Dialogue 2
A Mystically inclined Critic:-
Religions are nonsensical dogmas, myths, empty ritualism, hypocrisy, institutionalism, conformity and mental conditioning. Islam is the worst of all, devoid of any spirituality whatever. The philosopher, Schopenhauer, denounced the Quran and Islam as wretched, naive and unintelligent without any merit that he could see. Note that Einstein was an admirer of Shopenhauer.
Comment:-
There are many opinions about anything. The opinion of one man, especially when it is not a subject he is proficient in can hardly matter. Many very famous and clever people made pronouncements that turned out to be false. Einstein could not accept the Quantum Theory.
Many people tale refuge in mysticism because they can indulge in elitism and self-congratulation. It is easier to speculate, entertain fantasies and do mental gymnastics than to actually do something and lead a controlled life.
In fact, religion is defined as a deliberate way of life by which adjustment and harmony is to be achieved with Creator, the ultimate Reality. This involves the relationship of a person with three things:- (a) himself, (b) other people and the society and (c) with the rest of creation. Mysticism refers to the first of these. It is, therefore, included in religion.
Critic:-
What is the definition of a "controlled life"? Is subjecting oneself to a set of dubious beliefs and dogmas presented 1400 years ago in a barren desert a form of freedom of fantasies and leading a controlled life?
Comment:-
Things are dubious to those who do not understand them. Controlled life is one that is conscious and purposive as opposed to automatic and accidental. It channels psychological energy and does not fritter it away uselessly. It is self-disciplined.
Critic:-
Real spiritual achievement isn't about engaging oneself in bondage, quite the opposite. This is what most real spiritual gurus teach throughout the world. You won't understand this, because if you do, you wouldn't have been Muslim in the first place.
Comment:-
Liberation comes after you have worked hard to shatter the fetters or the walls of the prison.
What do you know about real spiritual achievement?
Does it consist of what ever you yourself invent? Or is it following something taught by one who has been on the way and achieved something? Are all people at the same level? Do schools and colleges have only one level? Do you consider yourself one of the spiritual elite who can look down upon everyone else? And this attitude you think ought to make us believe that you have achieved spiritual excellence!!!
Critic:-
Spiritual achievement is when you find no separation between "you" and "I" and the rest of the universe. When you find truth within your very core. When you find fountain of divine intelligence (God) within yourself: the Self, Spirit, Atman, Supreme Identity (as the Sufi says), Buddhamind, Kingdom of Heaven.
Comment:-
Very good. But that is not what I was asking. You must not mistake the ability to utter words for spirituality.
Most people do not practice the revealed religions because they are difficult for the ordinary intellect to understand and too difficult to carry out. But there are "intellectuals" who convince themselves with "wise rationalizations" and invent their own religions according to their whims.
Critic:-
It is always amazing to see how certain people change the way they argue. One minute they say such and such religion is the best because such and such number of people convert to it or its number/growth exceeds others, the next minute they say that many people do not practice the religion because it is too "difficult for the ordinary intellect." So which one is true? The reality is that the majority of world's populations are believers in the revealed religion. This is because they are exoteric by nature, so much easier to grasp for the "unsuspecting mass." Follow this and this, avoid that and that, then you'll be saved. What's so difficult about not having to think for yourself?
Comment:-
Things amaze you because you did not want to understand.
In the first place it is not numbers that indicate spiritual excellence. The number of converts indicate how many people are willing to enter into a spiritual discipline and have not been deterred by hostile prejudices. It is these converts who are doing the thinking. Most people are too lazy to think or, being conditioned by the present scientific and technical modes of thought, they do not understand religious language. Nor do they wish to. Accepting a religion would involve them in commitments to a different way of life, of thinking, motives and actions, entailing certain sacrifices and difficult conditions. It is these things which have a psychological or spiritual transforming affect on the person.
The revealed religions are originally revelations into the minds of the founders of those religions. Obviously, they had spiritual or mystical experiences. It is they who presented the teachings that people who do not have mystical experiences are required to follow in order to achieve similar mystical closeness to God. It is these Messengers who are more likely to have a correct method than those who pretend to mystical experiences and invent their own fantasies. You cannot get to a place where you are not yet without a map and the proper techniques.
However, it remains true that because they do not have the mystic experiences they are also likely to misunderstand the spiritual teaching and to mispractice it.
Critic:-
You recklessly underestimate Einstein. Anyone with proper knowledge of the man wouldn't have done so. He was more than just a mathematics freak as you allude: he was also a mystic with a penetrating insight into the nature of reality, something I cannot see from Mohammed or the Koran. Who says that one has to follow religion to be spiritual?
Comment:-
What do you know about the man Einstein? Or the man Shopenhauer? Have you met them? Did they provide you with a spiritual techniques which you follow? What makes you think that you are able to assess correctly the relative merits of their insights and those of Muhammad (saw). You are assuming that you have the same capacities as all these people.
