Adab: The Protocol of Spiritual Respect and Courtesy

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Adab: The Protocol of Spiritual Respect and Courtesy
Summer 2001

Adab, the protocols of spiritual respect and courtesy, is one of the keys to God-realization. In a society fraught with self-importance and self-consumption, adab is a foreign, and often threatening, concept to one's ego as the traveler makes their way along the spiritual path. In the following discourse, Sheikh Din explores the practice of adab and the miracle of this form of surrender to Allah.

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Rahim.
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate.

     If the intent of spiritual practice is to reduce the barrier that exists between our Self and our Beloved God/Allah, then it is impossible to perform spiritual practice or lead a spiritual life without first becoming Self-aware. Earlier I explained that the barrier that exists between having what we ultimately desire is called the "ego." That is the ego wall of separation. Since we are trying to diminish the separation that divides our Self, we have no chance of successfully performing spiritual practice unless right from the beginning our practice is to become Self-aware. We have. to become Self-aware, because we must know what it is we have become so attached to and prevents us from having what we really want.
     I said, "Having what we really want." No, we are not speaking of selfishness here. We are referring to the Heart's ultimate desire. By seeing and determining the limitations of that which we have become attached to, we are going to learn the difference between the True Self and the temporary identity of the ego driven self - the small self. We must have a way to separate what is Real from what is unreal when it comes to the Self. For the sake of this discussion, we will speak of the Self as having two parts, i.e., the Higher Self and the lower self.
     The lower self comprises those ingredients that we have assumed to be our identity such as our likes and dislikes, patterns and habits, our attitudes, the things that we have been exposed to that have left impressions on us, impressions we have acquired along the way, as well as the impressions that we came in with, our place of birth, our genetics, gender, language, family, religion and our reactions to the environment. These are the things that we are generally identified with. We will call these things attachments. They are the attachments of the lower self, and they are the particular desires and identities that have covered and become affixed to the Higher Self.
On the other hand, the Higher Self is our greatest sense of Knowing, our Wisdom, our connection to Allah, the Beloved, the Heart, the Divine Spark, our Common Unity, our Divinity, our True Humanity, God within, the primordial Soul, the Soul before there were individual souls - this is the Higher Self.
     As a result of our attachments, we witness the Higher Self becoming identified, associated with the lower self. We become confused by the mixing of the two. We struggle to see which is which.
     In class a couple of years ago, I gave a demonstration where I took a glass of clear water saying that the clear water represented the Higher Self. I then took some food coloring and dropped one drop into the clear water. The clear water changed to that particular color. Now, the previously clear water took on the identity of the color. I asked, "Where is the clear water?" The answer was, "It is still there . . underneath the color." But, why can't we see it? We can no longer see the clear water, because it is now identified with the color. It is "colorated."
     This is an example of how closely the bond is established between the Higher Self and the attachments of the lower self. Spiritual practice is the process of distilling away the coloration, so that only the clear water remains, in other words, separating the Real from the unreal.
     At the beginning of spiritual work, we must somehow become aware that the water, our Self, has become colored. To understand the idea that the water has been colored is the first stage of Self-awareness. The first stage of Self-awareness is not the distillation process. The first stage of Self-awareness is the realization, "My God, the water is colored!" There is no proceeding on the spiritual path until I have the objective realization that I have issues that fixate me and color my perspective of life. Until this level of realization happens, until I have this level of Self-reflection, I will just argue defensively for my particular position. If I do not know anything different from blue water (because we dropped blue coloring in the water), and I only see through the eyes of blue water, I will have no understanding that water could actually be clear, or that my water is artificially colored. I will just think that everything in the world is blue. When I am challenged about my blue color, I will defiantly insist that, "My color is fine!" Can you see this? I know no different, because I am in it. I am it.
     This is like the parable of the flood where the big sea frog gets trapped in the little pond frog's pool. After the flood when the waters dried up, the little pond frog was so delighted to have a new partner, a friend in his little pool. The little pond frog bragged incessantly about how great was his pond. He wanted to show the big sea frog all around the pond. "Look and see! How mighty, how expansive, how unlimited and what a wondrous sight is this pond," he exclaimed. The big sea frog knew that there was no way yet to explain to the little pond frog where he had come from and the nature of the sea.
     Among the first practices in Sufism for developing Self-awareness is adab (Arabic: spiritual courtesy, manners). We might not automatically think of adab in this way. We normally think of adab as the spiritual courtesy and protocol, the manners, in which you should treat the Teacher, articles of the path, fellow travelers on the path and guests, etc. However, this is only a superficial understanding of adab. Adab does mean spiritual protocol and courtesy, the manners and the etiquette of the path, but a deeper understanding of adab will bring you to the first level of Self-awareness.
