TRADITION

I have been reading Karen Armstrong's new religious history, "The Great Transformation." I love her books and have read them all. This newest book fills a gap in the history books as it is an explanation of what is called The Axial Age. The Axial Age is a peculiar stage in human history, from approximately 800 BCE to 200 BCE, when the major regions of the civilized world; Greece, China, India and the Mesopotamian Basin all shifted how they approached religion. It was an age when numerous prophets suddenly appeared in all four regions and began to talk of the inner world. It is a great book. But it is not what I wanted to talk of other then as a starting point.

As I read the book I cannot help but reflect on what I see happening around me. One of the things that I hear frequently is the need for a return to tradition. That puzzles me. I wonder what tradition they mean. How far back should we go? Humans are funny, funny peculiar that is – not funny ha ha, about tradition. A tradition needs to be only a week or so old and we will assume it has permanence. A tradition that is a hundred years old seems hoary with meaning and one a thousand years old, no matter how much it may have been modified in the intervening years, well that is awesome. It never ceases to amaze me that, just because someone a thousand years ago wrote something, it must be full of inner meaning that we today cannot possibly totally understand but we know it is significant. What if it was just stupid? There are a couple of these ancient tomes that I have read that are just that – stupid. Yet they are revered texts. Oh well.

As I read the book and learn how our solid traditions evolved I wonder why we think they have value. As Ms. Armstrong explains so well, but which any thinking person should already realize, traditions are cultural responses to changing conditions and values. They are the way that a culture defines itself in that moment. In and of themselves they mean nothing other than as a cultural response.

One of the things that I really liked about my teacher, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, and his teachings was that, though he would use historical references and an extensive knowledge of the ancient Sufi's, he always insisted that what he was about was the creation of a new paradigm. He continually stated that we are the mid-wives of the Holistic Age (his word for what we usually call the New Age). I would think that means that we are obligated to stretch ourselves out and discover what has not been yet done.

Now I hear that we should return to tradition.

As a Sufi I feel that it is my job to not only know what has been done in the past but also to respond to the future energy pulling us forward. Anything else is turning ones back on the future, embracing the past and creating a comfortable cocoon which protects us but has no value to evolution. But it is scary; after all the future is essentially unknown. Oh, you might get some precognition I suppose. Lots of people do but the wholeness of it is unknown since, in the real world sense, it has not happened.

I think that a lot of people do sense something unfolding and are trying in various ways to make it clear. That happens in all sorts of ways; from nostalgic yearnings for Lemuria to crop circle divination to whatever seems neatest to the individual. It is difficult to just let the future unfold. Since it has not happened yet, though the potential is there, we do have options. We can pretend we know what it is. We can retreat to a traditional model that ignores this new energy and reassures itself that all is well. We can notice the small indications that are appearing in the remote depths of our consciousness and be glad. We can be scared. Oh there are all sorts of things that we can do.

I suppose that a part of this advice to return to tradition might be to get people to actually read some of the old material. Another thing that never ceases to amaze me is people believing that the individual they believe is responsible for their current state sprang full blown from the brow of Zeus or something similar without having done any study of his own. For instance, there is a cult of personality for Hazrat Inayat Khan. Some otherwise very intelligent people seem to believe that what he spoke about was all his. It never seems to occur to them that most of what he taught was a restating of normal Sufi thought made palatable for the Western ear. He took out most of the cultural references from the Middle East and India and substituted European and American cultural references. Anyone who has done any reading of the ancient's will realize this. That he was brilliant is a given but let's not go too far. So maybe it would be good to get people to read some of the ancient material and figure this out for themselves.

I am now very curious to hear what others might feel about what I have written above. I am still in a state of speculation about this and am just beginning to form my ideas. Any contributions? More to come!

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

LIFE'S TEXTURE

(Part 2)

I was walking through Manhattan the other evening on my way to meet Majida for a light supper before going to the theater. It was early evening, there was still quite a bit of daylight and it was a pleasant walk. Since it was mid week there were a lot of people on the street heading home from their jobs. They all had the look that commuters over the world have, determination, annoyance, focus and the stare that says they are already thinking about dinner. It was a perfect Spring day so the look was softened somewhat, though not a lot. I was walking along, avoiding the rushing hordes, feeling the cool fresh air when a memory came stealing into my consciousness. At first it was a feeling with no event attached – a sense of satisfaction or possibly elation – a feeling of being young again. I walked between the soaring buildings, barely noticing the street life, before I remembered the source.

I was raised in Minnesota, on a lake a few miles outside of Minneapolis. I just looked at a Google Earth image of Medicine Lake and it is just a bit more built up than when I lived there. In fact I doubt I would recognize anything. In any case, as everyone knows, Minnesota is known for its winters. Winter is great for a kid. You play outside all day, come home to the pain of thawing fingers and toes and go out the next day for the same thing. Spring is a different thing. The air is full of promise, the deep snow is melting, the ice on the lake starts breaking up and the mud comes – lots and lots of mud. Any rural denizens of northern states or Canada know all about spring thaw mud. But finally the day comes when the mud is more or less over and a magical thing happens, you get to take your bicycle out for the very first time in months. This was the memory that flowed through me as I walked through Mid-town Manhattan. It was the smell of freedom.

For a 12 year old boy freedom is simple. The first bicycle ride after a long Minnesota winter does nicely. As a person matures freedom becomes more elusive. We accumulate responsibilities and attitudes and assumptions and firm ideas about who we are and freedom seems remote or, at best, a philosophical condition not very related to real life. But for a 12 year old boy, or girl, none of that is real, freedom is very basic. It is the wind in your hair and the sheer joy of flying down the road on your bicycle.

This memory of freedom, so simple and pure, flowed through me with all the gentleness of a feather lightly drifting down to alight in the palm of my hand. I was charmed. And I realized that this too was part of my life's texture.

As the quote from Hazrat Inayat Khan in the last blog says: "The journey one takes in the inner life is as long as the distance between the beginning of life and death, it being the longest journey one ever takes throughout life; and one must have everything prepared, so that after reaching a certain distance one may not have to turn back."

Some preparations are quite natural – this perfect sense of joy and freedom that a child experiences is certainly one. Remembering these states is another. Most of the preparations really are just this simple – balancing your breath, noticing beauty, focusing your mind, ignoring the tape loops of worry and resentment. As adults we tend to create extreme complications for ourselves due to the above mentioned accumulated responsibilities but really it is very simple. If you constantly practice remembering these pure emotions that you very naturally experienced as a child then you are doing the necessary preparation. I am constantly reminded of Christ's dictum to be as a little child. I have come to believe that he was very serious. My teacher, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, was probably one of the most intelligent people I have ever met yet he was quite capable of extreme childlike delight. You hear the very same thing of the Dalai Lama and other beings at that level of spiritual responsibility. I suspect this attitude comes from acceptance of life's texture as well as discipline and meditative skill.

