I have five things to say,
five fingers to give
into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist,
nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for
was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,
and this is for someone else.

Is there a difference?
Are these words or tears?
Is weeping speech?
What shall I do, my love?”

So he speaks, and everyone around
begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,
moaning in the spreading union
of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion. All others
are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery
dancing together. This is not-being.

I know these dancers.
Day and night I sing their songs
in this phenomenal cage.

 

The mind is ever a tourist
Wanting to touch and buy new things
Then toss them into an
already filled closet.

So I craft my words into those guides
That will offer you something fresh
From the Hidden’s Tavern.

Few things are stronger than
The mind’s need for diverse experience.
I am glad not many men or women can remain
Faithful lovers to the unreal.

There is a kind of adultery
That God encourages:

Your spirit needs to leave the bed
of fear.
The gross, the subtle, the mental worlds
Become as a worthless husband.

Women need to utilize their
superior intelligence about love.
So that their hour’s legacy
can make us all stronger and more clement.

Sometimes a poem happens like this one:
The mule I sit on while I recite
Starts off in one direction
But then gets drunk
And lost in
Heaven.   – Hafiz

Bon Soir!

While I was running errands, some memories came from some indistinct ’some where’. I began to wonder while waiting in the checkout line what happened to certain people I knew both in the remote and immmediate past. I also wondered about places I used to hang out, Parc Jarry, the summers I spent in Montreal and of course eating at Mikes, buying things on Rue St Hubert, looking out on the city from the Oratoire de St Joseph where Frere Andre is buried.

Of course when one is assailed by these mirages, these amorphous images from the past a lot of questions come up; many unresolved questions. A lot of times when I do my Zikr silently all these images and unresolved questions come up. We are taught that this is a perfect opportunity to practice detachment and offer up these images to the ‘fire’ of our devotion, meditations, prayers etc to allow grace to heal old wounds.

A few moments later I came across these words by Rainer Maria Rilke. I wanted to share then with you all. My best wishes

Dave

 

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart
Try to love the questions themselves.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given
Because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
Live along some distant day into the answers.”

Hear Blessings dropping their blossoms around you!

Burnt Kabob

Last year, I admired wines. This,
I’m wandering inside the red world.

Last year, I gazed at the fire.
This year I’m burnt kabob.

Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank the moon’s reflection.

Now I am a lion staring up totally
lost in love with the thing itself.

Don’t ask questions about longing.
Look in my face.

Soul drunk, body ruined, these two
sit helpless in a wrecked wagon.
Neither knows how to fix it.

And my heart, I’d say it was more
like a donkey sunk in a mudhole,
struggling and miring deeper.

But listen to me: for one moment,
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you. God.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!!

The night has always been a special time for me. Everything calms down, there is no one around to call us or bring us back from whatever reverie we find ourselves immersed in. For me it’s a time of meditation and deep thought, a time to just star outside past the light of the city into the svelte darkness that surrounds the city. From my night time sallies into the unknown, these following words from Rumi came to my mind with an uncharacteristic insistence.

“There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of Spirit on the body.

Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild Darling!

It struck a real chord in me tonight. I remember one of the first lessons on the way I had when I was very young. I as told to always be observant of one’s self especially what were we repeatedly find ourselves strongly wanting. I remember asking why and I was told with a familiar heavy French accent and a pat on my head that “we are so much more than what we see in the mirror and sometimes what we are tries to talk to us through the things we want.”

Everyone wants something.  For some of us it is to feel that we are accepted and love. For other’s it is to feel that somewhere in the mix of all this strife and change, is security; perhaps security that can come in a particular loved one’s warm embrace or from always being diligent and in accessing people and keeping people at an arms’ length.  And yet for others there is this want to fit into some higher purpose or plan. I remember not exactly but somewhere I think in Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy a line that went, how many young men and accepted the ultimate risk of the battle field rather than a mediocre life.

For me, I can remember when I was younger with what zeal I wanted to join the armed forces. It was my dream in life. There I felt I could find true camaraderie. At many periods of my life there was this strong need that grew in strength and intensity. I figured anything was easier to bear and walk through with like minded people. To my young mind, a military career meant respect from peers; it meant I would have people who would have my back unquestionable, it would mean I thought friendship.

As you can imagine that military career never happened and instead my life took many interesting turns. I did realize while sick though that a lot of my insistence wants, passions can never be satisfied by another human being. I don’t mean that in a cynical way at all. I feel when you inwardly and outwardly take the appropriate measures to reach for the truth and nothing less; you automatically reserve a place in your heart, in your being.

