Sufism, the Path of Love: 2008

The luminous point whose name is the Self
Is the life-spark beneath our dust.
325 By Love it is made more lasting,
More living, more burning, more glowing.
From Love proceeds the radiance of its being
And the development of its unknown possibilities.
Its nature gathers fire from Love,
330 Love instructs it to illumine the world.

p. 29

Love fears neither sword nor dagger,
Love is not born of water and air and earth.
Love makes peace and war in the world,
The Fountain of Life is Love's flashing sword.
The hardest rocks are shivered by Love's glance: 335
Love of God at last becomes wholly God.
Learn thou to love, and seek to be loved:
Seek an eye like Noah's, a heart like Job's!
Transmute thy handful of earth into gold,
Kiss the threshold of a Perfect Man! 1 340
Like Rúmí, light thy candle
And burn Rúm in the fire of Tabríz! 2

p. 30

There is a beloved hidden within thine heart:
I will show him to thee, if thou hast eyes to see.
345 His lovers are fairer than the fair,
Sweeter and comelier and more beloved.
By love of him the heart is made strong
And earth rubs shoulders with the Pleiades.
The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace
350 And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies. 1
In the Moslem's heart is the home of Mohammed,
All our glory is from the name of Mohammed.
Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house,
The sanctuary of the Ka‘ba is his dwelling-place.

p. 31

Eternity is less than a moment of his time, 355
Eternity receives increase from his essence.
He slept on a mat of rushes,
But the crown of Chosroes was under his people's feet.
He chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hirá,
And he founded a state and laws and government. 360
He passed many a night with sleepless eyes
In order that the Moslems might sleep on the throne of Persia.
In the hour of battle, iron was melted by his sword;
In the hour of prayer, tears fell like rain from his eye.
When he was called to aid, his sword answered "Amen" 365
And extirpated the race of kings.
He instituted new laws in the world,

p. 32

He brought the empires of antiquity to an end.
With the key of religion he opened the door of this world:
370 The womb of the world never bore his like.
In his sight high and low were one,
He sat with his slave at one table.
The daughter of the chieftain of Tai
was taken prisoner in battle 1
And brought into that exalted presence;
375 Her feet in chains, unveiled,
And her neck bowed with shame.
When the Prophet saw that the poor girl had no veil,
He covered her face with his own veil.
We are more naked than that lady of Tai,
380 We are unveiled before the nations of the world.

p. 33

In him is our trust on the Day of Judgement,
And in this world too he is our protector.
Both his favour and his wrath are entirely a mercy:
That is a mercy to his friends and this to his foes.
He opened the gates of mercy to his enemies, 385
He gave to Mecca the message, "No blame shall be laid upon you."
We who know not the bonds of country
Resemble sight, which is one though it be the light of two eyes.
We belong to the Hijáz and China and Persia,
Yet we are the dew of one smiling dawn. 390
We are all under the spell of the eye of the cupbearer from Mecca,
We are united as wine and cup.

p. 34

He burnt clean away distinctions of lineage,
His fire consumed this trash and rubble.
395 We are like a rose with many petals but with one perfume:
He is the soul of this society, and he is one.
We were the secret concealed in his heart:
He spake out fearlessly, and we were revealed.
The song of love for him fills my silent reed,
400 A hundred notes throb in my bosom.
How shall I tell what devotion he inspires?
A block of dry wood wept at parting from him. 1
The Moslem's being is where he manifests his glory:
Many a Sinai springs from the dust on his path.

p. 35

My image was created by his mirror, 405
My dawn rises from the sun of his breast.
My repose is a perpetual fever,
My evening hotter than the morning of Judgement Day: 1
He is the April cloud and I his garden,
My vine is bedewed with his rain. 410
I sowed mine eye in the field of Love
And reaped a harvest of delight.
"The soil of Medina is sweeter than both worlds:
Oh, happy the town where dwells the Beloved!" 2
I am lost in admiration of the style of Mullá Jámí: 415
His verse and prose are a remedy for my immaturity.
He has written poetry overflowing with beautiful ideas

p. 36

And has threaded pearls in praise of the Master—
"Mohammed is the preface to the book of the universe:
420 All the world are slaves and he is the Master."
From the wine of Love spring many qualities:
Amongst the attributes of Love is blind devotion.
The saint of Bistám, who in devotion was unique,
Abstained from eating a water-melon. 1
425 Be a lover constant in devotion to thy beloved,
That thou mayst cast thy noose and capture God.
Sojourn for a while on the Hirá of the heart, 2

p. 37

Abandon self and flee to God.
Strengthened by God, return to thy self
And break the heads of the Lát and Uzzá of sensuality. 1 430
By the might of Love evoke an army,
Reveal thyself on the Fárán of Love, 2
That the Lord of the Ka‘ba may show thee favour
And interpret to thee the text, "Lo, I will appoint a vicegerent on the earth." 3

Article Source : Sacred Texts

The Secrets of the Self

Showing that the system of the universe originates in the Self, and that the continuation of the life of all individuals depends on strengthening the Self.

The form of existence is an effect of the Self,
Whatsoever thou seest is a secret of the Self.
When the Self awoke to consciousness,
190 It revealed the universe of Thought.
A hundred worlds are hidden in its essence:
Self-affirmation brings Not-self to light.
By the Self the seed of hostility is sown in the world:
It imagines itself to be other than itself.

p. 17

It makes from itself the forms of others 195
In order to multiply the pleasure of strife.
It is slaying by the strength of its arm
That it may become conscious of its own strength.
Its self-deceptions are the essence of Life;
Like the rose, it lives by bathing itself in blood. 200
For the sake of a single rose it destroys a hundred rose-gardens
And makes a hundred lamentations in quest of a single melody.
For one sky it produces a hundred new moons,
And for one word a hundred discourses.
The excuse for this wastefulness and cruelty 205
Is the shaping and perfecting of spiritual beauty.

