AN ANCIENT MASTER ALGAZALI

THE twelfth-century philosopher and Sufi El-Ghazali quotes in his Book of Knowledge this line from El-Mutanabbi: 'To the sick man, sweet water tastes bitter in the mouth.'
This could very well be taken as Ghazali's motto. Eight hundred years before Pavlov, he pointed out and hammered home (often in engaging parables, sometimes in startlingly 'modern' words) the problem of conditioning.

Ghazali produced numerous books and published many teachings. His contribution to human thought and the relevance of his ideas hundreds of years later are unquestioned. Let us partly repair the omission of our predecessors by seeing what he has to say about method. What was the Way of El-Ghazali? What does man have to do in order to be like him, who was admittedly one of the world's giants of philosophy and psychology?

Ghazali on the Path

A human being is not a human being while his tendencies include self-indulgence, covetousness, temper and attacking other people.
A student must reduce to the minimum the fixing of his attention upon customary things like his people and his environment, for attention-capacity is limited.
The pupil must regard his teacher like a doctor who knows the cure of the patient. He will serve his teacher. Sufis teach in unexpected ways. An experienced physician prescribes certain treatments correctly. Yet the outside observer might be quite amazed at what he is saying and doing; he will fail to see the necessity or the relevance of the procedure being followed.
This is why it is unlikely that the pupil will be able to ask the right questions at the right time. But the teacher knows what and when a person can understand.
The Difference between Social and Initiatory Activity
Ghazali insists upon the connection and also the difference between the social or diversionary contact of people, and the higher contact.
What prevents the progress of an individual and a group of people, from praiseworthy beginnings, is their stabilizing themselves upon repetition and what is a disguised social basis.
If a child, he says, asks us to explain to him the pleasures which are contained in wielding sovereignty, we may say that it is like the pleasure which he feels in sport; though, in reality, the two have nothing in common except that they both belong to the category of pleasure.
Parable of the People with a Higher Aim
Imam El-Ghazali relates to tradition form the life of Isa, ibn Maryam: Jesus, Son of Mary.
Isa one day saw some people sitting miserably on a wall, by the roadside. He asked: 'What is your affliction?' The said: 'We have become like this through our fear of Hell.'
He went on his way, and saw a number of people grouped disconsolately in various postures by the wayside. He said: 'What is your affliction?' They said: 'Desire for Paradise has made us like this.'

He went on his way, until he came to a third group of people. They looked like people who had endured much, but their faces shone with joy.
Isa asked them: 'What has made you like this?' and they answered: 'The Spirit of Truth. We have seen Reality, and this has made us oblivious of lesser goals.'
Isa said: 'These are the people who attain. On the Day of Accounting these are they who will be in the Presence of God.'
The Three Functions of the Perfected Man
The Perfected Man of the Sufis has three forms of relationship with people. These vary with the condition of the people.

The three manners are exercised in accordance with(1) The form of belief which surrounds the Sufi;(2) The capacity of students, who are taught in accordance with their ability to understand;(3) A special circle of people who will share an understanding of the knowledge which is derived from direct inner experience.