     If you examine the various practices of adab, you will find that it places the emphasis of courtesy on serving another, in other words, besides yourself. All of the prescriptions of adab are designed that way, whether the adab is to perform respectful prostration by the bowing of the head and touching of the heart, offering articles of food only with the right hand, whether the adab is never to place the Qur`an on the floor beneath the feet, or to never turn one's back on the Sheikh (Arabic: spiritual elder, spiritual guide). I could go on with an infinite list of the subtleties of adab, most of which you have never heard. However if you look carefully at each one of these behaviors, you will see that it places the emphasis on serving - serving someone else.
     What is the consequence of remaining in the subservient position? The manner of adab tests our willingness to be a servant rather than the served. Immediately we are thrust up against our issues of self-importance. In the United States, even much more so than in Europe, where they still maintain the hierarchy of family, class structure and royalty, our egalitarian ideal is one of so-called parity. Everyone here is supposed to be equal, and this is somehow the basis for our democratic process. Westerners are consumed with my rights, my thoughts, my beliefs, my opinions, my place, my voice and so on. As we are introduced to a spiritual practice that requires us, with every action, to put ourselves at service by putting others first, we are going to run smack into that lower self. Here comes our attitude with our personal opinions, likes and dislikes, associations, feelings and self-importance. The adab deliberately confronts us by putting us into that position.
     We feel our whole system heat up. Our system heats up as the two sides of our Self start to vie for position. They move back and forth and undulate between their respective voices. The Higher Self calls out, "Selfless service. Let go! Surrender into the Whole." While the lower self argues for its position by repugnantly exclaiming, "What about me? What about me? What about me?" All the while, the echos of the Higher Self beckon, "Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me." Here starts the tension.
Normally we would like to avoid that kind of tension in our lives. We don't want to put ourselves in that situation, because that situation is guaranteed to make us feel uncomfortable. We normally seek comfort from our circumstances, our luxuries, habits and attitudes and our ongoing attempts to try to fulfill our personal desires by following our own particular likes and dislikes. These actions are the folly of the lower self as we have defined it. The lower self becomes unhappy when its "needs" are not getting met.
The adab, as characterized and truly understood by the Islamic Shariat (Arabic: Islamic code, laws of governance), challenges the lower self. Therefore, the Shariat is some times called "the protection from the lower self." The behavior of the Shariat, following the Islamic code, is therefore the performance of adab.
     The first thing that happens when we practice following adab is that we become servants. The second thing that happens is we heat up. We feel the parts in us that resist. This process is deliberate! As we begin to feel the various parts in us resist, here comes our first level of Self-awareness. "Hey, I'm colored! I'm colored water. I didn't realize it before. There are parts in me that resist. That's my stuff." This is a perfect process. These issues should come up. This is how we get in touch with what makes us colored. If we were colorless, we would have no problem with being the unconditional servant of all, never thinking about ourselves. Huzur Sayed Dayemullah (r.a.) said, "A Sufi is one who is blemishless."
     A true Sufi has no color and loses all regard for narrow-mindedness and the promotion of individual position. Thus we find out through following adab the true level of our spiritual station. By putting ourselves in the position of servants, we get to see, "Here is where I'm holding out. Here is where I'm colored, and here is where I'm holding back."
     The third part of adab, when understood properly, is that we actually move through our resistance by performing the adab. We move past our resistance by seeing that it is only resistance, and we remain in the position of servant. Start by becoming a servant, discover your resistance through service and then remain the servant . . . again.
     To be truly in adab through thought, word and action is a very difficult and demanding practice. We may be following adab through our outward actions, but inwardly our thoughts might be harboring resistance. We may wish to follow adab through our thoughts, but as a result of our distractions, our actions may not reflect it. So attempting to practice adab at every moment literally puts us in touch with the quality of each one of our thoughts, words, actions and asks us, "What is this thought dedicated to? What is this action dedicated to? What is this word dedicated to?"
I said in a previous discussion that Sufi adab is in regard to three main areas: 1) Adab to the Divine, God/Allah, 2) Adab to the Sheikh, and 3) Adab to each other in community, which includes the greater human community and the natural environment at large.
     We must have a starting point in our practice of adab. It is virtually impossible for us to walk out of here and treat everyone and everything we meet in the whole world with correct adab. That is our ideal, referring to the third category of adab. But practically speaking, just when you think you love everyone and that you can treat everyone with respect, the guy at the corner garage rips you off over repairing your car, and the thoughts of the lower self start up again.
     We have to find a place to begin our practice. So, the first place that we start refining our spiritual practice of Self-awareness is by practicing adab to the Sheikh or the Teacher. On the path, the Teacher becomes the focal point, the point of reference and the level of bearing. In all arts and sciences there are standards that are created that are called "reference standards." As the audio speakers behind me are reference series speakers, they are matched against certain wavelengths that are known and that can be used as a standard to test the level of the speakers' performance.
