Say Allah, He is One

One of my most memorable lessons from my grandmother was the teaching of this surah. She made me memorize it and the minute I arrived at her house. she would recite and I would follow, then she made me laugh by making her tongue into a taco! This surah was so important to her and she was absolutely adamant about me committing it to memory, she told me to recite it over and over every day, as many times as I could. She also said that in times of trouble or deep despair, that I was to recite this Surah and rest in the knowledge that He is Allah, He is One. As a 10 year old, the only thing I really wanted to do was to please my grandmother, so I did as she instructed and throughout my life through joy and sorrow, this Surah has been with me. Always.

Much later in life, as I began to study formally about Islam, I came across many interesting tafsirs about this Surah that my grandmother had taught me. But the one tafsir that was so profound, that as I was reading it, I felt the strings of the deepest part of me were being plucked was Ibn al-Arabi's metaphysical exposition.

The common translated names for this Surah are the surah of purity, fidelity or sincerity. It is also known as the surah Al-Tauhid and plays a significant role in the metaphysics of Ibn al-/Arabi. Perhaps because it refers to the absolute Oneness of God. One blogger had this to say about Ibn al-'Arabi's tenderings of this Surah and I quote:

"This very short surah might be considered the basis of Islamic metaphysics. Certainly for Ibn ‘Arabi, it is tremendously important, and he had a vision in which it was given to him as a special gift. Indeed, we can see it as containing the seed of his whole, vast exposition on the metaphysics of being..."

You will find the blog at https://ibnarabi360.wordpress.com/tag/ikhlas/

The gist of it is this, my grandmother taught me much more than just a Surah, she taught me faith, and the importance of having a sense of humor. Life is hard enough as it is, and these two lessons have stayed with me all these years. May Allah bless my grandmother, Hadiana Nasiboe Roespinoedji, who rests in the eternal abode of the One.

Allah is Sufficient for me

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

Thoughts in Solitude 

Allah calls Himself Al-Wakeel— The Trustee, The Disposer of Affairs, The Guardian— on 14 occasions in the Quran. Al-Wakeel is the only One who takes charge of the affairs of those under His care, managing all matters as He pleases. He is the One to be relied on, for all power belongs to Him!

 The Disposer of Affairs, The One to be Relied Upon

Wakeel comes from the root waaw-kaaf-laam, which points to three main meanings. The first meaning is to appoint or entrust for the care or management of something. The second main meaning is to be a guardian of one’s interests, and the third is to rely upon.

This root appears 70 times in the Quran in four derived forms. Examples of these forms include tawakkaltu (“I put my trust”) and al-mutawakkileen (“the ones who put trust”).

Linguistically the wakeel of someone else is the person who efficiently represents him or does what he is incapable of doing on his behalf. Al-Wakeel is the ultimate Trustee, guardian and administrator of all things and we can trust in the fact that Al-Wakeel will provide the perfect resolution for every matter!

Al-Wakeel Himself says: . . . But it increased them in faith, and they said, “Sufficient for us is Allah , and [He is] the best Disposer of affairs [Quran, 3:173] . . . To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And sufficient is Allah as Disposer of affairs [Quran, 4:171] and The Lord of the East and the West; there is no deity except Him, so take Him as Disposer of [your] affairs[Quran, 73:9] 

Al-Wakeel and Other Names

In the ayaat in which the name Al-Wakeel is mentioned, Allah gives a reference to His power and authority. The name Al-Wakeel is related in meaning to Al-Haseeb (The Reckoner, The Sufficer) and to Al-Qadeer (The All-Powerful); we entrust our affairs to Allah because only He has control over all things and only He is sufficient for us as provider and reckoner.

How Can You Live By This Name?

1.       Have trust and work hard.Reliance on Allah (tawakkul) means you entrust your affairs to Him, take every worldly precaution, and submit to Al-Wakeel for the result. An example is the hijrah for which the prophet salallahu ‘alayhi wasallam and Abu Bakr radiyyallahu ‘anhu planned according to their means. However, they were overtaken by the Quraysh. This is when the prophet calmed Abu Bakr with a beautiful statement oftawakkul, saying What do you think is the destiny of two people who have Allah for their Companion?

2.       Pray istakharah. 

One of the most beautiful examples of trusting in Al-Wakeel’s choice is the istakharah prayer. Ask Allah that if the matter is good for you to make it easy for you and if not, to take it away and then be content with the decree of Al-Wakeel.  Make it a habit to practice this sunnah in your daily life, for big and small matters, as the prophet salallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam taught the companions to make istakharah in all things, just as he used to teach them surahs from the Quran!

