Archive for March, 2012

Quora answer: What are good ways to retain information?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

One good way to retain information is to create diagrams of what ever you are studying. I learned this from a teacher of philosophy I had in college whose name was Professor Alfonso Verdu. He would draw diagrams of the philosophies that he was teaching. So I took this method as my own, and did diagrams of all the philosophical works I studied over the years. What is amazing is that I can remember diagrams that I did years ago, or those that Professor Alfonso Verdu used in teaching us philosophy. I converted many of my diagrams into digital form in my books and papers. See for instance, The Fragmentation of Being and the Path beyond the Void (http://works.bepress.com/kent_palmer).  The key is to avoid using the same format for each diagram like, for instance, MindMaps.  Each diagram has to be tailored creatively to the content being portrayed. The work of creating the diagram that is suitable for understanding needs to be kept in a notebook so it can be referenced. If you look at it occasionally when you are thinking about the problems then that reinforced the memory. But just the act of creating the diagrams more or less imprints it permanently on ones memory. Once one has done diagrams like this for a long time, the diagrams are no longer really necessary, but they always help. Not sure why this is so. I guess the brain gets accustomed to think diagrammatically about concepts and one eventually learns just to do it spontaneously.

Here are some examples:


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Quora answer: If someone self-identifies as a polymath, is he/she actually one?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

I am a polymath. I refer you to my answers on Quora, and my works as evidence. Now it is for you to decide if I am actually one.

For instance, Socrates claims to not be a Sophist. But in certain circumstances Plato makes him look precisely like what he is against. Thus, what are we to take from that when we become disillusioned with Socrates and his difference from the Sophists as Nietzsche did for instance. Socrates was an anti-polymath, and the sophists were seen as the polymaths, and that is one of the things that Socrates held against them, he thought of them as Hydra, having many heads, and said that they escape into holes with many exits in the course of arguments. But Plato can be seen as a Polymath, if you read all his dialogues. So we have a Polymath with a character who is not a polymath, and who is against Sophists who are normally polymaths, from whom Socrates is hard to distinguish except by external factors like the fact that Socrates is from Athens and not a foreigner. and that Socrates does not ask for money to engage in conversation. Rather than knowing anything himself, Socrates is seen as one who is good at asking, hard to answer questions bout the real meaning of abstract words. So eventually you are completely caught up in Plato’s irony and you don’t know what to think. Basically to your point Plato and Socrates have the ideal of not being Sophists but in the end it seems that they themselves may be sophists. And so their claims must be pointing to something else than the nature of sophistry, something beyond sophistry like the Nondual for instance. Something not recognized in the tradition that followed, and something truly lost in oblivion in our tradition due to active suppression.

Being a Polymath in our society is highly discouraged. Everyone is a specialist. And specialism is in fact nihilism. Thus if you are to overcome nihilism oneself one is forced to try to become a polymath, but in that search for knowledge one puts oneself beyond the pale of academia, because the whole purpose of academia is to control knowledge and who might claim to have it. And everyone says that it is impossible for anyone to know everything in our age, but no one claims that it is impossible to know everything that is significant. That is still open as a goal. But then how do you decide what is significant? My measure is whether or not it relates to the structure of the Western Worldview as it is rooted in the Indo-European worldview. And significance is gained by comparing that to the various nondual traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, DzogChen, Sufism, etc. Significance comes from ones problematic. My problematic the nature of Western Science in relation to the structure of the Western worldivew, and we do this by studying anomalous cases like Acupuncture that has no scientific explanation, but is recognized to work by the establishment even though no one knows why. These anomalies suggest we might have blindspots in our own scientific approach to the world, which come from the structure of our worldview, which is now world dominant. Significance comes from the spread of the Kurgans due to horsepower, Colonialization, and now Globalisation by the Indo-Europeans whose worldview has become world dominant. This coincides with the ultimate nihilistic act which is destroying the planet, i.e. the ultimate terrorist act of destroying the planet and taking everyone else including all other species with you, which this world dominant Worldview seems to be in the process of attempting to realize. The fact that it cannot control itself to stop the emissions that is causing global warming and leading to a greenhouse planet suggests that there is something fundamentally self-destructive in this worldview, which is terrorizing the rest of the planet. In some respects Terrorism is a reflection of ourselves in the mirror of the world. The first terrorists were European anarchists. We developed the weapons of mass destruction which are being used to kill masses of people. If we had not spread them all over the globe we would not find them being used by others. So it seems fairly clear that the Western worldview is its own worst enemy, and unfortunately the enemy of all, including the other species on the planet.

So it is from this global crisis that we take the significance of our problematic. And it is from this crisis that we take the energy to pursue the quest for self-knowledge whereever it may lead. And it is the fact that it leads to many disparate fields that produces the polymatic qualities, which are a side effect of the intellectual journey being taken over a lifetime. And in fact I would guess that all polymaths have a similar motivation, they find something which is fascinating and they pursue it whereever it may lead in the pursuit of understanding, and knowledge of many subjects picked up as tools along the way is the result. They are not seeking to be polymaths, but they are seeking an elusive query, that continually hides in various fields of inquiry or endeavor and the only way to continue the pursuit is to master to some extent those various fields.

So the sign of a true polymath in my opinion is one who has a deep enough problematic that it cannot be bound by specialization, and who thus becomes a renegade from the Academic control structures built to reign in and control knowledge.

A Crank on the other hand is someone who is obsessed with something which is not related to the cutting edge of the tradition and does not recognize the tradition and its judgment on what is valuable and what is not valuable. Every polymath is somewhat of a crank, because they are willing to develop ideas that totally break the mold of the tradition. But the crank really does not understand the tradition, and thus pursues a vision completely out of kilter with it. The Polymath on the other hand is so involved with learning pursuing his goal that he just happens to learn a lot along the way, without regard to whether the knowledge is useful or fits into normal categories manufactured by Academia to control knowledge, The Crank is the person who is filtered out by the academic control system. The polymath does not care about the boundaries for learning established by the Academic knowledge control system because he is pursuing a problematic that is a crosscutting concern and too busy doing that to bother with specialization and the peer pressure of peer reviewed publications. The the true polymath has no peer. Because all the peers implicitly recognize the boundaries of specialization and are loath to transgress those  boundaries.

This brings us to the trees in the Garden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Trees). But it appears there were actually five trees  trees of life, of immortality, Knowledge, comprehension, and knowledge of good and evil (http://www.bardic-press.com/thomas/saying19.htm). Aristotlec says “There are five virtues of thought: technê, epistêmê, phronêsis, sophia, and nous (1139b15). ” (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/). Throwing Blake into the equation we have several lists of terms we might try to reconcile.

<pre>
5 trees                     nonduals        Aristotle
Immortality               Source             sophia
Life                                  Fate                phronesis
Good & Evil               Good                (metis)
Comprehension      Right                 techne
Knowledge                Order               episteme
(Information)          InfoEntropy    (senses)
</pre>

 

<pre>
5 trees                         Blake
(rivers origin)          Albion
Immortality             Urthowna
Life                             Tharmas
Good & Evil             Luvah
Comprehension    Urizen     (reason)
Knowledge              Beulah Land
(Information)          (created world)
</pre>

Only a Polymath can come up with a table like this. Whether it is meaningful or not you have to judge for yourself. If it is not meaningful then you would have to judge me a crank. If it is meaningful then it means that there is a lot more to life than just knowing a lot of things, and being a polymath is merely the most superficial of characteristics that we would desire as human beings if we could have all the depth we might  be able to attain.

