Radical Middle Way Transcripts

Hakim Archuletta on:

Turning Anger into Action

London, 5 February 2009

I work as a Hakim, I work in the profession of healing people from everything
from sore throats to headaches and from emotional problems to psychological
problems if you will, etc. Through the years I have seen that most of the
chronic problems and deep-seated illnesses that people have, are rooted in
attitudes. Attitudes that are developed through the years and through the
difficulties of life, and many of the illnesses are a result of these attitudes that
are contrary to that which would bring us fulfilling lives, that which would
bring us lives in which we are complete, in which we are a whole people. We
become fragmented by the experiences that we have. We know all of us in this
culture, I worked at healing people in the cities, in this developed world, and
the disease and the illnesses that we find, are very much related to the topics
that we are talking about tonight: violence, anger, rage, domestic violence.
This translates to all others: social violence and violence in the world
politically, as we all know this is what we are talking about. We all know this
fact that violence begets violence, we know that the person who abuses, was
abused. This is across the board. Its obvious isn‟t it? The one who enacts
violence on someone, had violence enacted on them. So what is it that makes
them repeat this cycle? We see this in individuals, we see this as anyone who
has worked in social work, you know that you find all of these people who
have done these violent acts in prisons, and with only a little bit of scratching
the surface of their story you see that they were abused and that there was
violence done on them when they were children. We see it with nations; whole
groups of people. So our objective and our goal in terms of healing, is to break
this cycle of violence. One person said to me, and it was very revealing, “You
know, on some level we all know the role of the perpetrator and the victim.”
We know both of those roles because we have that impulse and that
inclination and that possibility within us. We pray that the practices that we
are given, and the guidance that we are given is enough to contain and control
that, that we maybe be full, generous, merciful human beings. And that we
can find ways in which we can spread that amongst each other, and that we
can bring it about in ways it does not exist, we pray for that. But it doesn‟t
always happen, Allah is generous in what He provides for us. So He provides
for us, in addition to the very basic foundations of our „din‟ (religion). In the
basic foundations to what we‟ve gained in guidance, He gives us tools; these
are the tools that I‟ve sought out in my life for healing people with difficulties.
These things are available.

What I want to talk about tonight, in the short time that I have, that maybe
will be relative to some of the other things that will be said about how we deal
with violence in ourselves and in our societies, is based on the work that I‟ve
been doing recently, which is called somatic therapy. That is working with
healing people purely with the body. Now if we look at the practices of Islam,
they are in essence somatic therapies. We practice with our bodies:
submission, in the postures of submission, that‟s somatic, working the body.
We practice purifying ourselves by giving in „sadaqa‟ (charity), we practice
purification by actually making the action of circulating the Ka‟aba. All of the
things in our practices are done with our bodies even the „not eating‟ in
Ramadan is something we do, or don‟t do in this case. So in the new
burgeoning field of somatic therapy, it says that in our nervous systems,
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of nerves that Allah has provided for us
that we may sense and experience being in His world. We believe in being in
His worlds, as Muslims. It is one of the basic principles that we accept, we
don‟t try to absent ourselves, we don‟t try to go to some high spiritual place in
which we are not present in this world. But I will suggest that if we study the
nervous system, and we look at the state of people today, we are not present in
our bodies, particularly in the developed countries. We are not present in the
world any more; we are not present in our senses. Since 1940, that period of
research has shown that, generally speaking, the populations of the world,
more in the developed countries, that have the ability to sense others is
diminishing, our ability to hear sounds is diminishing, our vocabularies are
diminishing. This is remarkable, it means that on some level we are dying. We
have less presence in the world. The Prophet, peace and blessings upon him,
was considered by the Hakims to be the most sentient of beings, the most
present in his being. And this is why what he brought had such power to it, his
compassion. People thought that by just being in his presence, his state was
one of presence. When he spoke to a person, he turned his whole body to
them, when he took someone‟s hand; he was the last to leave it. And we know
by the stories that indicate that he was so present, that that was what part of
his power was. On the Earth he carried wood, he rode horses, he was not in
some abstract place that we could consider spirituality. He was present in the
world and he acted and interacted with people. This is our duty, as Muslims,
likewise, to be the same. But if our senses are diminishing, if we are less in our
bodies, whether we are Muslims or non-Muslims, we have to find a way to
„come to our senses‟, as they say. Come back to our senses, become present in
our bodies again. If we really are present with the practices that we are given,
it is no accident that Allah gave us them in this period of time for the end of
time. When the societies and communities are in disarray, when the ship has
sunken on some level. The ship of neighbourhoods, community and family,
and we are all at loose at the world. It is hard to find a situation except in
countries that are called undeveloped countries, hard to find situation where
you find a coherent community. People say to me in England and America,
more so in America, because there is more community here, they say “ what
can you tell us about our community?” and I say: “what community are you
talking about? Are you talking about these people that get together
occasionally and pray, and then go off in their different ways in cars,
automobiles and live far apart from each other?”