As I write this I am listening to the Woodstock album and Richie Havens is singing about Freedom. We want it, we know it exists in some form, we remember from our childhood as I did and, as we go deep into the Inner Life, we can sometimes remember the freedom of our eternal souls.

So, look around, see what is eternal in your existence and enjoy the rest.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

LIFE'S TEXTURE

(Part 1)

"The inner life is a journey, and before starting to take it there is a certain preparation necessary. If one is not prepared, there is always the risk of having to return before one has arrived at one's destination. When a person goes on a journey, and when he has to accomplish something, he must know what is necessary on the path and what he must take with him, in order that his journey may become easy and that he may accomplish what he has started to accomplish. The journey one takes in the inner life is as long as the distance between the beginning of life and death, it being the longest journey one ever takes throughout life; and one must have everything prepared, so that after reaching a certain distance one may not have to turn back." Hazrat Inayat Khan

One of the things that a spiritual guide hears frequently is how awful the people they guide think they are. When a person begins to do spiritual work or even when a person begins to get serious about introspection, their mistakes will come up. We all have sinned in one way or another. By sin I mean we have all done something that harms another. We may not want to admit it but our subconscious knows we have some things in our past that we are not proud of or happy about. On the other end is the victim, the person who knows they have been abused by people more powerful than they are for their whole life. So we have sinners and victims and often a combination of the two. And then something happens and the Inner Life beckons.

What happens when the Inner Life beckons isn't nearly as important as the impact that it has on your assumptions about yourself. What the above quote says is that a certain preparation is necessary; I kind of laugh at that part. How can you know? It's like preparing to drive when you have never seen an automobile. What you can do, however; is see the life before the 'what' appeared for what it is. This is your texture.

All of the experiences that go into making our life what it is become our texture. All of it is us. When we discover our Inner Life, assumptions tend to arise that things will suddenly be peaceful, wonderful, sin free. Upon reflection, we will realize that nothing really changes; in fact, now that you have discovered an extra dimension to living, things suddenly seem even more complex. As I mention in my book, it is not unusual for a person who has recently embarked on a spiritual discipline to suddenly realize that they are the world's worst jerk. This person will begin to see all of the flaws in their being and nothing at all seems nice or right or even remotely possible for them because of their many many imperfections. On the other side wonderful things are also happening. There may be realizations about the nature of the Universe, or understandings about the beauty of everyday life. All sorts of things suddenly become clear. One of the things that certainly should become clear is the amount of work to come. Strangely enough this is almost never the case.

It has been my observation that people get a tiny taste of alternative reality and suddenly feel that they understand all of it. I suppose this is normal enough human nature. It seems that we really need to know that we know. That's okay; the kicker is that we also have these flaws that keep creeping into our consciousness. At least they should if we are paying any attention at all. What to do?

I used to try to fix people. I used to try to show them how to stop being flawed. I finally came to my senses and realized that was not very intelligent of me. Flaws are only flaws when you think they are. If you do something when you are 20 that you would not do when you are 40, it does not mean that the 20 year old was wrong. In the 20 year olds world what he did was perfectly normal. You do the best you can with the information you have at the time. And experience slowly teaches you that maybe there are alternatives. Continually going back to the 20 year old with pain and regret is, however; a losing proposition. It's just your texture, it isn't you.

It is a basic of humanity that we learn through our mistakes not our successes. So perhaps our greatest mistakes are those that lead us to examine our truth and thereby discover the Inner Life. Isn't it interesting that it is apparent failure that does this and not wondrous success?

Next blog we can talk about the journey and the accomplishments one may have along the way.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

HAPPY MAY DAY EVERYONE!

FRIENDSHIP

I was never very good at friendship: or at least I thought I was poor at it. I was thinking about it the other day and realized that it is hard to admit but I had to train myself to be friendly. It is a strange thing to realize. I still feel uncomfortable in party type situations – I never know just what to say - never know just what to do. I seem to always be afraid of saying or doing something stupid and have always admired the sort of person who is comfortable in group/party situations – admired and hated of course.

It is a mystery – a life long mystery. If you are trying to understand just what it is that you need to learn or to do while at the same time feeling paralyzed, you are certainly in a pickle. I never was good at snappy comebacks or being clever in a crowd. I suppose it came from feeling unworthy. But it does not matter so much where it came from as it does what to do with the information.

When you feel uncomfortable but do not know you are uncomfortable, that is a terrible stress on the psyche. When you feel uncomfortable and know you are uncomfortable, that is slightly better.

So, what does the above have to do with friendship? The older I get and the longer I am involved with Sufism the more I realize how precious friendship is.

"When, in friendship, a thought arises, 'I will love you as you love me', or, 'I will do to you as you do to me', this takes away all the virtue of the friendship, because it is a commercial attitude, prevalent everywhere in the commercial world: everything is done for a return, and measure is given for measure. Friendship should be the contrary pole to the practical side of life; for when a person is tired by the selfish surroundings of the world he feels inclined to take refuge in the love and kindness of a sympathetic friend. But if there is a question of selfishness in friendship, where can a soul go who is tired and annoyed with the selfish surroundings of the world?"

"Friendship as the average person understands it is perhaps little more than acquaintance; but in reality it is more sacred than any other connection in the world. To a sincere person, entering into friendship is like entering the gates of heaven; and a visit to his friend is a pilgrimage to a true loving friend."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Realizing all of the above gave me a clue as to why I was always so uncomfortable in group situations. Most group situations are just like the above, entertain me and I will entertain you – as long as it is within this secret set of rules that only the specific group understands. But it always makes me uncomfortable because I can sense the insincerity. Then I realized that it wasn't insincerity per se, it is more of a situation in which I really did not belong. The conditions were fine for the people involved but not for me. That was a difficult thing to realize.

It seems to be axiomatic that the deeper you go into the inner being the less company you have. If your inclination is deep to begin with, which you cannot help, then you will constantly find yourself at odds with the culture around you. Some of us learn to adapt, many do not. On the other hand, when you are graced with a true friendship, as described above, all of the experiences of the past seem remote and unimportant. I am so graced.

I am married, as many of you know, and that is a particular form of friendship. But that is not the friendship that I speak of. No, there is another, of just the type that Pir O Murshid speaks of. It was a surprise when it appeared and continues to be a blessing. Suddenly I understood what all of the literature referring to friendship was really about.

So it is real – friendship is real.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Morality

According to Pir O Murshid Inayat Khan there are five things necessary in the attainment of a spiritual life. You can see the whole list here http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/I/I_II_8.htm

I would like to concentrate on one part – morality.