Nous also called intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real, very close in meaning to intuition. It is also often described as a form of perception which works within the mind (“the mind’s eye”), rather than only through the physical senses.[2] The three commonly used philosophical terms are from Greek, νοῦς or νόος, and Latin intellectus and intelligentia respectively. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(wisdom)

Note: “Phro­nesis is the histor­ically implicated, communally nurtured ability to make good sense of relatively singular contexts in ways appropriate to their relative singularity.” (https://sites.google.com/site/praxisandtechne/Home/architecture/knowledge/episteme/phronesis)

The Polymath merely collects knowledge though his fascination on his intellectual quest after what is sought from his problematic. This is indeed only the surface. What we need is something deeper that takes from all the trees in paradise rather than only one.

19. Jesus said, “Blessed is he who exists from the beginning before he comes to be. If you are my students and listen to my words, these stones will become your servants. For you have five trees in Paradise, which do not move in summer or in winter, and their leaves do not fall down. Whoever knows them will not taste death.”
http://www.bardic-press.com/thomas/saying19.htm

Reference: https://sites.google.com/site/praxisandtechne/Home/architecture

http://kp0.me/GQuvME

http://www.quora.com/If-someone-self-identifies-as-a-polymath-is-he-she-actually-one

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Quora answer: If someone self-identifies as a polymath, is he/she actually one?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

I am a polymath. I refer you to my answers on Quora, and my works as evidence. Now it is for you to decide if I am actually one.

For instance, Socrates claims to not be a Sophist. But in certain circumstances Plato makes him look precisely like what he is against. Thus, what are we to take from that when we become disillusioned with Socrates and his difference from the Sophists as Nietzsche did for instance. Socrates was an anti-polymath, and the sophists were seen as the polymaths, and that is one of the things that Socrates held against them, he thought of them as Hydra, having many heads, and said that they escape into holes with many exits in the course of arguments. But Plato can be seen as a Polymath, if you read all his dialogues. So we have a Polymath with a character who is not a polymath, and who is against Sophists who are normally polymaths, from whom Socrates is hard to distinguish except by external factors like the fact that Socrates is from Athens and not a foreigner. and that Socrates does not ask for money to engage in conversation. Rather than knowing anything himself, Socrates is seen as one who is good at asking, hard to answer questions bout the real meaning of abstract words. So eventually you are completely caught up in Plato’s irony and you don’t know what to think. Basically to your point Plato and Socrates have the ideal of not being Sophists but in the end it seems that they themselves may be sophists. And so their claims must be pointing to something else than the nature of sophistry, something beyond sophistry like the Nondual for instance. Something not recognized in the tradition that followed, and something truly lost in oblivion in our tradition due to active suppression.

Being a Polymath in our society is highly discouraged. Everyone is a specialist. And specialism is in fact nihilism. Thus if you are to overcome nihilism oneself one is forced to try to become a polymath, but in that search for knowledge one puts oneself beyond the pale of academia, because the whole purpose of academia is to control knowledge and who might claim to have it. And everyone says that it is impossible for anyone to know everything in our age, but no one claims that it is impossible to know everything that is significant. That is still open as a goal. But then how do you decide what is significant? My measure is whether or not it relates to the structure of the Western Worldview as it is rooted in the Indo-European worldview. And significance is gained by comparing that to the various nondual traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, DzogChen, Sufism, etc. Significance comes from ones problematic. My problematic the nature of Western Science in relation to the structure of the Western worldivew, and we do this by studying anomalous cases like Acupuncture that has no scientific explanation, but is recognized to work by the establishment even though no one knows why. These anomalies suggest we might have blindspots in our own scientific approach to the world, which come from the structure of our worldview, which is now world dominant. Significance comes from the spread of the Kurgans due to horsepower, Colonialization, and now Globalisation by the Indo-Europeans whose worldview has become world dominant. This coincides with the ultimate nihilistic act which is destroying the planet, i.e. the ultimate terrorist act of destroying the planet and taking everyone else including all other species with you, which this world dominant Worldview seems to be in the process of attempting to realize. The fact that it cannot control itself to stop the emissions that is causing global warming and leading to a greenhouse planet suggests that there is something fundamentally self-destructive in this worldview, which is terrorizing the rest of the planet. In some respects Terrorism is a reflection of ourselves in the mirror of the world. The first terrorists were European anarchists. We developed the weapons of mass destruction which are being used to kill masses of people. If we had not spread them all over the globe we would not find them being used by others. So it seems fairly clear that the Western worldview is its own worst enemy, and unfortunately the enemy of all, including the other species on the planet.

So it is from this global crisis that we take the significance of our problematic. And it is from this crisis that we take the energy to pursue the quest for self-knowledge whereever it may lead. And it is the fact that it leads to many disparate fields that produces the polymatic qualities, which are a side effect of the intellectual journey being taken over a lifetime. And in fact I would guess that all polymaths have a similar motivation, they find something which is fascinating and they pursue it whereever it may lead in the pursuit of understanding, and knowledge of many subjects picked up as tools along the way is the result. They are not seeking to be polymaths, but they are seeking an elusive query, that continually hides in various fields of inquiry or endeavor and the only way to continue the pursuit is to master to some extent those various fields.

So the sign of a true polymath in my opinion is one who has a deep enough problematic that it cannot be bound by specialization, and who thus becomes a renegade from the Academic control structures built to reign in and control knowledge.

A Crank on the other hand is someone who is obsessed with something which is not related to the cutting edge of the tradition and does not recognize the tradition and its judgment on what is valuable and what is not valuable. Every polymath is somewhat of a crank, because they are willing to develop ideas that totally break the mold of the tradition. But the crank really does not understand the tradition, and thus pursues a vision completely out of kilter with it. The Polymath on the other hand is so involved with learning pursuing his goal that he just happens to learn a lot along the way, without regard to whether the knowledge is useful or fits into normal categories manufactured by Academia to control knowledge, The Crank is the person who is filtered out by the academic control system. The polymath does not care about the boundaries for learning established by the Academic knowledge control system because he is pursuing a problematic that is a crosscutting concern and too busy doing that to bother with specialization and the peer pressure of peer reviewed publications. The the true polymath has no peer. Because all the peers implicitly recognize the boundaries of specialization and are loath to transgress those  boundaries.

This brings us to the trees in the Garden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Trees). But it appears there were actually five trees  trees of life, of immortality, Knowledge, comprehension, and knowledge of good and evil (http://www.bardic-press.com/thomas/saying19.htm). Aristotlec says “There are five virtues of thought: technê, epistêmê, phronêsis, sophia, and nous (1139b15). ” (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/). Throwing Blake into the equation we have several lists of terms we might try to reconcile.

