The Greatest Battle

In the attached video, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf describes how in returning from a fierce battle the Prophet Mohammed tells his followers that they are returning to a greater battle. "But we are battle-wearied," was their complaint. To which the Prophet declared that the "greater battle" is that of the battle with the lower self, the battle of the ego.

Fadiman and Frager, in their book, "Essential Sufism," note that it is the lower self or ego (in Arabic, the nafs) that "tends to lead us astray."

"The lower self is not so much a thing as a process created by the interaction of the soul and the body," they point out. "Body and soul are pure and blameless in themselves. However, when our soul becomes embodied, we tend to forget our soul nature; we become attached to this world and develop such qualities as greed, lust, and pride."

"On the spiritual path and in life in general," they note, "we all struggle to do those things we clearly know are best for ourselves and others. We often struggle even harder to avoid those actions we know are wrong or harmful."

 This struggle with the egoic, lower self is indubitably the source of the famous remonstrance of the Apostle Paul, when he observes:"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." (Rom. 7:19)

"The sources of (all) human problems," Imam Rauf points out, "have to do with egotism, with "I".

Einstein to Alan Watts and Beyond: Who Are We?

"You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic, even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed. The basic thing is therefore to dispel, by experiments and experience, the illusion of oneself as a separate ego. The consequences (however) may not be behavior along the lines of conventional morality."

-- Alan Watts --
("The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are")

The illusory way of seeing the world from the perspective of the individual "self" of the human ego is a problem recognized by deep-thinking scientists and philosophers alike. Whether Einstein's view on the illusory nature of the ego informed or was informed by his paradigm-rattling theory of relativity, one cannot but help think that it may have helped him in framing his famous thought-experiment of "the twins paradox." (In this paradox, one identical twin remains on earth while another travels the stars in a space ship that is going at nearly the speed of light. When the second twin arrives back on Earth, to their amazement the Earth-bound twin will have aged appreciably more than the space-faring twin due to the effects of relativity.)

Irrespective of what came first, his "twins paradox" or his views on the illusory nature of the human ego, it is clear that the latter informed both Einstein's work as a humanitarian and as a pacifist. In one of his many quasi-scientific/quasi-philosophic observations, he famously remarked:

"A human being is part of the whole called by us the universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness."

"This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."

The polymath philosopher, Alan Watts, a dozen-or-so years after Einstein's comments (which were made in 1954, at the height of the Cold War), came to much the same conclusion. After presciently warning against the arms race, overpopulation and environmental degradation - issues that have only become more acute in the intervening decades - Watts observed:

". . . (T)he problem of man and technics is almost always stated in the wrong way. It is said that humanity has evolved one-sidedly, growing in technical power without any comparable growth in moral integrity, or, as some would prefer to say, without comparable progress in education and rational thinking."

"Yet," he observed, "the problem is more basic. The root of the matter is the way in which we feel and conceive ourselves as human beings, our sensation of being alive, of individual existence and identity. We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body - a center which "confronts" an "external" world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. "I came into this world." "You must face reality." "The conquest of nature.""

"This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe," he notes, "is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not "come into" this world, we come out of it, like leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely if ever experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" in bags of skin."

This stark delusionary "reality," Watts points out, results in two distinct, but interrelated problems; problems that have only grown more acute as man's technology and his increasing sense of isolation from the whole have spiked in recent years. Together, these factors lead (a) to an ever increasing exploitation of our environment and (b) to the inability of individuals, let alone nations, to act with a common sense of purpose, even in the face of the glaring existential threats that we have created.

"The first result of this illusion," Watts notes, is that our attitude to the world "outside" us is largely hostile. We are forever "conquering" nature, space, mountains, deserts, bacteria, and insects instead of learning to cooperate with them in a harmonious order. . . . The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events - that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies - and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends."

"The second result of feeling that we are separate minds in an alien and mostly stupid universe is that we have no common sense, no way of making sense of the world upon which we are agreed in common. It's just my opinion against yours, and therefore the most aggressive and violent (and thus insensitive) propagandist makes the decisions. A muddle of conflicting opinions united by force of propaganda is the worst possible source of control for a powerful technology." 

[Watts, "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are," pp. 12 - 13.]

"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive," Einstein warned. Such a new way of thinking must, as Watts points out, originate from a much deeper place in our consciousness (both personal and collective), from a state of consciousness and being where we do not conceive of ourselves and others as merely separate "egos" encased in "bags of skin."