Sorry, but I do not worship philosophers. And I do not accept their words when they speak about carpentry or engineering or paintings or gardening, much less about religion. The faculty required for Philosophy is not the same as those required in these other fields.
Apart from this I read the Quran and I have read most of the Scriptures of the world (Old and New Testaments, and Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist Scriptures) as well as the various Philosophies (Plato, Kant, Nietzche, Shopenhauer, Hussrl, Heideggar etc.) And so have many other Muslims. We still think that the Quran is not only a masterpiece of literature but something having much profounder depths than anything else.
But I am aware of the problems others might have with it, owing to superficial reading in these days of accelerated speed, specially when they have obstructing prejudices which do not want to see any merit in it. People are also conditioned into a certain way of thinking by their education and culture which prevent the perception of other forms. The formal logical mode of thinking, or the scientific and technical language, or those of commerce, politics and law, or of poetry, literature and art may well cause mutual misunderstanding. But when the field of discourse is completely different as in religion, things are even more difficult.
It is obvious that when a person invents his own philosophy instead of trying to understand things then he will judge things from the point of view of that philosophy.
Critic:-
Don't you do the same thing? Don't we all??
Comment:-
Exactly. Knowing this some of us make allowances and try to alter mental sets. As a result we can see that all religions have the same mystical core behind differences in formulations. We can also see the merits of science, philosophy, politics, industry and so on each in its own field. And we see that a comprehensive system is required in which all things should fit in a self-consistent manner in order to remove all contradictions and futility.
Critic:-
How do you know that Islamic philosophy wasn't invented?? By (blind) faith, isn't it? At least Schopenhauer uses his own intellect to judge what is beneficial for himself and others. Yours is a meaningless argument.
Comment:-
(1) Our idea of faith is not the same as yours. Faith is not blind but refer to the consistency of something with a unified system of experiences. It is not available to disintegrated minds.
(2) Islam is not a philosophy (a purely intellectual verbal system) It is a deliberate conscious way of life.
(3) I know its truth by studying it and applying it and noting how it forms a consistent system with observation and experiences of the world we live in, of people, of my inner processes and states.
(4) Schopenhauer uses his intellect and come to conclusions that conflict with a great number of other philosophers who also use their intellect. But proof comes from observation and experiment as in science, from practical applications as in technology, and by the process of disciplined living as in religion.
(5) You admire mystical experience and then speak about rational thought. But mystical experience is not rational thought.
These are elementary considerations that one would have thought any intelligent person would know.
Critic:-
Are you saying that Islam can't be assessed objectively at all? Then if that is the case, how can you expect to convert people to it since they cannot understand it unless they have already accepted it? It's rather circular, isn't it (hardly surprising actually since usually revealed religion believers' arguments are always circular.)
Comment:-
It all depends on how you define "objective". Things are known only when they have an affect on a person's consciousness. Experience is ultimately the source of knowledge and this depends on the capacity of the person for experience. This differs among people. The theories of Einstein are based on thinking, but which are consistent with experimental observed experiences and tested against realities. But not many (relatively speaking) understand these theories. No one saw their truth before Einstein. He may be regarded as having been inspired. If you say that "objective" means that experiences of one person are corroborated by other people, then of course there are millions of Muslims, Christians, Hindus etc. All mystics corroborate each other in confirming the existence of a transcendental world.
The fact that they differ and have different sects appears to be because they have applied their intellect and confused themselves, or mistaken the techniques and means to truth as the ends or truths itself.
One does not, of course, invite others to Islam when they see it in a distorted light as those hostile to it see it, but one invites them to see it as Muslims see it. The two are entirely different things. A non-Muslims view about Islam is worthless.
Critic:-
Is a non-Nazi's view of Nazism worthless??
Following your logic, isn't it true then that Muslims' view of Christianity, Judaism, Paganism, Zionism is also completely worthless? Or does it only apply to non-Muslim view of Islam?
Comment:-
The answer is in the above.
Nazism is not a revealed religion and when it is opposed it is never its ideas which are under consideration but its practices. Paganism as existing today is wholly man-made (i.e. it come from the ordinary human intellect).
Christianity, Judaism etc. are revealed religions in the original form. Intellectual speculations have added or distorted them. We do not condemn the original revelation but seek to show that the core of all revealed religion is the same and what it is and how the intellectual speculations and other environmental influences have distorted the message.
But, from the practical point of view, it is perfectly true that for each system the views of another system are irrelevant. A person has to study that system and decide whether he will accept it or not.
Critic:-
But Islam, the way it is believed and practiced by the vast majority of Muslims, is not a complicated belief system. It's so very simple, that's why it's appealing to the eneducated mass because they don't have to think or contemplate hard to understand it.
Comment:-
There speaks a true elitist. You know what the majority believe and do and also what they ought to believe and do? Truth requires complexity?
Certainly, Islam is simple. But it is profound. Just like the Laws of Nature. It has depths which must be explored. Compare existence to a pyramid - multiplicity and complexity at the bottom, but if we create more and more synthesis of data, we approach the apex with increasingly fewer and simpler formulae and concepts.
