The Sufi Practice of Presence ~Kabir Helminski 1: Education of the Soul Abundance is seeking the beggars and the poor, just as beauty seeks a mirror. Beggars, then, are the mirrors of God s abundance, and they that are with God are united with Absolute Abundance. RUMI, MATHNAWI I: 2745,2750 Education as it is usually understood ignores the human soul, or essential Self. This essential Self is not some vague entity whose existence is a matter of speculation, but our fundamental I, which has been covered over by social conditioning, and by the superficiality of our rational mind. We are in great need of a form of training that would contribute to the awakening of the essential Self, which is essentially the awakening of presence. Such forms of training have existed in other eras and cultures and have been available to those with the yearning to awaken from the sleep of their limited conditioning and know the potential latent in the human being. We are made to know ourselves; we are created for this self-awareness; we are fully equipped for it. What could be more important than to know ourselves? The education of the soul, or essential Self, is different from the education of the personality or the intellect. Conventional education is all about acquiring external knowledge and becoming something in the outer world. The education of the soul involves not only knowledge, but the realization of a presence that is our deeper nature. What is most characteristically human is not guaranteed to us by our species or by our culture but given only in potential. A spiritual master once expressed it this way: A person must work in order to become human. What is most distinctly human in us is something more than the role we play in society and more than the conditioning, whether for good or bad, of our culture. It is our essential Self, which is our point of contact with infinite Spirit. This Spirit is not to be understood as a metaphysical assertion or belief, but as something we can experience for ourselves. You, as a human being, are the end product of a process in which this Spirit has evolved better and better reflectors of Itself. If the human being is the most evolved carrier of the Creative Spirit possessing conscious love, will, and creativity then our humanity is the degree to which this physical/spiritual vehicle, and particularly our nervous system, can reflect or manifest Spirit. That which is most sacred in us, that which is deeper than our individual personality, is our relationship to this Divine Love, Spirit, Cosmic Life, Creative Power, or whatever name we may use. Whereas conventional religious belief has the tendency to anthropomorphize God/Spirit, a projection of human attributes on the Divine, the process we re involved with here consists in the human being becoming qualified by the attributes of God. It could be called the sanctification of the human being. Our human nature is realized through the understanding and awareness that the essential human Self is a reflection of Divine Love. To become truly
human is to attain a tangible awareness of this, to realize oneself as a reflection of God. This education of the soul, then, is a process of awakening a presence that can initiate and sustain the activation of our latent human faculties. A certain knowledge, help, and practice is called for in order for us to become a human being because many of our human attributes have atrophied. Through disuse they have become latent faculties rather than functioning ones. The human being has not only the faculties of sense, emotion, and intelligence that we already know, but other faculties or senses volitional, psychic, intuitive, magnetic, and ecological. A purified and energized nervous system with all these faculties functioning harmoniously would lead a person to experience the unity of Being in other words to experience our intimate connection to the Source of Life, the Divine Presence.. For this a balanced program for the realization of our latent, essential Self is necessary. This essential Self is not an absolute term but a relative one signifying that purified awareness that we come to know as we become relatively free of the identifications with our social programming and conditioning. This essential Self will be found to have the attributes of Spirit, including unconditional love and fundamental creativity. Realization, in its fullest meaning, is not merely to know something, but making it real in oneself. We come to this essential Self through a process of deconditioning, reconditioning, and unconditioning. There are few traditional models for this kind of intentional human development. Neither in our universities nor in our congregations has this kind of soul education gone on in a systematic way. Cultures that ignore the work of awakening our latent humanity will be starved of the food of the soul. It would be useful to distinguish between education of the soul, on the one hand, and religion or philosophy, on the other. Soul education is an approach to Spirit that involves a total commitment and way of life. A religion is a system of beliefs and rituals that may or may not be a spiritual path for any particular person. A philosophy is a system of ideas, an investigation into the principles that underlie knowledge and reality; it is primarily a mental system. The religiously inclined person may ask What should I believe? ; the philosophical person might ask What is truth? ; but the one who asks, How shall I find God, how shall I experience Spirit, how shall I become the Truth? is beginning to educate the soul. What is sought is sought through experience, through a process of maturing, through using more and more of our faculties, through a gradual change of perception.
