Comments on Technology of the Heart: Remain conscious and maintain protective awareness...

James, You still fail to understand truth beyond ...

2010-07-26T02:49:49.509+06:00

James,

You still fail to understand truth beyond contradictions. Your thinking seems to be caught in "wars" and "denials" which you tend to see everywhere even whereas they are not. Surely enough what you tend to see is not in my words - I deny no thing and make war against no body. It is you who project your own mind thinking on others' words. But be aware that these are your projections, not my sayings.
I am the one who says that "Only silence communicates the truth as it is", but you are the one who sees exclusivism in it.
It shows your failure to understand what silence is. For you "silence is a denial of everything else". For me silence is the womb in which everything else is born, silence is the Creator of everything and everybody. There can never be exclusivism in silence, because silence is encompassing all.

"Surely everything communicates the truth as it is, because how can anything be outside of Truth/Reality? To be Truth, it must by its very nature encompass everything." - Yes, it is true, truth encompasses everything but no thing encompasses truth, nothing encompasses silence. Therefore, to be in utter silence is to be with God. Then whatever you say, it will be God saying it, whatever words you use, it will be God using them, not your mind. Then you become just a vehicle for the Silence to be voiced, and this vehicle can be named with different names - Osho, Mohammad, Jesus, Buddha, but howsoever you may name the vehicle, it is God's vehicle.

Aliya, you were the one who said "Only...

2010-07-25T19:41:17.533+06:00

Aliya, you were the one who said "Only silence communicates the truth as it is", and I was responding to the exclusivism in that word "only".

I'm not disputing with you whether the "truth as it is" can be found in silence, just your implied denial that it can't be found anywhere else. Surely everything communicates the truth as it is, because how can anything be outside of Truth/Reality? To be Truth, it must by its very nature encompass everything.

Aliya, for someone who is so insistent that Truth can only be found in silence, and that words get in the way of that experience, you still seem to need to use words (and, for that matter, your mind) to make that point. [And, gosh, your beloved Osho could talk for India! How many millions of words did he pour into print?]

Isn't it time to stop this silly war against the world, and the 'mental', and simply accept these things as part and parcel of who and what you are as a human being?

James, You try to find contradictions whereas the...

2010-07-25T13:33:04.877+06:00

James,

You try to find contradictions whereas they are not.
Were not you the one who said that "Truth/Reality embraces every contradiction"? Or it was just somebody else quotation borrowed by you?
How did you come to the conclusion that "the deep space of utter silence" is contradictory and "instead of" "the world of constant noise and activity"?
To ask the question "Is all of this life, outside of deep meditation, then worthless?" simply shows a lack of understanding what meditation is. Meditation is awareness and awareness is meditation, something well known by the Sufi mystics who you often quote here. Therefore, you can be in meditation (and you should be) everywhere you are, you move, you act. That is why Sufi mystics as well as all Buddhas of all the times have emphasized on being like a lotus flower, in the world, but not of it, remaining constantly aware/meditative about this world, aloof and detached from the worldly manifestation. To be just a witness of What Is.

As you correctly said it here it seems your mind is "only capable of recognising the validity of one position: if this is true, then that must be false", if silence is then life is not. And that is the utter failure of the mind to understand God's reality. Only by transcending the mind and reaching the space of no-mind, only by reaching the heart which is"capable of every form" and through it reaching your innermost center of being can you understand that to be in utter silence is a state of your innermost core of being and it is not "anti-life" as you try to impart, but a life affirming state of your being, a benediction showering love and compassion all around. In this state of utter silence whatever you do, whatever you say is done and said by Silence Itself.

Only silence communicates the truth as it is. Y...

2010-07-25T01:36:23.276+06:00
Only silence communicates the truth as it is. Your existence is the truth, and when you are silent you are in truth. And if the silence is absolute then you are the ultimate truth.

If that were the case, though, we'd all better head for deep space, where we could be immersed in utter silence, and where we could thus recognise ourselves as 'ultimate truth'.

God, in "His" infinite wisdom, decided instead to place us in a world of constant noise and activity. Is all of this life, outside of deep meditation, then worthless?

