Writing Your Own Prophetic Prophectic Story - Buddhism vs. Abrahamic Religion

 I checked out some of Sidi's current students' videos and have to say that many of them are well-versed in Stories of the Prophets, Islamic protocols, etc.

I'd like to honor their sincerity, while at the same time noting a common theme that emerges and which goes back to Sidi.

I take note of the hopeful invocation of 'The Love of Allah', ie, a Love which (theoretically) ultimately makes up the entire Universe!

Namely, that there is a tendency to want to imitate the forebearers of the Religion and to imbibe the stories and try to live in an ancient world where Allah and His Angels seemingly lived and walked among us.

I am not sure the extent to which that relieves suffering for them, but in my own case, I feel the goal is not so much to inhabit a role inherited from books from the ancient past, but to use tools like meditation to encounter emptiness and the refreshing absence of a permanent self.

I noted, for example, one venerable Haji who recited stories of the Prophets AS IF the truth of those stories was actual.  Like, scientifically verifiable in the same way the Voyage of Columbus would be.  In the Past, yes, but ultimately true in this world. 

What is the difference, then, between a Muslim talking about Sarah at the Kaaba and a Jehovah's Witness talking about the Garden of Eden?

New Age American Truth-Seekers ultimately end up thinking the truth of Religion is blind obedience to the Stories in the Holy Book.

About a Boy

 I'm still writing this often sad,  though unfinished story, which is about my son Ibrahim who was born in the Mount of Olives to me and my first wife, Aisha.

My son grew up hearing only her complaints about me.

When Ayisha and I split up, she, Ibrahim, and Zooey moved to Napa County with her new boyfriend, Ali, either in the same house or nearby. 

I didn't want Ali supervising my children-I was concerned about both kids' safety.

I was particularly alarmed that Aisha seemed to have tapped him to take my place.  

I figured she  wanted to move on, cut me off, and start up again with someone else.

 One of my presumptions about this was based on the fact that she had already done the same thing with her first husband, Teresa's biological father, by the time I married her in 1979.

When we'd married in 1979, and Teresa was about 8, Teresa immediately took my last name and stopped using the earlier one, which was her birth father's name.  I was honored to be her new stepfather and didn't think much about the rights of her birth father.

One day, the consequences of Ayisha's actions showed up when her ex-husband's mother called our house in Walnut Creek and begged Aisha to allow her some form of contact with her granddaughter.

Ayisha particularly hated it when Grandma had mentioned that Teresa was, "Our own flesh and blood". She spit the phrase out, like the woman was demented to think in such disgustingly biological terms.

Aisha evidently considered her own moral compass the most important factor. After the fact, she assumed total authority to choose her daughter's 'Real' parents.

And had apparently tried to prevent any repeat communications. At least I never heard about the poor woman again, although I felt sorry for her at the time.

Not knowing much about the situation, I assumed that Teresa's father must have been a bad actor for Aisha to cut his family off with such finality.  

All I ever learned about him was that he had cheated on Aisha.  At least, according to her.

As time went on, I never heard anything further about him. Perhaps he had just lost interest in his biological daughter, or perhaps Aisha had made it impossible for Teresa to be found.

 In any case, Aisha wanted to forget the whole episode and never told me about it again. 

 Little did I realize that I might be subjected to the same treatment one day when Aisha had reason to be done with me.

I noticed my daughter's last name was changed.

Twenty years later, I was shocked to see my daughter Zooey's drawings on Aisha's refrigerator, showing that Aisha had changed Zooey's last name to her mother's new last name, Al-Jamal."

This change was not legal, and I was not informed about it. 

Nonetheless, it was included in her school records, followed her for the rest of her life - even onto her first passport! 

This was typical of Aisha's not-so-subtle rejection of my role as a father.  

More generally, her defiance of the culturally established norms in favor of her own imperious attempts to re-create the outside world into one more acceptable to her Separate Reality.

During her overnight visitations in the early days after the divorce, Zooey would catch me up on what was being said.  

I would hear things like, "They say you're a father, but you don't act like a father." Or, "They say we have to choose between you and her, but I don't believe them!"

I could barely believe it had been put to the kids THAT starkly myself! But she insisted it had!

After Aisha announced her decision to divorce me, she gathered the children every night in one of their rooms and slept with both of them. I could understand this for Zooey, who was so little, but why include Ibrahim, who was so much older? 

Aisha seemed to be drawing comfort inappropriately from the children for her own emotional wounds. But unfortunately, in so doing, she was making them co-signers to her 'victimhood.' 

I had heard from Teresa that Ibrahim sometimes woke up screaming at night.

At the earliest visitations, Ibrahim seemed anxious to have everything I had and be like me. As the years passed, however, he began to avoid visitations, especially those involving my new girlfriend and later wife, Marilyn.

So he stopped showing up for visitations, and he definitely refused to be present at my second marriage, which took place in the year 2000.

I mostly visited my son at his mom's house, where he was often sullen and withdrawn. He was interested mainly in playing computer games or perhaps distracting himself with them. 

I rarely got him to go anywhere with me, except for day trips. 

I went to Southern California twice with his sister Zoe to visit Disneyland and other amusement parks, but he refused to go both times without explanation. 

It was incomprehensible to me why he wanted to stay home when everyone else was enjoying a vacation at California's Disneyland.

Another time, I took him skiing and was planning to spend the night at a fun, youth-friendly lodge in the Sierras.

I was sadly disappointed when he began to tearfully beg to go home because he missed his mother and Zoe too much. I begged him to give it a try because it would be a long drive for me to drive him back to his mom's and then back to my home after a full day of skiing.

 Nonetheless, I gave in. As time went on, I struggled to maintain my relationship with him. I also got busy with my second wife, her extended family, and my own work.  

It's only now, late in life and looking back, that I wish I had reached out to him more.

(And I don't recall that he reached out to me very often at any point.  Certainly not in recent memory.  But I attribute this mostly to the upside-down world he lived in as a child of mother who was hostile to her former spouse and judgemental towards him, and most everyone else, to excess.)

