April 17, 2008

It is the surface of the sea that makes waves and roaring breakers; the depth is silent.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

The bubbles are to be found on the surface of the sea. The depth of the sea is free from bubbles. The commotion is to be seen on the surface, the depth of the sea is still. The mind is the commotion of that something that is within us, that something which we call heart. The happiness, knowledge, pleasure and love that is stored in our innermost being is in our profound depth. Changing emotions and passions, dreams, ever-rising thoughts and imaginations, all belong to the surface, as the bubbles belong to the surface of the sea.

from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/II/II_41.htm


It is an effective visualization of mine when things are stormy and tumultuous to imagine myself as a pearl in an oyster at the bottom of a very deep ocean.

When I allow the shell of the oyster to open and I look up with pearly eyes, I see activity over me...fish swimming, sometimes eating each other, reflections of waves crashing against themselves over me, and far, far above the ocean itself, the moon looking back with the same pearly, opaque eyes as mine...I am a beautiful part of all that I see, but I am not the activity itself. I simply sit and sit in my gooey, ishqy oyster throne and be...

All Love,

Always!!!

Hakima

April 14, 2008

How humble is God?


God is the tree in the forest that allows itself to die
and will not defend itself in front of those with the ax,
not wanting to cause them shame.


And God is the Earth that will allow Herself
to be deformed by man’s tools,
but SHe cries, yes, God cries,
but only in front of Her closest ones.


And a beautiful animal is being beaten to death,
but nothing can make God break His silence to the masses and say,


“Stop, please stop, why are you doing this
to Me?”


How humble is god?


Kabir


wept

when


I




knew.


Kabir
Love Poems From God
Twelve Sacred Voices From
The East and West
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky


Divine Humility.

Just enough.

ALA!!!

Hakima

April 13, 2008

As a young girl, whenever I went out the front door of my house, I heard my mother call to me,

"Remember who you are, Pamela"

and my father would echo,

"Remember Whose you are"

In Sufi tradition, we use a practice called zikr, which means: remembrance

La illaha illa 'llahu!

There is no god, but the One.

and we go on further to connect with That One in Divine Belonging:

Toward the One
the Perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty
United with All the Illuminated Souls
Who form the embodiment of the Master,
the Spirit of Guidance.

Who are the illuminated souls? I am learning that illumination comes in various forms, but is essentially One...All who live and breath, All who have lived and breathed, All who will live and breathe...All Belong...

Passover is about belonging...it is about setting a sign at the door of one's own heart as a sign of eternal living...a sign to oneSelf, a sign to the One Self.

I say "Shema" and mean this:

Shema: means to hear, but also to ‘understand’, to ‘guard’, to ‘nail down with nails’, and to then ‘act upon by following understanding with righteousness’. It's very root is Divine Light.

Yisroel: Those who struggle to Remember, in order to Ensure the Divine Essence prevails upon the world.


Eloheinu: The original is written, Aloheinu. The sound, “Ah” represents the feminine aspect the Divine, El represents the Masculine:

Aloheinu: The One Breath of the Universe, Ruach, or Ru

Ehad: Oneness which is produced through activity. “Uniting separate threads’; To be bound together, like
cords in a rope; To Unite, to join together, to be a Unity.


Therefore the most Holy prayer, Shema, which is to spoken by many three times
each day, may be better understood and read as:

“Hear! Understand!
Guard These Words!
And Act Upon Them!

Struggle to Remember!
The Divine Essence of the Universe.

Our Oneness Is! Bound together! For Eternity!


O, Remember!
Divine Being!

The One Breath
Of The Universe!”

Amen, Amin, Ameyn!

Shalom!

ALA!!!

Hakima

April 11, 2008

Today's Daily Word - Friday, April 11, 2008
The Fool's Journey or Moronic Path is viable...

It's simply slow.

But if progression is not a goal, then perhaps direction is...

Perhaps not. The Sun shines on the Backs of Fools as well as the Faces of the Wise.

Guidance

Attuned to Spirit, I act with wisdom and grace.

