will show that individual disciples and specific traditions
practice a combination of all three.
Heteronomous discipline. In heteronomous disci-
pline, the disciple submits in his or her search for realization,
completion, or genuine understanding to the guidelines pres-
ented by an external authority. While this authority may be
personal or impersonal in nature, the structure of the rela-
tionship between guide and disciple is often represented as
objective and depicted in oppositional images: creator/
creature; lord/subject; teacher/apprentice; parent/child;
shepherd/sheep; wise one/foolish one; judge/judged. In
obeying the commands or by imitating the paradigmatic ac-
tions of the central authority, the seeker finds the way to ful-
fillment and meaning.
One sees the ideals of heteronomous discipline in any
account of a disciple who serves a master: the Chan Buddhist
who sweeps the floor and washes the pots for his teacher; the
American Indian who follows the instructions discerned in
the tones of a coyote’s call; the orthodox Hindu who obeys
the social regulations prescribed by the Dharma ́sa ̄stras. Het-
eronomy is found in those cases where people find meaning
and validity in their actions as defined by an external authori-
ty of some kind.
Sometimes the teacher is so distant, either in time or in
space, that the disciple first must learn from a fellow, but
wiser, seeker who knows the teachings if not the teacher and
who, having traveled it, can illumine the difficult passage
from one mode of being and understanding to another. Such
is the case, for example, in the Jewish figure of the rabbi, the
Christian pater spiritualis, the Buddhist arhat and bodhisatt-
va, the Chinese sage, and the Siberian shaman—although
the particular ideologies in which each of these figures pres-
ent their teachings vary immensely.
A good example of heteronomous discipline appears in
Islamic spiritual traditions. Muslims repeatedly hear in the
QurDa ̄n the notion that a person’s sole purpose in life is to
serve the will of God (Alla ̄h) by cultivating his or her poten-
tial in accordance with God’s “command” (amr). This sub-
mission (isla ̄m) to God is the purpose for which God sends
through prophets and revealed literatures the divine “guid-
ance” (hida ̄yah). The central revelation, the QurDa ̄n, de-
scribes itself as an invitation to come to the right path (hudan
li-al-na ̄s) and is the source of the Islamic sacred law (shar ̄ıEah,
literally “the way to the water hole,” an appropriate image
for spiritual travelers in a desert region). Islamic tradition
notes that examples of such guiding laws include what is
known as fard: or wa ̄jib—those duties and actions all Mus-
lims must obey, such as daily prayer (s:ala ̄t), almsgiving
(zaka ̄t), and fasting during the holy month of Ramad:a ̄n
(s:awm).
The paradigmatic disciple in this case is the prophet
Muh:ammad, who is said to have heard the sacred instruc-
tions from divine teachers and then to have obeyed the order
to recite (qurDa ̄n) those teachings to the community. Tradi-
tion holds that Muh:ammad first received these lessons one
night during Ramad:a ̄n when he was visited by the angel Ga-
briel. After cleansing Muh:ammad’s body and spirit, Gabriel
swept him up into the air, carrying him first to the sacred
shrine at Mecca and then upward through the seven heavens
to the throne of God. There, surrounded by mystic light, the
Prophet received divine instructions on proper religious ac-
tion, specifically the practice of the five daily prayers (s:ala ̄t),
in which the Muslim is to cleanse himself and touch his fore-
head to the ground as he bows toward Mecca in the early
morning, at noon, in midafternoon, at sunset, and in the eve-
ning. According to traditional stories, Muh:ammad then re-
turned from the heavens and shared those instructions with
the human community on earth. “The key to paradise is
s:ala ̄t,” Muh:ammad is reported to have said; and the practice
of the daily purification and prayer remains today one of the
Five Pillars of Islamic faith. The four remaining pillars are
shaha ̄dah (the profession of faith), zaka ̄t (care for the unfor-
tunate through almsgiving), s:awm (fasting during the month
of Ramad:a ̄n), and h:ajj (pilgrimage to the KaEbah in Mecca).According to Islamic mystical traditions, primarily
those influenced by S:u ̄f ̄ı ideologies and practices, a person
intent on gaining a direct experience of God’s presence and
power first seeks out a teacher (Arab., shaykh; Pers., p ̄ır) who
guides the disciple (Arab., mur ̄ıd, “one who wishes to enter
[the path]”) through the stages of the spiritual journey. The
teacher then watches over the mur ̄ıd carefully, for the path
(t:ar ̄ıqah) is a long and difficult one. The master comes to
know the disciple at the most intimate of levels. The master
reads the student’s mind and sees into the student’s dreams
in order to advise as the disciple moves through the anxiety
and doubt inherent in the religious transformation. The
master may make the mur ̄ıd practice ascetic meditation for
periods of forty days at a time and demand that the pupil
direct all of his attention to God; or the master may require
the student to live in a community of fellow seekers in order
to benefit from the support a group can give. The master is
careful to keep the disciple attentive to his or her spiritual
duties as the disciple progresses through the “stations” (sg.,
maqa ̄m) on the path: repentance (tawbah), abstinence
(waraE), renunciation (zuhd), fasting (s:awm), surrender to
God (tawakkul), poverty (faqr), patience (s:abr), gratitude
(shukr), the cultivation of ecstatic joy (bast:) through con-
straint of the ego (qabd:), and—finally—love (mah:abbah)
and mystic annihilation (maErifah) into the being of God.
Bringing the student through these stages, the S:u ̄f ̄ı master
shows the way to fana ̄D, in which the seeker disposes of all
human imperfections and takes on the qualities of the divine.
Autonomous discipline. The typological opposite of
heteronomous discipline is characterized by ideologies in
which the guide is said not to live or exist somewhere outside
of the seeker but, rather, to inhabit the very depths of one’s
personal being. There, deep within the heart, the teacher
rests timelessly beneath the swirling currents of the seeker’s
confused identity, unaffected by the vagaries of the objective8700 SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE