THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM-
Divine Reality According to a Sufi Master

By Lex Hixon

Published in Yoga Journal November-December 1979

Last spring I was present in New York City at a meeting between some future-conscious psychiatrist and psychologists from Mount Sinai Hospital and one of the foremost Moslem dervish sheikhs living today, Muzzaffer Effendi from Istanbul. The conversation centered on the power for healing, integration, and illumination— necessary to both doctor and patient— which can be provided which can be delivered by religious faith and practice. Today, many perceptive members of various helping professions are recognizing— not just personally but as part of their professional perspective— that religious practice may be an essential factor in the physical and psychological health and balance of the human being. This represents an important reversal of the prevalent attitude which regards traditional religious commitment as some form of weakness rather than as the source of healthy balance and resilient strength which it clearly is to millions of human beings in all cultures on the planet.


The tact remains, of course, that religious authority can be misused and that religious traditions tend to become mechanical and impotent on their surfaces. So the question becomes: How are we to get in touch with the profound and authentic sources of faith and practice? A perennial myth, strengthened by attitudes of modern psychology, suggests that we can go directly to the spiritual resources deep within ourselves, without undergoing any of the training, practices, and sacrifice- required by the various sacred traditions. This nontraditional approach may work for a few highly motivated seekers, but most spiritual seekers, even when they are highly evolved the rich language and warm communion of practitioners that we call a “sacred tradition” to be the best ambiance in which to live their spiritual lives, compassionately awakening and guiding others to a deeper and deeper experience of healing, integration and illumination.

The New York psychiatrists and psychologists approached Sheikh Muzaffer as a Sufi master, an adept in esoteric techniques of transformation handed down in secret oral tradition for centuries, for he is the nineteenth in succession of sheikhs from Pir Nureddin Jerrahi, who died in 1721. But what Sheikh Muzaffer strongly indicated, through his response to their questions and through his very being, was that "submission to Allah" - or grounding all our thoughts and acts in saying "yes" to the Divine Reality-is the essence of- spirituality. This essence is simple religious faith, found in the humble daily practice of a particular sacred tradition-in this case, the five-times daily prayer cherished both by the. Suf adept and the ordinary devout Moslem,` Only on the unshakeable basis of such faith and practice can advanced mystical. Techniques of transformation-such as the whirling and the chanting of the dervishes, be authentically established. And the force of such mystical practice do no more than raise to unimaginable degrees of richness and intensity our appreciation of this simple faith. Religious faith is the humblest beginning and th highest goal. As Sheikh Muzaffer expresses it: Allah is beginning, middle, and end of the, spiritual path.

The divine gift of faith cannot be assim ilated fully by human beings without thi supporting environment of a religious tra dition, including potent words, symbols rituals, saints-all integrated into a livinj whole. When we live entirely within thi vast embrace of a sacred tradition, physi cal - healing, psychological integration and spiritual illumination are subtly facil. itated, because body, mind, and spirit ar( not relegated to different "fields" but ar( experienced as aspects of a single whole. ness of being. To have separated "psychology" from "religion" may prove onE of the most dangerous dichotomies which our civilization has invented, thereby creating an illusion of having progressed beyond the spiritual wisdom of earlier ages. And the impulse among some modern people to do away entirely with religious traditions is no less absurd than deciding to dispense with language-, shelter, or nourishment.

Sheikh Muzaffer is a living representative of the "earlier ages" in which religion was totally integrated into all aspects of life. In every culture on the 'planet there still exist religious communities in which ancient sacred traditions live in all fullness and fruitfulness. We must turn now with gratitude to these communities in order to study, practice and receive transmissions of the spiritual resources which they have painstakingly preserved for us. How we assimilate the religious faith and practice which will spring up in us spontaneously' through close association with these intense and authentic communities is an open question. Will we disappear into these
communities as orthodox practitioners or will we permeate our modern secular lives with the fragrance of a sacred tradition without recreating its entire ritual framework? Both ways of assimilation will be helpful to planetary culture. And the particular way we choose can only be the result of a vocation, a Divine Calling, not just a cultural or personal strategy. Widespread reawakening to the values of sacred traditions will be an essential factor in the struggle to transform this technological age and to protect and nurture life on our planet. Rather than mere survivals from the past, sacred traditions are living messages full of holy, transforming power to shape our future.

But obstacles remain to be overcome before we can freely open the treasures of our collective, planetary, religious heritage. Secular humanists, looking only it the conventional surfaces of religion, consider sacred traditions as primitive or even oppressive. Traditional religionists bring this same kind of prejudice to bear on religions other than their own. This impasse can only be dissolved as pro- found appreciation of the mysterious power and fruitfulness of all sacred traditions dawns in the mind and heart of humanity. This by no means requires an attitude of uncritical acceptance, because intense self-criticism is a natural function of sacred tradition itself. Again and again the Hebrew Prophets admonished the people and their religious leaders for clinging to merely human conventions rather than opening courageously into the Divine Mystery. Sacred traditions are themselves organic beings which contain their own subtle interior modes of self-correction, self-healing, self -purification
and self-transcendence.

On that spring afternoon in New York City, Sheikh Muzaffer demonstrated to sophisticated psychiatrists and psychologists the rich integration of the human being offered by the faith and practice of Islam. The previous summer, I had a much more extensive opportunity to witness the profound refuge and illumination offered by Islam while visiting Sheikh Muzaffer and his dervish community in Istanbul for ' the holy month of Ramadan. We fasted together all day and feasted together all night, never once sleeping until after the Morning Prayers at dawn- the dervishes rising again an hour or two later for work. We prayed together the five times daily prayers and the extensive midnight prayers of Ramadan. We partook together of the powerful Zhikr of the Jerrahi Order of Sufis in which various names of Allah are chanted for an hour in unison, with increasing intensity, accompanied by graceful movements through which the body itself merges in holy sound. We listened together each the Bayazit Mosque, beside which Sheikh Musaffer's small bookshop can be found,I beneath the shade of grapevines, by seekers of Goa from all over the world.

