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October 18, 2006
Hello everyone,
This week is the week of fall break, the week assignments all come due. I have been very busy; my students have been very busy; everybody is running around with dark rings under their eyes. I knew my students were busy; I also knew that they had a paper of their own due in my class today. For that reason, combined with its availability from the library, I gave them a reprieve and we spent this week watching Baraka by director Ron Fricke. A fascinating production, it was filmed in twenty-four different countries and contains no words or subtitles. Images from around the world are all woven together against a backdrop of ethnic and world music, some of which was scored for the film and some of which was used by permission of previously established artists. (Given that I am a huge fan of ethnic and world music—especially Eastern and hybrid forms—I recognized titles from Dead Can Dance and possibly Ancient Future.) In the director’s “behind-the-scenes” commentary, Fricke described the loose organizational theme of the film as “humanity’s relationship to the eternal.” I would say that it is larger than that, however: I would say it should be subtitled: “Here is your human race.”
The film begins and ends by showing footage from virtually all the world religions, Christianity’s representation the Eastern Orthodox variety. These sequences are followed, particularly toward the beginning, by slow-moving shots of nature and various tribal cultures including the Maasai. After some time of these tranquil panoramic shots, often with time captures so the clouds, sun, moon, and stars all travel at high speeds giving them a sense of fluidity, there is an extended sequence that moves on to life in the city. This too is time captured and does a superb job of showing the mechanization of our modern world: the crush of passengers in the subway, the congestion of Park Avenue, and factories in various locations around the world. This sequence of images is further underscored by a very repetitive and rhythmic track that acts as unspoken commentary on the pace we lead our lives, the machines that are supposed to make them easier (but too often further enslave us to the freneticism), and the way it all is so often impersonal and systematic. Needless to say, the sharp contrast between slow-panning nature shots and the crush of city life offers its own form of commentary. The city time capture is capped by a short sequence featuring a Japanese pantomime engaged in a silent but agonized scream. From here, we move on to the realities of homelessness, prostitution, death camps, war, and ancient ruins before again returning to the major religions of the world and many of the shrines, temples, monasteries, wats, and other sacred spaces in which they worship.
There is good reason why Baraka is the indie film favorite that it is. The blurb on the back of the DVD concludes with this sentence: “[M]ere words do not do the film justice—Baraka must be seen, felt and experienced to be understood.” That is unquestionably true. The video is sobering in many ways and is one that I would recommend to anyone on this mailing list. For a very long time now, I have been acutely aware that we are not alone on this planet: there are worlds beyond these shores most of us have never seen and one complaint I have had with much of the Christian world around me is that it lives in a bubble. Not only does the film capture many of these worlds, it also looks at our ancestry, our coexistence on this amazing planet, and the great unknown that exists beyond us, greeting our gaze when we peer upward into the nighttime sky. As director Ron Fricke suggests, “I really believe that we are connected to everything: that in a sense, I’ve been invited to this planet—just like you and everybody else has . . . and life didn’t ask anybody to approve of a guestlist.”
I generally write the same term papers side by side I assign my students, which works out well, as it provides them with templates custom fitted to the particular course requirements. This latest assignment was an annotated bibliography that will lead up to a special kind of paper dubbed the I-Search. Without belaboring the point, in 1988, an educator by the name of Ken Macrorie wrote a book entitled The I-Search Paper, which proposes a new type of research essay. For our purposes, we will dryly note that it crosses out the “re” of “research” and inserts “I”: it attempts to personalize the research process. It offers students an opportunity to write about anything they wish so long as they can find adequate research; the idea, of course, is to teach students valuable researching skills without limiting them to stuffy academic topics that they likely care little to nothing about. Topics have been varied and interesting and I am looking forward to things I will soon learn. My own choice, after being forced to abandon the Thailand festival of Loy Krathong for lack of resources, was to look into Sufism further, largely inspired by so recently watching Baraka. Here are the introductory paragraphs of my sample annotated bibliography, such that they are:
When people think of Sufism, they tend to think of whirling dervishes and the country of Turkey. There is good reason for that, of course, as whirling dervishes are in fact Sufi and a great many Sufia currently find residence in Turkey, a factor that seems entirely appropriate, given this Islamic country’s high level of Westernization and tolerance. But that brings up another point as well: the critics of Sufism suggest that it is not authentically Islamic at all but simply borrows its framework from the prophet Mohammad to carry its own ideas forward. There may be at least some truth to this idea; in Evelyn Underhill’s highly acclaimed 1912 classic Mysticism, she notes how mystic traditions, regardless of their pedigree, all tend to share much in common at the center. In other words, it is in the nature of mystic traditions from all world religions to seek unity and to see all spiritual paths as fundamentally connected in principle if not always in practice: all seek union with the Absolute.