5 trees          nonduals        Aristotle
(rivers origin)  Root             nous
Immortality      Source           sophia
Life             Fate             phronesis
Good/Evil        Good             (metis)
Comprehension    Right            techne
Knowledge        Order            episteme
(Information)    InfoEntropy      (senses)
5 trees          Blake
(rivers origin)  Albion
Immortality      Urthowna
Life             Tharmas
Good/Evil        Luvah
Comprehension    Urizen (reason)
Knowledge        Beulah Land
(Information)    (created world)

Only a Polymath can come up with a table like this. Whether it is meaningful or not you have to judge for yourself. If it is not meaningful then you would have to judge me a crank. If it is meaningful then it means that there is a lot more to life than just knowing a lot of things, and being a polymath is merely the most superficial of characteristics that we would desire as human beings if we could have all the depth we might  be able to attain.

Nous also called intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real, very close in meaning to intuition. It is also often described as a form of perception which works within the mind (“the mind’s eye”), rather than only through the physical senses.[2] The three commonly used philosophical terms are from Greek, νοῦς or νόος, and Latin intellectus and intelligentia respectively. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(wisdom)

Note: “Phro­nesis is the histor­ically implicated, communally nurtured ability to make good sense of relatively singular contexts in ways appropriate to their relative singularity.” (https://sites.google.com/site/praxisandtechne/Home/architecture/knowledge/episteme/phronesis)

The Polymath merely collects knowledge though his fascination on his intellectual quest after what is sought from his problematic. This is indeed only the surface. What we need is something deeper that takes from all the trees in paradise rather than only one.

19. Jesus said, “Blessed is he who exists from the beginning before he comes to be. If you are my students and listen to my words, these stones will become your servants. For you have five trees in Paradise, which do not move in summer or in winter, and their leaves do not fall down. Whoever knows them will not taste death.”
http://www.bardic-press.com/thomas/saying19.htm

Reference: https://sites.google.com/site/praxisandtechne/Home/architecture

http://kp0.me/GQuvME

http://www.quora.com/If-someone-self-identifies-as-a-polymath-is-he-she-actually-one

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Quora answer: What are some non-American films you shouldn’t go your whole life without seeing?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

Andre Rublev by Andrei Tarkovski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky


http://kp0.me/H3JzZu

http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-non-American-films-you-shouldnt-go-your-whole-life-without-seeing

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Quora answer: Are Harold Bloom’s books worth reading as a layman?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

 

Harold Bloom is a key Literary Theorist for many reasons, but I think the most interesting of which are his books the Anxiety of Influence and the Map of Misreading, where he talks about how creativity is really stealing, and then covering up what is stolen. For instance, now it is fairly clear from recent Scholarship that Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger stole large portions of their “innovative” ideas from the later Husserl which is documented in The Other Husserl The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology  Don Welton; Another case is that of Foucault who at the end of his life according to Dreyfus admitted that His theory of Power merely substituted that word for Being in Heidegger’s Being and Time. These are crucial transitions in Continental Philosophy and it seems the anxiety of influence dynamic that Bloom pointed out out holds true in these particular cases. The map of Misreading is similar to Drefyus’ idea of how changes occur in the tradition, where peripheral concerns become central and central concerns become peripheral. In the Map of Misreading each poetic genius misreads the earlier generation, and we can see that misreading is having other concerns that bring to the fore what is peripheral in the earlier generation’s works. So Bloom zeros in on a particular dynamic that explains change in the Poetic tradition and that is probably also true for Philosophy if not more so.

Of course, this theory of Dreyfus and Bloom explains only incremental change and not Emergent Events. Emergent Events are radical changes that are very difficult to explain in this way, like the discovery of Quantum Theory for instance. Einstein’s Relativity could be seen as an example of this sort of change of the way we are viewing things already known by looking at them differently, i.e. via an Anagogic Swerve. But explaining things that come out of nowhere to change everything, like Super-conductivity, or Solitons, or Quaternions, for instance, cannot be explained by this type of theory. Thus we need to augment Bloom’s theory with a theory about the nature of Emergent Events and when we do that it takes us deeply into the structure of the worldview.

http://kp0.me/GQrAn9
http://www.quora.com/Are-Harold-Bloom-s-books-worth-reading-as-a-layman

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Quora answer: How does study abroad change a person?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

I studied in England for almost ten years doing a Ph.D. at London School of economics. In London the cultural life is amazing, and so one can do what ever one wants to do culturally easily, which for me was going to Plays and watching Movies from all over the world. National Film Theater was right across Waterloo Bridge from my school so I would study during the day and go to a rare movie at night many days, so that I received a whole education in film at the same time as pursuing my other studies. And then of course there are new plays all the time, and excellent acting, and it is just the best possible place for theater experiences of the highest quality. And then London itself is a fascinating place where there are people from all over the world, living together, and so I would walk from one end of the city to the other, and came to know it like the back of my hand. Eventually I started riding my bike all over London and it increased my range to explore the city. And then there are restaurants of every description, and it is a whole adventure to find the best ones that are affordable as a student and to eat at these places and explore new cuisines from the world over. In London they have a magazine called time out which puts what is happening around the city at your fingertips. So what ever your bent you can indulge in the arts and culture to your hearts content which is a whole education in itself. And of course there are the art museums that one can visit regularly and see great art collections, which it is good to visit often to see the same pieces over and over again. I walked through the British Museum every day and tried to take a different route and see something different, but my favorite thing in the Museum was the pieces from Sutton Ho, I lived in Highgate area and regularly I would walk across all of London via the parks. You could go all the way to Kew gardens via parks with short gaps where you had to walk through streets between the parks. I would get up in the morning and walk across the Heath down to a tea shop in Hampstead to have breakfast, and then go down to school or where ever I was going to study. And between the Senate House, the Library of the London School of Economics and the British Museum there was every book that had been printed practically. So I would study in the British Museum most of the time, reading books from the Philosophy section of the Senate library. Also if you are going to the University of London you can take classes in any of its schools, and so there is a wide variety of courses on offer to be taken if one feels up to it. But if you are doing a Ph.D. there you do not have to take any classes, but you are free to spend your time studying what ever takes your fancy, and so one may learn a lot in various disciplines if one is diligent in ones pursuit of knowledge.

When you get sick finally, as I did of the city, you can get a place in the country and then live in a cottage in the countryside, as I did where it is easier to concentrate on ones studies when one starts writing ones dissertation. I lived in a village a tiny cottage and would get up everyday, go for a walk in the country, and then write for hours on the working papers for my dissertation. After the intensity of life in London living in the country is a good break, but you can always take the train down to London to get books, and see ones advisor, and do other cultural events if one is so inclined. And then trips to Scotland and Yorkshire or Brighton, or Oxford and Cambridge are also worthwhile excursions just for a break.

