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Community and Commitment
Year End 2005


The subject of spiritual life and how it leads to happiness compels us all. In this article, Sheikh Din describes how living a fully integrated spiritual life is not complicated, and reveals that all the information we need to be happy is naturally contained within us.

Living a fully integrated spiritual life isn't really all that complicated. This may come as a surprise, because for many people the idea of spirituality is so unbelievably problematic and convoluted! No doubt, that which all spiritual aspirants long to know and realize, the Divine Reality or Allah, is beyond the limitations of conceptual thinking. Yet, this does not mean that living a spiritual life is not viable or that God/Allah is "unknowable." It all depends on the qualities of the "doing" or "knowing" to which we refer.
    Throughout the course of human history, the human attempt to organize spiritual life and expression has been amazingly complex. We have this religion and that religion, this school and that school, various cosmologies, endless belief systems, myths, legends and countless arrays of personal and collective projections. Certainly, all of these are interesting to observe, study and appreciate. Human culture is enormously rich, but isn't it true that even an exhausting amount of study does not ultimately answer the question of how we can personally satisfy, in depth, the longing of our hearts? What does it really mean to have a spiritual life?
    Integrating one's spiritual life isn't just about collecting information, concocting ideas or projecting fantasies. To state things simply in English, living a spiritual life is really only about one thing, and that's to be a "happy person." Without endlessly equivocating over the many possible inferences of the word "happiness," it can be plainly stated that the longing expressed by travelers on the spiritual path is a quest for an ultimate happiness. I don't want to sound too trite or naive, like some kind of comic book character, but let's get to the point. In our arrogance, and all of our cultural sophistication, we may have dismissed the simple importance that the results of living a spiritual life is really about the personal and collective integration, the realization, of profound happiness. For the sake of this discussion, how are we defining "happiness" and the movement towards it? What does it mean to be spiritually happy, not just in an emotional sense, but to be happy as to be fulfilled with profound joy and peace?
    As the religious and spiritual traditions of the world have promised, is it really possible to be at peace, to be happy while facing every moment with whatever is brought before us along the road of life? Is there such a state of grace, as the great spiritualists have described, that is characterized by complete equipoise and equanimity whether one is in adversity or favor? Could true happiness transcend suffering as well as ecstasy? If in fact this were really the case, then we would need an enormously broad definition of happiness that would not be dependent on external factors such as pleasure or pain, as well as approval or disapproval.
    Spiritual happiness is not just the feeling of pleasure. Pleasure comes and goes. Pain comes and goes as well. These states are transient. Everyone has had plenty of both. Much of the time we commiserate with our suffering, because we do not think we are enjoying enough pleasure, or we have too much pain. Yet, startling enough, during our moments of pleasure, we forget the pain that we have endured at another time. In those moments, we are convinced of the continued existence of our gratification. The two opposing states of pleasure and pain are temporal at best. Relatively speaking, they are short lasting and die off very quickly. Over a person's lifetime, these states reoccur endlessly. However, if you have ever had a chance to meet someone who is "spiritually happy," beyond pleasure and pain, you will find a personal embodiment of universal rhythm and harmony. This is what I am calling integrated - healthy and functional.
    Perhaps the noble Prophet Jesus (upon him be peace and blessings) was describing this state of happiness when he depicted a way of " . . . being in the world but not of it." The great Masters of all times have taught that the true Self is eternal, constant and is in everlasting divine communion with the Whole, the Source that we call Allah. For those who have had a direct experience of this Self, the notion of happiness is not merely philosophical or conceptual. Who I am transcends what appears in front of me. The true Self is not a phenomenon that changes according to the perceptions of the material senses. There is more to life than what meets the eye, Allahu Akbar. Regardless of the endless material waves that rise and fall, regardless of the myriads of emotional states that one may encounter, the true Self, Allah is One.
