Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Essentials of Islamic Spirituality- What is Spiritual Struggle that Sufis Speak About
AI: Summary ©
The importance of spiritual struggle is highlighted, with a focus on eliminating the habit of love for comfort and luxury. The struggles involved include physical, mental, and political struggles, including abandonment, sleepiness, and desire for luxury. Representatives are advised to avoid harams and distractions, manage behavior, and start with a study rather than taking a class. There is also a course on learning Islam and taking an observation course.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.
Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammad
wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'ina amma
ba'd.
So, we have discussed in the previous session,
we have discussed the need for spiritual struggle,
and what exactly is spiritual struggle, so he
had discussed that.
Now, there's a very important clarification he provides
with regards to spiritual struggle, which is the
need for moderation in spiritual struggle.
Because some people, they get overexcited, they get
very, very excited about struggle, or they think
it's really, really something that you must do
all the time, so then they start neglecting
their duties, and sometimes they go overboard, so
they get overwhelmed, and then that becomes actually
harmful.
So, sometimes going overboard is actually a work
of the Shaytan, because his idea is that
if you overdo it, you'll get tired, so
you'll stop doing any kind of spiritual struggle.
Happens to a lot of people, the burnout
happens to a lot of people.
So, he says, this is on page 37
of the book that we're reading, The Path
to Perfection, for some reason he's showing us
the other way around.
The purpose of spiritual struggle is not to
depress and frustrate the lower self.
So, your nafs, it's not to make you
frustrated, but to habituate the lower self to
make efforts.
So, you don't want to, you know, this
is like teaching students or something like that,
if you're trying to train them, you don't
want to get them frustrated that they think
they can't achieve it, so then they just
rebel and don't even want to study anymore.
You want to do it so that you
train them to be better.
So, it's the same with the nafs as
well.
So, the purpose is to habituate and accustom
the lower self to the effort and to
eliminate the habit of love for comfort and
luxury all the time.
For this purpose, that amount of spiritual struggle,
that amount of spiritual struggle is sufficient, which
brings some difficulty to bear upon the lower
self.
So, it's saying that you need to do
enough that it provides a bit of difficulty,
not too much difficulty, just a bit of
difficulty.
And if you don't have any difficulty at
all, you can't improve, because for most people,
mashallah, there are some people, like a minority,
that they call them in Urdu, meaning that,
I think that's what they call them.
Basically, they've literally been born awliya.
So, they are just, mashallah, they are just
totally predisposed, you know, to this way and
to do good deeds, and they're always looking
out for it, and you don't have to
encourage them at all.
You just need to tell them and they'll
do something.
And they always want to do it, they
find it very easy.
Unfortunately, that's a minority.
For this purpose, that amount of spiritual struggle
is sufficient, which brings some difficulty to bear
upon the lower self.
It is of no benefit to expose excessive
strain on the lower self and frustrate it.
Excessive strain will render it useless.
Understand this well.
Effort and trial are not always meritorious.
The purpose is not the effort, that's just
the means.
Trials, difficulties, challenges are not the means.
They're not by themselves rewarding, but the way
you deal with them is what's rewarding.
Now, if you're putting yourself under fitna, then
that's wrong anyway.
The Prophet saw somebody standing up with a
rope and helping him stand up with the
rope.
He said, what are you doing?
Why are you doing that for?
It is desirable if it is in moderation
and resulting in beneficial progress.
Excess in spiritual struggle is contemptible.
Hence, observance of moderation is a must.
Shaykh Sa'di al-Shirazi, may Allah have mercy
on him, echoed this in the couplet, eat
not so much that it spills from the
mouth.
You're stuffing your mouth and it's like all
over the place.
You've got so much food, you're trying to
do this.
Eat not so little that the body is
overcome with weakness either.
You're eating so little, you can't even survive.
Recently, somebody, and this is available everywhere, somebody
just basically showed some of the problems with
decadent culture, usually in the West.
You've got this group of five, six young
men with bottles of beer.
And the challenge is for all of them
to drink like 10 bottles of beer or
something.
And what they're doing in this garden is
they're all drinking.
And then most of them are puking it
out, but then they're drinking the rest.
They're puking it out.
They're literally just bellowing it out.
And you're just wondering this.
It's a miserable way of doing something and
it just shows.