3.       Don’t be anxious about the future. 

Many people are depressed or worried about their or their children’s future. Don’t fear the power of the enemy, never go for unlawful earnings, and know that you can trust Al-Wakeel because He will manage your affairs in the way best for you! Be inspired by what Ibraheem ‘alayhi sallam said when he was thrown in the fire: Allah suffices me, for He is the best disposer of affairs (hasbunallaahu wa ni’mal wakeel)!* Take the example of those who entrusted their souls to Al-Wakeel, like Haajar, when she was left in the desert with Ismaeel ‘alayhi sallam who said with true belief: Did your Lord order you to do so, then He shall not forsake us.

4.       Be someone others can trust and rely on. Be someone others can turn to when they need help, and when you have to act on someone’s behalf fear Al-Wakeel and fulfill your duty as good as you can. The Prophet salallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said: Allah will aid a servant (of His) so long as the servant aids his brother. [Muslim]

5. Train yourself to trust Al-Wakeel.
The first time Musa ‘alayhi sallam saw the stick becoming a snake, he ran away in fear. The second time he did not run but felt fright within himself upon being confronted by the magicians, and the third time, the most difficult of these situations, when the army of the Pharaoh was behind them and the sea in front of them, he had no fear; he said what can be translated as, Not at all. Surely my Lord is with me; He will soon guide me. [Quran, 26: 62]  [paraphrased from the series In Thy Name we live by Dr. A. Khaled]

6.      Do dhikr with this name.
Every morning and evening say: حَسْبِ اللهُ لا إله إلا هو، عليه توكلت و هو ربَ العرش العظيم
Allah is sufficient for me. There is no God but He.  I have placed my trust in Him, He is Lord of the Majestic Throne. Whoever says this seven times in the morning after fajr, and seven times after Asr, Allah will take care of whatever worries him of the matter of this world and the hereafter.[Abu Dawood, Muslim]

The Prophet said: Whoever says. (when he leaves his house) – Bismillaah, tawakkaltu ‘alaa Allaah, wa laa hawla wa laa quwwata illaa billaah – In the name of Allah, I put my trust in Allah and there is no power and no strength except with Allah- , it will be said to him: You are taken care of and you are protected and guided, and the devils will move away from him, and one devil says: What can you do with a man who has been guided, taken care of and protected? [Abu Dawood, At-Tirmidhi]

Wallahu ta’alaa ‘alem.

O Allah, Al-Wakeel, we know that You take care of all matters.  Make us of the mutawakkileen, those who gracefully rely on You and guide us to work in this world to the best of our ability. Make us of those others can trust in, protect us against our enemies and ourselves, guard over us and make us entrust our souls to you in times of ease and hardship, ameen! 

SOURCE:  The Understand Quran Academy Team

Every name in the cosmos is His name, not the name of other than He. For it is the name of the Manifest in the locus of manifestation.

Ibn Al-`Arabi~

(II.122.14)

A Spiritual Master

A voice from the past that may shed light unto problems this day and age regarding Spiritual Masters.

Shaykh ad-Darqawi (may God be pleased with him) writes:

One of the effects of Divine Beauty, Grace and Generosity is that one finds the Master who can grant spiritual education; without Divine Grace no one would find or recognize him, since, according to the saying of the Saint Abu'l-`Abbas al-Mursi; "It is more difficult to know a Saint than it is to know God." ....in the Hikam of Ibn `Ata-Illah, it is said: "Exalted be He Who makes His Saints known only in order to make Himself known and Who leads toward them those whom He wishes to lead toward Himself." There is no doubt that the Lord of the inhabitants of Heaven and Earth, our Master, God's Messenger (may God bless him and give him peace) was openly manifested, like a sun on a standard, and in spite of that was not seen by all, but only by some. God veiled him from others, just as He veiled the Prophets (on them be peace) from certain men, and just as He veils the Saints from the men of their time, so much so that they slander the Saints and do not believe them. God's Books testify to this:

