7/31/2022

FROM UTOPIA TO DYSTOPIA — AND THE WAY OUT

 

 

“Utopias now appear much more realizable than one used to think. We are
now faced with a different new worry: How to prevent their realization.”

— Nikolai Berdyaev, The Philosophy of Freedom (1911).


“Don’t turn your rose garden into a briar patch.”

— Niyazi Misri (Turkish Sufi poet).


At first glance, the concept of utopias, of paradise on Earth, appears irresistible. Who can deny the allure of such a vision? The trouble is that one man’s paradise can be another man’s hell. In the early 20th century, at the dawn of the communist “utopia,” Nikolai Berdyaev wrote the following:

“We used to pay too little attention to utopias, or even disregarded them altogether, saying with regret that they were impossible of realization. Now, [however, it seems they can] be brought about far more easily than we supposed, and we are actually faced by an agonizing problem of quite [a different] kind: how can we prevent their final realization? ... towards utopias we are moving. But it is possible that a new age is already beginning, in which cultured and intelligent people will dream of ways to avoid ideal states and to get back to a society that is less ‘perfect’ and more free.” [1]

Berdyaev was writing during the initial phases of the Russian Revolution. Its advocates believed that a new society would give rise to a new human being. After his disillusionment with communism, the writer Arthur Koestler observed that it had failed because an economic, external, change had not been enough; it needed to be complemented by a psychological, inner, change, which of course did not happen.

One of the main concerns of those who think about utopias has been: what is the ideal size for a utopia?

 

What is the carrying capacity of Spaceship Earth?

 
As the human population has increased in recent decades, there has been growing concern that the finite resources of our planet will not suffice for all. For example, it has been calculated that it would take up to 10 Earths to sustain humanity at the consumption level of contemporary North Americans.

 
This has naturally led to worries that the Earth will not hold up an increasing population for long. One of the first to voice such concerns was Thomas Malthus, who is famous for his claim that the human population increases geometrically (exponentially), whereas the amount of food increases only arithmetically (linearly), so that human population cannot be sustained beyond a certain limit. Malthus predicted that this tipping point would be reached somewhere around 1890. It was about a century before that when he made that prediction. He was also one of the first to encourage biological warfare against humanity for the purpose of depopulation. In his “Essay on the Principle of Population” (1799), Malthus wrote that nature should be facilitated and not impeded in producing mortality:

In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.

Needless to say, 1890 is long gone, and we have not yet reached Malthus’s tipping point. Nevertheless, some people have continued to be concerned about a burgeoning population. In more recent times, this has been expressed within the framework of ecology. In 1968, biologist Garrett Hardin explored the issue of human overpopulation in his article “The Tragedy of the Commons”, which was published in the journal Science [2]. There, he claimed that the “Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable”; that coercion should be applied to prevent human beings from breeding, which, as he himself pointed out, ran directly counter to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In brief, his argument was as follows: cattle would overgraze a land held in common, because their owners would not limit their numbers due to greedy self-interest. The commons—a metaphor for our planet—would be destroyed. “The population problem,” he said, “has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.” As Hardin observed in an update to his article:

If all decision makers were unselfish and idealistic calculators, a distribution governed by the rule “to each according to his needs” might work. But such is not our world. As James Madison said in 1788, “If men were angels, no Government would be necessary” (Federalist, no. 51). That is, if all men were angels. But in a world in which all resources are limited, a single nonangel in the commons spoils the environment for all. ... An unmanaged commons in a world of limited material wealth and unlimited desires inevitably ends in ruin. [3]

Hardin correctly pinpointed the problem as being one of morality. Which leads us directly into the realm of Sufism. Master Ahmet Kayhan told us that the carrying capacity of Spaceship Earth is 100 billion (that’s right: a hundred, not ten, billion). But he also said: “If they listen to us.” For example, the Koran says: “Eat, drink, but do not waste” (7:31), or, to paraphrase the Prophet, even if you’re standing beside a vast ocean, use only as much water as necessary. Which leads on to the Sufic precept: “Eat, drink, and sleep sparingly.” We have the right to use as much as we need, but not the right to squander the resources of the planet.

Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb was also published in 1968. A few years later, a study took the world by storm: The Limits to Growth (1972) by Dennis Meadows and his group, sponsored by the Club of Rome, a society of wealthy individuals. Based on an MIT computer model developed by Jay Forrester, Limits was to become a best-seller in many languages. All scenarios investigated resulted in the eventual failure of the planet’s resources to support humanity.

It is certainly all right to desire the well-being of the planet. But starting from the right premises, it is still possible to reach a wrong conclusion. Hardin seriously advocated nuking foreign countries in order to reduce their population (“the worst thing we can do is send food ... Atomic bombs would be kinder”). The most important, perhaps the only important moral law, the Golden Rule (“Do as you would be done by”) is thrown in the trash can. In a 1991 report of the Club of Rome, the authors conclude:

The real enemy, then, is humanity itself. [4]

One must beware of thinking such things. Those who declare that humanity is the enemy must thereby themselves become enemies of humanity. In the movie The Matrix (1999), Agent Smith, the avatar of the Artificial Intelligence, tells Neo what he regards humankind as: “A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.” And in Stranger Things, S04E07 (2022), Henry Creel/Peter Ballard/One/Vecna, the personification of evil, says “humans are a unique type of pest,” while he intends to restore balance to the world/ecosystem and fancies himself a predator “for good”. (He is then banished to the Upside-Down World, a version of Hell.)

But this is nothing less than to side with Satan, the enemy of humankind. God has declared: “Children of Adam, do not worship Satan, for he is a clear enemy to you” (36:60). God also tells human beings: “I created the universe for you, and you I created for myself” [5]—so that humans can believe in, worship, and gradually come to know and love God. If God has valued humans so much, it is against His will to bear enmity toward them. Taken to its logical conclusion, this path would lead to the eradication of entire humanity from the face of the Earth—which is precisely what Satan wants.

 Human beings are part of nature, part of this world. If we wish to preserve nature, then we must wish to preserve human beings along with it. The remedy is to bring humanity into balance with nature, and this can be achieved by following God’s instructions. If everyone without exception abides by these, the problems we observe and the outcomes we fear will cease. But if those who cause the problems declare themselves exempt from these guidelines, nothing will change and things will get even worse. “You would reform the world? Begin with yourself, brother!” For if man is corrupted, the whole world becomes corrupted.

 Moreover, the human population of the earth appears to be leveling off. As a recent article has pointed out:

... extrapolating the high birth rates and falling death rates of the 1960s led to predictions of global famine.

As death rates declined and women’s educational and economics prospects brightened, birth rates fell, a trend that now encompasses most of the world.

Now the problem is a shrinking working-age population that will be unable to support the financial and healthcare promises made to the retired generations. [6]

 China’s population freeze has been attributed to its enforced one-child policy—but its population had already declined greatly, even before the start of that program. And now, Beijing’s efforts to boost fertility are making the decline worse, which suggests that messing with population can be like playing with fire. In fact, quite contrary to the Population Bombers, a recent demographic study in the medical journal Lancet concludes that global human population will peak at 9.73 billion within several decades, and then start to decline in a collapse that “will probably continue inexorably.”

 

The Population Problem

 One of the traits that humans share with other species is that having many offspring is a survival mechanism. For instance, some species lay 2 or 3 million eggs, but only a very few of these survive to adulthood. In a similar way, adverse living conditions cause humans to have many children. Poverty and ignorance are chief among these. Poverty means that proper health care will not be provided to children, so that most will die off before they reach puberty. Here, the survival instinct of the species kicks in. Also, parents want the assurance that at least one or two children will still be around to look after them in their old age.

Conversely, one tried and true method of curbing population growth is to raise the level of affluence and education of people. Wherever these two goals have been achieved, populations have stabilized and even begun to shrink. Affluence removes the poverty stressor that triggers the survival instinct. And a better education means that you can plan your family more consciously, as raising a child is no easy matter. In fact, population levels have decreased in recent years in many countries, down from the 2.1-children-per-family replacement rate.

 Suppose, then, that you decide to reduce human populations by some other means: say, by starting a war or releasing a pathogen. This will have exactly the opposite result of what was intended. Faced with the imminent threat of extinction, people will try to compensate and protect the survival of the human species by having more children, not less (remember the “baby boomers” after the Second World War).