Ibrahim did get a job in a government agency's computer section. He was one of the youngest employees ever, and he quickly moved up in the agency because he was very clever in the computer department.  

He also began what looked like an intimate relationship with an age-appropriate person. Although he didn't include me in his life, I hoped that he would find a way to get along without a father.

Alas, he was snagged by the demon of addiction and has struggled with it ever since.

 The Al-Jamals Betray My Son, Too

Also, he had become friends with one of Sidi's relatives,  a few years older, but very friendly and genial young man.  The relative, realized he could use my son's position in the government bureau to get a fast and not exactly legal opportunity to by pass some onerous registration issues.

He also knew some crime figures who would pay well for such 'services'. The specific intention was to'help' Ibrahim earn 'extra money' by cutting some legal corners using the employer's computer.

So, he then had both an addiction problem and a crime problem. I vouched for this fellow on his visa application, not realizing that he would introduce my son to the world of organized crime.

The agency knew he was doing something, but they apparently didn't have enough evidence to charge him. They did let him go, revoke his pension, and make him sign a promise never to work for the State of California again.

It was a very sad ending to a position he had been proud of. 

We'd managed to resuscitate our relationship a bit in his mid-twenties.  He'd dropped his bitterness towards me, it seemed.  Being out in the world working, he perhaps realized that his parents could be respected.  

He tried his best to let me have my views of what happened between his mom and me.  He didn't demand I shut up about it all.  However, I was still careful not to go into too many details about the 'Ali Period'.

I didn't want to run his mom down, either.  As much as I tried to tell him 'my side', I knew how much the divorce must have hurt him, how he must have felt terrible about it, and so buried my anger and pain, or tried to.

So, he started working as a freelance IT person.  Living most of the time at his mom's house In Sonoma County. 

One day, apparently, he had sounded like he was suicidal to a girlfriend who was visiting him there. Enough so that she called the local police for an intervention.

Unfortunately, he was one of those boys who was fascinated with explosives. (Like I was.  I couldn't WAIT for the Fourth of July when I was growing up, and the sudden access to all kinds of fireworks. Some of which could be rigged to blow up midway!)

He'd taken it one step further and bought chemicals on the Internet to turn into explosives. Though he had apparently grown out of that phase, he'd nonetheless not disposed of the chemicals.

When the police arrived, they were given permission by someone who was staying at the house to search it. When they found the explosives, all hell broke loose.

Mainly because the house was associated with Aisha's Sufi publishing enterprise, and most of the two-car garage was filled with her books, and the home was filled with Islamic artwork.

The police department reacted by calling in the FBI.  The neighborhood was evacuated several times, and the bomb squad was called in with a special mobile incinerator, where the explosives were detonated.

 It might have been something he'd been given a slap on the wrist for, but since the arresting officers, including their observation of Islamic symbols and books, there was a connection made between explosives and terrorism. So his bail was put at $1 million.

At this point, Aisha's standoffish attitude towards me vanished, and she welcomed my assistance.

Our lawyer suggested that due to all the publicity that had been generated, the case might reach a more satisfactory outcome if we chilled out for a few months.

Ibrahim's bail was so high--I would have committed to losing at least $50,000 if I were to engage a bail bondsman--, and his behavior was so unpredictable and distorted by addiction that I couldn't convince myself to spring for him.

The result was that he sat in the county jail for eight months and had to detox from a major benzodiazepine addiction down to 5mg of Valium in one session. The result was that he was pretty crazy for quite a few weeks.

He heard Obama making fun of him on the TV, and was convinced the jail was being bombed by some nefarious secret force at night. My poor boy!

Though the underlying opportunity was sad, it allowed Ayesha and me to be on the same team for a moment. We would greet each other warmly and talk together as we waited to visit him in his cell.

Having a relative in jail is the WORST! Fortunately, he got to stay in a county jail, which is generally nicer than State Penitentiaries.  

He got his own room most of the time. And we didn't live too far away. But so many visitations were canceled because of inmates acting out and all the families being sent home.  And then to only have 15-30 minutes of visiting time.

The affair drew us closer as a father and son than we had been since the divorce.  I sent him books by my favorite SciFi writer, Phillip K Dick, which he LOVED.   

I wrote him long letters trying to cheer him up and citing my own experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous as an indication of the freedom he could have from substance addiction once he got out.

He wrote me very sweet and humorous letters about his experiences inside. Admiring women inmates in the facility evidently (incorrectly) saw him as some criminal mastermind. They stuffed notes with their phone numbers in his door when they had their periodic recreational run of the place and gratefully praised me for not giving up on him.

The lawyer was right. By the time his case came around, it was clear he had no connection to international terrorism, and they let him off relatively easily.

When he got out, he lived with me for 6-7 years. I helped him get a wonderful job at a local foundation. We didn't have quite the warm relationship I would have liked—he kept to himself a lot—but I reasoned that at least he was getting ahead in the world, and we could have a more intimate relationship at some point in the future.

We went on one trip together to Death Valley, and another to the airplane graveyard in Mojave, Ca.

 We also, at one point, used drugs together. (After 17 years sober, I had lost my own sobriety because my second wife was a victim of Early Onset Alzheimers and had died after 4 years of decline).

I had not paid enough attention to my sobriety--had gotten lazy--and could not face the changes going on with my dying wife without chemicals.  

Or so I thought.  It was a horrible mistake.

It would take me YEARS and the loss of my gallbladder and developing chronic pancreatitis to spur on my second, and hopefully my last, major battle with alcoholism.  This one required many hospitalizations and 2 30-day rehabs.

Sometimes, he was the sober one of us and had to drive me to and visit me at rehabilitation centers.  It was a sad but real basis for connection to each other.

Almost imperceptibly, perhaps after a failed relationship with someone who was age-appropriate, for a change, I believe the pull of his mom, and he began to drift away from me again and began to live with his mother, largely giving up communications with me. 