I am certain that the simple humble person who devoutly performs his prayers in the way he is taught because God has instructed this is in a better spiritual position than a person whose mind is cluttered up with opinions and egotism.
As I understand it, when one of these intellectuals comes to a true spiritual master the greatest difficulty he has is to get rid the obstructing rubbish and presuppositions which clutter up their minds - they are too full of themselves to let anything else in. Most of them are quite unable to relinquish their attachment and fall away.
Critic:-
If you insist on absolutism, you are treading on a thin ice. Mohammed found paganism dubious and worthy of his persecution because he didn't understand it. Muslims don't accept Hinduism, Christianity and Communism because they don't understand them (as very often the case), but you claim these religions/ideologies are inferior to Islam. So you are adopting double standard here.
Comment:-
There are many kinds of Muslims as in any other group and opinions may differ.
Muhammad (saw) was brought up among Pagans. How could he not understand it? The Quran accepts the teachings of Moses and Jesus and all the Prophets, but not the corruption due to misinterpretation and additions.
There are things that are spiritually beneficial, others that are spiritually harmful and some which are neutral but a waste of time and effort. Some are better or worse than others. This means that many things may be beneficial and good, but less beneficial and good than others. If we take the less good we are doing something relatively bad. One has to learn to discriminate between them. This discrimination comes progressively as the discipline is applied as in any educational system.
Because people are of various levels of development therefore all systems are mixtures of these.
Critic:-
Spirituality is the feeling of connection with all creation unconditionally. What revealed/exoteric religious believers usually display with their zeal, fanaticism, closed-mindedness, and obsession of ritual and code of conducts is not authentic spirituality. It is merely irrational religiosity.
Comment:-
So you wish to be a judge on the inner state of others. Have you achieved the spiritual qualifications to do this?
Critic:-
Please don't mix up the two. Exoteric religions are mythical, irrational and regressive. Esoteric religions are mystical, trans-rational and progressive. The latter is authentic spirituality and the former is not.
Comment:-
In Islam there is no absolute distinction between the exoteric and esoteric. There is only Unity. The outer is an indication of the inner and the inner manifests as the outer. The outer discipline, Shariat, has an inner dimension and aim, and the inner spiritual transformation so achieved has an outer aim to serve God as Vicegerent.
The Straight Way is a ladder - People are required to move progressively upwards or inwards by stages.
When people are at different levels of the ladder of knowledge, understanding or consciousness, then the one above may be regarded as having esoteric knowledge relative to the one below who has exoteric knowledge. The things you talk about can hardly be esoteric since they are widely known. But they are esoteric to those who do not understand them, though they think they do, having reduce them to their level. And it seems to me that they are esoteric to you also.
Critic:-
Ultimately you are alone in your spiritual journey. It's a lonely road, pal.
Comment:-
Pal? I recognize the inner state that produces this expression under similar conditions.
Really? It is lonely and at the same time it is a feeling of connection with all creation? It is certainly a personal journey. Sorry, but though I may be mistaken, it seems to me that you have yet a very long way to go to start a spiritual journey. These others whom you condemn are much more likely to be in advance of you.
Critic:-
You assume that the only possible way to answer the profound questions is to have the answers given to us in a book that describes how we should live our secular lives. That is your mistake. The answers are always inside ourselves. The answers are neither complex or hidden. The only thing that we require are some indications of where to look; after that we are on our own.
Comment:-
No such assumptions are made .
The spiritual goal is certainly inside ourselves but we have a very restricted consciousness and owing to attachments to fantasies, desires, greed and to objects, events, persons, ideas etc., our faculties have become distorted. This is symbolized by the Fall from Paradise.
Therefore, we require a discipline to rectify this situation, not just words. It is this, which produces experiences and modifies us. That is why we have been sent Prophets and Messengers (those in whom the objective faulty has not atrophied) with Scriptures to guide us. Therefore, we do not accept and follow the opinions, speculations, fantasies, prejudices of people who merely talk as if they know but understand little. But we ought to try to purify or rectify ourselves. This is like repairing and tuning a radio so that it becomes receptive.
It is not merely a question of knowing where to look but also of what to look for, how to look and above all to developing the capacity to see. And then to be motivated and behave accordingly.
It is, of course, true that many people who follow a religion have merely become automatons, conditioned to dogmatism, ritualism and institutionalism. This is not the purpose of religion. Criticisms can also be made about many of those who follow mysticism - they mistake emotionalism for spirituality have become addicted to "experiences", and their practices ego trips. Many people who use the conventional spiritual esoteric jargon, invent their own technique, and allow themselves to be deceived by their own fantasies.
As they say: You cannot reach Mecca by using a road that leads to Moscow. And you cannot get from a state A to a state B which you have not yet reached, by fixations produced by state A. You remain trapped in the same state. That is, I fear, what has happened to many of these New Age sects.
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