But I guess there's nobody to speak about
that kind of decadence.
It doesn't count as maal, but for them,
they've spent money to get it.
Now, it's not maal anymore.
For them, it's maal.
For the Nasara, it is maal.
Okay, Allah Most High says in the Holy
Qur'an, in the Noble Qur'an actually,
the servants of Allah are those who, when
they spend, do not waste nor become miserly.
But between these extremes of waste and miserliness,
they are moderate.
Moderation is therefore to be observed in spiritual
struggle, but this moderation should not be prescribed
according to one's opinion and desire.
The degree of moderation and the method of
struggle should be taken from a spiritual master.
Because if you're going to decide for yourself
what's too much and what's too less without
any experience, you're probably going to do the…
If you're a person who's given to extreme,
you're probably going to go extreme and thinking
it's okay, I can do this.
And there's some people, they're just literally killing
themselves for nothing because they have a very
harsh demeanor about themselves.
And there's some people who are, which probably
would be most people, they'll just be given
to really relax, though I can't do that.
So they'll do just a little bit.
So it needs to be somebody, it needs
to be like a prescription almost, that you
go to the doctors, you go to your
spiritual guide and say, this is what my
issue is.
So he tells you, do something.
After a week or two, you report back
and say, this is what's going on, they
should adjust accordingly.
Okay, now, what are the types of spiritual
struggles?
There are two types of spiritual struggle.
One is physical and the second one is
opposition.
So physical is, this is the imposition of
practices upon the lower self in order to
accustom it to difficulties.
You put basically challenges, physical challenges to yourself
that I need to do this much extra
nawafil and so on.
For example, accustoming the lower self to prayer
by imposing upon it nawafil prayers in abundance.
I'm going to do ten extra rakats a
day.
I'm going to do salat al tasbih every
day.
I'm going to make sure I do my
tahajjud every day.
Or reducing the greed of the lower self
by means of abundance of nawafil fasts.
The second type of spiritual struggle is opposition,
which means to not do something that you
would do.
In this type of struggle, the lower self
is opposing its desires.
When the lower self urges one to commit
a sin, opposition is offered.
The main type of spiritual struggle is the
second kind.
That's the difficult one.
The first one is even easier actually than
the second one.
To do extra nawafil is easier than to
avoid things because the nafs is loving that
thing.
It's actually easier sometimes to force the nafs
to do something than to not do something.
Because usually to do something, there's also other
elements of feeling accomplished, showing somebody else that
I'm doing ten extra rakats, or telling somebody
that I've done ten extra rakats.
Whereas if you're abandoning something, which is usually
a wrong, you don't really tell people that
anyway.
Except Alhamdulillah, Allah has given me the tawfiq
to stop X, Y, and Z sins.
So the first type is employed in order
to actually attain the second type, the second
kind.
When the lower self becomes accustomed to difficulties,
it will develop the habit of controlling its
desires.
You have to give it some difficulties.
You can't expect, if somebody can't even pray
once, until you don't undertake a difficulty, reschedule
all of your work and everything, there's no
way you can do salat five times a
day.
For that person, it's too much.
But it's necessary, so there's no negotiation.
When he's talking about spiritual struggle, he's talking
about beyond the obligations.
That's what he's saying.
Those who possess the ability to control their
desires without resorting to physical struggle, meaning the
second type of physical struggle, are not in
need of this first type of struggle.
However, because such people are extremely few, because
anybody who can avoid harams, do the second
type, they actually don't need the first type
either, because they'll probably find that very easy
to do.
They're most likely going to go in hand.
If you can avoid harams, most likely you
should be able to do good.
I don't know if that's concomitant and necessary,
but it seems so.
But maybe in some cases you can avoid
haram, but you don't feel like doing extra
rakat and nawaf.
But then that depends on why you're avoiding
the haram.
Is it because it's just not available, or
because you like it, but you still can't
get it?
There's a lot of other possibilities here.
But let's just take his word for it
now.
But then he says, as I said in
the beginning, however, because such people are extremely
few who have that kind of discipline, very
few people, the Sufis have stringently adopted physical
struggle as well.
For most of their murids, they're going to
say, you need to do it.
According to the Sufis, physical, spiritual struggle consists
of four fundamental argans.
So that first category, it's usually made up
of elements from these four categories, meaning the
physical struggle.
