On a personal note…. Why I keep some rock candy in my house (2)

Hey Guys,

I am back, what a few hours its been.  Let me continue onwards. You can read in the path the meaning of the symbol of rock candy. I will quote an exerpt for you just in case, you dont have the book. I highly recommend it btw.

“Rock candy  is given as an offering at the second birth of the seeker….the second birth comes upon entering the domain of spiritual poverty……….In presenting this the travelor comes to realize that the poath should be traveled with peace of mind and gladness not with depression and displeasure”

For me I need a constant reminder  and I have a notoriously famous sweet tooth. Also for soem strange reason, I have these period in my life sometimes for a day sometimes for a week , sometimes for a month or more of intense depression and despondency.

However with out fail during those times always someone comes across my path. That needs my help, always there comes up a situation were despite the inner turmoil inside and the lack of will power to do anything, I have an opportunity to rise above my own nonsense, some times i have been to wrapped  in my pain sadly enough to be there for the person that needed me. Thank God this has been the minority, of times it would weight down too heavily on my conscious.

As a darvish when u take the vow of spiritual poverty you must always as i understand be there for everything and accept whatever is your state of inner turmoil. Actually your inner state should have no bearing on your vow of service to all God’s creatures.  Of course initially when I get hit with this emotion I take a piece of rock candy as a reminder. It helps me stay focused and remember my promises.

I think the only saving grace for these dark periods is to go out and give of yourselve selflessly. In my attempts  to do so I have noticed that the more earnest sincere and intense are my attempts at selfless giving the more profound th calm after the dark.

What do you think/feel?

Dave

On a personal note…. Why I keep some rock candy in my house (1)

Hello Friends,

                    My superviser gave me the option of taking the day off today, and I jumped on it. My body have been running  on fumes for over a year now, and has been telling me “No mas” like roberto duran for a while now. It was rejuvenating and came at the right time as there are more plumbing problems and leaks with my apartment.

                    We live in the bronx, in a neighborhood called allerton, its actually a cool neighborhood , better than  a lot of the ones I have lived in before. We have both been shocked at the number of pregnant women we have seen, and it has been a sore point in the past, as we have had much difficulty in this department medically as well as all the subsequent emotional issues.

Saturday was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of personal life, let me explain. The day just got off to a bad start and of course ended in me and my wife having a huge fight in public. I think this was a really significant occurence in my life, and the fact that we passed by MSG right before the Roy Jones Jr  vs Clazaghe fight was was only a harbinger to our own 12 round discussion. It just mad me realize how much more I have to let go of and how much more I have to stop and let things go the course they must, and not always try to wrestle life into submission with the strength of Heracles lol .

Things are much better since. But i think its funny to compare  different time when you look back on things. take alook at this picture from when we were dating we were both 22 years old here,in the prime of youth

 

 Compare this to 5 years later, graduate school bill from sallie mae lol and a laundry list of BS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So many times we all in a way get broken down by life, and though at the time it may seems terrible I feel for me at least its necessary so that we can understand that truly its not through our own exercise of will that we continue onwards. I feel until we have our commanding self more in line, all our attempts at life will be partially successful, we may climb the heights mountains but alienate our families in the process. We may acheive fame but treat our subordinates like crap. No victory I feel is every fully sweet, its always described as bitter sweet.

I dont think there can be true victory until our ego is burned away. For me I have had many victories in my life and while everyone can congratulate me on havign accomplished a lot, there is no word for the giganti loses. I use to feel that life was a war of attrition, and our only saving grace was to continue inspite of an assured stake in oblivion. A lot has changed since.

We have been taught from early on that when things get hard to power through, to keep relentless dashing ourselves against the hard wall of life and in doing so  eventually we will attain what ever it is we want. If we strive and want something bad enough we will get it . I have come to realise that though we may get what we want in the end we may not be in the best state to benefit  from it  after a while of dashing ourselves. After years of doing so we start to think that because we can conceptualize soemthing it must be right, also that  we can just dash our resourrces 100% into everything and  it will work out. Like we throw money tons of it at cancer and  the disease of the  time and expect it to be  taken care us while we are so removed from the process through which this is done.

I felt for me that it wasnt until life sort of broke me down, or broke my will to keep dashing myself relentless and through attrition and sheer force over come the issues and mountains in front of me that I was prepared for true submission and humility, and even with all that happened I still havent learned. I guess human beings are quite forgetful indeed and hard headed. Some times I have doubt about myself and my own sincerity and capabilities but I continue onwards, like a caravan.

brb for part 2

Dave

Addendum to comment by Vole (1)

this exerpt is taken from the book The Sufis, chapter : the Book of the Dervishes page 309

The veiling of interruption of the correct use of the human spirit (essence) is caused by anbalanced indulgence in certain coarse sentiments which together constitute a pattern of imprisonment (conditioning) characteristics of most people. These veils or blameable qualities are listed as 10

