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Six Spokes of Progressive Development
- DR journal 2002
(Winter) |
 In
this
part one of a two part series, Sheikh Din Muhammad Abdullah
al-Dayemi explains in detail the six modes of expression the spiritual
aspirants will need to fulfill in order to complete themselves or
"return" on the Spiritual path.
I would like to speak about submission and surrender in the context of
what in Sufism and Qur`anic wisdom is called "the Return." There is an
ayat (line) from the Qur`an that says, Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi
rajiuun. This means, From Allah do all things come and unto Allah do
all things return. This is the recitation that is most often recited by
Muslims when reminded of death, as in the passing of a loved one. It's
also the incantation contemplated by the Sufi regarding one's own
temporal nature, as well as the impermanence of creation. The ayat
reminds us of our common point of origin. It gives us insight into the
temporary sustenance that maintains our limited existence, and finally,
it has us face the ultimate destination of all created things. In
addition, if you listen carefully and understand the adhaan (call to
prayer), you will hear reflected all of the precepts of our path. I'm
not going to explain each phrase of the adhaan, but I want to focus for
a moment on those phrases that correspond to this concept of
"returning."
Toward the end of the call to prayer, the adhaan exclaims, Hayya
`alas-salaah! Hayya `alal falaah! Come to pray (to sanctify or to
consecrate)! Come to success (completion)! Here the salaah is being
declared, but salaah in the perspective of this declaration isn't
"prayer" as typically thought of among the many religious supplicants
who petition God for benefits or favors. The salaah, among the Muslims,
is a form of "prayer" that declares and praises Allah's Greatness. This
type of prayer is an affirmation. The word "salaah" has more to do with
being sacred and sanctifying oneself. In other words, the adhan might
be thought of saying, "Come, get holy!" Why? Hayya alal falaah! Come to
success (completion)! Within the context of Qur`anic wisdom, success is
attained through one's completion or fulfillment of life's purpose.
Therefore, if one is complete, one is successful.
Participate in life's process. Make holy. Come and be sacred, and in
sacredness, you will have come to completion, to success. Herein
resounds the echoing importance of the return as expressed in the
adhan. Complete yourself. From the moment that creation has become
manifest, Allah calls the creation to "Come back," to return. In due
course, everything finds its destination in its return, which in the
long run is the return into the completion of destiny - life's cycle.
Within the scope of our personal lives, wherein lies the evidence for a
common final destination? Ultimately, the evidence is the existence of
death (change) as a reality. Death is the absolute; it is entirely
unavoidable. In addition, the evidence exists within us as our unending
spiritual longing. It would be safe to say that outside the individual
particularities of why any group of spiritual aspirants gathers
together, the one thing that all individuals have in common is
spiritual longing. Longing for what? Longing for union.
Union is very abstract and philosophical. Our spiritual longing can be
recognized; however, what we are longing for is rather indefinable and
unspeakable. Yet we feel it, know what we're talking about when we
speak of it, and in the sangha (collective), we share it. Union is the
success, the completion where there no longer exists longing, and,
therefore, we find ourselves "returned." Remember the good of American
slogan from The Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home"? Home is
peace, the satisfaction where there is no longer a dilemma. Home holds
no more aching tension to have more, to become more, to know more or to
be more. Home is where and when we arrive completed. We have returned.
Falaah!
You know what it's like to have a project that you've initiated, but
the project doesn't feel complete. In other words, you haven't finished
it. You also know that as long as the project feels incomplete, there
will be something tugging inside you to finish it. This tugging takes
place over the smallest of personal matters like chores, as well as
predominates and confronts us in all our life's issues.
There is often a gap between our intellectualization of a subject and
our ability to live the understanding as a reality in the common
actions of daily life. Everybody knows the tension that I'm talking
about - the difference that exists between knowing about something and
realizing it. Doesn't this tension create a feeling of incompleteness?
Doesn't incompleteness tug inside you as you try to expand and grow
beyond your previous limit? Isn't that tugging feeling akin to longing?
And doesn't that longing have you feel like you want to return . . . to
something? What are you longing for?
We experience longing in the dissatisfaction of how thin or how fat we
are . . . by the wanting to gain or lose weight. We face our longing in
how patient or impatient we are when faced with those things that we
cannot change. We feel it in childrearing. We feel it in our jobs. We
find that from the moment Spirit has expressed itself as us (human),
there is an urge inside of everyone to return. This urge to return is
amplified and given a voice in the adhan when it calls, Hayya alal
falaah! Come to completion!