Self and Selfishness: A Sufi Perspective

"Sufism is concerned with the ways of following a spiritual path and with what gets us off track," write Fadiman and Frager in 'Essential Sufism.' "There is in an element in us," they note, "the nafs, that tends to lead us astray. This Arabic term is sometimes translated as 'ego' or 'self.' Other meanings of nafs include 'essence' and 'breath.'"

"In Sufism," they point out, "the term nafs is generally used in the sense of 'that which incites to wrongdoing.' This includes our egotism and selfishness, our greed and unending desire for more things, our conceit and arrogance. Perhaps the best translation for this part of us is the 'lower self.'

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

There was a poor fisherman who was a Sufi teacher.  Every day he would go fishing, and each evening he would distribute his catch amongst the poor of his village, trading a fish or two for vegetables and some basic essentials, and keeping a fish head or two with which he would make a fish-head soup for himself. Each evening, after finishing his soup he would sit in front of his hut, mending his fishing nets and sharing discourses with his students.

One evening, one of his students, a merchant, told the old fisherman that he would soon be traveling to Cordoba on business. The old man was delighted, and he charged his student with seeking an audience with his own teacher, the great Sufi metaphysician Ibn 'Arabi. "Tell him that my own spiritual growth is slow," the sheikh instructed his student, "and ask him what, if there is anything, I can do to improve my practice."

Arriving in Cordoba, the merchant sought an audience with Ibn 'Arabi, as instructed. He was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the great sheik's palace, the majestic marble columns and the fine silk draperies. When summoned to speak with the great sheikh, the merchant humbled himself and relayed his teacher's concerns. Ibn 'Arabi considered the merchant's request for a moment, and then said simply: "Tell him that he is still far too worldly."

Weeks later, the merchant returned to his village, still incensed at the temerity of Ibn 'Arabi, who amidst all his luxuries could say that his own humble teacher was too worldly. When he relayed Ibn 'Arabi's instructions to the fisherman, he expressed how upset he was by the hypocrisy of the renowned teacher. The fisherman told his student: "Do not be confused by material wealth and seeming abundance. We each may have as much wealth as our soul can handle. Ibn 'Arabi's great wealth was not merely material wealth, but great spiritual wealth as well."

"Besides," the fisherman added, "my teacher was right. I still love my fish heads too much!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"The lower self is not so much a thing as a process created by the interaction of the soul and the body." note Fadiman and Frager. "Body and soul are pure and blameless in themselves. However, when our soul becomes embodied, we tend to forget our soul-nature; we become attached to this world and develop such qualities as greed, lust, and pride."

"On the spiritual path and in life in general," they note, "we all struggle to do those things we clearly know are best for ourselves and others. We often struggle even harder to avoid those actions we know are wrong or harmful."

"Why the struggle?" they ask. "If we were of a single mind, there would be no struggle. But our minds are split. Even when we are convinced of what is right, our lower self tries to get us to do the opposite. Even when we see clearly, our lower self leads us to forget."

[Fadiman and Frager, "Essential Sufism," pp. 65-66.]

Who Am I?

"Abba Poeman said to Abba Joseph: Tell me how can I become a monk. And he replied: If you want to find rest here or hereafter, say in every occasion, who am I? and do not judge anyone."

-- Greggory Mayers --
("Listen to the Desert," p. 9.)

One of the most insightful observations in the Bible is found in the Book of James, where it is plainly stated (at James 1:8) that, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."  

In one pithy sentence, this profound observation diagnoses the basic human dilemma - the duality of the ego and 'who' we actually are - as well as the symptoms of our dilemma, i.e., the instability of our egoically-inspired thoughts, words and actions. A person identified with the ego is, of course, apt to think, say or do just about anything in any circumstance. Thus, Abba Joseph's sage advice is to ask oneself repeatedly, and in whatever circumstances one may find him or herself in, the question, "Who am I?" Are our thoughts, words and actions driven by the all-too-human separate "self" of the ego, or do they emanate from the authentic "Self," i.e., in strictly Christian terms, from "the Kingdom of God within" us? (See Luke 17:21.)

Almost as an afterthought, Abba Joseph also adds the advice: "and do not judge anyone," for he must have known that each of us is liable to find him or herself at any time within the throes and under the dictates of of our smaller "self." This is the heart of Jesus' admonishment: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." And, of course, it is the ego, itself, that renders the harshest judgment, and is metaphorically willing to serve as prosecutor, judge, jailer and executioner. Our greatest challenge is, thus, quite literally, to get over our "selves."