 All the current (2022) population of the earth could be accomodated in Texas (or in Turkey, which is slightly larger) with nearly 1000 square feet/100 square meters per person, enough to build a one-story townhouse for every single human being (a second story being unnecessary). As Master Kayhan also pointed out, vast tracts of the Earth’s livable land mass remain uninhabited. So the physical space problem is a nonproblem.



Up to this point, we have been discussing possibilities under the condition of finite resources. What, however, if our resources were limitless? What would happen then?

 

Enter John Calhoun


The Malthusians were concerned that as the human population increased, we would eventually run out of resources. Starting from the 1940s, ethologist (animal behaviorist) John B. Calhoun investigated a different situation: what the outcome would be if there were plenty for all, if all our needs were met for the foreseeable future.

For a quarter century, Calhoun conducted experiments with rats and mice. It all began in 1947, when Calhoun placed five pregnant rats within a quarter-acre/1000 square meter pen. The rodent population increased and levelled off around 150, never exceeding 200. This meant that each animal had at least 50 square feet/five square meters of living space. (Area conversions are being rounded.) This sparked Calhoun’s interest, because he had expected a much larger number, based on his conviction that the area of a lab cage would be enough for each rodent.

So Calhoun began investigating the effects of overcrowding on behavior. He altered the parameters of his experiments to study population density. He conducted various experiments that led to similar outcomes, all highly disconcerting. As one study has put it:

Dominant males became aggressive, some moving in groups, attacking females and the young. Mating behaviors were disrupted. Some became exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, attempting to mount [rape] any rat [male, female or infant] they encountered. Mothers neglected their infants, first failing to construct proper nests, and then carelessly abandoning and even attacking their pups. In certain sections of the pens, infant mortality rose as high as 96%, the dead cannibalized by adults. Subordinate animals withdrew psychologically, surviving in a physical sense but at an immense psychological cost. They were the majority in the late phases of growth, existing as a vacant, huddled mass in the centre of the pens.

 Unable to breed, the population plummeted and did not recover. The crowded rodents had lost the ability to co-exist harmoniously, even after the population numbers once again fell to low levels. At a certain density, they had ceased to act like rats and mice, and the change was permanent. [7]

 

One of Calhoun’s series of experiments, the one that made him famous. Click to
enlarge and to read the caption. (From
Scientific American, February 1962.)

Mousetopia: Universe 25

 His series of experiments on “rodent universes” led to Calhoun’s most famous—and notorious—experiment, which he called “Universe 25.”

 In 1968, Calhoun took eight healthy mice, four male and four female, and placed them in a huge box outfitted with ample living quarters. He provided an abundant stock of food and water, a perfect temperature for mice, and protection against disease. A true mouse utopia. Then he sat back and let them breed.

What happened next was sobering. The population exploded: it first overshot, then dwindled to zero.

The mice started to reproduce with alacrity after day 194, the population doubling every 55 days. The population growth slowed after day 315, and stopped entirely after 18 months at a peak of 2200 mice. After day 600, there were few pregnancies, and no surviving young. The last survivor died on day 1644, 4.5 years after the beginning of the experiment.

What had gone wrong?

 Like human beings, mice are social creatures. By the end of the initial phase of the experiment, there were three times as many mice as existing social groups could accommodate. This threw the entire mouse population out of kilter. Female conception declined, maternal behavior degenerated, miscarriages increased, mothers abandoned their offspring. The new generations began to grow up without learning normal mouse behavior, which would have required a normal society instead of hundreds of mice crammed together. The normal behaviors of courtship, mating, mothering and socialization were completely disrupted. The mice could no longer reproduce. Sexual deviation was normalized, some mice became aggressive while others withdrew and retired from mouse society. Sartre’s saying, “Hell is other people,” became a reality for the rodents—their initial utopia turned into a dystopia, their paradise into a hell.