1. Desire  – Desires based on ignorance  of waht should be , and on , assumptions as to what is good for the individual. Austerity when correctly used, is an antidote to irrational desires.
2. Separation - This is a type of hyposcrisy, when the person uses rationalization to justify thoughts and actions which are centered upon himself, not upon ultimate reality. The antidote is the practice of sincerity
3. Hypocrisy – Charactereised by self-pride, glorifying inpossesions, pseudo-independence, violence. This is overcome only by the practice of qualities wwhich are reprehensible in the eyes of the people, but laudable in God’s sight. They include submisison of the right kind, humility, poverty of the Fakir. These qualities are recognised onky by correct assessment of the true worth of their opposites.
4. Desire for Praise or Love – Narcissism,whichprecludes objective asessment of oneseslf; lack of a balancing factor which amounts almost to self contempt.
5. Illusions – of almost divine importance. Countered only  by the glory of the qualities of God.
6. Avarice and Parsimony – gives rise to envy, the worstof all characteristics. This can be dissolved only when the power of certainty  comes.
7. Greed - and the desire for more, This isdangerous because it causese the the person to be like a moth, incessantly dashing itself against the candle flame. It is countered only by austerity and piety.
8. Irresponsibility - This is manifested by the desire to attain somehting which has been conceive in the mind. It is always in motion, like a globe contunually turning, It can be made to depart only by patience.
9. Haste to fatigue – This is a lack of constancy of purpose. in its usual manifestation. This is what preents people from realizing that there is a succession of objectives which will replaces present crude ones. ‘From this calamity it is impossible to escape by the establishing of the ordered text.’ Exercises are employed to overcome this tendency.
10. Negligence - Slothfulness of a deep kind is shownby lack of awareness of the needs of a situation or an individual.Alertness us cultivated through remedies appled.

[ an interestingnote i will put here just cuz]

It will be noted that ordinary contemporary pyschotherapy attempts the treatment of some of these conditions, but only in order to guide the mind into a pattern which the pyschological doctrine assumes is normal. According to the dervish, the conditions which have to be treated are due to an unharmonious state of mind groping for balance and evolution.

I just wanted to share sometimes. SOmetimes for me  there is an awful lot to remember concerning what to be on the look out for inmy behavior and etc. I sometimes pray to I have the humility to let me truly submit. I feel that the more vigor and intensity I  put into my zekr and meditation, the greater the relationship through my spiritual guide (the sheikh) with God himself. I feel that the intensity of desire can burn through the many veils. Once an avenue has been created for the direct experience of the absolute I think i will be at a better place to watch my behaviors and walk that bridge. I feel if there is only a singular focus, god himself, then everythign else including control and seeing the nafs will purified away. Just a tought late at night here is a cool quote from Dr Nurbakhsh that just came to mind

“Seeker a road from that king who has the wealth of Allah

Sooner of later hill separeate you from yourself,

slowly slowly

In love’s district impatience brings loss

for difficulties will be made easy by surrender and contentment.

slowly, slowly

Commentary on the story of the prisoner – Intuition, Memory, The Commanding Self and Imprisonment

 I read the story below today and thought about it randomly throughout the day. I have just decided to share with you all my ideas on it, especially from the point of view of my studies with Sufism.

The Sufis assert that we are kept prisoners by our Ego by our commanding self (the sum total of all our conditionings ideas desires etc). What does that mean in English? Or rather in common every day terms? Here is what I have found out it means.

There are two ways of knowing and or learning about the world around us, let us look at the first case working through memory and thought. We all know how this work. A situation comes up and we say to ourselves this is a familiar situation, based on what I have encountered before I decided I will go about things in this way. Of course once we decided a way of doing it, we are at all times comparing how thing are happening now at the moment to how they have happened before and  if they happen to work as we expected psychologically we reinforce that  particular way of doing thing.  If things do not happen the same way we make allowance and alter our plans. If they horrible fail then we look for something else or another way. This is a wonderful thing like every tool it works for some cases and not for others

There is another way to learn something and that is through intuition. Intuition has been defined as It is “the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process”. We have all had intuitions at some point in our lives where some ‘thing’ tells us that a loved one isn’t ok, or that we shouldn’t go this way to work thought we have been everyday etc. Intuition as I have experience can be likened to another sense, about and beyond the 5 we have, like our other sense it can be enhanced as well through proper training.

In order to have a direct apprehension of things beyond the frame of time, yes beyond the frame of time, let me explain. Memory is a process in time. Intuition is an instantaneous flash it is beyond the realm of time. To have a direct apprehension of things beyond the frame of time means there must be a part of us that is beyond time as well. We are a dual being mortal flesh immortal soul, so it’s not possible to imagine that the immortal ‘us’  has the same attributes of omniscience, omnipotence as its source.

The drop of seas water from the infinite ocean are the same as far as attributes but only when we can bring them together do we have completeness. Intuition As I have experienced it is a momentary bridge between our daily self and the all knowing soul.

With all that said where does that leave us with the story of the prisoner?

Stay tuned

 

Dave

My Ramadan Experience: Starting Day 1: Monday September 1, 2008

Hello Everyone,

                        As some of you know in my earlier post. I have decided though being a Muslim to fast with my fellow brethren. I have been talking to many Muslim around the city, to get a really good idea of Ramadan. It has been rather enlightening.

                        What I have taken from all of these seemingly random question and answer sessions is of course something I heard today which I summarize below.

The fast occurs each dday whenwe dont experience God as the primary source and force in both our inner  and outer lives. That is the true fasting. When we humbly submitt ourselves to God irregardless of religion we are trying to break that fast. During Ramadan the fast isnt jsut of food, we are starving our lesser self,  commanding self, in the hopes that with continued prayers and other spiritual exercise, we and emerged from the ashes of our lesser self and nourish our souls that have broken a lifetime fasting from its source.

 

That just my insight into what I feel to me is the essence of Ramadan from what I have heard from the people I have talked to. I am going to make this a most comprehensive experience since at sunrise and sunset I plan to meditate and pray and carryon with a lot of the spiritual exercises I get lazy  with during the last few week, as always I will be here to give you my commentaries and observations.