"The fifth necessity in the spiritual path is the loving of the everyday life. There are no strict morals which a spiritual guide enforces upon a person, for that work has been given to the outward religions. It is to the exoteric side of spiritual work that the outer morals belong, but the essence of morals is practiced by those treading the spiritual path. Their first moral principle is constantly to avoid hurting the feeling of another. The second principle is to avoid allowing themselves to be affected by the constantly jarring influences which every soul has to meet in life. The third principle is to keep their balance under all different situations and conditions which upset this tranquil state of mind. The fourth principle is to love unceasingly all those who deserve love, and to give to the undeserving their forgiveness; and this is continually practiced by them. The fifth principle is detachment amidst the crowd; but by detachment I do not mean separation. By detachment is only meant rising above those bondages which bind man and keep him back from his journey towards the goal. " Hazrat Inayat Khan

I just happened to think that mystics are fond of making lists. When you read Pir O Murshid's works for instance you find all kinds of lists – the five most important things – the three things you need – and so on. I guess that was the way he tended to speak. Most of what you read in his works is really transcriptions of lectures he gave. So, I suppose, in the moment, lists were helpful as a way of making a point.

Okay, ask yourself what myth you follow. We all have a myth that we believe is reality. It isn't but we convince ourselves that it is. Then, as spiritual maturity begins to arrive, we are confronted with the myth that we accepted in order to get to this place but which no longer can support us. It can be pretty distressing when our myth fails us. That is what I suspect may be happening.

The above quote from Pir O Murshid can be seen in a couple of ways. I have noticed that often people will read such things, take them to heart and assume that they not only understand but they also have deeply absorbed and follow all of the suggestions outlined. At the other end of things are the people who read these suggestions and feel totally intimidated. Both have a myth about themselves and the world around them.

Probably the reality of what Pir O Murshid is saying lies in the constant examination of one's point of view. It will occasionally happen that a person will discover that they are actually comfortable in the chaos of everyday life. They will find that nothing rattles them and the demands of the selfish people all around them are simple annoyances to be tolerated with good cheer. It can happen that you suddenly notice you have found this place of calm detachment quite innocently. To assume this state is a bit like saying you are a fantastic lover without ever having been with anyone. If it isn't natural, it isn't.

On the other hand it is important to notice where you fall short of the outlined ideal. Not to beat yourself up over your failings but just to notice. Noticing is the first step in discovering the aspects of your being that truly do understand friendship and detachment. It is all there inside of you and only needs a bit of work to unveil itself.

Love and Blessings, Musawwir

IDEALS

"Shatter your ideals upon the rock of truth."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

That sounds good doesn't it? It seems like something that you can do. It won't be too painful. There may be a little pain but you can handle that. Well to me it is terrifying because I know it is true.

A person I correspond with recently wrote the following to me: "I think when we walk in the shadow of some labeled philosophy of life; we don't walk in the light no matter how brilliant or well thought out the philosophy." I had to read this over a couple of times to understand what was meant. As long as we are subscribing to some sort of system of belief and we demand that this system supply us with all our needs, we will be in its shadow. This person may very well be correct. There is a real comfort for us in having something that explains what we feel or what we want to feel. It is so very nice to point to some literature or perhaps to a way of life that we are sure we approve of. But, no matter the sublimity of the system, it will still never be enough.

Any religion or philosophy has this drawback; there are always going to be people within the group that need to explain to you just what it all means. They will tell you that you can trust them to understand. In fact they will tell you that it is a requirement that you trust them. This is just as true in my Sufi Order as it is in anything else. In fact I often find myself doing just that. I will find myself telling someone what IT means and expecting them to just accept my word. I do try to remember to slap myself when I do that but I am not always successful. Fortunately I have friends who do not hesitate to tell me that I am being pushy, or silly, or wrong – at least as far as they are concerned. Isn't that wonderful?

To be willing to have your ideal shattered means being vulnerable to the information flow that comes to you. Most of us have extremely thick defenses where our ideals are concerned. Any thought or emotion or scary perception that comes to us will immediately rebound off our thick armor. We have no intention of allowing anyone to alter our opinions even in the slightest manner.

Anyone who has done any study at all of mysticism will know that this attitude is the first one that has to go, never the less we do not really believe that our ideals need adjustment. In fact we will go to a lot of mental and emotional trouble to make sure that whatever teacher we have chosen to listen to aligns their philosophy with ours. It is not so unusual I suppose for us to need to do this because we always want to understand what the teacher is saying in the light of our own understanding. To stretch beyond our limits is always scary. We may profess the desire to stretch but what we really mean is just a tiny amount not a lot, certainly not to the point of shattering.

For me there is a physical sensation that accompanies even a minor alteration in my thinking or emotions. It is that sinking feeling that one gets when faced with a predator and fight or flight are the only options. Total terror. It is the feeling I used to get when faced with the play ground bully. I want to run but there is no where to run to. Sometimes I can ward off the feeling by ignoring the reality I am faced with – letting it bounce off my armor so to speak. Other times my basic sense of integrity simply will not let me avoid the shift that is being presented.

What is always true is the subliminal knowledge that there is more to come. No matter how deep we go into the discovery of our true selves, there is always more. Perhaps then the answer is to simply accept that what we know is okay as long as we are content to know it is only a part of what is real. Many of the scriptures say that God or the Universe never gives us more than we can handle. There are arguments about that of course, abuse, war, political domination, things like that. But generally it is true that you get what you expect and, if you allow it, a little more. It is extremely rare that you will be expected to grasp all of Universal Reality all at once. For most of us it is a gradual process – if we allow it.

There is this prayer that was composed by Hazrat Inayat Khan and which many people over the world recite daily. I am one of those that do this. Every time I recite it I wonder if I truly mean it. Maybe that is the true test.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Saum
Praise be to Thee, Most Supreme God,
Omnipotent, Omnipresent, All-pervading,
the Only Being.
Take us in thy Parental Arms,
Raise us from the denseness of the earth.
Thy Beauty do we worship,
To Thee do we give willing surrender.
Most Merciful and Compassionate God,
The Idealized Lord of the whole humanity,
Thee only do we worship,
and towards Thee alone we aspire.
Open our hearts towards Thy Beauty,
Illuminate our souls with Divine Light.
O Thou, the Perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty!
All-powerful Creator, Sustainer, Judge
and Forgiver of our shortcomings, Lord God of the East and of the West,
of the worlds above and below,
And of the seen and unseen beings.
Pour upon us Thy Love and Thy Light,
Give sustenance to our bodies, hearts and souls,
Use us for the purpose that Thy Wisdom chooseth,
And guide us on the path of Thine Own Goodness.
Draw us closer to Thee every moment of our life,
Until in us be reflected Thy Grace,
Thy Glory, Thy Wisdom, Thy Joy, and Thy Peace.
Amen.

SECRETS

"While everybody asks, 'Why?" of his neighbor, the mystic asks this question of himself."

"The wretched always look for some excuse to be miserable."

"If by accident you step into the mud, it is not there-fore necessary to keep on walking in the muddy path."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Many of the people who follow a spiritual path feel that it means becoming an adept of some sort. They tend to look for magic of various kinds. Precognition is popular as is telepathy and reading the aura of others. Manifestation is also high on the list. Making candle flames dance, dissolving clouds or even dissolving the self into the elusive Void are exciting objectives. What the true mystics say however is that the real spiritual person has only one objective – becoming truly human.

It is complicated becoming a human being.