p. 18

The loveliness of Shírín justifies the anguish of Farhád, 1
The fragrant navel justifies a hundred musk-deer.
’Tis the fate of moths to consume in flame:
210 The suffering of moths is justified by the candle.
The pencil of the Self limned a hundred to-days
In order to achieve the dawn of a single morrow.
Its flames burned a hundred Abrahams 2
That the lamp of one Mohammed might be lighted.
215 Subject, object, means, and causes—
They all exist for the purpose of action.

p. 19

The Self rises, kindles, falls, glows, breathes,
Burns, shines, walks, and flies.
The spaciousness of Time is its arena,
Heaven is a billow of the dust on its road. 220
From its rose-planting the world abounds in roses;
Night is born of its sleep, day springs from its waking.
It divided its flame into sparks
And taught the understanding to worship particulars.
It dissolved itself and created the atoms, 225
It was scattered for a little while and created the sands.
Then it wearied of dispersion
And by re-uniting itself it became the mountains.
’Tis the nature of the Self to manifest itself:
In every atom slumbers the might of the Self. 230
p. 20

Power that is unexpressed and inert
Chains the faculties which lead to action.
Inasmuch as the life of the universe
comes from the strength of the Self,
Life is in proportion to this strength.
235 When a drop of water gets the Self's lesson by heart,
It makes its worthless existence a pearl.
Wine is formless because its self is weak;
It receives a form by favour of the cup.
Although the cup of wine assumes a form,
240 It is indebted to us for its motion.
When the mountain loses its self, it turns into sands
And complains that the sea surges over it;
But the wave, so long as it remains a wave in the sea's bosom,
Makes itself a rider on the sea's back.

p. 21

Light has been a beggar since the eye first rolled 245
And moved to and fro in search of beauty;
But forasmuch as the grass found a
means of growth in its self,
Its aspiration clove the breast of the garden.
The candle too concatenated itself
And built itself out of atoms; 250
Then it made a practice of melting
itself away and fled from its self
Until at last it trickled down from its own eye, like tears.
If the bezel had been more self-secure by nature,
It would not have suffered wounds,
But since it derives its value from the superscription, 255
Its shoulder is galled by the burden of another's name.
Because the earth is firmly based on self-existence,

p. 22

The captive moon goes round it perpetually.
The being of the sun is stronger than that of the earth:
260 Therefore is the earth bewitched by the sun's eye.
The glory of the plane fixes our gaze,
The mountains are enriched by its majesty:
Its raiment is woven of fire,
Its origin is one self-assertive seed.
265 When Life gathers strength from the Self,
The river of Life expands into an ocean.

Article Source : Sacred Texts

Friday, February 22, 2008

O Cup-bearer! Give me again that wine of love for Thee

O Cup-bearer! Give me again that wine of love for Thee;
Let me gain the place my soul desires.

My lyrical vein was all but dried up, still
The sheik decrees that, too, should be choked to death.

No trail now blazes in new fields of thought,
But blind slaves of sufies and mullahs survive.

Who snatched away the piercing sword of love?
Knowledge is left with an empty sheath alone.

With a luminous soul the power of song is life;
With a darkened soul that power is eternal death.

A full moon glistens in Thy brimful cup;
Deprive me not of its silver beams at night.

Article Source : Poetry Chaikhana

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Attributes of God

Man is the most superior creation of God and is a reflection of the divine attributes.

As we know God by His attribute Al-Rahim, man is also capable to show this attribute towards other creations. However, he also can be qahaar, a compelling subduer, as this is also a divine attribute (Al-Qahaar).

However, as I understand, while man can show some divine attributes, he is incapable or partially incapable of showing others.

Man cannot be Al-Samad (a complex attribute meaning The Self Sufficient, The Impregnable, and The Eternally Besought of All). He has to rely upon food for energy and can never be self sufficient in complete sense.

He cannot be Al-Khaaliq (The Creator). He may have created the wheel but the creation of matter and energy that drives the wheel is not his creation.

He can give food the beggar, but the true source of food is again God (Al-Razaaq- The All Provider), since he grew the food, but did not create it.

The true greatness of Allah is so immense; beyond all attributes we know and beyond every word we have.

As narrated in Quran, when Moses (p.b.u.h) pleaded God to show him a little glimpse of Himself, God remarked 'Lan Tirani', which means 'you are incapable of it'. Upon Moses' insistence, God asked him to come to the Mount of Toor and as He revealed a slight glimpse of his Greatness, Moses was shattered to unconsciousness and upon wakening was too weak to narrate the Greatness of His Glory.

No wonder when Prophet Muhammad went to Mairaj, he remarked to God that he wish to present to him something which even He does not possess. Prophet presented his humility to Allah.

Most certainly His Glory is too Great to be humble. Subhan-Rabiyall-Aala.

Article Source : The Sufi Blog

SUFISM AND THE PARADOX OF SELF

By Sheikha Fatima Fleur Nassery Bonnin

Bismillaah ir Rahmaan ir Rahiim
In the name of Allah, The Merciful, The Compassionate

THE PATH OF SUFISM

Allah (swt) uses many different ways of awakening people from the sleep of this world and attracting them to Him. Upon awakening, people begin searching and become travellers of the path (salek). As they start their journey towards God, their thoughts and feelings shift. They begin to behave and live differently in varying degrees. This change is necessary for a person to be considered a traveller of the path. Why the change? They are now beginning to distinguish between the ‘reality’ that they have always known and the Reality that truly is. They start to realise and understand that the purpose of this life’s journey is not what they had thought and that the journey of life, in fact, encompasses greater depth and meaning than they had ever imagined. The innermost part of their self responds strongly to this realisation and the outer mechanics of the person therefore shifts.

There are various spiritual paths that attract people but, sooner or later, all these little roads lead to one main road and unless one travels the distance to this grand highway, one will not get far. To travel on this highway, one must disable and break down the self, removing the self (nafs) from its position of king and ruler, and making it the slave. While the terms used may differ, all the mystical paths are in agreement on this fundamental aspect. In Buddhism, they speak of suffering and killing the ego; in Sufism, they speak of servanthood of the nafs to Allah (swt). This also marks the separation between the real traveller and the pseudo traveller.