2: Nurturing the Seed of the Soul You know the value of every article of merchandise, but if you don't know the value of your own soul, it's all foolishness. You've come to know the fortunate and the inauspicious stars, but you don't know whether you yourself are fortunate or unlucky. This, this is the essence of all sciences that you should know who you will be when the Day of Reckoning arrives. [III, 2652-2654] There is a practice of connecting ourselves with Divine Love. It has little to do with belief; it is learned. It is increased by our consciousness of it, by our increasing awareness of the abundance of cosmic energy and Divine Love. Life is infinite, and this infinity can be tapped. The only limitation is one of awareness. A seed has no energy of its own, but it can come alive in the right environment. Every form of life has a capacity for response but none so much as the human being. In an infertile environment this capacity for response may be dormant. The cultivation we need to provide is through conscious awareness. This makes the difference between nominally being alive and being alive abundantly. With awareness we can develop all our faculties. The body, mind, spirit, and ecology form an interconnected whole. When a harmonious relationship exists among all of these, we have abundant life. Once a teacher of mine was asked, while having a coffee in a diner, what our practice is aiming toward. He wrote these words on the back of a napkin: As human beings we can work together in order to 1. develop our nervous system through inner work; 2. develop our physical bodies through conscious exercise, right breathing and eating; 3. develop our sense of interdependence and altruism; 4. develop the priority of common cause; 5. develop in social relations; 6. develop in family and conjugal relations; 7. develop an abundant livelihood through the quality of our work; 8. work for the ecology; 9. develop a grasp of Truth; and attain It in this world. The first steps in this process may be intellectual, but once the conscious mind has become familiar with certain transformative ideas, these ideas may penetrate to the level of subconscious mind, which in Sufism and some other traditions is called the heart. When these transformational ideas have been received by the heart, and grasped right down to the subconscious level, they help to create a new receptivity of mind to all the levels of Being. In this type of spiritual education, the practical aspect is primary; the intellectual expression of this process is necessary, but secondary. Ideas must become values, not mere steps in a logical process. The idea of presence, for instance, must be applied. It is not a belief or opinion, but a practice. When a person has learned it and has practiced it, it becomes grasped and valued. The four terms diagrammed below represent, in a necessarily simplified way, the
fundamental terms and polarities of the Self that we'll be discussing in this e-course. All of the terms employed are unfortunately subject to various definitions in the English language, and so it is important to clarify at the outset what is meant by them here. CONSCIOUS MIND Ego, I Intellect Personality False Self THE SELF (NAFS) CONTINUUM Essential Self Constructed Compassionate Fearful Expansive Compulsive Free SUBCONSCIOUS MIND Heart Emotion Subtle Perceptions We begin with a sense of self, an I. Before we can say what this I actually is, we can say that it is something we all experience. But what this experience is like varies enormously from person to person for some a contracted, separate self, for others an expanded, spiritualized Self. Commonly, however, this I is a very small part of ourselves. It is as much of ourselves as we are conscious. To move along the horizontal line from the false self to the essential self is to move from a contracted state to an expansive state; it is to experience a widening of the aperture of our sense of self, expanding into the realms of both the conscious and subconscious mind. Beyond this I or conscious mind is a vast realm that can be called the subconscious. Commonly, it is viewed as a kind of warehouse of buried memories, conditioning, complexes, drives, and obsessions. From a more spiritual perspective this subconscious is also the Heart, the source of wisdom and subtle perceptions. It is infinite, at least compared to the conscious mind, and is spontaneously in communication with other minds and the Field of Universal Intelligence. The other polarity that needs clarification involves the false self and the essential Self. The conscious mind is largely identified with the false self, which is the product of fear and selfishness. We can dis-identify with this false self and through presence realize our identity with the essential Self. Both the terms false self and essential Self are relative. From the perspective of the essential Self we feel our unity with everything through love and through the finer faculties of mind. Where we identify on the false self and essential Self spectrum influences our experience of I, as well as the condition of our subconscious mind. Clearly, people whose lives are ruled by vanity and all the delusions it brings will have a different sense of self than those who can be aware of their dependence on Spirit and their interdependence with the whole of life, those who are humble and remember the fact of their own death. The former will be enslaved to the tyranny of their own ego; the latter will experience an abundant and creative life, living from the essential Self. Spiritual attainment is a process of becoming complete by allowing the mind and heart to respond to
