*Mirza Abbas (academic, The Islamic College, London)
**Ranjan Parmar (Spiritual researcher)
***Dr Justine Huxley (from Ethelburga, London)
8th March 2022
Knowing one’s self is the way to know God. This is what Imam Ali says. Self-realisation is thus linked to faith. Meditation which helps activate the mental faculties of the human soul helps to understand the self, life, existence and, consequently, God. Worship is multi-faceted and cannot be confined to the rituals that religions have advocated. The ways to God are as many as the number of breathing souls. While faiths attempt to regulate worship and institutionalise it, deep meditation is an advanced form of worship. Here the mind is involved in the act of worship not just the soul and the body. In this seminar, the speakers will address the notion of spirituality from different perspectives and religious backgrounds. The hope is to counter the human tendency for aggression and wars which are dominating the modern world,
Shiekh Mirza Abbas: It is pleasure to be here with you tonight, especially with the esteemed guests. The topic is an interesting one: meditation, self realisation, and faith. When a Muslim would look at this topic – and perhaps you can also share your ideas when we have the q and a, – it is something to do with your heart which Muslims call iman. Iman is to do with the heart.
Although I have faith it is incomplete. I may be a doctor a physician and somebody asked me to sleep all night with a corpse with a dead body I would be very scared. From an intellectual point of view I accept that the body cannot do anything to me but from the heart, it does not feel right.
So faith is something to do with the state of the heart. That is why we call it a leap of faith. We grasp onto that. From a rational, intellectual point of view it may not mean much but there are certain things that you just have to take that step and come to a realisation.
Meditation and self realisation have a very major role in achieving in the state of faith and self realisation. It is a pathway towards faith. The pathways to God are as numerous as the breath of the preachers. Within the Islamic interpretation of this, we find two types of interpretation. Everyone has a path. And many of the pluralist philosophers incline towards Christianity, Judaism, and Taoism.
The other way of interpreting it is that there are as many paths to God as there are breaths. How many breaths does one have? All of these breaths from the day I was born until the last breath that I take. We come from God and we return to God. So while I am here every breath that I am taking is a path to God and I will reach God with the last breath I take.
In the words of the Quran, all human beings are on a journey to meet God. Every person is on a journey. That is our journey. There are as many paths to God as there are creatures. The topic is more focused and geared toward meditation and we would like to benefit by discussing this phenomenon of meditation and self realisation.
In Hinduism, you find four different types of yoga which are actually a path. Yoga means union. So through the path of yoga you achieve union with the divine, union with your spirit, union with your God.
So you have the jennah yoga which they say is leaning towards intellectuals who like to know the creation and the creator. That is a kind of union they will have intellectually speaking. And that is why you will find in the Hindu tradition you have different castes. The Brahmins are the elite when engaging in intellectual activities. Then we have the chakriyas who are known as the people of the chest who are the soldiers, who are the farmers and the workers and the people of the belly who are tradesmen. So every caste has a particular track describing their religion as such. Then you have bakthi yoga which is coming to God through love.
Even in Taoism, you find you find certain types of yogas being practised: karma yoga is service once again. There is a goal to it and a purpose to it. The Buddha would say it is actually achieving nirvana through these services, through these practices.
I am asking my Muslim brothers to reflect on different religions. There is a very nice text by Huston Smith: Religions of Man which looks at Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. Later on, he added some of the prehistoric Shamanist faiths such as those of the native American Indians.
So when we come within the Islamic universe we do find similarities in terms of these practices which are there in different faiths in religions. As a Muslim, I appreciate this. It is really fascinating that there are similarities we find in our creed and faith as well.
I practice with consciousness my own rituals and practices that are there. The Islamic universe defines these paths for self realisation or the pursuit of meditation eventually achieving that state. There are four different stages. The first stage one would say is the stage of knowledge. One has to acquire knowledge and understanding of the divine that I am nothing. The Taoist would say the flow, that energy at different levels. The question is to come to a realisation of that, to understand that. It is one reality, one existence and there is gradation in that reality like a light has different levels for its light. It is all light but different forms of it, different grades.
The first step would be realisation and understanding. We all know that within Islam there is so much emphasis on knowledge. The Quran begins with the word read and the Muslims regard the miracle as a book which is symbolised as knowledge and science. So that is the emphasis on knowledge particularly when it comes to Islam. That is why the Shia imams say that the first thing in religion is understanding. The first step in religion is understanding.
Now firstly knowledge and realising that all existence is nothing but this thing which means essentially realising that they are in need of a deity. They are in need of the divine essentially. It is number three. The oddness of the number three is essential to it. You can never have a three which is not odd. Three is essentially odd. So human beings and creation is essentially in need of the divine.
