Part the Second
I keep coming back to this because it's actually what set me on this track, years ago. There is much of this essay I might reproduce, but the key point is that when Kharkovli considers, as he does, that "Sufism is the inner core of religion", the backstory involves capitalized terms like "Real Self" and "Ultimate Truth", but there is also this:
And who the hell is Adilbai Kharkovli, anyway? Even more astonishing than Sufis—there's a joke there, never mind—is that this chapter in a book put together for a Sufi press is the only thing I'm finding his name associated with; I'll need to look harder, since what is out there is probably written in other alphabets.
A Sufi would probably appreciate Iceaura's statement while inwardly noting a criticism having to do with the phrase "God business", because the one thing about the Sufism presented in the larger volume assembled by Idries Shah for a Sufi press is that the whole thing is incredibly arrogant, and, yes, there is a joke there but I can't even actually explain it except to say that Sufis often present themselves as assholes when discussing Sufism because they can't help themselves for thinking they're making some manner of point by it. And even that is a deliberately cultivated prejudice; Sufism is nearly an anti-religion the way an overpaid asshole making a genuine point that only affects other overpaid assholes somehow earns the title of "anti-hero". (Note for internationals: The American context was a pro sports thing asserting nonconformity, which is itself an unfortunate joke.) If anyone ever volunteers they are a Sufi without being asked, the proper response is to neither believe them nor give a damn. Something about killing the Buddha goes here.
Doesn't quite sound like talking about a religion, does it? Of course, there comes a point in Sufi training at which one is actually a Sufi, and free to retain or dispense with ritual observations as he or she sees fit. Rabia herself once declared that she would burn the al ka'bah al-musharrafah if it ever stood between a Muslim and God. And remember, it's not about getting to heaven; it's about becoming a better person.
I'm not a Sufi; this isn't about promoting Sufism.
But here's the secret, and it's not really a secret: There are any number of religious and para- or post-religious philosophies that aren't particularly new, since they can reach back to Aristotle, at least, but generally defy such petty dualisms as believing in an undefined value or not.
Let us try what should be an accessible example: When Bill Maher criticizes the idea of people who are not religious, but are "spiritual", he's actually just being a stupid asshole. I don't outright reject the criticism; he's just really, really lazy about it, and whenever he speaks on the point he proves he hasn't a clue what he's on about. If he wants to be helpful, he could try finding a new discussion for those aspects of human necessity.
Because one thing science cannot do is explain the particular purpose of life.
Sounds like a stupid thing, I know, but it's also a product of our human psyches that hasn't selected out along the way. And that's where this all comes from. Even Aristotle was merely human; the hardest thing to reconcile for the notion of Unmoved Mover is the need to give it some manner of shape and will.
An interesting contrast about political discussion is that the Biblical "God" is, in American disputes, at least, so dressed and bound up with accretions of shape and will as to be a subject deity. The Alpha and Omega is not, or, perhaps, naught; the Christian godling can be contained in a redlight district motel nightstand drawer.
More generally, though, questions of shape and will are important because they bind and constrict the godhead. The Unmoved Mover does not move other things without prior movement upon itself; the Unmoved Mover simply is, and in that act of being, at the very least, we perceive motion, and perception is itself motion in this context. I'll skip the part about the Naples arrangement, except to remind that what we call time is necessary in order for change—e.g., motion—to occur. Another way to say it is that the Unmoved Mover need not move anything particularly, but need only be.
It's also kind of a dumb name at this point.
Let us consider science for a moment. First cause will be expressed as a mathematical formula. Full stop.
Humans keep searching for will in meaning because they seek explanation in comprehensible terms.
I said something about studying and learning about religion, and while that is a ludicrous sum of information, this seemingly wandering post is part of that: When we attend the dialectics, perform the psychoanalysis of history, or, you know, write the goddamn artistic criticism, if that is what it takes, this strange vagary I keep orbiting is what emerges.
If "God" is bound, then "God" is not "God". That's the thing about Alpha and Omega, though we need to skip the analysis of what the Omega has to do with the infinite or boundless.
Because that's the next thing about monotheism: If God is God, then God is boundless, else God is not God for being bound. The panentheistic result is a necessity of God's infinitude.
Consider a weird bit we've heard from Christianity, at least in my lifetime. Certain quarters would claim that humans have free will because God doesn't know, which is a boundary against omnipotence, and also creates a range in which God is not. Fifteen to twenty-five billion of these ranges over time that we can estimate from what we know; there are over seven billion of them currently operating on planet Earth right now.
