Contents Editorial
3
Message from the National Representative
4
Repose by Hazrat Inayat Khan
6
Silence by Thích Nhat Hanh
11
The Power of Silence by Nuria
13
Silence - the Metaphor of the Boat by Nuria
16
The Power of Silence & Ramana Maharshi by Iman
19
The Beauty of Silence by Zubin
22
Beloveds Here Comes the Silence by Josephine
25
Ponderings on the ‘Unstruck Sound’ by Nuria
26
Ali Baba – the Mystery of the Word by Nuria
31
Topographies 3 by Karim
34
Remembering Hidayat Inayat-Khan by Hamida Verlinden
37
National Activities
39
Contacts
40
Picture Credits: Cover: Photo by Majid Rangraz on Unsplash. Picture of field in sunlight by Casey Horner on Unsplash. Back page: Photo by Jason H on Unsplash Bell in buddhist monastery. Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash Two hands with palms upraised. Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash Mountain view, golden hour. Photo by Mohammad Alizade on Unsplash Light streaming into a room. Photo by Elia Pellegrini on Unsplash Figure walking on path against the light. Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash Mother and child walking in a forest. Photo by Dmitry Gladkikh on Unsplash Photo of boat in still water. Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash Ripples in still water. Photo by Jackson Hendry on Unsplash Finger on lips. Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash Musical score. Photo by Marius Masalar on Unsplash Compass in an open palm. Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash Grass in sunlight. Photo by Anatoly Ramonov on Unsplash Tibetan singing bowl. Photo by Magic Bowls on Unsplash Picture of Cassim, Ali Baba's brother, cropped from the original painting by Maxfield Parrish. Public Domain Mountain during golden hour. Photo by Krzysztof Sinica on Unsplash Drone shot of Transfăgărășan, Sibiu, Romania. Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash Lanterns: Photo by Zahid Lilani on Unsplash.
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Editorial First, a word of thanks. For so many years Zora has served as secretary for the Sufi Movement in Australia. We all owe Zora a debt of gratitude for her service to the Message and enduring enthusiasm. Sadly, ill health prevents Zora from continuing in the role. Thank you Zora.
In preparation for our last serai, Nawab gave us a phrase from Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Nature Meditations: My heart is tuned to the quietness, that the stillness of nature inspires. In the Social Gathekas, Murshid says: Apart from the meditative silence, even in our everyday life silence is the most essential thing. There is an energy which becomes accumulated, functioning in the innermost of our being, and it is in the speech that one gives outlet to that energy. And that energy may best be called magnetism; it is inspiration and it is wisdom. Understanding and practicing silence became a powerful exercise for many of us, and inspired by the practice, it has become the theme for this issue of Spirit Matters. I made the following notes on the days that I practiced observing silence. Anything but still today. Very windy. Cold wind and sand on my face, but I am able to find stillness within the wind around me, in the cold air. Coming back through the tea tree I found silence on the track back from the beach. The wind dropped away leaving a beautiful calm stillness. On another day: So peaceful, just the sound of the sea and the wind, the distant barking of dogs, distant voices, the sound of the waves. And even though it is not perfectly calm it is still peaceful. I’ve attempted to absorb the lessons from the practice of finding silence into my life. I hope that you can enjoy the peace within the stillness of this issue, Yaqin
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Beloved Sisters and Brothers Spring 2021 The last quarter has been a very strange one with its ups and downs. Melbourne came out of lockdown for a while, so we were able to move about. We could have our Sufi group and even do zikr together. We could visit family and friends and even celebrate our birthdays (Azad’s and mine) at a fine restaurant in the mountains. It was a cold and foggy evening, but the atmosphere was wonderful. Then the delta variant of Covid struck, and now we are again in a tight lockdown with a curfew. This time it is harder to keep Covid under control - there is anger and frustration with people who do not follow the rules causing super spreader events. So, our Sufi family and our Zoom meetings have become vital for our wellbeing.
We have had our Summer School retreat with Pir Nawab. For me, it was like being at Summer School in Katwijk again – I could almost smell the wildflowers around the
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temple and the wild roses on the path to the temple. In some ways, the experience was more intimate face to face on Zoom. We had our practices to do between the session and a lovely opportunity to share in small groups. It allowed us to get to know one another better. At retreats, we usually stay within the group of people we know, but we got to know mureeds from different countries in the small Zoom groups. It was a true opening of the Heart and so good to feel part of our Sufi family. Our Australian Serai a few weeks ago was on the topic of Silence, and this so inspired us that we have made it the subject of this Spirit Matters. Pir Nawab sent the materials out a week early this time, so we had longer to get into it and do the practices. This really helped. As you will see, I felt inspired to write a few articles on the topic. There have also been teachings related to the Word or Sound which inspired me. I remembered that I had written an article for the Toward the One journal called Ponderings on the Unstruck Sound long ago. Having hunted through my archives, I found it again and have included it here. At that time, I had read a fascinating book by Brian Hines - God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, Echoes of Spiritual Reality in the New Physics. (Threshold Books 1996.)
This and Murshid’s book The Mysticism of Sound and Music strongly influenced me. It was interesting for me to go back to that article. Then one of our recent Inner Call blogs was The Word - part IV, which brought in the story of Ali Baba and the word used to open the heart to reveal its treasure.
Well, I could not resist analysing the story of Ali Baba from a Sufi point of view and came up with some fascinating insights. I had fun with it!
You will find a wonderful presentation on the webinar celebrating 100 years of Universal Worship, which we had on 15th May, on our website: www.smia.com.au It is well worth exploring if you missed it. So, I am sure that you will enjoy this newsletter. Hopefully, Spring will bring with it an opening, control of Covid and a new beginning.
Sending love and blessings, Nuria
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Repose by Hazrat Inayat Khan. From Volume X - Sufi Mysticism When the lips are closed, then the heart begins to speak; when the heart is silent, then the soul blazes up, bursting into flame, and this illuminates the whole of life. It is this idea which demonstrates to the mystic the great importance of silence, and this silence is gained by repose. Most people do not know what repose means because it is something they feel they need when they are tired. If they were not tired, they would never see the necessity for it. Repose has many aspects. It is one kind of repose when a person retires from the activity of everyday life and finds himself alone in his room. He draws a breath of thankfulness as he feels, after all his interesting or tiresome experiences, 'At last I am by myself.' It is not an ordinary feeling, for there is a far deeper feeling behind it. It expresses the certainty that there is nothing to distract his mind and nothing which demands his action. At that moment, his soul has a glimpse of relief, the pleasure of which is inexpressible. However, the intoxication of life from which every man suffers is such that he cannot fully appreciate that moment of relief that everyone expects when it is time to retire after the activities of his daily life, whether he be rich or poor, tired or not.
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Does this not teach us that there is a great mystery in repose, a mystery of which people are very often ignorant? Besides, we always find that a thoughtful person has repose by nature, and one who has repose is naturally thoughtful. It is repose which makes one more thoughtful, and it is continual action which takes away thoughtfulness, even from a sensible person. People working in the telephone, telegraph or post offices, upon whose minds there is a continual demand, often, in time, develop impertinence, insolence and lack of patience. They do not become less sensible; it only means that lack of repose, which weakens their sense of control, makes them give way to such things. This shows that repose is necessary, not only for a person on the spiritual path, but also for every soul living on the earth, whatever be his grade of evolution or his standing in life. It is the most important thing to be developed in anyone's nature, not only in a grown-up person, but it is something that should be taught from childhood. Nowadays, in education, people think so much about the different intellectual attainments the child will need in life and so little about the repose that is so very necessary for a child. Sometimes cats and dogs prove more intuitive than mankind. Although man is more capable than the animals, he does not give himself time to become more intuitive. It often amused me in New York, where one would easily become exhausted by the noise of trains and trams and elevators and factories, to see that when a person had a little leisure time to sit in the train or subway, he at once began looking at the newspapers. All that action was not enough; is it not in the body, then there must be action in the brain! What is it? It is nervousness, a common disease that today has almost become normal health. If everybody suffers from the same disease, then this disease may be called normal. Self-control, self-discipline, only comes from the practice of repose, which is helpful not only on the spiritual path, but also in one's practical life, in being kind and considerate. The mystic, therefore, adopts the method of repose, and by this, he tries to prepare himself to tread the spiritual path. This path is not an outer path, it is an inner path that one has to tread. Therefore, the spiritual laws and the journey on the spiritual path are quite contrary to the earthly laws and the journey on the outer path.
