Awakening the Soul: Asking Deeper Questions

Written by Shak Shakib

The human experience is defined by a search for answers to questions that rarely have simple ones. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Why do people die? Where do people go when they die? Who is "God" that people talk about? As we grow older, our questions might become more sophisticated and intense, but they are basically the same questions we asked when we daydreamed as teenagers lying at the base of a favorite tree and gazing up at the sky through a canopy of summer leaves. Now, as adults raking the leaves of autumn while sipping pumpkin spice lattes, we are still immersed in those childhood mysteries.

Poets and sages attempted to capture in words our sense of bafflement. "What was the mystery that made me open up like a little bud in the forest at midnight?" asks the twentieth-century Bengali poet Tagore.^[1] "The lover visible, the Beloved invisible," Rumi^[2] cries. "Whose crazy idea was this?" Alas, none of our textbooks arrive with footnotes or explanations. "Of knowledge We have given you but a little," says the Qur'an (17:85), an attested criterion (furqan) for mankind. This comprehensive verse helps us to understand that we are not expected to know all the answers to everything.

The Sufis (mystics) knew very well our sense of bewilderment. It is said that one evening, a Sufi by the name of Mulla Nasreddin Khaja (d. 1285), spent many hours in a tavern drinking and talking with friends. In the early hours of the morning, in a state of drunkardness, he wandered through the streets aimlessly. A policeman accosted him and asked, "Who are you? What are you doing at this unusual hour? Where did you come from? Where are you going?" "Siddi (“Sir”)," stammered the Mulla, "If I knew the answer to all those questions, I would be home already!" In Islamic spirituality, tavern and wine are not literal, rather, they are metaphysical symbols of gathering places (tavern) where seekers acquire divine knowledge (wine).^[3]

It is futile to search for definitive answers to life's deeper questions. What is fruitful is to simply be present with the Mystery of the questions as you go about your daily work. Perfume your heart with awe and wonder, say the mystics, and the rapture of the Mystery will awaken something deeper in you.

Can we mere mortals expect to obtain genuine insight into the mysteries of life? Consider the origins of the profound insights in early Christian monasticism and Islamic Mysticism. The Desert Fathers of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Levant withdrew from the bustling cities of civilization into barren landscapes of sand and silence. After fulfilling their worldly obligations, they sought solitude not as an escape, but as a way to face themselves and connect with God more directly. In the desert stillness, they wrestled with temptation, reflected on the vanity of worldly pursuits, and discovered flashes of divine wisdom. Their sayings —brief, piercing, and born of lived experience— became a treasured part of spirituality and growth. For us, too, whether we seek out a literal desert, a mountain retreat, or simply a quiet corner in our daily lives, moments of stillness can reveal truths that lie hidden beneath the noise.

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Reflections

With Him are the keys of the Unseen, 
the treasures that none knoweth but He. 
(An’am 6:59)

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. 
Cleverness might be opinion, and bewilderment, naked vision.
(Rumi)

The answer is inside the question. 
(Rumi)

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Practice

What are some of the awe-inspiring questions that arise in your heart?

If you have reflected on your questions, what kind of insights have you gained, and have they changed your patterns of thinking and behaving?

Write a poem or create a work of art that expresses your awe of the mystery of the Unseen.

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^[1] Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a Bengali poet, novelist, and painter who was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his collection Gitanjali. A polymath and philosopher, he modernized Bengali literature and art while also serving as a cultural ambassador between India and the West.

^[2] Jalal al-Din al-Rūmī (born 1207, Balkh [now in Afghanistan]—died 1273, Konya [now in Turkey]) was the greatest Sufi mystic and poet in the Persian language, famous for his lyrics and for his didactic epic Mas̄navī-yi Maʿnavī (“Spiritual Couplets”), which widely influenced mystical thought and literature throughout the Muslim world. After his death, his disciples were organized as the Mawlawiyyah order. Rūmī’s use of Persian and Arabic in his poetry, in addition to some Turkish and less Greek, has resulted in his being claimed variously for Turkish literature and Persian literature, a reflection of the strength of his influence in Iran and Turkey. The influence of his writings in the Indian subcontinent is also substantial. By the end of the 20th century, his popularity had become a global phenomenon, with his poetry achieving a wide circulation in western Europe and the United States. (See Encyclopedia Britannica: Rumi)

^[3] Jamal Rahman, Sacred Laughter of the Sufis, Skylight Paths Publishing, (2014), p. 16.