 A few years later he told me he had lost his job and had a dramatic relapse requiring three weeks of hospitalization. I heard almost nothing from him for months, and then only a sentence here or there.

He took it upon himself to criticize my almost daily frantic emails and seemingly wanted to portray me as the instigator of all his problems. 

I feel like he was programmed to see me as a dangerous, hurtful person at an early age, and he couldn't discharge it.. My constant writing and phone calls only put him on edge.

So, in accordance with the advice of so many others, I had to dial back my worries about him and try to take care of myself.

But in his case, as with my other two children, the lack of forgiveness and some amount of appropriate communication between their parents has reduced their embrace of both parents. And I can't blame them for that.

I so miss losing the little boy I used to fly kites and talk about rockets and space with.  He says he is sober today, and he celebrates the fact that he did it without my help.

I celebrate that he did however he did--although his commitment to honesty is less than 100% and I don't realistically know if he is sober or not. 

My sense is that as a child, he felt fearful that his mother might reject HIM the same way she did ME unless he towed the line and forgot about me like she evidently wanted him to.

I greatly fear for his life. But I also hear from others that he seems much better, so I'm trying to allow him his own path.

Our relationship was so damaged by so many factors, my alcoholism (now in remission for 8 years), his drug use, and his mother's desire to cut me out, that I guess it's hard for him to find the pieces to put it back together again.

However, I'm very aware that his attachment to his mother is co-dependent and limiting. I fear may have given up on the wider world and committed himself to being a child in his mother's house forever -- as if such a thing were possible..

It's well known that sometimes children of problematic parents DELIBERATELY sabotage their lives so as not to 'abandon' their damaged elders. 

It's his excuse not to have all of life's bounty. He's always been like that. 

Not joining the rest of us on family trips so his mom didn't get left behind--even though SHE left ME behind!  It's not fair or healthy, but there it is.

My son got alcoholism from me and co-dependence from his Mom.

At least I have learned that I can't have a relationship with him unless he wants one. So, in the meantime, I will have to remember with pleasure that lovely trip to Death Valley we took together!

Next trip--The Museums and Amusement Parks of Southern California my parents took me to as a boy! And DEFINITELY stops at LaBrea Tar Pits and Venice Beach!

Oh, and I almost forgot my all-time favorite--Griffith Park Observatory--where my early days in Southern California, the Hollywood dream machine, and the dreams of space and the infinite future meet! 

It would be nice to have a few memories like that before its time to take that Final Journey that awaits us all!

Race you to the top of the building, Son!!

Mimicing vs. Realizing Spiritual Transformation

It may seem to you that anyone who speaks of God is on the same page as you.  Or you may learn, as I did, that often those who invoke the name of God as a Source of Inspiration for their motives, may have corrupted intent.

I found this concept difficult.  In fact, I failed to even consider it possible that when Sheik Jamal spoke to me in those terms that he wasn't REALLY speaking for God, literally.  But just generally.  Or maybe, with mixed motives.

It never occurred to me that someone with titles and uniforms and respect throughout his community might be operating from motives touched with ignorance and greed.

Yet, after many years of experience and reflection, this is my conclusion.

Moreover, the case gets worse the further one goes into the 'succession', if one can call it that.  I mean the select few of Sidi's followers who seek to assume some form of leadership after his passing.

Some of these operate out of a desire for money or for psychic control over others.

And more specifically, I believe some may derive some satisfaction merely from 'passing the word on' regarding THEIR interpretation of Sidi's Teachings.

But in most, if not all cases, there is a requirement that the 'recruit' give up their 'old' identity.  And take on a 'new' identity.  Leaving all that came before.  ESPECIALLY the painful stuff--failed relationships, childhood traumas,  chemical addictions, etc.

Sometimes, it is wise to stop 'beating yourself up'.  At least for a season.

Sometimes one's pain becomes overwhelming.  One needs to 'give it a rest'

Eventually, however, the Past has to be reconciled with the Present.  Or, as Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, says, "We will not dwell on the Past nor wish to shut the door on it".

That is, as Bill Wilson so perceptively understood it, "Our Recovery will be incomplete if we forget or try to 'forget' who we were/are".

At least twice in my life, I have joined 'cults'.  I got a new name, new clothes, new foods, new friends, new ideologies.

It was the same in the Hare Krishna Movement as in the Shadhili Order.  

The dynamics were similar.  I was asked to transcend the person I thought I was.  

But what  I ended up doing was simply substituting a new 'personality mask' for the old one.  

In the case of the Hare Krishna's, my journey was complete in 8-9 months from when I first encountered a group of devotees at my college campus, joined them in the Los Angeles Temple, travelled across the country in a van on a College Recruitment Mission, ended up at the HK School in Dallas, and from boredom and discontent, flew home to the Bay Area on my parents' dime.

With Sidi Sheik Muhammad, my course was more elongated.  In fact, after 40+ years, its still not over.

Sidi is dead, but my first wife and mother of my children still lives to pass on what she feels is the proper version of his message.

So far as I can understand, her own story of spiritual transformation is missing.

And this is what is ultimately so disturbing to me about cultic religion--it doesn't encourage actual personal transformation.

Rather, it substitutes the adoption of rituals, worship of the Founder, and most important of all, the induction of NEW disciples as confirmation of one's own superior 'walking' of the Path.

Along the way, newcomers eagerly adopt the exotic Arabic accouterments and dress of Sufis.  In this way, people mimic personal transformation.

This is what I see in those, including my Ex, who seek to rise to be 'Influences' in the Fuqara.  They look for newcomers, just as Sidi did, to bolster their own sense of importance or prestige. Or perhaps to continuously re-confirm that they made the correct choice of 'abandoning' their 'old' lives.  Rather than bringing them along as collegues, or just 'for the ride'.

As a way to win financial gain, sexual favors, or perhaps some more ethereal goal of feeling they are a Guide themselves.

To try to put to rest the nagging sense that their lives are meaningless.