Calhoun has sometimes been conflated with the Malthusians, but that is not the case. For the Malthusians start from an assumption of increasing scarcity, whereas Calhoun’s starting point is a situation of endless abundance. He may be considered a Malthusian only in terms of the scarcity of living space. He was also optimistic that human ingenuity would find a way out of impasses, in the same way that some rodents in his experiments displayed the intelligence to alter their behavior and survive their difficulties.

[Sidebar]

 

Utopia and the Metaverse

 Mark Zuckerberg’s “Metaverse”: Plato’s Cave today. Now the Cave in Plato’s conception actually corresponds to what we think of as the so-called “real” world, which is why the Prophet said, “My Lord, show us the reality of things.” He also said: “Human beings are asleep—they wake up when they die.” Hence, what we have here is nested Plato’s Caves—a Cave within a Cave—and thus, a blindfold on top of a blindfold, a more intrusive version of philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra. The Metaverse will become the opium of the masses: the reverie of a drug addict, a dream within a dream.



Of Mice and Men

At the time, Calhoun’s results were interpreted as a metaphor for human overcrowding in the core of large cities, sometimes called “the concrete jungle.” More recently, interpretations have shifted to the unequal distribution of living space. The clue seems to lie in the curious fact that almost half the living space remained unused, even at the peak of the population. Given that the only restriction was on space, territorially aggressive mice monopolized easily defensible quarters, giving rise to overcrowding at the center. Hence it was not physical space itself, but social interactions, that really sealed the fate of Universe 25.

According to Sufism, animals are imbued with an “Animal Self” (nafs al-haywani) and an “Animal Spirit” (ruh al-haywani). The human self in its unevolved condition, which is called the Base Self (see below), shares most of the traits of the Animal Self. Hence, it makes sense to say that mice too have an ego, and will act egotistically.

In his Tragedy in Mouse Utopia (2006), limnologist and ecologist John R. Vallentyne posed the question: “Do mice have egos?” ([8], p. 42.) His answer was “yes.” Vallentyne looked back on Calhoun’s experiments to see what lessons could be derived from them. He feared that those experiments were now being replicated—in human society, and on a planetary scale.

What are the factors that influence the environment? Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren came up with the following equation: I = PAT, where I stands for environmental impact, P for population, A for affluence, and T for technology. Since affluence is the fruit of technology to a large extent in our day, Vallentyne simplified this to population and technology.

“The cause of social disruptions common to both Mouse Utopia and Human Utopia,” writes Vallentyne, “is a runaway cycle of technology and population, jointly.” (43) For the plenitude enjoyed by the mice was due only to the benefits of technology, which would never have been available otherwise.

The illusion that the intertwined growth of human technology and population can go on indefinitely shows that humanity is on a suicidal course. It is a dangerous fantasy to see yourself as separate from nature. lt is ecological madness, pure and simple. The subversive influences, conscious and unconscious, at work behind this madness are the cravings that lead to The Seven Deadly Sins. (74)

He goes on to say that St. Gregory the Great categorized The Seven Deadly Sins in the sixth century A.D. as: lust, gluttony, avarice (covetousness, greed), sloth (idleness, waste of time), wrath (anger, hate), envy (jealousy), and pride (vanity).

Vallentyne chalks impending ecological disaster down to the Seven Deadly Sins. We are now definitely in the domain of religion. These have their counterparts in Sufism: the Seven Gates of Hell.

 1. Pride. 2. Covetousness (Greed). 3. Envy. 4. Discord (Divisiveness). 5. Backbiting (Gossip). 6. Lust. 7. Anger (Wrath).

 He continues:

 Now, by the stroke of a pen, I identify the mastermind that controls the[se] demons as the Sorcerer. Identifying the Sorcerer as the mastermind behind the cravings could be key to controlling the sins. (75)

Precisely!

With the stroke of a pen, Vallentyne has just rediscovered a cardinal concept of Sufism: the Base Self (al-nafs al-ammara), the self that “commands to evil” (ammaratun bi al-sui). (As Joseph says, “I don’t exonerate my Base Self, for it always commands to evil” (12:53).) Only, he calls it “the Sorcerer.”

This is remarkable. To my knowledge, with the exception of psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and his conception of “the shadow,” this is the first time a scientist in the West, with no apparent knowledge of Sufism, has deduced the importance of the Base Self. Even if there have been others, however, he is probably the first to link ecological disaster with this entity.