That is why you have a major canon within Islam when it comes to Islamic philosophy which is essentially a discussion and a debate. Some call it Arabian philosophy, some call it the philosophy of the Islamic world. Islamic philosophy is organic. It is not something that it has borrowed from Greek philosophy. But you may find some of the arguments in Islamic philosophy which is from the Greek philosophers. The same language, the same definitions that they use.
Unlike in Christianity where you have St Thomas Aquinas bring Aristotelean rules. Within the Islamic cosmos, within the Islamic universe philosophy is based on the Quran and the narrations that are there. That is not our topic. We do find rational arguments, philosophical arguments in order to believe, in order to understand, in order to have the knowledge.
Then you have the second stage where they say you have to bring this knowledge, this understanding that there is no reality except the reality of God. This understanding must come to the heart and that means that as we recite in one of the supplications of the Shia imam. O God show me the way things really are. The reality of those things,. The way they really are.
In the pre-historic religion which modern man calls primitive religion but it was the golden age. We are in the dark age of kala yuga. The bronze age was the text of Lao Tuz. We have a different way of interpreting gold, silver, and the bronze. The dark ages compared with modern interpretation when man started the iron age. We are talking about the golden age which are those realities that existed or were there and people used to communicate with them in prehistoric times. So that is the golden age. When people would hunt they would come to the shaman and he would search for the seals and inform the hunters where they are. He would say they are five miles from here. You are not allowed to take more than three. The shaminists would make a pact with God.
In Islam, everything has a spirit. This place has a spirit. This needs to be in our hearts. A person can unveil the reality that is around him and see the presence of God. In the Quran, it describes how Ibrahim was returning to the city and he asked God how do you resurrect people from the dead. It is really mysterious. So God said to Ibrahim I thought you really believed. Faith does not come just like that it has some stages. What is the purpose of faith? It is to have tranquillity in my heart. That is the purpose of faith.
When Ibrahim lost his lust, his greed and his arrogance he was able to see that reality. This is self realisation – this is reflecting on yourself.
One of the things which is called for in Islam is watchfulness. We may call this meditation. One is always in the state of watchfulness. Whenever the name meditation comes about one would imagine one will be sitting in the position of a yogi and shutting the eyes. That is what comes to mind. However in Islam we have meditation which is extensive and it takes away all of our actions. When a person is meditating he is in a state of watchfulness of everything. His breathing, what he is seeing, what he is feeling, his thoughts. He is in the presence of God all the time.
Sometimes this meditation is practiced in a particular mode of prayers. A man should cut the thoughts which are coming into his mind and he should think of the divine all the time. This brings about self realisation. He knows what is real. One of the Sufi poets says make your heart like a mirror so the divine light will shine through it. This will provide us with faith. That faith goes back to faith in God knowing that Allah is it and that we human beings are really nothing. Selflessness will come about.
Ranjan Parmar: My spiritual teacher and master Dr Shah has been given a song from the divine which has the following words. It is a very powerful message. I would like to start by signing this song for us. (Sings song). It means that every being we meet belongs to our heart and soul. This is not just the simple heart but the spiritual heart as well. It is the spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional heart in everyone and everything. It is the receiver of information and messages.
So when I send the message of love to my heart and soul I am taking the nourishment of the divine, the creator who gave us the religion that we follow. When we love every creature we will be in total alignment with the divine. God is the father who loves his children equally. He loves each and every creature that he has created equally. I as a creature of the divine should show the same love to myself. Loving myself unconditionally is not harming myself in any way.
If I look after a little child I nourish myself with divine love. That is real nourishment anytime, anywhere. We can give the same love of the divine to others. We can only share the love. Humanity consists of each of us. I am humanity. You are humanity. Together we are all humanity. When we love humanity in the same way we love ourselves we are truly in line with the divine. We know that there is no distinction between ourselves and the rest of humanity. We bring our heart and soul together and we really are one entity, one organism bringing peace, love, and harmony. When can live our lives as one in harmony?
These are the techniques which my teacher has developed to foster love, peace and harmony in our soul, heart, mind and body. We become like nature in the way of the divine. Nature is in real alignment with the divine.
Let us talk about the journey of meditation. Meditation is the journey inwards. A journey of self-empowering. Meditation leads us to know and being who we really are. Meditation is the time for quiet reflection in silence away from the hustle and bustle of daily living. The pace of life is becoming ever faster and if we are to achieve true peace in our hearts we need to meditate. We find ourselves being pushed and pulled in many directions. Our mental, emotional and physical health is a matter of balance.
Meditation is available. We can have access to meditation. It is a meditation without ritual and it can be practised at any time, anywhere. It is quite simple. It is being in that place of spirituality. It leads to happier and healthier relationships. Meditation is a comfortable way of life for each and every one of us.