To explain in simple words what the spiritual path is, I would say that it begins by living in communication with oneself, for it is in the innermost self of man that the life of God is to be found. This does not mean that the voice of the inner self does not come to everyone. It always comes, but not everyone hears it. That is why the Sufi, when he starts his efforts on this path, begins by communicating with his true self within. When once he has addressed the soul, then from the soul comes a kind of reproduction, like that which the singer can hear on a record that has been made of his own voice.
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Having done this, when he has listened to what this process reproduces, he has taken the first step in the direction within, and this process will have awakened a kind of echo in his being. Either peace or happiness, light or form, whatever he has wished to produce, is produced as soon as he begins to communicate with himself. When we compare the man who says, 'I cannot help being active, sad or worried, as it is the condition of my mind and soul,' with the one who communicates with himself, it is not long before we, too, begin to realize the value of this communication. This is what the Sufis have taught for thousands of years. The path of the Sufi is not to communicate with fairies nor even with God; it is to communicate with one's deepest innermost self, as if one were blowing one's inner spark into a divine fire. But the Sufi does not stop there, he goes still further. He then remains in a state of repose, and that repose can be brought about by a certain way of sitting and breathing and also by a certain attitude of mind. Then he begins to become conscious of that part of his being which is not the physical body, but which is above it. The more he becomes conscious of this, the more he begins to realize the truth of the life hereafter. Then it is no longer a matter of his imagination or of his belief; it is his actual realization of the experience that is independent of physical life. It is in this state that he is capable of experiencing the phenomena of life. The Sufi, therefore, does not dabble in different wonderworkings and phenomena, for once he realizes this, the whole of life becomes a phenomenon and every moment, every experience, brings to him a realization of that life which he has found in his meditation. The being of man is a mechanism of body and mind. When this mechanism is in order, then there is happiness and fullness of life. When anything is wrong with the mechanism, the body is ill and peace is gone. This mechanism depends upon winding; it is just like a clock that is wound and then goes for 24 hours. So it is in meditation. When a person sits in a restful attitude and puts his mind in a condition of repose, regulating the action of this mechanism by the process of meditation, it is like the winding of a clock. Its effect continues to be felt because the mechanism was put in order. Thus, the belief of a mystic is not an outward belief in a deity he has not seen. The mystic's worship is not only an outer form, by saying prayers and then his worship is finished. Certainly, he makes the best use of the outer things, and his pursuit is logical and scientific, and he will, if possible, unite them with the mystical conception. However, mysticism includes the scientific explanation as well as the realization of the things taught by religion, things that would have no meaning to an ordinary person. When an ordinary person reads about the kingdom of God and Heaven, he reads these names, but he does not know where Heaven is, and he feels that there is a God, but there is no evidence for it. Therefore, a large number of intellectual people who really
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are seeking the truth are turning away from the outer religion because they cannot find its explanation. Consequently, they become materialistic. To the mystic, the explanation of the whole of religion is the investigation of the self. The more one explores oneself, the more one will understand all religions in the fullest light and all will become clear. Sufism is only a light thrown upon one's own religion, like a light brought into a room where everything one wants is to be found, and where the only thing that was needed was light.
Of course, the mystic is not always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks. Can parents always answer their children's questions? There are some questions that can be answered, and others which should wait for an answer until those who ask them are able to understand. I used to be fond of a poem which yet I did not understand; I could not find a satisfactory explanation. After ten years all of a sudden, in one second, a light was thrown upon it, and I understood. There was no end to my joy. Does this not show that everything has its appointed time? When people become impatient and ask for an answer, something can be answered, something else cannot be answered; but the answer will come in its own time. One has to wait. Has anyone in the world been able to explain fully what God is, have even the scriptures and the prophets succeeded in this? God is an ideal too high and too great for words to explain. Can anyone explain such a word as love, can anyone say what truth is? If truth is to be attained, it is only when truth itself has begun to speak, which happens in revelation. Truth reveals itself; therefore, the Persian word for both God and truth is Khuda, which means self-revealing, thus uniting God with truth. One cannot explain Page 9 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
either of these words. The only help the mystic can give is by indicating how to arrive at this revelation. No one can teach or learn this, one has to learn it oneself. The teacher is only there to guide one towards this revelation. There is only one teacher, and that teacher is God. The great masters of the world were the greatest pupils, and they each knew how to become a pupil.
How is all of this taught or brought to the consciousness of those who tread the path of truth? By bayat, by initiation. It is the trust of someone who guides, given to someone who is treading the path. The one who treads the path must be willing to risk the difficulties of the path and be willing to be sincere, faithful, truthful, undoubting, not pessimistic, and not sceptical. Otherwise, with all his efforts, he will not reach his aim. He must come wholeheartedly, or else he should not come at all. Half-heartedness is of no value. What is necessary, too, is some intellectual understanding of the metaphysical aspect of life, which some have, but not all. Besides this, the qualities of the heart are needed, with the divinity of love as a first principle. Then one needs action, but such action as will not hinder on the path of truth, such action as creates greater and greater harmony. And finally, one needs repose, which makes it possible to learn by one day of silence what would otherwise take a year of study; but no doubt only if one knows the real way of silence. Page 10 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
Silence by Thích Nhat Hanh. Excerpt from Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise
We spend a lot of time looking for happiness when the world around us is filled with wonder. To be alive and walk on the earth is a miracle, and yet most of us are running as if there is a better place to get to. There is beauty calling to us every day, every hour, but we are rarely in a position to listen. The basic condition for us to be able to hear the call of beauty, and respond to it, is silence. If we don’t have silence in ourselves, if our mind and body is full of noise, then we can’t hear beauty’s call. There’s a radio playing in our head. Radio station NST. Non Stop Thinking. Our mind is filled with noise and that is why we can’t hear the call of life, the call of love. Our heart is calling us but we don’t hear. We don’t have the time to listen to our heart. Mindfulness is the practice that quiets the noise inside us. Without mindfulness we can be pulled away by many things. Sometimes we are pulled away by regret and sorrow concerning the past. We revisit old memories and experiences, only to suffer again and again the pain we have already experienced. It is easy to get caught in the prison of the past. We may also get pulled away by the future. A person who is anxious and fearful about the future is trapped just as much as one bound by the past. Anxiety, fear and uncertainty about future events prevent us from hearing the call of happiness. So, the future becomes a kind of prison too. Page 11 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
Even if we try to be in the present moment many of us are distracted and feel empty, as if we had a vacuum inside. We may long for something, expect something, wait for something to arrive to make our lives a little bit more exciting. We anticipate something that will change the situation, because we see the situation in the present moment as boring. Nothing special, nothing interesting.
Mindfulness is often described as a bell that reminds us to stop and silently listen. We can use an actual bell, or any other cue that helps us remember not to be carried away by the noise around and inside us. When we hear the bell we stop, we follow our inbreath and our outbreath, making space for silence. We say to ourselves “Breathing in, I know I’m breathing in.” Breathing in and out mindfully, paying attention only to the breath, we can quiet all the noise within us, the chattering about the past, the future, and the longing for something more. In just two or three seconds of breathing mindfully, we can awaken to the fact that we are alive. We are breathing in. We are here. We exist. The noise within just disappears and there is profound spaciousness. It’s very powerful, very eloquent. We can respond to the beauty around us. I am here. I am free.