(If evil is external to you, it is called the devil. If it is internal, it is called the Base Self.)

Vallentyne defines the Sorcerer as “a life-force at work within us” (69). And the cover blurb of the book informs us that “the Sorcerer lurks within.” He goes on to tell us that we are all “the Sorcerer’s apprentices”—that is, slaves to our Base Self.

Giving in for a moment or a lifetime to the urges, cravings and other excesses brought on by the Sorcerer is far more crippling than doubts. The opposites of the Seven Deadly Sins are the Seven Cardinal Virtues: humility, meekness, charity, chastity, moderation, zeal and generosity. The question is: Can the Virtues overcome the Sins? (75)

The Virtues also have their counterparts in Sufism, except the latter goes one better, by describing the Eight Gates of Heaven:

1. Compassion, kindness and affection. 2. Righteousness (Honesty, truthfulness, uprightness). 3. Loyalty. 4. Generosity. 5. Patience. 6. Discretion (Keeping secrets). 7. Knowing one’s poverty and weakness (Humility). 8. Giving thanks to God (Gratitude).

In a later chapter, Vallentyne fleshes out his conception of the Sorcerer. His examples are stock characteristics of the Base Self:

If you have ever had the craving to run your hand along the polished fender of a new car in a showroom, to reach for yet another candy bar to rot your teeth, or to gobble hamburgers and french fries at your favorite fast-food restaurant when you are already overweight, you know the spell of the Sorcerer. If you have a room-mate or close friend who has become addicted to hard drugs or gambling, you know the soul-destroying effects of the Sorcerer. Mothers who, under the spell of the Sorcerer, force-feed alcohol to fetuses in their wombs cripple their children mentally for life.

In early phases of population growth the Sorcerer reinforces our primitive Ego-System desires in the interest of personal survival and survival of the species. (120)

In fact, at one point Vallentyne intended to use The Ego-System and the Ecosystem as title for Tragedy in Mouse Utopia, contrasting the two systems and—needless to say—favoring the Ecosystem.

All this leads us to the following conclusion: If it is necessary to tame the Base Self, to curb its desires, even in the situation of unlimited resources, it is all the more necessary under the condition of finite resources, on a vast but still not infinite planet.



The Journey from self to Self

According to the famous Sufi Ahmad Sirhindi:

The self (nafs) in its state of impulsiveness (ammara) always strives to be superior. . . . It refuses to acknowledge its dependence on and debt to others. This is nothing but a claim to divinity. . . . Indeed, [such a] self will not settle even for partnership with God, but desires to subjugate even Him, to enslave all that exists. It is for this reason that aiding and abetting this self, the enemy of God, . . . is the greatest of follies and disasters. [9]

 

In the space-horror TV series “Raised by Wolves” (S02E05), Marcus descends in a cage to an underground cavern (the underworld), where he discovers and destroys a monster. Symbolically, this is the equivalent of Theseus entering the labyrinth and slaying the Minotaur in Greek mythology. Both the monster and the Minotaur are symbols for the Base Self. The Minotaur is a creature with a human body and the head of a bull. In Mithraism, too, which is Marcus’ religion, the main scene is that of Mithras killing a bull, from which its name tauroctony (“bull killing”) derives. It’s all about conquering the beast that is the Base Self.


Note that we are not supposed to physically kill the Base Self, for this would be suicide. Rather, what is necessary is to tame and subdue the Base Self. The Prophet said: “Die before you die.” This points to a psychospiritual transformation in which a person undergoes metamorphosis: a death-rebirth experience where one is reborn as a transformed being—a Perfect Human or Friend of God. The Central Asian Sufi sage Ahmad Yassawi speaks of opening “the second notebook” (in Jonathan Trapman’s translation [10], “the Second Book”) in a few of his wisdom sayings. This implies the existence of a “first notebook,” which is now closed, and likely refers to the “notebook of deeds”—in which the deeds of a lifetime are recorded—belonging to his earlier (first) life. His second life (and hence the second notebook) has now begun, as a totally transformed individual.

