What Is Health?
For you God subjected all that is in the heavens
And on the earth, all from Him.
Behold! In that are signs for people who reflect.
Qur’an 45:18
What is health? When we talk about the human organism existing in a state of health, we must first of all understand several interrelated questions. What is a human being? How did it come into existence? How is it sustained in existence? And what is the purpose of human life? Without understanding the answers to these questions (or at least the questions), we can never have a satisfactory knowledge of the real type of health we should be seeking. For without any criteria for what constitutes the proper functioning of a human being, how can we say that it even matters whether we are ill or well? Just because something feels “good” does not necessarily mean it is of ultimate benefit to us. And conversely, simply because at the moment we seem to have pain, we cannot dismiss this experience as “bad,” unless we understand how and what the result of these momentary sensa-tions will be.
Allah says in the Qur’an, “There may be a thing decreed for you that you do not like that is good for you; and things that you like that are not good for you.” The great Sufi Imam al-Ghazzalī (r.a.) expressed this idea as follows: “Illness is one of the forms of experience by which humans arrive at a knowledge of God; as He says, ‘Illnesses are my servants which I attach to My chosen friends.”
Thus, we ought not necessarily to consider illness our enemy; rather, we may see it as an event, a mechanism of the body, that is serving to cleanse, purify, and balance us on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual planes. Considered from this perspective, a bout of flu, a cold, diarrhea, even some kinds of agonizing pain are friends, enabling our bodies to purge unwanted and potentially harmful toxic by-products of metabolism.
Western medicine endeavors to halt or impede the various eliminative functions of the body-to stop the urge to vomit with stomach remedies; to block diarrhea with potions; to end fever with aspirin and related drugs. Behind every natural action of the human body is an inherent wisdom, a mechanism that allows the body to heal itself. In fact, no herb, food, or any other substance or procedure can do anything on its own to heal; it can only aid and assist the body in its own self-healing role. If your finger is cut, it is not the stitches or the bandage or the iodine that causes it to heal; it is the skin itself that performs this miracle.
When we think of illness, we almost always first think of injury or acute pain as the first stage. But today many people are realizing that other aspects of our mental world, our feelings and thoughts, can become un-balanced and cause illness and suffering, even though there may be nothing clinically “wrong” with a person. This approach to health and disease has come to be known as “holistic.”
It is rather easy to understand the physical level. The body lets us know-by means of our sense perceptions-sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell and the vegetative faculties-when something is wrong, and we take steps to correct the problem. The seat of the vegetative function-that is, the instinctive, life-sustaining work of the body-is the liver, sometimes called the Wheel of Life. All of our physical functions are cued by the functions and enzymes of the liver.
In Arabic, nafs is the word for the body and its appetites. Nafs means all of the demands of the body-for food, for warmth, for fame and fortune (all of these include emotional needs or drives). All physical diseases can be marked out by one or more of these physical dimensions.
The word nafs has many meanings: breath, animal life, soul, self, a person, essence, and more. In Sufism, the progression of the soul is described by considering the evolution of the nafs, which manifests in human behavior as one’s entire character, personality, and behavior. The nafsi am-mara is the commanding soul, which creates inordinate appetites. This is the condition of the nafs referred to when one occupies the station of egotism (magām an-nafs).
The behaviors recommended in the Qur’an (shariat) are meant to control and subdue these inordinate appetite, leading the nafs to a more refined status. The soul that has been entirely purified is called nafsi kull, meaning “universal soul,” which unites with Allah in the final stage of Sufism. However, even at the latest stages of Sufi practice, one cannot assume oneself to be immune to the blemishes of the soul.
The second aspect of our existence is the mind world, or let us say the emotional and mental world. The mind is not entirely separate from the physical body, but is part of and intimately connected with physical functioning. Moods and feelings that originate in the mind frequently have an effect on the body-emotions such as anger, fear, or extreme joy. When one or more of these is experienced, the blood pressure may rise or fall, the body sweats, tears may come.
