Living without self Living without Money
Celebrating Eid with the Poor
Eid is essentially about parting or sacrifice of our very dear self or what symbolises it – money. Money that goes for Eidi, Qurbani and time. That goes to relatives and neighbours. On Eid we are all attention which is what true giving or generosity is. We declare that our prayers, our sacrifice, our life and our death, are all for God. It is this living for the other – embracing the other that we do, living by giving or by emptying ourself that makes Eid joyous. If we could live without self we would be in heaven, here and now. And our every day would be an Eid.
It is hard to be ready to be available to the other, to offer our life or what we cherish most and we assume that our job is done by sacrificing an animal – animal in us, the lusting self we conveniently forget to say. To truly say God is great (Allahu Akbar) and declare that praise belongs to God (wa lillahil hamd) that constitute a refrain on Eid means one is ready for self noughting. God demands our very dear self as Eidi to Life and we usually negotiate with a few pennies. Festivity results from community living, by coming out of the cocoon of self as happens in playful mood in which children specialise. And it is no wonder that we say Eid belongs to children. Every act of giving becomes joy if we do it with no regard for the self and with an eye on perfection or the very act – as ihsan.
All those who are ready to put the other before the self or lose themselves in pursuit of excellence or perfecting style are more ready to access latent reservoirs of joy. Artists, children, saints, players, devoted workers – karma yogis, lovers, have especially little resistance for losing themselves or losing the sense of time in work/play/rest and no wonder they live more meaningfully or joyfully. This explains the joy felt in preparing with great attention or love – food for family and getting prepared with best attire. We dress and groom to honour others – they should not be put off but pleased to see us. On Eid the greatest joy comes from exuberant carefree playful attitude that only children are capable of displaying. On Eid day we understand that the greatest task in life is just to be, doing nothing, making merry, not counting or giving away the money, exchanging smiles, hosting or giving company to relatives and neighbours – a sort of Sabbath. It is sisters that are happiest on Eid as brothers visit them. What else do we need than the gift of attention from the other. Let us examine the alchemy of joy involving putting sword to the self. We can understand the basic doctrines and rituals of religion in terms of this key objective.
Abu Sa’id asks: “What is evil, and what is the worst evil?” and answers, “Evil is ‘thou,’ and the worst evil ‘thou’ if thou knowest it not.” Abu Sa’id, therefore, called himself a “Nobody.” Do you know anyone whom you can’t make angry do what one may as there is no ego to react or get hurt? After we slaughter an animal, meat is available to community and that makes Eid such a joy for meat eaters. The idea is to recite takbeer to the self and become meat for the community, to get dismembered for the sake of community. One shouldn’t claim even one’s coat as one’s own. No private enjoyment. To be available, on infaq, 24x7. Personality (from persona or face mask) is a mask that is not to be identified with. It is the nameless, colourless light of being, the luminous centre of awareness, the Spirit that is in us and not ours that constitutes our true being and salvation. We transcend all the roles or actions and masks. We are the celestial children of Light and accordingly our dignity is far higher than due to anybody on earth.
Ibn ‘Arabî’s statement in The Kernel of the Kernel: “You will be all when you make nothing of yourself” reiterates and sums up this point. As Marcel would put it, “I belong to myself only as I do not belong to myself, as I give myself to otherness, and create myself, come into being, and so belong to what I am.” “We study the self to forget the self,” said Dogen. “When you forget the self, you become one with the ten thousand things.”
To be a Muslim is to surrender the will or the illusory empire of the self to the Other/Tao/Cosmic Will – or to be open to the revelations of the Other/Universe, to take heed of signs. Belief in Revelation is, in the last analysis, translatable in terms of being available to the Other, to what reveals itself, to what is the case. It involves writing off the self that obstructs, frames or interprets the Word/the Other. Religion and Mysticism are methodologies of unburdening, of learning to travel light in the world, living as if death is so near or under the shadow of eternity. It is to die before death so that one lives without fear of this supposed oblivion. It is to live, truly live having written off the self that fears death or unknown.