All of the things that I mentioned, plus many more, are the sorts of things that the mind just naturally looks for as we train ourselves to contemplate and, ultimately, to meditate. We like evidence. We also like to think, even if secretly, that we have some kind of powers that others do not. I have noticed this tendency in others and certainly in myself. What I have also noticed is that, no matter how "adept" I become, my psychological baggage comes right along with me.

A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that she is often distressed by how people see themselves. She tends to be very aware of the positive aspects of another person's personality but she notices that a lot of people do not allow themselves to see their own positives parts. What she said was that they only allow in negative opinions. I have noticed the same thing myself. I make it a habit to tell people what I see when I notice something nice or excellent about them. What then happens is really interesting. Quite often the person so complimented will take the compliment, twist it and make it something negative or non-complimentary but therefore palatable. For instance, you can tell a person they look really nice and the response will often be, "You should have seen me this morning!" I am sure you can think of many similar examples that you and your friends do. But why?

My teacher, Pir Vilayat, would sometimes remark to us about what he saw. He would say something to the effect of, "I am sitting here in front of you looking out at all of your grim faces, when what I see of your beings is glorious. Why are you so grim?" Occasionally it would work and we would decide to enjoy our beings. More often than not, his statement would be ignored and we would go on being grim. It's the way of our culture .

Think of what you see at an ordinary super market check out counter. Do you see copies of The Atlantic Monthly or Harper's? Nope you see National Inquirer and similar publications all trumpeting the mistakes, failures and peccadillo's of various celebrities. We love to see failure in others because we also feel quite flawed. After all this is what we are taught. No one is perfect, everyone has sinned. In some religions even babies are known to be abject. This idea is so deep in our culture that we do not even really notice.

I have two grand children living with me; a nine year old boy and a four year old girl. The girl just went through her tantrum stage. Thank god it is pretty much over with now. When she was in the middle of one what would often work would be to ask her if what she was doing was making her happy. Did she enjoy it? All that screaming and wailing over some minor difficulty, real or imagined, was exciting it seemed. Any parent knows that when a kid gets into that stage often they do not know how to stop so you find some way to distract them. What occasionally worked with her was this question, "Do you like being like this?" She would keep screaming but shake her head no. And eventually, often within seconds, the screaming would stop and a hug would be asked for.

So, I ask you, do you like feeling negative about yourself?

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Results vs. Process

"No one can deny the fact that life in the world is one continual struggle. The one who does not know the struggle of life is either an immature soul, or a soul who has risen above the life of this world. The object of a human being in this world is to attain to the perfection of humanity, and therefore it is necessary that man should go through what we call the struggle of life." Hazrat Inayat Khan

Wouldn't it be nice if our lives had the musical cues that television dramas and movies have? You hear the ominous music and instantly know that you should not go into that room because there is a slasher in there. Or that gooey music plays and you know you are about to have a really cool love affair. Wouldn't it be great to have indicative background music that saves you all the trouble that life can bring? All you would have to do is listen for the music to know what the moment meant. That would be so much easier. You always know when watching a TV program exactly what is going on from the music. Gosh, I want some background music in my life.

On the other hand, the characters in the dramas never seem to listen to the music so maybe it wouldn't work.

I have been thinking a lot lately about results vs. process. As was noted in my last blog - friendship is the most important aspect of being a spiritual person. And that is process not result. A result is when you put an engine back together and it runs. Process is learning how to do it and getting better and better at it.

Once you learn to listen to the still small voice within, which does take some concentration, you actually do begin to hear the music of life.

I am very curious to know if those who read this blog have similar thoughts or feel much different. If you have ideas about results vs. process I would like to hear.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Together

About ten years before he died, I was driving my teacher, Pir Vilayat, to the airport when he said something startling to me. We were just chatting about something or other when he suddenly turned to me and said, "I am 75 years old and am just now understanding what a Sufi is." I did not quite know what to say to this startling statement so I mumbled something in agreement and drove on. But the statement stayed with me.

I have used the statement numerous times in classes to illustrate the fact that there is no ending to doing the inner work. The more I think about it though the more I would like to go a bit further.

My best friend, besides my wife, lives in Vienna Austria. She feels that what we do, living our lives, is always about the process, never about results. Since Western culture believes itself to be very result oriented, this is a somewhat unique point of view, one I share by the way. The other day we had a long car ride together and spent a good amount of the time talking about this very point. My friend has an analogy that I like very much. She says that life is one long dream, from one end to the other. She says that what we do within the dream determines what our essence will be when the dream ends and we move into the next phase of manifestation, whatever that turns out to be.

In Sufism, this essence, what Pir Vilayat called the quintessence, of our beings is called Qayoom, pronounced kai-youm. It is generally translated as Eternity but we use it to identify that essential kernel that lives beyond the death of a particular body. It is this energy that enhances the soul and which finally provides the one being with the information it needs to understand itself and its creation. It is not however a result. It is the accumulation of experience that we have while vying for results.

Just my saying this does not make it so of course. I could say that understanding this principle is a realization outside of the rational mental process but that would be putting me above all my readers and I do not like to do that. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that I am tossing this idea out there to see what happens to it.

I just wrote an email to a friend of mine wherein I stated that a person can do all of the practices assigned to them and become the most enlightened and spiritual person on the planet but if they do not have the ability to be a friend all the other stuff is wasted. So often we desire mystical experiences, something to give ourselves proof that we are doing something. We seem to need these results. Value received for effort expended. What is really happening though is that we are learning about ourselves and hopefully learning to be friends with ourselves. If, on the other hand, we believe that our efforts are making us lofty, or above it all – if we believe that our efforts have the result of making us somehow better or more informed or more spiritual than others – it is all a waste.

All too often, in the spiritual world, I have seen people, who have a wonderful realization and who suddenly find themselves with responsibilities, become parental. They act as if their word is better than all others and their students, assuming they get any, are treated like misbehaving children. Loving contempt is how it seems to me. What continues to surprise me is the number of people who buy into this. Mature adults with good careers and family responsibilities become little kids in front of these self appointed guardians of the mystical path. Everyone is looking for results.

What is really taking place is Divine Process. It is the struggle to understand. And we are all in it together.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Intent

”Is our coming on earth ruled by a law, or does it happen in a haphazard way?

This very subtle problem is very difficult to explain. We are helped by understanding the meaning of accident and intention. They are two distinct things. It helps us if we try to discover what is hidden behind accident. Then we come to the intention in the scheme of the working of the whole.

Everything has a purpose, nothing is an accident; but to our mind there is accident. So accident exists for us like a shadow. Neither has shadow a real existence, nor has accident. Nothing is really accidental, but as the idea of accident goes on, it attracts accidents more and more. For instance, a person may wander for six months in Paris without finding a thief, but for a thief it will not take six hours to find one, for the law of attraction works. There is a verse in the Qur'an which explains this very well: 'Not one atom moves without the command of God.'