Interestingly, some ailments or conditions that we have come to regard as purely emotional have their origin in physical imbalances. An example is severe anger. Psychologists would usually attribute this to a condition of the mind or emotions. But according to the Tibb system of the Persian physician Avicenna, severe anger is one of the body’s most effective ways of dispelling excess moisture in the area of the heart. It is easily corrected with a diet.
The realm of the mental world is called fikr in Arabic. In essence, fikr means meditation or deep-thought process.
The third component of our existence is the soul, called the ruh. The ruh is that which exists after death, which marks the end of both physical and mental life.
The interaction of the three realms (or the activation of the physical and mental realms by the soul realm) is carried out by means of the spirit. Many people use the words “spirit” and “soul” to mean the same thing, yet they are distinctly different and separate. The spirit is what activates the physical-level existence, including thought processes. The word for this spirit-activator is nafas. It is activated at the point of the breath. The point of the lips where in-breath and out-breath unite is the link between life and death.
We can live without mental activity and without physical movement. But without breath, life ceases in a very short time. There are people who live without mental existence. Although an electroencephalograph shows that their brain waves are not functioning, they may be kept “alive” by mechanical means. They are called “brain dead,” yet they are still regarded as living; we do not bury them. This means that there is something superior to this mental existence and physical existence. Such persons still have something left of life in them, and that something is the breath.
The Sufis consider that the breath of life exists and continues by virtue of the idhn, or permission of God, the One Who has created us all. What we call the Creator-God, Allah, Yahweh, or whatever does not matter.
In His ultimate reality, God is one. He gives His permission for human life to exist in the first place, and as long as that permission remains, we may draw breath in and out. Regardless of which system of healing we may wish to apply, or how skilled the practitioner, even if all the healers of the world came together, they could not counteract the idhn. When the permission is withdrawn, there is no more breath; life ceases.
Interesting cases bear this out. When a child is born, it does not breathe right away. Some say the shock of the cold air starts it breathing. But not in every case does this happen. The Sufis would say that Allah sends His idhn for that particular life to commence. If He does not send His permission, no amount of spanking or technological effort can force the baby to breathe. It will be a stillborn.
On the other hand, sometimes, despite every effort to end a life, the permission overrides human efforts. A recent article in a medical journal told of a couple who had informed their doctor that they did not want to have children under any circumstances. The doctor suggested that the husband undergo a permanent vasectomy, and so it was performed. A few months later the couple was back, furious with the doctor, because the wife had become pregnant. The doctor then offered to perform a free abortion to terminate the pregnancy. This procedure was done. Another month later, the couple sued the doctor for malpractice when the woman discovered that she was still pregnant!
Despite the sterilization and the abortion, the idhn of God was that this particular child would be born. And so it was. Clearly, there is an Authority against Whom we have no real ability to interfere.
Consider the nonmanifest realms-the world of dreams, of intuition, of abstract phenomena and the many cases of people reporting encounters with UFOs, demons, poltergeists, and the like. No one in the West has so far come forward with a fully developed conceptual framework with which to deal with these “other-worldly” experiences. The Sufis use the term ghayb to refer to events that transpire in the unseen realms. This unseen realm includes the actions of the soul.
The center, or seat, of the soul’s existence is the heart. With what do we associate the heart and soul? Love, compassion, sympathy, mercy, and all of our religious sentiments. When someone dies, the grief of the survivors is felt in the heart. It is actually a physical pain. The heart aches. There is so much terminology in our language about these soul-related aspects of the heart. And no one can deny that these feelings of love and compassion do exist. No one is without them.
In Arabic, the heart is called qalb. The heart according to the Sufis is not just a physiological pump for dispersing blood about the body. It serves two more vital, interrelated functions. One, the heart is the storehouse of divine attributes; and two, it is the seat of manufacture of the nafas-that life-activating force which enters with each breath, the breath that activates all physiological functions.
Thus, when the idhn, or permission of God, is drawn in, it goes im-mediately to the heart. In some manner, this idhn activates all of the divine attributes in various combinations, and these then are carried out into the body.
The Qur’an informs that these divine attributes are approximately ninety-nine in number and are what Allah uses as the means of allowing the human to function and work on the created plane of being.