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The Power of Silence by Nuria
My heart is tuned to the quietness, That the stillness of nature inspires. Murshid tells us that silence is essential in everyday life. Energy is accumulated and functions in our innermost being a bit like a battery – it is speech that gives an outlet to that energy. Murshid calls this energy magnetism; it is inspiration and wisdom. Thus, a less talkative person has more wisdom than a more talkative one. But apart from wisdom, a talkative person is physically giving out energy, which would have gained him a vital power in himself if he had conserved it. Every word is precious and contains so much information; a word is a powerful symbol that carries sound and meaning and exists within its culture, time and place. It is part of the history of its language group; even if a word is translated into another language, there are subtle differences in meaning. In computer terms, it is like a field or piece of data that resides in a record, part of a file and is used by a program. The great teachers of humanity have left behind words/scriptures which have great power and meaning for humanity over centuries. These words that have been left to us we must keep as sacred and precious.
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When we understand the value of the word, we take care to think before we speak. We must also honour our word; let it reflect what we really think and know. I know some people who believe what they say but do not say what they believe—these people we cannot trust and should not listen to. Murshid says that the word is heavenly; that the word is the soul, the spirit. I wonder if he means carries the soul or spirit? Because he goes on to say that some person can speak a thousand words, but not one word they say has an impact on us. I can understand that. Every morning we hear our ‘leaders’ talking to us about Covid – lockdowns, curfew, vaccines, quarantine. Some of these leaders have no impact at all – I switch myself off and don’t even listen. But some mean what they say and put their heart and soul into what they are saying. That makes me sit up and listen. These same special people show their distress and anger, or whatever emotion they are feeling. When they do that, I feel supported – I do not have to vent and yell at the TV; they do it for me. I feel that all will be well in their hands. It is so interesting and supports what Murshid says. The living word penetrates and makes an impression, and there is the dead word that has no life and drops
to the earth. He gives examples of words that should not be spoken – words that come out of our mouths because of weakness and lack of control, gossiping,
criticising, not keeping secrets, even our own, oversharing and being rude as examples of this. Words said cannot be taken back or unsaid! The one who controls his word controls his mind.
Then there is another way of looking at this. It is a part of the teachings on reciprocity. We should match what we say to the level of understanding of the person we are talking to. If we say something, however profound, to someone who is not able to understand, we are wasting time and energy and can cause distress. As Murshid suggests, we should rather prepare that person to receive what we have to say, even if it takes years. Sometimes we meet a highly evolved person, for whom our words are as the words of children. Again, it is better to be silent and not waste time and energy. I remember some years ago; I found myself part of what I called my ‘philosophers’ lunch group’. Most of the members of this group were intellectuals and theologians – way above my grade. For many months I said very little but listened intently. I loved the conversation and felt so invigorated by it. I would leave lunch on a high. Then one day, something was said that I strongly disagreed with – what should I do? I took the plunge and said my piece waiting for the reaction. An emeritus professor and author, a wonderful man, turned to me with a smile – he agreed with me! Imagine how I felt. After that, I felt more able to share, but I would not have been accepted if I had not waited and learned. It is one of the highlights of my life. The power of the word! Page 14 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
Then there is the issue of talk between friends and family, which can cause disharmony and separateness. He gives an amusing example of the woman who went to a healer in great distress because she argued with her husband every day. The healer gave her some sweets to put in her mouth when her husband got home and keep her lips closed. This worked well, and she returned to the healer thanking him and asked for more sweets. He told her she did not need any – all she had to do was close her lips. There are some interesting aspects to this story. Firstly, the husband, coming home from a hard day at work, only wanted peace and quiet – a time to unwind and relax. To have a pleasant meal and talk about his day. His wife, who had perhaps been at home all day looking after children and caring for the household, only wanted some stimulation and talk about things that interested her. It was a mismatch of desire. Silence was the best policy – they could be together in silence and recoup their energy. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, but I think it is familiarity that prevents us from exercising control and caring for those around us. So, silence is the best policy! There is a saying that ‘When in doubt, don’t!’ covers this well. Better to say nothing and listen to God’s whisper.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in between. ~ Mozart ~
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Silence – the Metaphor of the Boat by Nuria. From the Social Gatheka: The Power of Silence
It is said that the word of God can only be heard in silence! This does not mean or guarantee that we will hear the word or sound when we are silent, even though the word is constantly coming to us from within. The seers, saints, sages, prophets and masters have heard that voice by making themselves silent. Silence means stilling the mind. Once we have done this, we communicate with every person we meet; there is understanding even in a glance. The noisy mind hinders us from hearing that voice, and it is the troubled waters of the pool that hinder us from seeing our own image reflected in the water. How can we develop the power in ourselves to stand in everyday life against all the disturbing influences we are exposed to? We have to quiet ourselves by way of concentration. Murshid says that our mind is like a boat that is in the water. The boat is moved by the waves and influenced by the wind. The waves are our emotions and passions, our thoughts and imaginations – our inner life. The wind represents the outer influences that we meet in our life. To stabilise the boat – the emotions, thoughts, and passions of our mind, we need an anchor to put into the water (of consciousness). Nawab has suggested that we need a strong and sturdy keel to allow the boat to be steered and stable rather than an anchor. My son once had a sailing boat with a shallow keel – it was not suited for the ocean but made for lakes and still waters. One day he took his family, including me, out sailing on the open waters of Port Phillip Bay, which can be very treacherous. The wind and the waves rose unexpectedly, and the boat became extremely difficult to handle. It was very frightening – my young grandson kept saying – ‘we are all going to die!’ he was terrified.
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Eventually, my son got the boat to a jetty so that we could disembark and he could get the boat to its mooring. Our mind is like that boat with the shallow keel. When it is not still, we have not practised concentration. The anchor or a sturdy deep keel is the object we should concentrate on when stilling the mind/boat. When we concentrate on the words of a wazifa, we are steadying the boat. The words of zikr or one of the ninety-nine beautiful names of the One fill our mind, so there is no room for anything else. When we think of one of the Names, such as Karim, we ponder its meaning of being kind and generous. We understand that the One is generous, and as we are part of the One, we too can be generous. So, we feel the divine generosity in our life and our own generosity to the world. We feel this and know it in our being. As well as knowing and understanding Karim, we hear the sound of the name – Karim. Sound has an effect on our whole being – our psyche. It is spoken and sounded in such a way that we experience generosity and openness. Sometimes we sing or chant a wazifa, which makes the experience even more powerful, especially when there are many people chanting together on retreats. Another practice for stilling the mind is the element breath – not only do we concentrate on each element, its colour and vibration and the breath related to the element, but also on the point of concentration in our body (chakra point). In so doing, we are raising our vibrations through the bodily chakras to those above our head in the ether breath. At this point, we are still, and the boat is quiet. The wind represents the outer life and the influences on our life, which moves the boat around as it pleases. By doing our practice, we manage to control the boat, but we must also use it. A boat is not made to stand still but made for a purpose – to move towards its home port. Controlling it is only the first stage. Now the sailing of the boat needs different conditions – the boat must not be more heavily laden than the weight it is made to carry. Our heart must not be heavily laden with the things that we attach ourselves to because then the boat will not move. The boat must not be moored in only one port, for then it is held back and will not go to that other port for which it is destined. A boat may be tied to one port for a thousand years, but it is not fulfilling its purpose. The next stage of our practice is even more difficult – detaching ourselves from the burdens of our life, which we carry around. This makes the boat too heavy to move. Sometimes the burden we carry is not our own – I remember dreaming that I was carrying a heavy black suitcase on my back and I realised that it was my mothers. It was even making me stooped in real life. Learning to detach is working with our ego or small self. When we let go and change our attitude, life becomes free and easier when we realise that our attachments are ego attachments. This is a life’s work – the great Page 17 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
quest for enlightenment. The light here means ‘lightweight’ as well as being filled with Divine Light. Our retreats and meetings with Pir Nawab reflect this work. It is deep inner practice.