    This direct experience of the Transcendent brings about profound happiness. How do we realize this glorious Truth? The key to living an integrated spiritual life is to recognize, and then accept, that life is for simply nothing other than living a spiritual life. Life can appear as if it is about all sorts of differing things (thoughts, words, actions), but there is really nothing else going on other than we are all living a spiritual life that we simply call "life." Over and over again, you can knock yourself out trying to figure out how to "accomplish" life so that you can be happy by acquiring pleasure in relationships, jobs, money, family, possessions, power, etc. You will never be able to satisfy your endless thirst with limited objects and ideas. What is really going on here? What's really going on behind the scene of the apparent? The first act of life is that the process of life is set into motion by spiritual Reality. Your existence here is for fulfilling a spiritual purpose. This eternal Truth is preexistent; there is nothing else happening other than this.
    Try a personal experiment to test my theory. Learn to consciously observe any and all of your thoughts, words and actions - all of your activities. Now, regardless of the sensations of your activities, seriously ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" Question your true motive. You should probably be able to come up with some answer much of the time. Ask, "Why?" Then, answer the question to yourself.
    Next, as soon as you are able to answer your initial question of why, confront the answer by again questioning, "Why is that?" Become like a two-year-old for the moment. Repeatedly ask yourself, "Why?" for each response that you give yourself to answer your question. If you are willing to try this simple practice, you will find that the complexity of the issues before you will become increasingly reduced. Eventually the "real" issue will surface in your mind, and you will find that your motivations to perform any thought, word or action lie in something greater than you could explain. The simplicity of this exercise will reveal to yourself that the whole of your existence is attempting to be happy at every moment through thought, word and action. Seemingly, this is impossible to articulate, yet it is true. There is nothing else going on in life other than this. All things are motivated by the same single impulse.
    What is the underlying motive behind anyone's thought, word or deed, whether or not those activities appear at first sight to be good or evil? Why do we do what we do? Why do I feel this way? Why do I think that way? What am I trying to accomplish? Why do we continually repeat our actions . . . for what reason? Take the test. Ask yourself, "Why?" again and again and again. If you are sincere and relentless in this exercise, you will eventually come to one single answer.
    The reason why we do anything is to pursue the spiritual quest for the meaning of life in the effort to be profoundly happy. As the motive of life becomes covered in layers of material and psychic conditioning, life's actions may no longer appear as a spiritual process. It begins to look more material - confusing. However, if you examine all things carefully, the motivation for happiness, fulfillment and peace is underlying and always present.
    Why is it that anybody wants to be good looking? Why do you want to meet the right partner, your so-called "soul mate"? Why are people so enthralled with nature, art, music, drama and poetry? What is the real motivation behind our zeal for life, our will to live? Every expression carries with it the same impulse. So, the first step in living an integrated spiritual life is to realize that there is nothing else going on here but one thing.
Perhaps Earth, material reality, is a way station and training ground for created beings to have the experience of existence. This experience is life. Life is spiritual.
    The ability to self-reflect and to choose belief, as well as unbelief, are concepts that can be summed up with what spiritual theorists call "freewill." Freewill and self-reflection allow us to conceive of our existence and give us the perception of our mobility to move by choice to the object of our desires. The evidence that freewill exists, along with self-reflection, is that you can ask yourself if you've got it. If you can formulate the question "Why?" then you are using freewill in order to ask the question. If we use our freewill and ability to self-reflect even further, we will notice the existence of a living spirit that underlies the thought processes of our minds. Something unnamable, yet it contains presence, purpose and motive.
    Perhaps the easiest way to name this unnamable presence is to call it love or "God." Everyone should be able to relate to love, because we have all had the experience of its spark. Like happiness, no one is exempt from its pursuit. As well, no one has been exempt from some part of its realization. We know love - when we are giving it, when we are receiving it, as well as when we don't have enough of it. I am no great poet, so I am happy to report that there are probably eight thousand years of recorded poetry and prose dedicated to the subject of "big love" within all of the world's great religious traditions, languages and cultures. Writers much better than me have exhausted themselves trying to describe the aspects of love, all of which are intangible and immeasurable. No proof, but still love is Truth. All of the teachings of God return back to "big love."
    The reason that I bring attention to love at this moment is because everybody knows it, yet no one can successfully explain it. We know the truth of its existence. We know when we perceive it, and we know when we lack it. We know that love is not intellectually verifiable, that it is immeasurable and indefinable, but we know that it is Real. We feel it. It's beyond description, conception as well as it seems to be out of our control. This feeling of love provides us with a little keyhole into the reality that there is a spiritual side to ourselves and that it is core to our nature. Human beings are obsessed with love, which happens to be non-material! Love is the subject of happiness.