Eventually one returns home to America fundamentally transformed because one has actually experienced high culture, high academic institutions that are world class, and all the wonder of living in one of the worlds greatest cities, which is an adventure in itself. What one learns is that there is a whole world out there that Americans just do not know exists. The rest of the world knows it exists, and only we who think we are so powerful that we dominate the world, but we do not know that world we dominate. And we do not realize how superficial most things are in America, how shallow we are as a people, and how flimsy what we take as culture to be. We are strong in our economy due to its vastness, and we are good at technology, and we have developed powerful military that can police the world. But this world we dominate is very different from our homegrown vision of it, and basically we live in a self imposed illusion as to the nature of the relations between nations and peoples around the world because our media has oversimplified everything into trite statements, while the phenomena itself is very complex, nuanced, and with untold variety. For instance our political spectrum is just that a linear displacement along a single line from left to right. But in Europe the political field is multidimensional, and that is a wake up call for someone who only thinks of politics as linear in its inherent dimension. When all the peoples of the world converge in a single city then it is has a very rich texture which has infinite variety to experience. If you are an expatriate living overseas for a long time one is never part of their social structure, but one is not at home either, and so that gives one a kind of freedom to explore possibilities that you would not have either at home or if you were a native of the place one is living for a long time. Toruists never get the culture that they are in. It takes years to get over ones presuppositions and to actually understand the differences in the place one is living abroad. You live in places that tourists never see, but which are the real places worth being in within that culture. For instance Highgate and Hampstead are villages outside London that were engulfed by the city, and so they still have that rustic feel to some extent, and so they are different from all the other parts of London, and they verge on either side of the Heath which is the great open space in London, and so it is a good place to escape from the city without leaving it. If you don’t have a car then one walks or rides busses or the tube everywhere and so you are constantly in contact with the people of the city, and there are myriad chance meetings and friendships that develop with people normally in America one would never meet because of our encapsulated existence in suburbs, cars, and on our private property. The sameness of driving, and the fact that every shopping center has the same franchised shops, so that everything is bland here is in sharp comparison to England where there is lively street commerces and most of the shops are unique because of the way that the city was built so that the first floor of every building was a shop front. In the city there are plenty of interesting shops that you would never find elsewhere, my favorite example is the Left handed store where everything made of left handed people is available. The key is not just to visit the place but to become a resident for long enough to absorb the culture, and then you see the deep seated assumptions that American Society and Culture, such as it is, have shaped us and our relation to the world. Just as an example I met another graduate student studying math, and he invited me to his flat to talk about some esoteric sort of math he was studying in which i was interested. And it turned out that he was living in the flat where Sylvia Plath committed Suicide. He showed me the oven that she stuck her head in when she did it. It had probably not changed a bit since she lived there. If you had read Sylvia Plath’s depressing poetry, and knew who she was then this sudden surprise of being in the very place where she lived her last days and killed her self was both shocking and also gave you some insight into her desperation. Each building associated with a historic figure is marked and you can see where the famous people lived who fill our imaginations with their works. So just walking down the street in London is a history lesson in itself. History is palpable in London, as where ever you turn is a building with a plaque on it siting some famous person or some event that is well known in our history. So one is tempted to dive into history and find out the stories of those people who have plaques that you have never heard of. If you experience different value systems in foreign lands one is able to better gage ones own value system, and the lapses where we take things for granted that are just not true anywhere else in the world. For instance, what we take as poverty in our country would be riches anywhere else in the third world. In england you are more in touch with the rest of the world because of all the people you meet from other countries, you learn about things you never knew exited because our media never covers most of what is actually happening in the world.

Be transformed, get out of America for a significant period of time, somewhere where the horizons of experience open up, and for english speakers the best place to start is England. We are Elizabethans fundamentally, because that is when we broke away from England. The Indians are Victorians. But English culture has continued to evolve, some would say languish. But what is happening socially and culturally in england is something very different from our Elizabethan take on the world here in America that is so limited in every possible way. Anyone who has not experienced living abroad for extended periods has no idea of the box we are in, and which we cannot see out of. And our blindness to the reality of the Other effects the world in radical ways because we are the Romans of our day. Other countries have real culture, and civilization, and to some extent we are still barbarians, which has its good and bad points. We are naive and tend to get lured into conflicts that are not our own by the cagey English. But because we are Elizabethans we do not have the insipid qualities of English society rooted in Class structures.

http://kp0.me/GOY8Tm

http://www.quora.com/How-does-study-abroad-change-a-person

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Quora answer: What existed before the Universe?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

 

The real question here is not about the Universe per se, but about our perception of it. In other words how do we start talking about a Universe at all?

And the answer to that in my opinion is General Schemas Theory, i.e. that we project many different templates of understanding on Spacetime and the Universe is one of them.  

The series of schemas are something like this:

F theory (two orthogonal time lines)
M theory
string theory
———————-
Pluriverse
Kosmos
World
Domain
OpenScape (meta-system. environment, context, ecosystem, epigenome, media etc.)
System
Form
Pattern
Monad
Facet

Since each of these schemas are “systems” and the next higher one into which it is nested is a “meta-system” then the answer is that the Pluriverse, or Multiverse, or Many Worlds is the next higher schema up into which the Universe or Kosmos is nested and so what is Before (outside, beyond) the Kosmos as universe is the Pluriverse, or Multiverse that the many worlds theory and string theory posits. The Pluriverse is up to ninth dimension, and so string theory and even higher dimensional versions of it like M and F theory are unschematized for us.

http://kp0.me/GMW1vS

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Quora answer: Where can I obtain a digital copy of the song Annihilation in Allah?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized


Shaykh Muhammad ibn Habib of Morocco who died in the Seventies over 100 years of age who was a reviver of Sufism and Islam in his time from the Darqawi Tariqa. The following is one of the songs in his Diwan which is some of the most sublime sufic poetry ever written because it is very explicit about the nature of the Sufic path.

Annihilation In Allah
Oh seeker of annihilation in Allah, say all the time: Allah – Allah
And withdraw into Him from other-than-Him and with your heart – see Allah.
Gather your concerns in Him and He will be enough in place of other-than-Allah.
Be a pure slave to Him and you will be free from other-than Allah.
Submit yourself to Him and be humble and you will win a secret
Invoke Him with gravity and sincerity in the presence of the slaves of Allah.
Conceal it when He is manifested to you with lights from the essence of Allah.
With us, other is impossible, for existence belongs to Allah.
Constantly cut through your illusion with a pure tawhid to Allah.
So the oneness of action appears at the beginning of dhikr of Allah.
And the oneness of attribute comes from love of Allah.
And the oneness of His essence gives going-on with Allah.
Joy to the one who walks on the path of dhikr of Allah.
Believing in a living Shaykh who is a gnostic of Allah.
He holds constantly to His love, and sells his self to Allah.
He rises in the night to recite His word, longing for Allah.
And so gets what he seeks, of the power of knowledge in Allah.
Our gifts are from a Prophet who is the master of the creatures of Allah.
May the purest of blessings be upon him in a quantity as great as the knowledge of Allah.
And his Family and Companions and everyone who calls to Allah.

http://bewley.virtualave.net/habib.html

http://brislamic.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/the-diwan-of-shaykh-muhammad-ibn-al-habib/

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Quora answer: What are people’s perceptions of sufism?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

“From a traditional Muslim’s perceptions, there is a concern with Sufism that it is:
(a) distancing itself from the primary sources of Islam: the Qur’an and Sunnah, particularly in matters of how best to serve God;”

Rather than distancing itself from the Sunnah, Sufism embraces it totally if it is genuine and goes beyond the norm in devotion, humility, and attempts to develop a character that is like those that are described in the first community to the extent possible at the end of time.

“(b) The above two are what gives Islam its authenticity and uniqueness;”

True. But there is also a tradition of interpreting them that has been rejected by the Salifis, and that is heresy. So there are two extremes accepting only Quran and Hadith and making up Islam based on those alone rejecting the Mathabs, and pseudo-Sufis that think they can jettison practices and beliefs that are central to Islam.

“(c) Furthermore, only God has the knowledge of how He should be served and a human attempt to connect with God based on human thoughts rather than divine is likely to misguide individuals.”

