Healing work in the emotional domain MUST include a confrontation of this nafsani hosting. This is the premise of emotional work or what some call shadow work.
This confrontation of the part(s) of us that hold unto old grievances and wounds, old beliefs and judgments, and burden our entire beings with the accumulative load of its toxicity is a vital part of not only our emotional "growing up" but also our spiritual "waking up" and inner realization.
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Vitalistic paradigms of medicine are the original models of medicine. Not just romantically historical. Not merely traditional like a 19th century Ottoman jubba. Original, in the fullest and most respectful sense. We can even say vitalism is orthodoxy in regards to Islamic cosmology, ontology, and medical philosophy; adopted and incorporated by the greatest scholars of this Ummah through over a thousand years of rigorous intellectual debate, vitalism has earned its keep. And any claim to the contrary must come with tremendous and rigorous evidence to its aid.
[Photo is of the entrance of Maristan of al-Mu'ayyad, a Mamluk-era Islamic hospital from the 15th century in Cairo]
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When we have a culture that founds and prides itself on how much of the Sacred Wholeness of Creation it can reduce to a category and capitalize on (monetize, consummate into the consumer markets) we lose access to the rich interior experience of connection and unity of that Sacred Whole that is available and is longed for by every human heart.
My invitation to myself and all of you reading is that concurrent with our judgment of people in our world, we begin to develop a dual consciousness towards them, and from there towards all sentient beings, in which one holds to harmony and unity as organizing principles as well as the root-bed to a shared morality…
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Fear is one of the most powerful emotions that we have as human beings, and its effect on our hearts as well as on our physiology is profound. States of optimism and hope, where one is realistic and yet expectant of the good, are sought after in Din al-Fitra ( The Way of Wholeness) and embodied to perfection in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
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The loss of agency is one of the greatest causes of disease in the world. Especially of psycho-emotional disease, but, as elucidated in the video, disease fomenting in one part of the human constitution does not remain isolated therein but eventually permeates through the totality of one’s being. It can be said that by destroying a person’s will, we impair the very dynamis, the very animating force or soul, of that human being. I ask you, what can be more reprehensible than that?
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And the only question that will have any significance tomorrow morning is: what are you doing with your very human soul? With its own archetypal personality structure inbuilt with its own roses and shadows, the latter of which you know very well (I hope) is more gross than you make seem, and I make mine to seem... what will be *our* legacy?
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“Our emotional issues, our physiological symptoms, our spiritual vacancies are all specific expressions and compensations to the world we live in, and we need to be able to acknowledge and meet those issues at the root cause level if we are make any viable improvements to the health and well-being of our community. That may come in the form of diet and lifestyle change, natural medicines, specific spiritual practices, and others.”
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Imam al-Ghazali رضي الله عنه in numerous works of his teaches us that the murid al-sadiq [sincere seeker] must be equipped with two stores of knowledge by which he may successfully and safely traverse the Path to God; these two knowledges are of Fiqh [Sacred Law] and Tibb [Medicine].
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