In the first place, it must have that responsiveness to the wind that will take it to port. That is the feeling that a soul gets from the spiritual side of life. We feel guided by the Spirit of Guidance filling our sails and moving us towards the One – our home port. The fully concentrated mind can be compared to a compass on the boat that points in the right direction. If we have many different interests and are not focused fully on the One, we are not ready to travel in that boat. When we have only one thing on our mind, everything else is secondary. Then we can then get to the port we are aiming for. It is this journey that is called mysticism. This is the journey of Sufism. The effort of the Sufi Message is to give us the opportunity as serious seekers after truth so that we can come in touch with the deeper side of life. No doubt truth is never taught; truth is discovered. It is in the search of truth that God is found; it is in the finding of God that truth is realised. Where is God to be found? God is to be found in the heart of man. Page 18 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
The Power of Silence & Ramana Maharshi by Iman
The topic of silence brought immediately to mind Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950). We have a beautiful photo of him adorning our bookcase beside one of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Both were inspirational; their impact continues to be felt, long after they left their earthly bodies. Many a time looking at the photo of Shri Ramana Maharshi’s compassionate penetrating eyes, one feels the presence of the Divine. Here is a very brief account of some aspects of his life and his teachings: In 1896 as a teenager, he had an unexpected and profound experience into his real nature. This spontaneous enquiry into his real nature, had resulted in the complete and permanent dissolution of his sense of being and individual person. It was replaced by a directly experienced knowledge that he was identical with an unmanifest substratum, in which all the phenomenon of the world appeared and disappeared. After that experience of enlightenment, at the age of sixteen, he left his family; driven by an inner compulsion he made his way to Tiruvannamalai, located south of his home of Madurai. After reaching Tiruvannamalai, he threw away money and belongings, and presented himself to the god in the temple. Thereafter he remained around its precincts, abandoning himself to a recently discovered inner awareness of the Divine that he felt to be the Inner Light of his own true being, a state that he later termed Consciousness or the Self.
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Shri Ramana’s experience and knowledge of who and what he truly was, remained with him, irrespective of whether his body was conscious, interacting with the world, or in a state of deep sleep. In time he became sought out as a spiritual teacher and an ashram was eventually built around him nearby at the revered Mount Arunachella, which was to become his home. There he taught until he passed away, having become well known and revered during his lifetime. He spoke very little, preferring instead to communicate the essence of his state through silence. His primary teaching was silence. He knew from experience that if he simply remained in his absorbed Self, his own awareness, those in his own proximity, would by a kind of osmosis, begin to experience that state for themselves. At his talks there were often long stretches of silence. He was known as a Jnani or one with God. Many came to sit with him with questions - they did not have to ask them. He believed that people wanted happiness and peace, which he considered to be one’s true nature. By sitting in the presence of someone who was permanently established in that state of mind, and who had transcended desire, he believed that a person would absorb spiritual teachings, providing they were not thinking or questioning too much, and would catch some of that ‘happiness and peace’ just as one might catch a cold from being with someone who has a cold.
Quoted here is the experience of one disciple, Maha Krishna Swami who describes his encounter with Ramana Maharshi: In 1938, I was taken to the Bhagavan. His face radiated serenity and endless love. I prostrated myself before him and then he said to me: ‘It seems you have been called’. After thus greeting me, he became deeply absorbed. Without looking at anyone or anything, he was penetrating into my innermost Self. Suddenly, he turned to me and, with that acquired an indescribable intensity, arousing in me quietness, deep peace and a great compassion for all the beings of the universe. From that day on, I knew that Bhagavan was not an ordinary master but a Universal Sad-Guru. I then began to tune myself to his upadesa, which I perceived was vitalizing and transforming me in every way. I knew that what I could absorb of the light of initiation would be according to my own efforts. I was to develop more and more control of my thoughts to calm my mind for receiving the subtle vibrations radiated by the Bhagavan. One day he told me: “Silence is the most powerful form of teaching transmitted from master to adept. The soundless voice is pure intuition. It is the voice of spiritual sound speaking in our innermost being. Self-enquiry is the only path. We have to eliminate spiritual unconsciousness, which is widespread. Self-enquiry brings the consciousness of the divine, the universal Truth and the light that governs the universe. All this must be known, felt, lived and realized. In order to realize this Truth, we need to eliminate the thinking mind, to dissolve it in the Universal Self.”
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Ramana Maharshi was willing to give verbal answers to questions if needed, and hand out practical spiritual advice, but considered this to be an inferior and indirect form of transmission. The silent flow of power represented his teachings in its most direct and concentrated form. The importance he attached to this is indicated by his occasional statements to the effect that his verbal teachings were only given out to those who were unable to understand his silence. For many who found silence difficult, he prescribed a spiritual practice, known as SelfEnquiry. He recommended this technique so often and so vigorously, that it was regarded by many people as being the most distinctive feature of his teachings. By incessantly pursuing within yourself the enquiry “Who am I?’ he taught that you would know your true self and thereby attain salvation. The real ‘I’ is not the body or the five senses, sense objects or the organs of action, neither breathe nor mind, nor even the deep sleep state where there is no cognizance of these. After excluding these by “This is not I” that which remains is ‘I” and that is consciousness. A vigilant focus on the ‘I’ and not on the things it thinks about, causes the sense of being a person to diminish and die, leaving a true knowledge of ones real Self. He taught people to use this method of Self-Enquiry in the midst of living everyday life. He also advocated unconditional surrender to the Divine and said that these two methods (Self-Enquiry and Self-Surrender) were the only two effective methods for attaining liberation. When the mind becomes absorbed in the heart, which is the seat of the Self, the ego or the ‘I’ i.e. the centre of the multitude of thoughts finally vanishes, and pure Consciousness or Self which subsists during all the states of the mind, alone remains resplendent. It is this state, where there is not the slightest trace of the Ithought, that is the true Being of oneself. And that is called Quiescence or Mouna (Silence). Ramana Maharshi is quoted to say that he never saw himself as a guru – he said ‘the heart is the guru’. His teachings could be understood by both pundits of the time and the ordinary man. His self-enquiry leading to the experience of quietude, and his pure and loving life, had a profound effect not only within India but world wide. He was one of the world’s great teachers and truly lived his teachings His loving and liberating power is still felt by people trying to follow his advice and the timelessness of his message continues to attract followers. References: Ramana Maharshi the Sage of Arunachala by Arvind Sharma For Those of Little Dust by Arthur Osborne Ramana Maharshi the Sage of Arunachala by Arvind Sharma You Tube video: Ramana Maharashi, production by Paula Marvelly, written and edited by David Godman & Alan Jacobs
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The Beauty of Silence by Zubin (& many quotes from Hazrat Inayat Khan)
‘While I am working, I am learning something; While I am thinking, I discern something; While I am speaking, I teach something; While I am silent; I reach something.’ From the Vadan