But God has conveyed that knowledge through his Prophets and so we are not bereft of it. My point is that Sufism is only Ihsan which cannot be separated from Iman and Islam. If we get rid of everything that is not Ihsan that calls itself Sufism then we are close to the genuine article.

What are people’s perceptions of this? The key hadith is that where the Angel Jabil appears in public, as an intersubjective vision of the whole community, and questions the Prophet Muhammad, who then asks Jabril to answer his own questions, saying that the one who questions knows better than the one asked. In that Hadith Jabril (Gabriel) gives the definitions of Islam, Iman, and Ihsan. We learn from this that it is not God who is divided into three parts but actually genuine religion. It is not only Muhammad who sees Jabril but the whole community that encounters him as a living angelic sentient existent who is giving the message to us all, not just to one man. So the first instance of people’s perception of Islam was in this encounter between the Muslim community and the intermediary between the Absolute and the human messenger who is dependent on the Angelic Messenger who is dependent on the Absolute which the Angel bears tidings from. The whole idea that the Absolute be the source of messages delivered in time though angels to humans to a community in history is awe inspiring in itself. And somehow it is deeper than the idea that God has an avatar like Jesus, instead of him being a prophet.

So the first perception of Sufism was by the Muslim Community present with Muhammad when Jabril arrived without any signs of travel on him to confront not just the Prophet Muhammad but also his community. In that encounter Jabril mentions Ihsan, along with Iman and Islam, and the mention of all three, and their definition together with Jabil answering his own questions to Muhammad, is the first time and place that Sufism was perceived by anyone as being something named as part of the religion from the authentic source, the actual angelic messenger. Now that was an emergent event par excellence as it was a message from the out-of-time, i.e. the Absolute, to the in-time, i.e. the finite human beings of the Muslim community, via the endless time nature of the Angel. And from this encounter we learn something crucial which is that the Angel answers his own questions. This is the same Angel Jabril who came to Abraham, and to Mary mother of Jesus, and all other prophets with genuine revelations from the Absolute. Jabril is what Hegel calls Absolute Spirit. This angel is the intermediary between ourselves as finite in-time humans and the Absolute itself. And his appearance intersubjectively to the community of Muhammad in intimate conversation with Muhammad, who answers his own questions at the request of Muhammad, shows us that there is something angelic about reflexivity, and that the essential nature of the Angelic from the human perspective is seen in reflexivity, that appears in humans as self-consciousness as Hegel mentions which is a step below spirit itself.

Hegel says interestingly that the intermediary between self-consciousness and Spirit is Absolute Reason. Reason is Logos constrained by Logic and Experience. As Kant says Pure Reason outside of those constraints cannot be trusted and leads to rescission (technical term for the impasse of the antinomies and the anagogic swerve that takes us beyond nihilism). What is happening in the encounter of Jabril and Muhammad watched by his community of Muslims was that Jabril was speaking, i.e. using language, and thus transferring logos to Muhammad. He does this in a way that he asks what something is, and then is asked to answer his own question, and then he answers it with a definition and some examples. This practice of asking questions and giving answers in order to define things is called in philosophy dialectics which was engaged in by Socrates. Interestingly enough Socrates often answered his own questions, with the interlocutors asking him to do so, or merely agreeing to his statements so he will continue his discourse. Thus we see in Socrates the same behavior that is exhibited by Jabril in his public encounter with Muhammad, being carried out on the human level. Socrates also claimed to have a Daimon which guided his thoughts and actions. However, we are not saying that Socrates was a prophet. But merely saying that Socrates engagement with his community is an imitation before the fact of how Jabil acts in this famous hadith. So reason is controlled speech within constraints of practical experience and logic, but also in this case in the form of question and self-answer based on the response of the interlocutor.

Now the reasoned speech of the Angel to Muhammad but also those others who were present and listening and watching which defined Islam, Iman and Ihsan gave us the religion of Islam and included within that genuine Sufism as Ihsan within the context of Iman and Islam. This goes a step beyond the axiom of the Shahada. Instead it articulates the three realms: Mulk, Malakut and Jabrut. Islam is what is practiced outwardly in the world (kingdom on earth). Jesus said that the Son of Man was coming to dispense justice on earth and to establish a kingdom of God on Earth. That kingdom was the Muslim community around Muhammad who saw the Angel Jabril. Jabil explained that that this community was based on three tenets. There is the outward aspect of Islam rooted in the Mulk. There is then the inward beliefs that support those outward actions that exist in the Malikut and are manifest in the Mulk. Notice that the term of Angel in Islam is Malika which is from the same root as Mulk and Malikut, I believe. So we have the kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Earth joined in one body in this community of Muslims wandering between Mekkan and Madina in the desert. Finally, there is the Ihsan which exists in the Jabrut. This is called the realm of power and glory of Allah being manifest as a tajalliat (sending down). The Jabrut is the barzak (interspace) between Mulk and Malikut. Mulk can be thought of as being like the Nafs (Spirit) and Malikut can be thought of as being like the Ruh (Soul). Between these two complementary aspects of the human being which gives rise to Islam in the Mulk that shapes the Nafs, and Iman in the Malikut that refines the Ruh, there is also what is between them holding them apart yet together supra-rationally. That is the Jabrut or the realm of sending down as Tajalliat as power and glory of the manifestation of Allah where Ihsan happens where the witnessing by God overwhelms the witnessing of the human. It is at once a barrier between Man and Angel, and at the same time an interspace of its own with an independent standing, i.e. manifestation, which is still there when the opposites of men and angels vanish either through annihilation, cancellation, or rescission, i.e. via annulment. Tawhid tells us that this third realm cannot be present as long as the other two are present.