Number one, eating less.
There's definitely a correlation between eating too much
and the rise in passion, becoming lethargic, becoming
heavy and weighty, becoming gassy, feeling less fresh,
aside from the type of food as well,
which has an effect on the spirituality as
well.
Number two is, because a lot of the
physical things that we have to do is
going to come from some things that we
say.
Some reactions could be caused or a lot
of the sins that we commit are going
to be also from talking too much sometimes,
which then becomes an abstinence.
And number three, sleeping less, sleeping less.
When you sleep less or you don't sleep
on time or you don't sleep in a
routine, then usually the body needs sleep.
Essentially, it needs a routine sleep.
It doesn't go off balance.
And when the body goes off balance, usually
the first thing you're going to avoid or
stop doing are religious practices, because for us
they're Nafla practices, optional practices.
You're not going to miss your food, usually.
Sometimes you do that as well, if you're
really, really tired, you don't want to eat.
But sometimes eating actually helps you sleep.
So sleeping less.
When he says less, he doesn't mean five
or three hours a night.
It just means don't go beyond, I would
say, seven to eight hours.
Don't go beyond that.
Illatul ikhtilat ma'al anam, associating less with
people.
He's essentially decreasing your meeting with people because
that definitely creates a lot of room and
excuses to do mistakes.
One who fully acquires these four qualities and
becomes accustomed to observe them will attain the
ability to control their lower self.
That doesn't mean that you don't meet anybody
at all and you become a recluse.
It just means that wherever necessary, you're teaching
a class.
You do that.
But you don't have to always hang out
in a cafe or your friend's house or
call them over and just basically spend the
whole time in discussing and gossip and wasting
time and playing carrom board and monopoly and
snooker and pool and computer games and whatever
else there is.
Or watching something.
You will be in a strong position to
check the evil desires of the lower self.
This is a remedy.
You have to start with these four.
Spiritual struggle against the lower self in its
urge to sin is acquired when the lower
self is opposed to a certain degree.
You can never get control over yourself without
opposing it first.
Because it wants to do whatever it wants
to do.
If we never oppose it and let it
do whatever it wants, then you can never
tame it, even in its lawful desires.
Meaning you have to oppose it sometimes even
in its lawful desires or in excess.
Refusal to fulfill immediately the desire of the
lower self for some delicious food, for example.
Its urge for such food being rebutted and
only fulfilled after vehement desire so that the
lower self does not become frustrated.
So try to avoid it.
Try to avoid it.
But sometimes I know I want to have
that burger.
I want to have that cheesecake.
I need to have that pizza.
Like I'm getting frustrated.
I can't think anymore.
I won't be able to teach my class.
I won't be able to sit in class
properly and listen.
I need to have that big, massive bottle
of milkshake.
Right.
Okay, then finally go and give it up.
Like do it.
Because slowly, slowly the benefit is that you
resist it for two hours.
So next time you resist for three hours,
inshallah, or four hours, and eventually you'll give
it up.
When one becomes accustomed to oppose the lower
self in all things lawful, like these are
lawful things, right?
To have chocolate, unless you say sugar is
a poison, then I guess that's a different
fatwa there, right?
Because now there are people calling to say
that eating sugar, sugary things, is like smoking.
But nobody says that because it's not the
custom to say that yet.
That would be a different issue.
Then you would become relatively simple to oppose
the sinful urges of the lower self.
A person who grants his lower self absolute
freedom in lawful things will at times not
be able to suppress the urge for sinning.
Because the car just goes.
You can't help it.
Alright, so may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
make that easy for us and strengthen us
and assist us in this regard.
The point of a lecture is to encourage
people to act, to get further, an inspiration,
an encouragement, persuasion.
The next step is to actually start learning
seriously, to read books, to take on a
subject of Islam and to understand all the
subjects of Islam, at least at their basic
level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us.
And that's why we started Rayyan courses, so
that you can actually take organized lectures on
demand whenever you have free time.
Especially, for example, the Islamic essentials course that
we have on there, the Islamic essentials certificate,
which you take 20 short modules.
And at the end of that, inshallah, you
will have gotten the basics of most of
the most important topics in Islam and you'll
feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind.
You can continue to listen to lectures, but
you need to have this more sustained study
as well.
Jazakallah khair.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.