The word "totality" is insufficient: Consider an abstract all of everything ever, that was or wasn't, including potentials abstractions like an absence of particular potential. In the psychoanalytic meaning of history, what we can infer from the record available to us is that the monotheistic godhead is a human invention that, approximately, represents our relationship to certain ideas, some of which seem to result from fear, and that our species has yet to evolve past. It's the weirdest trap, an effect of how the human mind works, and we might be dealing with it wrongly, as such, but perhaps we cannot select out of it as a species, and can only learn to deal with it properly. Remember that the so-called "God" phenomena in our brains are associated with our perceptive and creative operations. We are neurotic creatures, and there are reasons we perceive and imagine gods.
"It has been said that there is no human community yet known which has no religious system. Certain it is that everyone who comes across the Sufi activity in any form will relate to what he (or she) already assumes to be religion' or, more likely, the real religion. A study of the words and doings of the Sufis, however, seems to show that they will at one point appear to be supporting the local religious expression, and at another opposing. The confusion arises simply because the Sufis are teaching, not promoting beliefs. Where their teaching accords with local beliefs, they will appear to support these; where it deviates, it will appear to oppose the religious structure of belief.
"The Sufis themselves are frequently on record as teaching in this vein: though their attitude is generally expressed in terms which were better understood in the past. As an example, the phrase 'Sufism is the inner aspect of religion' can quite easily be seen as meaning: 'Sufi teachings, over a period of time, become covered by social, emotional and other accretions which are stabilized into religions. The living tradition of the Sufis, however, continues. Viewed from the religionist's standpoint, of course, the Sufi element is the inward component, and the rest is the balance of the religion.'"
"The Sufis themselves are frequently on record as teaching in this vein: though their attitude is generally expressed in terms which were better understood in the past. As an example, the phrase 'Sufism is the inner aspect of religion' can quite easily be seen as meaning: 'Sufi teachings, over a period of time, become covered by social, emotional and other accretions which are stabilized into religions. The living tradition of the Sufis, however, continues. Viewed from the religionist's standpoint, of course, the Sufi element is the inward component, and the rest is the balance of the religion.'"
—Adilbai Kharkovli
I keep coming back to this because it's actually what set me on this track, years ago. There is much of this essay I might reproduce, but the key point is that when Kharkovli considers, as he does, that "Sufism is the inner core of religion", the backstory involves capitalized terms like "Real Self" and "Ultimate Truth", but there is also this:
The conception that 'Sufism is the inner component of religion', too, should be acceptable enough if it is seen from enough examples that religion is often mainly an accretion of superficialities around an ancient core which may be reclaimed, but the corollary, that 'social and emotional activity actually disturb higher perceptions' is unlikely to pass unchallenged, especially among those who believe themselves to be imbibing spirituality with every prayer or operatic aria. Naturally, such people will bee less likely to assail this contention than to ignore it, to the detriment of future valuable research on the subject.
The much-repeated theory (for we can see it only on that level until it is verified by experience) that 'virtues' are not keys to heaven but essential steps which clear the way to higher understanding, is perhaps the most attractive of all the Sufi statements. There has always been, both in the East and the West, an uneasiness about believing that something done from fear or hope should be rewarded by paradise; or that ordinary human duties, carried out even by the most primitive peoples, should be represented as things which a highly-evolved religious system proclaims as part of advanced religious thinking.
This involves, of course, rethinking many of the values to see whether they are not, indeed, pitched at too low a level, rather than, as fashionable theoreticians affirm, too high. 'The best that we have' in institutions may be insufficient, not a matter for self-congratulation. This applies to the various forms of human relationship which have been in the past regarded as sublime, but which research might well show to confirm the Sufi claim that they are valuable but only on a lower level.
The much-repeated theory (for we can see it only on that level until it is verified by experience) that 'virtues' are not keys to heaven but essential steps which clear the way to higher understanding, is perhaps the most attractive of all the Sufi statements. There has always been, both in the East and the West, an uneasiness about believing that something done from fear or hope should be rewarded by paradise; or that ordinary human duties, carried out even by the most primitive peoples, should be represented as things which a highly-evolved religious system proclaims as part of advanced religious thinking.
This involves, of course, rethinking many of the values to see whether they are not, indeed, pitched at too low a level, rather than, as fashionable theoreticians affirm, too high. 'The best that we have' in institutions may be insufficient, not a matter for self-congratulation. This applies to the various forms of human relationship which have been in the past regarded as sublime, but which research might well show to confirm the Sufi claim that they are valuable but only on a lower level.
And who the hell is Adilbai Kharkovli, anyway? Even more astonishing than Sufis—there's a joke there, never mind—is that this chapter in a book put together for a Sufi press is the only thing I'm finding his name associated with; I'll need to look harder, since what is out there is probably written in other alphabets.
