The flavour of spiritual practices
Contents
In the course of the spiritual path, ritual acts become like nourishment, a true source of life which transforms our existence and the inwardness of our being.
After the death of the Sufi saint Junayd, nicknamed “the sultan of the spiritual assembly”, one of his disciples, Ja’far Khuldi, saw him in a dream and asked him what God had done with him. Junayd answered: “Fine phrases proved vain and mysterious formulas turned out sterile. Nothing was of use to us but the few prostrations accomplished in the very heart of the night.” This can be compared with this prayer of the Prophet himself, who implored: “O my God, protect me against all useless knowledge.” For what is called useful knowledge is that which is put into practice. There is no point accumulating knowledge about religion if it is not followed by practice.
One day, the inhabitants of a small village decided to appoint Nasruddin as imam of their mosque. On the Friday, he duly came to deliver his first sermon, and it was so clear, so gripping and so well turned that everyone was impressed and came to congratulate him after the service. The following Friday, he mounted the pulpit again and delivered exactly the same sermon. The villagers wondered to what extent he had forgotten having already preached it to them, but they dared not ask him. When, however, he gave the same sermon yet again the next Friday, they came in a delegation to explain this fact to him and to ask when he would move on to something else. His answer was simplicity itself: “I shall move on to something else as soon as you have put into practice what I have just told you!”
An everyday experience
Islam is an eminently experiential religion: its meaning does not reside in words, and only daily lived experience can reveal its flavour. But this putting into practice must not become an end in itself either, for the goal lies beyond. The finger only serves to point at the moon: the thing is to look at what it indicates, not at the finger itself. Worse still, it must not be made into an instrument of judgement, with a view to acquiring power over others. The aim of spiritual work is to change our relation to the world, not by trying to change the world, but by gradually modifying the perception we have of it.
With this in view, putting certain elements in place will be of considerable help to us, by exposing the heart to what is sometimes called the Breath of the Merciful: spiritual effluvia that will both nourish it and purify it. It is through a gradual recentring of the whole being on the heart’s perception that the openings and spiritual states which will lead us along this path can come about within our innermost being. These states can be lived at different levels. Thus gratitude can be expressed with the tongue, when we think of thanking God for what He gives us each day. That is already a first stage. But if this state grows and develops in depth, then the need will come to draw its consequences, and to place oneself at His service, notably through respect for His prescriptions, so as to “put one’s gratitude into acts”. Deeper still, the heart’s gratitude will consist in always seeing the Giver behind the gift, and in recognising that everything comes from God, beyond the various means through which His gifts reach us.
The same holds for ritual acts. At a certain point on the path, these practices become a true source of life which transforms the whole of our existence. Prayer is no longer lived as a duty or a constraint, but as an occasion to gather oneself, to renew oneself. A break in the course of time, it is a moment of return which lets us recover our strength by coming back to the essential.
The practices of Islam are founded on five pillars: the twofold testimony (that there is no divinity but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah), prayer, the legal alms, the fast of the month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Putting these five pillars into practice aims at bringing us closer to our original nature, by putting us in a disposition to receive, through a work of inner purification.
The twofold testimony reminds our ego that it is not the only master on board, that it is God who holds the reins of our existence. The negation of all our inner idols, which we too often tend, even despite ourselves, to treat as divinities, is followed by the affirmation of divine unicity. As for recognising the mission entrusted to the Prophet Muhammad, it amounts to recognising the possibility of a path of return to God, and so recognising that our existence has meaning. This twofold testimony constitutes the foundations of the Muslim faith. To become Muslim, indeed, it is enough to agree to pronounce it. Note that it is not a matter of simply adhering to an idea or a belief, but of pronouncing with one’s tongue, in Arabic, the words that God revealed to us for formulating this testimony. The participation of the body is thus once again necessary, just as when we invoke God, or recite a surah of the Qur’an in a low voice during prayer. The tongue always pronounces the words, audibly or not. And it is recommended to invoke God with the words He Himself taught us, in the language He chose for addressing us at that moment.