True change should, to my mind, include the option of lovingly bringing forward the discarded, hidden, painful pieces of one's earlier self.

BEHOLD THE SPIRIT! - RIP ALAN WATTS

 

If we are lucky, we have moments in our lives when the CLOUDS PART.

YHWH

When we SEE THROUGH the usual confusion of feelings, thoughts and impressions and notice a vaguely familiar  'still, small voice' within us.

It may be at the end or the beginning of some important person or plan in one's life.      

Or it could be when one is suddenly delivered from some miserable illness and what formerly was just ordinary becomes Transcendentally Beautiful! 

Then all of a sudden...there it IS..a sense of being transported unto...THE LIVING SPIRIT!

It mayn't ANNOUNCE itself as 'Enlightenment' as such. 

It could be an indefinable sense of ANOTHER dimension alongside ordinary reality. We were too busy with our plans, pasts, and fears to notice.

“Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We might spend our entire life without knowing of their existence, but apply the requisite stimulus and there they are in their completeness”.         

--William James. 'Father' of American Psychology

I stole the term 'Behold the Spirit' from a book by Alan Watts, which had a huge impact on my life when I was a young seeker.

I later had the opportunity, along with a few others, to spend a weekend retreat with him in Santa Barbara, in a private home in what was to be the last year of his life.

I tend to judge other people's personal failings, and he definitely had them.

He drank wine throughout the whole weekend.  And he shamelessly FLIRTED with a lovely young woman in the audience who was obviously besotted with his wisdom and not-so-subtle attentions!

He wasn't perhaps  the All-Seeing Mystic I had hoped to see. Although he did have that amazing and sophisticated English-speaking voice and some well-tailored Zen Master robes!

His understanding of the Divine was similar to my laissez-faire understanding of God, the Universe, and Everything, at least at that point.  

I've started to pay a lot more attention to cultivating morals and the right associations these days.

This Thing we all seek is Elusive. It is Subtle- the Thing we're seeking, or at least I am.  But, shift one's focus, and it is right before us!

And, at least Alan Watts and Ram Dass were UPFRONT about their human 'weaknesses'.  And as a recovering alcoholic, I'm certainly pained that Watts ended up being so dependent on alcohol. 

He ended up having to give up driving, apparently; he was so drunk all the time.  He died in his sleep at 58. 

No matter how 'non-dualistic' one thinks one is, alcohol is a lying, devious drug that takes no prisoners. I also happen to believe it prays ESPECIALLY on spiritually oriented people.

Why do you think they call it "Spirits?" 

Speaking of this, I've suddenly remembered an amazing Jungian writer on the subject of God, Love, Alcohol and Addiction.  Here's a wonderful quote of hers:

“We are human beings. And a human being has a divine creative intelligence. One way or another that creative intelligence is going to find an outlet. If it can’t find an outlet through the imagination, which is its natural route, it will find it in a concretized way. That becomes compulsive because there’s no way it can find what it’s looking for in a concrete way. You can’t find the Divine Mother in gobbling food….. If our creative energy is blocked, it will find an outlet in some kind of distorted religion, or addiction. An addiction to me is a distorted religion.

“Jung pointed out that it was no accident that alcohol is also called ‘spirits’ and said that the alcoholic’s thirst for alcohol is equivalent to the soul’s thirst for ‘the union with God.’

“Alcohol in Latin is spiritus, and you use the same word the for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritus,’ he wrote … in 1961. It’s an alchemical formula. It takes spirit to counter spirit.

“Looking at alcoholism and addiction as a longing for spirit might mean that something very different is going on in our society. One might say that we don’t have a crisis with alcohol and drugs as much as we have a spiritual crisis. Addiction is the perversion of spirit, our spiritual nature turned inside out, devouring itself. The epidemic of addiction can also be seen as spirit trying to reenter our society...

“A longing for alcohol does symbolise a longing for spirit. Think of the Greeks with Dionysus, the god of the vine. Intoxication and the transcendent experience with the god were intimately connected….. Alcoholics are longing for spirit because they are so mired in matter, but they make the mistake of concretizing that longing in alcohol. Maybe if they really understood what they were longing for and could go into the realm of the imaginal, the soul’s realm, then something very different could begin to happen.”

“Addicts are trying to run away from God as fast as they can. Paradoxically, they are running right into her arms. Consciousness makes them realise how the soul is trying to lead them into the presence of the divine if only they can understand the symbolism inherent in the addictive substance or behaviour.”

“All the running is away from the tragic fear that we are not loved. Unless we perform well, we are not lovable. That terror leads to self-destructive behaviour. It can also lead to global self-destruction. Addictions may be the Goddess’s way of opening our hearts to what love is – love of ourselves, love of others, love of the dear planet on which we live.”

“Lots of people are trying to find spirit through sexuality. Through orgasms they think they can be released from matter; for one brief moment they hope to experience this extraordinary union of spirit and matter. But if they can’t bring relationship into sexuality then it’s just a fly-by-night thing. Eventually it just becomes mechanical…. Sexuality without love is matter without spirit. People who are unable to love may be addicted to sexuality and be driven over and over again to try to find love. What they are projecting onto sexuality is the divine union they so desperately lack within themselves.”

“Jung said the opposite of love is not hate but power, and where there is love there is no will to power. I think this I a core issue in working with addictions. Sooner or later, the feminine face of God, Love, looks us straight in the eye, and though her love may manifest as rage at our self-destruction, she’s there. We can accept or reject – live or die.“

“THE GODDESS ENERGY IS TRYING TO SAVE US.”

From Conscious Femininity by MARION WOODMAN (1928-2018), Canadian mythopoetic author, poet, analytical psychologist and women’s movement figure, published 1993.

Spiritual Promoters like Sidi put on a great outward SHOW of their Religiosity, yet, in the end, led others to despair, financial loss, and sexual victimization. 

Or to lose one's life and time following such a leader around, hoping for a repeat of the initial peak experience one had in the 'early days.'