the highest levels of Spirit. Spiritual maturity is not a process of personal development, because the person on whom such development is based is a superficial identity. This is one of the most difficult things to learn. For many years I thought I was doing spiritual practices to make me a conscious person, as if it were an achievement similar to other achievements. Only slowly and painfully did I begin to learn that the real goal is to serve, to pay attention to how other human beings can be helped toward freedom and love by being an example of those qualities without expectation of any recognition or reward. We are reflectors of Divine Love. All intelligence, all beauty, all strength, all compassion, all forgiveness, all patience, and all trust are gifts and attributes of this Spirit. As the awareness of our connection with Love increases, these attributes are reflected more perfectly through us. To the extent that we polish the mirror of the heart, we become reflective and bright. How is this Divine Love to be found? If it is everywhere, it should not be too difficult to find. But where is it most concentrated? Firstly, the Spirit is most concentrated in the human heart, when we turn our consciousness toward it and realize it within. By turning toward our own experience, by cultivating a vigilance regarding our own states, we can come to know ourselves, and therefore know the Spirit we reflect. 3: Reviewing Key Terms and Concepts Time is limited, and the abundant water is flowing away. Drink, before you fall to pieces. There is a famous conduit, full of the Water of Life: draw the Water, so that you may become fruitful. We are drinking the water of Khidr 1 from the river of the speech of the saints: Come, you who thirst! Even if you don't see the water, Like a blind man, bring the jug to the river and dip it in. [III, 4300-4304] We've introduced some terms as being important for the education of the soul. I believe it is important to think about these terms and their usage as clearly as possible. The word soul, for example, typically means that part of ourselves which we identify with our psyche or personalities; I am using it as a synonym for the Essential Self. This phrase is very important because it points to the fact that we are more than our egos. There is something in us greater than what we normally know ourselves to be. It is the growth of this part of ourselves (and the knowledge that we gain from it), which is the central focus of the education of the heart. 1 Khidr is the immortal Green Man who appears as a guide to those who are worthy.
1. ESSENTIAL SELF: The Higher Self; that in ourselves which is in contact with the Creative Power, or Cosmic Mind. The persona and personality by which each individual is known are not the essential Self, but mere masks worn by the self. 2. HEART: The heart stands as the inner faculty of spiritual knowing and feeling. Through the heart we experience relationship. It is a capacity through which we both receive and give spiritual life. The heart exists on the threshold between the self and the spirit, mediating both realities, helping them to connect. 3. SOUL: Individualized Spirit, the result of the meeting of self and Spirit. The more spiritualized the self becomes, the more soulful it is. Soul can be purified, deepened, matured, and it can also be compromised, and in rare cases, ruined or lost. 4. SPIRIT: It is the deepest core of our being, through which all our human capacities--like consciousness, will, and love--are sourced. Spirit is also the first and primary manifestation of the Divine as it expands outward from its state of Autonomous Absoluteness. As God radiates from Itself, that radiation is Spirit, which is experienced by us as Love. 5. SELF: The individualized pole of our being, which we experience as a unique construction made up over time through the accumulation of both inner and outer experiences gathered into a single whole or unit, an ego-identity which I call "myself" and which is known to some greater or lesser degree by those who also know me. 6. ABUNDANT LIFE: The result of consciously becoming whole with mind, body, soul, and the total ecology of all planes of being. 7. APPROPRIATENESS: The child of love and humility. This is the courtesy of the spiritual path. 8. GRASP: Understanding attained through mobilizing our conscious and subconscious minds, as well as our five senses. 9. INTERDEPENDENCE: The recognized need of human beings for one another in order to attain the fullness of life on all levels, from material to cosmic. The Importance of Community To know our essential Self we need to abandon the ego-protective behaviors that keep us in separation. We also need to open ourselves to other beings in this milieu of Love. We need to gather with the followers of Reality to receive the gift of maturity and to offer ourselves generously. Only as we begin to open to others in love, can the isolated ego be transformed. An awareness of our interdependence with our fellow human beings and with all of life provides the environment in which the seed of the soul can flourish.
