Show me a Man of God.Show me a man modeled after the doctrines
that are ever upon his lips.
Show me a man who is hard-pressed- and happy,
In danger- and happy,
On his death-bed- and happy,
In exile-and happy,
In evil report- and happy.
Show him to me.
I ask again.
So help me, Heaven,
I long to see one Man of God!
And if you cannot show me one fully realized,
let me see one in whom the process is at work -
or one whose bent is in that direction.
Do me that favor!Grudge it not to an old man,
to behold such wonder.
Do you think I wish to see the Zeus or Athena of Phidias,
sparkling with ivory and gold?
No. Show me one of you,
a human soul,
longing to be of one with God.
~ Epictetus (AD 55–AD 135), great greek stoic philosopher and mystic
* Photos of one of the most senior and well known Sufi Master of contemporary time, Shaykh Nazim (born 1922), may Allah bless him, guide all his beloved students and give him good health.
23 comments:
No. Show me one of you,
a human soul,
longing to be of one with God.
---Epictetus (AD 55–AD 135)
Most of us long to be one with God. How does one
achieve union with God?
“But only he/she (will prosper) that brings to Allah
sound heart; (Quran 26:89).
What kind of heart Abraham brought to his Lord?
A sound heart.
Prophet (SAW) said: “Verily Allah does not consider your appearances or your wealth in (appraising you) but He considers your hearts and your deeds.” Again the Prophet (SAW) said: taqwa is right here, taqwa is right here, and he pointed to his chest.”
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam! Ya Wadud!
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
"Show me one of you,
a human soul,
longing to be of one with God"
Lol!!My camera is not that good....refused to take the pic of my soul......otherwise I might not disappoint my dear friend's request((((((love and blessings))))))
Shabana.
Asking how one achieves union with God is like the fishes asking the wise fish "what is water?" Nothing has ever been separate from God, so how can anything be united to 'Him'?
As the great C19 C.E. Sufi - scion of the Qadiri, Naqshbandi and Shadhili ways, and inheritor of the khirqa of Ibn al-'Arabi, Abd al Kader al-Jaza'iri wrote in his mawaqif:
"Know that there is not a Divine Essence on the one hand; and, on the other, essences proper to creatures which are independent and subsist by themselves upon whom He has not conferred Being. There is nothing other than the Divine Essence. It is this Divine Essence which, without multiplying or dividing, is the essence of creatures; and, reciprocally, the essences of creatures are identical to the Divine Essence. This does not mean that God has His Essence and that creatures also have their own essences and that the Divine Essence unites itself with them, or mixes with them, or infuses itself in them. All these things are impossible and that is not at all what I wish to say.
"Rather, I mean that His Essence - may He be exalted! - that is, His very Being, through which creatures subsist and which rules them, is the essence of the creatures. In other words, when one speaks of the 'essence of creatures' it is only a manner of expressing the manifestation of the true Being, when He clothes Himself in the properties which are implied by the predispositions of creatures."
We human beings have forgotten our essential Unity with the Divine, but we have in no way become separate from God. We are still One with the One Being, whether we realise this or not. This is what is meant by the verses in the Sura at-tin:
"Verily, We create man in the best conformation; and thereafter We reduce him to the lowest of the low." (laqad khalqna al insana fi ahsani taqweem thumma radadnahu asfala safileen 95:4-5.)
Long to remember one's Unity with God, by all means, but do not imagine that one's forgetfulness implies any separation - or the possibility of future unification.
What veils this remembrance is the belief in the existence of a separate 'I'. When one comes to know that there is no 'I' - that it is 'He' who acts in us - then there is the realisation of the hadith: "My servant does not cease to draw near me with voluntary acts until I love him, and when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he takes, his foot with which he walks."
The nawafil here - the 'voluntary acts' - are not, as the pius imagine, yet more muttered prayers, but acts of 'denial and affirmation' (al-nafy wa al-ithbat) - denial of one's own existence, and affirmation of His Sole Existence.
