Adab for times of trial and tribulation

1.

In the reality where we find our existence, everything is situated in their proper dimensions (such as space and time). All elements and phenomena in the cosmos abide by (divinely) appointed inner and outer laws. From the electrons revolving around atom to the massive galaxies - all abide by their pre-destined special code of conduct (physical laws), none goes beyond their set limits and in that abiding (baqa) they contribute to an awe-inspiring harmonious cosmos.

Just as in the physical universe of macro-cosmos, so it is for micro-cosmos of human being - in order to abide in harmony, there is adab, a sufi term which approximately means: "proper way of being and acting". Human being is special in the creation because they are bestowed with free-will in which are given opportunity to choose. An electron or a DNA can not choose how it will function, other than the law which is appointed to it. But for human being, there is choice which may lead to chaos or harmony, suffering or happiness. 

In the teachings of the Sufis who are the doorkeepers of secret, adab is greatly emphasized which says that for every time and every place, there is a right way of being and right way of doing. This is not unique to Sufi Path, but common to other Path as well. For example Gautama Buddha's central teaching revolves around the "Noble Eightfold Path" which speaks of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. They are necessarily elements of adab for various spectrum of human affairs. 

2.

For those who argue against the necessity of abiding by the divine law / commandments or "way of right being and acting", here is a simple illustration, which I adopt here from a modern day book of Kabbalah in slightly compact form. Imagine 18 people gathered on a baseball field. All of them are gifted with tremendous athletic talent, the likes of the greatest baseball players. They are all given the right equipment necessary to stage a ballgame: bats, baseballs, bases etc. But suppose they were missing one vital ingredient - the rules of the games. These 18 people have never heard of baseball and have absolutely no conception of what it is. What would happen if all these players were told to play the game called baseball, and they were not allowed to leave the field until they were capable of becoming like World Series Champions?

Imagine the chaos! Fighting. Arguing. Frustration. Quitting. Some players might make up their own rules. Although the players are gifted, all they can produce is pandemonium. According to Jewish Mysticism, it doesn't matter how much talent they possess. Without the rules of the game, the result is chaos. If an ordinary, much simpler involvement such as a baseball can be like that, what about the inner and out laws for the grand game of life which involves the most precious and guarded secret, our soul? Tremendous chaos, worries, frustration, disharmony exist in individual and collective human life primarily because most of them are participating in the game of life without really knowing how it's suppose to be played. The result is tremendous chaos, loss of purpose. Amidst it all, many try to make up new games and play by their own rules each and everyday. To no avail. 

The adab of right conduct, right mode of being and acting are from the set of universal laws which is timeless that liberate and empower human beings in their life which is wholesome and approaches holiness (hayyatan tayyibah). Because of our prejudice and abuse, the word "law" immediately brings some kind of reaction to our projection-prone mind. But in reality, whether we call them law, commandment or sharia, given we understand them with right understanding the way of right conduct actually contributes towards harmony and enlightenment, absence of it only brings chaos, more suffering and disintegration. This is why Christ, the Guide of the Heart taught, "the proper way to keep any commandment was to fulfill the purpose for which it was given."  Unfortunately we overlook the purpose and out of ignorance discard everything.

On the universality and timelessness of the Sacred Law, Christ said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." It is through our misreading, misjudgment and misinterpretation, the Law has been subject to much abuse and rejection. Those who are endowed with wisdom understands very well that when in every major age the Law has been covered up, forgotten and abused, new way is revealed which renews these universal set of Law. The reason for new revelations and sending of enlightened prophets and messengers are for the sake of renewing these forgotten and covered-up "laws" as well.

3.

The adab of the Sufi Path follows the last cycle of revelation which renewed the Universal Law and modeled as the Way of the Divine Messengers, their conducts and way of being. The Sufis preserve, teach and pass down the adab for every situation and most importantly how to be at times of trial and tribulation. At such challenging times people feel disoriented, worried, stressed in almost inversely proportional to their level of spiritual maturity and souls progress towards prefect equilibrium and tranquility (sakina).

One of the essential teaching of adab at the times of trial and tribulation is to have steadfast patience (sabr) and to place reliance (tawakkul) and trust on the Divine regarding the unfolding of life.

Wa Tawakkal alal Hayyil lazi la yamutu. Wa sabbih bi hamdi: wa kafa bihi bi zunubi ibadihi khabira.

And put your trust in the Living One who does not die, and extol His praise. And He suffices as the Knower of the short-comings of His worshippers.
- 25:58

Its absolutely essential to have faith on the hereafter, because this alone is cure to many diseases that come from short sightedness for those who can see nothing beyond this short material life that finishes in the blink of an eye. 

And human being says, "When I am dead shall I be brought forth alive?"
But does not the human being remember that We created him before when he was nothing?
- The Quran 19:66-67

 

Those who are blessed with certitude of faith knows very well, we are God's and to God is the return.  In fact at the moment of trials it is the recommended prayer that one should contemplate upon the Quranic supplication, "inna nillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun: Surely we belong to Allah and to Him shall we return." Everything must return, our life, our action and also how we react to situations in which we are placed as tests. 

Many of us claim to have faith which is mostly limited to our lips, and when a time of challenge appear we plunge into ungratefulness by forgetting all the bounties and blessings we were enjoying and have been given and bombard our reactive mind with complaints after complaints. It is these time of challenge that the inner strength of our being is tested and we are given a chance to reflect upon our "claims" of reliance upon God. A smooth sea does not make a good sailor. Rough water in our life help teach us many lessons which otherwise we would never realize. In such time we are sometime shown who are our true friends, we are shown our true weakness and where our improvements are necessary.There is blessing in everything, if and only if we be aware of it. Then even seemingly difficult time can transform into moments of opportunity and new prosperity.

I asked God for strength, and He gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked God for wisdom, and He gave me problems to solve.
I asked God for prosperity, and He gave me brains and hands to work with.
I asked God for courage, and He gave me obstacles to overcome.
I asked God for love, and He gave me troubled people for me to help.
I asked God for favours, and He gave me opportunities after opportunities.
I received nothing what I really wanted ... but...  I received everything I wanted. 

Sufi adab maintains that one must give thanks in every affair, in every circumstances. Since everything comes from God and Sufis are certain of this, they always give thanks - even when it is a seemingly challenging time. This is because the true faithful knows that even bearing patiently any bitter medicine has much benefit and cure in it. Sometime goodness is placed in seemingly adverse situation. Sometime we are protected from greater danger by placing us in lesser troubles. 

Two of the key adab in time of trial and tribulation is to have patience and placing trust upon God, the Most High. Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali writes in his valuable work:

It is necessary that the believer have patience for a short while such that through it he will attain everlasting bliss. If he despairs and becomes impatient, he is as ibn al-Mubarak said, "Whoever has patience, how short a time does he have to be patient for (compared to the eternal after-life). Whoever despairs, how a short time does he have to enjoy himself (in this passing world)!

Imam Shafi used to say:

O my soul, it is only a few days, bear them patiently.

A lifetime seems but a fleeting reverie.

O my soul, through this world pass swiftly,

And leave it for true life ahead does lie!

Here is a Ayah (Sign) from the Second Surah of the Holy Quran which offers much wisdom regarding the time of trial and tribulation.This is the last Ayah and a powerful prayer as well for protection and supplication recommended by the great masters. 

La yukallifu-llahu nafsan illa wus'aha. Laha ma kasabat wa alayha mak-tasabat. Rabbana la tu askiznaa in nasinaa ow akhtana. Rabbana wa la tahmil alaynaa isran kama hamaltahu alal-lazina min qablina. Rabbana wa la tuhammilna ma la taqatalana bih. Wafu anna. Wagh firlana. War hamna. Anta Mawlana. Fansurna alal qowmil kafirin. (2:286)

Allah does not burden any soul except with what it can bear. To its account is what it has merited (by way of goodness), and against it what it has earned (by way of the evil it did). Our Lord, do not condemn us if we forget or unwittingly do wrong. Our Lord, do not lay a load on us as You burdened those who came before us. Our Lord, do not burden us with what we have no strength to bear. Pardon us. Forgive us. Have mercy on us. You are our Master, so aid us against the folk who cover up (the Truth).

The first portion of the supplication speaks of the spiritual law that every soul is taxed according to its evolution. "Allah does not burden any soul except with what it can bear." This is followed by the law of karma. "To its account is what is has merited, and against it what it has earned."

Then a greater spiritual law is indicated by the polite supplication, and this spiritual law is the grace, the Rahma the supersedes everything. Even after the soul may commit wrong, mistakes, ungratefulness - yet through the sincere attraction of grace it may rise again. Thus in the last part, earnest supplication is taught which reminds a fact that those who gone past us, suffered much more than us for the sake of truth. Much they had to suffer compared to our condition and many bounties in which we find ourselves. As our faith is weaker, the trials and tribulations that fall upon us are of much lesser in degree. As historical fact, the first generation of Christ's disciples, most of his apostles suffered violent death and were martyred for their faith, many were crucified for the sake of Truth. The first generation of the companions of Messenger Muhammad similarly faced serious persecution, eviction and many were martyred as well for sake of the Truth. Their sincerity of faith was tested at a much higher price than us. At the end the Lord's Lordship is acknowledge and protection is sought against those who cover up the Truth in every form and in every place because it is through their likeness that much disharmony and chaos is brought into human affairs.


