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Allahs Dye: Essence and Attributes
Allahs Dye: Essence and Attributes
Question: Of the theories of Sigmund Freud many have by now been disproven and discarded, but through my experience as a psychiatrist, I have come to believe that at least one basic theory is true: that, based upon our experience as a child, and based upon our connection to our parents, we internalise this experiences and later tend to see everything in the world in that perspective. For example, if a child has been beaten excessively by his father, he grows up seeing everything around him as potentially dangerous, so he is always living in fear that people may strike him as his father did. On the other hand, someone who had an overindulgent, loving mother may be predisposed to seeing the world at large as loving and indulgent, and therefore may have problems facing up to the realities of adulthood. I have confirmed these theories in my own work, and as far as I can tell, they bear out in reality on the psychological, not necessarily the spiritual level.
Shaykh Nazim: While it is true that the effects of ones childhood environment may leave their imprint on the adult personality, the inborn personality is stronger still. A rose may be planted in London or in Cyprus, and it may grow in either place. If it grows in London, it will, as a result of the cold and wet climate, remain fresh over a long period of time, but will not be fragrant. If it grows in Cyprus, on the other hand, because of the hot and dry climate, it will only remain fresh for a short period of time, but will be very fragrant while it lasts. Whatever the characteristics of its life, a rose is a rose, in London or in Cyprus, and never will it be jasmine or lilac.
The point is that the Creator has given each person a unique and distinct personality. Even identical twins have unmistakably different personalities, so I am not referring to heredity (as identical twins are genetically identical). I am not promoting the effects of heredity over those of environment, but am referring to another factor, a spiritual one, beyond the scope of psychological debate. Our grandshaykh explained that each personality is an emanation of a divine Name, a unique attribute of God, and that there are as many divine attributes as there are human beings and more, endlessly. Therefore, on the purest spiritual level, each and every individual is a unique manifestation of God.
In the Quranic rendering of the story of the Last Supper, the twelve apostles asked Jesus: Is your Lord able to cause a supper to descend to us from heaven?
Notice that they did not ask if our Lord or the Lord could cause the manifestation of this miracle, but whether your Lord could. Dont let this wording lead you to believe that the apostles were sceptics regarding the existence of God, and therefore said your Lord rather than our Lord or the Lord. No, their belief in the existence of God was unshakeable. They said your Lord because the performance of this miracle in and through Jesus Christ, the attributes that enabled him to manifest so many miracles.
In the same way that the divine manifested through Jesus in just that way, so does the divine manifest throughout each and every personality that is the essence of each soul, and it is not subject to change. But just as the beauty of a diamond may be enhanced by a beautiful gold ring or be hidden by wrapping it in cotton, so do external influences determine to what extent that divine personality is able to shine forth.
Question: Psychoanalysis claims that problems stem from the personality, but you are saying that the personality is beyond these influences, and that only some superficial conditioning causes behaviour abnormalities.
Shaykh Nazim: The divinely ordained personality is always sound and intact, but as, for example, a consistently strong wind may cause a tree to grow crooked, so ones environment can affect ones development. We must draw a distinction between essence and attribute. There is an essence to everything. You are tall, for example, but without a body, tall is a meaningless adjective. Similarly, good and bad manifestations are impossible without a person to manifest them. It is only the adjectives that are influenced by the atmosphere. One hundred years ago, there was a religiously observant atmosphere in this country, now there is an atheist atmosphere, and the manifestations of this atmosphere can only be altered with the greatest difficulty.
Question: For example, a man may be raised in a quarrelsome surrounding, and thus he grows up fearful. You may encourage him to leave the situation he is in, but by now he has internalised this quarrelsomeness and carries it with him. What can be done to help such a person?
Shaykh Nazim: it is for this reason that children must be brought up properly, in a way that imparts good characteristics in them. Of course this is only possible if we possess these good characteristics ourselves. According to the holy Prophet, new-born babies are all born in perfect harmony with their Lords will it is only the parents who influence them to oppose His will. Despite this, the essence is ever the same manifestation of divine perfection like indelible ink that can be covered but never removed. In the end, all those coats of cheap paint will flake off and there will remain only the original unfaded colour. This is what is referred to in the holy Quran as Allahs dye.
Your may use your position as a psychiatrist in order to apply paint remover. You are obliged, however, to quickly apply another layer, but a more acceptable one. Unfortunately, most psychiatrists have no paint remover at all, and are only applying the new coat over the old one. Thus they estrange their patients even more from that original divine coat, so that in the end there is even more to remove.
Question: What method can I apply as a paint remover? If I mention to people anything even remotely related to religion, they get angry and stop listening.
Shaykh Nazim: You must locate the open door. People have an allergy against religion, so dont mention it. We have ninety-nine methods to be utilised in the treatment of disturbed people, so when you have incorporated enough of this teaching, you will receive inspiration that will guide you to the application of suitable methods. In the meantime, you must keep a journal in which you record the details of your patients afflictions, and analyse their personalities.