Peaceful poem...
Salams Shabhana, AV and James..
PS: James after a long time i was able to read some for your writings here... it seems you went into some deep meditation or something.... Good to see u backhere sir !!
James,
Sound Heart Wins! Meaningless Arguments Lose! Tell us the Truth!
What got you separated from this blog? What made you forget this blog? What made left this blog? What bring you back? Please answer these questions before you start meaningless arguments. Many would like to know. AV would like to know. Tell us. What are you hiding? Where have been hidings? Hour of Truth has arrived for you. In your country people say, honesty is the best policy. Would you practice best policy? It must be the Authentic Sufi Path (ASP) that brings you back. I guess you did not find sweetness in your human potential movement.
President Reagan said, “Never Say Never!”
Welcome back!
As for AV, AV is still hanging on 18:65!
It is all about COMMITMENT! Nothing can take the place of commitment of a pure heart, sincere heart, and sound heart. Meaningless arguments do not lead to The Beloved’s Presence. O Wanderer, give up the wandering. Make commitment.
INVITATION (www.jerrahi.org)
"Come, come, whoever you are.
Unbeliever, fire worshiper, come.
Our way is not one of desperation.
Even if you break your vows a hundred times,
Come. Come again."
(Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi)
You can come and be our friend as long as you wish. But if you wish to be one of us, then you have to be able to say:
"I am the servant of the Qur’an
While I am still alive.
I am the dust on the path of Muhammad,
the Chosen One."
(Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi)
Enough is this for the seekers on the ASP:
Allah subhanahu wa t'ala says, "On that day nothing will benefit the human being, neither wealth nor children, only the one who brings Allah a sound heart."
The Prophet said, “Beware, in the body there is a flesh; if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt, and behold, it is the heart."
Abraham brought sound heart to his Lord.
It is all about what kind of heart you bring to the Beloved.
Tell me, tell me, and tell me nothing but the whole truth! You can run, but you can not hide!
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam! Ya Wadud!
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
The question of Epictetus is just rhetoric, men/women have never ceased to be God's. Even if we forget God, God never forgets us. God is within us and without us and to know Him we have to start seeking that which is within us, which is the closest to us. In this very turning our eyes inwards or God wards, we will find the Truth's abode in the center of our inner most being. Then all the outer world of "ivory and gold" will loose its grasp over us. The material world will look to us as dust because we have found the greatest and immortal treasure ever, our very Being.
And turning inwards does not need "a good camera to take pics of our soul", all it needs is an open and sincere heart, courageous enough to take the look inwards through meditation, which is awareness of you about you.
That is what meditation is - the courage to encounter yourself, your inner center by being alert, watchful, witnessing.
Otherwise you can keep going outwards, distracting yourself from your inner center, overwhelmed by the outer world, by the others (like AV putting your nose in people's (James') private life), loosing your own center and becoming therefore, more and more split and schizophrenic. Then you will be no more a centered integrated person, you will be a crowd within you, taken hither and tither like a dry leave by your endless projections over the outer world.
Meanwhile God will be waiting for you to come back home, within. God's patience for us is infinite, He leaves us dreaming our worldly dreams and He knows - this is just a dream, one day we will have to wake up.
Aliya,
No, James needs to practice truthfulness.
What happened to your commitment to Truth?
Your rants about truthfulness go on and on, and on….
“like AV putting your nose in people's (James') private life)”
You never miss an opportunity to take stab at me.
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam! Ya Wadud!
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
Aliya,
“As for me, I am all for you”
No, I can take care of myself. I don’t need you. You should be checking your ego. If I had an ego, I would be talking about it just like you are.
Ya Haqq! Ya Adl! Ya Salam! Ya Wadud!
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
The Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said,
"O Allaah bestow your blessings on our Shaam. O Allaah bestow your blessings on our Yemen." The people said, "O Messenger of Allaah, and our Najd." I think the third time the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said, "There (in Najd) will occur earthquakes, trials and tribulations, and from their appears the Horn of Satan."