4.
And do not sell the Covenant of God for a paltry price. Surely what is with God is better for you if you (only) knew. That which you have, wastes away, and that which is with God, remains (wa ma inda-Llahi baqa). And We will surely give those who were steadfastly patient their reward according to the best that they did. Whoever does wholesome action - from men or women - who is a believer, We will surely cause to live a sanctified life (hayyatan tayyibah). And we shall surely give them their reward in proportion to the best of what they used to do. - The Final Testament, 16:95-97

Zecher, Anamnesis, Zikr and Remembrance

Sufi Dervishes in Zikr Circle

1.

Path of the Mystics is the Path of Heart and have always emphasized on one thing and one thing only, which is Remembrance. Even though among the living and embodied Path, Tasawwuf (Sufi Science of purification and union) emphasizes much on Remembrance, the same is equally true and important in the original message of almost every other religious / spiritual path, including that of the ancient Hebrew Path as well as that of Christ's original teachings. It is known that the Sufis are the door keepers (of truth, secret, mystery, practices and tradition) and the practice of Zikr (Remembering the One) and preservation of this ancient commandment is an example to understand the universality and continuation of the timeless practice found among the Sufis.

In this post we take a look how Remembrance was and still is central in Judeo-Christian streams of spiritual embodiment.

2.
The Hebrew word, Zecher

Remembrance in Hebrew is the word zikrown, meaning also memorial, and comes from the root word Zakar, which includes both the sense of 'to remember' and 'to mention'.  Other variation of the word includes: Zachor: remember, Zecher (Zakar): in remembrance of, been mindful, bringing to remembrance, call to mind.

In Hebrew language, being verbs such as remember always denote an action. Remembering is not just a state of being, in Hebrew tradition one  remember in order to do.

Remembrance

Malachi, the Messenger, appears in the Jewish Tanakh as the last of the writings of the Hebrew Prophets and in the Christian Bible as the very last book of the Old Testament. According to the transmission of Malachi, "the Divine is the ultimate observer, observing and responding (a teaching shared and continued in Islamic tradition). Divine memory becomes action on our behalf. Action that anticipates our becoming. Action that supports our becoming. 

Those in fear blind to the possibilities of interaction, while thsoe in awe able from time to time to glimpse the possibilities of the divine dance. Observer becoming observed. Memory is the resulting flow of information from the eternal unfolding. Memory is always at this intersection of being and becoming. Memory as observation, witness to all that is, providing connection and direction to observer and observed... Remembrance occuring in every moment of our flow from pretension to form, we claim our never-ending promise to dynamic, divine remembrance. In awe of All That is."

- The New Akashic Records: Knowing, Healing & Spiritual Practice by Cheryl Trine

Jews praying at the Western Wall

"... Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the wrongs you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so arousing his mighty wrath. ... I lay prostrate before the LORD those forty days and forty nights because the LORD had said His wrath would destroy you. I prayed to the LORD and said, “Sovereign LORD, do not destroy Your people, Your own inheritance that You redeemed by Your Mighty Power and brought out of Egypt with a Mighty hand. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their going astray."
- Mighty Messenger Moses in Deuternomy 9

Remember the LORD your God.
- Deuteronomy 8:18

Yizkor: the Memorial Prayer

In Hebrew tradition of Remembrance, there is a special memorial prayer by that very name, Yizkor which is prayed over the departed soul and asks the Divine to remember the soul with grace. The names takes from the first word of the distinct prayer as well as it embodies the overall theme. Yizkor prayer is recited in the synagogue four times a year in gathering (this can also be prayed privately), following the Torah reading on the last day of Passover, on the second day of Shavuot, on Shemini Atzeret and on Yom Kippur. In this prayer God is implored to remember the souls of those who have passed on to the next life.

Hebrew path brings the consciousness down that When Yizkor is recited, it renews and strengthen the connection between those who recite, and the loved ones and God and  bringing merit to the departed souls, elevating them in their celestial homes. Yizkor remembrance is also comes with a component of doing wholesome action such as charity, donating and feeding the poor on behalf of the departed soul who can no longer take part in wholesome action. In this way a positive physical deed is performed in this world, something that the departed can no longer do.

This is a selection of the Yizkor prayer:

May G-d remember the soul of my father, my mother, my teacher who has gone to the supernal world, because I will - without obligating myself with a vow - donate charity for her sake. In this merit, may her soul be bound up in the bond of life with the souls of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and with the other righteous men and women who are in Gan Eden; and let us say, Amen.

May the All-Merciful Father Who dwells in the supernal heights, in His profound compassion, remember with mercy the pious, the upright and the perfect ones, the holy communities who gave their lives for the sanctification of the Divine Name.

May our G-d remember them with favor together with the other righteous of the world. (credit)

3.
Anamnesis: Remembrance
 

The Eucharist in Christian tradition in reality is a ceremony of Remembrance. The Apostles and early believers were instructed by their Guide: "Do this in remembrance (Greek word used in translation is anamnasin) of me"

The word Anamnesis ("remembrance", "recollection") occurs a number of times in New Testament and Greek Old Testament. In most of the occasions it is used in a sacrificial context (Hebrews 10:3, Leviticus 24:7, Numbers 10:10 and Psalm 38, 39 and 70, 70) which has to do with ceremony of remembrance. The root of the word comes from anamimneskesthai to remember, from ana- + mimneskesthai to remember more at mind. In these cases the term anamnesis can be translated as "memorial portion," "memorial offering," or "memorial sacrifice." Thus in the remaining two occurrences of anamnesis (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24), Christ’s words "Do this in remembrance of me," makes Eucharist as an event in point of time in Christian Spirituality when Remembrance of the master is renewed.

In some places the word in Christ's instruction (as transmitted from original Aramaic to later Greek translation) anamnesis, is wrongly translated as sacrifice The Greek words reserved and used in the New Testament for sacrifice is thusia and thuo. The Greek word anamnesis does not mean sacrifice. According to The Old/New Testament Greek lexicon based on Thayer's and Smith's Bible Dictionary, anamnesis simply means “a remembering, recollection.” Which is the same word and practice of Sufi Zikr or Hebrew Zecher.

In the New Testament, the same word is used in Hebrews 10:3. It is also used in the Septuagint to translate several Hebrew words (azkarah in Leviticus 24:7 meaning “a reminder; specifically remembrance-offering; memorial”; zikrown in Numbers 10:10 meaning “a memento or memorable thing, day or writing, memorial, record”; zakar, found in the titles of Psalms 38 and 70, meaning “to mark so as to be recognized, i.e. to remember).

We read in an early Christian Gnostic Text, the Apocryphal Acts of St. John, that Jesus led the Apostles in a hymn to the Father; its extraordinarily rhythm and hypnotic quality vibrates through the worlds of St. John:

And we all circled around him responded to him: Amen...
The twelfth of the numbers paces the round aloft, Amen ...
To each and all it is given to dance, Amen ...

That this was an initiatory spiral, a progressive attainment of the Knowledge, is clear in the words of Jesus, who says, "Even the passion that I revealed to thee and the others in the round dance (whirling), I would have called a mystery.'

St. John records: Now before he was taken by the lawless, who also were governed by (had their law from) the lawless serpent, he gathered all of us together and said: Before I am delivered up unto them let us sing an hymn to the Father, and so go forth to that which lieth before us. He bade us therefore make as it were a ring, holding each other's hands, and himself standing in the midst (this is exactly how Sufi dervishes still perform the whirling dance or sema!) he said: Answer Amen unto me. He began, then, to sing an hymn and to say:

Glory be to thee, Father.
And we, going about in a ring (encircling), answered him: Amen.

Glory be to thee, Word: Glory be to thee, Grace. Amen.
Glory be to thee, Spirit: Glory be to thee, Holy One:
Glory be to thy glory. Amen.

We praise thee, O Father; we give thanks to thee, O Light,
wherein darkness dwelleth not. Amen.

Now whereas we give thanks, I say: I would be saved, and I would save. Amen.
...
Grace danceth. I would pipe; dance ye all. Amen.
I would mourn: lament ye all. Amen.
...
The number Twelve danceth on high. Amen.
The Whole on high hath part in our dancing. Amen.

Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass. Amen.
I would flee, and I would stay. Amen.
I would adorn, and I would be adorned. Amen.