To the Yogi in the depths of the jungle, or in a cave in the Himalayas, perhaps it is seen like this. But the Sufis have always sought to be "in the world, but not of it", realising that one doesn't need to be in silence in order to remain in the presence of Divinity and recognising, too, that everything that happens to us 'in the world' is as much a Divine Theophany as anything that happens in deep meditation.

" The Silence has a voice and the real Music ...

2010-07-25T01:24:31.626+06:00
" The Silence has a voice and the real Music teaches you the silence"

Yes, the Silence has a voice, God has a voice and God speaks to you. This is the inner voice within you. Learn to listen to it only!

And yes, music teaches you the silence. It is the stretched soul that makes music. And souls are stretched by the pull of opposites — opposite points, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity, where energies flow smoothly in one direction, there will be much doing but no music, much noise but no music. The music is created by the meeting of silence and sound,
the music is created by the polar opposites.

When polar opposites disappear in you, when the self, creator of all opposites, disappears, only silence remains.
When knowledge disappears, only innocence remains.

Only silence communicates the truth as it is. Your existence is the truth, and when you are silent you are in truth. And if the silence is absolute then you are the ultimate truth.

The famous story of al Balyani, told by Jami' ...

2010-07-24T17:30:53.507+06:00
The famous story of al Balyani, told by Jami' in his Nafahat al Uns ("Breaths of Intimacy') is worth retelling here, since it illustrates the mistake that people often makes when they approach the idea of the Unity of Existence.

"One of the students of the Shaykh [Awhad al-din Balyani, one of the great exponents of wahdat al-wujud] was in retreat on a mountain. A snake came near him and he tried to grab hold of it. The snake bit him and his limbs began to swell. The Shaykh came to know about this and sent for his student.
He then said to him, 'Why did you grab hold of the snake, so that it bit you?'

'Oh master,' replied the student, 'you yourself said that there is nothing but God. On seeing the snake, I saw only God. Plucking up courage, I grabbed hold of it!' The Shaykh replied, 'When God manifests himself to you under the aspect of terrifying power, run away! Don't approach Him, otherwise the same thing will happen to you again!' Then he sat him down and said to him, 'Hold back from acting so boldly until you know Him perfectly.'

After that he recited some invocations and blew on him. The swelling went down and the student was healed."

All higher truth appears to be paradoxical. But...

2010-07-24T17:24:03.113+06:00
All higher truth appears to be paradoxical. But this paradox is paradox only on the level of exterior of the exterior, on the level of words and language and our mind.

Enter into the interior of the interior, paradox will vanish. Only truth in it shall remain.

Sadiq, Truth doesn't just appear to be paradoxical - Truth/Reality is paradoxical. It is so because it embraces every contradiction: nothing can be outside of Reality, and thus the opposite of everything cannot be outside of Reality either.

The difference between the 'mind' and the 'heart' here is that our minds are only capable of recognising the validity of one position: if this is true, then that must be false. The mind is a faculty of making distinctions: this is both its strength and its weakness.

The 'heart', on the other hand, is capable of admitting the inherent truth of all positions, even though to the mind they may seem contradictory. "My heart is capable of every form...", as Ibn al-'Arabi says in the Tarjuman.

The difference between the mind and the heart in this respect is beautifully illustrated by the story where the Mulla Nasrudin is appointed a judge - where the Mulla can be seen to represent the 'heart' and the clerk of the court represents the 'mind'.

First up in Nasrudin's court is the prosecution counsel, who makes such an eloquent case that the Mulla jumps up and declares "I believe you're right!" The clerk of the court tugs at his sleeve and whispers: "But, your honour, you haven't yet heard the defence".

When the defence counsel speaks, so convincing is his plea that once more the Mulla jumps up. "I believe you're right".

"They can't both be right!", insists the clerk of the court.

"I believe you're right!"

For Nasrudin, Truth is not either this or that but the inherent rightness of everything. This is contradictory in its outward expression, but - as an expression of Truth - inwardly consistent.

If we seek to banish paradox by 'going within', it is because we are still outwardly dominated by the mind, which creates this discomfort. We seek a resolution to paradox, rather than the ability to live with it.

It is precisely this (living with paradox), though, that the opening of the heart facilitates. Like Nasrudin, we can affirm the Truth of paradoxes without concern about how inconsistent or contradictory our position is.