    I am fond of saying that in truth, we are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience. The package for this experience is incorporated in body, mind and soul, and its existence presents itself as life. Spiritual Life.
    Come into the recognition and acceptance that you are a materially incorporated, indefinable spiritual being living a defined human experience. Do you hear what I am saying? Your created substance is already spiritual. The evidence is in your own personal experience of love. You have come from spirit, and your desire to be happy is the impetus to return into the cognitive recognition of that same spirituality. You perform the functions of effort and work through this process via the facility of your human package. Your consciousness has been adapted to self-reflection and freewill so that you might realize the knowing of your experience. If you change the frame of your previous references to this perspective, it will alter how you perceive life as a whole.  
Biologists, physiologists and scientists will want to argue that human beings are merely a type of evolved animal. They say we are animal because of the limitation of their material instruments to measure reality. There should be no dispute with the idea that we all share this divine process of evolution with all of creation. We are witnessing God coming into being in the material world and watching God's creation evolve through God's process (Will) into higher and higher life forms. We share this environment with all the others: minerals, plants, insects, fish, birds, primates and mammals. Each of us has some likeness to the other, because we all have the signature imprint of the Divine Creator. But after self-reflecting on our purpose for being, after attempting to answer the question "Why?", after admitting that there is a presence and a reality of immeasurable and unnamed forces that move us (love), can we still be willing to accept that we are merely advanced material objects or highly evolved animals?
    Animals basically do four things: sleep, eat, procreate and fight (protect the species). The urge to fight is the need to protect. The propensity to fight is based on fear. Protect what is procreated in order to ensure the continuation of the species. I am not necessarily saying that animals do not have other psychic or emotional expressions, but watch animals, and plants for that matter, and you will find the predominating presence of these instinctual activities. In its nature, a human being is a mind predominant as well as mind preponderant being. If a human being is not observing these higher propensities then it is not activating its intended purpose as a created entity.
    Perhaps it could be said that if a human being cannot recognize and act upon his or her spirituality, than they are operating at a lower level than an animal! It is entirely congruent with animal instincts to act upon their four instinctual desires. This is the natural course of animal life and plant life, therefore the limit of their instinctual behavior is perfect. If human beings could leave nature alone, nature would do just fine for itself, but this is not the nature of human beings. They are mind preponderant and, therefore, will try to measure, understand and control nature. Why? For the purpose of pursuing happiness. Remember the evidence is in the human freewill and ability for self-reflection.
    The very thing that distinguishes us from animals is the presence of a reflective mind. We literally recognize our own spirituality. We have a sense of self. That's what marks our distinction. Other created expressions, such as animals, are already spiritual simply because their actions profoundly fulfill their intended purpose without resistance. A river demonstrates the perfection of its spiritual nature by flowing. One "particle" of water follows the other particles and so on until it arrives at the place of its intended destination. Natural created expressions, other than human beings, are not particularly hung-up with existential crises for recognition and the discovery of purpose. The pursuit of recognition and higher purpose, the search for truth and meaning, the desire to be happy, is particular to mind predominant and mind preponderant beings - humanity.
    The first key to living an integrated spiritual life in the pursuit of happiness is "I am a spiritual being having a human experience." This means in order to be happy, we must be in recognition of our spirituality. Our recognition is marked by our ability to be consciously present to life as a spiritual experience.
    How present is a person? The amazing thing about our minds is that they can literally travel across space and time . . . in our minds. In just a fraction of a second, we can be deep in the past, so deep that we relive old experiences, both pleasures and wounds, as if they were happening just now. As a matter of fact, our past impressions affect the way that we live in the present as well as our propensities for living into the future. We can close our eyes, and on the movie screen of our consciousness we can see the images, hear the sounds, smell the smells, taste the tastes, and relive the joys and hurts that have influenced us over and over again. Simultaneously, we can project our minds into the future to things that have not yet arrived or happened. We cause ourselves to expect, project, anticipate and have anxiety. Anticipation is a type of time travel as well. Curiously, both the projections of the past and the future appear so real that these dimensions alter our physiology, emotions, decision-making, worldviews and reality! This is the power of time travel! Time travel affects how we see the present.