This is a unique time; it is a unique time in many, many ways and in the
tradition of „hikma‟ (wisdom) in medicine. For the Muslims, through the
„hikma‟ we must see and assess appropriately what is happening in the present
time, so that we can understand the nature of the problem. It used to be that
we have, built into us by Allah‟s design, the ability to heal from stress and
from trauma. If we are not present in our bodies, that process does not take
place. Now in the time that I have, I‟m not going to be able to go into detail to
explain a lot of this, but I suggest to a lot of you and to all of us as Muslims,
that we must look at the ways that we heal ourselves, genuinely and
completely, we must see how we can do that. And then we begin to administer
to those that need help, there are so many people who need, who are suffering
from trauma, who have violence having been done to them, and have it in
them. The best of people in circumstances will snap and go beyond that
boundary and do what they don‟t want to do. We all know this yes? So I‟m
suggesting that we all look into ways in which we find this total healing for our
own traumas, for our history. And in a complete and genuine way, we become
whole and become people who are in management of our senses, management
of our emotions, management of our impulses.

The work I‟m talking about: somatic therapy is burgeoning. The practices that
we have in Islam are all designed to bring us to our senses, and place us in our
bodies and accept it. But we have a role to play in cognitively and consciously
recognising that this is a task that we must do. If our senses are diminishing, if
we are less present, we have learned to live in this modern world in an
abstract way. This twentieth century is unique in that we have a proliferation
of images outside of ourselves. This was never true a hundred years ago; we
didn‟t have artificial light, we didn‟t have all these things that remove us from
being present in Allah‟s creation, with His trees, His plants, His animals. His
animals alone are something that we have become detached and disconnected
from, true or not?

I‟m saying that there is a task that all of us have to undertake, which is
somehow, finding the means by which we can wake up and, as I say, „come to
or senses.‟ There are these therapies that they call somatic therapies, which
can help a person to do that. Primarily it has to do with recognising, that this
body that we are given, with its hundreds and hundreds of thousands of nerve
endings, by Allah, is designed for us to be present with feeling. We have lost
this ability to be present in our sense, and as a result, we do not feel as we
should. So we can get angry and say “I‟m mad as hell, and I can‟t take it
anymore,” and we can protest. But really, if we were present in our sense, we
would have been out protesting, we would have been doing something long
ago. In the States, I was saying that when the Iraq war was going on, if we had
been present in our senses completely, and if we had been totally in
connection with our compassion and saw that action was necessary, then we
would be down at the Whitehouse throwing rocks from the beginning, ten
years ago.

We would have been, but people don‟t care anymore, we don‟t care because we
don‟t have the ability to sense and to be present with compassion that would
draw out action anymore. We sit back and we take it easy, we avoid these
things and we have strategies of avoidance. We have strategies of avoidance to
avoid feeling, because it is too much to look at the sorrow and the difficulty. I
have met teenagers who say, “The only solution I have found for living in the
world, is to be numb.” But that is not a solution: that is choosing death over
life. So I say that the thing to do is that we need to spend more time together,
we need to work against the things that keep us from being alive in every
sense of the word, as human beings. We need to breathe, we need to eat
together, we need to walk together, we need to converse together, we need to
spend time together, and we need to recognise that we have to wake up
however we can do it. I tell people “get on horses, ride horses, stand in front of
the ocean and let the waves hit you.” So that you wake up, whatever it means,
whatever it takes for you to wake up and come back to this ability to feel; to
feel the sorrow of the world, and the pain of other people. So much that it is
not just an idea that we work with, but that we feel that it drives us to action
so that we do something about it. And I suggest, as Muslims, if we are going to
fulfil our role as Muslims in Allah‟s creation in these times, that we must heal
ourselves and find whatever means we can do to do so.