Wherever two or more are gathered in remembrance, maturity of spirit is communicated from one heart to another. It is rarely achieved alone. For a number of reasons friendship and sister/brotherhood are the outcome of our understanding the Truth. In my tradition of Sufism, the sister/brotherhood exists to assist in the attraction, concentration, and transmission of subtle energies leading to new perceptions and personal transformation. Many ways have been developed to engender this resonance among human beings. Through conscious worship with a concentration on movement, sound, and breath, certain states are facilitated that open us to the relatively infinite capacities of mind. In my own and many other traditions, a community model takes advantage of group dynamics to practice such values as service, selflessness, humility, and generosity. To approach these practices alone is not only a great limitation, but it runs the risk of cultivating selfimportance and self-righteousness. Spiritual attainment apart from other human beings is illusory and incomplete. The awakening of latent human qualities while still based on the ego and without the support of love is possible only to a limited extent. That's one of the reasons why this online course includes the Practice Circle as a space for group experience. 4: Presence as Consciously Being Here: Concentrated Spiritual Energy The Unseen Door There s an image of the Divine deep in your heart. You don t need to look anywhere else. What It can subtly bestow is limitless; It will help you to live within the world s limits. You will find ecstasy in the company of pure-in-faith Sufis if you just step outside this six-doored building. You have an unseen door in your own essence; don t seek the six doors, nor the six directions. Ghazel 2450, From Love s Ripening, Translated by Kabir Helminski Recently, I heard a drama teacher say to a class: Be present. Everyone seemed to understand what was meant, but then I began to wonder what do people generally understand by the words "Be present"? For most people these words may simply mean "Pay attention." In other words, to be present is the mental act of paying attention.
On the spiritual path, however, presence is something much greater. It is more than mental awareness. In fact, even at its most elementary level, presence is a comprehensive awareness that includes being aware of our bodies, behavior, emotions, and thoughts. We ve explored the education of the soul -- the essential Self -- as a process of self-knowledge leading to the awareness of a presence that is our deeper nature, making us each potentially reflectors of Divine Love. Now we can look at various understandings of presence and how we activate it. For some, being present is "living in the now," a thin slice of time. While a lot of energy may be wasted dwelling on the past or anticipating the future, what we mean by presence can be more than just living in the moment. It can even encompass awareness of the past and the possible future. For some presence may wisely encompass an awareness of seven generations into the future. For others it may be an eternal, timeless present. At another level, presence is the signature of our being, as when we say, "So-and-so has a beautiful presence." Or, "He or she has such a presence." In these cases there is a mysterious, qualitative aspect to presence. Finally, in the spiritual teachings of Sufism, the tradition from which I speak, we talk of "knowledge through presence." In addition to this world of material existence, there are other levels of experience we may become conscious of as our spiritual capacities develop: bodily, energetic, and certain psychic sensitivities, as well as various spiritual levels of experience. The practice of presence invites us to enter a spiritual reality a more conscious relationship with Divine Love. Faith, righteous action, ethics, and social justice are all founded upon a state in which the human being remembers the highest truth, the Divine. Yet, the capacity to remember, in this sense, is related to the ability to be awake, to be here. To act with intention, with reflection, with self-vigilance, and with a beneficence beyond self-interest, all presume a state of conscious presence. Today, a rather narrow band of awareness that has come to be accepted as the conventional state of consciousness. Yet all the great spiritual traditions recognize a state of consciousness that has the potential to unlock our latent human potential. It opens us to awe and wonder, and it adds further dimensions to being in this world. It goes by many names awakening, recollection, mindfulness, remembering, zhikr and by no name at all. In this e-course, we will call it presence.