    To be truly present would be the realization of the Arabic Sufi saying as expressed by Sheikh Jalaluddin Rumi, "Fihi ma fihi - As it is, so it is." Not more, not less. Not better, not worse. Not what I think, not what you think. Not with distortion or projection. What is.
    The dimension of this perspective is vast. If we dared, perhaps that's how we could describe God/Allah's point of view. In addition to all other glorious attributes, Allah as the Supreme Witness, sees everything exactly as it is on every level spanning across every dimension irrespective of any phenomenon. Normally human perspective is severely handicapped by personal perspective, and it is limited by personal experience and conditioning. It is a difficult task for one to be present. One must go beyond all previous conditioning of subjectivity in order to realize objectivity.
    The commitment to the practice of being present to all thoughts, words and actions commences the beginning of spiritual work. Presence is the hallmark of spirituality. The practice of presence converts all of life's occupations into living spirituality. Then all of life literally becomes a spiritual practice. Living an integrated spiritual life has nothing to do with going to church, a meditation group or a masjid (mosque) once a week. These behaviors may very well be indicative of a person who is living a spiritual life, but the behavior itself is not spiritual.
    The realization of spiritual life, its integration, takes place in this moment, here and now. If I am truly present, then I have the ability to use my self-reflection and freewill to convert all of my activities from being simple motions of habit, attitude, reaction and defense responses into conscious decisions that in so doing can be used to produce greater happiness and fulfillment. This state is in full regard to my perception as well as my freewill.
    In the present, I can fully participate in life. Not in the past. Not in the future. Not from sets of expectations that are based upon my neuroses of how I think I got here. But, as it is, here and now. In the present, I may choose the "best" way for me to think, behave and speak. I may choose to take action, not to simply react mindlessly to stimulus. It is in the present that I may be able to truly take accountability for my thoughts, words and actions, and through self-reflection, I might put them into alignment.
    Perhaps a good way to define "neuroses" is by the gaps that exist between a person's thoughts, words and actions. The bigger the gap between the parts of one's expression, the more neurotic or the more psychotic a person becomes. If the gaps between thought, word and deed become unbridgeable, a person becomes completely disassociated from their true Self. Small gaps may indicate increasing levels of hypocrisy, while larger gaps eventually turn to mental and emotional disorders.
    Integrate means to bring together, as in bring parts together to make a whole. A healthy person has their respective parts integrated where all of their expressions (physical, mental/emotional and spiritual waves) are in sync - harmony. When one's thoughts, words and actions are integrated, that person exists as "one person," in other words, they have one unified expression. A whole person. When a person practices presence as an exercise, they are able to take inventory of their various expressions. How big are the gaps between the inner world and outer world, between feelings, emotions, thoughts, desires, actions and words?
    For someone whose words do not match their actions, we call them a liar. We call someone a hypocrite who says one thing and really believes another. A hypocrite is where the words do not match the belief. A liar is where the words do not match the action. We already know what it means to be "out of synch" based on our personal experiences. No wonder some of the greatest warnings that are espoused from the Holy Qur'an are those that advise against hypocrisy and lying, because these are the things that divide a person - pull them apart into pieces.
    How does a person live who has gathered together all of their faculties and expressions? What does an integrated spiritual life look like? How does that person eat, sleep, make love, spend their time, make a living and be in relationship? What do they fight for? What will you find them doing, thinking and saying? It is not complex. It's not a mystery.
    If we are going to live an integrated spiritual life, we first must take personal responsibility for our thoughts, words and actions. We must recognize the true nature of our life, that life itself is sacred, because it is spiritual. We must rid hypocrisy and lies from our lives. Life itself is very short. It passes very quickly.
    The spiritual nature of life, its drive (longing) to be happy already has the primordial knowing of what it means to be fully integrated. Longing, the spiritual drive in life, will cause you to want, desire and pursue things with the attempt to become fulfilled and happy. If through sincere self-reflection and self-inquiry you are able to follow the intended direction of your inner motivation, it will guide you to keep a certain kind of company. It will guide you to want to be more conscious. It will guide you, before you act on your behaviors and habits, by reflecting to you the consequences of your actions. Your inner guide, as it is awakened through the practice of being present, will question you in all of your thoughts, words and actions, "Is this serving my true purpose?"