I would be united, and I would unite. Amen.
A house I have not, and I have houses. Amen.
A place I have not, and I have places. Amen.
A temple I have not, and I have temples. Amen.
A lamp am I to thee that beholdest me. Amen.
A mirror am I to thee that perceivest me. Amen.
A door am I to thee that knockest at me. Amen.
A way am I to thee a wayfarer. [amen]

Thus, my beloved, having danced with us the Lord went forth. And we as men gone astray or dazed with sleep fled this way and that. (Details and Reference: Spiral Dance and Hymn of Jesus)

Allah in every heart beat

4.
Remember Me, I shall remember you

In the footstep of the original teachings of Abrahamic traditions as a seamless continuation, in Islam and particularly by the Mystics of Islam the practice of Remembrance is preserved, given life to and embodied in daily life with salaat (prayer appointed in harmony of the nature and cosmos following the same movement of celestial bodies as embodied and witnessed by bodily movement) and in zikr (remembrance).

The Last Testament Quran delcares:

And establish regular prayer, for prayer purifies from shameful and unjust deeds, and indeed the remembrance of the Divine is the greatest. (The Quran, 29:45)

O you who believe! Celebrate the praises of Allah, and do so frequently; and glorify Him morning and evening. (33:41-42)

Remember Me, I shall remember you. (2:152)

Those who believe in the Oneness of Allah, and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest. (13:28)


5.

Look at Yourself and Remember me

You've no idea how hard
I've looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.

What's the point of bringing gold
to the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with
was like taking spices to the orient.

It's no good giving my heart
and my soul because
You already have these.

So - I've brought You a mirror.

Look at Yourself and Remember me.

- Jalaluddin Rumi

In every moment He is acting | meditative Quranic verses

Yas'aluHu ma fis-samawati wa-l-'ard.
Kulla yowmin Huwa fi sha'n.

Fabi'ayyi 'alaa'i Rabbikuma tukazziban?




In heavenly and planetary planes of existence, all beseech Him.
In every moment He is acting.

Which, then, of the favors of your Lord will you deny?

- Final Testament, Chapter of the Universally Merciful (55:29-30)

If we wish to partake in the Divine Hue by taking up the Divine Colors (Sibghata Allahi), a way of embodying the Transcendent is to engage in wholesome action in every moment. Remember, the Divine in every instant manifesting Pure Action in ceaseless creation, preservation, destruction and resurrection. God's "being in action in every moment" is a Divine Attribute. For the human being, the khalifa, 'the image', the encapsulated 'secret' in body - all possible range of human affairs, from the simplest act of breathing when done in grateful awareness to the act of washing the body-temple for purification, to the act of love making, all can become acts of devotion towards the Divine, Glorious is Hu, Who acts in every moment. May all our striving towards embodying the Transcendent be made part of the indivisible wholeness in our sacred journey towards holiness, towards Godliness (Rabbani).

Kulla yowmin Huwa fi sha'n. In every moment Hu is acting.

* Past Posts on Meditative Quranic Verses

Meaning of Life is to Embody the Transcendent

The Point
         of Life
         is
         to Embody 
                          the Transcendent.

EmBODYing compassion
is - BEING LOVE in a body.

The following is a transcript that comes from excerpts of a talk given by Architect of Sacred Activism, visionary, author and mystic Andrew Harvey where he speaks of one of his experience of sitting with Dalai Lama where at the end of the interview he asks him about the Meaning of Life.

  Do all you can
                         With what you have
                                                       In the time you have
                                                                                       In the place you are

                                                                                                                      Do all you can.

I can't think of a more beautiful and simple definition of what I am dedicating my life to at this moment, which is a vision I call Sacred Activism. But I am not going to define Sacred Activism for you. I am going to tell you stories .. stories from the depths of my life .. stories about experiences that changed my life, and made me crazy enough to take planes in the middle of the night so I can come and speak to people like you.

In 1998 I was invited by Elle Magazine to go to Oslo to interview the Dalai Lama on the day he won the Nobel Prize. And I think of all the marvelous things that happened to me in my life, being alone with him, for two hours in a small white room in this Norwegian Hotel on the day, this epical day, when he was going to be awarded the highest honour in human race, was perhaps my happiest and most extra-ordinary day. I have meet his holiness before, but on that day we sat for two hours in this room and talked about everything, talked about Tibet, talked about violence, talked about the environment, talked about the enormous world crisis. 

Even then he saw quite clearly it was going to get worse and is going to challenge human life and human extinction. And I never forget one moment in the conversation, he lent across and he said "People must understand that we are not in a crisis, we are in an emergency”. At the end of the two hours, he got up and he said "I am so sorry, but I have to go and get the Nobel Prize now, so we really must stop talking." 

So I looked into his eyes, these amazing eyes of this amazing man, absolutely amazing to be in a room with him is so extra-ordinary because of his incredible humility and tenderness and attention to you, you feel magical, you feel part of it, you feel that this wonderful being is giving you his total attention to you. 

So I got up and he got up and I gazed into his eyes and I plucked up my courage and I said to him: 

"I will never be alone with you like this and especially not on an amazing day like this, so your holiness - WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?" 

His holiness who has one of the most famous laughs in this world, flung his head back and roared this beautiful, multi-foliated and polyphonic laugh that went up and down in every known register and all seemed to shake with this laugh and suddenly he brought himself into himself and he became immensely concentrated like a laser beam and he seemed to shake with divine power and he looked at me very very seriously and he pointed at me and he gazed deep into my eyes and he said:

"The point of life is to EMBODY THE TRANSCENDENT". 

And as he brought his hand down I felt this flame of power go up and down my body and I knew beyond thought, beyond words, that what I being given was not simply the key to life, but I was being given that key by somebody, who knew the truth of it and who was living it and who found out that the deepest source of the deepest happiness comes not from connecting with divine love, not just from feeling divine peace, not just by having a few mystical experiences in between gambling on the stock market, but actually plunging into a life of transformation and coming to that miraculous moment when he knew that the Buddha of compassion was living in him, and using his arms, and his legs, and his eyes and every thought to really reach out to all human beings everywhere to bless all human beings at all moments and all sentient beings at all moments for ever and ever because he had come to the moment through the divine grace when he was EMBODYING compassion. BEING LOVE in a body.

Even an English-man couldn’t talk at that moment, and he saw that I was completely overwhelmed by the majesty and the beauty of the moment, and he said, ‘you know what we're going to do’, and I said ‘No’, he said ‘you and I are going to take five very quiet minutes and we are going to walk from where I am sitting now, you are standing now to the end of the room.. actually it was about 30 yards, it was a very small, little room, but it had a long corridor, so he took my hand and he looked at me and he and I walked very slowly to the door, and then in the door, he let go off my hand and he said very tenderly, he said ‘Good-bye my dearest friend.’, and I was like, I meet him twice, but I knew he wasn’t making things up, he was speaking out of unconditional love and on the day when he was going to get the Nobel Prize, he didn’t go back into the room; he stood by the door and I could see him as I walked down that vast hotel corridor, just standing there, radiating, radiating... love - towards me.

So not only had he told me the secret of life, he showed me, by what he did and how he did it, what it means, to be somebody, who lives divine love... That was a huge clue to me.

- Andrew Harvey on Sacred Activism

>> Now that you've read the transcript, please visit the Youtube Link to listen to the talk from Andrew Harvey directly and also to appreciate the significance of human voice, which conveys much much more than just plain text. . Click here to listen. My heartfelt appreciation to Roya J. for assisting with transcribing.

Photo from Tiger Temple, Thailand

In his recent book, Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism, co-authored with Karuna Erickson, Andrew Harvey goes on to describe the experience further as:

In the weeks and months that followed, I found myself returning again and again to that moment of parting and to the Dalai Lama's answer. Nothing could have surprised me more, I realized. If his holiness had said, "The meaning of life is to enter the Transcendent," or even "become One with it," I would not have been so strangely and marvelously disturbed. What he had said, however, was that it was necessary to embody the Transcendent.

My own experience, up to that moment, had been of the overwhelming power, glory, and bliss of the Divine Light. Now, I was being gently challenged to go beyond that awareness and somehow to bring the light down into my skin and bones and action. I was being asked to embody it and become, I now clearly saw that his holiness had become, its humble living, breathing, grounded, utterly real and utterly authentic instrument. As I started to take in, in ever deeper ways, what his holiness had said to me, I also began to uncover both the depths of what I came to call my addiction to Transcendence, and the psychological, biographical, sexual, and spiritual reasons for it.

How can you ever hope 
         to know the Beloved 
without becoming 
         in every cell 
                         the Lover?

Em-bodying the Transcendent is Be-coming just like That.

                                                 ~ Rumi


# Related:
* You may also download the video: Andrew Harvey on Sacred Activism
* Sacred Activism: Our Path to Wholeness

Project Spreading the Warmth II

1.
Baruch atah Adonai.
Eloheinu melekh Ha'Olam,
Mal'bish arumim.

Blessed are You Our Lord.
King of the universe,
Who clothes the naked.

- Bracha from Hebrew Tradition


2.

Winter is here and we are preparing for the continuation of the Project: Spreading the Warmth work for the 2nd year. Last year during the winter season under the Project we raised about 1300 USD out of which more than 530 people were given winter clothing. We bought sweater, blankets to distribute among the homeless children, men and women, handicap beggars on street as well as elders. Part of the money was also used to help poor in emergency need (such as medical treatment). 