And then, should we consider trying to leave, we lose the people who were important to us who remain 'in' the Cult we just left.  

And I include my son Ibrahim in that group. Even though he probably doesn't consider himself religious, he ultimately couldn't resolve the tension between myself and his cult-obsessed mother. 

He can't make the jump to see her obsession with Sidi is more like mental illness than the generosity and kindness towards all that is the mark of a person whose spiritual growth is matured.

So he's rejected me, as he has tried to do before. (I don't think it will bring the result he is seeking.  Because it's not based on Love--which he, and all of us, ARE seeking).

This is how and why I finally got up the nerve to write and publish all this.  I had nothing to gain from keeping it quiet anymore. At least I'm no longer a silent part of the con game.  It's a huge relief.

And to anyone who had losses due to Sidi, I am very sorry, and I hope you recover from them.

However, if anybody feels that contact with Sidi in such a way led them to a VALID spiritual connection, I am more than happy for them. In fact, I'm RELIEVED he helped somebody.  

I see that reflected in the case of some of my old-timer Fuqara friends, who are lovely, sincere people who probably benefited from not being in much actual contact with Sidi in his final years.

I think Sidi turned into an uninhibited predator after his wife died, but I don't really know -- (or, at this point, care).

 He may have lost his loadstone with her.

"God is closer to you than your jugular vein."- Muhammad (PBUH).

That's a quote with a decidedly mystical tone. Despite the often harsh, masculine tone of much of the Qur'an, at least to my thinking.

 I am not always comfortable with the image of God as a cosmic parent.  Although I sometimes feel I NEED that in moments of INTENSE Fear, Illness, or Brokenness.

I feel there is also a DANGER in objectifying God like that. 

A God 'Defined' is a God 'Confined.'  

To start talking about Him like that is to generate a Picture of God that isn't God.

That Picture is mostly what people think of when they think of God if they think about God at all.

THE END IS NIGH!

I can't get mortality off my mind for very long. The desire for transcendence is ingrained.

Not because I am especially virtuous, but because I'm SCARED!  

I am curious and frustrated that the Riddle of Existence has no easy answers. Although I'm convinced of its value and importance, I am also impatient with the pace of meditation.

Even MORESO, now that I am older and in increasingly poor health, as I approach the inevitable end of this incarnation.

And I can't understand why hardly anybody else seemingly feels the same.

My experiences with Sidi taught me what goes wrong when you base your belief system on a single, dramatic change in an otherwise mundane life.  

All the excitement I felt was because I really FOUND something substantial and good.

Today I simply FORGOT the same critical point that I had already learned about the dangers of committing one's life energies to another unknown and untested human being.

I thought that I didn't need to be cautious. Caution wasn't necessary. Wrong!

Well, maybe there's also a 'good side' to it.  I never would have learned about Buddhism if I hadn't ever ventured out of my comfort zone.

I had a soft upbringing with my parents, who loved me! Unfortunately, this upbringing left me unprepared for opportunists like Sidi.

I imagined that a spiritual teacher similarly had my best interests in mind.  I never DREAMED I would simply be USED as I had been by Sidi for promoting his own ends.

Even though, in the early days, there was no money requested, I was free to come and go to his house as if I were a member of his family.  Asking Sidi if we could come for the summer was mostly a formality. Unless there was a war imminent, the answer was always 'yes'.

(And I can remember both Aisha and I crying one summer when he forbade us to come for that reason. It touches my heart to remember those innocent times.)

He changed. I think he possibly turned to the dark side. Most of his followers today literally scare me.  

There is nothing scarier than someone who thinks they can play God. Whether it was Sidi forcing strangers to get married, or Aisha changing her children's father, or whomever it is selling unproven medical nostrums or multilevel marketing plans alleged to meet with Sidi's approval.

Well, it's too late for regrets now, but at least I'm wiser today. Sadder, but wiser. 

I also know that whatever wisdom I THINK I have found, I need to check it out my state with other sojourners. 

I love that the Buddha offered experientially-based teachings taken directly from his personal process.

 And how he avoided questions unrelated to the critical issue of the unavoidable, unspeakable sufferings that are all too likely to befall each of us in this life.

And the suffering of old age, sickness, death, and separation that are absolutely INEVITABLE.

When I first encountered the Buddhadharma, I should have stuck with it. Maybe it seemed too renounced to a guy in his 20s. 

I certainly discovered how utterly PAINFUL an 'Un-Renounced' life can be!

Maybe I'm making TOO MUCH out my failed marriage and incomplete parenthood experience because I DON'T GET IT that 'into every life a little rain must fall?'

Maybe all that was part of my process--my karma.

The mind can be a good friend, but it's a terrible master.  We HAVE to take the time to train it.

Teaching the mind to be one's friend is a good idea for me right now.  Many friends were and are on the same path as me today.  We're pledged to help support each other.  I'm not alone.

We all took refuge with the Buddha, His Teaching, and Each Other to be there for us as we go through, we hope, our own ego's dissolution.

And I love my Beloved Friend Jesus, too.  He reminds me of Unconditional Love's Beauty and Power.  How needed it is in the world and in our daily lives.  We Buddhists get a little cerebral sometimes.  

I think devotion can play a tremendous role in helping us keep our 'hearts open in hell.' 

The cool thing is that you don't need to believe anything to accept the possibility of Ego Dissolution. 

It will happen anyway, whether we like it or are prepared for it.  It's ALREADY in the cards for us.

So, prepare in advance and put 'Dissolve My Ego' at the top of your to-do list.

I used to think Life was all about finding and worshipping TRUTH in all caps--rather than just doing Truthful Acts and watching Truth gradually unravel itself as a consequence of my practice.

I hope to have time to realize that, and I hope you do, too. Could it really be this easy?  Acting our way into Good Thoughts?  I've no reason to believe otherwise. So, I'll see you on the Other Shore! Or are we already there?

Good luck!

