Looking back on things: The Path I walked to becoming a Darvish in 2008 Part 3

So how did I get to the doors of the Nimatullahi Order? Aside from an easy train ride from my house to really explain I feel I have to give some idea of how my mind and the things my smaller journeys on the path.

I have always felt that everything is knowable; meaning that the search for truth never ends in an impasse or a cul de sac. If it does it is because we are in some unknown way blocking our understanding or limiting the vastness of the potentialities of our being. “I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known,” says one Islamic hadith. To add to that point, there is another sura from the Qu’ran which says we have made the signs clear for those who have knowledge.  The same message exists very clearly in Christianity:  [the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth the field] as well as Hinduism and every single religious tradition I have come across.

We are a mystery to ourselves. Human beings have the capabilities to operate on many different levels. The outside world is just one plane of the many that we operate on. Rumi in his Mathnavi says “The One who knows all secrets is here now, nearer than your jugular vein.” To Rumi we are in constant conversation with the source. We have forgotten the language of the heart and have to learn again through immersing ourselves in nature, in our responsibilities and in our passions. Nothing like tempestuous moments of grief and loss to me make Rumi’s words come alive.

Grief is better than Happiness, because in grief a person draws close to God. Your wings open. A tent is set up in the desert where God can visit you. Wealth that arrives in grief is what we spend in joy. The soul is greater than anything you ever lost

Well, I did not start out with such a balanced approach.  My approach was to read as much as I can and talk to whoever was willing to talk to me and listen. I didn’t have a teacher, visibly anyways, and upon realization of the major ramifications of this I decided to let Life be my teacher. Meaning I left things completely in the air as to who I would talk to what I would read. I would take it as it came, for someone who is broke this is the easiest way.  Interesting books came into my hands at the right time and the right place, as well as interesting people and opportunities.  It was impossible to not notice an invisible hand guiding my search. I can’t answer how or why I read such and such a book at such and such a time after reading another set of books.

So you can see how the stage was beginning to be set unknown to me at the time. While I was reading and studying and looking and delving into the major questions of life, I was trying to go to school, with money enough for transportation but no food too many times.  For most of college I couldn’t afford a computer or textbooks, or many essential things. I was for a period of time taking my sister to school which was far away. I had to wake up at 4:40 leave by 5:40 to make it to her prep school by 7:20 AM. Home became worse and worse, we moved every year and change because of money problems; moving late at night in the blistering cold and in the sweltering heat arguing parents, constant threat of divorce, stricter and stricter rules, especially as the eldest.

Finally we moved to a far out place in Queens and I was able to have my first real room, at 22-23. It makes me laugh to think about it. For those of you who don’t know me I laugh really loudly and often. There I was able to really further my personal studies. I read and studied intensely for a period of two maybe three years. Then for some reason I couldn’t continue.  I hit a wall.  I knew I had to leave home to really continue to pursue my studies, but financially I couldn’t. So whenever I had time I was there in my room trying to be consistent in my meditation and other practices. Home life became way too hard. I managed to finish grad school, and of course took a really long time to find a job, I did a year long internship to further my. Sallie Mae payments are due, no money. 

To save money I started making bread every day for me and my wife. Yes man can live by bread alone. My father and I were getting into really heated arguments.  One day if it wasn’t for my mom sister and wife I would have knocked him out Chuck Liddell style. I found a job, and hated it from day one but had to take it having college loans and bills to pay for, a wife and younger sister to look after. It was a humbling experience. Yet even in all of this, there was peace. There were smiles given to me by strangers that carried me through. Coincidences that were too strange to attribute to random chance.

Everyone now and then I would get solace in a most joyous and beautiful form. It’s like life would become so joyous I would feel it in my heart and it would spread outwards like waves of energy. When your spirits are broken due to lacking the necessities or sickness you lose the need for labels, you don’t care if you are an American or Russian, Muslim or Catholic. You can feel yourself as a living entity you can feel how fragile life really is. If at that point a desire comes forth from your soul, in a time of need and desperation, then I feel at the timeyou ar engaging in true prayer. Prayer isn’t rattling off some preformatted words, or going to church or the synagogue or temple because our parents and grandparents will complain, or starting off with a list of demands because you have taken your inner self hostage. It is a living experience. When you are broken, you realize that even in your moments of great strength and health you are living by the grace of God. That realization alone made it all worthwhile.

It’s clear to see now that I couldn’t have persevered through a lot of things by myself.  Not mentioning a string of jobs I hated, having to quit, multiple evictions, my wife getting sick due to our difficulties have a child. There was always someone or something, I prefer the term The Presence there. There was always a feeling of love that would settle on me at key moments when I felt I was going to quit. It’s folly to think that I came all this way by myself, on my own volition and power.

