Extract From Unauthorised Biography of

Doris LessingBy Carol Klien

Finding the WayWriting The Golden Notebook was an instrument of change for Doris Lessing. The development of that book opened her to whole new ways of thinking and to experiences that ran counter to the person she thought she was. Rather than push the new aspects of herself away to maintain equilibrium, as some people would do, she embraced them with curiosity and excitement. She wanted to understand what was creating these new thoughts, many of them incompatible with how she viewed herself at the time, as a Marxist and a Rationalist. As she had done all her life when her interest was piqued, she embarked on a course of reading, this time in mystical, non-rational literature. Several of these books were written by a man named Idries Shah. His work presented her with a philosophical movement of the Islamic religion, called Sufism. Lessing discovered that its teachings reflected many of the thoughts and feelings that were currently concerning her. Not well known at the time, Shah would with Lessings help, become internationally famous as the worlds leading exponent of Sufism Like other Islamic traditions, Sufism traces its origins back to the Prophet Muhammad and takes inspiration from the divine word of the Koran. L~wever its exact origins are unclear. The term Sufi was not recorded until approximately 100 years after Muhammads death in 1632. It is adapted from the Arabic word suf which means wool and refers to the simple garb that was worn by holy men. In its earliest incarnations Sufism was a body of thought which could simplistically be described as the mystical side of Islam. Writings which predate the term Sufi might well be considered part of that body of thought, therefore its hard to define an exact starting point for Sufism. As might be expected over the course of hundreds and hundreds of years, there have been many different ideas contained within the rubric of Sufism, but asceticism and a personal relationship with God are two hallmarks. With the establishment of Sufi orders in the 12tt~ century the dervishes whose ecstatic dancing led to the phrase whirling dervish Sufi teachings became more codified. But the development of Sufism throughout the Islamic world without any central structure had meant its doctrines and practices are in no way uniform. Indeed discussions of

Sufism can lead into a highly subjective realm. In the West this has often taken the form of a debate between a modern wave of Sufi adherents and scholars of Islamic history. Anyone familiar with Doris Lessings views of academics would find it easy to anticipate which side of the argument she would land on. Universities have long been a source of irritation for her. She has attacked academic literary analysis for its attention to extraneous detail, and mtpicking. And Lessing has expounded at length about the inane questions she has been subjected to by professors in her many on-campus speaking appearances. About the academic journal which bears her name, The Doris Lessing Newsletter she has commented, it is acutely embarrassing I dont like the cult atmosphere at all.2 Ironically, in a May 1975 article in the magazine Encounter, Islamic scholar L.P. Elwell-Sutton attacked Lessings Sufi mentor Idries Shah on similar grounds, complaining about the development of a cult of personality.3 Earlier that year, in the January 8 issue of the Guardian, Doris Lessing had written a full page article titled If you knew Sufi, to which ElwelISuttons piece was in part a reply. And it contained a brief broadside in his general direction, when she criticised scholars who have attacked this figure Shah sometimes viciously. It was the only sour note in what was otherwise a full page tribute to Idries Shah written in prose so glowing it would make a PR man blush. After skipping over Idries Shahs birth in Simla, India, in 1924, Lessing explained her version of the amazing facts of Shahs life, beginning with his family. His mother was Scottish, his fathers family was of Afghan origin, with ancestors that can be traced back not only to the Prophet Muhammad, but to Abraham of biblical renown. Shahs father helped partition India, and when he wasnt busy lecturing on three continents, he made himself available to Gandhi and Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Lessing writes that Idries Shah had an education, not commonly associated with Princes. In addition to farm work, and studying at several universities, Shah was sent packing without money or support for a twelve year learning trip where he acquired his extensive knowledge of religion and philosophy.4 According to Lessing, Shah inherited palaces in India and Afghanistan, controlled hundreds of millions in trust funds, invented electronic devices that were marketed, served on the board of companies in numerous types of business, ranging from culture to carpets, but for some reason, supports himself and his family entirely by what he earns from writing.5 Not content simply to accept his hereditary role as the chief of the Dervishes, Shah had also founded an Institute of Cultural Research to help spread enlightenment to study groups that contain nearly as many different professions as there are members.6... ...

