When Aisha Cotton was here in Chicago, she gave a teaching on finding your purpose. There was one little section that she taught that was very simple, but to me – profound. It has made a big difference in how I approach my day, and how I approach healings especially. It’s one of those things that you say, “Oh, duh! Of course!” But I didn’t really get it until she laid it out for me. I’ve summarized the teaching below. If you have any questions about it, I’d be happy to try to answer them by email.
We all know that there are 4 worlds of the heart. The second world, called the heart of hearts, is a gateway or bridge. It connects the Nafs (including the mind and the body) to the Soul/Spirit. Sidi tells us in the stations in Music of the Soul (I think in the Soul stations) that the heart has 2 doors. (I also found it in “The Light of the Knowers of God” see the 2nd half of the page) One door opens to the Nafs and one door opens to the Soul. There is only one door open at a time and we choose which door that is.
The Divine Purpose for each of these aspects are:
Spirit: Allah (Know yourself (Divine Qualities) in order to know your Lord)
Soul: I AM (Who am I? Qualities. All souls come from one soul, so every soul has all the Qualities.)
Heart: I Love (Giving opens up to receiving, must look up to receive)
Nafs refer to 2 parts: Mind/Body
Mind: I need to know. (Makes us different than the animals who are obedient to Allah’s will.)
Body: I Want (3 main desires: 1. To eat (body), 2. To sleep (body) , and 3. Be king of the world (mind).)
When something we perceive as negative happens to us, we react. Our Body’s/Naf’s response is, “How can I fix this? How can I get rid of it or change it to what I want it to be?”
The Mind’s response is, “Why is this happening to me?” And it begins to find a list of things you should have done, or shouldn’t have done that caused this problem. It finds blame.
The Heart’s response is, “I must be on guard or I’ll get hurt.” or “What action needs to be done now?”
The Soul’s response is, “How can I receive the love and support I need in order to ACCEPT this?”
And here lies the rub. I can assure you that of all the healings that I had done before this teaching, both given and received, every one of them had the underlying intention to fix the problem. To make it go away. To heal it meant that it would change. No matter what I might have been saying on the outside, this is what I was saying on the inside. These intentions, these statements, are from the Nafs. I opened the door to my Nafs, thereby shutting the door to the Soul where the only real source of help would be found. This didn’t mean that the healings were totally useless. I still found great benefit in them, but I shut out the source of true healing.
Because of this, after nearly 8 years of being on this path, attending and graduating from the Jaffe Institute, attending many Sufi Schools, having hundreds of healings, hours spent in zawiyyah, many promises with Sidi – after all this hard work, I found that I still had many of the same problems I started with. Some of them had gotten even worse. And I got pissed.
I used to spend several hours a day doing practices: writing Sidi’s books, salat, working with Qualities, etc. and one day I just stopped it all. I couldn’t force myself to do them anymore. Even the practices I liked to do. I lost all hope and I was angry. I felt I had been lied to. Sidi says this is the path of the love, peace, mercy, justice and freedom and I didn’t have any of those things – even though I had done what I was told would bring me those things. But Aisha’s teaching brought me back hope. Because I could see that I had had the wrong focus. I keep expecting these “problems” to go away. My prayer, my focus was never really on accepting them, allowing them, loving them enough to let them continue in my life.
It’s such a subtle shift in focus, but a vital one, I believe. Now whenever something happens, I consciously choose to ask, “How do I receive the love and support I need to accept this?” I approach the healings I give entirely differently. I no longer have a vested interest that at the end of the healing the person’s problem has gone away. In truth, it might never go away. And the same is true with mine. Some of my “problems” might never ever go away. The only way I can have love, peace, mercy, justice, and freedom while still having these things in my life is to accept them. They might go away and they might not, but it won’t really matter.
To surrender a feeling, allow it to be without condemning, judging, or resenting it. Just look at it. Observe it. Allow it to be felt without trying to change it or fix it. Just love it. Treat it like a newborn baby that needs its mother to let it know that it is safe.