Likewise, in experiments in medicine, physics and chemistry, there are standards that are set. A reference is a point of measure that is as fixed as possible. Although ultimately we know that there is nothing fixed in the material world. Yet, a reference is something that is as fixed as it can possibly be, so that we have a backboard to bounce off ideas, perspectives and experiences. This is what is called a "controlled environment" in science. If you lose the controlled environment, you cannot be assured of the purity of the experiment nor have a reasonable prediction of how it will turn out, because there are too many random elements.
     The reference for baking a cake is the recipe. That is the reference standard. We have all thought at one time or another, "Oh, that sounds like a tasty cake. I think I'll just bake one." We look through the recipe, and even though we have never made that particular cake before, we think that we know it already. We don't follow the recipe correctly, we start baking and the cake does not turn out, because we did not apply ourselves to the reference standard. Have you ever heard the old adage, "If all else fails, read the directions"?
     Most of us want to just pull something out of a box, put it together and use it. We do not want to be deterred. We act like, "Don't confuse me with the facts! I just want to use this thing." Well, the reference standard is the instructions, the directions. The instructions are where you could refer, the most fixed point in order to set up the practice, in this case the baking of a cake or using a new appliance. A reference allows you to know whether or not you have something that is in-line or out-of-line. On the Sufi path, the Sheikh is the reference standard, and that is where the practice of adab begins.
     Serving the Sheikh should not be confused with diminishing the true importance of the individual. If you truly know your Self, then you know the real importance of your Higher Self as compared to the unimportance of your ego-driven lower self. When anyone starts to go into a downward spiral about serving the Sheikh because of the clash of their own self-importance, they are forgetting the nature of their True Self, their Higher Self.
     At the same time, it should not be confused that in serving the Sheikh, the service is being rendered only to that individual. There merely exists a person who happens to be occupying the principle, the position of the Divine Murshid (Arabic: Spiritual Guide) or the Sheikh. The real Sheikh or Murshid is the Divine Beloved. What is being served is the spiritual Sheikh, and as the hymn of the Jerrahi-Helveti Sufi Order says, "The Sheikh is one pure consciousness," referring to the lineage and transmission of all Sheikhs.
     Where we start to learn to serve Allah, the Sheikh Beyond all Sheikhs, the Elder of All Elders, the Beloved, the Absolute Spiritual Guide, is to offer service to our own personal Spiritual Guide. Service to the Sheikh raises the level of our Self-awareness, because we now have something, someone who acts as a living reference standard. As we learn to pay attention to the Teacher, we find out where we are really at.
This phenomenon happens a lot with mothers of newborns during the early phase. Fathers often miss this part, because they are not around. They are out doing something else. The newborn is really the mother's Sheikh. Her Murshid is the baby, because there is nothing else going on in her world but to serve that baby. The mother totally tunes into it. The new mother finds out how much she can let go and just be with the baby, or how much cabin fever, how "stir-crazy" she gets because her issues heat up. Will she worry about her needs or the baby's needs first?
     Watch this dance with new mothers. Fathers typically don't have any kind of patience whatsoever. They come home, and when Mom asks them, "Honey, can you please help out with the kid?" They can't even last a couple of hours changing diapers, feeding and generally occupying time with the infant. But the mother has got to spend hour after hour, day in and day out with the child. Mothers know this. They discover within themselves a Self-awareness of their personal stuff, because the baby is just being a baby.
     If you look into a baby's eyes, and if you can look deeply enough, you can actually fall into the consciousness of the baby. It just keeps going. The baby does not offer resistance. If you can just stop and be with an infant for a moment, and let yourself depart from all your other worldly considerations, you can go far and deep. Babies are deep water. There is nothing holding back. That is like the Murshid, the Sheikh. This state is the reference.
     Thus we could say that in serving that baby, we are really serving all babies of the world. Do you see? That individual baby represents the infancy, the childlike nature that we all strive for - innocence and openness. And so in serving the Sheikh, it is serving all Sheikhs. It is serving the fact that Allah provides us with a Sheikh. Service to the Sheikh will make us Self-aware. Do not be confused with ego reactions and resistance like, "Why does Murshid get served first? Why do we have to ask Murshid's permission for this? Why do we have to call Murshid up about that? Why do we need approval? Why does he scrutinize our physical health, our mental health and our emotions? Why does he examine all of our relationships, and why is he interested in our money?" These are all the surface level actions that lead to the pathways of Self-awareness. It is part of the training. It is not a lowering or a diminishing of one's position. It will actually become the raising up of one's True Position.
