Having understood the importance of the spirit (Ruh) and the spiritual life, it is natural to
pursue our discussion with this topic, the spirit. The issue of spirit is one of the
oldest problems confounding the human mind. Even the earliest human beings were aware of a
non-material entity within them. They were aware of different states and levels of
consciousness in their lives, and by comparing sleep and death with their normal awake
state reached some preliminary conclusions. They were also cognisant of the fact that
humans are different from animals, with the latter lacking free will and wisdom. Animals
just seemed to follow their instincts. They also thought about dreams. Dreams which came
true were especially intriguing. Without being able to articulate it, they had an inkling
that this might be the result of a part of the Person taking leave, traversing the future.
As human societies developed, such problems were delegated to
philosophers who were good at thinking and reflecting. Philosophy confronted the issue by
first asking: Is the spirit material or non-material? In other words, is this phenomenon
part of our bodies or not? Material things have specific properties, for instance they can
be divided into smaller parts which can also be divided into parts once more, ad
infinitum, if the means were available. They also knew that if a person lost a limb, he or
she was essentially the same person, with a handicap. Their notions of themselves did not
seem to suffer in the process. Thus, many philosophers concluded that the soul is
independent of the body. This theory was further strengthened when they considered the
notions of "I", "mine" and "me", as distinct features of the
person. Is the person, this unit of a human being, material or non-material?
As noted with the loss of limb example, philosophers knew that humans
even after losing parts of themselves were the same. We all seem to have an understanding
of ourselves as a whole, as something which is not divisible, and which is simple and not
compound. When we get our hair cut, we do not feel any less afterwards. That which remains
besides our body and is not on the floor of the barbershop is what we are after.
Let us use another example to help clarify this illusive topic. When a
person commits a crime, especially a heinous one such as masterminding mass killings, as
the Nazis did in WWII, he is expected to be brought to justice, even if he committed the
crimes half a century ago.
Science tells us that the average person's body cells are nearly all
renewed every six years. For all practical purposes we are not physically the same person
we were, say ten years ago. Why then should the Nazi officer, whose body bears little
resemblance to the one which carried out the atrocities, be apprehended, tried, and
punished? We intuitively understand that we are not losing some parts of our being which
must be replaced. The unity of identity which we feel is not justified only through
physical continuity.
So there seems to be universal recognition of the fact that, what
animates a person is ultimately constant, and is held responsible for the whole of the
person body and spirit. Because the two are so closely interwoven, and because we humans
are so deeply anchored in this physical, material world, we tend to identify with the body
rather than the spirit. In Islam there is no doubt that the spirit is the essence of the
person, and the body a vehicle for the manifestation of the soul in this world, and
a means for its works.
There is a set of reasons proving the existence of the spirit through
the study of our knowledge. If we prove that our knowledge is not material, it will be
clear that we are not merely bodies. For example, it is obvious that a greater thing
cannot be placed in a smaller thing. A big box can easily accommodate an smaller one put
into it. The reverse does not hold. Then imagine gazing at a beautiful forest for a while,
savouring all that stands before you. Later on when you remember the experience with all
its grandeur, little thought is given to the size of the forest, which is, in a way, now
stored within your memory. Whatever one might call it the idea, picture, or the experience
of the forest fits neatly within a person's mind which is rather limited in size. We
wonder how a forest, with all its characteristics and size can fit into our consciousness.
The problem is not solved if we imagine small microfilms, for instance,
which are pictures of what we see, and are in one way or another, stored in our minds.
Even extremely small microfilms have dimensions, which, when added together, would soon
leave no more room in our minds for anything else. Also when you have
microfilms you are in need of some means to be able to interpret those
microfilms, You also need some ability to understand things in their real sizes. There is
a difference between seeing a small picture of a forest and seeing the forest itself.
This is a rather difficult issue which has puzzled many of scientists.
As a matter of fact, when a survey of top scientists, including Nobel laureates, was
conducted recently, the vast majority, when asked what will be the most important field of
research in the next decade, gave psychobiology as the answer.
It is somewhat well understood that neurones in our brains, through
sensors, spread out like roots, pulses, electrical signals, if you will, by which they
interact with billions of other cells. Brain waves are this measured, charted, and
studied. Yet the nature of information storage is not well understood.
The repeated actions of a person, for instance an athlete after intense
training which involves repeated motions of the same kind, do indeed leave physical traces
in the physiology of the brain; as a stream of water would after running down the same
path for a while. This enables the athlete to perform extremely difficult tasks without
"thinking" or great effort at co-ordination. Yet this explains only part of the
process. This is the wiring system, so to speak, and not the process of cognition,
information storage, and retrieval. In what form the athlete's skills are stored is still
not understood.
The question occupying many minds is: Is the physical brain the gateway
unto something else, or is it all there is, and the end Of all that has to do with
cognition? I hope we have understood how to answer this question without being engaged in
technical discussions of philosophy. There are many other ways to prove that knowledge is
not material. For example, knowledge is not changeable, but every material. thing is. For
instance, today is Saturday. You have the knowledge that you are reading a book on
self-knowledge this day. This knowledge is true today. When you think of it tomorrow, it
will be the same. Your knowledge about this particular book will be the same after a week,
a year, or say even twenty years after. When you forget something what this really means
is that particular data have been lost which cannot be easily retracted tom the memory
storage. By no means does it mean that your knowledge has altered.
Let us consider another situation. For instance, you have a friend whom
you met two years ago. You have formed his image in your mind. When you think of that
particular encounter, his mage crosses your mind with precisely the same details. Nothing
has affected the image of your friend in your brain. If you were to turn into him on any
given street now, you would still identify your friend with the same image that you had
previously stored in your brain, If any metamorphosis took place within that particular
acquired knowledge, you would not be able to recognise him.
However, you should know this fact that no data is lost at the
unconscious level of your mind, even if you cannot recall some of our memories. It is
important that you realise that the data have been safely stored in your memory. Whatever
forms of experiences you have had in your life, they are in your memory. Now, in order to
enable you to recall or extract those data, you need some mental training and practice. We
will not elucidate this matter at this stage. What we want to say is that it is possible
to lose knowledge at the conscious level of understanding and it is possible to feel that
knowledge has become faded. For example, the details of the image of that person may be
lost, but you still remember him to be that person. This shows knowledge is not material,
because all material things change.
It is true that a huge solid mass of a substance cannot be fitted into
or occupy a small vessel, a container or a receptacle, and so is the fact about our
knowledge which can neither change nor be segmented in small portions. All these facts
prove knowledge is not material. Therefore, we as owners of that knowledge cannot be
material. It's not possible to suppose we are material, as we are owners of a non-material
thing, the knowledge.
There is yet another way of proving this fact. Let's ask ourselves
whether a material thing like a pen has knowledge about itself or about the external world
around it. You will definitely say no. We know, for instance that the outer surface of a
pen is not at all aware of its inner surface, or vice versa. The same condition applies
when we talk of the relation between two or more pens. Therefore, it is irrelevant to say
that these are the Parts of the same pen; or for that matter, these parts are of one book;
the book is not one single thing. It is made up of many things, many atoms which are
gathered in something which, is apparently one but not really one. Even if it were one it
would have no knowledge about itself.
In the excerpt of late Imam Khomeini's historical letter to Gorbachev
(31/12/1988), the Imam raised a philosophical point on material and non-material worlds.
The late Imam drew Gorbachev's attention to the logical comparison of the soul, a
non-material entity, and a statue, a material entity. Imam Khomeini was of the opinion
that not everything could be analysed and justified through matter. Therefore, Imam
Khomeini asked Gorbachev to consider for instance a statue which possesses no knowledge.
Every side of the statue is hidden from the either side.
This should be discussed philosophically, but it can be understood
without this. So, a material thing has no knowledge about the entirety of its being and it
also has no knowledge about the external world. But this is not the case with human
beings. A human being has knowledge about himself, even when thinking about a problem in
philosophy, mathematics, history, etc. When you have awareness about yourself, then, you
also have awareness about the external world.
There are also experimental reasons to show the existence of the
spirit. I am sure you have heard quite a bit about hypnotism. It is related to the
invocation of one's soul to do something. Hypnotists make a person go to sleep, and then
he gets that person to do something. The hypnotist is able to ask the person under
hypnosis to execute his orders. For example, he can ask him to go back ten years and
explain what happened when he was at school. He can even get the medium to speak a
language he does not know; or sometimes hypnotism is exploited as an instrument to find
out what is happening in other places, For instance, a person under the influence of
hypnotism is sent to his place of residence and asked to describe what his or her mother
is doing. The medium gives a detailed description and then the mother is asked to describe
what she has been doing at that particular time, and her description fits with that of the
medium. Hypnotism is also used to cure some mental disorders. It can also be used as a
means of entertainment.
This is not to say that every person who claims to have such an art is
capable of doing so. Their claims may not be genuine. They may pose as impostors who would
like to swindle some money out of some simpletons. However, hypnotism as a science and
practice cannot be rejected because of the fact that it has some applications in the field
of medicine to cure some forms of mental derangement.
There is something else called spiritualism not in the sense of
philosophy but a branch of science in parapsychology. People claiming some powers of
spiritualism say that they can summon the spirits of the dead through a medium. For
example, the spirit of a person's grandfather who died two or three decades ago can be
summoned through a medium to speak to him. The spirit can be asked to give the exact
location of something like the lost picture of the grandmother. He can even be asked to
give the details of his murderer in some mystery murders. It has been proved that some of
these stories disclosed by the medium have been found to be authentic.
It is said that today more than a hundred magazines are published
around the world on the subject of spiritualism by the spiritualist societies. All of them
believe in the existence of the spirit and they claim that they can have contact with the
spirits. I do not want to say that all of them are true, but this fact cannot be ignored.
It is better to give examples from the lives of our own scholars.
Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husain Tabatabai the author of Al-Mizan a great commentary on the
Glorious Qur'an (20 volumes), had a brother, who was called Sayyid Muhammad Hasan Ilihi,
and this brother was also one of the great scholars. Ilahi had a student who was able to
summon spirits. However, his brother did not disclose that he practised this
parapsychological science. It is a custom among great scholars to observe and keep low
profile in the areas where they have extraordinary supernatural powers. Ilahi, the brother
of Allamah Tabatabai said that at times he had some questions and problems in the
comprehension of some ideas in philosophy and he needed to discuss those problems with the
original source. His student used to come to his rescue by recalling the spirits of great
philosophers and through him, Ilahi used to clarify and solve the riddles in philosophy.
But his student was not aware of those solutions since he was not a master of philosophy.
It is interesting to observe that a real arif (gnostic) can easily
control supernatural phenomena and can even attain a rank where he can control everything
in the universe. However, he considers these things of no importance. These practices are
within the reach of students of ifran (mysticism). The gnostic masters consider these
attainments as very elementary and rudimentary. Those who possess high mystical ranks can
easily read your mind. They can predict the events taking shape in totally different
surroundings precisely. Therefore, it is not strange that the student of Ilahi was able to
summon the spirits.
Siyyed Jalal al-DinIn Ashtiyani gave a special interview, published in
Kayhun Farhangii. In the interview, Allamah Ashtiyani said that once he had contact with
the spirit of Hakim Sabzevari who recited a couplet of Mawlawi from the Mathnawr which
could not be found in the copies at Allamah Ashtiyani's disposal. Finally, through
studies, Allamah Ashtiyani learned that a man from the West had found a copy of the
Mathnawi which contained the couplet.
So this phenomenon of being able to make contact with the spirit of the
dead is a very common practice. It bears no special weight and is insignificant to our
scholars and our ulama. They do not, at the same time, want to speak about these matters
because they say that if they did so, it would cause some unnecessary complications. They
do not want to resort to such practices to avoid publicity as well as people's harassment.
Consequently, they try to cover these facts. Only the closest friends may become aware of
these practices. This issue may be raised in public for very specific purposes on very
rare occasions.
The late Imam Khomeini was skilled in 'irfan in theory and practice.
However, he never gave himself the airs of possessing such an insight. Only some of his
students who were in his service related some things about him. They even confessed that
they had difficulty in perceiving those aspects of his mystical practices. The Late Imam
was an 'arif of a very special rank. He possessed such high traits that he never bragged
about himself nor did he attribute any special quality to himself. The great Imam Khomeini
was an arif in the real sense. The Imam has left a treasure of works in the field of
irfan.
Ifran is divided into two major branches. There is practical ifran and
theoretical ifran Theoretical irfan is treated as a science whose subject matter is Allah.
Practical irfan studies how to get close to Allah and what the stages on the mystical
journey are. Those skilled in these branches have studied many things in irfan They can
teach it, but there exists a possibility that they may not be practising arifs It may be
due to the fact that they have not reached certain station on the mystical journey.
Perhaps they are ordinary beings merely in possession of some knowledge which they can
transmit on mysticism.
Having both the practical and theoretical knowledge Simultaneously, if
put into practice, leads us towards understanding Almighty Allah's Infinite Wisdom and His
Endless Attributes to be able to be honoured with His everlasting blessings to His most
amiable lover, His most obedient servant and His complacent slave if our soul totally
submits to His Will, and His Injunction.
We have earlier discussed the subject of spirits. We proved the
existence of the spirit as a non-material reality. We also said that it is our spirit or
soul which makes our personalities, and the body is not as important as the soul. The body
is just a receptacle or carcass that carries our spirit. Sometimes the scholars and
philosophers compare the body and the spirit to a mount: a mule or a horse. Our soul
intimately co-ordinates with our body and effectively uses it as a means in the
performance of different tasks.
It is possible for the soul to reach a position and a stage where it
becomes totally independent of the body. This stage can be materialised as a reality once
a person begins to strengthen his soul through worshipping Allah, his obedience to Him,
and the performance of religious duties. If one persists in these practices, his
dependence on the material world will decrease as his soul progresses towards the Divine
kingdom through his spirit's sanctification. Thus, his soul gradually alienates itself
from the physical body.
Many of the mystics and great scholars were able to experience ethereal
travel. They would sometimes look at their own bodies. For example, some reported that
when they saw their bodies for the first time they thought that they were looking at
another person, but after a while they understood that they were looking at their own
corporeal bodies.
A very famous and respected scholar from Mashhad, Mirza Jawad Aqa
Tehrani(c. 1919-1989) in one of his books says: "The best reason to prove the
existence of the spirit) is to see the spirit out of the body. This is for those who had
this opportunity and I once have personally seen my spirit ,i.e., myself before my body
just as I now see myself before my clothes which I have taken off and are before my eyes.
"
This scholar was very religious and committed, and his son relates that
his father was once sitting in the yard and after a while he stood up and went to his
room. After a while he come back. His son asked him why he returned. He said that he had
seen some ants on his clothes and realised that they were from the yard and he was afraid
that had he returned to the room, those ants would have lost their way. Consequently he
came back to the yard to put them back in the same place. Then he returned to his room. It
can be concluded that these pious people took care of every detail of their minute actions
to attain the lofty positions and special spiritual ranks.
We can deduce that it is not at all difficult to prove the existence of
the spirit as we did in our previous discussion. We can now draw this conclusion that
since our spirits are "on-material, and since our personalities and our real entities
are principally shaped by our non-material spirit, our comprehension of the knowledge of
the self clearly demonstrates that we should emphasise our spiritual needs more than our
material needs. Evidently, we should focus more on the spiritual side of the self than on
our corporeal body.