So in this situation there was all three types of annulment occurring at the same time that the reasoned speech of the Angel was being uttered and responded to by Muhammad in the presence of witnessses. At the level of speech the fact that the definitions of the three tenets were offered and by the one asking the questions shows the rescission being fulfilled that takes us beyond nihilism because based on those words we can make nonnihilistic distinctions, that is because the words are a message from the ground of the Haqq (reality/debt/truth). But also on the level of spacetime there is a cancellation, because Jabril arrived as a stranger with no signs of travel on him. So he begins by canceling our idea of the necessities of travel though time and space. But also Muhammad as human messenger and prophet, and Jabil as Angelic Messenger from the Absolute are physically embodied presumably in matter and light. But between them and annihilating them as opposites is the Jabrut as the Tajalliat of Manifestation itself occurring in the situation, and overwhelming it, and engulfing it in every way so that this is the major thing that was happening in the midst of the exchange viewed from a nondual perspective. Jabril who is a creature of light with sentience and reason but without sex and passion, and without will power of his own so he is able to convey an uncorrupted message. It is interesting that the basic opposites are Men and Jinn, and that Angels are the nondual between them. Yet in this case the Jinn are constrained so that they cannot interfere with the message, and the opposites in the situation is the representative of the barzak which is delivering the message from God who is merciful and compassionate. So this means that Jabril, Jabrut, and Ihsan are aligned in the situation we are discussing. Jabril embodies the interspace between opposites Men and Jinn. But there is another relationship between the Angel and the Man to which the Jinn have no access. In that encounter which is wholly nondual encounter with a nondual living sentient existent as Angel there is mentioned last the nondual between Outward Practice and Inward Belief. Notice that the rational logos takes place as a transmission between the outward and inward, Jabril embodied outwardly appears to Muhammad and his community to deliver a message which confirms and defines their belief. Actually this definition is a meta-belief because what is to be believed is part of a bigger picture that includes Islam and Ihsan. In the nondual speech in which Jabril answers his own questions at the behest of Muhammad there is outward annihilation of Muhammad and Jabril and when they vanish what remains is the Face of Allah, and everywhere you turn is the face of Allah. Everything is in annihilation except the Face of Allah. Therefore, in this situation there is a nondual entry of manifestation directly into history through the annihilation of the opposites man and angel, the highest sentient creature (not man) and the lowest (man) with the Jinn excluded. So in the moment the interspace between Men and Jinn mentions the Jabrut which is the interspace between Mulk and Malikut governed by Malika. And in that mention the definition of Ihsan is given which is reflexive witnessing of existence by manifestation, posed in terms of self-answered questions that define the tenets of Islam, Iman, Ihsan. And this is the advent of Sufism, which continues from then down to this day. So this social situation which is the primal encounter between men and an angel that is witnessed by a whole community not just a single man the Spirit is embodied with the manifestation of the Absolute between Man and Spirit. Man has Ruh. Every Ruh will taste death. Spirit and Ruh are opposites, as Nafs (Spirit) and Ruh (Soul). So we get this paradox that Spirit as Nafs (meaning air breathed) is identified with the Angel and opposite the Ruh as Soul (breathing of lungs, surging of the sea wave and tides) is identified with the Man. This means when the Nafs become Angelic the soul of Man shines forth unhampered. The Nafs become Angelic by approaching the nondual in every possible manner.

So this hadith which is the basis for the definition of Islam, Iman, Ihsan as the primordial religion expands upon what is found in the shahada which is the single axiom, the fundamental statement whose elaboration is given as Islam Iman and Ihsan. The Shahada is the statement of witnessing by the Human Being that is part of that community to which the Angel appeared that is now about a billion strong among the 7 billion humans alive today, which is about one tenth of the humans that have ever been alive. But that witnessing is witnessed by the witnesser. In other words Mulk, Malikut, and Jabrut appear embodied in the situation, and Annulment happens in the three realms, and the definition of religion is given as threefold as well specifying Ihsan which is genuine Sufism as the nondual interspace between mulk and malikut, nafs and ruh, Islam and Iman. This is the last point of the entry of the Absolute into history that is revelatory. Now Prophethood is broken up into seventy fragments and scattered amongst humanity with different humans who have taken the sufic path exemplifying one or another of those seventy fragments of prophethood. This intersubjective manifestation of Haqq within the confines of Sharia.

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Quora answer: What is Sufism? How can I be a Sufi?

Mar 25 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

Sufism is not a mixture of Hinduism and Islam, the closest thing to that is the Sikh faith in my opinion. Hinduism has many gods and is polytheism and Islam on the other hand is a radical monotheism, so there is a fundamental incompatibility here between Islam and Hinduism. However, this is not to say that the Hindu’s do not have some ideas beyond polytheism that are similar to the idea of deity in Islam, for instance there is the Nirguna Brahman, or the God Head that is somewhat similar to the idea of God in Islam. However, since SHIRK is the greatest wrong action in Islam, this philosophical similarity in some respects is dwarfed by the idea that there are other gods that are expressions of the Godhead in Hinduism, those beliefs are believed to be in fundamental error from the point of view of Islam, so there is no possibility of overt reconciliation between the two faiths. Islam is also iconoclastic in the extreme and this is another point on which there is a radical difference.

Also there is a fundamentally wrong premise in the question, that links Sufism with the mixture of Hinduism and Islam. Sufism against what its Salafi detractors might say is not in general engaged in either Shirk or Idol worship, or the asking for intercession through holy men within Islam. This also is a misconception fostered by the Wahabis. It is in fact the Salafis that are the heretical sect because they are Karaja, those who say it is alright to kill other Muslims. Sufi’s for the most part are Muslims that are interested in the meaning of the practices that they follow in Islam, and pursue them with more rigor than those who are doing these practices for outward reasons. Sufism is rooted in the three main tenets of Islam, Iman, and Ihsan. Sufism emphasizes Ihsan,  inverse witnessing, i.e. God withesses you even if you do not witness Him, which includes the idea that what ever you witness is part of His witnessing, even though there is no connection between you and Him. What ever you witness is infinitely overwhelmed by God’s witnessing. And it is from that witnessing by God of our actions that meaning is generated for the practices of Islam and belief, i.e. Iman, is generated by this reciprocal witnessing. That is to say that we witness that our witnessing is overwhelmed by the witnessing by God of us and our actions. We could call this witnessing epiphanies of the manifestation of God, which are called Tajalliat (sending down of inspiration from God through knowledge and insight into his Sifat, or Qualities by which He is recognized and which are referred to by His myriad names.)

OK. Now that we have clarified the confusions that are inherent in the background of the question. We can go on to answer the specifics of the question.

We have already said that Sufism is merely a name for an emphasis on Ihsan, which is one of the three tenets of Islam which take together with Islam and Iman constitute the whole of religion, according to the Angel Gabriel who appeared as intersubjectively witnessed by the Mohammedan community in the prophet’s lifetime.

So the crux of the question left for exposition is how one can be a Sufi. And the answer to that is to pay attention to Ihsan and the meanings of the practices of Islam, not just to the beliefs and outward practices themselves. If you do that then you are a sufi in every sense of the word that is worthy of mention. That is of course a matter of personal attitude toward practice, and has nothing to do with anyone else than one self, necessarily.

But the road to doing that is immensely helped by reading about and understanding the admonitions of the great sufis throughout history. And it may be helped by keeping company with others who are similarly inclined. But since so much of what passes as Sufism, especially in the West has so little to do with the core of the matter, which is meaning, and witnessing of witnessing within practice, there is always a danger of getting caught up in a cult, or some other group that considers themselves to be Sufis, but are actually not following either the practices or have the correct attitude that would call forth the proper approach toward those practices centered on Ihsan. But the best way to recognize genuine Sufic teaching is to practice the core of it oneself within the auspices of Islam and Ihsan, and then hopefully that will give one a means of discrimination of genuine Sufism when one encounters it which is rare.

Another key point about Sufism is that it is more closely allied with Nondual religions like Buddhism, and Taoism than it is with anything in Christianity and Judaism. And so knowing something about Buddhism, Taoism and Nondual approaches in general will help in the recognition of genuine Sufism in others. Islam in general is a nondual heresy of the Western worldview, just as Buddhism is a nondual heresy with respect to Hinduism, and Taoism is a nondual heresy with respect to Confucianism. So this is another reason not to not mix up Islam with Hinduism. That is because it is more like the nondual heresy of Hinduism which is Buddhism. There are forms of Advaita Hinduism which is itself nondual, but they were based on Buddhism as reabsorbed into Hinduism though the auspices of Shankara who interpreted the Upanishads in a nondual way inspired by Nagarjuna’s exposition of nonduality which is one of the purist sources of the understanding of nonduality in any religion. Being a Western Heresy, even the Muslims and many Sufis interpret Islam dualistically and thus do not understand very well their own religion, which is better appreciated in light of global examples of nondual philosophies and religions rather than in comparison with either Christian or Judaic religions which are mostly monistic or dualistic rather than nondual. Nondual means the rejection of both monism and dualism. The radical twist that Islam produces on Judaic Monotheism is to apply a nondual approach to it, based on many insights derived from Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad.

