Recently I saw a video from Allan Watts. Interestingly enough this meditation tutorial used different Mantras, or magic words for practical purpose. So he used appropriate words from the Hindu context, from the Christian context and from the Sufi context. He talked also about the necessity to stop the internal chattering, to calm down the Ego. That reminded me on Carl Gustav Jung’s description of individuation. You have to overcome but not destroy your Ego, in order to reach your Self. In Sufism there are the four deaths of Sufi doctrine; white death or fasting, black death or abstaining,red death, conquering the devil and finally green death, renouncing pomp. I’ve written about this sermon of a friend, who happens to be a psychoanalyst: “meta noia” or got further. The Christian monks too, know this concept to conquer or kill the Ego.
It has been set, what Sufi knows, psychology struggled to learn. The same is true for Christianity. Some say, that Sufism itself is a psychological system, which holds some truth to me. Some say, the roots of Sufism may be found in Gnostic thoughts. Like gnosticism, Sufism uses religion as a structure or vessel. While it is true, that Sufism comprises the mystical dimension of Islam, it contains also a lot of pagan Persian concepts.