From Nov 2007 to Dec 2009, I went through the most difficult period of my life. I also never studied and worked more intensely personally as well as with the many jobs I had.

One day I was looking online at the MysticSaint blog and saw a blog post about  a book Jesus in The Eyes of the Sufis written by Dr Javad Nurbakhsh the then Master of the Order. I bought the book, but did not read right away. That’s not surprising, I bought another book and read it 7 years later and it just happened to be the right time. Something clicked in my head I don’t know what.  Sirens went off in my head. A few days later I was on the phone with the Pir a Dalil, the spiritual counselor of the place Sufi meeting place. Once I heard his voice, I knew I was home, and this part of my journey was at an end. I felt a peace settle down on me. I went to talk with him July 25^th 2008, started blogging Aug 17^th and I became a Darvish and was initiated October 25^th, 2008.

At this point up until July 25^th, I was tired; tired of struggling, tired of fighting, tired of talking. I was done. I was done with my personal searches despite some interesting experiences I had had. I felt like a donkey that sat down from tiredness. Due to my responsibilities and promises I had to keep on pressing on even though my body was beyond tired. This culminated in my three weeks of sickness and sickle cell crisis. Two years of living on my own, intense work working as a laboratory technician, online course instructor, tutor to the spoiled and rich, and trying to kick start the small business I and some friends created to help and teach young children my body just gave out. When I was sick I had remember how before I said, I am going for broke, I am not going to leave any stone unturned, I am going to figure out what I had to do in this life, push myself to the limits to never have to come back to this place again. I remembered my blindness to the greater will that has a place and purpose for us all. That sickness really gave a hard blow to the little “I” in me.

As I recovered life took on a lot of more depth. I leave everything up to the Friend, I just play my part. I don’t worry, sleep fine and deep. I have made a lot of friends, and after a long period of time I have started smiling again. I am happy inside for days not matter if life crushes my plans. I remember that Rumi’s greatest celebration of the presence came on the heels of his greatest lost and grief (the disappearance of Shams of Tabriz).

There is much more to be said. I feel during this tough time I was sent many old friends, from who knows how many lifetimes past to help and assist me and I them. I feel that the comments you the readers send me are awesome.  There are still intense pain and grief moments of great despondency.  Some days where it’s hard to talk, let alone walk the path I pick myself up and a major difference between now and then is I walk it in a sense with all of you, whether you are in Latvia, France, Israel, or Australia, Muslim, Jew or Hindu we are all linked together in one big experience. Your struggles are my struggles. At any second if we [you and I] are completely committed to the present, to the Presence manifesting we transcend, this life and its follies instantaneously

 It is through my friends, you the readers and the family of dervishes them that I learned the meaning of The Friend, a phrase so important to Sufism. I am reminded of a poem by Saadi and I think I will end this part with his words.

Human beings come

From the same source.

We are all one family.

 

If a part of the body hurts.

all parts contract with pain.

 

If you are not concerned

with another’s suffering

we shall not call you Human

Looking back on things: The Path I walked to becoming a Darvish in 2008 Part 2

Hey Friends,

I just wanted to take a brief second to explain why I am writing these autobiographical posts. Lately a lot of people have been asking how I came to walk the path.  There is no other answer than I don’t know. I feel many times the human mind is incapable of grasping the scale on which thing really work. I am sharing these experiences with you in the hope that’s maybe you will find the answer in your own way.

You know looking back on the things, I have no regrets only smiles. It’s very easy to imagine that because we have an experience of something we know all about it. It’s also easy to imagine that our degrees and academic, intellectual achievements and maybe even religious achievements are a panacea for all life’s problems, but they are not unfortunately. At least that is what I have come to see. When your down and out your science degree, or masters doesn’t mean a damn. Same as when you are bedridden and sick these things past a certain point where they serve their purpose are useless.

I feel that the events of my life in many ways helped to break down the smaller will so that The Greater Will could be felt. We are all hit on the head in this life, no one escapes it free of scars, and some of us need to be hit more in the head before we can wake up.  Supposedly the earth is like, for the sake of example the third grade, we come to learn and perform specific tasks and then we continue upwards with our evolution. In keeping with that thought, it has been said that at this plane of existence we learn more through suffering and strife than we do from good things. Human beings are indeed forgetful. We can be given a gift every day for years and we will be more apt to focus and reflect on the day we didn’t get a gift, ignoring everything else.