For example, one of these attributes is called al-Başır, which means “the Perceiver.” In other words, Allah sees everything at all times; there is nothing that escapes the view of God, not even the most intimate thoughts. This başır exists as a potentiality within us at all times, stored in the heart.
When Allah sends His idhn in on a breath, and this is combined with certain sounds we utter, the potentiality will then travel through a semigaseous network called a humor. The potentiality moves along this network until it reaches the moist, crystalline lens of the eye. Once there, the potentiality unites with the physical part of the body and becomes the actuality of sight. Perception, the total potentiality of al-Başır, also includes such things as insight, our sensation of majesty when viewing a panoramic sunset, and similar experiences. All of these perceptive capabilities are included within the potentiality of perception.
All of these ninety-nine divine attributes, then, are stored within the heart. These potentialities may be activated by means of various sounds we utter in combination to make words.
The three basic sounds are the long vowel sounds of ā, ī, and ū. These are what the Sufis call the universal harmonic constants, and they are similarly used in all mystic paths that utilize sounds (otherwise called mantras or wazifahs).
We do not sing or chant these sounds. Rather, they are voiced in the normal course of our conversations. The word Allāh, as an example, is just an elongation of the long vowel sound of a, interrupted once with the consonant of the letter 1, which makes the shape of the letter a with the tongue. Even animals utter various combinations of these three long vowel sounds. The owl, for example, says, “Hoo!” The pronoun for God in Arabic is Hū, pronounced exactly the same way that the owl utters its remembrance of the divine name.
Allah has informed us, “Every creature in the Heavens and the earth glorifies His Name.” The Sufi, knowing the Arabic tones and names of God, is able to attune to a cosmic conversation that is constantly going on throughout all of existence as countless creatures utter their variations of the divine name.
The use of these three constants is not arbitrary. The long vowel sound of a (as in father), as a vibratory tone, travels downward and slightly to the left from the throat and centers in the heart, thereby stimulating all of the divine attributes stored within. The long sound of i (as in machine) moves in the opposite direction, up the nasal septum, and vibrates at the point of the pineal gland, which is considered to be a remnant of the third eye, a light-sensitive organ.
The long sound of ü (as in you) exists when uttered exactly at the point on the pursed lips, the point of connection between the in- and out-breaths. It is where our action meets and intermingles with the divine permission, the idhn.
The Sufis use various formulas or combinations of these tones to produce electrifying effects that are able in and of themselves to unlock congested areas within the heart, thereby releasing one or more potentialities. This alone accounts for a considerable number of miraculous cures.
So the very words we use to make conversation are hardly a random matter. When we say the word “eat” (making the sound of the long i), for example, we are actually stimulating the endocrine system’s pineal gland! The pineal gland receives a vibratory signal that causes a series of ethereal shocks which go throughout the body, providing information to all of the physiological functions.
These events are in conjunction with what transpires throughout nature when the sun sends certain germinative shocks through the soil which cause the seed to open and send out rootlets. The germinal center of the seed is activated by shocks from the sun. Likewise, various centers within the human body are awakened by the undulations of the vibratory tones in these universal harmonic constants. The effects upon human health are profound.
This interconnection between the physical and spiritual realms exists all through nature, of which humans are a part. One might say that animals are more attuned to it; sometimes horses and other animals give a particular sound just before they die, and animals nearby know the meaning of this sound. Animals have greater awareness of the unseen realms. Humans should have this knowledge, but they do not seek it. Humans are more bound to the physical plane.
There must be a knowledge and consideration of the physical, mental, and spiritual planes of existence for there to be true health. By understand-ing each of these planes of being, we can arrive at the correct modes of balancing and treating each one. If the subject of disease is looked into deeply enough, the origin of all illness can be said to lie in the mind. There must be a thought or concept of an illness in order for it to exist. But what is the mind? Some say it is a collection of cells that have many functions and possibilities. But the Sufis attribute a great deal more to the mind, as the repository of the intellect, which God has given to humans, thus making them unique among all of the creation. Before this mind can be adequately understood, we first have to have a conception of the entire universe, from the most minute bacterial life up to God. This is known as the hierarchy of creation.