"Thou shalt see them looking toward thee and they see not.."
[Qur'an: VII, 198]

and

"They said: what kind of a messenger is this, who eats food and walks in markets..."
[Qur'an: XXV, 7]

and so on, in all other analogous passages. Two thirds or more of the divine Book tells how the Prophets (on them be peace) were slandered by the men of their time. Among those who did not see God's Messenger (may God bless him and give him peace) was Abu Jahl; he saw in the Messenger only the orphan who had been adopted by Abu Talib. The same applies to the spiritual Master who is simultaneously ecstatic (majdhub) and methodical (salik), who is at the same time both drunk and sober; only a few find him. Now if one finds the Master (he sometimes acts in an unexpected way); sometimes he sees that the disciple's Spirit will be freed by fasting and so makes him fast; at another time, on the contrary, he will make him eat to repletion for the same purpose; now he sees that the disciple will benefit spiritually from an increase of outer activity; at another time, from less activity; at one time, from sleeping; at another time, from staying awake; sometimes he wishes the disciple to avoid people, sometimes, on the contrary he advises him to frequent people; for it may be that the inner light of the disciple has suddenly become too strong for him, so that the Master fears he may lose his reason, like many disciples in the past and in our day who have become mad; this is why the Master may bring the disciple out of his retreat and make him mix with people; in order that his spiritual tension may diminish and he be preserved from madness.  In the same way, if the inner light has become too weak, the Master sends him back into solitude in order that it may acquire force, and so forth, the issue is in God's hands. Spiritual mastery could very nearly have ceased to be manifested for the lack of those whose heart is quickened by an ardent desire to follow it, but the divine Wisdom never runs dry.

We see that the spiritual way (tariqah) is necessarily maintained by Divine Force and Power, since it comes down through our Masters from God's Messenger (may God bless him and give him peace). As the Saint al-Mursi used to say: No Master makes himself known to his disciples unless he has been led to do so by inspirations (waridat) and unless he has received the authorization of God and of His Messenger." The blessing (barakah) of this authorization and the secret it implies is what sustains our cause and safeguards the state of those who adhere to it; but God is wiser.


Neither sober nor drunk, sometimes I feel the joy of my soul's eyes looking out through mine. 

~ Mahmoud Shabistari~

My Noah Project

Last month, in my moment of deep, dark despair, I began a rather 'ridiculously ambitious' project. Inspired by Rumi who once said that when all the world is against you, begin a 'ridiculously ambitious' project. Like Noah. Well, this is my Noah project. A thousand cranes to carry my wish to the Heavens. Ever we hope.

You never really know how much you've accomplished until you put it all together. Here are 349 paper cranes so far.

Completion

In a particular sea, I have heard,
pearl shells rise from the depths in April,
opening their mouths to the sky.
Mist also rises, then falls as rain.
A few drops fall into each open mouth.
The shells close and fall again,
their hearts full with a pearl-to-be.
Much later, the diver descends and brings
up a gem of great price.
Eons ago, the divine breath dived into us,
and now it dives again and again,
a thousand pearls wrapped in a blanket.

~Mahmoud Shabistari~

The completion of each stage of the pearl's development was necessary at a particular moment to prepare the way for something else. As Shabistari says a thousand potential pearls lie wrapped within us. To grasp another, we may need to let go of the the one already in our hand.

A traditional translation of this quality is "the Last." It shows us that it is really time to let go. The One Being is there at the moment of ripeness, when the fruit is eaten. Imagine the whole universe as fruit. When it is eaten, Allah is still there, so you can't lose by letting go.

I was at a particular stage in my life, where I longed for completion. After a few "right-back-where-I-started" moments, this Name appeared to me. Enabling me to see clearly and ever so painfully what I was unwilling to let go of after all these years. Breathing this pathway illuminated what I needed to do...in the light of the One.

Subhana'Llah. In all things, God be praised.


Sources:
~ The Sufi Book of Life by Neil Douglas-Klotz
~ Mahmoud Shabistari's Gulshan-i raz

All things love God by their very nature

The words of God are in and around us, since we and the cosmos are the articulations of the Breath of the All Merciful...we love God in everything that we love. Love of God is a fact of existence. So by our very nature we love God...realizing that it is Him that we love in all that we love is life's quest. At least in this seeker's heart...

and God knows best, indeed He knows all.

Those who love God are those whom God loves.

~a Sufi saying~

There are those among us who see God but are ignorant of Him. But just as no one is poor toward anyone else, so also—by God—none but God is loved in the existent things. It is He who is manifest within every beloved to the eye of every lover—and there is nothing which is not a lover. So the cosmos is all lover and beloved, all of it goes back to Him…

Though no one loves any but his own Creator, he is veiled from Him by the love for Zaynab, Su’ad, Hind, Layla, this world, money, position, and everything loved in the world. Poets exhaust their words writing about all these existent things without knowing, but the gnostics never hear a verse, a riddle, a panegyric, or a love poem that is not about Him, hidden beyond the veils of forms.

~Ibn al-`Arabi~

From his Futuhat al-Makkiyyah II.326.18

Translated by William Chittick

Quoted in the Sufi Path of Knowledge, p 181

The Sublime Spirits, Where are they?

The loved ones1 of my heart--where are they? Say, by God, where are they?