     Adab teaches us about paying attention, and in contrast, when it is we go to sleep. You cannot go to sleep on the baby. The mother cannot sleep. There's no time, and there's no scope. The baby cries. It needs to be fed. The baby cries. It needs to have its diaper changed. The baby cries. It might be hurt. The baby needs to be held. You cannot just put the baby down. The baby is going to occupy you. In the same way, the Sheikh will occupy you.
     The lower self will start to argue, "Hey, pay attention to me!" Don't you understand? This is the set up. This is the system to get the "letting go" into the Higher Self to take place. The first step is clarifying what is and what isn't the True Self, the Higher Self. Like in making ghee, clarified butter, you heat up the butter. Upon heating the butter, the impurities, the solids come to the top, and you can scoop them off. What is left is pure ghee. This is adab in the first stage.
     As we learn how to practice adab with the Sheikh, our personal reference and focal point, we then have some chance to leave the circle and practice it "out there" in the world. It is said that we can start to see the Sheikh in others. We see the face of the Sheikh in each other, and then we leave here and see the hand and the face of the Master at work in the garage where we were previously being ripped off. Because we have been practicing adab, we no longer get lost in the impurities of our lower self, even in the middle of the garage. The awareness is there to serve the Sheikh, and what takes place is a new consciousness and a new question. "My dear Sheikh, what is the lesson here? I am awake and ready. What is the lesson?"
     So when others look at us from the outside and express their concern, "Gee whiz, how come everybody makes such a big deal about that guy, the Sheikh?" Or in a tariqat (Arabic: Sufi school) where adab is much more established, people look and think, "I could never do that. They wait on that guy (the Sheikh) hand and foot -like he's a God or something!" They really do not understand what is taking place. They are only merely seeing the very surface level of the practice. They do not realize that in performing the adab, one is learning to be an apprentice. It is the beginning part of the training program. When you first become a novitiate at the Zendo, the Roshi might make you sweep the steps. Who knows for how long? It is part of the training.
     Since we want to come into the Higher Self and leave the lower self, we need to learn how to develop a relationship with the Higher Self. We recognize that the Sheikh is the principle or the representative of the Higher Self. Adab to the Sheikh is not just serving that person. It is really serving that Higher Self, even in us. It is kind of like when the President of the United States cannot show up at a certain meeting, the President may send the Vice President or the Secretary of State, who is the representative of the President and occupies that honor. When the Vice President or the Secretary of State is on an official envoy call, they are treated as if they were the President because they are representing the President.
     The "nation" that we all come from, that Sovereignty is Allah. The "President" is the Elect Among Prophets (Prophet Muhammad -may peace be upon him). The Vice Presidents are the Sheikhs (may Allah be pleased with them). By our adab, through raising the level of our Self-awareness, we are serving the Higher Self by serving the Sheikh. Through serving the Sheikh, we are serving the Prophet (saws). Through serving the Prophet, we are serving all Prophets (may peace be upon all of them), and through serving the Prophets we are serving Allah Most High. This should never be forgotten!
     In so serving, we become Self-aware. When we become Self-aware, we can see the difference between what is the Higher Self and what is the lower self, what is Real and what is unreal, what truly serves and what inhibits, what we are holding onto and what can be let go. We then have a chance to perform other spiritual practices for raising us to the next level of spiritual development. Until that time, what are we to do?
When we realize that our spiritual protocol, practices of respect, courtesies and manners are prescribed by the Shariat so that we might be right guided along the straight path, we develop real affection for adab. It may be compared to realizing that your hard working gardening techniques produced more fruit and vegetables in your garden. You will have more of a natural desire to pick up the hoe, because you have experienced that in working the hoe, you cleared a way for the fruit not to be strangled by weeds. You develop an affection, a willingness to continue to perform the adab of weeding.
     I want to spend more time developing our Community adab, because I know that we really have a great opportunity to raise our level of Self-awareness, our level of respect, and it will help us to increase our level of attention. In order to build the stamina and the endurance necessary to go the distance on the spiritual path, we must have an extremely powerful level of attention and concentration. We have to be able to sit with our heads up, with our eyes open, and our ears open and listen. As well, we must be able to sit up, with our heads up, with our eyes closed, with our mouths closed, and go inside. In order to know our Higher Self, we must be awake. We need to be able to see what is in front of us in simple matters before we can remember and realize the One, the Infinite One - God/Allah. Likewise, we have to be able to remember to turn on the phone, turn off the lights, turn off the oven, lock the door before we leave and pay our bills, etc. It is all connected.
     We start, by our adab, to see that everything is interconnected through our every thought, word and action. The way I handle myself on the telephone, the way I handle myself with a customer, the way I handle myself with the waiter or the waitress, the way I handle myself at the table and the way I speak, are all opportunities, moment to moment chances to be in service.