The vast treasury of Sufi teaching, poetry and literature, points out this fundamental and uncompromising stage of spiritual unfoldment. In Sufism particularly, this highway is well sign-posted and can be followed if sincerity governs the heart. This road is marked with many teachers and once one surrenders himself to be taught and becomes a salek, he or she is well on the road to God discovery. Guided by his teacher (murshid), the salek follows and obeys the murshid, whose job is to prevent the salek from falling into the trap of its self (nafs). The self uses every trick and manipulation to get the traveller off the road that will ultimately lead to the self’s demise. Its tools include man’s mind, emotions and belief systems - a dangerous and powerful array of weaponry. One must be most aware and equipped to defy the attempts of the nafs.

THE PARADOX OF SELF
The teachings tell us two seemingly contradictory things about the self. In the first instance, the self is the most dangerous trap in the path to God. It is the biggest obstacle, it is vile, it is beastly. It is only interested in the fulfilment of its animalistic and selfish desires. It is a veil to the Truth and Reality. It makes you believe things that are not true and makes you like things that are not good for you. It is difficult to recognise this because you have always lived this way and you are surrounded by people who live similarly. So, pay attention! These are the characteristics of Satan as described in the Qur’an. For example in Surah 15:39-40, Satan says:

“O my sustainer! Since Thou hast thwarted me, I shall indeed make (all that is evil) on earth seem goodly to them, and shall most certainly beguile them into grievous error – save such of them as are truly Thy servants.”

At the same time, Sufism points to the other aspect of self, the high station of the self. Man is created in the image of God and is the height of creation. God created other creations for the sake of human beings and made man the master over other creations. He created everything for man and created man for Himself. He blew His spirit into man and gave man the ability to rise above angels. He did all of this so that man could know Him, worship Him and love Him.

There appears to be a paradox here and one may get confused or fall into the trap of taking himself to be the higher self without wanting to acknowledge the lower, animal self. It is important to recognise both aspects of self, the satan and the angel, the shadow and the light, the ignorance and the consciousness. Within man are both potentialities. In the heart of man is the treasure of knowing his Creator, but he is sent to this world of distraction through attraction to temporal pleasure. The part of the self that is in absolute darkness becomes consumed with this temporal pleasure and material engagement. Becoming totally conscious of self and preoccupied with the material world, man does not pause to look inside himself to find the treasure within his heart. The treasure of knowing his Creator marks the highest aspect of the self. This is the Self that is God-conscious, rather than self-conscious.

The purpose of man’s creation is to become close to God. In order to reach this destination of knowing his Creator, the traveller must travel a road of war with his ego until it is brought into submission. This is only possible by bringing the ego self to a place of servanthood. But modern man’s ego or self has a big problem with the idea of servanthood. The irony is that man is in the grip of his demanding self and a slave to the material world, but he is not aware of it. Modern society promotes ‘individuality’, which in reality is ‘slavery’ to materiality, yet ignores and/or shuns servanthood to God, which is the true purpose of creation. It is only through servanthood to God that man can actually be freed from servanthood to the material life. One cannot be a servant of God and a servant to oneself at the same time. All the Prophets have pointed this out to us.

Prophet Jesus (pbuh) says in the Gospel of Thomas, Verse 47:
“A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows, and a servant cannot serve two masters.”

Moulana Rumi, from his treasure box of Masnavi, brings out pearls and forms verses urging man to recognise both aspects of the self. He explains how this ‘donkey’ (or self) perpetually runs to the pasture for grazing and self-satisfaction, forcing you to continually run after him, unless you learn to break him in, mount him, and become his master. It is then that the ‘donkey’ becomes your transcended Self, the vehicle to take you to the Beloved.

“Sell the donkey ears (these worldly ears) and buy another ear
since the worldly ears cannot receive secret words of God”
and
“The way to become a king is through servanthood
when you submit to be a slave of the Beloved, you become the beloved”
Moulana Rumi

The ego self uses everything for its own benefit, including truth, justice, fairness and even God. It even worships God to get something in return. This is why the self needs to be dismantled.

“A true believer and an infidel both say ‘God’
but there is a difference between the two

The beggar (infidel) says ‘God’ for the sake of bread
the true believer says ‘God’ in his very soul”
Moulana Rumi

In Sufism, dismantling and fighting the ego self is an essential part of the work. The degree of a man’s success depends on the degree of the man’s sincerity of effort.
We are being warned that the most important work of the salek is the difficult task of subduing the authority of the nafs, as it is our most dangerous enemy. One metaphor used to describe how one must deal with the self is:

Imprisoning it - killing it - burning it - and scattering its ashes.

Servanthood imprisons the self. Abstaining from passion kills it. Love of God burns it. Gnosis scatters the ashes of the self, eliminating all of its traces.

“Until one hair strand of your being you, remains
the business of vanity and self-praise, remains

You said, ‘I broke the idol of my mind, therefore I am free’
this idol ‘that you are free from your mind’, still remains”
Moulana Rumi

The make up of the ego self is in stark contrast to serenity and peace, because peace and serenity are states that can only be experienced as a result of closeness to God (taqarob). The self requires constant movement and turmoil. If events and problems in life are not enough to keep the system going, it will create more. Therefore, one is in a constant state of busyness of the mind, of inner chatter, of existing in the past or future and in turmoil in order not to be present. All of these are constructs of the personality to fog and blur one’s vision to what lies beneath - like waves on the surface of the ocean preventing one from seeing the depth of the water. One exists in this fallacy of distraction until one day, by the Grace of God, one wakes up just a little and realises the untruth of life’s predicament. When one makes the effort to quieten the mind and to negate the demands of the nafs then, little by little, one purifies the state of the self. Only when the self is transmuted is one able to experience serenity and peace and it is in that station that one can hear with the inner ear, the voice of his Creator.

Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) says:
“If you did not talk too much and if there were no turmoil in your heart, you could see what I see and hear what I hear.”

The paradox of self is that man has two aspects of the self in him, one hidden and one apparent. He needs to break away from the one to get to the other. If he spends his life busy with the little self, which is considered his lowest level of being, then that will be his predicament in this life and in the hereafter. It is man’s task in this life to break away from his habitual behaviour and his immediate gratification in order to become worthy of what he has been created for. If he breaks through the illusion of identifying with his self as the only reality and if he gets to know his self from his Self, then he moves ahead on the highway towards the Beloved.

Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) says:
“He who knows his self knows his Lord.”

Prophet Jesus (pbuh) says:
“One who knows all, but is lacking in oneself, is utterly lacking.”
He also says:
“Whoever has found oneself, for that person the world is not worthy.”

“You know the price of every merchandise,
but you are ignorant of knowing the value of your self”
Moulana Rumi

In the Qur’an, this theme has been addressed many times by the Creator. For instance in Surah Al Asr, Allah (swt) says:
“Verily man is in loss (in his trades). Except the ones who attain to faith and do good work.”

Imam Ali (a.s.) says:
“It is a losing trade if you believe that this world is worthy of you.”

In all the above quotes, the message is that when man sells his self to the goods of this life, he is a loser because what he is selling is far more precious than what he is buying.

The irony is that one does not know his own value and is not in touch with his Self. All he knows is the little self. Yet at the same time, there is no shortage of signs, teachings, prophets, saints and teachers from Allah (swt), to point out the truth, and the way to it.

Moulana Rumi remarks in the story of Moses and Pharaoh:
“Don’t look at that staff (Moses’ staff) and think of it as a piece of wood
look at what is in it that could part the sea of Ahmar”

In a similar teaching, Prophet Jesus (pbuh) says:
“If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, ‘Move from here,’ and it will move.”

_________________________________

“Nothing can kill the nafs like the shadow of the master
hold tight to his skirt for he is a good killer of your self

Your lower self is after material affairs
how long will you trade in unworthy affairs, give them up

Someone who says ‘I am thinking to deny my lower self’
is still captive to the lower self

And he who says, ‘God is merciful and kind’
is also being manipulated by that wretched self”

Moulana Rumi, Masnavi, II/2528, 2601-02, 3086-87
Translated by Fleur Nassery Bonnin

You can say very sincerely that you will control your selfish ego but it is not easy. Therefore, you need a sheikh to help you because your carnal desires will continue to trick you. In many cases you may think that God is Forgiving and Merciful and that He will forgive your sins. This idea is also put into your heart by your ego, which is in the command of Satan. Without doubt, God is Forgiving but there is a limit to that because He is Just at the same time. “We shall set up scales of justice for the day of judgment, so that not a single soul will be dealt with unjustly” Qur’an 21:47 and “God did not save angels who sinned” Bible 2 Peter 2:4. God is unlikely to place those who sacrifice their lower self for the love of God in the same scale with those who depend on God’s Mercy without deserving it.

Article Source : Australian Sufi Center

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Al-Haqiqat | The Station of Truth

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

In sufi teaching, the masters talk about stations, the stations to reach God. In Shadhiliyya sufi path, the teacher Sidi al-Jamal in his book, Music of the Soul, talks about different stations, such as seven stations of the self (nafs), heart (qalb), soul (ruh) and the secret (sirr). Here is an excerpts from one of the station of heart, al-haqiqat: the station of truth / true reality.

You are the secret. If you know the deep secret, you can reach Him and sit in the holy garden. In the garden you will find the wine of the truth. Every heart needs this wine because the heart is the tree of God and tree needs to drink His wine. You cannot drink this wine if you do not know its meaning. How would you know the way of the wine if you did not clean your house? Because He is the Holy House.

There are two things that make war in the heart – the family of light and the family of darkness. Clean your heart of the family of darkness, because many things come from the darkness. Leave everything, and open you heart only to God to know the secret inside your heart. If you change your heart, then you are the qiblah (the direction of payer). Your heart is the qiblah, and you are the qiblah.

When you are in this station, you can pray from your heart. You face yourself when you pray because He wants you to know yourself. When you know yourself, you know God and you reach His place, which is no place because He is the beginning and the end. You can pray inside your heart when you live in this station. You are the truth, and your ear is the ear of God, and your eye is the eye of God. Your picture is the picture of God, and there is no picture now because you are a deep secret. Now you can reach and you can know yourself.

Always remember that you will not reach if He does not love you. First He loves you and then you love Him, yet there is no first. He can see everything in your face and He can hear every voice. When you speak, you should know how to speak with yourself. When you are in this station, there is no body because you have lost your body. It has become completely light. Where can another sit inside you? There is no room for another, there is room only for God. You can live in this station because it is the real life. The guide wants you to spend all your time with Him. Do not lose any minute because every minute is very holy, I live with my soul now. This is the holy light, if you know.

Praying is different here from any prayer before. You now pray in two ways – the ritual prayer for the self and the deep prayer for the soul. You live all your time in everything with your soul, but the real soul. This is from the truth. No one can reach if he or she does not change everything from the outside to the inside, and there is no outside and no inside.

Pray, but do not pray only with your body. Pray with your heart and soul. You live now in al-wahid al-ahad, not just one, but all one. Al-ahad is the divine oneness of God. All your qualities in this station are the qualities of Allah because your sun (soul) is rising, and it is a holy sun which contains every meaning. When the sun rises in your heart, you can see everything and know everything. He loves your prayer because when you pray in this station, you pray with your God face to face, and there is only the face of the unity.

“ Oh my God, keep me in this station to pray deeply because my face is Your face. Help me to know, and do not discharge me back to the life I lived before I came to You because now I could not live without You.”

This is the way of the soul. My Beloved is inside me. What do I want after that? I want nothing. He stays inside, and I love Him and He loves me. The prayer now becomes deeper and deeper. I do not want to live without this wine because I receive all that I desire through this wine. When I walk in this station, how could I live without the wine of the truth? This is the true song.