We can use a very powerful mantra. I have an example here. It is used to generate greater love. I will share it with you. We visualise light in the area that we can see. If you chant peace love and harmony it is a very powerful mantra with a message from the divine. Put you hands where you require healing. Put your hands by your heart when you are meditating. By sending a powerful message to our soul we should be asking the divine to send a message of love to the area that we feel. This can go to the heart chakra.
We can meditate at home in a special room or anywhere quiet. You need a regular appointment to meet up with your innermost self. The time spent moving from one place to another on a train or a bus can be used to tune into your internal phase. It is an inner journey. We talk about faith. We need to have faith in the one true message of the divine that life is to serve others on this journey and to spread the message of love, peace, and harmony to everyone and everything.
Dr Justine Huxley: I want to start from a slightly different place to our two previous speakers and to talk about the need for us to have this deeper relationship with the divine. As we know humanity is at an enormous crossroads. We are facing not just the pain of the global pandemic which could come back but we are also watching a violent military operation that holds within it the risk of world war added to which we are facing the challenge of climate breakdown. Unless we get to net-zero very quickly we could be facing inhabitable earth added to which we are living in this landscape of tremendous untruth where disinformation and conspiracy theories are being used to create a weapon in the sense that some people are calling it grey zone warfare.
So to my mind this combination of the enormity of climate breakdown a global problem which requires excellent international and political collaboration and this landscape of untruth which is polarising our communities and has the potential of being a devastating combination. So human beings are at this critical juncture of life on planet earth and we have never been more in need of God’s guidance in our own hearts so we can live in deep connection with something that is far beyond this turbulent mess that human beings are creating.
So, of course, we need rituals of religion and we need our spiritual teachings and our theology but we also need a direct experience of the divine with no intermediaries. So my question is really how do we grow our inner light. How do we find this light within, the light of God which we can navigate in this incredibly dangerous territory? And how can we grow that inner light not just so that it guides us but that so we can be alike a lighthouse in the storm for others?
So how do we arrive at this direct experience of the divine? One answer to that is a serious spiritual practice and through the techniques of the mystics as well as the religious teachers. So I wanted to share with you a formula that we have developed at St Ethelburga’s for how to lead a meaningful spiritual life at a time like this.
This formula contains four elements or four aspects to what we believe is needed. So the first one relevant to this evening is discipline, spiritual practice or meditation. The second is inner work and what I mean by that is the work of integrating the psychological shadow. I will talk a little bit more about that later.
Firstly a commitment to navigate conflict wisely and to be a peacemaker. And thirdly a commitment to love this earth, this beautiful creation that God has given us. So if I can look briefly at all of those and I will say something about my background. So my mother’s family was Catholic and my father was an atheist and a scientist I began seeking spiritually when I was in my late teens and turned to Buddhism which seemed all very rational to me but did not really set my heart on fire.
It was while traveling in India and North Africa and Turkey when I first came into the presence of Sufi teachers and when I came back from these travels I met my sheikh in the UK. And in the Sufi tradition which I belong to we have only two practices. Other Sufi traditions have many, many more but we basically have two. They are both silent practices that are done in silence.
My lineage is traced back to the Naqshband which says God is silent and God is most easily reached in silence. So my first practice is heart meditation which uses creating the feeling quality of love in the heart and the way of stilling the mind. If we create love in our hearts through concentrating on someone or something that we love, God a teacher, or a loved one in our life if we can create and expand this experience of love in our hearts then the mind will quieten down. The thoughts will carry on but we will bring our attention back to the heart and to the feeling quality of love. So that is a very typical Sufi practice focusing on the heart and on love.
The second practice is either a mantra of a dhikr. It is a practise of remembrance. Many Sufi traditions have useful songs and chants. Ours is repeating the name of God on every breath. So we repeat the first syllable al on the in-breath and the second syllable ah one out-breath. This is a very beautiful and powerful practice and when we first do it we would be using prayer beads and maybe sitting in silence and concentrating on it. And then we may begin to do it standing at the bus stop and we think of doing it when we are on the phone to our boss or to a relative that we are not really interested in potentially. And eventually one comes to do it all the time and it goes very deep into a part of one’s mind and then it begins to change you from the inside out.
So it becomes a day when you cannot take a breath that does not automatically repeat the name of God. So these are my two practices and I have been doing them for over 25 years now I would say that they have led to a deep inner friendship with the divine, a sense of presence and friendship in the heart and that presence speaks to me through tuition, through dreams, through instincts, sometimes through the voice of my sheikh and sometimes through the signs in life.
And of course, the Sufi path is much more than the creation of this inner presence. The goal is to become consciously united with the divine through the annihilation of the ego so that through dismantling our false sense of self that separates us from this knowledge and this direct experience that God is everything in everything and that we are Gods and in God too.