"Only he who has renounced the impassioned thoughts of his inner self, which is the intellect" observed St. Hesychios, "is a true monk. It is easy to be a monk in one's outer self if one wants to be," notes the father of' centering prayer, "but no struggle is required to be a monk in one's inner self."

[Palmer, et. al, "The Philokalia," Vol. 1, pp. 174-175.]

Consciousness: The Intersection of Science, Metaphysics and Religion

"We have inherited from our forefathers the keen longing for unified, all-embracing knowledge."

-- Erwin Schrodinger --

In the true spirit of 'philosophy' - that is, the love of knowledge - the polymath English philosopher, Herbert Spencer, once famously observed: "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." And perhaps nowhere in our modern culture are the bars thicker than between the seemingly exclusive fields of science and religion.

One of the foremost contemporary critics of religion, neuroscientist and author ("Letter to a Christian Nation"), Sam Harris, continually makes the case for an epistemological 'Chinese wall' between science and religion, physics and metaphysics, faith and reason, etc. Yet, in a recent article on the Huffington Post, he not unwittingly (perhaps) highlights the particular area - consciousness studies - in which the seemingly antithetical disciplines of physics and metaphysics seem to intersect.

"There is something degraded and degrading about many of our habits of attention," Harris observes. Speaking only for himself, he observes that he spends much of his waking life "in a neurotic trance." Yet, speaking of his experiences in meditation, he suggests that there is an "alternative" to his state of consciousness and being. "It is possible," he concedes, "to stand free of the juggernaut of self, if only for a moment."

Such a concession, wittingly or unwittingly made, points to the reality of religious experience as opposed to religious faith. In each of our inner realities, there is the potential for a greater, unitive state of consciousness, a point made by pioneering psychologist, William James in his classic work, "The Varieties of Religious Experience."

"(I)f we look on man's whole mental life as it exists," James notes, "on the life of men that lies in them apart from their learning and science, and they inwardly and privately follow, we have to confess that the part of it of which rationalism can give an account is relatively superficial."

"If you have intuitions at all," he points out, "they come from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which rationalism inhabits. Your whole subconscious life, your impulses, your faiths, your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises, of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and something in you absolutely knows that that result must be truer than any logic-chopping rational talk, however clever, that may contradict it."

[Wm. James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 73.]

This knowing - the same standing "free of the juggernaut of self" that Harris speaks of - lies at the heart of all the world's great religions and wisdom traditions. The miracles, origin mythologies, rites and rituals of organized religion - most of them thousands of years old - are all superfluous to this essential truism: we are far more than the individual self/ego. Religious practice - most particularly, meditation - serves only as an aid for us to experience the wider, selfless state of pure consciousness which exist within us all.

In railing against 'religion' most of the new breed of evangelical atheists (like Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, et al.) lose sight of the 'tree' of higher consciousness amid the 'forest' of religious superfluities. If we are to move toward the "unitive, all-embracing knowledge" which Schrodinger sets out as our birthright, it will require open-minded investigation into what consciousness is, and how it manifests individually and collectively. For this, it seems, there may be no better starting place than the experiential insights based on millennia of inner investigation practiced by religionists.

"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism," Sir Francis Bacon observed, "but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." Or, as Einstein remarked: "Science without religion is lame, (while) religion without science is blind."

What Is Our Essence?

"As a man thinketh . . . so he is."

What is the "essence" of a "human being?" It is a question that has haunted philosophers, metaphysicians and psychologists for millenia.

Etymologically, or looking at where our words come from, we can see certain similarities between the two concepts. "Essence" and "being" have similar roots in Latin, Greek and Old French (discussed below); whereas "human" is related to ancient words for both "man" and "ground."

The word "human" is related to both the Latin 'homo', meaning 'same,' and to 'humus' meaning 'ground.' Is this a reference to so many creation myths that have G_d forming the first man from clay, and then bringing the clay model to life; or is it a recognition that all humans are a part of the same "Ground of Being" that has been used to denote the Absolute throughout the history of the "perennial philosophy"? I prefer the latter, but it is probably an admixture of both meanings, and other factors that are not clear at first blush.

The origins of "essence" is much clearer. "Essence" means at once 'substance,' 'existence' and 'being.' It means "that by which a thing is what it is;" and its Latin root is 'esse,' its Greek root 'ousia' - both of which mean "to be."