It is said that sound carries meaning, and it is striking to see how reading the Qur’an in Arabic, even when one does not understand that language, can plunge certain people into very deep spiritual states. One has the impression then that the brain does not understand, but that the heart does, beyond the barrier of language.
Immersion in a cosmic dimension
Most of Islam’s rituals are linked to the movement of the heavenly bodies in the sky. Depending on the position of the sun, prayer times shift within the day over the seasons, their amplitude widening in summer and narrowing in winter. In the same way, the month of Ramadan shifts throughout the year, this time in connection with the lunar calendar. Since lunar months are of 29 or 30 days, the lunar year contains 11 days fewer than the solar year. The same ritual can thus fall, over time, at different moments of the year: the evening prayer takes place at 5 p.m. in winter and at 9 p.m. in summer, and the sacred month of Ramadan can fall, depending on the year, in the heart of winter as well as in the middle of summer. All these elements contribute to anchoring Muslims in a perception of cosmic time, whose cyclical character is evident to all.
Always starting from what we are, prayer is inscribed in a precise spatio-temporal context. It is performed at the hours set by God, not according to our fancy. It is always oriented towards Mecca, wherever in the world one finds oneself. So it will sometimes mean turning south, sometimes east, or even north, depending on where one happens to pray. It is preceded by ablutions, which aim at restoring ritual purity. Purity and cleanliness should not, by the way, be confused. Even if ablutions are most often performed with water, and even if ritual purity entails a certain cleanliness, it is a matter, in the Prophet’s words, of “donning one’s garment of light”, which goes far beyond a simple wash. Natural substances like mud or sand are not, for that matter, considered impure, and contact with them does not invalidate the ablutions. It is also a matter, in the soul, of putting oneself in a disposition to receive, of making oneself available for that spiritual interview which is prayer, or again of getting “into the spirit” of prayer.
Almsgiving teaches us to detach ourselves from material goods, and to realise the grace granted us of being able to have something to give. It is said that everything has its alms, which serves to purify it, and that the alms of the body is fasting. The guest room is considered the alms of a house. The legal alms thus aims at purifying the goods we have received. It reminds us that these goods were attributed to us by God’s grace, and were not acquired through our own merit alone. Handing part of them back to God amounts to recognising the Giver behind these blessings, and also makes it possible to put into effect a necessary solidarity with the poorest among the believers. The proceeds of this alms are indeed allocated to eight very precise categories of individuals, starting with the most needy.
The fast of the month of Ramadan reminds us of our fundamental dependence on our body, and so on its Creator. Each year, for 29 or 30 days, several hundred million Muslims around the world fast between dawn and dusk. Men or women, young or old, poor or rich, all Muslims on five continents fast, at the same moment of the year, in the same way. All this procures a certain sensation of unity and belonging, in this fervent quest for the return to our original state.
During these hours of fasting, it is strictly forbidden to take the least food, the least drink, or to have intimate relations between spouses. The whole of our life is turned upside down by this break in habits. Without meals to punctuate them, the days seem to lengthen and to open up for the worship of God. Lightened, the body is less heavy, more inclined to inner feelings.
An exchange between the famous Abbasid caliph Harun ar-Rashid and his counsellor, Ibn as-Sammak, is a revealing example, among others, of the importance of food. When the caliph had asked for water to be served to him, Ibn as-Sammak asked:
“O prince of the believers, if this drink were refused you, what would you give to obtain it?
“I would give my entire kingdom,” he answered.
“O prince of the believers, if you could not eliminate this water from your body, what would you sacrifice to be able to do so?” the other went on.
“I would yield my entire kingdom,” he answered again.
“How then, O prince of the believers, can one rejoice at possessing a kingdom that is worth neither a few mouthfuls of water nor a little urine?”