Intention is behind every activity, and the intention which we do not know, we call accident." Hazrat Inayat Khan

Traditional Sufism has a basic practice or mantra that is common to all orders. In Arabic the words are La Ilaha Illah 'llah Hu. A literal translation into English is No Existence Except God – Hu is translated as Presence. The way it is normally expressed is Nothing Exists Except God and God's Presence. Every Sufi order, and there are many, use these words, though in many different ways. Often they sing or chant the words in a singsong fashion. Some orders repeat them slowly and rhythmically and all think about them. In addition to this practice, most orders have other spiritual practices that they do, some simple, others quite complex. All however have as their objective the unveiling of the personality and the transformation of the being into whom they are becoming.

In all the years that I have been a Sufi it was never really all that important to me where these words came from or why they seem so real to me. For a person raised as a Muslim they are the essence of their faith or they should be. For someone raised as a mid-western Lutheran, they are just strange syllables that have no meaning in and of themselves but seem to have some effect on my consciousness, or maybe I am imagining it. Never the less, when I first heard them and struggled to repeat them correctly, something magical seemed to take place within my being. What I came to understand was that this is intent.

As Hazrat Inayat Khan says above, things may seem like they are accidental but accidents are really the shadow of intent. Imagine for a moment that it is possible to know the mind of God. This is clearly not possible but let's just pretend that we have a limited access. Does God see accident? Does the Universe in its constancy see accident? Even if one subscribes to chaos theory, random acts still breed distinct results that have an effect on the whole body. It is as if the body needed a certain result and created it. Therefore, by definition, the distinct result demanded the random acts in order to manifest.

Pir Vilayat used to frequently quote some French philosopher, whose name escapes me, who said something that he very much approved of. The pull of the future is much stronger than the push of the past. Pir Vilayat was using this phrase to explain to people how their future being was asking them to perform certain acts and concentrations in order to enable the manifestation that was already in place in the future self. Tricky stuff to think about because what if you do not do what the future self is asking of you? Does the time line split? Does the future self then disappear or does one part of you that did what was asked continue to create the future self, while another part of you, which denied the pull creates a totally separate self in another Universe? Science Fiction authors have made a lot of hay out of this speculation and that is fine for them, for ordinary people it simply means do it or not. If you do it, the future self manifests, if you don't it doesn't. On a much larger scale it would appear to be much more purposeful. The larger the sample, the more likely it is that the future self will enlist the past in the futures manifestation. In other words, for an individual it is a matter of individual will, for the whole of humanity it just happens. The big question individually is whether or not you will participate or stand back and watch someone else understand Divine Intent.

Now, if La Ilaha Illah 'llah Hu actually has validity, then all that we are is an expression of Divine Intent. Ibn al Arabi, the great Sufi metaphysician, noted that in creating humans God had to allow for the possibility of being surprised by his creation. So free will is an important aspect. However, there does seem to be movement in a direction that feels like the pull of the future. Just the reality of world wide communications tells us something very important. Humanity has a deep desire to understand itself. So? Are you in or out?

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Trust

"If it were in the power of the person to make another believe, then every great soul that came to the world would have made the world believe in him and his word. Belief is according to the power of one's self-confidence. You find the tendency to trust in a brave man, in a wise man, and in a great man; the tendency to doubt and disbelieve you will find in the weak and insignificant man, who does not know what he believes. This shows that he who trusts himself will trust all, and he who does not trust himself cannot trust anybody. The trust of the person who trusts another and does not trust himself is an illusion; his trust is not alive. It may appear as strength, but it is a weakness. He holds onto something he does not know, and it seems trust. A person who cannot believe in himself cannot believe in a friend. How can he who does not believe in another believe in God, who is beyond the comprehension of man?"  Hazrat Inayat Khan

Trust is hard or it seems hard.  We live in a world that uses disappointment as a main measurement of reality so trust seems an illusion at best.   A friend of mine looked up trust in the dictionary.  She found at least 8 different meanings which I just read back through.  None of them mention courage of self as Pir O Murshid does.  So there is a ninth meaning.  This friend did say that it is the sort of thing that actually defies spoken or written definition, that words actually complicate what is essentially a basic principle.  I agree with that up to a point but, after I read some of what Pir O Murshid had to say, I feel that there is more.  

Just for a moment, as you are reading this, ask yourself if you trust yourself.  It seems quite simple.  Do you trust yourself?   Everyone would want to answer yes.  But, going by the quote above do you have a tendency to believe or do you expect to be deceived or tricked or made a fool?  This is a very subtle point which might bear examination.  Humans always have a choice, it is built-in, the choice comes from free will.  So when a prophet or a great being comes and tells of what is possible, humans have the right to accept or reject the message.  Since the message will always be something new or seem that way in any case, the automatic reaction of most people would be distrust.  On the other hand, there will also be those who will see the message as something which will save them and by save I mean to relieve them of their earthly burden and alleviate them of the responsibilities which are naturally theirs.  In between are those who see the messenger for what he/she is, and that is a conduit of Divine blessing and forgiveness who none the less wants his/her followers to first and foremost know themselves.  
Taking all of that as a given, then it would seem that to trust someone is an ongoing discovery of self.  The deeper a person goes into the self, in a somewhat relentless manner, the more a person is forced to decide whether they are worth the trouble of trusting.  I suppose this would mean that to truly trust another a person must first of all value themselves.  

There is another factor as well.  It is even more subtle.  What you are trusting is that the person or people before you will act in a manner appropriate their true spiritual development.  You do not expect a tiger for instance to not eat a lamb, that would be expecting way too much of the tiger and would go against its nature.  Nor should we expect a naturally suspicious conniving type of person to suddenly become honest and forthright – again, that would be asking way too much.  We can however trust them to be themselves.  We can also do something a bit more interesting, we can trust that all people have a capacity to expand their consciousness.  They may not want to, they may in fact resent the whole idea that the trust is there.  When you think about it though, perhaps you can see that this is the true message of the prophets.  They stand apparently aloof and apart, imbued with an understanding of humanity that seems impossible to emulate.  Never the less they all have said, in one way or another, "You too can do this."  That is the trust of a great man as Pir O Murshid has said.  