Reported in al-Bukhaaree [Book of Trials, Chpt. 'The afflictions will come from the East' 9/166 no. 214 Eng. Trans]
Salafis are the horns of shaitan
Layluf,
This post onward, Layluf, you are not welcome to make any comments on this blog.
AV,
Pls don't continue using the signature under every comment of yours saying, "AV is hanging on Quran 18:65. AV for QM-Sufism/Against Sufism w/o AQM
Sufism w/o AQM = Suffocationism (Death/ Spiritual Death" if you are hanging on anything, Allah knows and that shall suffice you. Repeating it again and again is simply irritating and doesn't contribute towards beauty and truth at all except create aversion. I hope you understand.
To all,
Pls refrain from personally attacking others by pointing "how and where they are wrong". If you are interested to speak about truth, speak it without judging others. Thats the only method which was modeled by the great beings and ambassador of truth and light.
If you begin by accusing, by coming up with self-righteousness and then no matter what you speak, you already create a veil between you and your audience. In that manner what you speak become very much secondary and fuels your ego, it loses its main purpose of reaching other hearts. Pls refrain from such attitude.
May God, the Source of Wisdom and all Knowledge give us right knowledge and proper wisdom.
Love is the faultless diamond, the crown jewel of creation. When you enter the cave of the heart to mine its priceless treasure, only then will you unearth and discover the flaws within yourself; only then will you begin to experience that which love is not; only then will you be shaped and formed by the sweat, the toil, the tears and the joys of life; and as the diamond is formed by the tremendous pressures of the earth, so also will you be crushed by all that love is not; until you enter completely that infinite cavern of existence, where all that exists is you, for it is you who are really Love –only you!”
Unpublished work copyright © 1985 Ambrose
When you point one finger at others, remember there are three fingers pointing towards you !!!
Dear James,
Thanks for this very valuable sharing from the wonderful resource, mawaqif.
Generally Sufis dont discuss the Divine Essence and High Mysteries to un-initiated minds and hearts because they are not ready and unless one is capacited in their heart and soul to take in the discussion on Oneness of Being.
All great teachers understood this wisdom and for very good reason.
Christ summarized and reaffirmed this wisdom when he said, "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." Matthew 7:6
Thats also the reason why higher truth when discusses in public, where spoken through the veils of parable.
Sun is good with its splendor from the distance its appointed by the Fashioner and Creator, in desert summer to trying to look at with naked eye would be foolish and we dont recommend that before one achieve special power to do so without harming one.
The knowledge of Oneness of Being is not discussed from sharia perspective because if this is given without proper achieving of states, it may drive one to craziness, disintegration of mind and even to disbelief.
La ilaha illallah and Allah knows the Best.
Dear M. E. B.,
illa-Llah - only You!
What a lovely sharing dear. What comes through you is always preciously inspiring. May Beloved continue to bless your heart, the holy tablet where inspirations descend.
Truth is never to be veiled because that which will (try to) veil the truth will be but lies. Nor does truth veil anything in world but unveils which is false and illusory. Because truth is the purest clarity and the ultimate love.
Truth never differentiate between people and calls them unworthy for truth, dogs or pigs or immature children. Even the people who are still unaware of the truth will know it and become aware one beautiful day or even maybe now at this very moment.(Who knows except Allah?)
Because truth is each one of us birthright. Truth is not somewhere there, something far away high in the sky which is difficult to find unless you follow and obey "pious" people prescriptions and orders. Truth can never be given to you by others, truth can never be transferred, second hand. At the most you can be taken by others to the open window. But it is up to you to look through this window of eternity, no one else can do it for you, neither can anyone else threaten you or refrain you from looking through it. Truth is your own experiencing and real knowing, the experiencing of your inner light - the only light that can be shed upon the Path. For within you is the light of the world. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look elsewhere. It is beyond you, because when you reach it you have lost yourself.It is unattainable because it for ever recedes. You will enter the light but you will never touch the flame.