Hamlet's immemorial self-scrutiny led him him to observe: "To be, or not to be? That is the question." And, like all good questions, the answer is implicit in it: a triumphant "to be!". The "essence" of a "human being" is simply "being," his or her "essence" within the "Ground of Being." And the sages and seers of all ages have spoken to this truth.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
(1920-1996)

The Buddhist master, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, remarked:

"Buddhas become awakened because of realizing their essence. Sentient beings become confused because of not realizing their essence. Thus there is one basis or ground, and two different paths."

[Tulku Urgyen Rinpoch,"As It Is," vol. 2, page 43.]

In the same vein, the great Sufi teacher and polymath, Idries Shah, observed:

Idries Shah (1924-1996)

'. . . (A)ll dervish teaching is based not on the concept of God, but on the concept of essence. . . "He who knows his essential self, knows God." Knowledge of the essential self is the first step, before which there is no real knowledge of religion.'

[Idries Shah, "The Sufis," page 309.]

 It is thus no mere cryptic abstraction that the words "Know thyself" were said to be carved over the doorway to the Temple of Delphi; for he who comes to know his higher "Self," beyond the lower "self" of the ego, comes to know much about his own "essence," the essence of G_d and how to "be" in the world.

Why Intellect Alone Cannot Attain Higher Consciousness

David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

One of the most unheralded and "under-the-radar" enlightenment teachers is David R. Hawkins. Hawkins experienced what by any measures was an authentic enlightenment experience as a young man, as recounted in his first book, "Power vs. Force: An Anatomy of Consciousness." Moreover, as a medical doctor who enjoyed a long and successful career as a psychoanalyst while staying mum about his spiritual awakening, Hawkins brings a critical and scientific perspective to bear on the discussion of higher states of consciousness and spirituality.

The author of a four general, yet in-depth, books about the nature of higher states of consciousness and "enlightenment," together with several more scientific treatises on the same subject matter (including,  "Ortheomolecular Psychiatry," authored with multiple Nobel-laureate chemist and peace activist, Linus Pauling), Hawkins explains the long silence on his own enlightenment in the following manner:

"In this case, nothing was said about it for more than thirty years during which time there progressively arose the capacity to dissimilate as normalcy and function in the world. There was no one to whom such a condition would be comprehensible. Only twice were there meetings with known sages who comprehended the condition. The first was Muktananda, and later, Ramesh Balkesar. There was another such meeting on the streets of New York City that was mutually anonymous but total and complete."

The path of enlightenment is, as has been said, a lonely path. "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few." (Matt. 9:37)

Like Swami Muktananda, Ramesh Balkesar and the long-line of sages that preceded them (Vedantists and non-Vedantists, alike), Hawkins points to the inherent dualism and illusion of the small "self" or "ego" as the impediment to the attainment of our true nature, what he calls the "I" that underlies our supposed 'reality.' And, in order to shed the dualism of the ego and achieve a consciousness of God, he (like all other enlightened seers) stresses that it is imperative - and possible - to sever the ego's attachhments:

". . . (A)ttachments can be to either content or context, as well as to intended or hoped-for results. to undo a difficult positionality, it may be necessary to disassemble it and then surrender its elements. the payoff that is holding an attachment in place may be that it provides a feeling of security or pleasure; the pride of 'being right'; comfort or satisfaction; loyalty to some group, family, or tradition; avoidance of the fear of the unknown, etc.

 When belief systems are examined, they turn out to be based on presumptions that are prevalent in society, such as right versus wrong or good versus bad. For instance, "I have to have chocolate ice cream" (content) "and then I'll be happy" (context) is based on another positionality, that the source of happiness is outside oneself and has to be 'gotten' (in overall context). All these propositions indicate a series of dependencies (e.g., the Buddha's Law of Dependent Contingencies or Dependent Origination), and when they are surrendered, the source of happiness is found to be in the joy of existence itself, in this very moment and, beyond that in the source of one's existence - God.

Attachments are to illusions. They can be surrendered out of one's love for God, which inspires the willingness to let go of that which is comfortably familiar."
        ("I: Reality and Subjectivity," Veritas Publishing, West Sedona, AZ: 2003, pp. 352-353)

Hawkin's detailed analysis of the enlightened state, and the path to enlightenment, is not for the casual aspirant or dilettante - flouting the "presumptions that are prevalent in society" is not for the casual spiritual seeker, but rather for those who are, indeed, fully committed to their own liberation and to reaching the 'other shore' of the vast expanse of ordinary consciousness. Yet Hawkin's works are an insightful, reassuring, psychologically sound and invaluable trove of insights for the dedicated, modern aspirant on that oft-times lonely path.