. Text and credit The Stations of the Way
. From Music of the Soul by Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal
. Sidi Muhammad Press
. SufiGift
. graphics: Art by Chrysti
Labels: book, God, love, mysticism, sufi, sufism, truth

Article Source : Mystic Saint

Your Image

Rumi Translated by Rezwani and Helminski
Furuzanfar Divan 644

Once Your image settled into our hearts,
we found ourselves sitting in Paradise .

All our worries of Apocalypse and Armageddon
each turned into the face of a houri
and the charm of a Chinese beauty.

All that men and women fear to look at,
all that stalks them, now became close companions.

The skies became a rose garden and earth a buried treasure;
yet, what sort of "thing" are You
that all existence became this way because of You?

Since we saw Him we have been prospering day after day;
the thistle that happened to find Him
became a flower bed of certainty.

The unripe grapes turned ripe by the Sun and became sugary;
likewise, dark rock turned into a gem.

Many an earth was transfigured by His charisma;
the sinister turned felicitous out of His hand of fortune.

The darkness of the heart, became an opening of the heart;
the waylayer of faith is now a mentor and a leader.

The dark well of suffering which was a prison to Joseph,
became a strong rope for him to climb out.

Every particle is, like the army of Allah,
under Divine command,
to the faithful servant a guarantee and to the denier an ambush.

Keep silent, these words are like the Nile :
One, a Copt, will drown in this blood;

another, a blessed Israelite, will be buoyed along.
Keep silent. These words are ripened figs,

but not every bird of the air
will come to discover them.

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Article Source : Sufism.org

Spiritual Perception and the Root of the Root of Religion

Kabir Helminski

A Talk Given at the UNESCO International Rumi Symposium, Istanbul, May 2007

O you who study the world, you’re just a hired worker.

And you who desire paradise, you’re far from the Truth.

And you who are satisfied with the two world, but unaware

Because you have not tasted the happiness of His sorrow,

You’re simply excused

A Quatrain of Rumi

During these celebrations honoring the 800th anniversary of his birth it is appropriate to reflect on what Mevlana offers humanity at this time. Humanity is navigating through a perilous passage between shallow materialism and one-dimensional religion. Both are destructive to our humanness itself. On the one side we have the commercialization of life, the privatization of natural resources, the tyranny of transnational corporate economic power. On the other hand we have the authoritarian manifestations of religious belief divorced from any real spiritual perception. Fundamentalism thrives in a spiritual vacuum. Without the spiritual perception of a spiritual reality, religion degenerates into mere intellectualism, formalism, legalism, and finally authoritarian, puritanical extremism.

Mevlana’s madhabi ashq, or school of love, is a corrective to both the authoritarian concept of religion lacking in Mercy, and a materialist ethic that indulges the human ego. We do not need a political regime based on a distorted and one-dimensional apprehension of religion that claims to be the only Truth. We do not need a piety forced upon us by a religious power elite. Nor do we need a world ruled merely by commercial and corporate forces, especially when those forces result in the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. We do not need a society that serves the lowest common-denominator and that allows a race to the bottom. We cannot afford the kind of society where true human spiritual values are buried by an avalanche of popular culture of transient, ugly, and vulgar attractions. And if we are to fulfill our human destiny we need a spiritual knowledge that can bring our spiritual nature to maturity within the conditions of contemporary life.

The wisdom we love in Mevlana’s teaching has its application and effect both for the wider humanity and for the individual who seeks a path of spiritual development, or sayri suluuk.

At the level of the individual seeker, the theme of “spiritual perception” is one of the most productive and enlightening perspectives from which to view the work of Our Master, Mevlana. Spiritual perception is a theme that constantly appears in his work, perhaps even more than the theme of “Love”. Yet spiritual perception is inextricably united with the theme of Love for two reasons: one is that without spiritual perception love alone is futile and incomplete; If love is not informed by spiritual perception it remains at the level of mere ego, producing only desire and sentimentality.

Perhaps more importantly the process of developing spiritual perception leads to Love itself. Love is the Truth. Love created everything. The revealing of the Merciful and Divine Love is the purpose of existence. “No ignorant soul ever sat on the Throne of Love.”

To say it another way: the fulfillment of our human destiny is ultimately through the development of spiritual perception. Our science is called irfan, signifying the realization through knowing. Nothing less can satisfy the human heart. The human being is essentially a knowing substance, able to know the essential truth and mystery of existence. The eternal light exists here in this world of suffering, pain, and conflict, but we fail to see it. Pure milk flows beside the rivers of blood, but the child of the heart fails to receive its nourishment.

As Mevlana reminds us, the human being is essentially an “eye.” But the eye of the heart can be veiled by the physical senses. The human being is potentially much more than a biochemical creature seeking its own satisfactions. But a spiritual education is needed to raise us to the truly human level.

The bio-chemical sensory organs of the human being can blind us to spiritual realities, but when the spiritual senses are awakened even the physical senses become illumined. And so our science is also called tassawuf, signifying the purification of perception.

Mevlana was the nightingale who became a falcon, a hunter of spiritual truths. Mevlana and his heirs are the lights we should join with, for if a spiritual intellect is paired with another spiritual intellect, light increases and the way becomes plain.

Mevlana, being one of the foremost educators of the heart, can and does offer us a systematic knowledge, a science of the human soul. As he says in an introductory section to one of the books of his Mathnawi. What he offers is the root of the root of the religion. Mevlana is a reliable guide to the straight path at the heart of the Prophetic tradition. In other words his wisdom can guide us to the fulfillment of our human possibility and destiny. Only a knowledge based in spiritual wisdom can lead the individual and humanity, as a whole, to fulfillment. Otherwise humanity remains lost in the labyrinth of its own shallow distractions or ends up tyrannized by the idealogues of a false utopia.