One twilight, seated beside the sheikh, gazing into the vast dome of the mosque, I felt transported by the delicate yet powerful energy of the Koran as pure holy sound into an emerald mosque beyond even the highest heaven. No human figures appeared there-only a large radiant Koran which was chanting itself. We cannot understand the Koran by regarding simply its surface, its literal meaning, its form as a book in the Arabic language. Sheikh Muzaffer remarked to me that there are as many levels of meaning in the Koran as there are words, even as there are letters, in the Holy Book. It only appears to be written in Arabic, he explained, but is actually written in the mysterious language of God.

That month spent in Istanbul with the dervishes kindled a fire of faith in Allah and the Prophet of Allah which I never imagined would be possible for me. I have been touched directly by initiatory experiences in several sacred traditions, but somehow always felt distant from Islam, as those of us do who only look at the surface of Islam from outside the tradition. It is almost impossible to get b0neath'the surface of a religion simply through goodwill and studious effort. Some process of race is necessary. We must be drawn into the mysterious divine attraction that is often focused through the person of a teacher but is also focused through the entire community of spiritual practitioners. Part of the beauty of sacred tradition is that the simple believer and the proficient mystic can share the same essential faith and practice,'feeling the mutual loving respect of brothers and sisters in one spiritual family, each of whom is a channel of grace in his or her own way. The love and the subtle, wordless understanding of Islam communicated to me in Istanbul by
the entire community of jerrahi dervishes-is beyond expression.

I first met Sheikh Muzaffer when interviewing him on the Pacifica radio station in New York City where, for the last eight years, I have produced a weekly show called In the Spirit, talking with a wide spectrum of spiritual practitioners, from Alan Watts to Mother Theresa of Calcutta. Many of these discussions have been dramatic and moving, but I was quite unprepared that Sunday morning when I turned to begin the interview, after one of the dervishes had chanted the powerful Islamic Call to Prayer, to find the Sheikh weeping with intense spiritual emotion. It was immediately clear that this was not a person on the surface of life.

Sheikh Muzaffer is also a noted Turkish 'poet, whose pen name is Ashki, "the one who belongs to Love." In the second radio program we did, he spoke of the mystery of Divine Love. What follows is a partial transcript of that conversation.

Lex Hixon: Effendi, you have spoken of the essence of the Koran as the essence of the Prophet Mohammed and as the essence of Allah..
Some people say this single essence is love, and we hear that the way of the dervishes is the way of Love. Can you, tell us about the way of Love and how to walk on this way?

Muzaffer Effendi: it is very difficult to put into words the highest experience of love. It is like describing honey for someone who has never tasted honey or who has never even seen honey. Love is to perceive in everything what is good and what is beautiful. To look rat everything with the desire to learn from it. To see everywhere the gifts of Allah, the generosity of Allah. To recognize what Allah has given us, to appreciate it, and to be thankful for it will be the first step for us on this way of Love. This is only the seed of Love, but in time the seed will grow, will become a tree, and will finally bear fruit. Whoever tastes that fruit will know what real Love is: a kind of joyful pain. Whoever experiences this in his heart will know the secret that everything is Truth and everything leads to the Truth. There is nothing but Truth. And through this realization the lover will be overcome~ and drown in the sea of Love. We can give thanks fully only when we see the Truth. Our expression of thanks is prayer to the Provider of Truth. That is why we repeat: "All grace comes from Allah and all praises are due Allah." But our gratitude is beyond words.-We must showbur thanks in action.

How do-. we give thanks for beauty? By keeping our hearts pure. How do we express gratitude for whatever wealth we have? By distributing to the poor a portion of the gifts which have been given to us by Allah. How do we give thanks for Love the greatest gift which Allah has given us? By singing our love of Allah.

At the time of the morning prayer, before the sun rises, the curtain lifts between the lover of Allah and his Creator. During these early hours of the morning there are thousands of secrets which we may come to know. Should we sleep at that beautiful time when all these gifts are being offered? As the birds begin to sing, we can understand the mystery that every single sound and voice in this universe is mentioning, remembering, and worshipping the name of Allah. I have actually heard every breath, inhaled and exhaled, thanking Allah, and I have seen everyone-wherever they thought they were running-running towards Allah. Everyone, everywhere, at all times, wherever they think they are running to jobs, to homes, to someone, from someone-are all running toward Allah.

Lex: Everyone who is listening now experiences something of the sweetness and intensity and mystery of love-the play of love. How does this human love relate to Divine Love?

Muzaffer: Whatever we taste of love in whatever a manner, to whatever degree-is a part of the one Holy Love. The love between man and woman is a part. of the Heavenly Love. Sometimes the human lover can become a curtain between us and the realization of Divine Love. But one day that curtain will lift, and the real beloved, the real goal, will appear, in all its glory. What is important is that we keep in our heart this feeling of Love, in whatever form or shape. If you love, you will certainly reach the Divine Beloved one day. Don't you see that the gifts of Allah often come to you through the hands of human beings, through His servants. So His Love is first expressed between human beings. The sheikh is the pourer of wine, the dervish is the glass, and Love is the wine itself. By the hand of the pourer of wine the glass is filled. This is the Direct Way. Love could be offered to one by other hands, but this is the Direct Way.