The Divine Creative force causes creation to come into being through
the existence of the quintessential elements or factors. As described
among the mystics, these elements are: earth - corresponding to the
solid factor, water - corresponding to the liquid factor, fire -
corresponding to the factor of light, air - corresponding to the factor
of material space, and ether (akasha) - corresponding to a substance
more subtle than space that is actually a dimension of consciousness.
Everything in the creation is composed of these five fundamental
elements or factors. It doesn't matter whether you go to Venezuela, the
moon, Saturn or to some far off planet circumambulating one of the
stars in the Pleiades; whatever exists in manifest reality is composed
of these five material elements.
Among these elemental factors, there appears to be an infinite variety
of creative combinations. How many species are there on this planet?
How many species are there in the universe? How many points of light
shine on this planet? How many stars are shining in the sky? From
one-cell organisms, all the way up the food chain to plants, fishes,
amphibians, birds, animals, mammals, as well as humans, how many
different expressions are there? Uncountable.
You could say that all of these expressions are in the process of
realizing falaah, completion. They must exist in peace or seek to
return to their appropriated mode of balance. Allah's creation exists
as a matrix, a whole dimension, and each and every thing has its place
and position. From the advent of creation, each expression is trying to
complete or return itself. Among every created expression there is a
mode of eating, sleeping, procreating, protecting, governing and
staying organized. Within human beings you also find these modes, not
as gracefully expressed have you, but you will find them.
Allah is the creative, initiating impetus that simultaneously calls the
creation to return. Allah is the destined repository of all created
things that simultaneously causes creation and procreates variety.
Allah is One while expressing Allah's own Self with infinite diversity.
The creation (universe) is one, a whole and complete matrix, but
appears as different expressions.
This Divine Paradox of Being, which is simultaneously One and
different, exists in the human being as well. To live a spiritual life
means to have a holistic life. To be truly an illumined, enlightened,
fully self-realized, liberated practitioner, you will have had to
encompass some part of every expression of life. I have defined the
enlightened person, as well as the enlightened collective (social
system), as containing six different spokes or ways of expression:
1. Personal Expression - The personal expression
is the domain of one's individual self and one's individual growth.
It's the domain that we relate to most often, and unfortunately, it's
the domain that we become most obsessed and fixated on -ourselves. It
cannot be avoided; after all, it is through myself that I am having a
human experience. So, I must start my enlightenment process here.
Spiritual life, as well as spiritual completion, cannot be without the
expansion or growth of the individual self, but we very quickly find
out that when trying to satisfy our desire to return and become
complete, we can't do it alone. Nor do we exist alone. Even if we don't
like people, we can't do it alone. Even if we can't stand people, and
we can't stand living here on Earth, we can't do it alone. None of us
has knit their own shirts, and barely any of us has even cut their own
hair. More often than not, we have not cooked our own food, let alone
grown and harvested it. People, by in large, cannot get past their
desires and attractions for others, whether they're sexual, emotional
or physical. Even if one doesn't want to depend on others, others'
influences still predominate upon the individual. Here is where the
second spoke appears.
2. Interpersonal Expression - Relationship is the
domain of the interpersonal expression. After my growth expands from
the limit of my individual self, relationship is how I connect, relate
and engage with others and the world around me. Of course, it starts
out small with one other person. It expands to a unit like a family,
and as it continues to expand it becomes a collective, a township, a
city, a state, a nation and, finally, the globe. Relationships and
interpersonal expression cannot be avoided.
When individuals express themselves through relationship, the
relationships become colored (influenced) by how they are expressed.
Look around. See the various styles? See the differing forms of
costumes, clothes, food, songs, music, poetry and dance? If you look
beneath all these forms, you will find that in reality, it is the
interpersonal relationships that are trying to be expressed.
3. Cultural Expression - The action taken to
express the deep, profound and unspeakable experience of being human is
cultural expression. Culture is how people express what they love,
believe and experience in their network of relationships. This movement
is the need to "try to get it out" somehow. When we're down, we sing
the blues, trying to get it out. However, the blues isn't always a
relatable music genre for all. Others are singing ragas (Indian
melodies) according to the time of day and the season. There are many
different modes of human expression, and again, it is these modes of
human expression, experienced through the forms of interpersonal
relationships, that have come to be known as cultures. Baba Anandamurti
once said that he wasn't prepared to admit that there were different
cultures on the planet. He said that fundamentally there is only one
human culture. I agree with that, however, I am creating a subtle
distinction to this point by saying that the variety and diversity of
how humanity expresses itself form what appear to be the different
cultural conditions.