Mevlana’s gift to us is that he presents us with a spirituality that has all the nuance of art, rather than the clichés and dogmas we too often find in the name of religion. He speaks to us in the language of the soul, a poetry of image, metaphor, and music. If the Divine is the ultimate Creative Power, that has brought us on the merely physical level: delicious fruits, fragrant roses, the spectacle of nature, and the beauties of the human relationship, that same Creative Power has also brought us an inner life of even vaster dimensions, more subtle beauties, inestimable spiritual virtues, and experiences both subtle and profound. If on the one hand the birth from the physical womb leads us into the beauties of the sensory world, a second birth from the spiritual womb brings us into a spiritual universe of awesome beauty and meaning.

Mevlana was in love with this Creative Power; sometimes he was drunk with it and sometimes in a wise sobriety only attained after such drunkenness.

The root of the root of the religion, the core of the Prophetic Way, has two fundamental aspects: One is holding the Divine Reality at the centre of our consciousness at all times and under all circumstances. The second is a subtle undoing of the self, the stripping away of everything false, everything the ego has constructed to defend its position. This undoing of the self goes against most conventional values and thinking.

The first, the remembrance of God, is the ability of the heart to recognize and appreciate the Divine Presence. To keep the Divine at the center of our consciousness is to quiet the busy, talking mind, to still the reactive, ego-based emotions, and to learn to be—to be with the Divine Presence. The Sun of Divine Knowledge travels in no orbit, but it rises in the inner spirit of the human being. Its illumination is from the timeless, spaceless dimension. When the human being has attained to that experience, the sunrise of Divine Illumination is with you wherever you go, whatever circumstances you may be in.

The second aspect, the undoing of the false self is a very subtle work requiring a finely honed knowledge—a knowledge which Mevlana offers to us in a profoundly comprehensive way. The undoing of the self is not a self-created program, it is the final kilo that sinks the ship.

800

Unless the seeker is absolutely erased,

In truth, he will not come into union.

Union is not penetrable. It is your destruction.

Otherwise anyone could become the Truth.

It usually requires a teaching, a teacher, and a community within which to practice the teaching. The undoing of the self is sometimes described as a transformation through seven levels of the nafs, each more subtle and pure. It is this thinning of the veil of one level of the self that allows another subtler level to be experienced and expressed. In this process what is false, conditioned, and unreal is gradually lessened and a new quality of self emerges—a higher self. That higher self is realized when we are stripped of our superficial identifications and stand naked before the Divine. And Mevlana is our higher self:

1325

This is what I am: sometimes hidden, sometimes seen.

Sometimes a mumeen, sometimes Jew or Christian,

Able to fit into any heart,

Taking on a new face every day.

Perhaps we have been fortunate enough to know some living examples of this transformation. If we have been that fortunate, we have also been transformed by knowing even one such being. Our path led from Mevlana and Sufism to Muhammad, peace be upon him, and Islam. We were brought into “the garden within the flames,” as Ibn Arabi has called it.

Only after years in that garden did circumstances bring me to the Masjid. To say it was a disheartening experience would be an understatement. It challenged my Iman. I wondered if we had created an imaginary Islam, because what I saw and heard in the mosque was so different from the beautiful state we experienced among the lovers and the drunkards. I questioned whether what I had experienced was the same religion I was finding in the mosque.

Mevlana must have known something about this discrepancy between the Madhabi Ashq, and the one-dimensinal religion that oppresses the soul with its rigid commands and external preoccupations. Some people are very anxious to appropriate Mevlana to their own concepts of orthodoxy. But just as the Prophet and the Qur’an offered a challenge to man-invented religion, power-structures and superstition, so, too, does Mevlana challenge the manifestations of religion that have become contaminated with human egoism, I will let Mevlana issue his own warning:

60

If you don’t like the fragrance, don’t come to our neighborhood.

And if you can’t tear off your clothes, don’t jump in the stream.

This is the direction from which all directions are directed,

Unless this is what you want, stay away from the center.

At times I have had my own doubts, but I have come to trust that the Madhabi Ashq is the Dini Qayyim, the authentic religion, and the Din al Haqq, the religion of Truth, which is destined to shine upon all religion though the kafirs detest it.

I want to share with you, however, part of a text I discovered in Aflaki, which finally brought comfort to my heart.

Weled and the Sayyids Condensed from Aflaki

375. A distinguished young man, from the Sayyids of Medina, the son of the custodian of the Prophet’s, peace and blessings upon him, tomb, came to visit Sultan Weled one day.

He was wearing an extraordinary turban which he had wound around his head with one of the ends falling to a point just above his navel, while the other end was rolled in that way that the Mevlevis call ‘shekker-awiz’. Sultan Weled showed him great respect and discussed various ideas and mysteries of the Path, ‘in the clear Arabic tongue’... (Qur’an: 26: l95) The young man showed great enthusiasm and good will and asked in all sincerity to become a disciple. He asked for a written proof (diploma) and someone gave him this in Arabic.

After that, Sultan Weled asked him the following question: “Other shaikhs have not adopted this fashion of ‘shekker-awiz’, which is used uniquely by our Master and the Mevlevis; where does this custom come from?”

“From great antiquity,” replied the young Sayyid, “We are descended from Abraham, and belong to the Qoreish tribe. We have had the keys of the holy Kaaba and that of the Prophet’s tomb in our possession since the time of Abraham; and we also have the keys to the house where our Prophet’s two blessed shoes and other objects are kept.

The way in which our Prophet was honored is described in the Qur’an: He was allowed to approach our Lord and was looked upon with a favorable eye; he was shown through signs what he needed to see, and he heard the mysteries of the revelation directly without an intermediary. He saw a beautiful figure above the Heavenly Throne, a figure such had never been seen, in the highest rank of the angels or among any of the other denizens of Heaven.

The Prophet was overcome with love and drunk with this grace and beauty of this figure. He saw that he was wearing a turban twisted in the Chekker-dwiz style and ‘a borda’ from Yeman. Deeply troubled, the Prophet asked Gabriel this: “I saw many marvelous and unusual forms in each celestial sphere. However none delighted me as much as this figure does. Is he an archangel, a perfect saint or a prophet on a mission? Who is he and what is his secret?”

Gabriel answered: “This beautiful vision, is of a person descended from Abu-Bekr, the Truthful, who will appear among your people at the end of time, and will fill the world with the lights of your mysteries and truths. And our Lord will give him feet, a pen and a voice such that the generations of people will love him and become his disciples; he will be the mystery and the light of the manifest world and will bring purity to your religion.

Article Source : Sufism.org

Witnessing the Garden

Offered by Camille Adams Helminski

For the UNESCO International Rumi Symposium, Istanbul, May 2007

Bismillah arRahman arRahim

Truly we are in the midst of challenging times. Mevlana also lived in the midst of very challenging times, yet what a possibility opened with the example of being that he unveiled. Continually he was “witnessing the garden,” seeing God’s beauty and abundance in the midst of everything, seeing the Unity, and encouraging souls to be people of Paradise now, here.

In the Maqalat, Shams-i Tabriz tells us,

People say that there is no path, or they say that the path is very long. Yes, the way is long, but once one sets out to walk, with great exuberance and joy, the distance of the way disappears. Just as it was said, “Paradise is surrounded by things we dislike.” (hadith). All around the garden of Paradise are thorns. But when the fragrance of Paradise reaches our nose, bringing news of the beloved to the lover, then that place of thorns becomes very pleasant. The thorns that surround Hell always seem to be roses and basil, but the unpleasant odor of fire comes to us from them.

If I were to try to explain about the beauty of this path, it wouldn’t be appropriate.

In this world the opposites play out their dance of light and dark, of difficulty and ease, and in the midst of it, we have the work of being rightful caretakers and establishing the mizan, balance and good measure in this world. Coming here we witness the wonder of Turkish hospitality at the hand of our gracious hosts. We are so grateful to be brought together here under the tent of Mevlana. We taste this generosity of spirit and we recognize how amazingly infinite must be that Divine source from which it comes into manifestation.

There is the beautiful expression of God’s abundant generosity in Surah al-Imran,

Whenever Zachariah visited [Mary] in the sanctuary,

he found her provided with food. He would ask,

“O Mary, from where did this come to you?”

She would answer: “It is from God;

see how God grants sustenance to whom He/She wills,

beyond all reckoning.”

[Surah al-‘Imran 3:37]

and the passage of Surah al-Maida of which both Shams and Mevlana remind us numerous times, when

Jesus, the son of Mary said: “O God, our Sustainer!

Send down upon us a repast from heaven: it shall be an ever-recurring feast for us – for the first and the last of us – and a sign from You. And provide us our sustenance, for You are the best of providers!”

God answered: “Truly, I am always sending it down to you.”

[Surah al-Maida 5:114-115]

In one of his beautiful ghazals, Mevlana calls to us:

Don’t go away, come near.

Don’t be faithless, be faithful.

Find the antidote in the venom.

Come to the root of the root of yourself.

[and further]

You were born from a ray of God’s majesty

and have the blessings of a good star.

Why suffer at the hands of things that don’t exist?

Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You are a ruby embedded in granite.

How long will you pretend it’s not true?

We can see it in your eyes.

Come to the root of the root of your Self.

Recently when we were speaking at a university in New York, we shared these words of Mevlana’s, and the next morning, one of the professors who came to the talk brought us a gift, something she said she had had on her desk for many years, but now that she understood what it was, she could give it away. She handed us a heavy chunk of granite and just at one edge of it a large beautifully luminous ruby was emerging.

Mevlana speaks in his Mathnawi about how the light of the sun is reaching into the bowels of the earth to transform stone into rubies. He tells us to work on our stoniness that we might become resplendent like the ruby.

Recently a friend of ours who is a lazer scientist shared with us some of the recent literature about lazers and the miraculous surgical possibilities with light. From the article we learned that the first lazer ever developed is named the “ruby lazer” because someone had the inspiration to use a ruby to convey light! Long ago, Mevlana understood such things. He focused on the light, not ignoring the darkness or the difficulty, but continually showing us a way to affirm the light and to recognize the overwhelming mercy that makes it possible for our stoniness to be transformed.

One of the beauties of this tradition is the prayer of light of Muhammad, the Du’a an-Nur, which it is said that Mevlana recited every morning.

O God! Grant me Light in my heart, Light in my grave,

Light in front of me, Light behind me,

Light to my right, Light to my left,

Light above me, Light below me,

Light in my ears, Light in my eyes,

Light on my skin, Light in my hair,

Light within my flesh, Light in my blood, Light in my bones.

O God! Increase my Light everywhere.

O God! Grant me Light in my heart,

Light on my tongue, Light in my eyes, Light in my ears,

Light to my right, Light to my left,

Light above me, Light below me,

Light in front of me, Light behind me,

and Light within my self; increase my Light.

Mevlana demonstrated how with that Light we can witness the deep Spirit within everything.

He tells us,

Be like an eye. Feed on the Light.

Make glorification of God your food. [Mathnawi V:297, 298]

One of the many lovely passages of the Mevlevi Wird reminds us that everything in the natural world is glorifying God:

The darkness of the night, the brightness of the day, the rays of the sun, the light of the moon, the gushing of the rivers, the rustle of the leaves of the trees, the stars of the heavens, the soil of the earth, the rocks of the mountains, the sands of the desert dunes, the waves of the seas, the creatures upon the land and within the sea, all proclaim Your limitless glory.

Even before the opening of his prophetic mission, Muhammad used to hear rocks speak. This reminds us also of the story of the moaning pillar, such a beautiful story of sensitivity to spirit in all that is.

In the Mevlevi vocabulary there is the wonderful word, gorushmek, “to see with”—the adab of respect for everything, for pausing to “see with,” to see and recognize another and to be seen and recognized, even with the cup we are holding or the carpet upon which we stand, as well as each human being we encounter. This way of seeing in which Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God [Surah al-Baqarah 2:115] brings us into the Garden.