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

I have a new grand daughter! Ain't she a darling? Being a grand father is quite a bit different from being a father. For one thing I am a whole lot more patient then I was at 22 when my son was born. Quite frankly I was not ready to be a parent, not even close. I freely admit that I was not a very good father. I guess that's the way it is. Now it seems, with grandchildren I have a chance to make up for it. It isn't a perfect solution but perhaps it means something. The perfect solution would be a reset button to go back and do it over, better. Too bad life isn't a video game.
On this Thursday, the 23d, Thanksgiving day, I will be flying to Belgium to meet my new grand child. For the first time in forever I am giving up the normal T-day festivities to travel to Europe. It feels like the most perfect thing to do.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers and a wonderful week to everyone else.
Love & Blessings, Musawwir

A Rose is a Rose

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who expressed what is probably a very common idea.  She said, "Have you ever thought how language limits thinking?  You cannot think what you cannot express.  I have thoughts that language cannot touch.  Maybe it is my limited mental abilities or that I am not a very deep thinker."  
Do others who read this blog also feel this at times?  
In any case, I know this person to be very smart and that she is indeed a deep thinker so I had to come up with a way to show her and maybe others that there is a mode of thinking which has nothing to do with mental abilities.
I asked her how she would describe a rose.  
She answered as most people would by saying that she would describe its parts, its attributes, perhaps its aroma, etc.  And I said, "Sure, but can you describe the rose itself?"  The answer is that you cannot describe the rose itself.  A description of its components will give a person who has seen a rose an idea of what you are talking about and that is usually adequate but what I am seeking is a description of roseness.  
We know that roses and other flowers exist.  We are aware of their beauty and the quality of their being.  Can we talk about their essence?  
Another example is roundness.  Can you describe roundness, which we see constantly, without speaking of an object that is round such as a table or a wheel or even a circle?  All of these are examples of roundness but how would you describe roundness itself?
There are so many things that we just accept as realities without being able to think of them as other than descriptions of their components, yet they exist as qualities in the Universe.  So, what does this say about our thought processes?  
Imagine for a moment that these essential attributes are imbedded so deeply in your psyche that it is difficult if not impossible to bring them forth as thoughts.  Never the less you can in fact think roundness or roseness or any of a number of basic attributes that we are aware of.  Most often you will think of components that use these attributes but you can also think of the  quality itself.  Thinking roundness is not the issue, describing it is.  If I say roundness everyone knows what I mean.  There is no need to describe roundness as it is a basic quality of the Universe.  Perhaps instead the human mind needs complexity and gets a bit worried when something is so simple that no additional description is necessary.  
Spirituality is like this.  The fundamental idea of all mystical systems is to become human which is a very simple state of being.  The complexity comes when we ascribe method and system to this idea.  We always approach becoming human from our cultural point of view which assumes that a human being must have the qualities that the culture believes are essential to the perfected human.  Not so but our cultural imperatives will demand it.  As I understand it the perfect human being is a person who lives totally in the present, intelligent of course, capable of many things, but always in the present, meeting each situation or condition on the merits of the present moment.  How often do we meet conditions or situations based on history or what our culture tells us should happen.  So we tend to create systems that look as if they are secret or superior or somehow better than the average person is capable of understanding.  Let us instead meet each event and each person on the merits of the moment.

Love and Blessings, Musawwir

Faith

"True spirituality is not a fixed faith or belief; it is the ennobling of the soul by rising above the barriers of material life.
Faith reaches what reason fails to touch."
Pir O Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

I have been thinking much about faith recently. It is hard to tell sometimes whether what I think is real is actually real or is simply the result of habit of thought. For instance, I have met several people recently who have stated emphatically that they do not believe in God. They seem to feel obligated to say this to me when they discover what I write about. That is okay with me if they feel this way but it puzzles me just what they do have faith in. And then I look at what I think I have faith in and wonder at myself.
First of all I should make something clear. Sufi's make a distinction between faith and belief. Faith is a known thing, based on one's real experiences. Belief is something a person relies on to be true even though there is no sustaining experience. This is different from the normal uses of the words in that faith and belief are often put together but used in this way they support one another.
What apparently happens to people who give any thought to this subject at all is that they tend to rely on early experiences to inform them of what to accept. This can happen in all sorts of ways and each person will make decisions about their faith or belief based on their assessment of their early experiences. For instance my early experiences in the Christian Church were fairly benign. There was the normal teaching about the supremacy of Jesus Christ along with the other standard fare but there was none of the illogical demands and hypocrisy that so often accompanies dogma. People went to church and paid their weekly obligation to support the organization but I never felt pressured to be something that I was not. Religion touched very lightly on my life. Consequently I decided at some point that God was okay. Not some kind of looming, quasi human, judgmental being, but a fairly nice guy. And that is where I seem to be today except that my deeper ideas about God have gotten much more expansive. This leads me to believe that a person who needs to express their lack of belief in God might have had a very different experience as a child.
Faith on the other hand, as defined above, is quite different. I have faith in my experiences, which I define as spiritual. Maybe they are hallucinations of some sort but if so they are darned good ones. My belief in some sort of Universal Intelligence apparently requires me to accept these experiences in a particular manner. Another person, who professes another sort of God or not-God would define them quite differently. But there are more basic forms of faith. We have faith in our existence. By that I mean that we know what our hands look like and accept that when we grasp something we can pick it up, especially if we have done so many times before as in a pencil or a fork. Taken further, if we meditate in some way, we have faith that, by sitting still and doing a breathing practice, a certain calm will descend over us. We may have a very different faith, thinking that it is not possible to feel calm and nothing will ever change this. Again, this is a result of early decisions we make. If this sort of person decides that they want to understand calm and really works at it then it is quite possible to alter their faith in their ability to become calm.
But what if there is something deeper? If a person does make a definitive shift in their faith factor I wonder if it is possible to alter still more. Said differently, it might mean that there are aspects of a person's being that have been veiled and are just now becoming accessible. This is belief combined with faith. I have changed, therefore I can change.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

A New Skill
I started taking Tai Chi lessons six years ago for just one reason. I wanted to do something that I knew nothing at all about. I wanted to be a pure student again and learn something that would be useful to me but challenging enough that I would be stretched. Most of all, I wanted to go back to that place where one knows nothing at all about what is being taught. It had been far too long since I had felt that way.

The most basic principle of Tai Chi is relaxation. When I first started I thought that would be the easy part for me. I have been meditating for over 30 years and the very first thing one must do in mediation is to relax the body. I know how to breathe properly. I know how to go through my body and progressively relax all of the muscles. I know how to sit erect with no muscle tension at all and stay that way for some time with no stress. What I did not know was how to do all of this while moving. I thought it would be easy.

The funny thing here is that, even though my announced aim to myself was to do something that I knew nothing about, I still thought I knew something. I did not know the choreography of the Tai Chi form but I did know how to relax. I was quite proud of being the only one in my beginner's class that knew how to relax properly. Boy, was I wrong. From the very beginning I knew this would be the real struggle.

When we undertake something new we always bring our selves with us. We bring our pride. We bring our understanding of how things work. We bring our assumptions about all sorts of things. Most of all we bring our ideas of who we think we are. The tendency often is to assume that we are simply adding something to our repertoire. It is very rare for a person to approach something new simply as something new. We certainly do not approach whatever it is as something that is going to fundamentally change our idea of who we are.

The other night - at our weekly Tai Chi class - as our teacher was explaining a fine point of concentration, I was thinking about learning. When we are learning something technical, which could be almost anything at all that is part of our normal functioning society, we expect a linear progression. We know that it is subject to our intelligence, our ability to grasp facts, and general inclination, but we do expect that, within our limitations, to be able to understand something within a reasonable amount of time. Meditation and, I now know, martial arts, are not like that. There is progress of a sort but it is based on your willingness to unlearn.