As thou sawest their apparition2, wilt thou show to me their reality?

How long, how long was I seeking them! and how often did I beg to be united with them,

Until I had no fear of being parted from them, and yet I feared to be amongst them3,

Perchance my happy star4 will hinder their going afar from me,

That mine eye may be blest with them, and that I may not ask, 'Where are they?'

~Ibn al-`Arabi~
The Tarujman al-Ashwaq, XLV

 Mount Fuji’s Sea of Trees

Aokigahra Forest

Mount Fuji

Japan

NOTES on the Text:
1. the sublime spirits
2. their manifestation in the world of similitude
3. lest their radiance should consume me
4. the Divine favor predestined to me

This World is midwinter

There is no doubt that this world is midwinter. Why are inanimate objects called "solid"? Because they are all "frozen."*  These rocks, mountains, and other coverings that garb this world are all "frozen."  If the world is not midwinter, why is it frozen? The concept of the world is simple and cannot be seen, but through the effect one can know that there are such things as wind and cold.  This world is like the season of midwinter when everything is frozen and solidified.  What sort of midwinter?  A mental midwinter, not a tangible one.  When that "divine" breeze comes, the mountains of this world will begin to melt and turn to water. Just as the heat of midsummer causes all frozen things to melt, so on the Day of Resurrection, when that breeze comes, all things will melt.

~Rumi~ 


*This line of reasoning is based on an etymological similarity between jamad (solid, inanimate) and munjamid (frozen).

SOURCE: Signs of the Unseen, Discourses of Rumi, Discourse Twelve

Ladder Rungs

In a human being is such a love, a pain, an itch, a desire that, even if he were to possess a hundred thousand worlds, he would not rest or find peace. People work variously at all sorts of callings, crafts, and professions, and they learn astrology and medicine, and so forth, but they are not at peace because what they are seeking cannot be found. The Beloved is called dil-aram because the heart finds peace through anything else? All these other joys and objects of search are like a ladder. 

The rungs on the ladder are not place to stay 

but to pass through.

The sooner one wakes up and becomes aware, the shorter the long road becomes and the less one's life is wasted on these "ladder rungs."

Source: W.M. Thackston, Jr., Signs of the Unseen, The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi, Discourse Fifteen, Part 1.

I know you're tired but come, this is the way...

The angel is free because of his knowledge,

the beast because of his ignorance.

Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.

Now some men have so followed their intellects that they have become totally angelic and pure light. These are prophets and saints who are free of fear and hope, the persons on whom no fear shall come, and who shall not be grieved [10:62]. There are others whose intellects have been so overcome by their lust that they have become totally bestial. Still others remain in the struggle. They are the group within whom a certain agony or anguish is manifested and who are not content with their lives. They are believers. The saints stand waiting to bring them to their own station and make them like themselves. The devils lie in wait to pull them down to their level at the lowest depth.

We want them, and others want them.

Who will win? Whom shall they prefer?

When the assistance of God shall come, and the victory... [110:1]. The exoteric interpreters have interpreted this passage to mean that the Prophet's ambition was to make the world Muslim and to bring all men to God's way. When he perceived his own death approaching, he said,"Alas! I have not lived long enough to call the people." "Grieve not," said God, "for at the hour whereon you pass, I shall cause countries and cities, which you would conquer by armies and the sword, all of them I shall cause to become obedient and faithful. And the sign shall be that at the end of your allotted time you shall see people coming in flocks to become Muslim. When you see that, know that your time for departure has come. Now extol and ask for forgiveness, for you will come to that pass."

The mystics, on the other hand, say that the meaning is as follows: man imagines that he can rid himself of his base characteristics by means of his own action and endeavor. When he strives and expends much energy only to be disappointed, God says to him, "You thought it would come about through your own energy and action and deeds. That is indeed a custom I have established, that is, that what you have you should expend on Our behalf. Only then does Our mercy come. We say to you, 'Travel this endless road on your own weak legs.' We know that with your weak legs you will never be able to finish the way--in a hundred thousand years you would not finish even one stage of the way. Only when you make the effort and come onto the road to fall down at last, unable to go another step, only then will you be uplifted by God's favor. A child is picked up and carried while it is nursing, but when it grows older it is left to go on its own; so now when you have no strength left you are carried by God's favor. When you had the strength and could expend your energy, from time to time in a state between sleep and wakefulness, We bestowed upon you grace for you to gain strength in your quest and to encourage you. Now that you no longer have the means to continue, look upon Our grace and favor and see how they swarm down upon you. For a hundred thousand endeavors you would not have seen so much as an iota of this. Now celebrate the praise of the Lord, and ask pardon of Him [110:3]. Seek forgiveness for your thoughts and realize that you were only imagining that all this could come from your own initiative. You did not see that it all comes from Us. Now that you have seen that it is from Us, seek forgiveness." He is inclined to forgive [110:3].