Recently I read these words from Llewelyn Vaughan Lee that encapsulates many of my experiences over the years

Every effort is required to walk along a path that is as narrow as the edge of a sword. Two cannot walk together, for it is the journey of the soul back to the Source, an offering of our own unique self back to the Creator. Within the group the seeker is given immense support, but there comes the time when any external support becomes a limitation, and one must continue alone. Even in the midst of family life and surrounded by loving friends, one finds oneself so deeply alone that it is like being in an empty desert with only the sound of the wind howling. Such inner states totally overshadow external circumstances. It is only when we are totally alone that we find Him in our hearts. It is such an intimate relationship that there is no space for anything else.

Lately however I have entered one of the happiest moments of my life. I feel like the women mentioned in Balzac’s Colonel Chabert.

Le colonel ressemblait à cette dame qui, ayant eu la fièvre durant quinze années crut avoir changé de maladie le jour où elle fut guérie

The colonel resembled this lady who having had a fever lasting 15 years thought that her new found healthy was another disease.

lt seems on some level we are united in a way with the things we search for. Maybe only outwardly there is this seeming disparity, between the flower and its admirer, the crashing waves of the ocean and the pearl, the enemy and the friend. Maybe at some point the writer  and read come together, but I feel that where that happens where all opposites come together is far far beyond the depth of the nowhere I am starting at through my window

dave

One day khidr went to the king’s palace and made his way right up the throne. Such was the strangeness of his appearance that none dared stop him. The king who was Ibrahim ben Adem, asked him what he was looking for. The visitor said:

‘I am looking for a sleeping-place in this caravanserai.’
Ibrahim answreed ‘This is  no caravanseria, this is my palace.’
The stranger said “Whose was it before you?’
My father’s said Ibrahim.
‘And before that?’
My grandfathers
‘and this place where people come and go, staying and moving on,
you call other than a caravanserai”

He [Shibli] used to illustrate the difference between the Sufis and the unregenerate by saying things incomprehensible to the populace at large.  One day because of his cryptic talk he was mocked as a madman in public by detractors. He said:

To your mind, I am mad.
To my mind, you are all sane.
So I pray to increase my madness
and to increase your sanity.

 My madness is from the power of Love
 Your sanity is fromte strength of unawareness

Hello Again Everyone,

The past few blogs as you can see have been kind of autobiographical.  Sharing  them with you has opened my eyes to many things. It is a strange phenomena indeed blogging.  Some friends of mine are always encouraging me to share my experiences with them and when I do I am met with blank stares or questions like tinged with great trepidation, ‘Can you do that [drink champagne], can you joke around like that [ another horrendous guys walks into a bar joke] etc but with many readers all of which i dont know I find some weird acceptance, or maybe its release from carrying some things for so long. We really dont walk alone in this life, and it is always surprising who is walking with you.

I wanted to talk or share with you my experiences in meditation. The first thing I must say is that there are different kinds of meditation. By this I dont mean the different meditations styles or exercises. For example, there is a meditation group that meets at a community center and they offer free classes that really do a great service of getting one aware of the joy that one can find in silence when the IPODs, tv, cell fones are off.

There is another meditation, in a general most obtuse sense, a mystical meditation.  I will use here a specific  definition of meditation  used by Raymund Andrea in his the Mystic Way, which is that meditation is a special form of contemplation where the practicition focuses exclusively on God and God alone. When we go through an initiation or we have an experience that catalyzing our outwardly making a promise to walk the path and try to surrender completely to God, like a dead person wrapped in a white cloth, ifeel meditation take on a different  intensity.

I remember at first it has always been difficult for me to meditate firstly because of the sickle cell pain I get in ym knees and secondly my mind is very weird its everywhere, here and there, working ona  few things at once. Its likes  20 tv all on at once.

We were taught as darvishes to accept whatever state comes to us in meditation. For some reason when I first heard this I chuckled bout audibly and interiorly. After much pain from sitting down cross legged.  I finaly got to a point where I could actually sit down comfortably. Then of course all sorts of memories  and ideas came up, and its useless to fight them. You cant fight fire with more fire.

What I found helped at this point was two things. Watching moms at walmart handle kids throwing tantrums.  I felt this was what the mind was doing throwing a tantrum. One mom at Walmart, just put her stuff down and let the kid make a scene. He screamed and did all the hysterics then after awhile  eh tired himself out  and became quite docile. I am sure he got reprimanded at home, I know that look all too well.  So I jsut let the mind go let all the memories and stuff come up and I watched it.  However at all times i would always bring it back to a fitting emotion. I would think about a few lovely expereinces I had where I felt I had a real connection to somehtign greater than myself.