Incidentally, this is exactly the same situation as pertains with (what the ancients called) The Divine Names. We live in a universe whose conflicts and tensions and oppositions can be seen as created by the contradictory demands of the great energies that shape it. To use the ancient language, we can say that the Name al Hayy, The Living, demands life, while the Name Al Mumit demands death, and so forth.

At the same time, however, all of these Names name One Single Being. So Life is an expression of the One Being, but so is Death; 'expansion' is an expression, but so also 'contraction'; 'gentleness' but also 'strength', 'hauteur' but also 'generosity'.

The Mulla shows us the right way to approach this, which is to affirm the rightness of everything that we encounter. Which is to say, to affirm that everything that encroaches upon us is, in essence, no other than "He".

However, the apparent contradiction between 'heart' and 'mind' does not need to be banished either. It is quite possible to affirm the inherent Truth of something with the heart while also denying it (for instance, for the purposes of one's job) with the mind. This approach can be seen frequently in the stories of the Sufis (for instance, in the story of Junayd issuing the fatwa against Hallaj).

Dear Helena, Thank you for your lovely inquisitive...

2010-07-23T10:42:08.678+06:00
Dear Helena,
Thank you for your lovely inquisitive comment.

How sound / vibration is produced is really fascinating. When a musical instrument produce music, it may remind us how God says in the Quran, "He is the Creator from nothingness" When a sound is produced, it comes from no-sound. So music come from silence.

Now when a beautiful music plays, and when we listen to it with undivided attention, there descends a beautiful silence in the heart-landscape. Chattering of the mind fades away, and a silence arrive where the listener and that which is listened (the beautiful music) become one. Thats when beautiful music teaches you the silence. It goes beyond that too. One who listen to beauty more and more (be it speech, beautiful scripture or sound or music), the heart learn / become more and more silent. Then even when there is no audible music playing, the heart remain in that beauty of silence.

And by the way, when Silence is written with capital S, for the Sufis thats an attribute of God too. And since God teaches us everything (as mentioned in this verses of the Quran too, quoted in this post), Silence teaches us voice too.
There is a Sufi saying which goes, "God is Silent and its easier to reach God in silence." In perfect silence of the heart, in meditation and contemplation and turning to God, God speaks to our heart, with His voice inaudible to our external ear, but perfectly audible to our inner hear. So we say, Silence has a voice and must be listened in silence.

Now come to paradoxes themselves.

All higher truth appears to be paradoxical. But this paradox is paradox only on the level of exterior of the exterior, on the level of words and language and our mind.

Enter into the interior of the interior, paradox will vanish. Only truth in it shall remain.

For the seekers, there is a journey. And the journey is from duality to non-duality, from appearances of 'ten thousand things' as they say in far east tradition, to the Essential One.

When the seeker advance, he or she approach more and more towards oneness. This itself is an immense subject and journeying in the Path is the best to understand it than talking about it.

One day my dear, we shall understand all paradoxes effortlessly and may when that day arrive at your door, you will remember "the doorkeepers".

dear Sadiq, thank you so much for the beauty of th...

2010-07-23T01:24:22.218+06:00
dear Sadiq,
thank you so much for the beauty of this Surat, Surat al Baqara, i am not familiar very much with the Quran, and every time there is a quote from it in the post i quench my thirst by drinking from it. I really liked this particular Surat,, but i couldnt help noticing that there were a couple of lines , just above the track playing, that said " The Silence has a voice and the real Music teaches you the silence". It surely is a paradox: can you please explain why there are so many paradoxes and so many contradictory statements in some of those lines?Is this something specific to the Sufi Way?is this to do with the Real as it is in the Sufi path?
thank you very much,
Helena

Dear Ossi, Here is the detail of the track playing...

2010-07-22T21:36:56.836+06:00
Dear Ossi,
Here is the detail of the track playing now:

Remembrance by Benjy Wertheimer from the Album 'Voice of the Esraj'. Google the name, it will take you to cdbaby site where you can order even.

Esraj is an indian instrument with hauntingly beautiful sound.

Peace!

dear Sadiq: great post ,like always! Can you you g...

2010-07-22T17:27:57.930+06:00
dear Sadiq: great post ,like always! Can you you give more info about the musical piece you "Remembrance". Artist,album? Thank you.