The desiring self or soul is worthless hard twisted piece of wood which needs to be burnt by self discipline of sha’ria. It is a dog which doesn’t leave oneself. It is like unchained mad elephant. It is hell. It deserves sword. Our greatest celebration is one of losing oneself as the ecstasy or joy of this is immeasurable. Religions are means for this end. Folktales and myths celebrate it. We congratulate others for undoing their illusory empires of selves. The self is our dearest possession and to lose it the only commandment of scriptures or the deeper meaning of all commandments. There seems to be no exception to the rule that joy lies in renouncing the empire of ego and love without condition all that is non-self. Not even the selfish gene thesis is an exception as the self finds its fulfillment by dying and giving birth to the other – the community in which it lives truly not as itself but the other. Life affirms itself. Our redemption lies in letting it be. Animals, similarly, live best as part of life – our life included. It is said that sheep sees it as its supreme accomplishment to get assimilated in human form by being consumed by men. Living God conscious life is living as if death is a perpetual possibility and it isn’t my will but the will of the Other/Father counts.
If to say ‘I’ is a lie, as Simone Weil noted. Yes sheep must be slaughtered as they say mein mein. Union/proximity with the Source/Origin which is God/Being is always manifest through joy and that is conditioned on losing the dear self that apes the real Self.
Riccour’s expression Oneself as Other has analogues across thinkers Eastern and Western. Tennyson once remarked that the loss of personality (if so it were) is “the only true life”. Dean Inge and many other philosophers including Maritain and Iqbal (and mystics as well) have made it clear that we needn’t fear loss of personality though we must distinguish persona that is imposed from distinct individuality we inherit as a robe from the Divine Personality that is our deepest ground. It gas been aptly said that “I” finds that the dissolution of “I”, its disappearance, is not the extinction of “I” but on the contrary is the “I’s” only true life.”
Panniker has observed, “The more we are the other, the more we are ourselves . . . to be our true self we must transcend our ego and become also lily.” We read in Weil’s essay on Personality “Everything which is impersonal in man is sacred, and nothing else.” “Perfection is impersonal. Our personality is the part of us which belongs to error and sin. The whole effort of the mystic has always been to become such that there is no part left in his soul to say “I.” Krishnamurti would note that education consists in crossing letter I in live to make it love. Writing off the self is the odyssey of soul making for which we are here. Let us do qurbani and see if it is accepted by noting the end of our former self as evidenced by becoming nobodies who are all attention and ever approachable and radiating peace.
Weil said that “the only way into truth is through one’s own annihilation ; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.” This is what Karbala, the equivalent of the Cross and Night of Golgotha, demonstrates. One must be stripped of everything, every support, every filler of the Void and then one qualifies for being the prince of martyrs. Read Lear. Ripeness is all. The fruit must be ripe, fall and get consumed to let new seed come out and germinate. The author of the Cloud of Unknowing noted: ‘There can be no greater sorrow than the truly wise man can feel, than to reflect that “he” is still “someone.” Why? Because everything perishes and what stays is God’s Name or divine face (Al-Quran 28:88) – the Being in beings. Be attuned to Being. Surrender. Contemplate. See the other and witness the seer that sees. The Birth of Self from the ruins of self or ego is what qurbani is about. And its fruit is the joy of Eid.
Post script: The joy of Eid gets multiplied if near and dear ones are around and the poor included in celebrations. One magical way of making this year memorable is to create a kitty of 11 people who consent to host, once a month, on rotational basis, home prepared feast consisting of classical dishes of meat. Meat from local meat ATM will be available free for this community feast of 11 and one gets invitation for 10 feasts in turn in a year. Meat comes from community share in qurbani and aqiqa stored and tagged in meat ATM.
Some friends have been doing it from quite some time and it is time to scale up and create newer circles that choose to co-host and invite blessings to home. It must be done in homes not hotels in keeping with our best traditions and the fact that guests are God-sent to bring barakah and take away negative energies that may accumulate in a month. arranging one feast a month for one’s friends, neighbours and relatives and pay for meat expenses of the poor in community is to store the whole share of the poor and part of community’s share in one’s quebani. Please store meat for the poor (one third of meat, head and hooves) this Eid as they have no facility to store it. Thus can be later distributer to him or for marriage functions of the poor. Contribute the share of the poor and part of the share of community to local meat bank.