Whatever the truth about mysticism in general, Sufism in particular crops up from time to time in my world, almost always with the dervishes in their floor-length white “dresses” and their distinctive hats. Gracefulness and a certain mystery seem to characterize their movements and those who have witnessed such ceremonies tend to speak reverently of the love and spiritual character such practitioners appear to exude. I could not speak of such things myself having seen only televised versions of the same, but I can say that I have felt a growing curiosity toward these strange whirling figures who gyrate as an act of spiritual devotion or to attain greater union with God.
What exactly does a Sufi believe? Why twirling? How can this side of Islam—granting that Sufia are in fact Muslim mystics—be so fundamentally different from those extreme varieties of the faith that visit us on televised newscasts from week to week? These are but some of the questions to which I seek answers in my I-Search: perhaps in the process, I will discover something of our common Creator as well. [Archive note: the paper that resulted is published here.]
I do not know when I first became aware of the whirling dervishes, though I believe my first reading of the Muslim mystics called the Sufia came from Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism. That would have been around 2000, and my awareness of other mystical traditions outside the Anglo-Catholic was limited at best. I certainly would never have associated the word “Sufi” with spinning men in skirts, nor was I probably even aware of the image at the time. It might have been through the liner notes on one of Loreena McKennitt’s albums that I encountered my first dervishes; she draws from many sources, with her contralto voice and mastery of the harp weaving together, as they do, a lot of elements beyond the Celtic roots of her contemplative blend of music and literacy. The place I have encountered the dervishes most vividly, of course, is Baraka. Having shown the film to my classes this Monday and today, the topic was obviously fresh on my mind and I asked myself the very questions in the last paragraph above. I already know many of the answers, of course, but the questions are compelling and can always be mined to greater depth.
Now there is a particular reason I relate all of these factors. For the past week, I have been feeling inordinately lonely and depressed. Not constantly, but on a daily basis and for far longer periods of time than makes me comfortable. Paradoxically, however, I have also been seeking the face of God much more passionately than I often do. Something inside of me seems to have awoken.
One evening last week when I was feeling particularly affected, I combed the Net looking for encouragement. Not at all my usual reading, I came across When Things Get Tough by Grantly Morris. It seemed to speak to me, so I investigated more of the site. I soon discovered the mission statement; it always makes me curious when someone feels the need to post his or her doctrinal beliefs in a tidy bulleted list. Should I ever attempt such a thing, I cannot say that this mission statement would resemble my own in several key ways, which I will not here detail. However, one sentence in particular caught my attention that merits mention: “We don’t believe any denomination has a monopoly on truth, but we are opposed to the notion that non-Christian religions might lead to God.” I understand the sentiment. As Christians, most of us believe that Christ is the hope for whom the world is searching. Yet I violently disagree with the idea that there is no possibility that non-Christian religions could lead to God. Quite the contrary, I do not believe God is limited in the ways, means, or avenues through which He may conduct His discourse within the world of mortal humanity; we share a common Creator all, and within every man and woman is an image of the Living God regardless of geographic location or religious persuasion. In Him we move and breathe and have our being; the entire world is God’s and everything contained therein.
Personally speaking, I believe that God has spoken to me many times in some of the most unlikely places, a great many of them through “non-Christian sources,” often through other religions and others apparently through none at all. Along these lines, Karen wrote a particularly powerful blog entry recently entitled “What if.....” Here are a few excerpts:
Now, Buddha (the original) apparently lived about 5 centuries before Jesus. Where did he get those ideas about overcoming greed, hate, and ignorance? He had to get them from God, I think.
Still, people didn’t get it.
