"Spirituality" in dark times: Ruh on the leash of nafs
“The cult of our times, which is really the cult of ourselves, produces a general frame of mind as unfavorable to religion as anything could be, an inflation of the soul which is altogether incompatible with true intelligence, let alone spirituality.” Martin Lings
While authentic religion is about discriminating between the Real and all other realities, dark times spirituality is about attacking and damaging that crucial human faculty by and through which such discrimination is made possible. Dark times spirituality is "spirituality without religion" as it is now commonly known and celebrated, or it is what a typical Tik-Toking, Netflixing floating weed would proudly declare: "I am spiritual, but not religious". One has to struggle really hard to find a more terrible oxymoron! It is like desiring the fruit but condemning the tree that bears that fruit; it is like seeking the honey but remaining blissfully ignorant of the nectary flowers, the bees and the gardener. Says Charles Upton: "If you can get people to react with positive feelings to images of ugliness, you have damaged their ability to discern and respond to beauty; likewise, if you can induce them to accept obviously contradictory statements without noticing the contradiction, you have wounded their ability to recognize the truth."
While traditional esoterism (spirituality, or the inner core of authentic religion) is essentially about constant striving (jihad) to overcome the relative, the unreal, and to pine for union with the Absolute, the Real---a return to that from which we have been separated in a created world which is by definition finite, relative and therefore imperfect and un-real---dark times spirituality is the exact opposite: it aims for uprooting and fragmentation, dispersion and disorientation. After all, the word "religio" once meant "to tie" or "to tie back" to the Source and Origin---hence, union and return. In the former, we are like beads strung together on a necklace string; in the latter, the string is cut and we fall and scatter all over the place. In the former, we are like beings on the edge of a rim and all anchored, tied to the center through the spokes; in the latter, we are unhooked from the center, anchorless and wandering on the circumference of the rim: liking, sharing, following, influencing, streaming, uploading and downloading.
In these amnesiac dark times, religion and spirituality mean something entirely different from their traditional meanings. In the algorithmic spiritualties that are now meticulously packaged and efficiently promoted on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Netflix, to name just a few of the channels through which the bestial dictatorship of the nafs is disseminated and sustained, the traditional inner hierarchies in man are completely inverted: what the nafs now "likes" is equated with---if not considered superior to--- what the traditional intellect (nous, Spirit/Ruh) once comprehended and realized; what was once objective Truth is now so totally subjectivized and relativized---Instagrammed!--- that it is merely a matter of popularity contest; beauty, once held as "the splendor of truth', is now whatever that appeals to the uncultivated, passional nafs in its never-ending quest for instant gratification; goodness is pretentious sloganeering, sheer sentimentality, smug, "woke" posturing.
While traditional esoterism (spirituality, or the inner core of authentic religion) is essentially about constant striving (jihad) to overcome the relative, the unreal, and to pine for union with the Absolute, the Real---a return to that from which we have been separated in a created world which is by definition finite, relative and therefore imperfect and un-real---dark times spirituality is the exact opposite: it aims for uprooting and fragmentation, dispersion and disorientation. After all, the word "religio" once meant "to tie" or "to tie back" to the Source and Origin---hence, union and return. In the former, we are like beads strung together on a necklace string; in the latter, the string is cut and we fall and scatter all over the place. In the former, we are like beings on the edge of a rim and all anchored, tied to the center through the spokes; in the latter, we are unhooked from the center, anchorless and wandering on the circumference of the rim: liking, sharing, following, influencing, streaming, uploading and downloading.
In these amnesiac dark times, religion and spirituality mean something entirely different from their traditional meanings. In the algorithmic spiritualties that are now meticulously packaged and efficiently promoted on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Netflix, to name just a few of the channels through which the bestial dictatorship of the nafs is disseminated and sustained, the traditional inner hierarchies in man are completely inverted: what the nafs now "likes" is equated with---if not considered superior to--- what the traditional intellect (nous, Spirit/Ruh) once comprehended and realized; what was once objective Truth is now so totally subjectivized and relativized---Instagrammed!--- that it is merely a matter of popularity contest; beauty, once held as "the splendor of truth', is now whatever that appeals to the uncultivated, passional nafs in its never-ending quest for instant gratification; goodness is pretentious sloganeering, sheer sentimentality, smug, "woke" posturing.
Duniya al-Duniya
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