Last year most of the funds were raised from here, Inspirations and Creative Thoughts site, all thanksgiving are to God. With your generous donation it was a success to reach many who would otherwise suffer in long winter nights, living without much to cover them. Our location of distribution was central area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Also my friend Priya in Kolkata, India joined the forces. She has already made small quills for infants and distributed among poor patients in hospitals, God bless her work. This year also part of the fund-raising will go to her for greater reach.

How Spreading the Warmth Project Works?

I have contracted a supplier who knows the cause and supplies me blanket and warm clothing at a bulk (cheaper) price from the local market. He delivers the supply at home from where I generally go out at night, identify those who are in direct need and clearly have lack of warm clothes / blankets to cover them and distribute among them case by case basis. I try my level best to reach out to those first who have next to nothing to protect them from harsh winter. For this generally it takes some survey of the areas to identify the appropriate and potential recipients.The clothes are given directly to the recipients without any other media in between.

Who Contributes?

A majority of the contribution are done by online donation at this site. This year also I will be using ChipIn and Paypal to securely collect the donation. You may pay via International Debit / Credit card.  Kindly spread the words and encourage your friends to contribute and do their best in their area as well. Local friends and well wishers also contribute directly. This year also I am putting up collection box in my local area for donation of old / used winter clothes. Contact me <mysticsaint@gmail.com> for Bank account details if you wish to do Bank Transfer.

How You may Contribute?

Think universally, act locally is an appropriate model for our time when we may reach out to any part of the world to alleviate suffering of human beings. If you have poor people in your area, if there are homeless people who don't have sufficient warm clothing in this winter, its better to take care their need. You neighbors have a greater right that they receive your kindness. This winter try your best to at least reach 2 or 3 or more people and buy / provide them winter clothing (yesterday was my birthday and this is my birthday wish that you may also spread the warmth to at least few poor people). If you don't have any in your neighborhood you may donate here as well. Your contribution reaches directly to those who are in need. There are infants, very young children living with their parents as well who need the most protection against winter, else their lives are at risk. The blankets we buy for them goes to cover a number of family members.

O Children of Adam, in the world I was laid unclothed and you didn't clothe me.
- A complaint shall rise from the Divine Voice on the Day of Judgment, Sacred Tradition

The entire creation is God's family, because it is God Who maintains it; so that person is dearer to God who does good to His Family.
- Islamic Wisdom

Click on the ChipIn button below to donate:

In the spirit of generosity in this month of Pilgrimage and Sacrifice (Hajj, Qurbani), those of you who wish to make a donation, this is my suggestion that you donate it with an intention or a prayer that you are looking forward to be fulfilled in your life. By the Generous Face of Allah, al Karim, may your intention, desire and prayer be answered and manifest.

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
       and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -
       when you see the naked, to clothe him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
       and your healing will quickly appear;
       then your righteousness will go before you,
       and the glory of the LORD will be your guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
       you will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I (Labbaik).
- Isaiah 58


3.

Spend (in charity) out of the sustenance that We have bestowed on you before that time when death will come (to you suddenly), and he shall say: "O my Lord! If only you would grant me reprieve for a little while, then I would give in charity, and be among the righteous." - The Holy Quran, 63:10.

They ask you what they should spend in charity. Say: 'Whatever you spend with a good heart, give it to parents, relatives, orphans, the helpless, and travelers in need. Whatever good you do, God is well aware of it.' - 2:215

The believer's shade on the Day of Resurrection will be his charity.

In pre-eternity the angels asked God, "O Allah! In your creation is there anything more powerful than rock? God replied, "Yes, iron is harder than rock for it can split it." Then the angels asked, "O Allah! Is there anything more powerful than iron?" God said, "Yes! Fire is more powerful than iron, as fire can melt iron." Then the angels again asked, "O Allah! What is more powerful than fire?" God replied, "Water is more powerful than fire for it can put out fire."

Then the angels asked, "O Allah! Is there anything even more powerful than water?" God said, "Yes, wind is more powerful than water for it can draw and give movement to water." Then the angels asked, "O Allah! Is there anything in your entire creation more powerful than the wind?" And God replied finally, "Yes! The charitable children of Adam whose giving of charity is such that his left hand is kept unknown from the right hand's charity, for they shall be victorious over everything." 

Whether you give openly or in secret, yours reward is with Lord.

Give charity without delay, for it stands in the way of calamity (as a shield).

That person's charity is best who has less wealth and who has obtained it by his own effort and from it he gives as much as he is able to. 

- Hadith (from the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, sal.)


To read of the past years fund raising and experience please read the links provided below:
* Project: Spreading the Warmth (November 2009)
* Update from 'Spreading the Warmth' Project (December 2009)
* Ramadan Fund Raising for Gladdening the Sacred Heart (GSH) Project

In India Goonj is taking a beautiful initiative by the title Ek Jodi Kapda. They have old / used clothing collection center. If you happen to be in India, please consider contributing and spread the work of Goonj. Visit the site of Ek Jodi Kapda.

All photos in the post are taken from web / news media, no photos are taken during the clothe distribution as it may feel undignified to the recipients.

Sacred Activism | Our Path to Wholeness

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

- French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin

1.
Path of Wholesome Action

Some call it Spiritual Activism, some use the term Sacred Activism, while others prefer to call it Path of Wholesome Action (amal saleh). No matter what the words we choose for it, Sacred Activism is far removed from nomenclature, words, theorization or passivity. Spiritual Activism is the coming together of spirituality, and activism. It is simply activity, works / actions that comes from the heart, not just the head. It is activity and activism that is compassionate, positive, kind, fierce and transformative. The path of Spiritual Activism enables individuals or groups to develop the noble qualities of compassion, wisdom and gratitude. It is in itself a Path of Transformation – a Spiritual Blueprint for living.

Spiritual Activism is rooted in an understanding of interdependence of all that exists, all sentient beings and the matrix (the environment) that be-wombs it, and works to end of the suffering of all beings, even our seemingly adversaries / those who oppose us. Nothing could be more inspiring and more rewarding than being the change we want to see in the world, within and without. There have been many who embodied this understanding in the past. All great movement began from here, all great teachers were transformative precisely by becoming a fierce warrior of wholesome action.

Most activists are addicted to just doing, driven by all mind. Many mystics are addicted to just being, in a passive way, for the self alone. There is a renewed vision and remembrance emerging which is about how to be in order to be able to do. It is true that taking guided action, based in spiritual guidance, empowers action in an entirely different way. Instead of operating from our own personal (and often imaginary) power, there is a sacred power in divine activism and more so when its done collectively. Andrew Harvey, a contemporary mystic and also an architect of Sacred Activism reminds the ancient wisdom that 'we must both die and let die so that we may live and let live.' In his visionary work, The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, he demands nothing less than the true integration of matter and spirit, masculine and feminine, self and others. It proposed how Sacred Activism is a masterful panorama of how to get from the world as it is to a world as it could be.

2.

Building Blocks

In a world which bombards with false-glorification of materialism, even when spirituality is increasingly made divorced from its core values and Divine Consciousness - where every attempt is made to make everything secular, where remembrance of the Real is overshadowed with self-inflicted human wound, judgment, misconception, ignorance and arrogance - every movement that follows the same road is sure to fail. There have been many activism, many war protests, many peace rallies - yet when its done void of the sense of Great Reckoning, void of the truthful sacred knowledge that everything must return to the Source and every bounty must be justified for its use (or abuse) - unless then all collective achievement will be infinitesimally small than what is achievable. As long as we keep living in the "cover up" state about the truth that we come from God and to God we shall return and every single action will be answered before and judged by the Only Judge, the Real and the Just - there will be manipulation, injustice, abuse, robbery of human dignity everywhere, in every society - be it the boastful "most powerful country on the earth" or the famine stricken fourth-world countries in perpetual colonial oppression.

While surveying few of the movements that speak for Spiritual / Sacred Activism one can see the same trend of trying to make it as secular as possible because that's fashionable in the so called "modern world". And shameful it is to live in a time where our glorified definition of modernity is over power by the Military Industrial Complexes - which is all about how quickly you can kill how many people with smart bombs or unmanned drone attack.

Our lack of sensitivity to human life, human dignity and our so called advanced nations' most greedy push to sell arms, weapons to mass murder, corrupt politics that buy out other nations for control of resources and manipulate with multi-national missions is extremely grotesque to say the least. And unfortunately we suffocate the spirit of humanity while cover it up by controlling and manipulating all major public / mass media by keeping them blind in the name of entertainment, sexuality, pornography, opium of sports, gambling, stock market frenzy, fear of economy, cheap gossip of even cheaper movie 'stars' - you name them.

At the same time no age in human history is all full of despair because as long as humanity remembers what is Real, we can progress and move towards peace, harmony, beauty and perfection. So we hope and we inspire and make others inspired for understanding and contributing in sacred activism and becoming a sacred activist in their own way. In order to survey the fundamentals of Spiritual Activism thats growing in the consciousness, below are few of the notions thats been developed in its ideas / teachings / precepts.