As noted by Jami in the Precious Pearl the viewpoint of sufism is very different from that of either Muslim philosophy or theology. And that is because of the intuitive recognition by Sufis of the nondual strain that runs throughout Islam for those with Iman who can recognize the meaning of Ihsan, and they are rare. But the Sufic friends of God (Wahlia) have a long and noble tradition of resisting dualism and monism as the only way to relate to Islam for those with Iman. So another definition of Sufism the group of people who intuit the nondual nature of Islam within the practices and tradition of Islam itself, without any external basis for interpretation, such as Greek Philosophy and Theology. Unfortunately, Buddhism and Taoism have not been well understood by the Muslims who had Sufic inclinations, so the comparison was probably not made except by individuals who were either involved in Buddhism or Taoism prior to their conversion. Since these religions were seen as polytheistic and not distinguished from polytheisms by Muslim scholars this internal coherence between the various nondual ways has not been previously recognized. It is really only apparent to someone who is steeped in Buddhism and Taoism prior to conversion who can see clearly these linkages between nondual approaches to spirituality, and people who have this kind of fore-knowledge are also rare. So it is not widely known that these strains of similarity between all genuine nondual ways exists and can be used to interpret Islam, Ihsan and Iman the three tenants of the Western nondual heresy building on the Abrahamic tradition but turning it inside out by approaching it on the basis of nondual ways of thinking and acting.

So this brings us to another way to be a Sufi, which is to make non-nihilistic distinctions and to act in a way that is in concert with those nondual distinctions that one makes intuitively. Living a life engulfed by the wonder and awesomeness of nonduality permeating everything is tantamount to Sufism if it occurs within the limits of the practices of Islam and through the adherence to Ihsan. In this way Sufism is really little different from either Mahayana Buddhism especially that of Hua Yen, or Tien Tai, or even DzogChen, as long as one recognizes that sufism is even more radical than these in its pursuit of nonduality. Sufism posits even deeper non-dualities than any of these other essentially similar ways of approaching spirituality. Now when I say similar I do not mean that the practices or beliefs have anything in common, nor is the goals of these various spritualities the same. But what is the same is the nondual approach to life and spiritual practices, and that came from a fundamental rejection of dualistic and monistic ways of approaching spirituality.

Now what is nonduality as an approach. It is very simple it says Not One! Not Two!  but something else beyond what can be approached via logic and though either concepts or experiences. The best example of this in the West is the teaching of Meister Eckhart. In Hinduism the nearest thing is Advita Vedanta founded by Shankara or the Buddhism of Nagarjuna. In China it is expressed in Taoism, and Chinese Buddhism. Basically the way to think about it, is to take the Tetralemma which originated with the Buddha, supposedly according to Pali scriptures which says that Emptiness is something other than A, non-A, both A and non-A, neither a nor non-A. In other words the for logical operators and, or, nand, nor are surpassed in some aconceptual, aperceptual (as in apperception), aexperiential way. The nondual is neither a monism nor a dualism, nor a polytheism. Any dualistic or threefold, or higher fold distinction that you can make nonduality is always pointing back to a state prior to the arising of those distinctions. Plato called this non-representable intelligibility. Plato understood it very well, and it is in fact behind his use of irony. And in fact we can claim that Plato is the source of this kind of understanding in our tradition if read from a nondual perspective. Once you realize that there is an absolute limit to what the mind can comprehend and one orients toward that which surpasses all understanding, such that one cannot make dualistic distinctions (A monistic distinction is one in which the other myriad distinctions have been suppressed in favor of one particular alternative.) So in the sense that YHWH is seen as the God of the Jews and is differentiated from other gods of polytheism, then this is a monism. But Allah claims to be prior to the arising of all other gods, and his oneness is not conditioned by the one and the many of things. Tawhid is not oneness in relation to other numbers of things, but rather primordial uniqueness where there is no other to be compared or contrasted to. Tawhid is like Kant’s idea of the Singular as being the dialectical synthesis of Unity and Totality. Allah is claiming to be Singular in a primordial sense, i.e. prior to the creation of all existent things, including other gods created by men that obscure the Haqq (Right/Debt/Truth). However, the difference between primordial uniqueness and singularity of something like spacetime is that Tawhid points back or indcates the primordial uniqueness prior to and after all things, beyond either what is in-timespace or eternal, and every other duality or more complex sets of distinctions. In this sense radical monotheism is one that rethinks the One God as the primordial ground out of which everything we know as existing comes and which sustains all things, and which is where they will return on dissolution, and in this sense it is like the idea of the Nirguna Brahman, or like the Godhead described by Meister Eckhart.

Thus it is possible to use Buddhism and Taoism to critique Sufism, and Sufism to understand more fully Buddhism and Taoism in terms of the differences between these nondual approaches sustained in their own traditions. Many Cristian heresies came into Islam and mixed into Sufism in the East. So there are many practices of people who consider themselves sufis which really were spawned out of dualistic heretical constructs that reacted to Catholic Dogmatism and were forced to flee into Islam by the Inquisition. So there is a perspective that recognizes the similarity of all nondual ways, which then can critique the dualistic anachronisms within those nondualistic traditions, where they fell back into dualism or monism and were not true to their own insights, because nondual approaches are hard to hang onto. Sufism as a tradition is synchronistic, as was Buddhism and Taoism once they became traditions in their own right. Thus we must carefully separate dualistic or monistic intrusions into these traditions. But if we have a strong grasp on the meaning of nonduality as the axiom Not One! Not Two! Not Many! but some other matter or ground prior to any distinctions arising which engulfs all distinctions, then we will be able to differentiate the true insights of these various nondual traditions as they have accreted historically. What is ironic is that the engulfing of conventional or ungrounded distinctions by nonduality, allows one to make non-nihilistic distinctions. This is because that ground prior to distinction is precisely the place that nihilism ultimately takes you if you are disillusioned enough with monisms (dogma or ideological totalitarianisms) or dualisms, or polymorphisms of any kind. To have a monism a dualism has to arise and then  one of the duals must be suppressed, but it can never be suppressed completely and it always haunts the monism.

So in a way the best way to practice Sufism is to know something about Buddhism and Taoism and to look for that which it has in common with these other nondual ways and then to pursue that with as much focus as one can muster. Knowing something about DzogChen, Hua Yen and Tien Tai Buddhism cannot hurt either because they point beyond Buddhism and Taoism to something deeper that Sufism is also pursuing. The nice thing is that these sources are pretty much independent historically, and thus the cross contamination is minimal except for early attempts of the Chinese to understand Buddhism via Taoism. Because these different approaches to nonduality are rooted in different traditions it is easy to see what is similar between them and thus be sure that this is the genuine aspect of nonduality which is not contaminated by the later introduction of anachronistic dualisms implicitly.

The main difference between Sufism and the other nondual traditions is that Sufism is based on revelation, while the others are not in any overt way. And this is also helpful because one can surmise how far purification of the self can go without dependence on revelation, and what is contributed by revelation to that nondual approach.