Poetically, the elements are invoked to conjure silence. In ‘Toward the One/The Inner Call’ we read of ‘the sea of silence.’ In the Alchemy of Happiness there is a story, Life, An Opportunity. Kabir, the great poet of India says, 'Life is a field and you are born to cultivate it. And if you know how to cultivate this field, you can produce anything you like. All the needs of your life can be produced in this field. All that your soul yearns after, and all you need is to be got from the field, if you know how to cultivate it and how to reap the fruit.' Page 22 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
But if this opportunity is only studied in order to make the best of life by taking all that one can take, and by being more comfortable, that is not satisfying. We must enrich ourselves with thought, with that happiness which is spiritual happiness, with that peace which belongs to our soul, with that liberty, that freedom, for which our soul longs; and attain to that higher knowledge which breaks all the fetters of life, and raises our consciousness to look at life from a different point of view. Once a person has realized this opportunity, they have fulfilled the purpose of Life.’ After telling this story, a beloved teacher recorded the following to illustrate Life, An Opportunity: ‘Once there was an artist, a great painter, who was sitting outside of their house with an easel, painting, when a stranger came by. “What are you painting?” asked the stranger. “I am painting my house” said the artist. “It is very beautiful” said the stranger, “but it is not your house.” The artist looked again, and said “You are right. I am greatly indebted to you” and the stranger went on their way and was never seen again. The artist began to remake the painting, and painted a beautiful house, with ten rooms. Each room was one of the ten Sufi thoughts. The house became the most famous church in all the land.’ This is a beautiful story of transformation, which is within the reach of all of us, within reach of all beings in fact. Perhaps some can imagine what it is, or will be like to live in a ten-roomed house, where each room is a Sufi thought? Does our shared soul already inhabit this house? The beauty of the story is to show the possibility of taking the grist of our lives, the attitudinal houses in which we live, and slowly but surely, day by day raising ourselves by our bootstraps to live in the PALACE of the ten sufi thoughts. There are as many ways of doing this as there are people. Every one’s life is limited in some form or other; but one could get above this limitation by realizing the latent power and inspiration of the soul. Silence allows for uninterrupted breathing. Silence therefore has the tendency of healing “body, heart and soul.” Silence may represent unlimited power, or unlimited weakness. It explains the ignorance of the unwise and it unfolds the wisdom of the Great Ones. For the devoted and enlightened heart, it is the way to true communication with the Beloved. This gives rise to a growing awareness of the unseen world, where, increasingly, one loses their false self. Then follows the awakening of the real self – the understanding of Page 23 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
the true meaning of things. We can ponder the part the Soul is playing in the Divine Symphony. This Human intelligence directs the whole working of nature. Human responsibility is greater than that of any other being in the world. It is told in the Quran that God said: 'We laid our trust on the mountains, and they could not bear the load; we laid our trust on the trees, and they were unable to take it; we then laid our trust on humankind, who has borne it.' This trust is our responsibility; not only to those around us, but towards this whole creation and what we contribute to this creation. So, when a soul matures, it begins to feel its responsibility, and it is from that moment on that a person begins their life. There is another word in Sanskrit for brahman which is dvija, meaning, 'the soul who is born again.' For, the moment one has realized all of this, the soul is born again. One's realization of life is different then, one's plan of life becomes different, one's action becomes different. Every soul has in oneself a kingdom of God. To become conscious of this mystery of life is to open one's eyes to the kingdom of God, and then whatever one does, has meaning and influence. The proper use of this consciousness, called ishk by the Sufis, karuna by the Buddhists, and agape in the New Testament, can be translated as "selfless love." The poet Rumi writes of this field (of consciousness) ‘Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn't make any sense.’
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Beloveds here comes the silence listen hard be absolutely still
Silence is filled with colour with vibrations
to gaze upon with slowness attention to all that is in the garden to breath in the scents of the flowers and leaves hands in the earth to pluck and sow morning bird calls that which is hidden beneath the visible soul talk the aftermath of zikr is soundless not so oh there are deep inner murmurings the breath inertia turn inward the seen with closed eyes warmth shoots up the stem Silence is a landscape Silence is a prayer to a friend long gone.
Silence has a smell a taste to savour a vibrating sound a velvety touch moving shadows What is this silence? Is it soundless? Warm or cold? A friend?… Silence is exquisitely beautiful, the still point at the centre, the well of equanimity. Deep in Rainbow Valley the breeze hums red light earth sizzles the pearl gathers the last light So far from anywhere yet right here
Poem & photo submitted by Josephine
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First published in Toward the One: A Journal of Unity; Volume Eight, Spring 2007
For a long time, I have been fascinated and mystified by the story of the Zen monks whose task it was to understand the koan, "the sound of one hand clapping." To me it seemed impossible, but in some of Hazrat Inayat Khan's Sufi teachings I found hints of something similar, a practice in which one tries to listen while closing the ears. Here was a great mystery, and I felt drawn to it. I felt like the monk of my early imaginings but I discovered that there was indeed a practice to do with withdrawing breath and awareness from the outer material world, and directing it inwardly. In so doing the senses are drawn within until it is possible, we are told, to hear an inner sound, see an inner light, and even smell the fragrance of the inner essence of our whole being. It seems to me now that this is in fact the ultimate mystery and the basic tenet of all mysticism. Indeed, Hazrat Inayat Khan states that "The mystery of sound is mysticism;" and it is on this aspect, sound, that I am directing my thoughts. There is a close parallel between hearing and vision because both involve the sensing of the frequencies of certain vibrations. Indeed some people can hear light and colour, and see sound. From the spiritual point of-view, light and sound are really one. We humans are generally not capable of sensing vibrations outside the ranges of physical vision (vibrations with a wavelength between 400 and 700 nanometres) and hearing (frequencies between 20 and 20,000 cycles per second). However, we can see and hear in our dreams when our physical senses are asleep, and accounts of ‘out-of-body’ or ‘near death’ experiences speak of people seeing and hearing from this disembodied state of being. I have heard a blind woman tell of a near-death experience where she was actually able to see and describe what was happening to her ‘body’ from far above it. Even the sense of smell can be felt in dreams and in out-of-body experiences. One mureed tells of an experience when she was undergoing an operation. She remembers meeting her long dead father, whom she recognised initially by the fragrance of wood and wood shavings. Her father's hobby had been carpentry and woodwork. In her experience he was wearing a woodworker's apron, as he had often done when alive. She nestled in his arms, comforted, before being told to go back as her time had not yet come. During the operation she had indeed died for a time and been brought back to life in this realm. Spirit has been described as ‘God-in-Action,’ so spirit can be understood as a non-material vibration of God-in-Action. The whole world - the sun, the moon, the earth and the stars Page 26 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
- are all sustained by Spirit, which can also be said to be the ‘Word’. To quote Hazrat Inayat Khan: “We find in the Bible the words: ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was God’ and we also find that the word is light, and when that light dawned the whole creation manifested. These are not only religious verses; to the mystic or seer the deepest revelation is contained within them. ...It teaches that the first sign of lift that manifested was the audible expression, or sound: that is the word.” Hazrat Inayat goes on to say, "All down the ages the yogis and seers of India have worshipped the Word-God, or Sound-God, and around that idea is centred all the mysticism of sound or utterance. Not alone among Hindus, but among the seers of the Semitic, the Hebraic races, the great importance of the word was recognised."
This Word has, of course, intent behind it - pure divine intelligence. Every major religion refers to creation as having been brought about by a word, or a saying, or a name. It is the sound that precedes light, which in turn, precedes manifestation. Hindu: (Upanishads) Accordingly, with that Word, with that Self he brought forth this whole universe, everything that exists. Taoist: (Tao Te Ching) The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Jewish: (Book of Genesis) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Christian: (Gospel according to John) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Islamic: (Quran) Orator ofthe heavens and the earth from nothingness, He has only to say when He wills a thing: "Be," and it is. Sikh: (Adi Granth) One Word, and the whole Universe throbbed into being. Hazrat Inayat Khan quotes Shams-e-Tabriz, that "the whole mystery of the universe lies in sound." So this Word is ringing in every atom of creation, and it is to "hear" this Word that we do our practices and meditation. It is the hu that we can perhaps hear after zikr when we close our ears. As our Murshid says: "Words themselves have the power to vibrate through different parts of man's body." They can affect us powerfully, as we can know from chanting or saying wazifas, and as Hindus and Buddhists find in chanting mantras. "The power of the word is in accordance with the illumination of the soul….that word comes from some mysterious part that is hidden from the human mind." This recalls an interview with an English woman, an academic, who had come to Western Australia to work in the prison system. There she formed a close relationship with a young Page 27 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
Aboriginal man who was in prison. She eventually married him, went to live in the remote bush and compiled a dictionary of his language. When she was asked how he had "attracted" her or formed the initial connection, she said that he told her that he "sang" her from his cell. It says much about this man's spirituality. The soul can be thought of as a ray of the spirit, just as a ray of sunlight is part of the sun, is of the same essence as the sun but is not the sun. The soul is spread in our whole body. Really the difference between soul and spirit is the level of consciousness, or the level of vibration of that sound or Word. Hazrat Inayat Khan tells of the legend "which relates that God made a statue of clay in His own image, and asked the soul to enter into it. But the soul refused to enter into this prison, for its nature is to fly about freely, and not be limited and bound to any sort of captivity. The soul did not wish in the least to enter this prison. Then God asked the angels to play their music and, as the angels played, the soul was moved to ecstasy. Through that ecstasy—in order to make this music more clear to itself—it entered this body." So the soul has entered the body to experience the music of life. For the soul to experience this music, we have to unite it with the all-pervading conscious energy of spirit, and this may be done by repeating words such as wazifas which relate to aspects of the Divine non-material realm. This takes our mind away from the outer material world and towards the inner world. So we ride the wave of spirit as an audible vibration, not heard by human ears but by a faculty of the soul. The soul then hears the Divine music which it longs to hear. Hazrat Inayat Khan has said: “Abstract sound is called saut-e-sarmad by the Sufis; all space is filled with it... The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe. . . The sound of the abstract is always going on within, around, and about man. As a rule, one does not hear it because one's consciousness is entirely centred in material existence... Those who are able to hear the saut-e-sarmad and meditate on it are relieved from all worries, anxieties, sorrows, fears and diseases; and the soul is freed from captivity in the senses and in the physical body. The soul of the listener becomes the all-pervading consciousness…” The soul takes great pleasure in hearing what has been called Divine music, or ‘the music of the spheres.’ In southern Africa the bushmen of the Kalahari desert are said to be able to ‘hear’ the stars and this celestial music. There is a story circulating that the astronauts can hear the sound or vibration of the earth in space and that this sound vibration is similar to the sound made by the Aboriginal didgeridoo. This may be a modern myth but if myths are the dreaming of a people, then there could indeed be some truth in this tale. This deep vibration can also be felt when hearing Tibetan monks chanting or playing their horns. Two years ago my husband and I were visiting Cologne and he wanted to film the cathedral in the evening without all the tourists and noise. That evening we found ourselves in the audience of a most amazing organ recital in the Cathedral. For us the sound of the music and the atmosphere of this sacred space was a numinous, unforgettable experience. The vibration of the organ resounding in the dome of the cathedral was profound. Of course the glorious chanting of the monks and nuns in the Catholic Church has been used in the same way, and in the Eastern Orthodox Church the chanting of the gospels is part of the service. Similarly, the Quran is chanted in the mosque. In all spiritual practice, sound or song is used to connect to or communicate with God, the source of all. The film Baraka, a beautiful visual work without dialogue, shows peoples and tribes from many parts of the world using song and music as a way of connecting with the sacred. In the film we see a tribe sitting in the jungle chanting and moving together in rhythm like
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birds, in ecstasy— a sort of participation mystique; we see a lone monk walking slowly through the streets of Tokyo, ringing a small bell rhythmically and oblivious to the frantic rush around him, a still island amongst the mayhem; we see the ecstatic whirling of the dervishes; and we hear the voice and power of a volcano erupting. The Australian Aborigines use song in their most sacred and secret ‘men's and woman's business.’ There are song lines which convey the relationships from the dreamtime or creation myths with the land and all the tribes and peoples of the land, including the animals, waterholes, rocks, and all of creation. The aboriginal languages are completely different from modern languages like English. The words and phrases convey the feeling, history, source and relationships of the particular ‘words’ and their relevance to everything around them. As Hazrat Inayat Khan has said, in ancient languages "every name reveals to the seer the past, present and future of that which it covers." So these ancient languages are powerful in their sound and meanings, and that is probably why many of the sacred names of God in many traditions are chanted in the original language, like Sanskrit, or Aramaic. Once, during a short course on the Epic of Gilgamesh, our professor read parts of the epic in the original, ancient Sumerian. It was wonderfully onomatopoeic: the volcanoes rumbled and the text could almost be understood without translation just from the sound of the words. There are outer sounds which are somehow associated with the inner sounds, sounds like the vina, the flute, distant bells, the buzzing of bees, thunder, or the running of water, until the sound finally becomes hu, the most sacred of all sounds. These sounds are heard with the ears of the soul. In this material, physical universe we mostly live in, conscious energy is vibrating at a very low rate — it is the first level, the bottom floor of creation, so to speak. In our material world our physical ears cannot sense these sounds which can be heard by the soul. Our perceptions and consciousness are pulled outward and away from the higher realms of spirit. So we reach up to ever finer levels of vibrations by doing our practices, so that we can eventually begin to hear that ‘unstruck sound’ which belongs to these higher realms. The second plane of existence, next to our material plane, is commonly called the astral plane, because here the soul takes on the covering of the astral body which is said to sparkle with millions of little particles resembling star dust. According to Brian Hines in his book God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, the sound related to this plane is said to be like a resounding bell or distant church bells. As this is the first non-material region we become aware of, it perhaps explains why bells are used in churches and individual practice. The third plane or realm is that of the mind, often referred to as the realm of the jinns. This is the last level of creation and can be understood as the "causal" region, because it is the effective cause of everything that lies below. The sounds related to this realm are said to be of thunder or the beating of drums. According to Hines, the flute or harp is said to be the instrument or sound associated with the fourth level or realm (Hines, p 295). This realm could be said to be that of the angels, so it is interesting that angels are often depicted playing a harp and the Lord Krishna is always depicted playing the flute. Srila Govinda Maharaja, explaining the Gayatri mantra, writes in Krishna's Flute, "Like the trumpet of an elephant, it is a sound so great that it captures the heart and attention of everyone. But that sound has no material form—it is pure spiritual sound. And that divine sound descends into this world from the flute of the Lord Krishna."
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In Hindu spirituality devotees are told to chant mantras, as well as to meditate. Baba Muktananda once told one of his devotees to chant and to meditate. Two years later the man came to Baba and told him that the practices did not work. Muktananda could see that he had not done any chanting but had only meditated. He said that to meditate only is not enough, that we need to chant to give us the vitality and juice of life which leads to the Divine realm.
The sound related to the fifth and highest plane, the realm of ultimate reality or the home of the Supreme Being, is said to be that of the vina. In this realm, the domain of the Universal Spirit, says Hines, there are no divisions; it is a place of unity outside of time and space, the source of All, full of love, ‘knowledge’ (pure intelligence) and energy. The vina is a very ancient instrument associated with the Hindu gods. There is for example the Saraswati vina, Saraswati being the goddess of music, knowledge and wisdom, as well as the goddess of speech, the power through which knowledge expresses itself in action. She is always seen playing her instrument, the vina. The vichitra (or unique) vina, originally called the Shiv vina, is associated with the god Shiva, the god of transformation, who preserves the world through meditation, and who dances the cosmic dance which sustains the cosmos. Hazrat Inayat Khan tells a story of spending some time alone in a haunted house. He writes "Whenever I played upon the vina at night, sitting on my bed, the bed would gradually begin to move as if levitating, and to rock to and fro. It would seem to rise for an instant some way into the air, but the movement was so smooth that there was no shock." After some time he had to send his vina out to be repaired. "One night to my great horror I heard the sound of the windows of my house were being smashed. For three days this went on, and I could not sleep. I had no peace at night until my vina came back. The spirits seemed to be so much interested in my music that they rejoiced in it and showed their appreciation by lifting me up; when the food of their soul was not given they rebelled." This shows how much the unseen beings also love and long for the music of the vina. Our Master does not relate the various inner sounds to particular planes of existence, as far as I know. However he does describe the process: Some train themselves to hear the sawt-e-sarmad in the solitude, on the sea shore, on the river bank and in the hills and dales; others attain it while sitting in the caves of the mountains, or when wandering constantly through forests and deserts, keeping themselves in the wilderness apart from the haunts of men. Yogis and ascetics blow...a horn, or...a shell, which awakens in them this inner tone. Dervishes play...a double flute for the same purpose. The bells and gongs in the churches and temples are meant to suggest to the thinker the same sacred sound, and thus lead him towards the inner lift. This sound develops through...different aspects because of its manifestation through...the body. . . until it finally becomes hu, the most sacred of all sounds. So it is that through this understanding of the mystery of sound, I have a deeper resolution and direction in my practice. I know the practices that we have been given have the purpose of raising the level of our consciousness or vibration, so that the soul may be able to hear the music of Spirit, to hear the Divine Word and so that happiness and joy can be a part of all life. Indeed my own practice has been heightened during the process of writing this article. Sources Brian Hines, God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder Echoes of Ultimate Reality in the New Physics. Threshold Books 1996. Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound and Music. Shambala 1996. Hazrat Inayat Khan, Tales. Omega Publications 1991. Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev Goswami Maha-raja
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Ali Baba – the Mystery of the Word by Nuria
In Murshid’s teaching about vibration and the Word, he uses the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves to illustrate the power and mystery of the Word.
In the original text, we learn that Ali Baba had an older brother Kasim, both sons of a merchant. After their father’s death, the greedy Kasim marries a wealthy woman, and in turn, he also becomes wealthy as he builds their father’s business. Kasim chose wealth over love. Ali Baba married a poor woman whom he loved and became a woodcutter. One day Ali Baba was collecting and cutting firewood in the forest when he happened to overhear a group of forty thieves visiting their stored treasure. Their treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by a huge rock. Murshid interprets the thieves as a group of dervishes with their leader. The Heart is the cave that is full of treasure. Ali Baba was in great distress and desperate because of a lack of money. He badly wanted a change of circumstances. So Ali Baba asks a dervish to find him some treasure and the dervish tells him to go to the place where he will find the rock. While standing in front of the rock, he should repeat a certain word, and the rock would split open and reveal the path before him. Ali Baba went to the place indicated by the dervish (a sacred place), found the rock (his heart) and repeated the word before it. Then the rock split and revealed a path opening up before him.
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The original phrase in the story is ‘Sesame, open yourself ’ to open the rock and ‘Sesame, close yourself ’ to close the rock. The sesame seed is one of the oldest oilseed crops known to man and has the richest, highest oil contents of any seed. It is a very small seed. The seed is the symbol of the centre, from which the cosmic tree grows. It is the latent power of the masculine principle. When we worked with this in our group, we used the wazifa Ya Fattah, which means ‘The Opener of Truth’ – God opens doors. Jesus used the Aramaic equivalent in healing a deaf man: eth-phatah – ‘Be opened’. Ya Fattah carries resonances to the ancient Egyptian God Ptah,1 who created the universe through space. We chanted this very forcefully to the music given by Pir O Murshid Hidayat and felt its power. Self-confidence, faith, trust, perseverance and patience are all necessary to achieve this opening of the Heart and the Path. We learn these through our practices and our experience of the Unity of the One in our life. We must give the Word power. In the story, Ali Baba enters the cave and takes a single bag of gold coins home. He is not greedy. Ali Baba and his wife borrow his wealthy sister-in-law’s scales to weigh their new wealth. This is puzzling. His sister-in-law understands all aspects of wealth and gold and knows that it must be weighed and valued. This is something that we too must learn – to value the Treasure that is in our Heart. I remember Noor telling us that every evening before going to bed, she would ‘count her blessings’ – the blessings she had on that day. If we do not weigh our inner Treasure, we may not even notice it. We first must notice our Treasure before we can weigh it. It is a beautiful practice. When we look back over our lives, we can perhaps see a pattern that shows us that we have been guided – the Spirit of Guidance has been active in our life. The activity of looking back and noticing patterns is what gives us faith, trust and self-confidence. It is perseverance and patience which allow us to practice this. Kasim’s wife is curious to know what kind of grain her impoverished brother-in-law is trying to measure, so she puts a blob of wax in the scales. To her shock, she finds traces of gold sticking to the wax and tells her husband. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Kasim goes to the cave, taking a donkey with him so that he can take as much treasure as possible. Kasim enters the cave with the magic words. However, in his greed and excitement over the treasure, he forgets the words to get out again and ends up trapped. He tries the name of every grain that he can think of but does not remember sesame. The sesame seed is small and subtle, so easily overlooked when one's vibrations are coarse. Sesame is not a grain but an oil-bearing seed, it is not what is expected, so it would not come to his mind. The mystery is always well hidden from those who are not able to understand. 1. Neil Douglas-Klotz. The Sufi Book of Life. 99 Pathways of the Heart for the Modern Dervish. Penguin Compass London 2005
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The thieves find him trapped there and kill him. These thieves are dervishes, so what does it mean when it is said that they killed him? To steal the Heart’s Treasure is to lose one's humanity. The Treasure cannot be stolen, but many try. I used a ‘New Age’ centre's premises to lead meditation, our Sufi Group, and work with my clients a long time ago. It was run by a woman who I believe had ‘stolen the Treasure’. She was a Reiki master, among other things and played the part of a spiritual being – she thought she knew and understood everything, but she did not have a Heart. In Jungian terms, she was possessed by an archetype. Archetypes reside in the depths of the Collective Unconscious – they are not human but inner structures that we understand. The mother archetype is known and understood by everyone, even if they have not known their personal mother. The archetype is filled with our experience. So, my ‘mother’ would be quite different to yours. Take the archetype of the goddess Venus - She is a goddess, not human – but some people can believe that the goddess lives and works through them – in a sense, they channel her. Such people act the part and are convincing as the goddess of love. They can have quite a following. False gurus are another manifestation of this. They talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk. They have no warmth, no heart; it is all about them. Another aspect of a desire for the Treasure is of those seekers like Ali Baba, who are desperately unhappy and depressed. I remember a lovely young woman who was part of an encounter group many years ago. She had everything she wanted, beautiful clothes, a good job, and a great car, a seemingly happy life. One practice had us sitting in pairs facing one another - we gazed into one another's eyes and felt into the depths of the other to find what was within. To my utter surprise, I found nothing – that young woman appeared to be ‘empty’ and terribly lost. I spoke to our teacher about this and found that indeed this lovely woman was ‘dead’ inside and this was why she was in our group! She was not stealing the Treasure but searching for it. When his brother does not return, Ali Baba goes to the cave and finds the body quartered with each piece displayed just inside the cave’s entrance as a warning to anyone else who might try to enter. Ali Baba brings the body home, where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl from Kasim’s household, with the task of making others believe that Kasim had died a natural death so that he could be given a proper burial. Morgiana joins Ali Baba’s household, and through her quick-wittedness, she saves Ali Baba’s life many times. As a reward, Ali Baba frees here, and Morgiana marries his son. This part of the story is very clever but was put there, firstly as a moral against greed, and secondly as a device that Scheherazade had used to teach and heal the Sultan through her stories. Morgiana is the only woman named in the story – she symbolises the Divine Feminine's clever, subtle, and loyal attributes. She is an attribute of Scheherazade herself as a teacher and healer. Ali Baba has truly found his Treasure.