You cannot force yourself to accept situations. It isn’t a logical thing. It is also something that you will have to choose over and over again. In each moment. Today, right now, I can accept my current situation. Maybe later this afternoon, I won’t. That’s okay. Acceptance is one step at a time, one day at a time. It is a process. It will most likely take some time to get to full acceptance. I see acceptance as a continuum. The first step in acceptance is just tolerance. Tolerating a problem, putting up with it, gritting your teeth when you’re in it. Next step is neutrality. You don’t feel much one way or the other about it. This is a huge step and sometimes it in itself is enough. The other end of the continuum is seeing the gift in the “problem” and loving, appreciating, and even being grateful that you were given this “problem.” Receiving and integrating the benefit of this experience. Because every cloud has a silver lining. Every problem brings a gift with it – if you accept it fully. It’s at this point you’re at peace with the problem and no longer see it as a problem.
That’s it in a nutshell. The key is Acceptance. Help me to accept (whatever is troubling me) is now my daily prayer. I hope this school is helping you with your spiritual walking.
2014 update
I would like to add an update to this teaching on Acceptance. It all started with listening to a song by Collin Raye called Water and Bridges. There’s a section in the song that says: “My old man, he had it rough. ‘Cause like his daddy, when he drank too much, he’d get mean and take it out on me.” My response to this (after hearing it about 10 times) was – huh. This song said the old man had it rough because he drank too much. Not that the kid had it rough because his dad drank too much. What an interesting way of looking at it. That initial – huh – seemed to set something in motion inside me. It helped me to start seeing people who were doing “bad” things with much more mercy and acceptance. They were doing “bad” things, yes, but they were the ones that were suffering. They were the ones who needed mercy, love and compassion. They did “bad” things because it was their nature, their state, their station. They couldn’t help it.
When my son was younger and still living with me, we had a female cat named Ginger. Whenever Ginger went into heat she was ALL over my son, caterwauling. She would rub herself all over him and follow him everywhere he went. He hated it and would get mad at her. He’d yell at her and push her away, but she still wanted him. He tried to tell her that he wasn’t a cat and this was an unnatural thing for her to do, but she didn’t care. She still wanted him. No matter what he did to try and “correct” her, it had no impact on her behavior. I tried to explain to him that she was just a cat doing what her cat nature dictated when she was in heat. She didn’t have any control over it. I had just as much impact on my son as he did on the cat.
To give another example, there’s a fable about a frog and a scorpion. From Wikipedia: “A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the position that the natural behavior of some creatures is inevitable, no matter how they are treated. It is also used to illustrate that individuals are apt to behave in accordance with their true character in spite of the education they might have received throughout their lives and in spite of knowing fully well the right course of action.”
A cat will act like a cat and a scorpion will act like a scorpion because that is their nature. So what am I getting at? How does this apply to people and acceptance? People will act according to their nature. They can’t help but do so. Sometimes their nature isn’t what we think it should be. So what. It isn’t our job to fix them or change them or get them to grow up or to care about others. Sometimes they just can’t. They are just mean, or cruel, or dishonest, or (fill in the blank) because that is their nature. Yelling at a snake doesn’t stop it from being a snake. A snake is going to do snakey things. Your job is to allow the snake to do snakey things without it hurting you or your family. You avoid it. Some snakes need to put into a different environment where they can’t hurt others. Same with people. Some people’s nature is to be mean and hurtful. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you allow that person to hurt you. It means you realize they can’t help themselves. They need mercy and love because they are suffering from their own cruel hearts. And you can do that from a distance and stay away from them. Don’t go around asking scorpions to give you a ride across the river. If they are too bad in their behavior, then they may need to be put in jail, a prison, or a mental facility to keep them from hurting themselves and others.
Allah gave each of our nature because that is how we are going to experience what our soul came here to learn. We can’t help but be what Allah made us to be. Allah puts us in the station we are in. Accept what Allah has given us. People who have been given a nature that isn’t as kind, peaceful, or loving as we would like them to be can’t help it. They need our love, mercy and acceptance to help them deal with what they have been given.
This doesn’t mean that their poor behavior is “right”. For in fact there is no “right’, no “wrong”. There is only what is. What is, is. Resistance to what is causes all suffering. Suffering leads to poor behavior. See the never ending chain of judgement and suffering without acceptance?