Quoted from Signs of the Unseen (Fihi ma fihi), translated by W.M. Thackson, Jr. It is a collection of Rumi's lectures, discourses, conversations and comments on various topics. There are seventy-one sections, of which this is discourse number seventeen. (pages 82-83).

mata nasru Allahi alainna nasra Allahi qareeb

When cometh Allah's help? Now surely Allah's help is nigh.

[2:214]

A Mystery: The long interval impedes

When the Men who have no impediment

  reach the long interval,

you will see among their warriors

  a servant whose state brings

the pain of distance,

  this cutting him off from them.

He says: Since God created human beings hasty [17:11] and He created in them seeking, but they do not gain the object of their search in the first step, the interval draws out for them because of their hastiness. They halt because of the length of the interval, and they are held back from gaining benefit.

After all, God is not reached through seeking. Hence the gnostic seeks his own felicity, not God. One does not aspire for what one already has. God is greater than that He should be sought through the distance of steps, hardship of deeds, and reflective thoughts. Just as He does not become spatially confined, so also He does not become distinct. He is known to us in the sense that in each thing He is identical with each thing, but unknown in the distinction, because of the diversity of the forms that we witness.

As soon as you say concerning a form, "He is this," another form with which He is identical will veil you from that form. Concerning it you will say, "He is this," and His He-ness will absent itself from you through the form that goes. Then you will not know what you depend upon, exactly like the person who is bewildered by reflective consideration and does not know what he believes. As often as a proof shines forth to him, an obfuscation also shines forth.

No proof of Him can ever be safe from obfuscation, because He is the Greatest Proof, and we are His obfuscation.

SOURCE: 
Ibn al-`Arabi, Futuhat al-Makkiyah, VI 442.31
translated by William C. Chittick in The Self-Disclosure of God, Principles of Ibn al-`Arabi's Cosmology, pgs 14-15

In our efforts to understand wujud, either in itself or in its relation to the cosmos, at some point we become bewildered, a state, according to Ibn al-`Arabi, that can be considered one of the highest stations of knowledge. 

Shaykh al-Akbar says: "Through the knowledge which arises in contemplation, [the attainer] turns to face what is beyond each appearance: the Truth beyond appearances. For the Apparent One, though He is one in essence, is infinite in aspects. They are His traces in us."  The words echo: "There is no God but He, everything perishes except His Face. Glorious and Magnificent"

In all praise, it is only He that is worshiped.

In a relationship...with God

an excerpt from
Mystical Love
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

A relationship with God is in many ways is simpler and yet more confusing than a human relationship. It is simpler because there are not the drama and psychological dynamics that happen between two people. Human love evokes a complex mesh of projections as deep psychological patterns are activated within each person. We project onto our lover ...images, shadow-dynamics and other patterns that all become bonded together.  

Loving God has a purity and simplicity that are sadly denied in the complexity of a human relationship.

Loving God, we can give ourself entirely without the danger of being caught in projections or the drama of another's unresolved problems. We are free of the entanglements that belong to two people. And yet there is the primal difficulty of having an invisible, intangible beloved. Where are the arms to hold us, the kiss to intoxicate us? Without any physical presence, how do we know it is real, and not just a fantasy? We live in a culture that only values the tangible, external world. We are bombarded by images that associate a love affair with physical sex. Sufi poetry may use images of physical beauty...but these are metaphors, and we long to touch with our own hands, to taste with our own lips. We long to run our fingers through our lover's hair, to smell a fragrance that is not ethereal.

Yet an inner love affair has a potency that is denied any human lover. We are awakened to this love by a kiss that is on the inside of our heart. A kiss on the lips may taste like wine and draw us into our lover's arms, but He kisses us in the most intimate part of our own being, a place so secret that no human lover has access. He kisses us without the limitations of duality and with a touch that is love itself. From within our own heart He comes to us, opens us, embraces us. Here there are no barriers of protection, but a vulnerability and softness that belong to the inwardness of our own heart. With tenderness and intoxicating sweetness He is present, unexpected and yet longed for, and His kiss is more than one could believe is possible. 