People have this idea amongst Muslims that “if I just think about this change,
it will happen.” Most cases, the recycling of the self, just means there is no
change without something coming from the outside, we need something
coming from the outside, some counselling, some advice, some guidance. We
need something to break that cycle of repetitive action in which we remain the
same. One Sheikh said “ There is no static point on the path to Allah, you are
either going close to Allah, or you are going away from Allah.” There is no
static point, but we tend to think that we are comfortable in this place and it
doesn‟t exist. But time is short, and healing can happen by action, with
sincerity and compassion from our being, in which we become full human
beings, as exemplified by the Prophet, and we become like him, peace and
blessings upon him. And like the Sheikh and Sheiyukh that guide us, we can
become like them in action and open our hearts, and change other people‟s
hearts. Or we can sit back as we have been with this repeating status quo. But
Allah heals like that, and if He wants to heal all of us like that; then He will do
it. And we pray that that is not going to be necessary, we pray that we have
enough in our hearts to change the people around us, and that each one can
change other people and come, as I say in this age that we have to look at it in
terms of, coming back to life: life itself.

We have absented ourselves from what was natural to us in life from a

hundred years ago. We don‟t have people that make shoes anymore! We don‟t
have people, well in some parts of the world they do, but for the most part in
these developed countries, we don‟t do anything that was part of our normal
course of being human beings. Such as spending time with animals, riding
horses, there are many things. We are disconnected from all that was natural
for us for centuries and centuries and as a result, we suffer in terms of our
nervous systems, and shutting down of this experience of being alive. So I
pray that for all of you, and just practically speaking, I suggest for any of you
that are in the healing arts, look into somatic therapy. I could say if there is a
psychology present in the world today, it is very Islamic and there is a „hikma‟
to it. Look into the other healing arts: homeopathy. Allah is generous, and he
gives us the additional tools we need. And these things, the somatic work and
somatic therapy can bring your practice of the „din‟ alive. If you are present in
your body, and you earn how to do that by techniques and methods, then
when you make your „salat‟ it‟s going to be more meaningful to Allah. So
thanks be to God, this gathering is awesome, it is a beautiful gathering, and I
know that the intention for people being here is good, that is powerful itself.
But inshallah, I pray that we take these intentions and put them into some
kind of action for changing ourselves and then, without being arrogant that we
are above other people, but serving other people, Muslims or non-Muslims,
serving the animals and even the stones. Inshallah. God bless you.
About Hakim Archuletta

Hakim Archuletta has worked within the healing arts profession for over 30
years. His interest in medicine and natural health and the study of God's
Creation began as a child. His first formal studies were in the Fine Arts which
he studied in the 60's in Berkeley where his expertise ranged from graphic arts
to theater, cinema and ethnomusicology. He studied homeopathy and
apprenticed with Dr. John Damonte in London in the early 70's. He continued
these studies in Berkeley apprenticing with homeopathic doctors and working
with the first Homeopathic Study group there. He continued his studies in the
Middle East, England and North Africa in the mid 70's. In 1978, Hakim went
to Pakistan at the invitation of Hakim Mohammad Said of the Hamdard
Foundation and studied there with various Hakims (traditional Islamic
doctors) supported by grants from the Bawani Trust. His main teacher was
Hakim Taqiuddin Ahmad at the Nizami Dawakhana, where he also learned
Pharmacy in the Unani tradition. There he earned the title of "Hakim".

Returning to the Americas in 1980, he began teaching students privately and

established a Family practice clinic in Santa Barbara California. He has
conducted and taught study groups for homeopathy in Santa Barbara,
California, Taos, Abiquiu, and Los Alamos, New Mexico for professional and
lay persons. He began extensive work as counselor, consultant and
Hakim/Homeopath in Abiquiu, New Mexico and by traveling nationally for
over ten years. This also included workshops on communication and
community consensus building including special focus on youth. He has
worked with young people for many years and taught science on a high school
level for six years in a very "hands on" method and worked on curriculum that
is age appropriate and spiritually based in science for young people. More
recently he began to focus on trauma and was trained in the methods of Dr.
Peter Levine and others. Today he lectures and teaches classes and workshops
nationally. He has conducted workshops and lectured at University of
California Berkeley, Harvard, Wellesley, Stanford, UCLA, University of
Houston and many others. He addressed and led the New Mexico State
Congress in opening prayers after 9/11, writes, reads and organizes poetry
readings. He has students and patients across the world.

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speakers and events, please visit www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk