1.
God is your mirror in which you contemplate yourself and you are His mirror in which He contemplates His Divine Attributes. - Ibn Arabi
God is nearer to man than his jugular vein. - The Qur'an 50:16
The true mystic is not a devotee lost in ecstatic communion with the One, or a reclusive saint who avoids others. The true mystic lives alongside other people - coming and going, eating and sleeping, buying and selling, marrying and chatting - but not for a moment does he forget God. - Abu Sa'id Ibn Abil-Khayr
They are such whom neither wordly commerce nor striving after gain can divert from the remembrance of Allah, and from constancy in prayer, and from charity: They are people filled with awesome consciousness of the Day when hearts and eyes will be convulsed (from the horror of the torment of the Day of Final Resurrection).
- The Qur'an 24:37
- The Qur'an 24:37
2.
Sufi Way to Muraqaba, Meditation and Tafakkur, Contemplation
The devotee or seeker sit at a quiet, undisturbed space or place and closes his or her eyes in order to be single pointed in the contemplation of Allah. This is the beginning of muraqaba (meditation). The state of contemplation on the created world and on the self inside muraqaba is called tafakkur.In this the heart of the seeker is drowned in the realization of the qualities of God and the heart is given a tremendous faith, devotion and state for God which start as spontaneous holy pulse of contemplation on divine. At this the seeker's outer senses become dimmed, whereas he abide in the sea of Love of God.
The head of Sufi lineage, Prophet Muhammad, upon him peace said, "A single moment of immersion in contemplation is better than a whole year of voluntary worship." On the contemplation of the delicacy of creation he said, "To be in a moment of contemplation (on the beauty of creation) is better than seventy years of worshipful service."
He also goes on to state that "the contemplation on the gnosis of God for a moment is better than the worship of thousand years."
In a bodily pure state (after taking a full bath or after ablution state, islamic practice of ritual purification, a mode of baptism with water as taught by Prophet Muhammad) one should sit down and with full concentration should recite the following until the mind and heart are calm: At the same time he or she should be aware of the meaning, so that slumber doesn't approach the body and mind.
ALLAHU HAZERI
God is Nearmost / God is Present.
ALLAHU NAZERI
God is Watching Over Me / God's Glance is upon Me
ALLAHU MA'YEE
God is with me / God is Here
When the outer world is asleep, at that hours of the silent night or after the late night prayer (tahajjud) is the best time for muraqaba.
When all thought-stream are concentrated, when the inner heart is focused and calm then (without the aid of the tonque) the heart will be only beating in hope of the reflected light of divine epiphany.
When one attain such state, the seeker feels a heavenly peace and bliss and become absorbed in it. In that state of absorption by the divine essence and epiphany of divine light, an annihilation reaches. The power of speech is taken away so that the mystery of God is sanctified in mystery alone and not divulged.
Shaikh Abdullah Ansari has said that in this you will be ecstatic in the Love of God. To be successfully able to contemplate upon the Lord in single mindedness is a stepping success in gnosis and oneness. By this the separation between the servant and Lord is removed.
In a further developed stage of sadhana (striving, jihad), the sadhana of Raja Yoga (the highest form of divine union), in Sufi Path is the hardest hurdle to cross.
At this stage, the devotee remains hidden from the common people's eye sight in a remote place. Bodily and spiritually when the seeker reach abiding in God, Baka-bi-'Llah at that stage the seeker goes into this sadhana. This stage is not an open subject or discussion matter for public domain as words are an injustice and deceiving.
It is only fair to hint that even before this stage the habit of eating, drinking, speaking, seeing, hearing, breathing, sleeping, action of bowl movement are slowly reduced to its Furthest. The sadhana at this stage involves the closed sadhana for all bodily openings namely that of eyes, nasal passage, mouth, sexual organs etc.
When the seeker is free of all temptation become spiritually charged, energized and powerful, then his or her whole being begin to become godly (rabbani).
- Adopted and freely translated from Sufis of India (2nd Part) by Mobarak Kareem Jawhar
3.
My Master taught me a lesson:
"Any moment you are negligent in remembrance of God
is a moment spent in denial of God."
These words opened my eyes to reality,
And I fixed my attention on the Lord.
I then placed my soul in His protection-
Such was the love I cultivated in my heart.
Having thus bequeathed my soul to Him,
I died before death – to live in Him.
Only then did I attain the goal of life, O BaHu!
~ (Kalaam) Sufi Words of Sultan BaHu
4.
Muraqaba - Watching
The watching began when the faqir guarded against the wrong actions of the self. Then the watching deepened to an attention in fikr which prevented anything 'other' entering into the awareness. However there is a final stage of watching which is the summit of gnosis.
It envelops the dislocation of awareness which is the experience of unity. Let us look again. In stage one you step up a Watcher to watch the outward and make it pure. In the second stage the Watcher watches the self in its inwad deceptions. From this emerges a prfound stage in which the Watcher is voided of any thing or form to watch, held only by the act of calling on the Name. This leads to the Original Void. Then the seeker moves between the worlds, drawing sensory and meaning into closer and closer, finer and finer balance. When light dawns you know that you do not see Allah, but Allah sees you.
Ihsan. This not 'pure monism' or any other simplistic philosophical position - it is a situation that cannot be expressed in linear expression or formulae for its is subtle, dynamic and secret. The wird (sufi practice) of this time is the Wird-as-Sahl.
Allahu Ma'ee. Allahu Nazirun alayya.
Allahu Shahidun alayya. 66 times.
- from The Hundred Steps by Shaykh Abd al-Qadir as-Sufi al-Murabit
12 comments:
Dear Sadiq,
Thank you very much for this post about contemplation. I very much liked the quotes by Shaykh Abu Sa'id Ibn Abil-Khayr and Sultan Bahu.
Kindest wishes,
mo'in
Dear Sadiq,
I would like to draw your attention on the fact that in your post you wrongly translated the Arabic word "muraqaba" with contemplation. Muraqaba literally means warchfulness, witnessing (or in other words meditation) and this is the word Prophet Mohammad used also. Therefore, in Prophet's words and in your post muraqaba should be translated correctly as meditation, not contemplation.
The words of Ibn Arabi about "contemplating God" and "God contemplating you", refer to those who have not yet realized fully their awakening to the Oneness of God. For such people the "you" still exists, there is still ego left. When one realizes God's presence, then the "you" disappears, dissolves. Only God is. Then who is going to contemplate who?
Amen and Amen.
Dear Mo'in,
Salaams to you. Happy that you liked the post, particularly the two quotes. Kindest regards to you as well.
Dear Aliya,
Argument over words and their meanings are endless. When we know that "word" are inadequate to describe a state or condition, then we already know that its more foolish to argue over their meanings. Its worse than the first attempt to describe it with word. Sometime the attempt to describe has the intention to attract to the truth (and we only have words to do that in most of the time, only very advanced being are able to communiate without words even that is also reserved for prepared, realized receptive minds / hearts), but argument over words push people away most of the time. Thats why the wise never argue over meanings because they always know that one will get what one needs to get even with veiled words.
Having said that, I agree that muraqaba is better translated as meditation. Further better is even to leave it untranslated because meditation immediately brings other association depending on how one understand and picture meditation. I guess some even associate contemplation with comprehension even though in this post the term conteplation is not used as a function of mind only. The Sufi Muraqaba is Sufi Muraqaba, its not buddhist meditation, nor hindu meditation or anything else.
The word Tafakkur closely translate as contemplation and I added that in the post and a new section as well. Since we are not so interested to go into technical definition, i left it like that, merely translating it. Contemplation, if you look at the meaning of this word, also means, "continued attention of the mind to a particular subject"; meditation; Holy meditation. [1913 Webster], observation etc. They often mean the same thing, yet our association create different meaning.
And regarding to the second part of your comment, its preferred that none claim "to be fully awakened to the Oneness of God". That claim is dangerous, often susceptible to misguidance and delusion. We dont use that language or claim. So we prefer to be student, servant and striving towards That. Thus even though Ibn Arabi himself is a master of masters, yet he uses the language most accessible and thats the best thing to do as a bodhisattva who is more interested to other's enlightenment (hence their state) rather than one's own. "Ascent is for one's self, descent is for others." we use descending languge, christ use the simple parables for the sake of others, not high abstract state of the art spiritually high flying perfect words because such beings are more eager to communicate to the least prepared ones.
I am not sure if so many words are helping, and that explain why i am not so found in the comments section when war over words goes on.
Rabbana Atmimlana Nurana
O Lord, Perfect our Light!
Dear Anonymous,
Amen to your prayer and may your heart be blessed which join us with our prayers.
After tahajjud prayers last night, I recited the Names of God and then 201 names of the Prophet and sent blessings on him, his family, his companions, other prophets, messengers, angels, saints, righteous people, etc. After this I looked at the Arabic word for Allah and visualized it being impressed on my heart and my soul, it occurred to me at that moment that Alif is my Sword and rest of the name of Allah is my Shield. God protects those who protect themselves. Look at the Arabic Name of Allah in this post. What does it look like? Yes, it has many layers of meanings, but it has this meaning too. (For more details, please see Sheikh Tosun’s The Most Beatiful Names, Copyright 1985, www.jerrahi.org).
According to Sheikh Tosun, Allah is al-ism al-a’zam, the Greatest Name, which contains all the divine and beautiful attributes and is the sign of the Essence and the cause of all existence.