Yet there are days, even months, when the Beloved withdraws and does not show His face, when you are left with the desolation of your own aloneness. It seems that there is not even a trace of this sweetest fragrance. Then it is easy to doubt this inner love affair and project our longing onto another. With a human lover there is a moment's taste of bliss, a physical knowledge of union. We want what we can hold with our own hands, feel with our body. With the heart's Beloved there is a promise of so much more, and yet it is so intangible, and we are always the victim, always the one who's waiting.

In this love affair all of our patterns of seduction, the games we play to keep our lover, are useless. We become so vulnerable. We are love's prey.

In human relationships we have been taught to look after ourself, to draw boundaries and not to be victimized. We know that we shouldn't be taken advantage of, that we shouldn't be violated. This is very important, learning to keep our human integrity and sense of self, not to sell ourself for what appears as love or the promise of security. But the ways of mystical love are very different. In the relationship with our soul's Beloved we have to give ourself without restrictions, and we are violated, abused, and loved beyond compare. We are taken by force, abducted and transformed, and we give ourself willingly to this self-destruction through love.

Take me to you, imprison me, for I 

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

~John Donne~

We are purified through love's violation, we taste our own union through love's destruction.

Love takes us by force beyond every limit, beyond what we think is possible; we are tortured and made whole by love--time and time again we lose and resdiscover ourself, only to fall deeper and deeper into love's endless abyss. Rumi, who through Shams came to know the intoxicating intensity of this real love, describes how it is given freely and yet takes us into a vastness that can seem like death:

Subtle degrees of domination and servitude

are what you know as love.

But love is different it arrives complete

just there like the moon in the window.

Desire only that of which you have no hope

seek only that of which you have no clue.

Love is the sea of not-being 

and there intellect drowns.

This is not the Oxus river

or some little creek.

This is the shoreless sea; here swimming ends always in drowning.

A million galaxies are a little scum on that shoreless sea.

 Love's ocean is real and endless, a place not for the fainthearted, not for those who like security and safety. The mystic is seduced and dragged into this love, seduced by its softness, dragged by its power. This love abuses our sense of self, destroys our patterns of control, violates our deepest beliefs, and takes us back to God. In this love there is neither form nor limit, only a completedness beyond even our dreaming, a sweetness beyond imagining, and a terror that belongs to the Absolute. Love takes us into the infinite emptiness of His Presence, into the vastness that is hidden within our own heart.

The mystic is someone who gambles on this love, who gives his/her life to love's longing. There is no safety net for disappointed lovers, no self-help group for those caught in this fire. The path of love is described by Saint Gregory of Nyssa as "a bridge of hair across a chasm of fire," and what happens when you come to the middle of this bridge? The fire burns the bridge and you fall into the depths, into the flames. This is why the Sufis call the lane of love a one-way street. Once this primal passion has been awakened the lover cannot return to the rational world, to the world of the ego. You can only give yourself, and give yourself, and give yourself.

The sensible man never goes near this fire, but remains within the safety of the known.

This love is an addiction as potent as poison. It destroys everything we once held precious; everything that seemed important is burnt in its flames; we hunger for just another taste of this love which is destructive and so sweet--nothing else matters. The values of the world fall away as this inner love affair takes hold of us, a passion a thousand times more powerful than any human love. In a human love affair there is always the safety of our self: we are separate from our lover and can withdraw. But our soul's Beloved does not belong to duality, as Rumi writes: "He is closer to you than yourself to yourself." Can we hide from our own heart, can run away from our own life's blood? We can try, but if we just turn inward He is waiting for us, offering us the sweetest torture, the softest death.

Love's death is real, and yet we remain alive, sometimes limping through the days. We are addicted to an inner lover who demands everything and yet so often leaves us devastated and alone. He awakens in us a hunger that is real, and then seemingly abandons us. The inner deserts through which lovers travel are desolate beyond belief, just as the moments of intoxication are bliss upon bliss. Once you give yourself to this poison there is no going back, because the world has lost its attraction. You are like Majnun, the madman, the lover.

Sometimes an external relationship can open our heart--maybe a hopeless love affair pierces through our defenses. But once we are gripped by the heart's true passion then the real sorrow of the soul comes to the surface, the soul's longing for its only Beloved.

Need

In Sufi literature one of the most often quoted extra-Qur'anic traditions revealed by Allah, a hadith qudsi, states the purpose of creation in a boldness rarely encountered in religious traditions. God says: "I was a hidden treasure, and I desired to be known; therefore I created creation." Why did God, who is utter fullness, create the world? Because of a desire, a need to be known. In the hidden unknownness of God, there was one thing missing: there was no one to know Him. Thus, the raison d'etre of creation is God's need to be known. Need is, then, the foundation upon which creation exists. 