All Action is Based on Compassion

When championing a cause, the mindset must be altruistic and the motivating emotion must be positive. Spiritual Activism is action for the benefit of something, not against something.

Compassion Flows from the Understanding of the Connection Between All Living Beings

We are all connected through our shared Humanity. When you learn to see that our differences are superficial and our similarities manifest, sympathy (or worse, pity) gives way to compassion. Our actions shift from one of “us helping them” to one of “for the good of All”. We become One.

“The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.”
 ~ Thomas Merton

Compassion Must Be Applied With Wisdom

There are more causes that exist than an individual or group can possibly be involved with. It is important to choose your causes carefully. Learn to act instead of react.

Apply Synergy and Teamwork to Accomplish Goals

Synergy is the process where two or more actions combine to produce an effect greater than the sum of its individual parts. Like ripples in a pond, spiritual actions combine and build on each other to magnify an effect beyond what each could do individually. Whenever possible, team up with others to acquire a multifaceted and more holistic approach.

Spiritual Activism is the Pursuit of Service for the Good of All, Not for the Advancement or Benefit of Individuals or Selected Communities

The mindset behind your actions is noble, holistic, universal and non-partisan. Be mindful that ego and self-service have no place in Spiritual Activism. However spiritual activism is all about Self serving – it serves your highest Self, not your ego, and is a pathway to true and deep happiness, as opposed to the temporary and unstable happiness of the ego.

Pursue Integrity, Honesty and Dignity in the Conduct of Your Actions

Embrace mindfulness in the application of your activities and be aware of how your actions may be perceived by others. Machiavelli’s “The ends justify the means” has no place in Spiritual Activism. If our methods are not noble, our results will not be either. Practice spiritual transparency, allowing negative energies to bypass your system without harming it.

“Integrity is doing the right thing even if no one is watching.”
 ~ Unknown

Do not Defame Your Detractors or Those Who Doubt You

A confrontational approach leads to a defensive reaction. Approach others with openness and compassion in your heart. Build on the commonalities between you instead of focusing on the differences. As much as possible, detach yourself from the results of your actions. Aspire to always be a peacemaker.

Raising Another Up Raises You Up As Well

Helping another becomes a form of self-love as well as an expression of outward love. This becomes an upwardly spiraling cycle of increasing awareness, connection, compassion, involvement, capacity, and back to increasing awareness.

Learn to Listen to Your Heart and Not Your Mind

Your mind may only see the problem. Your heart will always feel the solution. Learn to act with Faith and cultivate a loving perception when facing collective problems.

Search Out Viable and Sustainable Solutions

Seek out solutions that maintain or restore the dignity of individual human and their communities. Solutions that become self sustaining.

“Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”
 ~ Jesus

Spiritual Activism is about process

The process by which you arrive at the goal is as important as reaching the goal itself. If we live the change we want to see in the world, we cannot lose. We have already won.

- Credit Humanity Healing. First published website for the documentary Fierce Light: Where Spirit Meets Action.

3.
Principle of Spiritual Activism

Spiritual Activism describes individuals who are spiritually-based but also believe we need to take action in the world to create positive change. Spiritual activism is Spirit and Love put into action, and prayer made visible.

“Our goal is to create a beloved community.”  - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Below are few of the principals of Spiritual Activism that is on the rise in the collective human consciousness:

Transformation of motivation from anger/fear/despair to compassion/love/purpose. This is a vital challenge for today's social change movement. This is not to deny the noble emotion of appropriate anger or outrage in the face of social injustice. Rather, this entails a crucial shift from fighting against evil to working for love, and the long-term results are very different, even if the outer activities appear virtually identical. Action follows Being, as the Sufi saying goes. Thus "a positive future cannot emerge from the mind of anger and despair" (Dalai Lama).

Love thy enemy. Or at least, have compassion for them. This is a vital challenge for our times. This does not mean indulging falsehood or corruption. It means moving from "us/them" thinking to "we" consciousness, from separation to cooperation, recognizing that we human beings are ultimately far more alike than we are different. This is challenging in situations with people whose views are radically opposed to yours. Be hard on the issues, soft on the people.

Your work is for the world, not for you. In doing service work, you are working for others. The full harvest of your work may not take place in your lifetime, yet your efforts now are making possible a better life for future generations. Let your fulfillment come in gratitude for being called to do this work, and from doing it with as much compassion, authenticity, fortitude, and forgiveness as you can muster.

Selfless service is a myth. In serving others, we serve our true selves. "It is in giving that we receive." We are sustained by those we serve, just as we are blessed when we forgive others. Service work is enlightened self-interest, because it cultivates an expanded sense of self that includes all others.

Do not insulate yourself from the pain of the world. Shielding yourself from heartbreak prevents transformation. Let your heart break open, and learn to move in the world with a broken heart. As Gibran says, "Your pain is the medicine by which the physician within heals thyself." When we open ourselves to the pain of the world, we become the medicine that heals the world. This is what Gandhi understood so deeply in his principles of ahimsa and satyagraha. A broken heart becomes an open heart, and genuine transformation begins.

What you attend to, you become. Your essence is pliable, and ultimately you become that which you most deeply focus your attention upon. You reap what you sow, so choose your actions carefully. If you constantly engage in battles, you become embattled yourself. If you constantly give love, you become love itself.

Rely on faith, and let go of having to figure it all out. There are larger 'divine' forces at work that we can trust completely without knowing their precise workings or agendas. Faith means trusting the unknown, and offering yourself as a vehicle for the intrinsic benevolence of the cosmos. "The first step to wisdom is silence. The second is listening." If you genuinely ask inwardly and listen for guidance, and then follow it carefully - you are working in accord with these larger forces, and you become the instrument for their music.

Love creates the form. Not the other way around. The heart crosses the abyss that the mind creates, and operates at depths unknown to the mind. Don't get trapped by "pessimism concerning human nature that is not balanced by an optimism concerning divine nature, or you will overlook the cure of grace." (Martin Luther King) Let your heart's love infuse your work and you cannot fail, though your dreams may manifest in ways different from what you imagine.

- Selection from Satyana Institute

4.

Follow your heartbreak

Most activists are addicted to just doing. Many mystics are addicted to just being. Sacred activism is the fusion of the mystic’s passion for God with the activist’s passion for justice, creating a third fire, which is the burning sacred heart that longs to help, preserve, and nurture every living thing.

All mystical systems are addicted to transcending this reality. This addiction is part of the reason why the world is being destroyed. The monotheistic religions honor an off-planet God and would sacrifice this world and its attachments to the adoration of that God. But the God I met was both immanent and transcendent. This world is not an illusion, and the philosophies that say it is are half-baked half-truths. In an authentic mystical experience, the world does disappear and reveal itself as the dance of the divine consciousness. But then it reappears, and you see that everything you are looking at is God, and everything you’re touching is God. This vision completely shatters you.

We are so addicted, either to materialism or to transcending material reality, that we don’t see God right in front of us, in the beggar, the starving child, the brokenhearted woman; in our friend; in the cat; in the flea. We miss it, and in missing it, we allow the world to be destroyed.

Sacred activism isn’t anything new, but we need to bring an urgency and intensity to this message at this moment, because there is a worldwide addiction to money and power and a worldwide depression that affects even people who claim to be religious but have secretly given up on the human race.

Service, as it’s usually understood, is not going to be enough. Working at soup kitchens, helping stray animals, looking after old women, sitting by the deathbeds of young men who are dying of aids - all these are honorable actions, but we have to go farther. What’s required now is inspired, radical action on every level.

- Andrew Harvey

Visionary, Mystic and Architect of Sacred Activism, Andrew Harvey teaches that one first must ask the question "What breaks my heart?" which will systematically guide anyone who asks and truly answers it into their own unique path of sacred activism.

"Follow your heartbreak" is Harvey's truly inspired variation of Joseph Campbell's 'follow your bliss.' It is the following of our heartbreak (passion, deep longing and genuine faith of heart to be in service) which can take one right to bliss if we pursue our own spiritual work and take guided action to birth the new planet that is arising Sacred action is best undertaken as a form of sacred play.

Andrew says, "Sacred Activism is the "passion" of compassion and love in action on every level, in every realm, to change the world. There is a way to be a conscious creator with God in this stupendous birth of the divine human taking place through the chaos of our time.  We must turn our whole being to God in praise and longing so our actions are illuminated guided and energized by divine light. I dont' say follow your bliss, look where that has gotten us. I say follow your heartbreak."

5.
I Am with those who's heart is broken for My sake.

The Warrior Spirit of Truth, Muhammad transmitted that Allah says, "I Am with those who's heart is broken for My sake." May all our heartbreak be transformed for the Divine's sake and may God be with us in every endeavor and in every action and deeds that we perform in this world.