We cannot separate the urge and longing to personally grow from the
urge and longing to expand our personal growth into interpersonal
relationship, nor once we find ourselves in relationship, the urge to
express our culture. This is all part of the enlightenment process,
part of becoming a whole human being.
4. Environmental Expression - What is the container
that the differing cultural expressions of humanity live within? It's
an environment, an ecosystem of sorts.
In addition to the environment being our ecology, it also includes the
continuum of time and space. The environment (time/space phenomenon) is
also the very same container for the five fundamental elements
(factors). The environment necessitates that there be a balance, so all
things can exist and so that life can live. Without it, life and
material existence fail. Without environmental balance, even inanimate
life, such as minerals and stones, cannot survive. If it becomes too
hot, things melt. If it becomes too cold, things crystallize, shatter
and eventually decompose. So, human culture must pay attention to its
natural environment.
For other species or expressions of life, coexistence is graceful.
Animal species know not to "shit their nest." Plants and animals eat,
consuming only the required amount of food needed for survival. Then
they are satisfied. Species other than human protect themselves by
killing only for survival. There exists an innate sense in creation, in
accordance to the season, when it's the best time for the organism to
procreate. Species other than human sleep when they are tired and are
awake when they should be awake. Being nocturnal means to be awake at
night and sleep during the day. Otherwise, sleep at night, and awaken
during the day. This balanced reality is not so much so with human
beings, especially given the remarkable quality of human consciousness
that heralds self-reflection and free will.
Within this majestic gift of free will, it seems that humanity is given
temporary self-governance. Human beings can literally operate against
the natural course of the environment if they so choose. People would
like to "procreate their brains out," not just reproduce to ensure the
wherewithal of the species. Others don't know when to stop or start
eating. They can't even stay on a diet after they have overeaten.
People don't know what food to eat that is properly nutritious, let
alone where the food comes from. How little or how much sleep is
appropriate? When depressed, people sleep too much, or when depressed
and anxious, they can't sleep at all. Then they act out.
Through the abuse of our interpersonal relationships, we create defense
systems that take great environmental toll. It is within our
environment that we lash out against others when we don't feel
complete, successful or fulfilled. We take out our tensions on our
kids, spouses, friends, and ultimately, ourselves. All of these
actions, if not seen in their proper spiritual perspective, become the
equation for material greed. Greed has had people "commoditize" the
environment for their own personal use. What is the result? Poisoned
water, poisoned air, poisoned soil and a gigantic hole in the ozone.
Human greed and imbalance have disrupted the natural environment.
It is the environment that is absolutely necessary for humanity to have
the human experience. A healthy environment is required to live, so
that we might perform our function and purpose and eventually fulfill
the true meaning of life - falaah. Without a healthy environment, there
ain't gonna be no falaah for human beings.
Allah has created the environment. This fourth spoke proves that in
order to be a complete and whole spiritual person, we must also
protect, maintain, preserve and steward the environment. Realize that
part of being an illumined person in this day and age is to be an
environmental activist, so to speak. You cannot neglect the environment
that you live in, nor can you separate it from your individual
spiritual practice. You are connected to it. How do we organize
ourselves to be in alignment with each other and our environment?
5. Political Expression - This is the means of
organizing the individual within the collective (relationships) to be
in harmony with the environment. It is popular now to despise
organizations. There is currently much resistance to organized
religion, organized politics and organized education. Everyone just
wants to be free, but we have smashed into a dead-end personal and
social wall of not being able to be free. In addition to the
limitations of spiritual disease, our imprisonment is also contributed
to by the way humanity avoids being in relationship. Remember that
relationship, interpersonal expression, is the second spoke.
Human expression necessitates the need to be coordinated, both on a
personal basis, as well as on a social scale. Even in something as
simple as washing our clothes, we must protect the environment from
where the dirty water goes. Human movement, especially social movement,
needs infrastructure. We need ways to communicate with each other.
We've invented telegraphs, telephones, megaphones, cell phones, faxes
and email. All of these devices are for a single purpose. We attempt to
communicate with each other, so that we might organize our ideas and
experience into a collective movement.