Sara Sviri, The Taste of Hidden Things, pg 193

without need...God does not give anything to anyone...Need, then, is the noose for (all) things that exist: Man has instruments in proportion to his need. Therefore quickly augment thy need, O needy one, in order that the Sea of Bounty may surge you up in lovingkindness.

(Nicholson's translation of Mathnawi, II, 3274-3280)

Rumi sings the praises of the alchemical, transformative power of love. But what is love? in essence it is a state of need. The lover is in need of the beloved, since the beloved reflects something which the lover senses is missing in himself. The experience of love exposes a veiled, unconscious desire to unite with an idealized partner who will supply the bits missing in oneself. But Rumi stresses that when this need awakens, rather than fulfilled it has to be sustained. Need, he argues, creates the primary vehicle of change, evolution, and growth. Without need there is no desire; without desire there is no movement. Therefore to perpetuate the state of need is more conducive to change than to satisfy it.
Sara Sviri, The Taste of Hidden Things, pg 206

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They say in the end, love is the want and need for something. Hence need is the root, and the needed thing is the branch. I say: After all, when you speak, you speak out of need. Your need brings your words into existence...So need is prior, and the words came into being from it....The branch is always the goal--the tree's roots exist for the sake of the branches.

Rumi, Discourses, quoted in Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, pg. 207

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In order for an evolutionary change to occur, the need has to be immense and conscious. Sometimes there is a need, but it's not strong enough; the longing for fullness has not yet reached sufficient intensity. The seeker can somehow survive, can learn to hide behind psychological defenses, so that the sense of emptiness is less painful. He suffers, but not enough; he is thirsty, but not yet dying of thirst. He is afraid of losing the relative comfort of a lukewarm, chronic state of frustration. But in this process, the Sufi teaching reiterates, only when the seeker reaches a state of despair beyond comfort or consolation will he be able to let go of his painful--yet familiar--patterns of survival. It is not easy to relinquish the familiar for a change whose consequences are unknown, unforeseeable  Therefore the need for change has to become great as the need for air of a drowning man.

In the pursuit of this creative need, Rumi...turns the logic of conventional pragmatism upside down. (I like that) We need comfort, therefore we create comfortable things; we need warmth, so we create shelters, clothes, fire, heaters, air-conditioning; we become self-sufficient in order to alleviate the pain of want. Rumi says: No, don't create anything to fill your emptiness; don't run away from the innate need of your soul.

Don't rush to find a solution to your neediness, continues Rumi; stay with it, acknowledge it, live with it, live it, become more and more needy, more and more thirsty, colder, poorer, more helpless: "I shall cry and cry until the milk of compassion will boil up on Your lips." This wisdom, according to Rumi is known to every infant:

I wonder at this tiny infant who cries, and its mother gives it milk. 

If it should think, 

"What profit is there in crying? What is it that causes the milk to come?"

--then it would not receive any milk. 

But we see that it receives milk because of its crying.

Rumi, Discourses, quoted in Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, pg. 211

Growth comes out of need. When neediness becomes intolerable, then a new organ is created out of the needy one's own potentiality. This is the as-yet-unlived potentiality which the soul has planted in the heart. The inner organs of perception, the eyes and the ears of the heart, are given a new intelligence, a new outlook, a new direction, new possibilities. This is what Rumi expresses in his direct, passionate, provocative language.
Sara Sviri, The Taste of Hidden Things, pg 206-209

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If you wish what you need to be given to you without your having to search for it, turn away from it and concentrate on your Lord; you will receive it if God wills.  And if you gave up your needs entirely and were occupied only with God, He would give you all the good things you wish for in this world and in the other; you would walk in Heaven as well as on earth; and more than that, since the Prophet (on him be blessings and peace) has said, in the very words of his Lord : "He who by remembering Me (dhikr) is distracted from his petition will receive more than those who ask."

Hear, faqir, what I said to one of our brothers (may God be well pleased with them): every time I was lacking something, great or small, and turned away from it in turning to my Lord, I found it there in front of me, thanks to the power of Him who hears and knows. We see that the needs of ordinary people are filled by paying attention to them, whereas the the needs of the elect are filled by the very fact that they turn away from them and concentrate upon God.

An excerpt from Letters of a Sufi Master by Shaykh ad-Darqawi, translated by Titus Burckhardt

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O, Sovereign Possessor, I call out to You and entreat You, secretly confiding [in You] as a broken servant, who knows that You are listening and who firmly believes that You will respond, one who stands at Your door, constrained in utter need, finding no-one to put trust in, other than You.