This shows the full importance of the body, and allows many things to be put in perspective.
The month of Ramadan is also the month in which the Qur’an descended, entirely uncreated, into the heart of the Prophet Muhammad. That is to say that during one night of that month, the Prophet was visited by the archangel Gabriel, who asked him, unlettered as he was, to read. And he was given to read, in the end, what had been inscribed in his own heart. It is said that the Qur’an descended all at once into his heart on that particular night, even though its verses only gradually became actual over the years that followed. Here again, spirit took the form of letters in order to make itself understood by men, and to bring them back on the path to their Creator.
The last pillar of Islam, the pilgrimage, presents itself as an initiatic death, a symbol of this path of return on which we are all engaged. To undertake it, at least once in one’s life for those who have the physical and material possibility, one must settle all one’s affairs as if embarking on one’s last journey. The Muslim sacralises his body, dons a garment of a single piece of unsewn cloth, symbol of purity, and presents himself before God to place himself at His service, uttering this single cry: “Here I am!” The pilgrimage ritual is extremely precise and detailed, whether in the movements, the gestures or the words to be performed. Freed from the imperatives of choice, the soul can devote itself entirely to contemplation.
Eternity in the instant
Thus spiritual practices, which are so many forms of invocation of God, always start from the body, from the here and now, to leap towards God and towards eternity. Eternity is not of this world; it can truly be tasted only in the hollow of the passing instant. For each instant contains the divine Presence, but it is man who is absent from it. By immersing oneself in the instant, one reaches the eternal. If remembrance can evoke the past in the present, it is because the present virtually contains the whole extent of time. And that is what invocation realises: instead of referring itself horizontally to the past, it addresses itself vertically to the Essence which governs the past as well as the future.
The same could be said of every ritual practice: the soul’s plunge into the depths of the instant allows contact with the divine to be renewed, and thereby, with eternity. The very act of effacing our ego allows consciousness to open, and to be irradiated once more by the divine Lights.
This mechanism of return to God is a constant in Islam. Repentance there is not synonymous with guilt, and there is no redemption to seek. It is simply a matter, in all cases, of coming back to God. The Qur’an tells us that God is the One who ceaselessly returns to the repentant sinner, and urges the latter to do likewise. It is indeed this return, in its ultimate modality, that is evoked by the sacramental formula pronounced when we are confronted with the death of a loved one: “In truth, we belong to God, and to Him we return.”
Human love is a nostalgic reflection of that absolute Love which burns the heart of God’s servant, and turns it to ashes. The secret of Islamic spirituality lies indeed in man’s fundamental, ontological servitude towards God. The more we entrust ourselves to Him, the more He takes charge of us; the more we divest ourselves of ourselves, the more He invests us; the more we abase ourselves, the more He raises us. The practices go in the direction of this inner divestment. It is a matter of adopting a fully active attitude, but without claiming the result of our actions. It is just as essential to act in the direction of what seems right to us as it is to accept in advance that the result of our actions may differ from the one hoped for.
For the one who is thus consumed by Love, physical death no longer has the same meaning. If the soul necessarily accompanies the body, to which it confers movement, the spirit is the source of life: when it leaves the body, life goes out. It is when the soul, during the body’s lifetime, weds the spirit and melts into it that one speaks of initiatic death or deliverance.
For those who have perceived the process of the soul’s perfection and have travelled its stages, their soul is aware of the place reserved for it, and death, that is, the moment when the spirit, ar-ruh, leaves its prison, is so sweet that it procures them an indescribable spiritual ecstasy. Freed from its gaol, the soul then feels light and free; it is awaited and welcomed in the spiritual world.
True, God is everywhere; yet He remains veiled for those who have not purified themselves. As long as we have not found God in ourselves, we must not expect to find Him elsewhere. Such is the meaning of our life: this endless going beyond in the quest for the One.
Bruno Dassa