If you're going to satsang tonight, who's going to provide childcare?
In our Community we have a seva coordinator. At each meeting she stands
up and announces the tasks required for fulfilling the Community's
functions - those items needed to take care of each other, i.e., Who's
going to pick up Isa? Who's taking care of the kids tonight? Is there
gas in the Community vehicles? Oh, by the way, how do you get the gas
into the car? Where did the gas come from? How do you get the oil out
of the ground? What's an oil rig look like? How much are all of these
activities going to cost in time and money?
So, you see, we are constantly organizing. If you are going to be a
human being and be fully expressed in this world, in the same way that
Allah has expressed the entire universe, you must do it with a sense of
organization. The sun rises and sets on time. The moon waxes and wanes
in phase. The moon circumambulates around the earth, causing the tides
to change. The tides change predictably: high tide, low tide. Alas,
here come the seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. Atomic particles
couple together in molecules, and then through relationship, organize
themselves into structures. Everything takes place on time and in a
Divinely organized way. This means that to be a fully enlightened,
illumined, liberated and self-realized human being, one has to attend
to organizing one's environment.
Organizing is politics. The true meaning of politics is in how we
organize. It's not what you've come to know politics to be: bi-partisan
power struggles. The essence of politics starts with how we organize
ourselves. In the early seventies the Women's Movement came out with
the profound slogan "The personal is political." In life, you must face
the meaning and reality of organization. Uncovering the significance of
what it means to be in concert with your environment, your
relationships and yourself, means getting political. My teaching is
this: In order to be a fully illumined person, you also have to
complete yourself politically. You can't avoid it.
We are living and organizing in a common environment. Why are we
organizing? For the purpose of supporting our relationships. What is
the purpose of our relationships? For reflecting and acknowledging our
personal growth. What's the purpose of our personal growth? To complete
one's self. What is completion? It is the graceful and honorable return
to Allah, which is the natural state that is called God-realization,
illumination, enlightenment or liberation. Yet, how are we going to
"pay" for it all? What will maintain us in the process?
How much did it cost to purchase your shirt? How much does it cost to
put the formula in the baby bottle? And that oil that we pumped out of
the ground that has become such an issue of global politics; what is
its worth?
6. Economic Expression - Our means of trade, the
value that we assign to distributing the world's resources, is the
economy. An enlightened spiritual person cannot be devoid of the
economic reality that human behavior, and how we assign value, has had
a serious impact on the environment. Human politics have become skewed
by how we assign value. If we destroy our environment with false value,
we will no longer be able to support our relationships. If we can't
support our relationships, we will forfeit our own individual, personal
growth. Thus, the economy is tied directly to spiritual growth.
Go to the top of the Himalayas and interview the yogi who has decided
to renounce the world by slipping into a cave. "The world is Maya, the
ensnared trap of attachment!" he exclaims. However, when he steps
outside the cave, you will notice a few issues that must be attended
to. He will have to deal with clothing himself - to whatever degree.
Then there is the issue of food - acquiring, preparing and eating it,
even if he is a breatharian! What about waste? Even if the holy man is
so pure that he only urinates and poops three little balls once on the
new moon, where does it go? Inside the cave? I guarantee you, he won't
do that inside his own cave.
The highland pine trees that grow around the mountains are starting to
look a little brown and wilted. Why? Acid rain. The poisons that human
industries have created are belching gases into the atmosphere, which
when particulated through the rain and snow, have landed on the secret
cave's hiding place. Sadly, even the remote mountain plants can't grow
naturally anymore. Oh, by the way, global warming has changed the
course of the seasons, so the cave life is different than it used to be
centuries ago. Winds blow atomic poisons directly to the cave door
after incidents like the Chernobyl disaster. These disasters happen
because of our need to produce power and sell it for a profit.
Even the monk, yogi or renunciate can no longer be reclusive. There is
no "away" from here. There is nowhere to go, not anywhere, not anymore.
You will find it necessary to fulfill yourself in these six modes of
expression in order to be a fulfilled and completed human being. Allah
has called you to completion and Allah completes Allah's Own Self with
these same six modes.
The container in which all things exist, the organization and natural
process that they have to go through, and even the means of production
and economic exchange, are part and parcel to our return - our
completion. Everything in life is connected to everything else. From
Allah do all things come and unto Allah do all things return. This
message is tawhiid and is contained in the sacred phrase, La ilaha illa
Llah.
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