The idea of a spiritual path that serves the needs of the individual above all else, that teaches real effective non-superstitious healing, that teaches the person to first love themself and to love others, to become healthy on all levels, that does not demand submission and obedience, that encourages exploration and adaptation, all as a prerequisite to the path of unfolding devotion, would be very revolutionary. I think humanity is moving towards these things, often in opposition to organized religion.

--Some Guy on Reddit

INTRODUCTION - "WOE UNTO YOU, BLIND GUIDES!!" Matt 23:16

The Author & Family, circa 1985

In the summer of 1979, I was 27 and on the last leg of a solo journey across Italy, Greece, and Israel/Palestine.  

My path randomly crossed that of a Palestinian Sufi Guide, Sidi Sheik Muhammad al-Jamal al-Rifai, at his family's apartment complex on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.

I moved into the zawiya* attached to his house with other Westerners and began studying there full-time. 

Within a few days and with his encouragement, I was initiated into his fuqara**  taking him as my Spiritual Guide or Sheikh.

  

A few days later, Sidi began a high-pressure campaign to marry me to a Canadian disciple staying in his zawiya—a woman I barely knew and certainly did not love. 

We hesitatingly did get married shortly thereafter.

14 years later, during Sidi's first visit to America, that woman, whom I shall call Aisha--(everybody gets a pseudonym here)--met another man more interested in following Sidi's teachings than I was. 

Whether it was that man's worshipful attention (he was a damnable, latter-day Rasputin, in my eyes), Aisha's excitement about Sidi's First American Tour (Woo-hoo!), or my own alcoholic spiral (probably a combination of all three), she decided she wanted a change.

Even though we had 2 young children.

She divorced me and seemingly substituted the New Guy as an 'alternative father' to our 11-year-old son.  

Rather than re-assuming her maiden name, Aisha quixotically changed her last name to 'Al-Jamal,' which was the same as Sidi's. 

It was a completely unprecedented and, as I saw it,  sadly delusional act.

Similar to suddenly naming oneself "Mrs. Elvis Presley" in hopes that a few gullible people might accept that obvious fiction as reality!

Or perhaps as her homage to some long-ago backstage encounter she'd had with 'The King' before He found His Priscilla!

She also entered ' Al-Jamal' on our children's school enrollment forms, which became my children's last name by default.  

Aisha did not seem concerned that changing OUR children's last name without the consent of their father was not her right.  She was, and still is, a hard-headed, determined individual thoroughly convinced she had the right to do anything she wanted to do with 'her' children.

 

She excluded and minimized me and my continued loving interest in the children in many similar instances. 

She had trouble with power sharing.  With EVERYBODY - not just me. 

But ESPECIALLY with me!

Gradually, she let go of her end of the visitation agreement, especially her portion of the rather- demanding degree of transportation required.  

And she didn't insist that the children spend the required time with me if they didn't want to.

She wore me down over time.   I became mostly a 'Disneyland Dad!'

Admittedly, I still had my own self-destructive addictions to deal with during the same period, which didn't help me make the wisest choices.

In the aftermath of the divorce, I pursued both sobriety and a second long-term marriage, mainly with success on both accounts. I'm grateful for that.

My son, Ibrahim, fell prey to tremendous anxiety after his parents' separation, but his mother and I were too caught up in our own problems and our issues with each other to be able to creatively and co-operatively help him.

He ended up with conflicted loyalties and long-term personal issues.  As well as rampant addiction issues which, hopefully are on the road to mending.

Sidi's cult gave me what I DIDN'T want - marriage to a TOTAL STRANGER...for an unknown purpose, and

TOOK AWAY what I DID WANT- my life with my CHILDREN!!

Still today, Aisha relentlessly dedicates herself to propagating Sidi's teachings and refuses to communicate with me on mundane matters.

As well as on life-and-death concerns.

'My way or the Highway,' much?  

Our 'Ex-House' in West Marin

Over time, I found I had a terrible disadvantage as the non-custodial parent.  

She was free to voice any negative opinions she may have had about me, and I could not answer them.

What I DID hear led me to believe she had a LOT of NEGATIVE OPINIONS.

She did, however, graciously consent to accept child support from me, and far in excess of the court-mandated amount. 

And receive the alimony I gave her, unbidden, and up until the last child turned 18 - FAR BEYOND the usual 2-3 years.  

To her credit, she evidently turned the creation and publication of Sidi's books into a successful business.

But Allah knows best!

All this because we put Sheik al-Jamal in charge of the most important decision of our lives: whom we should marry!

He had promised us a future relationship with the God and the World that would be more beautiful and fulfilling than anything we had ever experienced! 

Well, maybe she received that.  I'm still waiting.

I recall sitting in the Menlo Park Baptist Church before high school, during my Evangelical Christian phase.

 I had been told, and I believed, that all I needed to do to experience God directly was to SINCERELY turn my life and will over to Jesus as my personal savior.

I truly believed I was ready to do that, and I did try to do it. But God's response was...zilch.

WHY hadn't it worked?

Many years and several attempted 'surrenders' later, I tried it again, one last time, in the company of Sidi Sheik Muhammad.

I wanted to Blast Off to a Higher Dimension!

Once again came the big moment, where I surrendered my life.  This time, I got a new name, 'Yunus,' and a new partner and stepdaughter.  

But no perceived Blast-Off to some inconceivably magnificent Heavenly  PARADISE was in store!  Nope.

My life up to then wasn't really THAT BAD - just unfocused, lonely, and seemingly headed into the ditch of substance and sex addictions.

Perhaps my obsession with finding a Blinding White Light Escape was just another addiction.  A 'religious addiction'.

Or perhaps a mistaken assumption that a mystical experience and life was analogous to the psychedelic experiences my friends and I had been having.

A walk through Paradise that was full of Love, Wisdom, and Inconceivable Beauty and was ABSOLUTELY SAFE!  

Maybe DRUGS hinted that the spiritual states of the Mystics were just as VIVID and easily obtained.

     

Like me, I believed that Aisha truly wanted to give up control of her own life in the best sense of wanting to turn it over to SERVE God.  

