Understanding Sufi Study

from Knowing How to Know, by Idries Shah
 (published posthumously in 1998):

Understanding Sufi Study


The Sufis speak of 'the world', and how it causes a barrier to
be erected between humanity and reality.


What is this 'world'?


It is the amalgam of natural acquisitiveness and social
conditioning which have gone too far.


All organisms, including human ones, try to extend their
acquisition of all kinds of things. Human beings are taught, by
society, to restrain this tendency. This restraint, among other
things, enables the human being to perceive more than would
otherwise be possible.


The degree and kind of restraint has to be taught and learnt.
One aspect of Sufi activity teaches the balance which enables
other things to be acquired than social harmony or a mere sense
of emotional well-being.


Much of what passes for spiritual teaching relies, in reality,
upon increasing greed, emotion and acquisitiveness. Of course,
this is not understood by those who carry out such teachings.
They imagine that emotionality is the same as spirituality.


Sufis have, in the past, been accused of encouraging
emotionality. But the fact is that such Sufis have only been
stressing some degree of emotion when faced by pupils who
needed it through excessive coldness. Naturally, emotionalists
who have studied only a part of Sufi activity (usually from
books) have selectively chosen such emphases. As a result, they
have misled others, and themselves. The result is Sufic cults
which are, in reality, not Sufi at all. Many, because of the large
proportion of emotionalists in any population, have become very
well known. Some have even been considered classically Sufi.


Are you one of the people who, unknowingly, seeks from
Sufi study some form of emotional stimulus, and who feels a
vague discomfort when Sufis deny you this?


Any ordinary psychologist will tell you that people have
expectations from anything in which they interest themselves.
They will have a preconceived (though not always conscious)
picture of what they will 'get' from anything. If they do not
feel that they are 'getting it', they will react. The sensible person,
whenever experiencing this unease, will seek the real reason for
the sensation. Unless on one's guard, however, the conclusion
will tend to be flattering to oneself. The individual will think,
'This is not for me; it does not give me what I want.'


The contemporary world, which is largely based on
advertising, on transactionalism, on exciting greed and on the
stick and carrot, conspires with the primitive in human beings.
And this pattern, of threat and promise, is visible even in some
of the most respected of spiritual traditions, so over-simplified
have they become by what can only be called the current
practitioners.


The Sufis are a challenge to this doctrine. In some measure,
they have always opposed it. In some measure, they have always,
somewhere, elicited an antipathetic reaction. This is because the
stick-and-carrot people feel threatened by the Sufis. In reality,
the Sufis are no threat to them: there will always be such people,
and they will always have enough hearers and believers to suffice
them. If they were a little less insecure, they would see this easily
enough.


But the Sufis are, though not a threat, certainly a challenge.
The concept that people can learn, can get to know themselves,
to know others and what lies beyond ordinary perception; all
this using the minimum, not the maximum, of emotional or
intellectual effort: together with the right balance of each and
not the extension of either or both: this is a challenge. It goes
against the attitudes of the intellectualists and the emotionalists
alike. It also appears to oppose the attitude of those who think
that neither intellect nor emotion should be allowed to operate
if spiritual perception and understanding are to emerge. But if
a statement of fact is to be considered a challenge, we are entitled
to ask why.


Naturally, there has to be a framework within which the Sufi
aspirant will approach learning and understanding. Throughout
the ages, and in varying communities and groups, Sufis have
used the frameworks which will best help to conduct the learners
to the learning. Under present circumstances, you could take
note of these important points:


Those who wish to progress should try to examine their
assumptions. They should examine their reactions to Sufi
teaching as well as to their daily human contacts and experiences.
They should ponder the principle: 'None should be the worse
off from having been in contact with me!' They should add to
these three points two more, which are:


'Sufi understanding comes through right study and teaching,
through right exercises when indicated, through remembering
that the flaws which are not repaired are those which can make
most effort useless.'


And remember, it is the Teaching, and not the individual who
teaches, which is important. In the words of one sage who
(because of the foregoing) does not want to be identified:


How many people have called someone great who has
only frightened them?


How many people have called someone good who has
only delighted them?




--from Knowing How To Know, p. 240-242