So when one has become empty of the self in this way one can experience the divine in everything and also be a much clearer channel for God’s love in the world and be in the service in a more powerful way. I cannot claim to have achieved those things but they are my aspiration.
We were talking about the potential to become one with the divine through the dismantling of the ego. What I believe is really spiritual practice is an essential way of staying rooted in what is real in a time of tremendous fragmentation. In this world, at the moment so many things are broken and there are so many ways to get lost. And I believe that spiritual practice is essential to keep as aligned with something real and true as we navigate this very challenging landscape.
I love the Sufi story that speaks to the quality of attention that we need to be paying to this presence in our hearts and it really connects with Sheikh Nazim and the quality of watchfulness. There is the story of a Sufi who was a weaver in the time of Genghis Khan. When the Mongol hordes came everyone in a village fled except for this one man. He stayed weaving at his loom. And when the Mongols found him they said to him why have you not fled with everyone else? Were you not scared? And his answer was that half of my attention was with my weaving and the other half was inward with God. The Mongols took him to their leader and he became an adviser to Genghis Khan one assumes that he helped Genghis Khan make wiser and more compassionate choices.
I really love this story because it shows how spiritual practice can protect us from fear in really challenging situations such as in the midst of war in one’s own life. And it also shows that having this quality of attentiveness and attentiveness to only what is needed at the moment and the presence of God in one’s hearts can enable you to be of service in a much more powerful way. I guess we probably need to find someone similar to this for Putin.
So that first element was discipline in spiritual practice and of course, it is not enough to have a spiritual practice. One really needs the discipline and the commitment to do it and carry on doing it through one’s whole life. And one needs to carve out the time otherwise you don’t see the results.
The second element in this system was inner work. What does this mean? I wish I was with you face to face to be able to see your reactions to this question. What does it mean to do inner work? It is the integration of the human shadow.
Sufi traditions and spiritual traditions of all kinds will always have a way of doing this work but there are different languages for it and different approaches to it but it is an essential part of any spiritual tradition. It could be called purification or it could be called the reconciliation of opposites. It is what makes the spiritual life real. Without this spiritual life has a fluffy nice fantasy feeling. It is the hard grueling work of working with the opposites within oneself that makes spiritual life real.
There is a language for this in Western psychology that has to do with shadow projection. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with this but just very briefly when we are born we are whole. We have within us the capacity for many different qualities and ways of being and our societal conditioning will teach us to repress some of those qualities and to highlight others and what we repress we project onto other people.
This connects with something that Sheikh Nazim was saying. If anger is not allowed in our family or our society we repress it within ourselves and we are likely to use it unconsciously and project it onto other people and to judge it. So when we integrate it this means to come to terms with our own capacity within us for all these qualities and behaviours. It does not mean that we are angry all the time. We do not have to act it out but we know that anger is a part of our repertoire and it can have a place. One needs anger to set a boundary sometimes and sometimes we need violence to set a boundary as the people in Ukraine are having to face at the moment.
So we own the potential for all these behaviours within us knowing that everything has its use and that everything can be given in service to God. Everything should be at his disposal. So this process of reconciling the opposites within us gives us access to our own wholeness and this is an important aspect for self realisation.
It is not easy. It takes decades and a lot of discipline and a lot of courage to face the more uncomfortable parts of ourselves.
*Mirza Abbas is the internal manager for the Hawza Ilmiyya (Islamic Seminary) of England and a program leader for BA Hawza studies at the Islamic College of London. He graduated with a Masters in Islamic Theology from the University of Birmingham and pursued his religious studies at the Islamic seminary of Qum for 12 years. He served as a ‘resident scholar’ for the Shi’a Muslim communities in Nottingham and Birmingham for 8 years.
**Ranjan Parmar has been practicing spirituality for the last 7 years, after doing a meditation course and attending a retreat. She wakes up at 4 am, practices meditation, listens to spiritual lessons then writes inspirational thoughts, which she shares with friends. These thoughts are her soul journey to develop her spirituality. When her mother passed away 18 months ago she published her first book in memory of her. Last month she wrote a story for “1000 Ripples Effect” which consists of four books with different topics to help children aged 14 to 21 years old. Ripples Effects book has 4 volumes consisting of 1000 stories altogether. She delivers talks to the elderly in residential homes or individuals about spirituality. Ranjan’s motto is to take everyone onboard in her journey to share her experience.
***Dr Justine Huxley is the Director of St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace where she has worked for over 10 years. Justine has a Ph.D in psychology and also spent 5 years on the trading floor of a City investment bank – an invaluable spiritual boot camp which taught her how to remain rooted in the Real when in the midst of consumerist greed and power games. She has a passion for bringing people together from different backgrounds and co-creating projects that speak to the needs of the time. She brings a wealth of experience in deep listening, facilitation, and working with emergent processes.