I still think that impulse is a good thing. 

As I later came to realize, however, Aisha's domineering willpower, Narcissism, or whatever-other personal history had seemingly survived her attempted surrender.

Aisha could direct me to make choices I never would have made for myself - like pulling up my roots in Northern California and joining her in a life of a spiritual vagabond abroad.  

First, in Jerusalem, where Ibrahim was born in a poor, unsanitary charity hospital devoid of many of the usual accouterments of modern medicine, including appropriate infant formula.  

Where she suffered for days without the opportunity to wash up after the childbirth!

The journey continued with a tentative move to the UK with our newborn - where we delusionally hoped financial support would magically appear.  

(However, we had no official status and no idea what work I could find in a country with 14% unemployment).

At first, I thought there was some 'inner spiritual reason' for these and many similar theatrical changes Aisha proposed throughout our married life.  

And, as Aisha helpfully suggested, I assumed the problem was mainly that I didn't trust 'Allah enough'.  There's a classic hadith (saying) about this:

(The Prophet (PBUH) speaks of whether to 'trust Allah' or 'tie up one's camels'.)

After months of somber, solitary 'commuting' across the Atlantic to stay in my parents' house and continue my work in the U.S., she eventually relented and allowed us to return to America.

I discovered, too late, that I was a raging co-dependent willing to do almost ANYTHING to stay in a marriage that should have ended much sooner- had we had the foresight to forego getting pregnant for a few more years, first.

But that would have violated the 'Twin Flame' Magical Marriage scenario Sidi had arranged for us.  So, on with the babies!

Yet the undeniable reality was that we got married because our Spiritual Guide told us to, not because either of us really wanted it or especially felt the 'love' part yet.

And finally, our marriage came undone.

We might have tried consciously working on the marriage—perhaps in therapy. 

I had already begun therapy with the hope of staunching my overwhelming addictions.

Aisha hated the idea of therapy.

More than likely, I thought, she was too SCARED to go into therapy.  

And Sidi was skeptical, if not outright dismissive, of psychotherapy.  His attitude was medieval.  He thought it was a scam! 

Pretty funny, eh?  Considering...

Sidi kept trying to pound Westerners into the same hole the Easterners had been pounded into. And for centuries.

Addiction, to him, was a moral problem. 

Some people are just human magnets. 

Sidi was one, and my wife Aisha was another.  If you could get past her baleful exterior and ask her how to find God, she'd light up and become your new best friend!

Other people were drawn to her because of her reassuring,  honey-tongued, and dewey-eyed descriptions of the future 'spiritual walking' her listeners could have once they took Sidi's Sufi path.  

People Were Drawn to Her Idyllic Spiritual Promises

She sounded like she was already taking sunset walks on the beach with Jesus and Buddha, and she would love to introduce you to them!

She caused people to come, though not many decided to stay. 

It was still a daunting and ultimately unnecessary choice for most.

I remember one fellow who burst out of a meeting with her in our home in tears, saying, "But I thought you loved me!"

I didn't know what to make of that.  He COULDN'T have been expecting a love affair with her with me sitting in the next room, could he?

No, likely he had just seen through the disconnect between her promises of the Deep Secret Love Sidi talked about and her own stifled, damaged, and manipulative persona.

But I hadn't.  I thought her constant irritability and unhappiness were my fault.  It took me years to realize that she had no more of a clue about living a spiritual life in the world than I did.

She always sought new 'Beloveds' to feed her own 'conversion addiction.'  It really is a THING some people have. 

'New' converts CONFIRM one's own prior choices.  They stroke the 'Converter's' ego.  They get to feel, for a short period of time, anyway, that they REALLY DID make the right choice allinging themselves with their 'Group of Choice'.

This gives one's life meaning, although it leads to a false division of society into distinct camps of 'prospects' and 'irrelevant'.

Ultimately, Aisha overrode Sidi's authority and refused his order to stay in our marriage. 

It made me wonder why one should have a Spiritual Master at ALL if you aren't going to listen to him in the most critical of moments?

And Sidi seemed to let anybody do anything they wanted.  Himself included.

A decade after Sidi's death, Aisha still follows in his ghostly footsteps, trolling for new 'brothers and sisters' to share her dream of a coming spiritual awakening.

Even though Sidi's first and only zawiya in the West was burned to the ground in a California wildfire.

https://suficommunities.org/community-connections/the-land-at-pope-valley-ca/

Co-incidence?  Maybe.

And he and his ambivalent Shadhilliya co-sheik Nur-i-deen Durkee died and left no Successor(s) to any silsila** they represented.

Co-incidence?  We think NOT!

Although I consider Aisha to have been victimized by Sidi,  she lacked the ability or desire to reject him as I did.  

This is a predictable feature of cult membership - when EVERYBODY you know is involved in it, it's very difficult to break away and lose contact with your loved ones.

I understand this dilemma very well.  I wasn't really into Sufism in the later years of our marriage, but I feared the result of rejecting it.

In a way, Aisha ultimately resolved this conflict for me by rejecting me.

Ironically, while I'm grateful for that now, when it went down, it was so chaotic and painful.

And I wish, well, what's the point...?

Telling the story of it may affect her life and/or the lives of others.  I regret any unnecessary pain that may be caused.

But I'm also tired of feeling like I owe Aisha my silence. I don't owe her anything!

I'm fully paid up. More than paid up!

Yet, she is STILL the mother of my children.  I am very grateful for the beautiful children we made and raised together.

Though I have NO CONFIDENCE that Sidi's pushing us into marriage had any kind of Divine Instigation,  the marriage itself did 'keep me busy'.

It gave me a purpose and a beautiful stepdaughter.  I had LOTS to do!!

And until the 'Spiritual Vagabonds' phase began, it helped me totally forget about my 'old self' and its problems.

It scares me to imagine what Aisha's life must look like from the inside out.  

IMHO, she made a few bad choices, and rather than look like a fool and admit them, she doubled down on her mistakes.