We find this state in all traditions wherever we find true reverence, an awareness of the sacred. So many of the practices of religion and spirituality can be understood as ways of requiring and developing presence. In the classical Sufi tradition, for instance performing ablutions, offering the ritual prayer, and practicing courtesy can be understood as practices that develop presence. Presence signifies the quality of consciously being here. It is the activation of a higher level of awareness that allows all our other human functions such as thought, feeling, and action to be known, developed, and harmonized. Presence is the way in which we occupy space, as well as how we flow and move. Presence shapes our self-image and emotional tone. Presence decides whether we leak and scatter our energy or embody and focus it. And presence determines the degree of our alertness, openness, and warmth. 5: Activating Presence in Our World The Seeds That Keep Blooming [251] Sultan Bahauddin Walad told us one day: My father [Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi] said, O Bahauddin, when the seed of my teaching has taken root in your heart, you will understand reflect deeply on my teaching and really try to absorb it and if you do, felicity will be yours. Know that the body of the prophets, the saints, and their friends will never perish. A seed thrown into the earth may appear to die and disappear, however, at the end of a few days it comes to life and grows into a flourishing tree. In a similar way the body of the prophets and the saints will also come to life again. He was absorbed in the mystery described in the Qur an [51:2l]: Have you not looked within? There is nothing in the world that exists outside yourself; look into the depths of your being for that which you desire. From Rumi and His Friends, Camille Helminski, Fons Vitae (June 2013) Presence is the human self-awareness that is the end result of the unfolding of life on this planet. Human presence is not merely quantitatively different from other forms of life; humanity represents a new form of life, of concentrated spiritual energy sufficient to produce conscious will. With will, the power of conscious choice, human beings can formulate intentions, transcend their instincts and desires, develop their human faculties, and steward the natural world. Unfortunately, humans can also use this power to exploit nature and tyrannize other human beings. This potency of will, which on the one hand can connect us to conscious harmony, can also lead us in the direction of separation from that same harmony. I have been speaking of presence as a human attribute. This is not quite correct. Presence, like all essential human faculties, is not sourced in our individual personalities, but in the ground of
divine reality. It is the presence of the Divine reflected through the human being. This will become more and more clear as we go along. The important point is: we can learn to increasingly activate this presence at will. Once activated, this presence can be found both within ourselves and beyond ourselves. Because we find it extending beyond the boundaries of what we thought was ourselves, we are entering a transpersonal dimension. In a sense, we are being freed from separation, from duality. We could then speak of being in this presence. This presence is like a passport to greater life. Presence is our connection to that greater Being to which we belong, but which is often buried beneath mundane concerns, bodily desires, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions. Through knowledge, practice, and understanding, this presence can be awakened. Eventually, we will not be without it whether in speaking or moving, whether in thinking or feeling. Awakening this presence is the most reliable and direct means of cultivating our essential human qualities, of activating everything that we need to meet the conditions of our lives. Presence is the point of intersection between the world of the senses and the world of the Spirit. May we never cease to discover its beauty and power. 6: Our Most Essential Task Someone said, There is something I have forgotten. There is one thing in the world that should not be forgotten. You may forget everything except that one thing, without there being any cause for concern. If you remember everything else but forget that one thing, you will have accomplished nothing. It would be like a king who sends you to a village on a specific mission. You go and perform a hundred other tasks. If you neglect to accomplish the task for which you were sent, it is as though you did nothing. Man therefore has come into the world for a specific purpose and aim. If he does not fulfill that purpose, he does nothing. We proposed the faith unto the heavens, and the earth, and the mountains: and they refused to undertake the same, and were afraid thereof; but man undertook it: verily he was unjust to himself, and foolish [33:72]. We offered the faith to the heavens; they were not able to accept it. Consider how many mind-boggling feats they perform: they turn rocks into rubies and emeralds; they turn mountains into mines of gold and silver; they cause the plants of the earth to burst forth; they give life; and they create a Garden of Eden. The earth too receives seed and gives forth fruit; it covers up blemishes and does innumerable miraculous things. The mountains also produce various minerals. All these things they do, but that one thing they cannot do: that one thing is for mankind to do. And We have honoured the children of Adam [17:70]. Since God did not say, We have honored the heavens and earth, it is therefore for mankind to do that which the heavens, the earth, and the mountains cannot do. If man accomplishes his task, his injustice to himself and folly are cancelled out. You may object and claim that, although you do not accomplish that task, you do nonetheless perform many other deeds. But I say to you that man