* * * * *
I guess the point to all this is that there is goodness and truth in different places, places we reject out of hand because we are raised to believe that our way is the only way. We believe what we believe because we have been taught to believe that, and to be critical of others who do not, to believe that others are less enlightened, less intelligent, and have nothing to offer us. Or worse still, that these lesser beings do not deserve the least bit of respect, and in some cases, that they don’t even deserve to live.
* * * * *
Still, people didn’t get it. I am not saying all beliefs are equal or equally true. I am saying truth is what it is, and it is where it is. It would be nice and tidy if all truth were found in one package—less work for those who like things in nice, tidy packages. But finding truth takes looking for truth, and asking, what if.......
I said I had been feeling down and the particular essay by Morris linked above seemed to speak to me, however much I adamantly disagree with the particular sentence contained within his mission statement. Over the next several days I had nothing but nonstop homework, the first assignment of which was the annotated bibliography so that my students would have a template before the due date this Wednesday (today). I dutifully put together my research on the Sufia, finding a lot of valuable information in scholarly online databases and a few Web sources.
What makes an annotated bibliography “annotated” is that not only is there a bibliography of sources listed for further reference and perusal, but a brief summary and synopsis is afforded for each one as well. This obviously requires the assembler to skim the contents of his or her sources to gain some sense of what the content includes. The last source I examined was from a website called Islam from the Inside Out. Specifically, the page I referenced was called The Nafs,” nafs the Islamic word for “soul.” So then, the source was essentially called, when translated, “The Soul.”
When God chooses to speak to us, He speaks in very personal ways that are hardly a one-size-fits-all. If we are really listening, we all have to admit there are times in which our spirit has been checked, often through the most unlikely places. I was seeking encouragement when I came across Morris’ piece, and it did speak to me somewhat. But this particular research page, by contrast, was exactly what I needed to hear, and it was from a non-Christian site no less. I say again, I violently resist the notion that non-Christian religions cannot lead us to God. As Karen says, perhaps they do not contain the total truth, but that does not mean the opposite must therefore necessarily be true: that is, it is fallacious reasoning to suggest that if something does not contain the total truth it therefore contains no truth at all. In any case, I do not pretend that this excerpt will speak to you; I make no such claim. The only claim I make is that it spoke to me and was exactly the thing I needed to read in order to get back on track. My depression and sense of loneliness lifted, only hinting at a reemergence once or twice since. Instead, I have been filled with a great sense of calm and I know that this piece was what I needed to hear:
The qur’an delineates three levels for the soul (the nafs, the self). In sura 12:53 it mentions the nafs ammara (the commanding soul). This is the level at which most of us exist. Our self consists of a conglomeration of wants, desires, impulses, habits, fears, angers, appetites, tendencies and an ego that constructs a self image that it then seeks to protect and maintain any way it can—even by distorting the true nature of the realities around it. This is the commanding soul—but it is not one which commands but rather it is a self which is commanded by this host of impulses and desires. It wanders distracted or seeks out satisfaction of its wants and justifies its behavior to itself so that it can continue doing what it does, it tends to trap itself in “safe” (self protective), or habitual, or addictive behaviours. At this stage the person is like a kingdom in chaos where the citizens are habits, desires, fears, moods, impulses, and egoism and all clamour for attention and satisfaction and the self is a slave to them pulled this way and that in response to their demands.