Ibn 'Arabi, The Seven Days of the Heart, pg. 45

Jesus on the lean donkey

Jesus on the lean donkey,
this is an emblem of how the rational intellect
should control the animal soul.
                                                Let your spirit 
be strong like Jesus.
                               If that part of you becomes weak,
then the worn-out donkey grows into a dragon.

Be grateful when what seems unkind
comes from a wise person.
                                         Once a holy man,
riding his donkey, saw a snake crawling into
a sleep man's mouth! He hurried, but he couldn't
prevent it. He hit the man several blows with his club.

The man woke terrified and ran beneath an apple tree
with many rotten apples on the ground.
                                                              "Eat!
You miserable wretch! Eat."
                                           "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Eat more, you fool."
                                "I've never seen you before!
Who are you? Do you have some inner quarrel with my soul?"

The wise man kept forcing him to eat, and then he ran him.
For hours he whipped the poor man and made him run.
Finally, at nightfall, full of rotten apples,
fatigued, bleeding, he fell
                                         and vomited everything,
the good and the bad, the apples and the snake.

When he saw the snake
come out of himself, he fell on his knees
before the assailant.
                                "Are you Gabriel? Are you God?
I bless the moment you first noticed me. I was dead
and didn't know it. You've given me new life.
Everything I've said to you was stupid!
I didn't know."
                      "If I had explained what I was doing, you might have panicked and died of fear.
Muhammad said,
                         "If I described the enemy that lives 
inside men, even the most courageous of you would be paralyzed. 
No one would go out, or do any work. No one would pray or fast,
and all power to change would fade
from human beings."
                               so I kept quiet
while I was beating you, that like David
I might shape iron, so that, impossibly
I might put feathers back into a bird's wing.

God's silence is necessary, because of humankind's
faintheartedness. If I had told you about the snake,
you wouldn't have been able to eat, and if
you hadn't eaten, you wouldn't have vomited.

I saw your condition and drove my donkey hard
into the middle of it, saying always under my breath,
"Lord, make it easy on him." I wasn't permitted
to tell you, and I wasn't permitted to stop
beating you!"
                     The healed man, still kneeling,
"I have no way to thank you for the quickness
of your wisdom and the strength
of your guidance.
                          God will thank you."

~Rumi~

From one hand, one could view this cruel and unnecessary; but think again, had the wise man not done what he had done, would the man have eaten the rotten apples so that he would vomit? Cruel to be kind. "God's silence is necessary."                  

Excerpt from The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

I need your grace to remind me of His Grace

Meeting a spiritual superior is unmistakable. It has a very distinct taste. It also has a most dramatic effect upon one's psyche. It is intense although not always outward. Intangible, elusive and at times inexplicable... that is the experience of a seeker.  It awakens something within and one is confronted with the inevitability of letting go of who you think you are.

Nothing makes sense in the way that one used to know, but one perseveres guided by an inner rudder that seems to know exactly where to go and what to do. One then gives into this "flow."

I met such a spiritual superior and the moment we met, it was like we had known each other all our lives, longer than that it even seemed. In his own words, he prepares people by "reorienting" them towards God. Subhana'Llah. 

I began learning how to be a murid, an aspirant, for me that was the beginning of an inner life...without wishing to scare or frighten people, but in all sincerity in order to love God, one needs to be ready for one's love to be tested...in every inconceivable way. It appeared outwardly so chaotic at first, my life gone out of control, everything seemed to be against me and all the answers I sought were wrong. It made no sense, but something was happening inwardly...as if all the muck of my life had been brought to the surface. And for the first time in my life, I was completely...and utterly...alone. Constricted and alone, quite honestly, entertaining thoughts of suicide. This I kid you not. 

As with everything, it passes. One becomes attuned to God in all forms. All things that happen to you, will you recognize Him when he comes to you? It is perhaps easier to see God in all the beautiful things around us, but what if He came to you in the form of something you do not like. Would you still recognize Him? Welcome Him? This is basically where I stand now. Learning to see Him in every form, however way He comes to me. In the events that I face and in the people interact with.

Life is but a succession of moments...to live (truly live) each one is to succeed.

This has been my life for the last four years. And I couldn't have done it without a guide. They say that if you do not have a guide on this journey, your guide will be shaytan. This guide continues to be a brother to me as well as a guide on my wanderings and I am full of love and gratitude for God's Grace that flows through him to shine a light upon my darkness. Like siblings we will always be, not always agreeing but accepting each other's differences; but more importantly, being there for each other.


God often gives in our earthly life a brother-soul, who embellishes the Path. And who, in this or that respect, reconciles us with the ups and downs of life. ~Frithjof Schuon~

This blog is dedicated to my brother and my guide :)

Love ya, bro!