In the case of Tai Chi you are unlearning your assumptions about how things should be, especially how your body should move. In order to progress in either venue one needs to let go of what one thinks is possible. For instance; a few blogs back I spoke about this sudden experience of having my arms rise totally by themselves while I was feeling the Chi (life force) move through me from my feet to my hands. It was a really strange feeling. Now I am getting used to it. So, now I am learning just how unbalanced and out of control I was and am slowly bringing my body under control. Before I thought I knew how to move, now I know I do not know how to move properly and am willing to wait for my body and mind to understand. They say it takes decades. I believe them.

Meditation it is very similar. Anyone can meditate or so we assume. What you learn, after a decade or two, is that it becomes more and more subtle. The whole world of spirituality is based on unlearning and, as Pir Vilayat often said, reprogramming the consciousness. This is exactly the same as Tai Chi. You unlearn how to move your body, which you have spent your life time learning how to move improperly it seems. It can be a struggle.

My point in all of this is recognition of the very pliable nature of our beings. We insist to ourselves that we are steady, firm, trained. This does not mean that we are satisfied with ourselves. We may be very steady in our unworthiness for instance. But none of it is true. If we can bring ourselves to find a place of unlearning then anything is possible.

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Facing Your Self

There is this very common statement within most of what we call the spiritual community. God is the person standing before you! When I started on this path, way back in the dark ages, this was a very startling statement for me to hear. On the face of it seeing God always before you sounds like a good thing to do. But what if God has bad breath? Or what if God has a very annoying personality, or is just plain nasty?
Maybe I should go back a little bit and define spiritual community. Quite frankly it can be anybody, from any tradition. I believe there is only one requirement and that is the willingness to learn more, to never fall back on a doctrine that no longer works and to always wonder what the truth really is. I guess that is more than one, that is three. But it does not get much more complicated than that. If a person is comfortable with these three precepts then all sorts of spiritual practices will work for them. It does not seem to matter very much what the practices are. What does matter is intent.
In the matter of discovering God standing before you in whatever guise you happen to find Him/Her intent seems to be critical. One of the aspects of spiritual practices that I find most disturbing is sentimentality. Sentimentality in spiritual practice is one of the aspects of what Pir Vilayat used to call Spiritual Bypass. By Spiritual Bypass I believe he meant what happens when a person has a real spiritual experience but then assumes that, as a result of this spiritual experience, all of the ails and problems of their life just disappear. This is when sentimentality can arise. There is nothing that I dislike more then someone coming up to me and telling me how much they love me or how they see the depth of my soul or something like that when it is obvious to me that they do not really mean it or, if they think they mean it, that they do not really understand what they are saying. There is a ring of truth that is unmistakable when a person is, not only totally sincere, but also knows exactly whereof they speak. There is no sentimentality in their voice, just truth. So, if the practice that a person is assigned or that a person decides to work on is seeing God before them in all conditions of life, the very real danger here is assuming that they are doing it.
As I said above, the key is intent. It is very easy to see the face of God in a baby for instance. All one need do is to look into their eyes of total innocence and the existence of angels is obvious, the joy of God in His/Her creation is apparent. But, if it is a cranky old woman who spits vitriol with every breath? That might be a bit harder. We might tell ourselves that we are seeing the being of God before us but our sub conscious will not believe it for a nano-second. So, what to do?
You keep at it. You notice when you fail and try again. The point is not to actually tell yourself you are seeing the being of God in each person who comes before you, but to actually do it. If you are telling yourself you are doing it you are not doing it. When you are doing it you are not aware of doing it, you just are in a state of seeing the being of God before you. There is no effort, just reality. What that means of course is there is no need to tell others of what you are doing. When you are thinking you are doing it the tendency will be to applaud yourself. Now, there is nothing wrong with applauding yourself. I am not one of those who think that proper humility is required in all forms of self expression and that you must never extol your virtues even to yourself; quite the opposite. I believe a lot of damage has been done by telling people they must be humble when what is really needed is to notice when they do something well. But, that does not apply to spiritual practices. For spiritual practices to be really effective the ego, that part of you that wants to reinforce its opinion of itself, must be set aside.
Ordinarily I am not a fan of the phrase, 'must be' but sometimes it is appropriate. Imagine for instance that you truly do see the being of God in the face of someone before you, should you congratulate yourself? Probably not. But it is our tendency to do so. We want to acknowledge that at last we pulled it off, at last we did what we have been demanding of our self. Normal enough. But not good enough.
I realize that the concept I am describing is indescribable but perhaps I have given a few clues. I will be curious to read comments.
Love & Blessings, Musawwir

Competition

Last night I took my 9 year old grand son to a Mets game. That's major league base ball to my international friends. I do not ordinarily enjoy major league sports. The hype is over whelming, the fans are absurd and the whole atmosphere seems artificial and simplistic. It is as if the world of whatever sport it happens to be has the only reality. And, in the US, the patriotic nonsense before the game starts makes me ill. Do other countries do this? Never the less I took my grandson for the experience. He, of course, loved it.
There is something quite magical about a large crowd of people all focused, well mostly focused, on a single thing. I love this energy when I am in a theatre watching a play with a few hundred people or at a musical concert of some type. The shared experience can occasionally become something quite magical, depending on the skill of the performers and the attentiveness of the audience. I have many times been in audiences where I felt this deep experience but never at a sporting event.
It isn't that I do not appreciate the skill of the competitors or the sometimes quite exciting feats of athleticism that one might see, no it is not that; I think it is the quite silly behavior of just about everyone involved except for the athletes, and sometimes them as well.
My son in law is a body builder. More then that, he competes and wins. I have been to a few of these events and the hype for them is no less than any other professional athletic event. In fact they are pretty strange. In the case of body building most of the audience is involved in the sport in some fashion, either as competitors, relatives of competitors or people seriously involved in body building who want to see the best. Since I am now an official relative I had to give some thought to my attitude. If it were not for Daron I would pay no attention at all. Since I know him fairly well for the good man and husband and father that he is I had to think about it a lot. Finally I realized that, for Daron, competition is extremely important but, it cannot be just anyone, it can only be against the best available – otherwise it doesn't count. And we get to watch.
All this leads me to conclude that there is something in the human psyche that needs this energy. We are competitive creatures and the best among us absolutely need to test themselves against others at their level. For the rest of us it can mean something quite different. So perhaps, as in my previous blog about the aggressive SUV driver, it is time, for some of us, to cease looking without for something to compete with and instead to look within for the true conflict. Most of us are not world class athletes. Some of us do enjoy competition at some amateur level but a lot of us just compete randomly in a most unpleasant manner. So ask yourself, what is your effect on those around you when you feel the need to compete?

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

The Photo is of my son in law, Daron Lytle, the day he won the 2006 Armed Forces Europe Body Building Championship.

More Fun

This past weekend I had more fun.  Majida and I went to the Abode to do the Universal Worship service.   After the service and after brunch in the dining hall I went to Omega Publications, the Abode book store to sign copies of my book.  More fun.