To give you an example. I was on a bus going on a highway, day dreaming and gazing out the window, when all of a sudden I saw a little bird perhaps a sparrow  land on this thick sort of grass. The wind happened to be blowing at the time  and there in a second that lasted what seemed to be an eternity, bird wind tree observer were all swaying together. It was a touch of wonderment and love, that was other wordly.  This experience took on more meaning when I read this words.

The longing you feel for
this loves comes from inside you.

When you become the Friend, your
longing will be as the man in

the ocean who holds to a piece of
wood. Eventually, wood, man, and

oceans become one swaying being,
shams Tabriz, the secret of God.

Of course a day came where I would start to feel first briefly drowned in sorrow and would be crying sometimes uncontrollably. Other day would come where I was waashed over but waves of joy, and I felt like getting up and dancing, of course to some internal music. Then that went away completely, for the longest time I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. It felt like the Presence left me.

this occured in the 3 months of my going to the Khaniqah before I was initiated. Then the real fun began. Once or twice  I would be sitting with my eyes open but I would have just come too. Like I didnt know where I was for a moment. Then that went away, and my three most painful sickle cell crisis started in meditation. It wasnt because of how i was sitting, or what not. Who knows. A dull ache started once i got outside, once i got off the train at my stop a little limp, and by the time I got to bed that night it was full blown.

In my pain I would try to say my zekr and that helped for 5 minutes, along with insane amount of pain killers. My last crisis in May as you know I went to the ER. The pain was so intense, I didnt see anything I could do. I couldnt endure anymore, I could talk or pray or anything. I felt there was nothing left to do but expire. For the second time in my life  I said m goodbyes interiorly and jsut waited.

Since that time  meditation has become something wonderful, there is peace there. There is another me  there that normally is quiet and observing that speaks. Sometimes I am really gone for a while. Other times I feel on fire like the sun. 

But always no matter what the experience that comes from meditation, I find them not to be the Friend himself.  I have come to in a slight way understand the words of Hallaj when he says: “Suffering is He Himself, whereas happiness comes from Him.” Even sometimes I find myself asking for more burning , and i guess that is craziness in realm of the everyday…

Here is something from the Rumi story Moses and the Shepard:

Ways of worshiping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another.
Hindus do Hindu things.  The Druvidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It’s all praise and it’s all right.
It’s not me that’s glorified in acts of worship.
It’s the worshipers.
I don’t hear the words they say.
I look inside at the humility.
That broken, open, lowliness is the reality.  Not the language.
Forget phraseology.  I want Burning!
Burning! Be friends with your burning.
Burn up your thinking and your forms of expression.
Moses, those who pay attention to ways of thinking and speaking are one sort.
Lovers who burn are another.
Don’t impose a property tax on a burned out village.
Don’t scold the lover.
The wrong way he talks is better than a hundred right ways of others.
Inside the Kabbah, it doesn’t matter which direction you point your prayer rug.
The ocean diver doesn’t need snow shoes.
The Love Religion has no code or doctrine.  Only God.
So the Ruby has nothing engraved on it.
It doesn’t need markings.”

Hello Friends

Hope you are all well. Lately as you can tell from my last post I have been having a difficult time  sort of integrating back into normal social habits such as  hanging out and the like. After a good number of months dealing and trying to recover from intense sickness, family deaths, and the consequence of some personal issues, and other things I feel like a stranger just walking about. I personally feel so different I could tell you who I was a year ago. This happens in cycles it seems. There are periods of time where everything is seemingly fine and then something inside shift and the world and all the people in it  become encased in glass like at a museum and Im of course separated on the outside looking in with strange eyes.

The path  so far in my experience is definitely not a straight line. It is more like a spiral. Look at these words from The Bond With the Beloved by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Irina Tweedie respectively

Slowly the ego dies. Slowly the lover gets absorbed into the Beloved. Slowly His consciousness permeates what is left of the lover. With each little death a veil is torn away and the closeness that had been hidden within the heart becomes more and more part of our everyday life. There are stages on this journey, moments of death and moments of birth, times of transition and times that seem to be empty of progress. But one of the difficulties of trying to describe this journey is that it is not linear. It is not a path from A to B. Rather it is a circumambulation of the soul, a spiral dance that draws us towards the center of ourself where the lover and the Beloved have always been united.

All movement on the spiral path. . . can be seen as simultaneous happenings which are only subtle variations in the center. . . . The spiral is an incredibly beautiful symbol. The situations repeat themselves again and again. The nearness to the Beloved grows deeper and deeper. The despair when He veils His face grows greater and greater. Until one day all that disappears somewhere.

As diffiult as it is,I must say it is such a salve to know that we never walk alone, though it may appear to be so at times. Thanks to all of  you who read this blog and write comments.even though ur presence is wrapped in silence it still quite puissant.

Dave