    Your true purpose is predicated on realizing that your life is spiritual reality, and that you are attempting to fulfill your longing to be happy. The effort that one makes to be fulfilled in happiness is called life. Life is spiritual and, therefore, requires a discipline. Your self-reflection will always question you as to your motive, so long as you are in touch with it. Discipline is remembering what you really want, and the choice to be disciplined in thought, word and action is the practice of being present. If you learn to remain present, you can be happy. Your spirituality, your life, is the hub around which the wheel turns. All other pursuits and expressions emanate from this hub. This is why I am proclaiming that all of life is spiritual. The whole journey is built around the core of spirit, just as the pilgrim circumambulates the Holy Ka'bah in Mecca during the hajj.
    If you recognize and accept that you are a spiritual being having a human experience, and that the purpose of your life is to fulfill your spiritual longing, what should your life look like? You answer the question for yourself. I do not need to answer this question for you, as the real answers are self-evident. You might need help or support in the details of your efforts and practices but, nonetheless, the answer of what you are supposed to do is understood. Exactly how you will go about your spiritual life is yet to be determined, but the procedure will unveil itself and become clear as soon as you align the totality of yourself - your priorities. The answers lie within you as well as within each of us. This is one of the reasons why the beloved Prophet Muhammad (saws) taught that, "He who knows himself, knows his Lord."
    One cold winter day a group of us were crossing the Mississippi River, and it was frozen solid. Someone brought up the inevitable question when crossing bridges, "What if the bridge collapsed and we all fell in?" Another person replied, "Wow, that would be an ugly way to go. That'd be real bad." I retorted, "No it wouldn't! It wouldn't make any difference. How you die has nothing to do with how 'ugly' it is or it's not. It is the 'way' you die that matters."
    An ugly way to go is the following: Having regrets. Dying in fear. Having shame. Wishing that you could have done things differently, but you didn't. Wishing you had more time, but you don't. Laying on your death bed while underneath your carpet is all of the crap of your life that got swept under there that you don't want anybody to know about, you don't want anybody to see, you're embarrassed that you did, and you never came to terms with it. Dying in a state where you haven't forgiven and have not been forgiven - that's an ugly way to go. It has nothing to do with whether you fall off a bridge, or if someone picked you out of a crowd.
     On the contrary, a glorious way to leave this world would be when there is nothing left of you. You lived life to its fullest. You did it. The firewood of your life has all become ash. "Here I am Lord. I used my life for what you gave it to me. There's nothing left. I made my mistakes, and I offered them to you. I had my successes, and they all came from you." In this state, every corner of all of your rooms and closets, every recess from the attic to your basement is clean and open to examination. Having lived a fully integrated spiritual life means that there no longer remains anything of you left swept under the carpet. All four corners have been turned up.
    You should be able to look into the mirror of your own conscience and know without doubt, "There is nothing left for me that I could do, want to do or could have tried. I used all my sincere effort. I used every faculty, every breath, every thought, every word, and every action to fulfill myself for the purpose of why I was given this life. I took care of my life just as I would have a rare gift, a trust." That's a glorious way to go.
    The Prophet Muhammad (saws) taught, "Die before you die." When one is completely at peace, peace that is the result of a fully integrated spiritual life, the reconciling of life's contradictions and issues has already taken place. These people have already begun the "Day of Judgment," and as the Holy Qur'an reminds us, " . . . neither do they fear, nor they grieve." Everything has come and gone for them, and they know who they really are, having lived a fully integrated spiritual life.
    This subject - the subject of spiritual life and how it leads to happiness compels us all. The point of this article is that this subject, the answers to the questions and the direction we must follow, is not complicated. The information that we need to know is naturally contained within us. Our outer life is a spiritual exercise to determine the details of action and to practice the disciplines required to follow the natural course. We must begin by realigning our perspectives and perceptions, so that we can make the proper choices through the use of our self-reflection and freewill. In the eternal present, all the information to be happy is here. Life is a spiritual journey. The purpose of life is to realize its purpose. There is nothing else going on for anyone.