In Elwell-Suttons piece about Shah, a different picttre emerges. He disputes the idea that anyone could inherit the role of head of the dervishes because Sufl knowledge is not passed on through physical heredity. Explaining that Shahs inherited title Sayyid confers neither sanctity nor authority. Elwell-Sutton describes, Sayyid as a term applied to descendants (real and imagined) of Muhammads daughter Fatima.7 Therefore as a Hashemi Sayyid, Idries Shah could claim descent from the Prophet, but since the number of Sayyids runs into the millions, it is not much of a distinction. None of the palaces Lessing mentions, appear in Elwell-Suttons version, there is only a modest estate near Delhi, a present given to the Shah family by the Indian government, after it was expelled from Afghanistan for aiding the British in the First Afghan war in 1841.8 Elwell-Suttons harshest words were reserved not for Shah, himself, but for his teaching. This is Sufism (if it deserves that name) without Islam, Sufism without religion, Sufism centred not on God, but on man. Page after page of his writings do not even mention the name of God, the word love, the concept of unity with God through love. He is far more concerned with prescriptions for self-improvement, directions for the achievement of personal happiness, guidelines for a worldly elite. Shah is, said Sutton, a man very much of this world, impressed by big names and revelling in the lionising and the personality cult that centres around him.9***

It wasnt just scholars who were critical of Shah. John Bennett, a seminal figure in what now would be called the New Age movement, wrote an extremely negative account of Shah in his, 1974 autobiography Witness. Bennett, devoted much of his life to spiritual pursuits after surviving the trench warfare of the First World War. He had spent time in Asia, and his quest for enlightenment had included time following two famous names in the New Age movement Gurdjieff and Subud. Bennett also had followers of his own, who were members of his institute at an estate, Coombe Springs, in Kingston, Surrey. In 1962, Bennett met Shah who was close to half Bennetts age. According to Bennett, Shah had come to England to seek out followers of Gurdjieff s ideas with the intention of tcansmitting to them knowledge and methods that were needed to complete their teaching.1 When he and his wife met Shah, they had mixed feelings. Initially, they found the younger man restless, he smoked incessantly, talked too much, and seemed too intent on making a good impression. Halfway through the evening, our attitude completely changed. We recognised that he was not only an unusually gifted man, but that he had the indefinable

something that marks the man who has worked seriously upon himself. Bennetts description of what follows makes himself seem like a man under a spell. He decided to put myself at Shahs disposal and do all that I could to help him.2 As the weeks passed, it was clear that what Shah really wanted was Coombe Springs, both the property and those pupils who he felt could help him further his cause. Shah insisted that if Bennett were to turn over the property to him, the gift had to be absolute, irrevocable, and completely voluntary.3 Bennett agreed, influenced by the fact that Shah was so much younger than himself, and that having him take over Coombe Springs would insure its continuation after Bennetts death. Some of Bennetts colleagues urged him instead to sell the property and to give half the money to Shah, while keeping the other half to build himself a retirement home in the country. But Shah was not open to halfway measures about the gift. Pushed to hurry, Bennett moved out of Coombe Springs. The next few months were extremely difficult. As soon as Shah took over the house, he forbade Bennetts people from visiting, and made Bennett feel so intrusive that he stayed away completely In 1966, Bennett learned that Shah had decided to sell Coombe Springs for one hundred thousand pounds. The sale was made to a developer who would take the to Bennett holy land, and build twenty-eight luxury homes for commercial sale. Shah and his family then moved to Langton House in Kent where he was living and working when Doris Lessing met him.