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Topographies 3 (Stories and Metaphors on the Path of Return) by Karim. Refer to Karim’s blog site for further articles: https://tracksinapathlessland.home.blog
‘Raise us above the distinctions and differences that divide’ The Journey of Return Recently I have been writing about the journey of return as it may be known if one were able to take a bird’s eye view of a life (i.e. from above) akin to what one is presented with on a topographical map. I first presented this idea after recalling a story I had once read many years ago regarding a group of pilgrims visiting a ‘holy mountain.’ Because these groups of pilgrims were coming from all points of the compass there was only one perspective that allowed one to realise that their individual journeys coalesced at one point – that of directly overhead this sacred mountain (a God’s eye view indeed!), thus was this ‘idea’ of expressing this journey of return born. Of course, maps such as these purport to replicate in two dimensions something that already exists in three. Although the analogy is not an exact one, any attempt to allow us to explicate the inexplicable is afflicted with the same problem. This journey, whether individual or collective is yet to be written, yet still this effort is worthwhile in so far as it enables us to accurately comprehend the task we are undertaking and why choice (free will) and not destiny is what writes our story in and through this world and on to the next. Page 34 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
Destiny alone can never allow for this interactive topography of the soul that Yahya tells us is utterly unique and individual, coming into being only in the walking of it. Only free will can account for this, and it accounts for our meandering paths that only God knows will coalesce at some point in our future (and God knows best)! Such coalescing does not obliterate our uniqueness or the uniqueness of the paths that we have walked, for their mark is ‘creation’ and without it creation would cease to be the way it is. Map makers try to include as much detailed information as they can to make their maps resemble the ‘terrain’ they purport to show us so there are no nasty surprises. However this leads us to another factor involved in such a process, that of ‘scale.’ For us this represents a kind of timeline, the greater the detail provided the less distance the map will be able to show us in time and space (see my post item re ‘Timelines, Songlines, and other Dreamings’). Likewise, if one is to see more of the respective time/space the less one can know about one’s immediate terrain. Topographical maps, like all other maps, are representational, in that they reduce the objective environment down from three dimensions to two. What we see laid out for us therefore is a symbolic representation of our ‘terrain’ which any competent map-reader can readily interpret once s/he has familiarised themselves with these symbolic values they are looking at. As pointed out earlier, for us and our metaphor/analogy, such ‘terrain’ as exists only comes into being in the moment of walking it. However, once walked it becomes part of the fabric of an unfolding universe! Religions, paths of various kinds, tap into this ‘unfolding’ metaphor to make their own ‘maps’ of the possible and potential terrain and are useful to us in-so-far as they go. However, it should be remembered that they can never map out this terrain completely because it is to all intents and purposes infinite! Of course all cartographers claim that their particular maps are the closest, the best, the one’s that most faithfully represent this ‘terrain’ for us, and – whilst it is true to some extent that one may indeed be a better representation than another – none can support such claims absolutely. Once again, it is in the ‘walking’ that one discovers the truth of this for oneself (if one ever does). One should keep in mind another of Ibn Arabi’s comments on this point: All religions have an image of God that they present to their followers. Whilst these images are not false, they are limited. The mystic, freeing him or herself from such constraints yet also has an image of God, albeit their own individual one according to their capacity. For myself God is the One that gives rise to all of this, who provides the impetus behind all of it. Is He necessary? Absolutely, particularly given the prospect of the infinity large and infinitely small scale within which this unfolding takes place. We, as human beings caught in the net of time and space, need presence and absence both to move us along our unique timelines. Presence equals closeness, sharing if you will, absence provided the motivation, the push to keep searching, moving forward, as we must in order to more fully realise our own potential, thus more fully contributing to this unfolding fabric. Page 35 Spirit Matters Volume 25 Issue 3 September 2021
Returning now to our main theme, topography, it should be said of course that some are better than others at reading ‘maps’ however most of us have some capacity in that direction no matter how little we may utilise it to navigate the terrain of our lives. There are also those who wish to proclaim themselves (or uphold others that do so) ‘cartographers’. Such knowers of ‘the’ path have always been with us to a greater or lesser extent, and have provided (or at least attempted to provide) us with the necessary ‘knowledge’ such that our paths are made easier, and this is all well and good. Such efforts however begin to be more of a hindrance than a help when they begin the process of degrading (as they must) with the passage of time into little more than hoary dogmas; the ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ that become the whips and goads to drive us this way and that. A line from an Inayat Khan prayer (‘Khatum’) comes to mind in this regard where he says: “Raise us above the distinctions and differences which divide men” For it is only in such a way, or from such a perspective (above) rather, that one may begin to ‘see’ the whys and wherefores of all these individual and collective efforts as they move us (or attempt to move us) towards the One! And it is only from such a perspective that one can ever really know and comprehend/understand the actions of another, for all actions spring forth from us in response to both our inner and outer encounters with this ever renewing ‘creation.’ All one’s actions, therefore, can only ever make sense to other than self from such a ‘knowing.’ A god’s eye view indeed.
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Remembering Hidayat Inayat-Khan by Hamida Verlinden (Excerpt from an email sent by Hamida) Beloved Ones, Greetings from Oegstgeest in The Netherlands with a few lines on Hidayat’s birthday, 104 years ago. For a year, after being appointed in 1993 as Pir-o-Murshid of the Sufi Movement Hidayat still called himself Murshidzade (Son of Murshid). Hidayat was born on the 6th of August 1917. A story that Hidayat once told me: Ameena Begum was in labour with her third child and Murshid called on Musharaff to fetch the midwife, “Hurry!” But Musharaff was doing his prayers and these had to be finished before he could go, and therefore Murshid had to run to find the midwife. I have attached Murshid’s letter to Rabia Martin (‘My dear mother’) about the birth of his son Hidayat. What can one say about Hidayat? We knew him so well, didn’t we, but I doubt if anyone ever understood him. He left us with the following poem and drawing.
May we all remember him in joy. With love, Hamida Verlinden Oh Sufi, did you know?…
that the Inner School is the ship in which we are sailing on the great waters of Love, Harmony and Beauty; guided by the compass of the Spirit of Guidance, and driven by the energy of Spiritual Liberty; heading toward the goal of the annihilation of the ego, where one may begin at last to realise that the sailor is a ray of the Divine Presence sailing in the past, present and future on the waves of our illusion.
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National Activities On the first Sunday of each month Zubin hosts a cherag circle via Zoom. In September it will be held on 12/9 at 9:30 am AEST to celebrate Hejirat. All are welcome. Enquiries: zubin.shore@sufimovement.org Cherag - Farsi chirāgh, charāgh: lamp, light; guide, director. The term cherag is also used to refer to one who is ordained in the work of the Universal Worship of the Sufi Movement.
The Sufi Movement in Australia holds a Zoom Spiritual Healing Circle every week on Wednesday evening from 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm AEST and a monthly Zoom Healing Study Group on the 3rd Monday each month, also at 7:30 8:30 pm AEST. If you would like to learn more about the Healing Activity or would like to join the Healing Circle or Study Group please contact Shakti via email: shakti.genn@sufimovement.org
Nuria’s Melbourne Group meets online every Thursday at 7:30 pm via Zoom. If you would like to join our weekly gatherings please contact Nuria via email for further information: irenenuriadaly@hotmail.com
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