# Resources on Sacred / Spiritual Activism:
* The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism by Andrew Harvey via Google Book
* The 12 Keys of Spiritual Activism via Youtube
* The 11 Keys Of Spiritual Activism
* Fierce Light
* Review of The Hope
* Principles of Spiritual Activism
* How to Be a Sacred Activist
* Beyond Spiritual Activism: Creating a Just and Sustainable Movement for Change
* Spiritual Activism
* Statement of Commitment
* The Chapter of Yoga of Action in Bhagavad-Gita
* Ignorant Addiction to Transcendence

40 Lessons on Breath by Murshid Samuel Lewis

TOWARD THE ONE, THE PERFECTION OF LOVE, HARMONY AND BEAUTY,

THE ONLY BEING; UNITED WITH ALL THE ILLUMINATED SOULS, 

WHO FORM THE EMBODIMENT OF THE MASTER, THE SPIRIT OF GUIDANCE.

1. Breath controls all aspects of life from the seen to the unseen. When breath is in the body, life is in the body; and when breath is not in the body, life is not in the body.

Ryazat (Esotericism): Take a thought, inhale, hold the thought. Exhale and try to hold the thought; there will be a difference. Thus we can learn there is an association between breath and thought, breath and life.

2. Exhalation does not always remove all noxious gases. When it does not, some poisons are left in the body. Therefore, disciples learn to breathe with the whole body and so control inhalation and exhalation.

3. Breath is not to be confused with air. It is something like the relation between magnetism and iron. There is magnetism apart from iron, that is to say there is energy apart from matter. The energy connected with breath is called prana. The science of breath is called pranavada in Sanskrit and pasi anfas in the language of Sufis.

4. What are called spirit and matter in English correspond in some respects to what are called Shiva and Shakti in Sanskrit. The body, being the temple of the Holy Spirit, has accommodation for both Shiva and Shakti.

5. What is called the neck center in Indian esoterics corresponds more or less to the glottis. This organ or gland sends material into the digestive tract, and spirit with air to the lungs. All bodily functions are therefore of the Shiva or Shakti varieties.

6. Ryazat: Breathe, identifying yourself with breath. Breathe, holding Darood (benediction and sending blessed awareness), i.e., "Toward the One," with each inhalation and exhalation. Identify yourself with the breath; identify with the Darood. This helps free you from identification with the body.

7. Practice meditation by repeating the Darood (“Toward the One”) either a prescribed number of times or at least 5 minutes daily. Learn to feel the life-force entering the body. Identify yourself with the breath; identify yourself with the life-force. Do not identify yourself with the body. Thus you will learn to actualize: “This is not my body, this is the temple of God.” This is used as a disciplinary practice for beginners; for more advanced students it is used as a method of identification (fana or yoga).

8. The degree of a person’s spiritual evolution can be measured by the breath—its power, its sweetness, its rhythm, and its tonicity. Spirit and breath become one, and one’s spiritual evolution is measured by the breath.

9. Christ is born when breath enters the body, and Christ is crucified when one thinks of oneself.

Ryazat: Practice thinking of the breath; practice thinking of the breath with Darood; practice concentrating on Love; practice thinking of oneself. One will notice a great change. This selfthought is called nafs by Sufis and is the greatest obstacle to life and happiness.

10. Breathing in unison helps bring harmony. Breathing with Darood helps increase that harmony. Breathing in Darood with a common concentration, e.g., the Sufi symbol, brings a still greater harmony.

Ryazat: Try each of these alone or with others and experience the results.

11. There is a difference in the breath of each kingdom: mineral, vegetable, animal and human.

Ryazat: Try concentrating in turn on a rock or mineral, a precious stone, grass, a tree, an insect and a four-legged animal. Notice the difference in your breathing. (This subject is continued in the Commentary on The Inner Life.)

12. Disharmonies arise because of clashes in the rhythm of breath. These disharmonies can be removed by singing, dancing, devotion and esotericism. Therefore, Sufis use Wazifas and practice Zikar, not only to bring peace and harmony to each person, but also to each group.

13. Both inhalation and exhalation have an effect upon the atmosphere, and it can be harmonious or inharmonious in relation to the atmosphere of another. But when the Etheric element is present, it transmutes the nafs (ego-mind) and prevents inharmony. The Etheric breath is developed through training and Grace.

14. Inhalation and exhalation affect and are affected by every form of thought, speech and action. The details of this are taught to Sufis in the science of Mysticism.

15. Life-force enters with the breath and leaves with the breath. This life-force is stored in the body. It is not the result of caloric intake through food. A stout person may obtain many calories from food without being able to utilize this in action. If the caloric theory alone were true, the stout would always be superior to the thin. The energy in an electric battery is derived from the chemicals introduced and not from the material of the battery. In a similar way, the life-force vitalizes the body, and the body utilizes the life-force. Therefore, the body is an accommodation and not a person.

16. Shiva is breath-energy and Shakti is body material. In Jewish mysticism they are called Mi (meaning who) and Ma (meaning what). It is the interaction between Shiva and Shakti, between Mi and Ma, which accounts for all of life.

17. In some Hindu philosophies such as Samkhya, one is disciplined to identify with Purusha (Shiva) and become free from Prakriti (Shakti). For this, mental instruction does not suffice. Esotericism (Ryazat) must be practiced.

18. The goddess Kali represents the divinization of material forces apart from spirit. This can only be relatively true. There is no Purusha without a trace of Prakriti; there is no Prakriti without a trace of Purusha. The body is not entirely dead because of the absence of life-breath; it is then only an accommodation for sub-human forces.

19. Thus the breath makes the mortal out of the animal. Thus the breath makes the immortal out of the mortal.

20. The Sufi does not force any type of development or unduly activate any gland or center. It is mastery and control of the breath which spiritualizes the whole personality. When the breath and bloodstream and mind are purified by yoga exercises and meditation, the flower of the heart and soul open through the combined efforts of the sun, rain and earth within.

21. Purification may come through the repetition of sacred phrases. In Sufism Wazifas are so used.

22. Given a problem: Meditate on the problem. Given a problem: Meditate on “Toward the One.”

Ryazat: Fikar-concentrate on “La ilaha” with each exhalation, and on “El il Allah” with each inhalation. Do this 20, 33 or 101 times, according to the intensity of the problem. There should be an influx of Kashf or insight that will help throw light on the problem, perhaps solve the problem. This is generally true of headaches, small pains and personal disturbances with loved ones.

23. Practice of Darood (“Toward the One”) will generally give one more strength than another. Practice of Fikar will counterbalance any strength from another. It is therefore not necessary to hold inimical thoughts. By these methods of practicing the presence of God, one assures oneself of self-firmness and helps build a proper atmosphere in relation to others. We all breathe the same atmosphere, and therefore are in communion whether we are aware of it or not.

24. Self-consciousness and self-thinking (manas) are the obstacles to knowledge. No doubt we must and should use our minds. But mental utilization apart from universal harmony is beneficial neither to oneself nor to the generality.

25. The Hindu repeats, “Neti, neti” (Not this, not this). The Sufi has the positive practices of Darood, Zikar and Fikar.

26. The small self is not overcome by any attention to the self. The small self becomes of even less importance when one practices the praise of God or repeats the Divine Attributes (Wazifas).

27. Praise of God is the RIGHT PATH. Then there is no room for ego. The ego is not effaced, but is transmuted by joining in the praise.

28. Light and sound have a direct action upon consciousness and so affect breath. Inhalation and exhalation both have their sounds and also their colors. Each of these has its significance.

29. In a purified body, the Etheric element helps to clarify the tone and beautify the expression. Mild breathing brings about that condition of which Jesus spoke: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Thus, mild breathing may increase the scope for magnetism and bliss.

30. The breath sciences enable one to understand Sufi mysticism in all its aspects.

31. The prayer Nayaz proposes that there are three ways toward health: Through the rays of the sun, through the waves of the air, and through the all-pervading life in space. By space is meant the akasha, which is the accommodation for the life-power. Solar radiance, the magnetisms contained in the Air element, and the life-power in space (prana) all enter the body through the channels of breath.

32. If oxygen were the sole supporter of life, one could breathe contentedly in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. But pure oxygen could also consume. Shiva is not only the divinity in life, he is the destroyer and transformer.

33. The Earth itself breathes. The Mother requires prana for her life. Only deserts remain practically without it. After a rain the air is purified. No doubt this increases the level of ozone in the atmosphere. Ozone is not only physically activated oxygen, it is also a carrier for the all-pervading life in space. Yogis and ascetics often live in high mountain areas where there is less denseness and oxygen, but where the ozone is comparatively higher.

34. Adepts who are able to control the breath and draw the blessings of Nayaz can adapt themselves to any environment.

35. Breath is light. It carries light; it carries color. It invigorates the whole body or any portion of it to which it is directed. Breath carries health. It also carries immortality.

36. Concentrating on the heart, one can purify the breath. Concentrating on the breath and blowing “Hu” one can purify the heart.

37. The breath is the channel for many kinds of magnetism, including what is called Baraka - which means blessing. The Murshid blowing on the disciple can help and bless the disciple. The Shafayat (healer) blowing on the patient can help the patient. The adept blowing on food and drink can help anybody.

