SPIRITUAL MESSINESS

By Phillip Gowins

”Balance is the keynote
of spiritual attainment.”

-- Pir O Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan came to the US from India in 1910, at the behest of his teacher, to bring Sufism to the West. He did not stay long in the US; instead traveled to the UK. After a brief sojourn in the UK he ended up living in Suressnes France. For 18 years he lectured and gave spiritual instruction to an ever-expanding group of students. What has always amazed me about his lectures is the astonishingly wide array of subjects that he discussed. These included everything from war to relationships plus, of course, much instruction in the spiritual life and how it relates to ordinary living. One of his constant subjects was balance, which always puzzled me.
Some forms of balance are obvious. Standing up is a form of balance. Finding the balance point of a long object, such as a ladder or a wooden plank, in order to carry it comfortably, is another. But that is not what he is talking about. He specifically says many times that the object of spirituality is a balanced life. But what does that mean?

A balanced life is not necessarily what our culture says it should be. Societies tend to want their members to conform to some abstract ideal, which is almost always restrictive. This is normal as societies and cultures have a need to protect themselves. However, this is not the best balance for the individual. Balance is not attained by conforming or restricting. A balanced life has two poles. One is living in the world and the other is a calm awareness of our celestial being.

People who follow some kind of spiritual path are apt to look up to the celestial spheres and take their clues for living from those realms. We tend to accept definitions of how we should live based on the assumptions of the particular spiritual society we happen to be in. Even though Sufism, to which I belong, is supposed to be without compulsion, people within it still create cultural assumptions and patterns of expected behavior. It is a natural tendency of humans to want to know that others around them have the same or a similar response to worldly events. We also want to know that when we say something the response will be within a certain framework. People doing real spiritual work tend to push against not only their general cultural restrictions, but also against the assumptions of their particular path. Their deep experiences often belie their conformity to the restrictions imposed by their culture, be it spiritual or secular, and that’s when things get messy.

“How did I rise above
narrowness?
The edges of my own walls began to hurt my elbows.”
– Pir O Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
We are, each of us, restricted in many ways. When our elbows begin to hurt we look around and wonder where the pain is coming from. If we are totally honest with ourselves, we will not blame those around us for this discomfort. As it happens, however, we do blame others. Blame can take numerous forms, from blaming our parents for traumas, real or imagined, to blaming a particular aspect of society for our problems. This blaming can focus on anything from governmental restrictions, to religious oppression, which we feel is harming us or holding us back. In almost all cases there will be some element of self-worth analysis. We demand that the world support our opinion of ourselves, so when we begin to look within, we get confused.
One thing I have is that spiritual training might not help much. Learning to meditate and to reach ever higher planes of consciousness may have a wonderful effect on your over all being, but the baggage we are all saddled with is not particularly affected. It is not all that uncommon for a person who has attained some kind of spiritual enlightenment to assume that all of their problems are automatically taken care of. Spiritual work does not guarantee an even, balanced personality. Ya gotta get down in there and work on it in a very basic way. Perhaps the most effective way is to never ever assume that who you think you are is complete. I have noticed that the people who are most effective in this work are those who never stop working on themselves; the people who are always willing to be the student, to learn from others and to be forgiving of their own and others’ foibles.
It’s a messy world, with all sorts of problems to face. Maybe that’s what makes it so very interesting, if you allow it.

Phillip Gowins will conduct a workshop on Sufism on September 9th at Labyrinth Centre in Marietta, GA. For more information, please contact Molly Wender (404) 256-1853 or
mollyywender@bellsouth.net.