Spirit Matters December 2015

Spirit Matters the newsletter for the Sufi Movement in Australia

Volume 19, Issue 3 December 2015.

It is the peaceful one who is observant. It is peace that gives him the power to observe keenly. It is the peaceful one, therefore, who can conceive, for peace helps him to conceive. It is the peaceful who can contemplate; one who has no peace cannot contemplate properly.Therefore, all things pertaining to spiritual progress in life depend upon peace.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

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Membership to the Sufi Movement in Australia

is open to all. If you find yourself drawn

to the ideals of universal spiritual

brother-and-sisterhood, you may be interested

in becoming a member.

The Sufi Movement in Australia offers an annual Sufi

summer retreat, classes in centres around Australia,

and a newsletter three times a year.

In addition, members are affiliated with the

International Sufi Movement, its teachers and activities.

Annual Membership FeesSingle-$75

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Please contact the treasurer for more details

(see the back page for contact details)

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What’s in the December issue?

Contents

Spirit Matters - December 2015 - Volume 19 - Issue 3

3-4 Letter from Nuria, your National Representative5 Where Joy Resides – Zora Bria Floren6-7 The Journey of Return – Karim Parkhurst8-11 Sacred Reading: The Tuning of the Heart – Hazrat Inayat Khan12-13 ‘Ruh’ (soul), our physical virtual world & our affairs; a Sufi Pondering – Nur Al-Alam14-15 The Pilgrim and the Prophet – Zubin Leonie Shore16 Contacts

Frontcover artwork by, and Hazrat Inayat Khan quote sourced by, Julia Christie.

Image above by Azad Daly.

Beloved Sisters and Brothers

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Letter from Nuria, your national representative


Image above by Azad Daly

This has been a very difficult year for many of us but in the last month or so, things seem to be resolving in a rather satisfying way. It seems that the hoped-for new beginning is real!

Earlier this month (November) Murshid Hidayat presented a concert performance of his composition La Monotonia, dedicated to his sister Noor, at the Klosterkirche in KZ Dachau where she was tortured, beaten and finally shot, together with three other ‘very dangerous’ British agents, on the 13th September 1944. You may already know of Noor’s history as there have been books and films made about her life. Murshid Hidayat forwarded me a long article in German from the South German Newspaper about the concert and about Noor, and it is very moving. It talks about a 98 year old man standing at the podium speaking forcefully about his sister. This was Murshid Hidayat. It reminded me of when I was in Canada some years ago, at the Conference on the Mysticism of Sound and Music. Maestro Andreas Heinzman conducted La Monotonia one evening and I can still see Murshid Hidayat standing on the stage and telling us about Noor and the symphony he had written for her. It was a very powerful and moving evening and I imagine it would have been similar to the one which has just happened in KZ Dachau. It was especially poignant for me as I have just finished writing a book about the finding of my father’s family, who were all murdered in the Holocaust. I did not know anything about who they were, or what had happened to them, when I was a child, except for a disturbing memory. I then found some papers amongst my father’s things a few years ago which spurred me onto my search. They did not die in Dachau but in Auschwitz and other death camps, but to feel that our Murshid was at such a camp and remembered not only his sister but others who died in this way was very important and special for me.

There is a small group of rather eccentric people, interested in mysticism, spirituality and philosophy, who I meet with a few times a year for lunch, usually in school holidays as most of them are teachers of some kind. They have been discussing the need to ‘reclaim the idea of God’ for young people. The ‘literal idea of an interventionist as a supernatural Being is defunct and gone’ according to one of our group. ‘Students reject God because they are still thinking of this archaic idea. Nobody has told them that there are other ways to envisage God.’ A well-known writer on spiritual matters tells of being invited to give talks at ‘religious’ schools and being told at the end of the talk that the school had jettisoned God many years ago and that staff and students found talk of God embarrassing. They wanted him to present ideas about social justice,

equality and inclusiveness but not theology’. To quote him: ‘No wonder students are lost and have nothing to believe in except Facebook’.

I confess to being shocked at this reflection of the world and realise that this is the big problem nowadays. Another of our group has written: ‘We study Nietzsche in the year 12 course and I spend two lessons on this wonderful line from “Beyond Good and Evil” where Nietzsche is lamenting the loss of existential meaning and significance, of struggle and suffering, of seeking transformation not merely propagation. Wellbeing – that is no goal. That seems to us an end!’ [He meant an ‘end’ to human meaning, narratives that transcend the goal of social morality and personal health.] Nietzsche also noted it was a hopeless goal because it is not by pursuing your own wellbeing that you become well.

