From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 03:26:59 MST
Charles Hixon:
>Seems somewhat similar to koans, a way of attacking the rooted
>beliefs. With koans, at least, you don't even need to believe
>in the persuppositions of the system to benefit from it, if
>you can take the challenge seriously as a riddle.
>Seems somewhat similar to koans, a way of attacking the rooted
>beliefs. With koans, at least, you don't even need to believe
>in the persuppositions of the system to benefit from it, if
>you can take the challenge seriously as a riddle.
That's right.
From my (admittedly casual, last 15 yrs) study, the Sufis' quest
for enlightenment is a self-knowing, overcoming as much as possible
social conditioning. So they have developed many many methods, of
which the 'scattering technique' that I described previously, is
one method.
Another way to overcome our social conditioning is by using
multi-layered stories, parables, poetry, which have a new meaning
each time you read the same one. If you read one and say to yourself
"huh" ?, then that means that you didn't understand one of the
messages, but you shifted your mind in a useful new way. (Try
reading: _Tales of the Dervishes_ by Idries Shah, to see what I
mean). More about this can be found in _Learning How to Learn_ by
Idries Shah.
Another way the Sufis like to shift our thinking patterns is to
present something as 'ridiculous' (court jesters, clowns,
tricksters, for example are Sufic). The most famous 'Idiot' (or
Sage?) is the Mulla Nasrudin, and the stories of his adventures are
pervasive throughout Sufi schools because they are teaching stories.
In the Sufi stream, enlightenment can be gained via love, meaning a
(poetic) love of perfect devotion to a wise Muse. The poets are the
chief disseminators of Sufi thought ("Under the poet's tongue lies
the key of treasury" says Nizami, a Persian poet). Poetry has a
subsidiary role for the Sufis- they think that it helps to prepare
the mind, to allow values concepts to flow inwards, as a "bridge".
Rumi, one of the greatest poets of Persia, regarded poetry as a
reflection of the enormous inner reality which he called love, but
the greatest love he said, is silent and cannot be expressed in
words. Idries Shah says that "it is not possible to understand Sufi
poetry unless one is steeped in the imagery and almost unbelievable
depth of feeling which is cloaked in allegory".
The Sufis have given humankind many valuable things. One reason
people don't hear very much about them is that they feel that their
function to be a 'nutrient' for society, and to then transmute and
disappear, leaving altered traces only.
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Trust in the Universe, but tie up your camels first." (adaptation of a Sufi proverb)
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