Lessings meeting with Shah came about after Doris Lessing read The Sufis or maybe The Searchers, Lessing has offered different accounts and wrote to him. But she had to wait a long time for his response. (Paradoxically, considering how she feels about professors, Doris Lessing did not feel ready to start her spiritual journey without a teacher.) Lessing wrote to Robert Gottlieb that when she initially found out about Sufism, after more than four years of searching for a discipline to explain and guide her life, she was overcome with joy. Finding Shah seems to have allowed Doris Lessing to surrender many of her defences, built up over the years as one after another, people or disciplines disappointed her. Gottlieb asked her to tell him about being a Sufi, so that he could understand something that was so important to her, and Lessing somewhat reluctantly began to do so. Part of Lessings tentative explanation to Robert Gottlieb was that Sufis believe there is only a tiny core of the self which can be nurtured and developed. The area that fosters growth is buried deep inside us and will lead us into the light only when

it is ready to do so. It was not easy to explain the Sufi way to those not yet ready to grasp it. This was something Lessing knew from first hand knowledge of watching Sufi teaching in action. One friend remembered her telling about a man in one of Shahs teaching sessions who fell asleep while it was going on. Later, when she asked the man why he had allowed this to happen, he complained that Shah wasnt doing anything. This was not Doris Lessings perception. She was perfectly comfortable with the indirect teaching style of Shahs Sufism, a methodology which Shah explained this way: The Sufi attitude is undoubtedly that of being, but unlike the familiar type of mystic, he will use knowing as well. He distinguishes between the ordinary knowing of fact and the inner knowing of reality. His activity connects and balances all these factors understanding, being, knowing.4 If such explanations seem obscure, there is also the suggestion that only those who have reached some higher state of being will be able to comprehend the discipline. As Shah states, It is a form of communication among the enlightened ones. It has the advantage of connecting mundane with the greater dimensions; the other world from which the ordinary humanity is cut off.5 Shah felt that Sufism defies conventional definition and he had little patience with people who assumed they understood what Sufism is simply because they have studied or observed it. Outward observers are not capable of commenting upon Sufism, only upon its externals. Who tastes, knows, is a Sufi saying. Equally, whoever does not taste, does not know.6 In other words Either you get it, or you dont. The teaching story, the main instrument of Sufi enlightenment demonstrates this dichotomy. To apt students the teaching stories are an important aide to personal growth. Unlike traditional fables or parables, extolling some moral or truth, the tales are open-ended and invite individual interpretation that fosters intellectual and personal development. Others find the stories oblique or even pointless. Nancy Shields Hardin in her essay The Sufi Teaching Story and Doris Lessing felt that the following story, contained zany antics and actions that surprise the listener and encourage him to discover another level of knowledge.7 Nasrudin finds a kings hawk perched on his window-sill. He has never seen such a strange pigeon. After cutting its aristocratic beak straight and clipping its talons, he sets it free, saying, Now you look more like a bird. Someone had neglected you.8 It may be safe to say that not every reader will experience the discovery that Shields did. But for students, of Sufism a teaching story can becomes a mirror to see oneself and state of mind. It can foster a holistic way of looking at life, where the right and left brain hemispheres are unified, joining the

intuitive and abstract to the rational and logical. Indeed it is one of the purposes of the Sufi teaching story to teach a perceptual change from the linear mode of thought to a more spontaneous, instinctual understanding of life. Lessings fiction often has aspects of the Sufi teaching story, the dream and real worlds flowing into each other, enabling a reader to look at some life experience in a new way.

In a Times story about Shahs 1994 book, The Commanding Self Doris Lessing wrote that discovering the teaching story taught her how to appraise her own talents. She also used two of the stories in the tribute to Shah. One was about an elephant and a mouse who fall in love and decide to marry. On their wedding night, the elephant keels over and dies. The mouse says: Oh Fate! I have unknowingly bartered one moment of pleasure and tons of imagination for a lifetime of digging a grave. 19 Lessing adds approvingly, There is not a grain of sentimentality in this view of life.20 She believes that to understand what it means to think like a Sufi, one must abandon conventional limitations on thought and language. These beliefs have been manifested in her writing. Her characters are often engaged in an evolution of consciousness, as witnessed by, for example, their facility for extrasensory perception. Martha could easily hear what Lynda was thinking. Being more sensitive now, by far, than normally, she heard better: normally she could hear an odd phrase, or a key word, or a sentence or two. Summarising what was going on in somebodys head; now it was not far off being inside Lyndas head.2 A Sufi who has reached a certain phase of evolution would be able to see the workings of another persons mind. The influence of this evolutionary aspect of Sufism on Doris Lessing is made clear by her inclusion of this quote from Idries Shahs, The Sufis in the epigraph to part four ofThe Four Gated City....