 



The Magic Mountain


The mythical World Mountain, known as Mount Meru in Hinduism, has its counterpart in Turkic-Altai mythology as Iron Mountain—sometimes also described as an Iron Pillar, which would correspond to the Axis of the Universe. Another variant of the same trope divides the Mountain into three parts: Golden Mountain in Heaven, Iron Mountain in this world (the physical universe), and Copper Mountain in the Underworld. The Turkic word for pillar, terek (from which the Turkish direk is derived) also means “tree,” so we are also speaking about the World Tree.

Now the Mountain not only symbolizes the universe, but also the Self—and in a certain context, the Base Self. The title of a self-help book says it all —The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery.

In a Middle Eastern Romeo-and-Juliet romance, Farhad and Shereen (or Khosrow/Husrav and Shereen), Farhad has to bore through an Iron Mountain in order to be united with his beloved, Shereen. In one variant of the tale, the tunnel thus formed also delivers life-giving water (or milk) to the nearby city, which means that Farhad’s labor results in a boon for all humanity. In another version, Farhad has to carve a staircase into the mountain—which calls to mind the Prophets Ascension (miraj, lit. “staircase”) to the top of (and beyond) the “mountain” that is the universe. (The tree at the mountaintop in the picture symbolizes the Lote-Tree of the Boundary.)

Now in Sufism, love between the sexes has been considered a metaphor for divine love, and hence has been called “metaphorical love,” whereas the love of God has been termed “true love.” And the mountain to be overcome in order to attain the True Beloved is the Base Self. The latter is the real obstacle to reaching one’s goal. Overcoming the Base Self is as hard as piercing a mountain made of iron.



The Two Seals


So how do we tame the Base Self? Vallentyne himself suggests “using the healing power of mind over body” (121), and gives biofeedback therapy, the Alexander Technique (due to Matthias Alexander), and shamanism as examples. There have been many such attempts throughout history. As Gustav Meyrink wrote in The Green Face (1916):

The Brahmans’ icy baths, the sleepless nights of the disciples of Buddha and the Christian ascetics, the self-inflicted tortures of the Hindu fakirs are nothing other than the ossified rites which indicate that it was here that the temple of those who strove to stay awake originally stood. [11]

(The “green face” itself is the face of Khidr, the “Green One” (KHaDRa), the patron saint of Sufi dervishes of the Uwaysi branch.)

I’m reminded of a feat described by Alexandra David-Neel, who had visited Tibet: drying a wet towel on one’s back and shoulders—in the Himalayas. A sure-fire way to die for almost all of us.

The basic approach seems to have been to tame the body. But the body is not the enemy—the enemy is the Base Self. Or rather, it is the Baseness of the Base Self: hence, that self needs to be purified. “God loves those who purify their selves,” says the Koran (2:222, 9:108); those are the ones who succeed and prosper (87:14). “Gardens of lasting bliss graced with flowing streams [are] the reward of those who purify their selves” (20:76). “For the Friends of God, no fear shall come upon them, neither shall they sorrow” (10:62; also in 2:38, 2:177, 2:262, 3:170 ...).

The Sufis, however, have been able to identify the really crucial points in purifying the Base Self. You have to seal two doors shut: Put an end to 1. Illicit Wealth (Forbidden gain) and 2. Illicit Lust (Forbidden sex). This is not to say that once these are reined in, you will not need to restrain the Base Self further. You will. It means, rather, that the Base Self is completely beyond control without these two.

Let me end by relating what Master Ahmet Kayhan said about this on one occasion.



How to Tame the Base Self


Master Kayhan began by talking about the cave on Mount Hira, where the Prophet practised asceticism and received his prophethood. It was also known as “the mountain of light,” because in ancient times, a fire was lit by night on its peak to serve as a beacon for distant travelers. As for caves, they have been the refuge of ascetics from time immemorial.

The Master continued:

In one part of Sufism, the people of Sufism consider this body a cave. They consider this body, this head, a cave. You can enter those [external] caves, but before you do, [pointing to his heart] build up this cave.

So, this body is the cave of the spirit. Let’s know the value of this cave. This is the cave of the spirit/life. Those are caves of stone. Once we train the self within this cave... you can go to those caves, but it’s all in this cave.

