Thank you so much for sharing with your readers about dreams and I read the latest post this morning. Then I read some of the comments and although I know that everyone is entitled to their own opinion I just can’t help myself and have to write to you about this.
I personally find it very ironical that some of the readers are having these discussions about what is meditation and what is contemplation, and the difference between them. And then one is quoting one source and another is knit-picking and “making clarifications” on the first definition. And to me it sometimes seems that these are just wars on words, constant defining and - re-defining, words for the words sake sometimes. The irony is that this post is about sub-conscious and the sub-consciousness as in dreams, and surely when then sub-consciousness is at work we neither meditate nor contemplate! Our ego is asleep although temporarily and we are letting things appear that we. As the manifestation of the collective sub-consciousness, can and have been suppressing, including our ego. Which is why mystics have always been interested in dreams and the interpretation of dreams. It is a bit like the suspended heart beat and the slow breathing of the crocodiles when they are hibernating, and when their body temperature drops: suspended halfway.
So to be perfectly honest I don’t understand why some of these comments are there, are some people writing just to show off, and to satisfy some sort of pride, or to tell the rest of the world that they have read this latest post, I don’t really know.
Is the bird meditating or contemplating when it is singing, and is making a beautiful sound? Or is the grass meditating or contemplating or is the beautiful flower or is the river when it is running down the valley? Isnt it exactly because of these too many words and too many attempts to define something that defies any definitions that we have got ourselves in such a mess with different theories and definitions of the Spirit? I wonder…
Is the bird meditating or contemplating when it is singing, and is making a beautiful sound? Or is the grass meditating or contemplating or is the beautiful flower or is the river when it is running down the valley? Isnt it exactly because of these too many words and too many attempts to define something that defies any definitions that we have got ourselves in such a mess with different theories and definitions of the Spirit? I wonder…
Anyway, this is what I thought when I read the post and was quite inspired to write a little comment, for the heart knows best if one is a Sufi in the real sense of this word.
- Comment from A. S. E. on the post: initiation isn't about suffering, but stepping up
2.
The one who show, does not know.
The one who know, does not show.
- Traditional
Every pretender shall be tested.
- Traditional
Allah does not love the public utterance of hurtful speech,
unless (it be) by one to whom injustice has been done;
and Allah is He who alone Hears and Knows all things.
- Surah an-Nisa: 148
Verily, Allah loves not any arrogant boaster.
- Surah Luqman: 18
4.
"O God, forgive me my sins of which you are more aware than me. And if I commit these sins again, even then forgive me. Whatever promises I had made with myself to follow Your commands have not been fulfilled -I seek your forbearance.
If I have sought Your proximity with my tongue, but my heart did not keep pace with my tongue, overlook my lapse. O God, forgive me for my futile talk, vain desires and lapses of the tongue"
- Prayer of Hazrat Ali, gnostic companion of the Last Prophet, may God's grace surround them both
10 comments:
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway. -Mother Teresa
I never understood why some of you spend so much time trying to silence people. What is the purpose of false sense of humility? There is no great virtue in keeping silent. People who know they know when to speak and when to be silent. They know when they can make a difference so they speak.
Some Sufis don’t practice what they preach. The biggest arrogant boasters were Mansur Hallaj and Bayazid Bistami. Yet these two are the darlings of the modern day Sufis. Some modern day Sufis are “foolish babblers”, and some are dumb, deaf, and blind. The ones who are dumb, deaf, and blind want everyone to be silent. If they are silent, so what because they can not hear anyway, they can not see anyway, and they can not speak anyway. What good is their silence? They are dead physically and spiritually. They never take stand on the issues so they keep silent as if it is the greatest commandment of God to be silent. “Spiritual purity” does not lie in silence.
What one has to make of some of the statements that are attributed to Prophet Muhammad? By reading some of these statements that are attributed to him, it makes him an “arrogant boaster” and a “foolish babbler”.