Sufis believe that, expressed in one way, humanity is evolving towards a certain destiny Organs come into being as a result of a need for specific organs What ordinary people regard as sporadic and occasional bursts of telepathic and prophetic power are seen by the Sufi as nothing less than the first stirrings of these same organs.22...

It was just these types of sentiments that annoyed many of Lessings friends when her focus switched from politics to Sufism. They felt that involvement with Sufism had made Lessing become elitist, egotistical

and secretive. Others thought Sufism had given her a degree of inner peace that had made her more easy going. Gottlieb, writing with his customary affectionate tone, assured Lessing that he would not reject her beliefs even though they were not his own. Though, in another letter, Gottlieb at first confessed he could not comprehend Lessings impulse to align herself with a master or teacher, but quickly added that the important issue for both Doris and himself was to keep improving themselves and their lives in whatever ways seemed right for them. It is not likely that Gottlieb would acknowledge any personal criticism of Idries Shah, knowing the extent of Doris Lessings commitment, one that, in 1979, led her to set up a Sufi Trust for one hundred thousand dollars drawn from money that her books would earn from Knopf. The activities of the trust are not generally known. I dont understand Shah from nowhere! said Stuart Hall mockingly. It is a sentiment echoed by many of Doris Lessings friends and colleagues who knew her in her political days. Clancy Sigal at first assumed they were lovers, a belief shared by many people who saw them together, though Lessing denies this. Its the only explanation I can figure for her falling in with that charlatan, said one sceptic. Elwell-Sutton also puzzled over Shahs hold on intellectuals like Lessing and the poet Robert Graves, whose summation of purpose To be in this world, but not of it that is the Sufis ideal he found totally inaccurate, in terms of historical Suflsm.23 Referring to Shahs students, Elwell-Sutton commented It is significant that the bulk of them come from the intellectual establishment: poets, novelists, journalists, critics, broadcasters.24 He wondered if there might also be some kind of pleasure in giving up intellectual control and obeying and following a fixed discipline. And there was the elitist aspect; being au courant with a provocative way of thinking, and belonging to some exclusive club that would be out of the reach of less exceptional people....

All of these possibilities probably hold some clue to Lessings unequivocal support of Idries Shah. But whatever the mix of reasons for her unquestioning acceptance of his superiority, it is evident from her writing that being a Sufi has both brought her greater peace and intensified her interiorness. Through her interpretation of Sufi thinking, Doris Lessing appears to have been able to put some regrets to rest. As with the Zeitgeist, which is larger than free will, one can believe that some of ones past actions are the result of an as yet unevolved self. One cannot be held responsible for being unenlightened. Whats more, one can even regard some of those more turbulent periods as part of ones

evolution, where one is finally able to reach a higher level of understanding. Like Communism before it, Sufism allowed Lessing a place to belong, while remaining an outsider. On her trips to New York, Lessing would take Shahs books around to religious and New Age bookstores to try to sell them to the storeowners. Shed just trot out with a bag full of the books, without making appointments, or saying who she was in advance, just wandering around the city from store to store, recalled one Knopf editor, still sounding bewildered at the memory. I said, if Id known you were doing that, I would give you a list of certain bookstores. And she said, No, rambling about like this is more fun. She wanted to do it her own way. So I dont know where she went or what she managed to sell. But she was determined to do this for Idries Shah. She wanted to further his work. In a London Telegraph obituary following Shahs death on November 23, 1996, Lessing wrote, It is not easy to sum up 30 odd years of learning under a Sufi teacher, for it has been a journey with surprises all the way, a process of shedding illusions and preconceptions.25 Through Sufism, a life that political ideology and artistic achievement could not fully illuminate has become comprehensible. And apparently, Sufism continues to answer Doris Lessings questions. She quite simply declared in 1990, Its the most important thing in my life.26