This cave is where the Real [God] sits. Where the Koran sits. Where the Prophet of God sits. The cave where the spirit functions. And if we perform the training of this cave with the command of God, of the Prophet of God, it’s done, Godwilling.

And how do we do that? I’m always telling you, above here [the neck], stop the Forbidden. Whether it’s hearing, or sight, or food and drink, or scent. Above here, quit completely. Below [the belly], lust, Illicit Lust. Quit Illicit Lust. Whoever is not Permitted is our mother, our sister. Let’s train in this cave.

You can’t find these words anywhere. These words are the meaning of the Verses of the Glorious Koran.

There’s something here:

One day the Grand Saint Abdulqader Geylani comes in from outside, [the disciples] are talking. He greets them, they all stand up respectfully.

“What were you discussing, children?” he says. Speaking of children, they’re all 20-30 years old. One of them answers: “Sir, our subject was Ibrahim Adham.”


Ibrahim ibn Adham, one of the early Sufis (8th century CE), was born in Balkh (then in Khorasan, now in Afghanistan) as king of the region, but he abandoned his crown and his throne and a life of luxury to become an ascetic. Abdulqader Geylani (fl. 12th century CE), one of the greatest Sufi Masters, was born in Gilan, Iran, and reconciled the mystical nature of Sufism with the precepts of Islamic Law. He was a descendant of the Prophet on both his father’s and his mother’s side.

Among the Friends of God, Ibrahim Adham was the one who suffered the greatest hardships. So that he could train.

“Well?” he said. “We all wept,” he said. “Did you feel sorry for him? ” “We all did.”

“Shall I tell you something?” he said.—Pay attention! —“If he had been trained in my time,” he said, “if he had been in my time, or I had been in his, I would have enlightened him [on his throne], among all that silk and down feathers.”

The Master then posed a question to those present:

What is this? What is he saying? Speak up, don’t hesitate. Among all that gold, because he was the king of Khorasan. “I would have trained him without any of those hardships.” Tell me how, come on.

After a few replies, none of which proved satisfactory, Master Kayhan continued:

You know what it was? What I’m telling you here evvery day. Above here [the neck], stop [the Forbidden]. If he does that, he will be enlightened in that bed [of down feathers]. When you dispose of these [two obstacles], when you throw them away, you train in that bed. You win in that cave. [12]

On other occasions, he explained that illustrious Sufi saints such as Rumi or Hadji Bayram became saints only after mastering these two points.

This can be found nowhere in print, except in some books and articles about Ahmet Kayhan. That knowledge, that advice, was, is, and will remain the greatest gift of the Master to humanity.

 

 

Conclusion

John Calhoun tried to play God over his mouse communities, with disastrous results. And the same fate will befall anyone who tries to do it over human communities. For God does not give His Godhood to anybody. Or, as an unbeliever might say, nature—or in this case, human nature—has the last laugh.

The problem stems from the metaphysical assumption that living things, and humans among them, have evolved randomly. In that case, it could make sense that humanity should take its further evolution into its own hands, to improve itself—if this were true.

But it is not true. God created human beings in His own image, as the Prophet of God also stated—and more than that, as His viceroy on Earth. This design cannot be improved upon.1 Humankind was created in the image of perfection. Any attempt to deviate from that will only result in something worse. And all one has to do is follow God's instructions to actualize that perfection within oneself.

“Fearfully and wonderfully am I made” (Psalm 139:14), “and designed for nobler ends and uses than for a few days to eat, and drink, and sleep, and talk, and die” (John Flavel). This is the exact opposite of Vecnas message in the abovementioned Stranger Things episode: “Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce, and die. Everyone is just waiting—waiting for it all to be over.” God has made us for grander things than this. Master Kayhan said: “The universe has an owner. His name is God. Let’s eat, drink, have children, suffer their worries and get out of here. Is this all we came here for? We came to seek the owner of the universe.”

“We created the human in the fairest stature, then We reduced him to the lowest of the low” (95:4-5). Follow God's instructions, and you will regain that fairest stature. So it behooves us, not to play God, but to heed God's advice. That is how we will get out of this, not by messing with our own biology or sociology. As John Vallentyne rightly intuited, the Base Self is at the root of all our sins and the sum of all our problems.