“In his autobiography … Ghazzali tells us that, after emerging from a state of Pyrrhonic [the doctrines of a school of ancient extreme skeptics who suspended judgment on every proposition] scepticism, he had finally arrived at the conclusion that the mystics were on the right path and true "Arfin," or Knowers of God. But in saying this he meant those Sufis whose mysticism did not carry them into extravagant utterances like that of Mansur Hallaj, who was crucified at Baghdad (A.D. 922) for exclaiming "I am the Truth, or God." In his Ihya-ul-ulum Ghazzali says: "The matter went so far that certain persons boasted of a union with the Deity, and that in His unveiled presence they beheld Him, and enjoyed familiar converse with Him, saying, 'Thus it was spoken unto us and thus we speak.' Bayazid Bistami (ob. A.D. 875) is reported to have exclaimed, 'Glory be to me!' This style of discourse exerts a very pernicious influence on the common people. Some husbandmen indeed, letting their farms run to waste, set up similar pretensions for themselves; for human nature is pleased with maxims like these, which permit one to neglect useful labour with the idea of acquiring spiritual purity through the attainment of certain mysterious degrees and qualities. This notion is productive of great injury, so that the death of one of these foolish babblers would be a greater benefit to the cause of true religion than the saving alive often of them." (1)
How many of you would agree that Hallaj and Bistami were “arrogant boaster”? Verily, Allah loves not any arrogant boaster. - Surah Luqman: 18.
How many of you would agree with Ghazzali that Hallaj and Bistami were “foolish babblers”?
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam!
Ya Alam al Huda! Ya Sayfullah! Ya Misbah!
Ya Ta Ha!
AV
AV is hanging on Quran 18:65
AV for AQM-Sufism/Against Sufism w/o AQM
Sufism w/o AQM = Suffocationism (Death/
Spiritual Death
1. Al-Ghazzali’s The Alchemy of Happines, pp. 7-8. http://muslim-canada.org/sufi/ghacontents.html
The arguments are disconcerting...i do beleive that a perfectly adjusted organism is always silent...the comment is from a truly knowing heart...arguments do not foster peace or understanding...everything is a matter of perspective...may ALLAH grant me insight to look into the heart of things...
Yeah, it's just semantic meaning issues, may peace be upon all of you......
Salaam Salaam Salaam
Allahu!
Is God silent or speaks to us in many different ways? Why did He send the prophets if He prefers silence?
Was Muhammad told to keep silent or was asked to rise up and warn?
Does a baby cries or keeps silent at birth?
“….a perfectly adjusted organism is always silent….” This is perfect description of a dead body and dead people. Zombie comes to mind!
Should Muslim ban the adhan because it disturbs silence?
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam!
Ya Alam al Huda! Ya Sayfullah! Ya Misbah!
Ya Ta Ha!
AV
AV is hanging on Quran 18:65
AV for AQM-Sufism/Against Sufism w/o AQM
Sufism w/o AQM = Suffocationism (Death/
Spiritual Death
Dear Sadiq,
Thank you for sharing today's post from A.S.E. Thank you, A.S.E.
This blog is a manifestation of beauty.
Kindest wishes,
mo'in
Dear Sadiq,
What has happened to your previous post about the local Bengali mystics? It has been such a beautiful writing for beautiful and wise even though simple people. I do not know why I cannot display this nice post anymore, please advise.
Instead I opened some strange post of some obviously misunderstanding person and for my biggest surprise you call that person a knowing heart!
What can such a person know if he determines irresponsibly and out of any scientific context the state of dreaming as being the state of crocodile living and way of existence. Quite something!
Dreams are our unconscious or in other words subconscious mind's products, (the prefix does not matter that much), but dreams are part of our mind. So are visualizations and imaginations. And ego in no way disappears in dreaming, because for the ego to disappear mind has to stop. Mind can be silenced not in dreams, vice verse. In dreams mind goes on chattering as a chattering box, trying to complete what has been left uncompleted by us during the day. Our sleep is not a rest. It may even be an exertion, and in the morning we may feel more exhausted than we ever felt in the evening. A whole night’s sleep, and in the morning we feel more exhausted – what is happening? We, people, we are a miracle! The whole night was an inner turmoil. Our body was not at rest because the mind was so active. And the activity of the mind is bound to be an exertion for the body, because without the body the mind cannot act.