“The Divine Name must penetrate not only into our psyche, but even into our body. The name is already inseparable from the Divine Spirit. To be in the Name is to be in the Spirit. If we can place ourselves in the Divine Name, we already in the world of the Spirit and in fact the Spirit. The center of the heart is where the Divine Name resides, but it also penetrates into the soul as nothing else can and only It is able to transform the soul and bring about its wedding to the Spirit.” – Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University (For more details, please see Jean-Marie Tresflin’s Alone with The Alone in The Name).
Some of us might relate to the words of Sultan Bahu. However, most of us fit the description of Imam Ghazzali ‘s comments on “I take refuse in God” (Na’udhib’illah!), Ghazzali says in the Ihya-ul-ulum: “Satan laughs at such pious ejaculations. Those who utter them like a man who should meet a lion in a desert, while there is a fort at no great distance, and when he sees the evil beast, should stand exclaiming, ‘I take refuge in that fortress’, without moving a step towards it. What will such an ejaculation profit him? In the same way the mere exclamation, “I take refuge in God,’ will not protect thee from the terrors of His judgment unless thou really take refuge in Him.” It is related of some unknown Sufi that when asked for definition of religious sincerity he drew a red-hot piece of iron out of a blacksmith’s forge, and said, “Behold it!” This “red-hot” sincerity is certainly characteristic of Ghazzali,…. (from Preface of The Alchemy of Happiness, translated by Claud Field).
I may not agree on everything with Abu Sa'id Ibn Abil-Khayr, but he expressed something that is in agreement to certain extent with Yusuf Ali’s comments on Quran 2:201.
“Our Lord, give unto us in this world that which is good and in the Hereafter that which is good, and protect us from the punishment of Fire. (2:201). .
Yusuf Ali’s comments: If you hasten to get all the good things of the world, and only think of them and pray for them, you would lose the higher things of the future. The proper Muslim attitude is neither to renounce this world nor to be so engrossed in it as to forget the spiritual future.
In the Name of Allah, He
With Whose name nothing,
Either on the earth or in the sky,
Can do any harm.
He is the Best Hearer and Knower.
(Prayers uttered after the evening adhan)
Thank you Bhai for your reminders and encouragement to be conscious of Allah all the times. It is much appreciated. It can be done. It must be done. It is worth the effort.
The benefits are unimaginable! Thanks!
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
Sadiq,
“i am not so fond of the comments section” Why have the comments section?
Whatever happened to everyone is my teacher?
I have learned also much from the comments of others. Sometime it is thought provoking.
Those who you consider the least have much to teach you. The Blind Man of The Quran comes to mind.
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, Do you have to argue about everything? I don’t agree with Sadiq on everything but sometime I just let it go. Can’t you let it go sometime?
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
Dear Sadiq, dear AV,
I do not argue, even less so about mere words.
All I do is drawing your attention to make you alert and more aware about truth by inviting you to get out of your past conditioning and prejudiced mind. Because your own prejudices make you sometimes not feeling and seeing the truthful and the real. Instead you prefer dividing, differentiating, drawing lines of negation even in the area of God's Kingdom - meditation.
What you say, Sadiq that "The Sufi Muraqaba is Sufi Muraqaba, its not buddhist meditation, nor hindu meditation or anything else", can be said only by the narrow thinking mind, while meditation is not about thinking at all. It is about the state of utter awareness, alertness, watchfulness. And awareness can never be divided into Sufi, Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, or whatsoever. Awareness is awareness, consciousness is consciousness, God is God. This is a simple truth, which the heart already knows, the inner being already knows. It has nothing to do with claiming, but with realizing, awakening.
And yes, you are right when you acknowledge "I am not sure that so many words are helping".
Words avoiding truth are never helping, but deceiving.
P.S. Sadiq,
Furthermore, you quote that: "Contemplation, if you look at the meaning of this word, also means, "continued attention of the mind to a particular subject";
And here the difference of contemplation from meditation is very clear and also very important for the true seeker. Because meditation is never "attention of the mind" and never "to a particular subject". Meditation (muraqaba) is the OPPOSITE to contemplation, because meditation (muraqaba) is (1)awareness of the being, not thinking of the mind and (2) meditation (muraqaba) is awareness, witnessing of whatever is present, not to a particular subject, and this without judging or appraising anything around and within, but simply witnessing, fully detached, as to say it better - the meditator (muraqib) is like the watcher on the hill, and what is watched is somewhere there, down hill, in the valley - the village, the people, the cars passing, etc.
The meditator (muraqib) is the witness. And only in the state of pure witnessing, of pure awareness, you are open and available to God to come to you.
Rumi says, when love comes, the pen breaks.
O sweet love, come save us from too much talking.
When Rumi says "when love comes, the pen breaks", he means exactly that when the heart talks the mind breaks.This same past conditioned mind which is afraid of hearing Truth talking.
True Love is possible only in awareness, not in delusion and dreaming. Love and awareness are the two words for the same phenomenon - Gog encountering.
Aliya,
A fitting reply! The anonymous is knocked-out!
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
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