Question: Now Im going to be a little more difficult. One notices many personalities disorders among your disciples myself included we neednt talk only of mental patients. Despite the practices we follow and the conscious attempts we make to improve ourselves, the character disorders seem to persist. I am not saying that there is no improvement or progress, but it can be observed that many of the problems are still there, even in some cases after many years.
Shaykh Nazim: No psychiatrist can ever encounter as much resistance to the treatment he is giving his patients as we encounter in our training of Sufi aspirants. The ego is allergic to paint remover; that is why you, in your position, can only hope to remove a particularly unsatisfactory layer and quickly replace it with another. My job is one that encounters serious and terrible resistance from the ego, as I am trying to remove all the paint and lay bare the original dye of Allah which pertains to the divine essence, the original spiritual personality. But the ego wants only that its layers of paint are never removed. Even when people come to see a Sufi shaykh their egos are hoping to obtain more adornments, but it is our duty to take everything from the hands of the ego, not to adorn it further: to undermine its possessiveness and dissipate acquired characteristics in favour of original ones.
Therefore, when people first come I try to give them something, but when I leave I collect it from them. If I were to say this to you at first and immediately set to removing the layers of ego, quickly you would all escape from my hands and I would finally be able to retire. To move a mountain is an easier task than removing one of the acquired characteristics of our egos. Our egos are but vehicles to make possible for our souls to exist in this realm, but the ego puts forward claims to being the man and not just the horse. Our job is to make this all clear and to help people get their horses under control. If this task were easy, all religious scholars would be shaykhs and all shaykhs would be Grand Masters. But the ego is so difficult to tackle that we can never find such facility in reaching high stations quite to the contrary. We find most aspirants bogged down at their present levels and sinking.
As for psychiatrists, only a few of them understand the nature of personality and how to go about changing it. Most of them add only more to the already heavy burden of their customers this you know better than I. They cannot affect the soul with their methods; at best they can train the horse to behave a little more obediently. In order to affect the rider of the horse, there must be a murshid (master or guide) at work. A real murshid must know what to do for his patients; or else he is not a guide. If a doctor doesnt know hot to treat his patients illnesses he is useless. He may have read so many medical books, but if he doesnt know what to do when a sick person comes to him, he is useless.
Question: You say that every person is guided by one attribute of Allah. If a person learns this attribute, does it serve as a guideline for him in his quest to reach his goal?
Shaykh Nazim: Yes, and it is important to know it, but it is a difficult burden of knowledge to carry now. It is of utmost importance that you first arrive to the point of controlling your horses, or you may attack people with the power you have gained. Who in their right mind would grant me permission to drive a truck or a bus? I would only leave a trail of wreckage in my wake. I cant even control a small car, so what about those huge vehicles? Therefore, a murshid will never impart any glimpse of the realities of the individual divine names without having first established that aspirant in the control of his horse.
Question: What happens if a person dies without these layers of ego having been removed?
Shaykh Nazim: That original dye must still appear. That person may appear to you to be under the influence of illusion, but at the time of death, Allah is pursuing His Claims on His servants, and though Satan may fight for him, Allah is always victorious. He says: Oh Satan, even though this person may have followed you in his actions, the essence which I granted him has been preserved intact. These are the secrets of destiny, and no one can speak of them.
Question: What about people who refuse to accept a guide?
Shaykh Nazim: Their horses are very strong and wild. If you approach them from the front, they will bite you, if from the back, they will kick.
Question: When I organise seminars for people, I realise that they have a great deal of resistance to this kind of approach, to fighting the ego, rather they want to have access to miraculous powers and insights: to travel astrally, read peoples minds, and they want to gain these powers by any means except fighting the ego.
Shaykh Nazim: Everyone wants to become a doctor or engineer without the trouble of going to a university and struggling through long and arduous studies. They all want to buy instant diplomas: but what validity do they have? If I were to go to your country and claim that I was an expert on anything, even psychiatry, they would say to me, Where are you coming from, the moon? Yes, people are foolish. They want to achieve everything without effort, to take everything without stretching out their hands. It is not easy to receive spiritual authority.
Question: Allah Almighty has created distinctions between people. Do these apparent distinctions relate only to the attributes of their egos or also to their spiritual essence?
Shaykh Nazim: Just as there are endless stars in the sky, each having distinct characteristics, so do peoples inner realities differ. If the inner realities of even one person were to be completely unveiled, the stars and the whole universe would vanish, so dont think that we are just caricatures. The essential reality of each soul is an unchanging reality in the Divine Presence, but Allah Almighty has created so many different kinds of people to benefit each other through their interaction, to mutually reveal divine attributes. We can say that, for as many of the children of Adam as appear in existence, there are as many distinct divine attributes; but that is only an approximation, for the reality cannot be explained through words nor to the mind.
Until we are able to rise above the level of the mind, people themselves serve as the means of attaining a state of preparedness for spiritual life, and our various conflicts and scrapes serve as a means of polishing the heart.
Once, in the market of Damascus, I observed a blacksmith polishing some chains. How did he do it? The middle part of the chain was wrapped in a skin, while four, six or eight people pulled each end back and forth. Through this scraping together the chains were polished. We must be open to the wisdom around us.
Source: Mystic Footsteps
1:40 AM
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