was not created for those other deeds. It is as though you were to use a priceless blade of Indian steel, of the sort found in kings treasuries, as a cleaver for rotten meat and then justify your act by saying, I am not letting this blade stand idle. I am putting it to good use. It is as though you were to use a golden bowl to cook turnips in. One fraction of that bowl could buy a hundred pots. It is as though you were to use a gem-encrusted dagger to hang a broken gourd on and say, I m putting it to use by hanging the gourd from it. I m not letting the dagger stand idle. Is it not both pitiful and ludicrous? When the gourd could be as well served by a wooden peg or an iron nail, the worth of which can be measured in pence, what is the logic in using a dagger worth a hundred dinars to such a purpose? God has fixed a high price on you, as He has said: Verily God hath purchased of the true believers their souls, and their substance, promising them the enjoyment of paradise [9:111]. [Sign of the Unseen, The Discourses of Rumi, translated by Wheeler Thackston) We've been looking at ways to define and understand presence in the midst of our own contemporary world. Rumi, referring to a very central notion in the Qur an, reminds us that there is an essential task for the human being, which, if we fail to fulfill, we will have failed in what is most essential. The modern age is full of both promise and problems. Because we have access to so much of the richness of the past and other cultures and traditions, it holds a lot of promise for us. On the other hand, because contemporary society is founded in a materialist philosophy, it often makes no room for spiritual reality. For many the very idea of spiritual development is an outmoded, anachronistic hope that has been proven by science to be mere fantasy. The prejudice is that anyone interested in this realm is either whistling in the dark or wasting time. But are we? What many individuals feel today is just the opposite, a longing and a thirst for spiritual reality. Spiritual development is human development. It does not require a suspension of our critical faculties, but the awakening of new faculties. Somehow we begin to be aware that more does exist than can be proven by science and technology, and somehow we must find it and make ourselves available to it. This longing, this hope, and this search are signs that the Divine Presence is already drawing us. The following definitions expand on the ideas we've been exploring and will be helpful as you continue to explore the meaning of presence in your own life. 1. PRESENCE: The state of being consciously aware. In the state of presence we can be aware of all dimensions of experience simultaneously: sensation, behavior, thought, feeling, as well as spiritual states.
2. REMEMBRANCE: This means much more than simple memory recall. It is calling to mind in the present. Remembrance is a state beyond individual presence in which we become aware that our individual presence is in relationship with the Divine Presence. 3. SUFISM: Islamic spirituality or mysticism is traditionally designated as Sufism or tassawuf. The goal of Sufism is the achievement of unity with God and the Will of God, not as an ideology, but as a form of tacit (or practical) knowledge. A SUFI is one who understands Essence beyond forms. The word's root meaning is literally "pure, unadulterated." 4. KNOWLEDGE: ('ilm) The human being has a capacity to perceive and reason about the content of experience. This is one form of knowledge, but the levels of knowledge unique to a human being are greater than is commonly realized. At least seven levels can be recognized: knowing something's name; knowing through the senses; knowing about something; knowing through deeper grasp and understanding; knowing through doing; knowing through subtle, subconscious faculties; and knowing by Spirit alone. 5. ZHIKR: Remembrance of God. The practice of contemplative prayer as an invocation of the Divine Name. By invoking God's Name, one remembers who God is and who one is in that Presence. To invoke the Divine Name is understood, then, not simply to call God into human Presence, but to call human beings awake and into God's presence. 6. LIFE: A primary attribute of Spirit, eternal in nature, not limited to its biological and physiological manifestations. 7. HUMAN BEING: That part of nature that has come to be the most complete reflector of Spirit within this material world.