A Sufi would probably appreciate Iceaura's statement while inwardly noting a criticism having to do with the phrase "God business", because the one thing about the Sufism presented in the larger volume assembled by Idries Shah for a Sufi press is that the whole thing is incredibly arrogant, and, yes, there is a joke there but I can't even actually explain it except to say that Sufis often present themselves as assholes when discussing Sufism because they can't help themselves for thinking they're making some manner of point by it. And even that is a deliberately cultivated prejudice; Sufism is nearly an anti-religion the way an overpaid asshole making a genuine point that only affects other overpaid assholes somehow earns the title of "anti-hero". (Note for internationals: The American context was a pro sports thing asserting nonconformity, which is itself an unfortunate joke.) If anyone ever volunteers they are a Sufi without being asked, the proper response is to neither believe them nor give a damn. Something about killing the Buddha goes here.
Doesn't quite sound like talking about a religion, does it? Of course, there comes a point in Sufi training at which one is actually a Sufi, and free to retain or dispense with ritual observations as he or she sees fit. Rabia herself once declared that she would burn the al ka'bah al-musharrafah if it ever stood between a Muslim and God. And remember, it's not about getting to heaven; it's about becoming a better person.
I'm not a Sufi; this isn't about promoting Sufism.
But here's the secret, and it's not really a secret: There are any number of religious and para- or post-religious philosophies that aren't particularly new, since they can reach back to Aristotle, at least, but generally defy such petty dualisms as believing in an undefined value or not.
Let us try what should be an accessible example: When Bill Maher criticizes the idea of people who are not religious, but are "spiritual", he's actually just being a stupid asshole. I don't outright reject the criticism; he's just really, really lazy about it, and whenever he speaks on the point he proves he hasn't a clue what he's on about. If he wants to be helpful, he could try finding a new discussion for those aspects of human necessity.
Because one thing science cannot do is explain the particular purpose of life.
Sounds like a stupid thing, I know, but it's also a product of our human psyches that hasn't selected out along the way. And that's where this all comes from. Even Aristotle was merely human; the hardest thing to reconcile for the notion of Unmoved Mover is the need to give it some manner of shape and will.
An interesting contrast about political discussion is that the Biblical "God" is, in American disputes, at least, so dressed and bound up with accretions of shape and will as to be a subject deity. The Alpha and Omega is not, or, perhaps, naught; the Christian godling can be contained in a redlight district motel nightstand drawer.
More generally, though, questions of shape and will are important because they bind and constrict the godhead. The Unmoved Mover does not move other things without prior movement upon itself; the Unmoved Mover simply is, and in that act of being, at the very least, we perceive motion, and perception is itself motion in this context. I'll skip the part about the Naples arrangement, except to remind that what we call time is necessary in order for change—e.g., motion—to occur. Another way to say it is that the Unmoved Mover need not move anything particularly, but need only be.
It's also kind of a dumb name at this point.
Let us consider science for a moment. First cause will be expressed as a mathematical formula. Full stop.
Humans keep searching for will in meaning because they seek explanation in comprehensible terms.
I said something about studying and learning about religion, and while that is a ludicrous sum of information, this seemingly wandering post is part of that: When we attend the dialectics, perform the psychoanalysis of history, or, you know, write the goddamn artistic criticism, if that is what it takes, this strange vagary I keep orbiting is what emerges.
If "God" is bound, then "God" is not "God". That's the thing about Alpha and Omega, though we need to skip the analysis of what the Omega has to do with the infinite or boundless.
Because that's the next thing about monotheism: If God is God, then God is boundless, else God is not God for being bound. The panentheistic result is a necessity of God's infinitude.
Consider a weird bit we've heard from Christianity, at least in my lifetime. Certain quarters would claim that humans have free will because God doesn't know, which is a boundary against omnipotence, and also creates a range in which God is not. Fifteen to twenty-five billion of these ranges over time that we can estimate from what we know; there are over seven billion of them currently operating on planet Earth right now.
The word "totality" is insufficient: Consider an abstract all of everything ever, that was or wasn't, including potentials abstractions like an absence of particular potential. In the psychoanalytic meaning of history, what we can infer from the record available to us is that the monotheistic godhead is a human invention that, approximately, represents our relationship to certain ideas, some of which seem to result from fear, and that our species has yet to evolve past. It's the weirdest trap, an effect of how the human mind works, and we might be dealing with it wrongly, as such, but perhaps we cannot select out of it as a species, and can only learn to deal with it properly. Remember that the so-called "God" phenomena in our brains are associated with our perceptive and creative operations. We are neurotic creatures, and there are reasons we perceive and imagine gods.
―End Part II―