Like many other peoples who followed the way of holism and synergy, the native North Americans lived in harmony with nature. We have to find a way to bring our technology back to that harmony.2 Wasting less is a good start. If we could eliminate waste, whether intentional or unintentional, we would be well on the way to re-establishing a balanced relationship with our planet. The Base Self, left unchecked, will squander all resources. This is why we have to rein it in. Consume less. Don't have three cars; have one. Don't eat three servings, one is enough. Go back to car pooling. And so on.

But this cannot be forced. It has to be voluntary. Otherwise, it will be coercion, and nothing good will come of that. It is incumbent on every human being to restrict the Base Self out of their own free will. If we can do this, if we can find it within ourselves to achieve this, better days will surely be ours.

 

 

Postscript: Long before Thomas Mores Utopia (1516), the Persian Sufi Hakim Sanai (d. 1180 AD) mentioned the City of God in his celebrated long poem The Walled Garden of Truth (Hadiqat al Haqiqa, aka the Ilahinâma). As in Augustines City of God, only the chosen ones live there. It cannot be reached unless one becomes a Perfect Human (insan al-kâmil). [13] Later, another Sufi, Shahabuddin Suhrawardi, introduced the same concept as the mystical Earth of Hurqalya, which Henry Corbin discussed in his Spiritual Body, Celestial Earth (1977). While a utopian society cannot be reached unless all human beings curb their Base Selves, the utopia of the Sufis can be reached if one succeeds in doing this as an individual. Utopia, then, is achievable individually, even if not collectively.

 

Notes

* Details from Majeed Beenteha, Pricklywomen.

1 Unless an obvious genetic defect is being remedied. Otherwise, any supposed “enhancement” will actually be an abnormality from the God’s-eye point of view. The human constitution was optimised for God-knowledge, beside which all other aspirations pale.

2 Much of our technology is fundamentally at odds with nature. As ecologist Barry Commoner pointed out decades ago, frugality or population reduction will not be enough if we keep on using environmentally harmful technologies. Zero carbon emissions and carbon taxes do not really address the question of switching to ecologically constructive technologies. And we have barely scratched the surface of designing such technologies, for private profitagain, in service of the Base Self—takes precedence over social and environmental costs.


   [1]   Nikolai Berdyaev, The End of Our Time (1919), pp. 187-188. Aldous Huxley used the part of this passage preceding the ellipsis (in French translation) as the epigraph to his Brave New World.

  [2]  http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~avis/courses/566/commons.html

  [3]  https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html

  [4]   Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution, A Report by the Council of the Club of Rome (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), p. 115.

  [5]  Henry Bayman, The Teachings of a Perfect Master (Oxford, UK: Anqa Publishing, 2012), p. 53.

  [6]   https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/demographics-financial-doom

  [7]  Edmund Ramsden & Jon Adams, “Escaping the Laboratory: The Rodent Experiments of John B. Calhoun & Their Cultural Influence,” Journal of Social History Vol. 42, No. 3 (Spring, 2009), pp. 761-792: https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22514/1/2308Ramadams.pdf p. 4.

  [8]  John R. Vallentyne, Tragedy in Mouse Utopia (Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2006).

  [9]  Mektubat (“Letters”), 52nd Letter, quoted in Bayman, Station of No Station (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2001), pp. 56-7.

[10]  Hoja Ahmed Yassawi, Divine Wisdom (Diwani Hikmet), Jonathan and Virve Trapman (trs.) (Somerset, UK: Living Zen Books, 2018) http://online.pubhtml5.com/fvrz/ntvm/#p=34

[11]  http://www.geocities.ws/integral_tradition/green.html

[12]  Abridged, translated and edited for clarity from https://ia902300.us.archive.org/30/items/AhmetKayhan-Sohbet/hak06MAR98-1_512kb.mp4

[13] Sana Mahmoudi & Fatemeh Azizmouhamdi, A Study of the Concept of Utopia in Hakim Sanai’s The Walled Garden of Truth and Thomas More’s Utopia, International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, Vol. 2 No. 6 (November 2013) pp. 161-168.