Dear Sadiq
Certainly some Sufis have been reticent in discussing the Oneness of Being in the past. And with good reason, since it has not always been acceptable to those with a very literal conception of the sharia. For this reason Ibn al-'Arabi's books are still routinely confiscated from visitors to Saudi Arabi.
However, one should not always judge the present by the mores of the past. As attested by many contemporary Sufis, we live in times of significant change for humankind. I notice you've quoted Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee recently with approval on his observation that the Internet is one of the 'signs of God'. You will no doubt be aware that Llewellyn has talked much recently about a "collective transition toward a global consciousness of oneness".
I was introduced to the Ibn al-'Arabi's conception of 'the Oneness of Existence' more than thirty years ago by Bülent Rauf, who emphasized the importance of its universality at this time. In common with some other twentieth century Turkish Sufis (e.g. Kenan Rifai), Bülent was concerned to impress on seekers that the traditional ways, the turuq belonged to the past. He quoted the example of the last sheikh of the Celvetiyye, Sirri Dede, who closed the order in 1936 after the founder, Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi had appeared to him in a vision, tugged his sleeve, and said "enough of all this!"
My teachers have all, without exception, emphasised the point that humanity is at a fulcrum of change, and that the spiritual needs of the time will not be met by the forms of the past, but through something genuinely new and 'of this time'. A part of this would seem to be a general 'opening up' of the teaching of the Unity of Existence as something that, for the first time, humanity is ready to hear.
Let us not forget that talking about Oneness is talking about God. God is this Oneness of Existence and much more.... God is also the Ultimate Uniqueness.
In the past the mystery of enlightened knowing was being kept secret by some teachers (I cannot call them masters or prophets or messiahs, because they were not) out of fear from persecution or out of spiritual pride and selfishness. However, it was not the enlightened understanding of the true masters who risked their lives but conveyed the message of God all pervading and immanent.
Nowadays it has become very fashionable in the Western world to talk about this Oneness, which however reveals to be nothing more than a mere mind projection of some head centered intellectuals who know nothing of the divine experiencing. For such people the Oneness is the arithmetical sum of all the material objects in Existence and is as well equipped with a central mind (similar to the human mind). Such an Oneness of course, will not be anything different from the narrow imaginations and projections of the limited human mind. And this imagined Oneness, Unity of Existence, indeed "will not be met by the forms of the past, but through something genuinely new and 'of this time". Because the limited mind projected “Oneness” has never been experienced by any Buddha in the world ever.
The Oneness of God is eternal, neither past nor contemporary, but never ever "collective transition toward a global consciousness of oneness". No collectivity, no organization or structure or movement can replace this Divine Oneness, because its enlightened experiencing is always individual. It is a love affair between you and God.
Aliya, if you hold God to be "all pervading and immanent", then how can the Divine be separated from a ""collective transition toward a global consciousness of oneness"?
You want to make a distinction between one kind of Oneness - which is "eternal, neither past nor contemporary" - and another, which is "not be anything different from the narrow imaginations and projections of the limited human mind". But how many kinds of Oneness can there be? The whole point of Oneness is that it embraces everything - that nothing is separate or apart from it.
If you paint people whose views you disagree with as "some head centered intellectuals who know nothing of the divine experiencing" you are suggesting that their forms of experience are other than "divine experiencing". But if there is only One Single Absolute Existent, what else it that these head centred intellectuals are experiencing?
I can't speak for how these things are understood in other mystical paths, but for the Sufis the consequence of mystical unveiling and direct experience is that every form of experiencing is seen and understood to be the experience of the One Being by the One Being through the One Being. "He experiences Himself in Himself", as Ibn al-'Arabi puts it.
The issue is thus not one of different kinds of experience, but of different degrees of consciousness of that experience. The experience of the intellectual pondering an intellectual question is as much a Divine Experience as that of a meditator deep in meditation. The concepts of pure mathematics, for instance, are how God manifests mathematically, just as a living being is how God manifests in the form of The Living and mystical experiences are how God manifests in the mirror of the heart. What matters is how aware the experiencer is of this fundamental Unity.