As Mevlana counsels us in his Mathnawi, patience and gratitude are both keys to joy. He is always calling us to come closer, Enter thou my garden. [Surah al-Fajr 89: 30].[1]

As Shams says,

I wish people knew that happiness is in the gathering of friends—that they might mingle with each other, and show their beautiful faces, so that love might appear among them.

When one by one desire comes between them, their brightness vanishes. But if you keep something within honey, it remains fresh and sweet—the air cannot find a way into it to spoil it.

Witnessing the amazing coming together of this gathering of lovers of Mevlana from all over the world, seems another encouragement, another gift of Mevlana to all of us, to be witness to the beautiful diversity of the creation of our Most Compassionate Sustainer, and like the bee gain nourishment from each other, from all of this vast creation, and from that nourishment create healing liquid to share even as Mevlana did so beautifully through all the many verses that flowed from his heart.

As it says in the Qur’an, He gives me food and drink.

Shams reminds us:

The waves of the Ocean of Beneficence continually surge—it gives you whatever you want from it. Everybody worships something. One is fond of beautiful ones, another is fond of money, and someone else is fond of status. In front of each, they say, “This is my Lord [6:76].” They don’t say, “I love not those that set [6:76]” like the Prophet Abraham.

Shams asks,

“Where is the human being with the nature of Abraham capable of saying these words with the language of love?

The secret of this belongs to a different heaven. Because, there are heavens in the universe of spirits. In the universe of inner secrets there are also heavens, suns, and moons. The one who passes through these images knows that these also have a Creator, and are also disappearing.

Once the image of the Friend opens from the inner universe, the divine light of manifestation appears. He says, “I have turned my face to Him who has created the heavens and the earth” [6:79].

When I fall ill, He heals me [26:80]. [Abraham] attributes the sickness to himself in order to teach us. The Prophet Adam said, “O Lord! We have wronged ourselves [7:3]. In other words, “I am ill and my healing is only from Him.” He is negating himself, putting aside the self. And when you remove your self, you have affirmed Him.

And Shams also reminds us,

When Moses (may the greeting of God be upon him) showed a sign of egoism, saying “I am more knowledgeable than any other human being on earth,” Allah sent him Khidr so that he might journey with him for a few days, and he might lose that egoism.

Muhammad (May the Peace and blessings of God be upon him) said to Ali, “Why did you follow me in continuous fasting? You have become so thin and weak. I am not like one of you. I pass the night with my Lord—He gives me to eat and to drink. [26:79]” Some say that this was the reason for the verse, “Say [O Prophet]: “I am but a mortal man like all of you! [18:110]. In other words, “O My Representative! Put aside all ego, and speak like this.” But God Most High, in order not to beat down the heart of His dear prophet, also added to the end of the verse: “It has been revealed to me. Your God is One God.” [In other words, “I am also a mortal like you, but I receive revelations: Your God is One.”] And Hence, he who looks forward to meeting his Sustainer, let him do righteous deeds [18:110].”

And let him not ascribe unto anyone or anything a share in the worship due to his Sustainer [18:110]. . . .

Good servants cultivate the earth of this world by means of worship and reason.

Another moment in the Maqalat[2] Shams tells us:

None of the gracious words of the Prophet have surprised me; only one hadith has bewildered me: “The world is the prison of the believer.” I don’t see the world as a prison at all. “Where is the prison?” I’m asking. But that blessed one said, “the prison of the believers,” he didn’t say, “the prison of the servants.” The servants are a different community.

One doesn’t have to fit one’s own meaning into that narrow thought [of the world as a prison]. Whatever comes from the Friend, quickly say, “It’s just like that,” and keep going.

He also says,

“The heart is greater, more expansive, more pleasant and more illumined than the heavens; why would one narrow it with useless words? How could it be appropriate to constrict a very pleasant universe into a prison for oneself? What is the purpose of turning a universe like a fruitful garden into a tight prison, wasting time with delusions and ugly imaginings and throwing oneself into a dark universe and sleeping in ignorance all the time, wrapped up in a cocoon like a silkworm? We are of the people who turn the prison into a fruitful garden. If our prison turns into a fruitful garden, imagine what our fruitful garden might become? Just watch, and see!

In this moment when greater understanding, greater love, greater cultivation of the garden is needed among us all, women and men, human beings and the whole of the natural world, communities with communities, East and West, it seems appropriate to close with this prayer of Mevlana’s from his Mathnawi:

O my God, our intoxicated eyes have blurred our vision.

Our burdens have been made heavy, forgive us.

You are hidden, and yet from East to West You have filled the world with Your radiance.

Your Light is more magnificent than sunrise or sunset,

and You are the inmost ground of consciousness

revealing the secrets we hold.

You are an explosive force causing our damned up rivers to burst forth.

You whose essence is hidden while Your gifts are manifest,

You are like water and we are like millstones.

You are like wind and we are like dust.

The wind is hidden while the dust is plainly seen.

You are the invisible spring, and we are Your lush garden.

You are the Spirit of life and we are like hand and foot.

Spirit causes the hand to close and open.

You are intelligence; we are Your voice.

Your intelligence causes this tongue to speak.

You are joy and we are laughter,

for we are the result of the blessing of Your joy.

All our movement is really a continual profession of faith,

bearing witness to Your eternal power,

just as the powerful turning of the millstone professes faith in the river’s existence.

Dust settles upon my head and upon my metaphors,

for You are beyond anything we can ever think or say.

And yet, this servant cannot stop trying to express Your beauty,

in every moment, let my soul be Your carpet.

[Mathnawi V, 3307-3319]

Ashq Olsun. May it be Love. Hu.

[1] See for instance Mathnawi V:1316.

[2] All quotes from Shams in this paper are excerpted from Rumi’s Sun, The Teachings of Shams of Tabriz, a new translation of his Maqalat by Refik Algan and Camille Adams Helminski forthcoming in January 2008 from Morning Light Press.

Article Source : Sufism.org