I had another fun thing happen this morning.  I was in a line of traffic, waiting for a light to change.  When it did change I was a bit slow off the mark and the fellow behind me started honking.  Then he pulled up on my right side to go around me, invective showing on his face as he cursed me through the closed windows of our two vehicles, forcing his way in front of me, so he was 25 feet closer to the next red light.  Of course he was driving an SUV.   My very first reaction was to leap from the car and challenge him to a fight.  That reaction was quickly suppressed for the silly idea it was.  My next reaction was to simply be angry.  Finally I settled on being amused.  Then I felt kind of sad.  This guy got seriously angry over someone being a little slow at a stop light.  He was actually mad, beyond angry and into mad.  The look on his face was full of violence and accusation.  It would have been appropriate if I had perhaps, well I can't think of anything bad enough to draw such a look.  Obviously he thought I had violated some illusion that he had about his personal importance and the importance of how he expects traffic to move.  The question is, why?  Why put all of this energy into something so minor, something which only existed in his mind.  All because I was a little slow.  What do you suppose this kind of expression is doing to his psyche?  Do you think he ever has fun?  

How many of us expect the world to react badly to the way we think it should be and then, in a kind of perverse delight, we express our disappointment or anger when our expectations are met.  What is sad about my friend from this morning was that he was expending all of that energy on something that existed only in his mind.  

One of the side effects of meditation is patience.  I used to be very impatient, not so different from the fellow this morning.  I was always looking for a reason to be offended.  And I often was offended.  As I recall the emotions, I think I was afraid that there was little or no adventure in my life and I needed to create some.  Sounds strange, but that is what I recall.  Then I began to meditate and do various spiritual practices and things began to change.  Not without pain I might add.  These changes only came because I began to realize that I was often inappropriate in my reactions.  

As patience is slowly discovered some very strange things happen.  All of the reactions that you thought you needed suddenly seem to be quite silly, but they are still there.  For me the anger was there, the disgust at minor illusory infractions, the constant need to be disappointed, all there.  At the same time patience was growing.   Things got pretty confused for awhile.  To tell the truth they were confused for quite awhile.  

Now that I am finally having fun I wonder why it took so long to realize that none of this is serious.  Or, put a better way, it is too serious to take seriously.  There are many things that are important but first among them is, "Do No Harm."   When you take the small things seriously then harm to someone results.  Instead see if you can find a way to allow things to happen that are not that important and give your attention to what is really important, your inner life.  

Love & Blessings, Musawwir

New Things

This past weekend I had my first book signing. It was at the Phoenix and Dragon book store in Atlanta, GA. The Phoenix and Dragon is an exceptionally nice spiritual book store, with lots of room and a very large selection. As such things go the event probably was pretty small. Maybe 15 people came for a short talk and then most of them bought copies of the book to be signed by me. To be perfectly honest it was an amazing experience.
How often in your life do you get to do something totally new and wonderful, something you might read about but never imagine yourself doing. Our popular literature is full of this sort of thing but we never actually think it will happen to us. I suspect that, for most of us, our idle speculation tends to run more in the direction of disaster, not new fun things. Well, I got to do something totally new and fun.
I am trying to think of something profound to say, some way to segue from the preceding paragraphs into some sort of teaching. But, nothing comes. It's just a lot of fun to be doing this. It is an opportunity that not many people get and I am immensely grateful. Grateful to the publisher for giving me this opportunity, grateful to all my friends who encouraged me and grateful for all the positive feedback I have received from new readers. WHAT FUN!

The Room

Imagine you are in a room, four walls, ceiling and floor. There are no doors or windows and no adornment. Just four white walls, a white ceiling and a white floor. Imagine now that this is the limit of your reality, these six surfaces. Further imagine that you are floating in the center of this six walled construct as a bodiless consciousness, an energy field perhaps or a fundamental awareness that is not reliant on any form just yet, that will come in a moment.
As you – in your state of bodiless consciousness – gaze about your room - which can be seen as either prison or potential – you can begin to adorn the walls, floor and ceiling, with objects. These objects can be symbolic of opinions you hold, attitudes you adhere to, desires you pursue, or any number of thoughts or emotions that form the matrix of your assumed being – who you think you are. As you place each symbol the confines of your room seem to disappear and a vista of holographic choices appear to open for you. What we might see as your fundamental texture seems to cause the four walls to disappear as you – in the guise of pure consciousness – look out from the loci of your being into your life.
So what you have now are a series of holograms, three dimensional images, some very sharp and clear, some dim and difficult to focus on, still others only vaguely sensed.
Close in is your family, also close in will be the culture you were born into, how you were raised and all of the decisions that you made as your soul adapted to its surroundings. A bit further out in your hologram will be directions you took, moral decisions you made, assumptions you adopted as your body and mind matured. In other words, this is where you make the decisions as to how you will see the world, what your world view is. Notice that this layer of the hologram is just beyond that of family and culture. It is partially formed by these factors but it also relies heavily on your personal take on them. It will seem to be in line with what “should be” according to the close in symbols but will still be modified by your personal choices.
Further out will be the remote aspects of your culture – people you read about or hear about – the myths and icons that support your culture. Here also will be the enemies that support your cultures view of itself, the ones who are blamed for all the flaws your culture feels it self to have. It is the nature of individuals and groups to assign blame for all flaws on some outside agency and your hologram is no different.
Beyond this layer can be any number of symbols depending on what you have accepted as essential reality and the intelligence – divine or accidental – which supports or creates it.
This is the point at which you notice your body. Bodies are interesting things because we identify so fully with them. We really think that the body is more real than anything else. A body is also the major source of our illusion because it supports separation. We tend to think that our consciousness stops at our skin but think what the preceding imagery showed. With our imagination we can certainly think way beyond the body into all sorts of imaginal realms. We identify with our bodies as the center of the universe but, strangely enough, most of us do not really pay that much attention to them. Athletes do of course but even then I wonder how much they really are aware.
One of the keys to deeper spirituality is identified as manifesting in one’s body. It is a strange idea to think that, even though here we are, in this body, we do not really totally believe it. You can check this by thinking about how often you are in the Now, as opposed to projecting into the future or idealizing the past. To be totally in the Now, a person must also be totally in their body, aware of the molecules of air bouncing off the skin, aware of the flow of blood through one’s system, etc., etc. It is a super aware state of total attentiveness that places no reliance on any assumptions, past or future. There is even a Buddhist practice that uses this state of Nowness to take you into a deep meditation. It is called Sattipatana and it involves getting totally aware of all the bodily processes until one merges the body with the greater body of the Universe.
Going back to our original metaphor of the white room, what we then do is revise our holograms to better reflect this deeper awareness. And, the room gets bigger.
One of the signs of deep spiritual awareness is the expansion of your horizon. The world view that you hold recedes and your whole idea about things shifts. It is very easy to have a small truncated view of the world. It is very easy to just go along with everyone around you and accept that the world is thus and such. But, if you truly want to discover the truth of your own being, allowing Nowness to manifest is the essential ingredient.

Many Blessings, Musawwir