To affirm God in one form, but to deny 'Him' in another, is considered by the great Sufis as ignorance. God is not only the Unknowable Essence, "rich beyond need" of manifestation, but also "identical to things". If one can only accept God in the experience of deep meditation, but not as He manifests as the world, one cannot be said to be submitted to Him. As Hallaj pointed out (in the tawasin), Satan's error was not to deny the transcendence of God, but to refuse to bow down to His immanence in the form of Adam.
Dear James,
Please note that all pervading and immanent God does not mean a collective God. God is the Absolute Being, the Divine Inexpressible Indefinable Uniqueness. When God is nothing else and nobody else can be. All collectivization is the sum up of many selfs, separate entities, by the way, all illusory. In reality only God is, no selfs, no mind thoughts, no matter, no time, only God. World or God creation is just a Maya, dreamlike, it only appears to be consisted of many, especially so for head centered intellectuals who trust logic and mathematics only. Probably logic and mathematics are good for the worldly matters, but they are helpless in the Divine Reality of God.
This is the Ultimate reality of No - Mind, whereas mind intellectualism simple ceases to be, fades away - too narrow and too blind before the Infinite Light. Never think of God as a form or many different forms - He is the Formless, the forever Unknowable.
Dear Sadiq,
Thank you so much for this piece from Epictetus, one of my favorite persons!
May we all be blessed with the longing that Epictetus expresses here, and for such a meeting with a Man of God.
Kindest wishes,
mo'in
Dear Aliya
To recognise "the Formless, the forever Unknowable" as God is only to affirm the Divine Transcendence, the Essence that is forever beyond manifestation. That may be the position of some schools of Eastern Mysticism, for who withdrawal from the world and life in a cave in the Himalayas constitutes the mystical life.
For the Sufis, however, God is also immanent in the forms of the world, which is why the Sufi way is lived in the world.
As for the world being 'illusion', the Sufis say "indeed the world is imagination (khayal) but it is also the Truth in the Truth (Haqqu fil Haqiqah).
Your view explains why you can't accept that, for instance, learning to run a business can have any connection with the mystical life. Well, you are entitled to your views - I would just point out that my experience has been different to yours, and I have no wish to trade the mystical life lived in the world for one lived out of it.
Dear James,
"Withdrawal from the world", "living in caves" has nothing to do with recognizing the Formless, the Unknowable. Vice versa, it is exactly the opposite.
People who withdraw from the world for some "higher spiritual search" are nothing but escapists, the same way obsessed with the world as those who indulge in accumulation and possessiveness. Both groups of people give a tremendous significance to the world, one group is giving positive value to the world, the other group is giving negative value and hides itself from. However, both groups are giving an importance to the world.
While the real mystics, many of them are Sufi mystics, simply know that the world is Maya or khayal, dust.
All the significance is to our Lord, the Ultimate Truth or as Sufis say it, too: the Truth in the Truth (Haqqu fil Haqiqah).
It seems to me you misinterpret deliberately my words - it is often the case when one reads nothing else but his own mind projections.
I have never made any appeal to go living in the cave or to not running any business.
My way is the way of Buddha and all the other Buddhas, also the Sufi Buddhas and it is:
to live in this world but not of this world, to live like a lotus flower, untouched by the mud of the lake. Whatever you do in your worldly life, to always do it with God's doing.
Ah dearest Sadiq, these eyes have seen you being blessed by this blessed Sheikh (as has been this head). How many blessed people have touched some part of your skull now? Blessings are wonderful! ...may you always (knowing and unknowing) be in the presence of blessed ones.
Whether in a cave or among those in overpopulated areas, may HIS LOVE through you propogate!
Love you always, Babs
jslsdepmm http://crush-the-castle.com Crush The Castle
Post a Comment