The activity of the mind means parallel activity of the body, so the whole night our
body is moving and is active. That is why in the morning we feel more exhausted.
What does it mean for someone to become enlightened? It means one thing: now he is perfectly conscious. Whatsoever goes on in his mind, he is aware. And the moment you are aware, certain things completely stop. Just through awareness they stop.
It is just like this room is dark and you bring a candle: the darkness will disappear. Everything will not disappear. These bookcases will be here, and if we are sitting here we will be here. By bringing the candle only darkness disappears. When someone becomes enlightened, now he has an inner light. That inner light is awareness.
Dreaming becomes impossible because dream needs, first of all, unconsciousness, and an enlightened being is not unconscious.
No, an enlightened person cannot dream. And if somebody likes dreams very much, he should never become enlightened.
"Allah does not love the public utterance of hurtful speech,
unless (it be) by one to whom injustice has been done;
and Allah is He who alone Hears and Knows all things."
Is there injustice greater than the injustice done to Al Hallaj?
I wonder then why people like AV ever dare to call precious beings like Al Hallaj boasters?
Who else than Mansoor has been tested more than God, and who else embraced the terrible murdering by simply laughing? Laughing at the ignorance and utter blindness of the ortodoxal believers who preferred the tongue than the heart as a way to love the Beloved.
Only a person who in his comments in this blog allows himself to threaten people with mass destruction can call the state of divinity a boaster.
It is important, however, to try to see things as a whole and not to arbitrarily separate them.
The comments that this blog attracts, and the blog itself, are not two different things, but aspects of the same whole.
So why does this blog attract such apparently divided, and divisive, points of view? I'd like to suggest that this is because different individuals identify with different attitudes that are competing within Sadiq's own mind. There is the increasingly fundamentalist muslim, the existentialist mystic, the scholar, the person who is searching for an authentic contemporary path... Each commenter is a partisan of one of these points of view, supporting it but opposing what they see as conflicting with it.
There is thus, within the very heart of the intention behind "Inspirations and Creative Thoughts", a set of unresolved contradictions. And these come out in quite adversarial interactions between commenters.
A mystical master unites people, because he or she is themselves 'united'. Each person can thus find their own place within the master's teaching, because that teaching is vast enough to encompass all of their differences. And because it comes from a place of unity, the differences between people exist within a greater harmony.
But if one is not 'united' in this way, one's own divisions will manifest themselves. And because these divisions are often outside of normal consciousness, they cannot be effectively 'censored'. "Truth will out", as they say in Yorkshire.
The issue here is thus not about 'everyone being entitled to their own opinion', or about 'trying to silence people'. The situation itself is showing something very clearly. One can either ignore it, and try to pin the blame on someone else, or one can learn from it.
Dear Anonymous,
"A mystical master unites people, because he or she is themselves 'united'."
It is a very compromising attitude of yours. Then what a master will be according to you but a simple compromise, polishing people's egos in order to be worshiped and followed by them. Only someone who respects people's ego and boosts it will be honored by others.
A true master is bound to be misunderstood by ordinary people's mind. Even more than simply misunderstood - a true master will be condemned by those of vested interests and by those afraid of the vested interests. We all remember what happened to Jesus, to Mansoor Al Hallaj and to many other daring authentic human beings.
Anonymous,
“One can either ignore it, and try to pin the blame on someone else,
or one can learn from it”. If I may add, educate.
This was well thought out response. I commend you for it. Those who know
they know when to speak, when to be silent, when to engage in the lesser jihad, and
when to engage in the greater jihad. Know when to say when. Those who
know they are in “perfect equilibrium”.
Thanks for the balanced perspective. You sound like someone who has “a knowing heart”!
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam!
Ya Alam al Huda! Ya Sayfullah! Ya Misbah!
Ya Ta Ha!
AV
AV is hanging on Quran 18:65
AV for AQM-Sufism/Against Sufism w/o AQM
Sufism w/o AQM = Suffocationism (Death/
Spiritual Death
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