Now there is also something else implicit in the question that needs to be addressed. You say What IS Sufism. How can I BE a Sufi. Strictly speaking you cannot BE anything except in the projection of illusions. Being only exists in Indo-European languages. Buddhism is specifically a rejection of Being though the concept of Anatman. And Chinese and Arabic are non-indo-european languages. So Being is not only something you cannot be, but itself is merely an illusion and to the extent you ARE anything it is an illusion. Buddhism, Taoism and Sufism talk about Existence. In Arabic Existence is what is found without any A priori or later projections. I.e. there is not any reading back of our own projections out of phenomena, which is the nature of illusion. However, for us Whatness as essence or natural kind is caught up in Being which provides the substrata or substance for the attributes of a species. By primordial ground we do not mean this substance which is imagined as an illusory continuity though the idea of Being. To truly, really exist as the same as a Sufi, Buddhist or Taoist is the most you can hope for beyond the presence and absence of phenomena, i.e. the visible and invisible, and any other duality. Aspects Truth, Reality, Identity and Presence are shared by Being and Existence. However, these aspects are beyond being fused or separated in nondual manifestation which is beyond existence. So the most you can hope for from any nondual tradition is to exist within a nondual state for as long as you can sustain it. You cannot be, essentially, a Sufi, and Sufism has no whatness in the normal sense of an essence which constrains and connects attributes that pervade something particular based on the substrate of Being. We exist with other created things, but God manifests. And it is that manifestation that defines His witnessing that encompasses our witnessing. When we say that existence as Wajud is what is found, then we mean what is found by God, not our finding of other things. Prophets are the ones who are found by God and who have epiphanies of His manifestation (sifat), like Moses for instance.

So hopefully this will help you orient toward Sufism. Don’t become a Sufi, or Buddhist, or Taoist, or one of their dualistic counterparts, but become a Nondualist recognizing the truth of the axiom Not One! Not Two! Not Many! and you are most of the way there, then it is must a matter of learning more about the tradition of nonduality that you are included towards. Acceptance of Music, Arts, and the emphasis on the exclusiveness of the Love of God are just outward manifestations of a much deeper reality and truth. Sufis are not swayed by outward differentiations of things, but only the inward non-nihilistic distinctions he can make based on the recognition of the most fundamental and radical (root) nonduality.

In Islam this axiom appears as the Shahada which states that: There is no god but Allah. And the Prophet is His messenger. In order to try to prove the case that I have been making lets think about this axiom as it appears in Islam. The gods of polytheism, or even monism of monotheism as separate things do not exist but only Allah manifests. In other words there is an indication of a Primal Ground of all things beyond existence, and that is given a specific and unique name, as well as other names that is a specific signature which make clear the sifat of Allah, i.e. the ways in which He manifests. He indicates the “essence” of Allah that holds together yet separate His “attributes”. However, these are Greek philosophical ideas that differentiate Essence and Attributes, and thus are suspect, so it is better to stick to the Arabic terminology. The so called Essence of God, i.e. the Godhead is called the Dhat in Sufism. Yet to the extent that we think there is a distinction or duality between Sifat and Dhat that is a cognitive mistake.

There is no god, only Allah.

Notice that god is singular, but implicitly suggests the many gods of polytheism that can be different and represented by idols. The commandment is that you shall have no other god before me. The operative word here is BEFORE. In other words any god that you can name or represent is after the primordial ground has been split by the first distinction. God as Ground of everything in manifestation prior to and exclusive of existence really cannot be associated with anything else, because in the that pristine pre-creation state which “exists as it did exist” there were no distinctions between things Other than Allah the unique and singular root of all things to which they return. So the first part of the Shahada can be linked to a statement of nonduality, because Allah manifests continually prior to, during, and after the existence that we perceive. And any god that we might conceive did not exist in that primal ground of all things to which all things return. This is essentially the idea of the Godhead of Meister Eckhart and Nirguna Brahman of the Hindus. Major place where this view is expressed is the Isa Upanishad.

Now the other part of the Shahada I left as Prophet because we can generalize and talk about any Prophet in their time as the one who is mentioned in the second part of the statement. The Prophet being the messenger of the Haqq to mankind, essentially is brining our attention to that nondual ground prior to all existence and after all existence not to mention both in-time and endless time. The primal ground is out-of-timespace. There is no pantheism, because from the point of view of the Absolute, the illusion of Being and the existence of created things never really happened. All that really and truly happened in Haqq was manifestation that engulfed and overwhelmed actual existence and the illusions of Being. What manifests is recognized to have necessary existence but that is just a side effect of manifestation with respect to existing things.

So the idea that we can get messages from the Primal Ground as it manifests as Absolute Spirit (Angel Gabriel) via other human beings that are part of our community is a fundamental recognition that human beings can be enveloped, overwhelmed, engulfed, awe struck, and immersed in that Primal Ground themselves without any mixture of transcendence and finitude (i.e. the normal duals we attribute to God probably wrongly). So what ever prophet’s name as a unique human being you want to plug into the Shahada, it is a fundamental recognition that this type of communication directly from the Ground of the Haqq is possible, and actually occurred in history. In other words there is historical grounds for what Hegel calls the advent of Pure Spirit and both the advent of Jesus as penultimate Prophet and Muhammad as last Prophet are just two examples of this kind of intrusion into history, not of the transcendent into finitude, but of the deepest possible nondual into the heart of unique human beings that come as messengers occasionally throughout human history. Thus if we apply the Hegelian idea of the intrusion of Absolute into history via human beings, as what makes us human together, then we get an amazing reading of the history of the nondual heresy of Islam with respect to the dualistic Western worldview which it challenges even within the historical interpretations of Islam by Greek trained intellectuals that resulted in dualistic philosophies and theologies.

So ultimately in some sense not only can you not BE as Sufi but all the nondual ways call into question your ultimate existence as a self, not to mention an ego, transcendental or otherwise. So from a nondual position you cannot be anything because you do not exist, necessarily but only accidentally as an aggregate of Tattvas or Dharmas in the sense of Heraclitian flux. You exist as a non-unified and non-total aggregate from that perspective. However, you are singular to the extent you are embedded in the singular timespace though your embodiment which is finite. However, you are whole which is the nondual between unity and totality as extremes to the extent you are a negentropic organism that is viable. And also strangely enough you belong to a worldview which is radically dualistic but cannot avoid having a nondual kernel beyond its nihilistic core, where the core is taken to be Logic which constrains rational logos, and the nihilism is that all sorts of nonsensical statements can be rendered logical in symbolic logic. But there are discontinuities between the logical operators and, or, nand, nor, and though this discontinuity logic is fragmented, and points toward the nondual of emptiness inwardly at the core of awareness. Non-dual emptiness is the antidote to nihilism, and once this homeopathic antidote is taken then the miasma of nihilism is cured, and we are able to make non-nihilistic distinctions even in this most nihilistic of all worldviews. So much so that it is willing to destroy the entire worth just to spite itself. The only way to allay that almost certain destruction of our earth by our  now dominant worldview is though nondual transformation of ourselves via nondual ways of approaching our human existence which is now threatening the existence of not just other species but also itself.

http://kp0.me/H0O9uO

http://www.quora.com/Religion/What-is-Sufism-How-can-I-be-a-Sufi

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