38. Practice of Fikar with consciousness of breath develops what may be called the ark - which carries the soul symbolically in the next world. More important, the ark of breath carries the soul actually in all worlds.

39. Identifying oneself with breath is a form of self-effacement which takes one from mortality to immortality. Material things are left behind; spiritual “things” are carried to the next world - carry one to and through the next world.

40. All the denseness of the Earth is left behind when one has this breath realization.

- Teaching of Murshid Samuel Lewis, May God sanctify his Sirr. Shared via Sufi Ruhaniat International

In preparation of Sohbet with Mansur Johnson, author of "Murshid"

Joog Joog Jiyo 
Mera Murshid Sona.

May your spirit live forever,
O precious Master of my Heart!

- Traditional Sufi Song


Prelude

This is a post in preparation for a Sohbet / Interview with Sufi Mansur Johnson (Otis B. Johnson) who is the author of the book, Murshid: a personal memoir of life with American Sufi Samuel L. Lewis, and a close disciple of Ahmed Murad Chisti, who was fondly called Sufi Sam among those who came to love him. 

In the book Mansur Johnson details his three-year association with his teacher Samuel L. Lewis in the San Francisco Bay area during the late 1960s. In the book is Johnson's journal of the time, examines the final years of an intense mystical guide, as well as the peaks and valleys of Johnson's spiritual odyssey. The book is also a time travel back to California's eclectic spiritual counterculture of that period featuring many of the prominent personalities of the time. The book details a unique adventure of spiritual discovery and transformation. Comparing favorably to Irina Tweedie's Daughter of Fire, which is an autobiographical account of her Sufi discipleship with an Indian teacher, the book Murshid describes an even more unique relationship, that of an American student of American Sufi teacher.

Who was Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti?

Mystic, Sufi Master, Zen Teacher, Peace Activist, Horticulturist, Scientist, Madzub: Samuel L. Lewis has been called these things and more.

He is cited as "one of the first exponents of experiential comparative religion" (The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions, 1977). Samuel L. Lewis (1896-1971) was the world’s first Guru-Roshi-Murshid. He was recognized as a Sufi Murshid by the Sufis of eight orders in Pakistan, India, and the Middle East. He was also a Zen roshi, recognized by both the Soto and Rinzai Zen lineages in Japan and Korea. He also spent a long time in an Indian ashram to study Hinduism, until his Hindu guru of the bhakti yoga tradition, Swami Papa Ramdas, confirmed Lewis' ability to enter Samadhi. Many Christians respected him as a teacher of the message of the Bible

The originator of the Dances of Universal Peace was a spiritual renaissance man whose life and teachings were a testimony to truth, originality and embodied spirituality. Though rejected by polite society and even his own family because of his spiritual leanings, Samuel Lewis remained true to the penetrating spiritual vision of human liberation at the core of his being. His life, often difficult, bore much fruit for his students and for the world.

Born in October 18, 1896 to a well-to-do Jewish family (his father was an executive with the Levi Strauss and Co., his mother a Rothschild) Samuel L. Lewis is perhaps one of the most remarkable human being and western mystic of the last century. An unusual child, a child prodigy, his mother often claimed to have had a dream of the Prophet Samuel before the child's birth and there gave him the name.

In 1915, at the age of 18, Samuel goes to the Palace of Education at the World's fair which was held in San Francisco. There he becomes acquainted with Theosophy but later finds that the teachings of Theosophy prove to be only intellectual and he renews his search.

In November 1919, he sees a display of books while walking on Suttter Street. He is unaware of how but soon he is upstairs facing a little dark-haired lady. She is jewish. "You can explain the Kabbala?" he asks. "Yes and all religion." "What is Sufism?" "Sufism is the essence of all religion. It has been brought to the West by Hazrat Inayat Khan."

The woman is Murshida Rabia A. Martin, then Inayat Khan's senior disciple, and his first appointed Murshida. Shortly after this, Samuel is formally begin his study of Zen, meeting the Zen teacher Revered M T Kirby.

In June of 1923, he has a vision of the arrival of Hazrat Inayat Khan and his mystical mergence with him. The next day at noon, the summer solstice, he is summoned to meet Pir-O-Murshid. Samuel walks into the room only to see a tremendous light. "Come, don't be afraid," said the Murshid. He takes initiation. He is loyal to his teacher through thick and thin for the rest of his life: "Inayat Khan is the first person to ever touch my heart."

Thereafter, he introduces Rinzai Zen master Nyogen Senzaki and Hazrat Inayat Khan, who "entered samadhi together."

 In 1925, he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. By his own report he goes into the wilderness to die. This is on land in Fairfax, California, owned by Murshida Martin, dedicated to the Sufi work and called Kaaba Allah. He is to make a khilvat or spiritual retreat. In the midst of it, the legendary Khwaja Khizr appears and offers him the gift of music or poetry. He chooses poetry. Khizr appear again the next night. And then all the Prophets of God appear in vision; Elijah presents him with a robe, and Mohammed appear to him as the Seal of the Prophets. For the next 45 years until his death he never questions the validity of these experiences. He remains silent about them until Hazrat Inayat Khan's return to America in 1926, when he seeks an interview and tells the Sufi master of his experiences. Inayat Khan summons him back for five more interviews and gives him tremendous responsibilities for the Sufi work. He makes him "Protector of the Message."

During the course of these interviews, Inayat Khan yells at him that he has not as many trustworthy disciples as he has fingers on one hand. This yell literally knocks him over, and he later says that it was at this moment that he received the full transmission of baraka (love-blessing-magnetism) from his teacher. It was to be, he later declares, the strength for his whole life.

Darshan: Copyright © 2010 by Mansur Johnson All Rights Reserved

Hazrat Inayat Khan tells him that he is to be a leader in the Brotherhood work, particularly in efforts to build a bridge of communication between the mystics and the intellectuals.

In 1930, three years after his passing, Hazrat Inayat Khan appears to Samuel in vision and exerts pressure upon his crown center. From then on Samuel receives communications from Inayat. He writes lesson paper after paper for the Sufi mureeds. He writes numerous commentaries on the esoteric teachings of the Pir-O-Murshid. These commentaries he continues to write until his death.

In 1965, Samuel makes his first trip to Asia and is accepted everywhere. He is recognized by spiritual teachers of all schools. In 1961, he makes his second trip abroad. He is made a Murshid in the Chisti Order of Sufis, the parents school of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

He originates the Dances of Universal Peace and dedicates them to the Temple of Understanding which is committed, as was Inayat Khan, to providing a house of prayer for all peoples. In 1968, he joins forces with Pir Vilayat KHan, the eldest son of his first teacher, and there follows a great flowering of the Sufi work in the United States. Murshid Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti, as Samuel is now known, appoints his own personal successor, Moineddin Jablonski, from among his disciples, as well as several sheikhs and khalifs.

In January 15, 1971, Murshid returns to his Lord. His works is continued by his energetic and devoted disciples. At the end, all the seeds of his earlier efforts and experiences came to fruition. Finally, re received the Divine instruction, "Harvest that you can, and leave the rest to Me."

- Quoted mostly from the book, text by Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, a close disciple of Sufi Sam

Pir Moineddin assumed leadership of the Ruhaniat in 1971 upon the death of Murshid Samuel Lewis, after the latter designated him as his spiritual successor. Continuing his teacher’s vision, Pir Moineddin oversaw the spread of the Sufi Message of Love, Harmony, and Beauty through spiritual practice, the Dances of Universal Peace, the Healing work, Soulwork counseling, and conscious community involvement. The Ruhaniat grew from some 150 people to a worldwide network of Sufi communities throughout forty-two states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, Kuwait, The Philippines, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.

Its Grace

The first thing that struck me about Samuel L. Lewis (called Murshid, or teacher, by his disciples) was his deep humanness. He had a gruff manner behind which shone a mischievous smile and quick wit. For all practical purposes, this was a man of the world, yet somehow a man of deep religious experience.

His personality, his voice, every aspect of his being, constantly radiated positive magnetism, a sun-like energy that the Sufis call Baraka. He was an energy-transformer capable of bringing other transformers to life through a harmonizing of their energies with his, and his with the highest.

Well into his seventies, Murshid was active from dawn into night. His time was given to teaching spiritual dancing and walking, counseling with disciples and spiritual aspirants, worldwide correspondence, lectures, creative writing, cooking, gardening, and more and more to trying to bring peace to the Holy Land. The amount of work he accomplished each day would have exhausted a man half his age. He explained such extra-ordinary accomplishments, saying, "It's a Grace."

No other man I have ever met so fit the Sufi saying: "Sufism adapts itself to time and space." For Murshid was a spontaneous presence in himself, a perfect Taoist actor, "in the world, but not of it."

- Walter H. Bowart, via Gnostic.org

Harvest what you can 
and leave the rest to Me

"I feel like a gardener who planted a bunch of seeds and nothing came up; and again the next year he planted a bunch more seeds and nothing came up; and again the next year more seeds with the same result; and so on and on and on.  And then this year, he planted a bunch of seeds: not only did they all come up, but all the seeds from the previous year came up and all the seeds from the year before, and so on. 