A homing pigeon that has been set free miles away from its loft will instinctively return to its nest—its source of food and safety. Even when blown off course by the wind or delayed by the weather, pigeons trust their instinct to lead them home.

I have a homing intuition—a wisdom of my heart from Spirit—my source of inspiration and guidance. I am continually guided along my right path as I trust Spirit within to lead me in the right direction and guide me at every turning point.

If I wander from the path or get confused, I pause and listen for the inner guidance that speaks to my heart. Attuned to Spirit, I act with wisdom and grace. I move forward, confident that I am on the right course to my next destination.

“Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the end.” —Psalm 119:33

The Pillar of Cloud

John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

LEAD, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,—
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet! I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years!

So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.


Turning right is my job...
Leading me onward is God's...

ALA!!!

Hakima

April 10, 2008

“As there is water in the depths of the earth, so there is truth at the bottom of all things, false or true. In some places, one has to dig deep; in other places, only a short distance; that is the only difference. But there is no place where there is no water. One may have to dig very, very deep in order to get it; but in the depths of the earth, there is water, and in the depths of all this falsehood that is on the surface, there is truth. If we are really seeking for the truth, we shall always find it.”
--Hazrat Inayat Khan


In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.

Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,

where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,

where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?

In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church

that dissolve, that
dissolve in
God.

--Rabia of Basra

Before I took bayat (initiation), I had a dream—

I found myself in the darkness of Universal Space. There was illumination and that illumination was me.

As I walk-floated along, I imagined a structure, a mosque, a temple larger than I had ever seen before. It had white columns, but no walls. There was no celing and there was no floor. At some distance there was a large podium that looked like an empty throne. I approached it and felt myself falling, prostrated in prayer. When I was fully horizontal, I saw that rose petals had appeared underneath me, like a prayer rug. I could smell their essence.

That was it. I stayed in that devoted position…and I have not since left.

ALA!!!

Hakima

April 3, 2008

The more living the heart, the more sensitive it is; but that which causes sensitiveness is the love-element in the heart, and love is God. The person whose heart is not sensitive is without feeling; his heart is not living, it is dead. In that case the divine Spirit is buried in his heart. A person who is always concerned with his own feelings is so absorbed in himself that he has no time to think of another. His whole attention is taken up with his own feelings. He pities himself, he worries about his own pain, and is never open to sympathize with others. He who takes notice of the feelings of another person with whom he comes in contact, practices the first essential moral of Sufism.

--Hazrat Inayat Khan

It is a paradox...

Because Empaths are ultra-sensory, there is a tendency to become self-absorbed, in both pleasure and pain...

The remedy is releasing oneself from one's own pleasure or pain and then sharing the pleasure or pain of another in the act of service...and thereby coming to a better understanding of the sensory experience that was released...

If you love something...let it go...
It will return, a hidden treasure.

Like dandelions:

Dandelions
by Howard Nemerov

These golden heads, these common suns
Only less multitudinous
Than grass itself that gluts
The market of the world with green,
They shine as lovely as they're mean,
Fine as the daughters of the poor
Who go proudly in spangles of brass;
Light-headed, then headless, stalked for a salad.
Inside a week they will be seen
Stricken and old, ghosts in the field
To be picked up at the lightest breath,
With brazen tops all shrunken in
And swollen green gone withered white.
You'll say it's nature's price for beauty
That goes cheap; that being light
Is justly what makes girls grow heavy;
And that the wind, bearing their death,
Whispers the second kingdom come.
—You'll say, the fool of piety,
By resignations hanging on
Until, still justified, you drop.
But surely the thing is sorrowful,
At evening, when the light goes out
Slowly, to see those ruined spinsters,
All down the field their ghostly hair,
Dry sinners waiting in the valley
For the last word and the next life
And the liberation from the lion's mouth.

And when I die, mingle my ashes with dandelion seeds, and toss us to the winds...
Liberated from and again to be swallowed by the lion's mouth.

ALA!!!

Hakima