So as soon as I updated this article the universe in all it’s wisdom put me to the test. I have had a back defect since birth. I had a spinal fusion when I was 28 after many years of suffering a great deal of physical pain. They told me at that time that I would probably need another surgery in about 30 years because the fusion puts unusual pressure on the vertebra above it. They were right. After about 25 years I started to have a lot of pain again. I tried many therapies: chiropractic, rolfing, acupunture, Alexander method, Feldenkrais, massage, yoga, supplements for pain, physical therapy. You name it, I tried it to help with the pain. But it wasn’t working and the pain got worse every year. Finally I decided this was the year. I would see about getting another spinal fusion. Began the process in February this year. Had to get many tests, MRIs, cat scans, do more physical therapy, try steroid shots. By mid July the doctor had exhausted all other treatments and was ready to agree to surgery. I told him I was ready and wanted to schedule it as soon as possible. Now here comes the problem.
I work as a substitute delivery driver for a company when they have one of their drivers get sick or go on vacation. I don’t have to do it very often. I was told in March that their driver was taking a week long vacation at the end of August and they would like me to drive. I told them I would, but I had this surgery coming up and I didn’t know when it would happen. Now it looks like that I will have my surgery just before the driver goes on vacation. I don’t know if I’ll be physically able to do the delivery route that soon after the surgery.
I was talking to a good friend about the conflict. He thought I should postpone my surgery until after the other driver’s vacation. I said I didn’t think I should have to suffer for another month just so someone else could go have fun. He got angry, swore, and clearly thought I had no right to choose my own needs over the company’s. After he left, I got really upset. It took me awhile, but I finally saw that I needed to take my own advice and accept his statements as coming from his state/station. Just because he said it, doesn’t make it true. He comes from a very codependent background and is unable to say no to other’s requests, regardless of the cost to himself. Of course, he would think that I was being selfish for putting my own needs first. That was his state/station and it was his nature. He didn’t have a choice but to take that position.
I finally quit listening to my nafs long enough to allow the door in my heart to open toward the soul and let me receive enough love from the divine, so that I could let go of most the hurt.
I could then immediately see that I was in the “wrong” for not accepting him. This still doesn’t mean I have to agree with his opinion, but I don’t have to choose to get upset and think he’s a bad friend for belittling my choice. Or try to get him to agree to my decision. I felt about 75% better once I remembered this. I still have some small resentments about the conversation, so that tells me I still have some work to do. The universe will probably give me a semi-passing grade this time and give me another opportunity to do better next time. And there will be a next time.
And by the way, even if I was totally oblivious to this lesson on acceptance and continued to wallow in my self pity and victimhood, it would have been perfect. I would have been in exactly the state and station I was supposed to be.
2016 Update:I want to add a few more thoughts to this idea of acceptance. We are beings of gratitude. That is our true nature. When something happens that we don’t like, return to that space of gratitude. Realize that Allah is sustaining us even through this event. Is not Allah our Key Sustainer?
Our job is to say, “Yes!” Say, “Yes!” to whatever Allah puts before us. Allah is always asking, “Love Me.” Can you love Me even when I look like this? Or this? Or even this? Our job is to say, “Yes!” to whoever or whatever Allah puts in front of us. In every moment. Keep taking refuge in Allah. He is your Sustainer. Say “alhamdulilah” in each moment.
Thank you for the lesson on acceptance. Thank you for the website… thank you for the audio… although I couldn’t get them to play (esp #84 Fethi doing the Wazifa). Shukran Allah for your web site!
Subject change: In approx. l998, there was a lady I went to school with… Ann Patterson… I don’t remember her Sufi name… given that info, would you happen to have contact with someone who remembers her… and if so is she still alive? thanks,
duplicate of part of a previous message… just didn’t click the correct settings for notification of response: In approx. l998, there was a lady I went to school with… Ann Patterson… I don’t remember her Sufi name… given that info, would you happen to have contact with someone who remembers her… and if so is she still alive? thanks,
I remember Ann. I don’t think she is alive anymore. I’m pretty sure she died several years ago. I will ask on the belovedbeloveds yahoo group. Someone else may know more.
The links to listen to the Wazifa should have been downloaded to your computer when you click on them. If you go to Downloads on your computer and double click the file, it should play on whatever media player is your default. I just added the same file where you can just click on it on the page and listen without having to download anything. Thanks for letting me know you were having trouble.