Sufism

Let's begin by considering the world we live in, the society and culture that we live in; particularly in North America but more or less all over the modern world we have societies which are based on the individual. Particularly in North America and Europe but in the modern world as a whole, the individual is taken as the center of reality, the most important unit of reality. And this pervades everything. But in the modern world, meaning the world of the last few centuries for the West, this individual that is the center of reality, is in a sense an individual -- unlike the individual of traditional societies and of many eastern societies -- it's an individual cut off from the transcendent, it is a crippled individual, a separated individual and sometimes an emotionally toxic and wounded individual; and yet it's this individual that they base everything on, and that is taken as the norm of reality.