Doubt is generally considered a weakness, but it can also be strength, and a function of renewal.
We seek approval. We like to belong with people/groups that resonate with our ideals. We are trying to order the puzzles of our experiences into some coherence that guides our purpose and actions, and gives our life meaning. And who does not cherish the moments when all feels perfect? Yet only traces of perfection live on in the heart, because life moves on.
An invocation by Hazrat Inayat Khan used to intrigue and troubled me …
‘Towards the One
The perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty
The Only Being
United with all the illuminated souls
Who form … the Spirit of Guidance …’
Perfection is not of this world, I told myself. And yet, the above invocation gains power in the context of how Hazrat Inayat Khan defines ideals:
‘The ideal is the means – its breaking is the goal.’
His grandson, Fazal Inayat-Khan, put it in another way:
‘With faith one attains and realises peace and harmony.
With doubt one destroys and gains freedom to move ontowards.’
It could be a safe space we aspire to, since once expelled from the warm womb, we struggle to find a similar space in this world. Whatever else we aspire to, it takes discipline, consistency, and perseverance to work towards one’s ideal.
Through discipline we acquire a basic understanding of things. In spiritual terms, this is also the challenge of the Buddhist Hinayana and Mahayana practices.
But what if we have proudly gained a level of certainty, be it about our achievements, identity, position, faith? And what if we cling to that certainty – at all costs – numbing the chattering of our minds? How do we escape a stagnant reality, the prison of certainty?
Chögyam Trungpa, in his lectures on Tantric Wisdom says doubt is ignored on the path of discipline, but during a further stage, Vashrajana (Crazy Wisdom,) confusion, and creepy questions about our truth are legitimised, and offer enormous potential. Allowing doubt – and including that doubt is part of our progress.
In a book of gathered lectures, ‘Journey Without Goal,’ Trungpa points to a fearless attitude.
My former Sufi teacher and friend, Fazal Inayat-Khan, operated in the realm of Crazy Wisdom. Some of his students understood where he was coming from, while others were super annoyed. I’m still inspired by Crazy Wisdom, but having lost my Sufi friend, I lack the courage to travel this goal-less path alone.
Teachers of that kind, who live life with fearless intensity, move on as soon as their purpose is done, they never grow old.
The theme of Crazy Wisdom, in the sense of stepping into the unknown, is challenging my imagination now in the third book, ‘Mesa,’ I’m writing in the Odyssey of Course of Mirrors. It’s about Mesa’s return to her future perfect world, where time has come to a near standstill. Against all logic, but understanding the truth in her heart, she is tasked to bring back history, and friction, as a cure.
Photo: The image was taken by son, Yeshen Venema, during a visit to Vietnam. I added the clouds 🙂
A few days ago, waking at dawn, I had retained a dream vision:
Maybe the dimension of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall could suffice, but only a Turner price gets you there. In case you don’t know, the Turbine Hall is the place that allowed visitors to touch the sun, like my son did during an Olafur Eliasson’s weather project exhibition a few years ago.
Normally, a writer’s work is condensed and hidden between the neat covers of a book, or captured on e-book screens, one click by one click. The concept of spreading the pages out in real space fascinates me, and ideas keep tumbling in. Like making the text respond to the concentration of the reader, or the lack, in which case sentences would ripple, as if floating on water.
Course of Mirrors 