But to continue as some of you who know I had sickle cell anemia, I was sick and weak for a bit early on in life. That in the combination of both parents working and my own mental propensities; I lived in my mind a lot and was very cerebral. I remember reading in a cool article on John Updike how “Updike recounted how a sickly childhood on a farm in Pennsylvania prepared him for a cerebral life”. Anyways I spent most of my free time reading, and reading and reading. As with a decent percentage of interesting stuff I read the book sort of fell into my lap. Looking back on those times I can see a pattern: intense reading soul searching trying to understand, a period of observation and a period of despondency towards reading and a sort of angst that settled over me. During the intense readings I just so happened to read the right book at the right time, or talk to the right person at the right time and had an epiphany of some sorts.

I think especially in terms of any mystical spiritual practice or seeking that, everything we come across is nutrition. Sometimes because we aren’t guided or we don’t listen to our guide we over eat or we eat the wrong things and we have to wait a while before we can digest again. Those periods of despondency are sometimes a lengthy digestion of what we have read. Many works written by people on the path exist on many levels; they aren’t just nice collections of words. Rumi’s Mathnavi, Ghazzali’s Alchemy of happiness, The Emerald Tableaux, the works of Geber, the poems of St Francis Assisi I can go on and one, but these works are the best example that comes to mind. All these words work to expand the heart.

I remember a discourse by I think it was Bawa Muhaiyadeen who said that though man cannot drink the entire ocean he can drink his fill, and that the goblet or the cup to do that with was the heart. These works and these writing expand the heart to make it a larger container. However one can only read books there has to be action, right living, service to fellow humans etc. here is a cool quote from Bahauddin – the father of Rumi. It was said that a caravan of 90 camels was needed to carry his books alone.

I was thinking about the piece of bread I have just eaten and the drink of water I have taken. This revelation came: each bit of bread and taste of fruit has a tongue and a language of praise that gets released when it enters a human body.

The same analogy of transformation extends to influences that came from the stars and transmuted matter into the elements: earth, air, fire and water. Those in turn became plants which became animals and then human beings with their flexible way of speaking that can become praise for the compassion as well as the anger of God

I saw bread and water dissolving and moving through my organs, carrying the qualities of the mystery. They were flower with the ability to speak, saying, There is nothing that does not celebrate and praise.

Because my intellection and my memory are flowers in the hand of the mystery that supports and inspires existence and give the scripture, I pray to be given wisdom in the form of books to transmit the taste of love nad the pleasures of expansion. Do not ignore these writings. The fallen angel Satan saw the appearance of Adam only. He did not see the essence. Inside these rough words are secrets. Dont miss them.

I have a few things to take care of Ill be back

See you then

Dave

Looking back on things: The Path I walked to becoming a Darvish in 2008 Part 1

Hey Friends,

                  Many of you have been listening or rather reading my blogs for a bit, and I was looking back and thinking on things in my life and figured I would share some events of my life with you……

I had come to an interesting point in my life last year.  For some reason since an early age I began a search for truth that took me many places and both physically and in my mind. I met many interesting people along the way and came to many interesting discoveries and conclusions along the way. I have a small library scattered between my parent’s house and my little NYC apartment in the Bronx.

Some of the consequences of a search for truth are what seems like an endless sea of trial and tribulation.  Luckily I was able to benefit from my father’s own search for truth as he did in some ways from his father. My father was always big about science and mysticism and finding a harmonious balance between the two especially given his experiences as a Medical Doctor in the third world. So this was my start, I was taught biology and chemistry and many things from an early age and given a passion to learn.

Before I became a Nimatullahi Darvish, I was a practitioner of Kriya Yoga, and of a form Rosicrucianism, each path left an indelible mark, as did my trip to India when I was very young. One of the things my father instilled in me was this idea that one must always study for school and for one’s own personal edification. He also told me an old occult law that’s the surest way to not succeed is to talk about what we dream and want.

To make a long story short, I have always felt that everything was an uphill battle for me. At a certain age I started having really intense periods of despondency and depression. Add this to your typical immigrant story, i.e. being always broke, language barriers between family members, isolation in a big city and a volatile home situation I often wonder whether or not I could go through what I went through again a second time.

I came across the works of T Lobsang Rampa early on in life, as he was the favorite writer of my father. [Though the author is the source of much controversy there is a wealth of knowledge in his work]. One day, after a long difficult day, I was working 4 jobs at the time, I asked myself why? Why was everything so hard? Why did I have so many trials and tribulations? When will all the fun start? Where are the flying cars and all the cool future stuff? I came across in a funny way this passage in the book The Chapters of Life by T. Lobsang Rampa.