So I've just been frantically running around trying to harvest all the plants until Allah came to me and said, "Don't worry.  Harvest what you can and leave the rest to Me." 

- Murshid Samuel Lewis, may all his work towards the One be blessed


About Mansur Johnson, Author of Murshid

Otis B. Johnson was a young college professor of English in the 1960s when he joined the exodus of hippies in California to meet someone his friend said could take them where they wanted to go the fastest. Where did they want to go? They wanted to meet the divinity, obtain God-consciousness, get enlightened, find love, experience samadhi, in short - they didn't know for sure. What happened? Otis B. Johnson became Mansur Johnson during a three year encounter with Murshid Sam. This remarkable book is written in the format of a diary, detailing activities and thoughts, letters of the master to various people, which Mansur as secretary would often write for him. 

Mansur Johnson writes, "The truth is sometimes embarrassing. Most everything I have written is autobiographical. I'm not a journalist. I have difficulty writing about people and things. Rather, I write about how I feel, and how I interact with people and things. I am in introvert-intuitive type. This presented a problem when Murshid asked me to write his biography. "You'll have to help me," was my first reaction. Then Murshid died before he ever spoke to me about his life before I met him. Fortunately, Murshid's autobiography is in his letters. Merge those letters with my confessional journal and you have the basis for this memoir."

"Pupil and teacher are one," Murshid taught. Between 1967 and 1970 our lives had merged. Murshid was one with me and all his mureeds. During this period I kept an "esoteric journal" - which Murshid asked me to do - wherein he figured prominently. What little is known about Murshid's earlier life has been presented as an editorial note in Neil Douglas Klotz's Sufi Vision and Initiation.

In early 60s, with two college degrees, a wife and a child, Otis B. Johnson was looking for what many young people in that time was looking for, meaning of life, what to do, how to live? It was the time of hippie explosion. After experiencing a recording of the Human Be-In in Golden Gate part with music and speakers like Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary. Then Johnson's friends Carl told to him about Murshid's message, "Joy without drugs", and it struck a chord.

It was a time when many young felt disillusioned and experimented with drugs. They wanted to experience oneness in shortcut. Many burned out.

"Sufism is based on experience", Murshid said, Very well: drug induced mysticism was our experience. We yearned for more, and we needed guidance. We thought Murshid could take us where we wanted to go the farthest. So there we were in 1967 and celebrated July 4th Independence day at Murshid;s living room in San Francisco with my wife. To Murshid we were young people and he was then 71 years old. The Vietnam War and the hippie phenomenon associated with the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco were nothing to me after this meeting with Murshid. His two bedroom townhouse above a one car garage facing Precita Park in the Mission district became my school, And little by little, the living room above the garage filled up with students. Murshid was retired and lived on a small inheritance, so he was free to attend to those who was attracting.

Two months later I was keeping "an esoteric journal". I never asked Murshid what an esoteric journal was or should contain. all kind of things went in the journal: from dreams and experiences I considered noteworthy to travels, books, personalities and teachings I met on the path.

In short, what impressed or moved me went in, and everything was related to Murshid. He impressed me. I kept coming back. He was my teacher, my father I never had, my friend, my mentor, my self.

My story during this time is Murshid's story. His story is my story., That's why this book is called Murshid with the subtitle, a personal memoir of life with American Sufi Samuel L. Lewis. The youthful protagonists called Mansur in this tale is no longer with us. Neither is the old man named Samuel. Only the fragrance remain. Only the love can give a clue. Lovers everywhere knows what I am talking about.

May this book awaken you and inspire you to continue to strive for more life, more love, more joy and more peace. "

Some people have complained about the abrupt ending of this book. It is true: the ending is abrupt.

 ... Please listen carefully. It is as it is because abrupt was how Murshid's passing seemed to so many of us. We didnt want to believe that a man so alive and vibrant could be takes from us as fast as the wipe of a scimitar guillotining a head from a body. And then there is art. And the certainty of life and death... Another reason I end the book like this is for art's sake. The intention is to invoke a circle and suggest to the reader: reread, and get stuck repeatedly, as I do, on a single sentence that embodies some noble aspect of the man known as Murshid. You may go high and dissolve in tears or soar dry-eyed in ecstasy. If so, please join me in saying, Thank you, Murshid."

Eat, Dance and Pray together

According to Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, his esoteric secretary in the last years of his life, Murshid Samuel Lewis offered Sufi teachings to the young people and hippies of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s because no one else was doing it. In the upsurge of interest in Eastern spirituality of that period, Zen, Hindu meditation and many other practices were available, but not Sufism. Murshid Sam would offer a full week’s program of dharma talks, Dance classes, Walks in astrological yoga and the Sufi gathas, and during the 1960s a growing group of disciples gathered around him at his home in Precita Park, San Francisco. Often feeding his students meals from his own table, he said that his peace plan for the world was to "Eat, Dance and Pray together."

On the Sohbet / Interview

"I have no fonder memory of the 60s than the appearance of this strange-looking man, who said things that made me laugh, then smile, then later pause in appreciation of a spiritual original, a pioneer." - Dr. Jacob Needleman

The interesting period of 60s and early 70s which is marked by a pioneering interest of knowing and experiencing eastern tradition by many western seekers, flow of spiritual wisdom from east to the west, a breaking free from the old structure, embracing new culture and openenss - all of that converged. Teachers like Murshid Samuel L. Lewis who was initiated by Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Spiritual Master who brought Sufism to the West, embodied spiritual truth and transmitted to many of his disciples, and left a profound influence in the west. The pupil who gathered around such Teachers of 60s and 70s, who were quite immature at those times, but slowly but surely many of them became teaching personalities of their own who have contributed towards preserving the Message in the West. 

Murshid Sam is such a remarkable, many dimensioned and unique personality that if someone try to ascribe label to him, it will be a failure. Such rare beings must not be judged with  petty judgment as they are pioneers in many ways and it generally takes few generations to fully grasp the effect of their contribution. While alive they work in their inspired station in both exoteric and esoteric plane, and after their leaving the body and earth, they still continue to transmit influence through their pupil, their beloveds and those who come to read his writings. We must not make the mistake to imagine that "Friends of God are dead", no they are alive, but our ordinary understanding perceive it not. Quranic teaching forbid to call those who die in the way of God dead, and all realized human beings who dedicate their life in the way of the Living God: al Hayy, in God they continue to live. True human being continues to live in their pupil's heart, in their spiritual work, in their legacy, in their writings and transmissions and many other modes than we can express in the language of market place.

Murshid Sam's own Master Hazrat Inayat Khan's writing reminds some important point in the Sufi Path of being non-judgmental and appreciating one's own Teacher: "Appreciation of the teacher comes by the lack of judging the teacher. Because judging the teacher is the fault that very often manifests, it manifests even not knowingly. No mureed (seeker, disciple) can say that he has not gone through it in some way or the other. I remember once having seen (my own) Murshid's golden shoes and wondering why Murshid must have golden shoes. It was not a lack of appreciation, but it was insolence on my part. My answer came very soon, from the lips of my Murshid, because there everything is known. And his answer was that "the wealth of the earth is at my feet." Gold is the wealth; that at the feet; that is the symbolism. Therefore, a mureed who does not guard against the judging quality, which brings about lack of appreciation, may develop the tendency not to appreciate fully, and in that case, he can not be fully benefited." (Unpublished teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, as shared in the book Murshid)

One of my personal interest to interview the secretary of Murshid Samuel L. Lewis comes from the very fact that I see such pioneering teachers like Sufi Sam in the West in the role of John the Baptist (Yahya Nabi) who's role is to plant seed and prepare way for greater evolution of human consciousness and embodiment of truth. The reason for this prelude post is because many of our visitors here experienced those interesting times of 60s and 70s, so I would like to open the post for questions / sharing of subject which could be part of the Sohbet / Interview. If you are blessed to meet Sufi Sam / his disciples /  Mansur Johnson, or have simply read about him / part of his movement - you are welcome to share your questions that we may put forward to Mansur Johnson in the interview. 

You may leave your questions related to the Sufi Path, Coming of Sufi work in the West, on Murshid Sam and his legacy through Dance of Universal Peace, Sufi Ruhaniyat Movement, either in the comment section or you may email mysticsaint @ gmail.com . Please maintain your politeness (adab) in asking / posting questions.

# Resources:
* Official site of Mansur Johnson
* Ordering the Book
* Samuel L. Lewis: An illuminated soul and inspiration
* Murshid by Mansur Johnson | a unique adventure of spiritual discovery
* Sufi Murshid Samuel L. Lewis
* Life of Sufi Sam
* Murshid Sam's Living Stream
* Murshid Samuel L. Lewis: Selected Works
* Dances of Universal Peace
* Khankah Sam
* Celebration of Murshid SAM's Birthday - Oct 18, 2006
* Ruhaniyat