Some part of me still wants to save her from herself.  I would be a good person to help her.  This may be my own co-dependence to think that way. 

Of course, we're not there yet.

It would be a miracle if we could ever calmly speak to each other again as human beings instead of stupid Archetypal Opponents.   

Or, if we could reminisce about our mutual children over an album of photos or a showing of home videos.

Like what everybody ELSE gets to do!

How can somebody devote their entire LIFE to religion and not know how to be civil to her children's dad, who worked to see them grow up and flourish as much as she did?

We can learn to live with the inevitable pain of life. I hope.

According to the Buddha, I've learned that while 'pain' is inevitable, 'suffering' is optional.

But first, we have to be stable human beings. Part of that means being in a balanced peer group, family, religion, etc.

I walked away from Sidi without much in the way of Words of Wisdom to remember. However, one of his brief asides stuck with me.

According to Sidi, Westerners Didn't Reach Out to their 
 Community for Help in Trouble.

It concerned how many troubled, lonely people Sidi saw in America. 

He said the difference between Americans and  Arabs was that when an American was deeply troubled, he or she turned inward and sought to hide from the World. 

(This is true. We're all so BUSY trying to look SUCCESSFUL and UNIQUE that we're ashamed to admit we have needs and sorrows!)

On the other hand, when an Arab had such a problem, he would run out into the street YELLING, "I'm in PAIN, I'm in PAIN!!" 

Fully expecting others to come to his aid.

I was unprepared for the lifelong upheavals that followed me through my casual meeting with and subsequent affection for Sidi Sheik Muhammad.  

Was he, in the end, just another fallen cult leader in a robe who ended up fleecing his followers and having sex with whatever women would agree to it?

Ick.

On the other hand, sometimes more than one thing can be true, and people are not always reducible to caricatures. 

"Man is born to Sorrow, as the Sparks Fly Up." (Job 5:7)

I had to stop letting someone else run my spiritual life, such as it was.

The first step for me through it all was Alcoholics Anonymous, which deserves a whole blog itself.  But suffice it to say, "It works!"

It gave me an entrance to an entirely new way to deal with the inevitable challenges in life, based on PERSONAL EXPERIENCE rather than JUST a set of obligatory beliefs demanded by a 'revealed' God in the Sky.

I've also reconnected with my earlier identity as a Buddhist, albeit a rather lazy one. 

I attend a wonderful church based on 'Unconditional Love' most Sundays out of respect for my family history and my resonance with Jesus' life as the Savior/Bodhisattva of the West!

As Ram Dass once said about apparently-contradictory religions and religious figures, "I believe that it's ALL TRUE, and if it's NOT, then that's IT'S PROBLEM!!"

Perhaps we already know everything we need to know- we just need to be constantly reminded of it!

I used to frequently yearn for things I could never have, such as the experience of being a meaningful co-parent throughout a child's life, from infancy to adulthood.

No longer.  I am happy to say I'm MOSTLY OVER wishing for a better past.

All anyone will ever have is the present.  The missing 'thing' we imagine will make us 'happy,' which usually doesn't—or not for long —if we obtain it.

Donald Trump still needs to be president for the third time, win the Nobel Prize, and be on Mt. Rushmore.

Sadly, virtually all of our daily reality is our dreary mental recollection of the past or future, positive or negative.

Don't believe it?  Close your eyes and count backward from 10.  Pay close attention.  How far do you get before your mind starts to wander?  I'm guessing '7', maybe '5' if you meditate already.

See what I mean?  We are utterly OUT of CONTROL of our OWN minds.  It's ridiculous! 

Time to stop feeling bad about ourselves and cultivate our ESCAPE from our HARSH monkey minds!

"Everything comes from the Mind Alone."  -- Dharma Master Hsuan Hua

No matter how much our perceived daily reality conforms with or disagrees with our plans or desires, we always have the option of Acceptance.

It's not always easy to live in this moment.  Like everything worth having, it takes practice.

For me, Buddhism represents the most comprehensive guide to finding the tranquility inherent in our human lives.

Mostly by simplifying, stilling the mind, practicing morality, and associating with the right people.

And the only 'belief' required is the simple belief that it will work.

There are many friends along the way willing to help, too.  More than I expected.

The penultimate human experience resembles more like 'waking up' to what has always been true.

Don't Mistake The Sign to the Truth AS the Truth!

Rather than trying to impose an acceptance of the narrative of any given religion, Book or Prophet as the Ultimate Truth.

Religion ideally provides the best of both worlds—sufficient 'signage' to keep one from veering off the path and ample 'openness' to enable the individual to encounter 'the Truth' as something unique.

However, as I have learned through experience, I need to take my latest, 'final' verdict on the 'ultimate spiritual experience' with a grain of salt.

Still, should anybody ask me, I would beg them, 

1.) Don't hand your life over to a Spiritual Guide!

Unless you are absolutely SURE you need one and have first thoroughly tested him or her

 --hopefully for a few years first.   

2.) SEEK HELP at the first sign of potential addiction.  Fantastic, free support is available through 12-step programs like AA or Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist-oriented program I work with. 

You may save yourself a lifetime of regret for the degrading things you will inevitably do during your active addiction.  And/or an early death from the physical consequences of substance addiction.

3.) Don't get married without love.

Unless you agree with that model in a traditional, arranged marriage culture.  

In both scenarios, marriage should enhance a happy life rather than serve as a desperate escape from an unhappy one!

Otherwise, you may end up as Aisha and I appear to each other today--The Worst Mistake we ever made!

Peace be With You!

                                                                        ++++++++++++

As you read this blog, please tap 'Older Entries' to maintain the temporal continuity.  Please visit the 'Glossary' at the back if you are unclear about the Arabic terms.

*  Zawiya - Place of Sufi study

** Fuqara- Sufi Group or Lineage

*** Silsila  -"Chain" of inherited or otherwise personally imparted authority over a given line of Sheikhs.