainbow. But if the prism is full of cracks, the color red may dominate.

In the same way, what comes out of our prism is what is called 'personality'. Pure life, imprisoned in the body – mind – intellect prism, emanates this so-called 'I'. If I have a limp, it is bound to affect my personality. Or if my mind is agitated most of the time, I shall try to hide it or put up a good appearance. Generally speaking, I would try to hide the fault as much as possible, because we all like perfection. Pure life is perfection itself.

We now have a model upon which we can reflect. The differences between individuals in this society of ours arise when we look at the output end of the diagram, the so-called 'personality'. You can say, 'I am very different from him', but what does that mean? The difference is superficial: your likes or dislikes differ. But how do we recognize this difference unless the consciousness or the understanding of liking, hating or loving is within us? The fact that we recognize, let alone condemn, someone who is violent means that we understand what violence is; its seed or consciousness is in us. When I admire someone's generosity, how do I recognize generosity unless its meaning, root or seed is also in me? When I admire someone's courage, or condemn fear and cowardice, how do I understand these characteristics unless the seed of that knowledge, the light or consciousness of it, is in me? Differences between individuals only come about when pure life has interacted through this complex being, and has emerged from it as an individual personality.

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Matching the inner and the outer

What is the root of action? Why do we do anything? We have said there is a hierarchy to satisfy our needs. All we are trying to do when we act is to create a balance, to relate or equalize the needs and expectations of the so-called 'l' with the outside world. We try to match intellectual expectations with others. At the body level we want to relate to objects, because the body understands the physical.

The ground level is the body. If your body is unbalanced, you will find that the hierarchical priority drops to that level. You want to be well, you want to be in balance, you want to function. The hierarchy moves from the gross, to the subtle, to the subtler. That is why we say that the first thing a society needs to attain for everyone is sufficient food, clothing and shelter. These are basic needs. It is for that reason when any of us sees a society in which poverty exists alongside luxury, we know it is unbalanced and that this imbalance is bound to come to a head. Examples of these adjustments sometimes manifest themselves in full-scale revolutions or wars. The one who is hungry and deprived will come out with a gun and demand the basic requirements to preserve life. You cannot stop it. That is why we say that as long as there is poverty in this world there can be no peace. It is a hypothetical and romantic notion to expect peace and the quest for higher values as long as there are people who are hungry and have no roofs over their heads.

The mind, which is the seat of emotions and whose nature is thought-flow, tries to relate and match itself with the world of emotions. That is why you find people of similar cultures cluster together. When you say, 'We are emotionally incompatible,' it means that you are trying to match your emotional coloring and expectations with someone else's. You may say you are very compatible emotionally, but not intellectually; which is to say that emotionally, yes, you have both been spoiled as badly, but intellectually, no, she is more musical and I am not inclined that way. You must reflect upon this deeply within yourselves, and try to discover this entity, the body – mind – intellect complex, and how it tries to relate at all times to the world outside. This attempt to balance, relate and unify is the cause of all actions.

Reflect upon what happens when there is a match between you and the world outside, or a lack of it. There is the system of 'I' and there is the bigger system of the world, which is the world of objects, emotions and so on. And we are always trying to bring about harmony and unity between the two systems. Let us illustrate this with an example.

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Tending towards the subtle

We veer towards that which elevates us, which makes us more subtle naturally. It is ingrained in every human being to veer towards the subtler, from the body to the mind to the intellect, towards purity. We all basically want to be pure. It is for that reason we all love holidays. We all want to be on a perpetual holiday. We want to be in that holiday mood, when we are more open-minded, we have more time, more energy, less fear.

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Action as a means to peace

We have now come to the discovery of what the motive is behind all our actions. Every action we take is in order to quiet ourselves, at the body – mind – intellect levels. Questions arise constantly in order to be neutralized by the answers. You have a question in your mind and you are therefore agitated. When both the positive and negative are there, then the agitation dies; it is neutralized. Then you are pacified and at peace. This occurs at the mental level: every action we take is to bring about peace to that system.

We are born going towards peace. Generally speaking, during the first twenty years we are children. We are growing, physically and otherwise. Usually in the second twenty years, if society, environment and culture are conducive, we try to raise a family and also earn a living, during which time we may be fortunate enough to have periods of reflection and wonderment as to what it is all about. Is it only about a spouse and children? 'Who am I? – I am born to die' is the only statement we can share at all times with all other human beings, irrespective of all other constraints or variables. The moment we are born, we are one second closer to death. A child who is one hour old is one hour closer to death, whatever his destined time may be. This fact does not change.

But is it acceptable to a normal human being that this is all? We are all born with the zest for knowledge. The first thing that a crawling child does is to explore, whether it is a pile of filth or a bed of feathers, because he is born wanting to know. But at his level it is crude; the first thing he does is to touch and put the object into his mouth. As we said earlier, taste is the grossest of the senses. The baby therefore starts at the gross and moves on to the subtler levels.

So we have discovered that we want peace. The reason we mentioned death is because it is the ultimate peace. We have come from the darkness of the womb, and return to the darkness of the tomb. And in between, those of us who have sufficient time and energy and have not been hooked by football, television or other preoccupations, can question, for our own use, 'What is the meaning of this existence?' We know it is about living well, we know it is about learning prescriptive knowledge; there is nothing wrong in this. But we want more. The more we take, the more we want; there is expansion and there is no end to expansion. The more we take of knowledge, the more we find there is, because there is no end to it. There is no end to the Creator who is the Source of all knowledge.

We said we are all veering towards peace. Peace comes to us in an instant, it is instantaneous. No sooner has what my mind set about to achieve been achieved, than the next objective is immediately set. This is because of mind's own nature; it cannot exist in a vacuum. Try to have no thoughts! We take pills because we have abused our system, and the thoughtflow has exceeded the boundaries. Like a reservoir flooding over a dam we need to take drastic measures, some bulldozers in the form of drugs to plug the holes. But this is extreme and palliative. Once the mind is satisfied, it instantaneously moves towards the next desire. Once the body is satisfied with one form of pampering, it wants another. Once the intellect is satisfied in admiring this particular painting, it seeks another. It cannot stop. The ultimate peace in reality is death. But that pure energy which is in me, which has been tarnished by me, which has come from life, which has been affected by my thoughts and actions during my lifetime, that energy is not lost by death. Life is a form of energy; it does not get lost as such. There is nothing gained or lost in creation. Everything is interchangeable and is in balance. We have, for example, only recently and clumsily discovered that matter is interchangeable with energy. And we are only at the tip of the iceberg in scientific discovery of the total unitarian dynamism of the cosmos.

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