Sura 75:2 speaks of the nafs lawwama (the blaming soul). This is the level at which an inner jihad (struggle) is taking place within the self—the person has become aware of a higher, deeper reality and struggles to centre their consciousness so that they do not move erratically from impulse to impulse but so that all action and thought is fed through an aware, conscious centre that struggles to manage and control the self. This is the stage of the active jihad—the greater jihad by which the lower self is subdued and the higher potentials within a person are opened up. It manifests itself in both inner and outer forms of striving and struggle. The person struggles with turning his inner self and his worldly life towards a new form of living—one that is immersed in a larger, truer vision of the nature of Reality—a Reality of which the material reality is only a small portion. Here the person begins to realize the truth of the covenant that was made with God before the person’s existence on this earth—and he struggles (he performs jihad) in an attempt to make himself true to this covenant. (This is the covenant in which God brings before Himself (in a place outside of time as we know it) all the (souls of the) children of Adam who will ever be born and asks them “Am I not your Lord”—and they answer “Yes.” After the acknowledgement of this covenant, they are born into the world at their destined time and place—Qur’an 7:172)
Sura 89:27 speaks of the nafs mutma’inna (the soul at peace). This is the level at which, as the Qur’an says, the person witnesses God’s signs on the horizons and within their own nafs, their own selves. Their own self (nafs) becomes a place where His signs are disclosed and manifested. When the self is an abode of peace then in the quiet of this abode it becomes possible to witness this manifestation. It is said that God manifests himself in the silences of the soul—so one who is always distracted and busy with the internal noise of desires, passions, distractions, egotism etc. will never be truly conscious of God. In order to listen, in order to hear, one has to be silent. If a person never stops talking, they will never be able to properly listen to another—they will be distracted with their own outpourings, their own opinions, their own ego. They will never reach a point of internal quietude (of peace) and thus that which is subtle will never be experienced. And the qur’an describes God as “The Subtle, the Aware.” One has to cease talking, and then cultivate an alert but calm attentiveness in order to see deeper than the surface. Just as the depths of a pond become invisible when the surface water is in constant rough motion, our own depths become invisible when we are in constant agitation and movement. The people of this level know the great Reality behind the world and the endless distractions of this life are seen in their proper perspective—they no longer dominate but yet they are given their proper due.
So then, the nafs ammara, or “commanding soul” (mentioned in sura 12:53) is driven by our wants, desires, appetites, and passions and it has a tendency to distort the reality around it, seeing what it wants to see: it is called the commanding soul because desire dominates, or commands it, not the other way around: we might paraphrase it as the “commanded soul” led around by the ring in its nose. The nafs lawwama (found in sura 75:2) is not unlike Kierkegaard’s ethical stage, in which higher principles are at war with one another within a person: he or she desires to turn to Reality in the large: to seek the face of God and abide in His presence. Finally, the nafs mutma’inna (sura 89:27) is the soul at peace: it is here that the soul can hear and see the manifestations of God at work both in one’s life and in the world. There is a sense in which a surrender and a turning away from the artificiality of the nafs ammara and a turning within unto the nafs mutma’inna—the inner place in which the voice of God may be heard—can bring out this highest stage: a stage the distractions of life often detain us from reaching, at least for any length of time, for it is an existential or relational state of union between God and the individual soul. We humans tend to lose our way so quickly, led around by our passions, falling so pathetically far short of the only lasting peace the universe has to offer.
This idea threads back into the subject I had originally proposed to write about when I first started thinking of newspaper topics late last week: the idea of surrender. Now certainly different Christians disagree on exactly what our relationship with God entails. Yet setting aside the idea of salvation as a means of attaining a state of paradise after death and all the many and embroiled theological debates such a question entails, there is a very real sense in which we are daily confronted with the choice to surrender ourselves to God or merely to go about our way. We have found that life tends to go better—at the least, is characterized by greater depth, presence of mind, and true growth—when we strive on a daily basis to spend time in prayer and communion with God. However, many are the cares and concerns that choke out this pursuit and very few are those of us who remain always faithful. In fact, many of us are rarely if ever faithful, except perhaps when our lives become unmanageable. Yet each day we have a choice: do we surrender? As Father Chris Metropulos writes: “There are places in my life where I truly live out the principles of my faith and there are places in my life where I do not. A continual conversion is necessary if I am going to honestly confront myself with the need to allow the Holy Spirit to actually change me and my attitudes about my possessions and my life.”
The quest of our Christian lives is so often seen merely as a pursuit of life after death. But what of the nafs mutma’inna—the soul at peace? Eternal life, as we have said many times before, is not just about duration but even more so about quality. And eternal life is available to us at any moment; at any moment we may also reject to live in it fully as well. In any case, the Christian life involves much more than the great hope of what lies beyond; it also involves the great hope of sustenance day by day. We quoted Thomas Blake in Wisdom: Socrates, the Psalmist, and the Serpent; we shall do so here again: “Every morning, lean your arms awhile upon the window-sill of heaven and gaze upon the Lord. Then, with the vision in your heart, turn strong to meet thy day.” Christians tend to quibble about the beginning, are usually dogmatic about the ending, but seldom seem to give a second thought to the in-between. However, it is in the now that God is found—found and kept. For you see, the now is the eternal and always will be: now and forever.
God bless
Eric
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