A person living his last life upon the Earth is often regarded (on the Earth) as one of the unluckiest people ever, instead of the luckiest in that they are living their last life here.  All their hardships are because they are clearing up, getting ready to move out, paying debts, etc.  They cannot learn through the flesh in the next life, so they have a good dose in this life.  So they die, and most times, if they ever think about it, they are jolly glad. 

 Then back in the spirit world they get a good rest, for certainly they have earned it, they get a rest where they may be asleep for quite a few years, quite a few years by Earth time, that is.  Then they get rehabilitated, built up, and all that, reconditioned one might say.  After this they start all over again on the upward path, upward, ever upward.  So the Great Prophet in one life who has learned all there is to know, or thinks he has, goes on to another stage of evolution where there are all sorts of different abilities, all sorts of varying talents which he has to master.

Those two paragraphs carried me through a lot more hardship to come. Then there was a point where I hit a wall.  For the first time in my life I didn’t know what I wanted to do where I wanted to go. I was completely perplexed, I was at a job I hated , my world possessions had gotten stolen, I was 2 days away from being evicted and no place to go of course, but the streets. In two years living on my own I had no furniture no chair to sit on just a mattress at that point the relationship with my wife was more than strained as you can imagine.  Then she got sick.  In all honesty I felt like Job: a Job for the modern day.

And then ragged and beaten with nothing left I found myself on afternoon at a Nimatullahi Khanaqah ……  to be continued in the next post …..

Surrender, My Homeless friend Evette and Sergio, Surrender, Eviction and Spiritual Poverty

I would like to relate a real life occurrence to you all from the vault of my life. Normally as many of you know I am a super private person.  If I am sharing this with you it’s because I feel there is something important in what has happened to me.

I have this habit of talking and hanging out with homeless people. There is my friend Sergio on  23^rd street and Madison, I like to bring him food and money and sometimes an Angus third pounder from McDonalds. He has three other homeless friends who I like to engage in conversation. However today I met a nice homeless lady named Yvette. She is a wonderful lady.

Let me give you some snippets from our 20 minute conversation:

It’s terrible, I cry every night. Its not so bad being homeless during the day time, because there are people outside, you feel like you are part of something when it gets to 2-3 AM there is no one around  and then you realize that you have no one to go home too.

Everyone looks at me like I am garbage, and they talk to me and treat me the same way. I go to St. Luke’s hospital to shower every morning at 7AM. My clothes are clean, I am clean, my soul is clean but I get treating like shit everyone thinks they are so safe in their life that I am a junkie because I am homeless. I have my pocket bible and I have my resume in my bag, but its hard …to keep faith, especially when people treat you so badly…….

The other day I was sitting outside an expensive restaurant and I politely asked if I could have some change, I was told I didn’t have any change, I asked then are you going to eat all your leftovers. I heard them say i am bringing it to lunch tomorrow, I will eat them later. It turns out the same people who were bringing leftovers actually true them away in a garbage a block away just out of site.

I have known and talked to many homeless people, and I will say many of them I have considered friends. I always feel that we are a few disasters away from a break down. I have always felt that it is wrong to consider the wealth or whatever we have amassed in our life as ours. I really don’t feel that we all me included at times realize how much of life doesn’t depend on us. It takes one thing to totally shatter our security, and our sense of dominion or control.

About a year or rather a year and half I said to myself I am so tired of all this reading and seeking and searching for answers. I keep coming back to the same place. I decided then and there to do whatever was needed to reach my goals spiritually. I think some bells was signaled and since I said that to myself I have been assailed by problems with such frequency marital problems, familial problems, personal problems, financial problems. I have had my most prized worldly possessions stolen, personal affects destroyed. Throughout it all I was the most I ever was inside in life, I handed over the reins of my life to this higher power and somehow I have managed to eat and continue eating and have not been homeless myself I have been very very close.

Today I came the closest. I got a notice of eviction; I had $1300 to materialize by Friday. I was unusually calm and I said in my heart that whichever way god wants my life to go I will go. I will go the impossible to materialize this money. I got this bad news right before I met Yvette. I was so deep in thought I passed her by and then something made me return and I gave all the coins I had to her and she talked to me like we were old friends it was surreal.

Thirty minutes later I was on the bus, saying my zekr, 40 minutes later I was home and the crisis was solved. I didn’t make a call my wife just called and told me not to worry all was taken care of. We had exhausted everything over the last months.

I really feel happy that I took my vows of spiritual poverty as a dervish, all my suffering before prepared me to be able to with confidence understand the full implications of  spiritual poverty and  fana (the complete denial of self and the realization of God) an try with guidance to apply it to my life. It’s amazing how the more and more we surrender and the more and more we hold our main goal as god the more things like this happen. This is one isolated event there have been many more I just thought I would share what happened to me tonight