Ali Asani: Water as Substance and Symbol in Islam

Peace, one and all…

An interesting lecture on the meaning of water in Islamic thought.  Courtesy of Ismaili Gnosis

And No One Loses His Manners

Peace, one and all…

Those given to Your love have no claims on life.
Having eyes for You only, they have long forgotten
themselves.
In the tavern where these single-minded ones drink
the whole wine cellar is emptied and no one
loses his manners
(Abu Sa`id ibn Abi al-Khayr)

Love’s Full Need

Peace, one and all…

When first we opened our eyes,
and the curtain rose
over this strange performance of life,
we rushed out into the world
in child-like wonder
at all that You had caused to be.

As we wandered far from home
we lost our way,
confused by the ever-flowing
tide of our senses,
by every case of mistaken identity,
foisted upon us by our own immaturity.

And as saw our errors slowly unfold,
we each fell into sorrow.
But Your love remained with us always,
like a promise of dawn
in some hour of darkness,
a whispered herald of new life.

How strange it is, Beloved,
the cure lies hidden within the poison.
Only eyes washed clean by tears,
can truly see the light;
only a heart broken open by sorrow
can call out in Love’s full need.

Father Thomas Keating: Oneness & The Heart of the World

Peace, one and all…

A fascinating lecture on Oneness by Father Thomas Keating.

On Pleasure

Peace, one and all…

Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, “Speak to us of Pleasure.”

And he answered, saying:
Pleasure is a freedom song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Aye, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone:
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.

And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;
And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.

But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?
And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?
Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.
And your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.
And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Through the Real

Peace, one and all…

‘Forgetting the self is remembering the Real.  Anyone who knows the Real through the Real is alive, and anyone who knows the Real through his self perishes’

Bayazid Bistami, as recorded in Attar’s Memorials of the Saints

Love is the Imam

Peace, one and all…

For us, love is the imam; the heart is the Congregation.
Our qible is the face of the Beloved;
our prayer is continuous.

Upon seeing the Beloved’s face, polytheism was taken away.
That’s why the Holy Law was left at the door.

The heart prostrates itself in the mihrab of the Beloved.
It strikes its head upon the ground
and supplicates God.

There is no ‘time’ like the silent and fervant prayers there.
Whoever is with the Beloved;
that moment is halvet.

The Holy Law says, ‘Be sure you don’t neglect
the sitpulations of the Holy Law.’
But stipulations are for that person who is perfidious.

The breath of those who achieved mystical knowledge
is a fortunate symbol.
With it we became secure from trouble.

At that first time in time, we said, ‘Yes’.
It is still one moment,
from that time to this hour.

Five of us assembled together,
we arrived at one time;
making five one, who will worship

We do not oppose anyone’s religion;
when religion is complete,
love is true.

He who guards Truth at the Beloved’s door,
without doubt
will find divine fortune.

At that door Yunus is the lowest of servants;
this honour of service has lasted
from Eternity without Beginning to Eternity without End.

Yunus Emre, trans. Grace Martin Smith

Meister Eckhart: Counsels on Discernment 7

Peace, one and all…

In his seventh counsel, Meister Eckhart turns to explore the notion of work, and how we might pursue our work in a spiritually appropriate manner.

Counsel 7: How a man should perform his work in the most reasonable way

One often finds people who are not impeded by the things that are around them – and this is easy to attain if one wishes – nor do they have any constant thought about them.  For if the heart is full of God, created things can have and find no place in it.  But, what is more, this alone should not satisfy us.  We ought to turn everything into great profit, whatever it may be, wherever we may be, whatever we see or hear, however strange or unlikely it may be.  Then for the first time all is well with us and not until then, and one will never come to an end in this.  One can always go on increasing in this, gaining more and more from it in true growth.

And in all his activities and under all circumstances a man should take care to use his reason, and in everything he should have a reasonable consciousness of himself and of his inwardness, and find God in all things, in the highest degree that is possible.  For a man ought to be as our Lord said: ‘You should be like men who are always watching and waiting for their master’ (Luke 12:36).  Truly, people who wait stay awake and look around them for whence he for whom they are waiting may be coming; and they are on the lookout for him in whatever may come, however unknown it may be to them, for perhaps he might somehow be in it.  So we should have in all things a knowing perception of our master.  We must show zeal in this, and it must cost us everything we are capable of in mind and body, and so it will be well with us, and we shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in all things.

Certainly, one work differs from another; but whoever undertakes all his works in the same frame of mind, then, truly, all that man’s works are the same.  Indeed, for the man for whom God shines forth as directly in worldly things as he does in divine things and to whom God would be so present, for such a man things would be well.  Not indeed that the man himself would be doing worldly things, unlike to God; rather, whatever external matters he chanced to see and hear, he would refer it all back to God.  Only he to whom God is present in everything and who employs his reason in the highest degree and has enjoyment in it knows anything of true peace and has a real kingdom of heaven.

For if things are to go well with a man, one of two things must always happen to him.  Either he must find and learn to possess God in works, or he must abandon all works.  But since a man cannot in this life be without works, which are proper to humans and are of so many kinds, therefore he must learn to possess his God in all things and to remain unimpeded, whatever he may be doing, wherever he may be.  And therefore if a man who is beginning must do something with other people, he ought first to make a powerful petition to God for his help, and put him immovably in his heart and unite all his intentions, thoughts, will and power to God, so that nothing else than God can take shape in that man.

The Path of Amazement

Peace, one and all…

I cannot say who it is I am.
I am amazed, I am amazed!

I cannot call this self ‘myself’.
I am amazed, I am amazed!

Who is in my eyes seeing?
Who is in my heart enduring?
Who is inhaling and exhaling?
I am amazed, I am amazed!

Who is speaking with my tongue?
Who is listening with my ears?
Who is understanding with my mind?
I am amazed, I am amazed!

Who is stepping with these feet?
Who is tasting with my mouth?
Who is chewing and who swallowing?
I am amazed, I am amazed!

Who holds these riches in his hand?
Who is the one throwing them away?
Who is buying and who selling?
I am amazed, I am amazed!

Why is there life coursing below my skin?
Why are my eyes bloodshot from crying?
Why this religion, why this faith?
I am amazed, I am amazed!

O Seyyid Nizamoglu, hear this:
Everything comes from the One.
Abandon yourself to this mighty beauty.
I am amazed, I am amazed!

Seyyid Seyfullah Nizamolgu

Gathering Twilight

Peace, one and all…

Gazing out over the bay
as evening draws ever closer,
distant shores discernable
amidst the gathering twilight.

Evenings are a time for reflection,
as the day ends our thoughts turn
to all that has passed,
to all that has made us in this moment.

As the dark approaches,
I begin to see with new eyes:
Beloved, You are the deepest joy of my life
and all that I take with me into the night.