"Self" vs. "self"

"Self" vs. "self"

Paul Brunton called our higher consciousness the "Overself," Jesus called it "the Kingdom of Heaven" (see Luke 17:21), members of the 12 Step movement call it "a Power greater than ourselves," Vedantists call it the Atman and,  in perhaps the most poetic language, Marcus Aurelius (Roman emperor and neo-Platonic philosopher) called it "the helmsman of the Soul." But, in many - perhaps most - instances, wisdom schools and teachers refer to it simply as the "Self," as opposed to the smaller "self" which is none other than the ordinary self-consciousness of the human "ego."

When asked why he used the term "Self" (in "I: Reality and Subjectivity" at pp. 128-129), David Hawkins, a powerful and enlightened spiritual teacher, medical doctor and philosopher explained his choice of terms in the following manner:

"The experience of the Presence is radically and profoundly subjective. It is commonly presumed that God is 'elsewhere', namely, above, beyond. transcendent, in heaven, or somewhere back in history or in the future. Traditionally, however, God is described as both transcendent and immanent. The term "Self" emphasizes that God is discovered as the ultimate reality that underlies one's actual experience in the 'here and now' (e.g., "Heaven is within you.").

The Buddha is said to have avoided using the term "God" because of the prevalence of misconceptions surrounding it. He wanted to avoid all the limitations that that conceptualization confounds. The Self as Awareness is often referred to in literature as Light. As recounted in Genesis, the Unmanifest became Manifest first as Light, which was the radiance of the energy of God that took form as the universe.

The term "Self" also overcomes the dualistic notion that one is separated from God. Historically, the picture that there is a sinner down here on Earth and there is a God up there somewhere in heaven is the viewpoint of the ego. Thus, to most people, the term "God" implies "otherness." However, there is no separation in the Allness of Creation, so it is impossible for the created to be separate from the Creator. Enlightenment is therefore the revelation of the Self when the illusioin of the reality of a separate self is removed."

"The Divine Nature . . . of the same or like nature with the spirit"

Hawkins then describes the problem that we all face, the problem that is the timeless challenge  humankind faces, in the words of Aldous Huxley, the challenge "for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit." Hawkins concludes:

"The constant awareness of one's existence as 'I' is the ever present expression of the innate divinity of the Self. This is a universal, constant experience that is purely subjective and of which no proof is possible or necessary. The 'I' of the Self is the expression of Divinity as Awareness which is therefore beyond time and form. The truth of this identity is obscured by the duality created by perception and disappears when all positionalities are relinquished."

 This constant awareness is, of course, our challenge. It is what Orthodox Christianity traditionally called "the Watch of the Heart," a process explained in this related video by the progressive and profound Protestant minister, Ted Nottingham.

'My Own Small Self'

Rabindranath Tagore was the first person from the Indian sub-continent to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was recognized for his opus work, the Gitanjali - a marvelous collection of spiritual poetry that at once evokes the imageries of Sufi poetry and the rich literary and Vedantist heritage of India.

I first heard Tagore's pithy yet profound poem Who is This? on Wayne Dyer's audio recording of A Spiritual Solution to Every Problem. Dr. Dyer dedicates a chapter to Tagore and Who is This? in his collection of essays on his spiritual sources and inspirations: Wisdom of the Ages.

 Who is This? paints a universal picture of a spiritual aspirant taking a brief respite on a midnight walk to reconnect to the Source, only to be confronted with the incessant voice of the human ego bent upon "lending his voice" to every word the aspirant utters.

The poem richly illuminates the universal problem we all face, knowingly or not, in trying to reconnect to the Godhead (no matter how that Godhead is denoted in a particular sect, denomination or religion) always over the objections of the human ego - the eternal 'mind-chatter' that separates us from everyone and everything in the widest cosmos. Let us now channel Tagore's midnight wanderer:

Who is This?

I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.
He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;
he adds his loud voice to every word I utter.
He is my own small self, my lord, he knows no shame:
but I am ashamed to come to your door in his presence.

* * * * * * * 

Picture the hot dusty Indian or Middle Eastern night, when our spiritual sojourner sets out in the dark to gain a greater conscious connection with the source of his being. The restless and relentless voice of the ego excludes the aspirant from the rich silence of his goal: the doorstep of his Lord.  Who is This? thus speaks to the insomnia of the sufferer who is all too separated from peace, and from blessed sleep by the constant demand of the ego's unceasing and disturbing voice.