These wonderful teachers are searching for ways to present the ‘reality’ of the Divine Being for their students. It makes me realise how blessed we are to have Sufism and our own understanding of ‘God’, as Unity – something that we are all part of – the multiplicity within the unity of Being. As Murshid Nawab has long taught us during retreats, we have to create our own Ideal of God until it comes alive for us – just as in Hazrat Inayat Khan’s story of Una whose statue comes to life once she has finished sculpting it. I am saddened to think that so many religious leaders and priests do not have this deeper understanding either. It is no wonder the world is in the state it is in. It is crucial that our message of Love, Harmony, Beauty and Unity reaches far and wide; although we must refrain from evangelising. Sufis work in the background, even underground, and it is hard at times to know how we can shine the light into the dark corners.

Now for the mundane! Our year end for reporting purposes was at the end of September, so our accounts have now been audited and we are in the process of working through the virtual AGM (for paid up members). Some of you may not realise that the Sufi Movement in Australia is an Incorporated Association as well as a registered charity. This means that we are required to be

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Letter from Nuria, your national representative

audited, have insurance, and keep our records up-to-date, with many other things besides. It is really disappointing that in this past year 2014 / 2015 quite a few Mureeds have not kept up their subscriptions. It means that only 23 loyal members are supporting the whole Sufi Movement in Australia and if it weren’t for a very generous patron we would not be able to meet all of our requirements. So I would ask any of you who have perhaps forgotten to subscribe, to please, please consider doing so for this coming 2015 / 2016 year. Membership is due now, although I will probably put out another call in January.

Wishing you all a very happy, peaceful and Blessed Christmas season,

With love,

Nuria

All human beings are different parts of the same body, who Have inherited the same essence in creation No part will rest in peace if one is suffering pain You will not deserve the name of human If you are indifferent about others’ pains.

Sa’adi

Poem provided, with love by ChamanAfroz

Image from Google Images. Image above from Azad Daly.

Sufi Movement International In Australia Inc.

Please renew my subscription for the year 2016 Name………………………………………………. Sufi Name…………………………………………. Address……………………………………………. ……………………………………………. State…………… Post Code………….. Email………………………………………………... Cheque made payable to SMIA or Transfer to SMIA Bank A/c No: 06 3587 10251994 Type of membership – Single $75.00 per Annum – Family $100 per Annum

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Where Joy Resides


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by Zora Bria Floren

I have been pondering the apparently arbitrary conditions that stimulate feelings of happiness and joy. Those light-hearted or swooping moments that come unbidden in response to external stimuli and then fall to memory as mysterious and haloed events. Naive glimpses that reverberate. A feeling of portent, timeless and spacious. Something akin to feelings of love.

What is it that produces this leavening in our lives? At our best, it even blesses us in the midst of very unlikely circumstances.

Although religions often project a stern set of precepts and images, the central promise is that they can help us attain and even retain this numinous feeling of unity/love/joy. Hinduism makes a great play of it with a lascivious blue god and his milkmaids. Sufis cry their love song to the beloved. Jesus, as we know, loves us dearly and Buddhists teach that joy is the ground of our being.

I’m going the Buddhist route because that’s what I know best. The general understanding that the teaching is about suffering and the freedom from suffering is true (although a better translation of dukka is ‘unsatisfactoryness’) but the purpose is to clear the decks so the ship sails true. The overarching philosophy and detailed practice in Buddhism is centred on joy – an exhilarating state of expansiveness and connectedness and wonder.

This experience is called nirvana, samadhi, blue-sky mind, bliss, mudita, and many other variations on a theme. It is considered to be the ground or nature of mind/heart: the natural state of being. It’s not a goal to achieve or to create but is always present within us, there to be uncovered. The Sufis call this remembrance zikr – to remember what is there already. Always abiding within.

In the teachings of Theravadin Buddhism, which is possibly closest to the original form of Buddhism and so the least

overlaid with cultural adaptations, the recommended methodology of training is very pragmatic. The practitioner is encouraged to take nothing on faith but to experiment and observe. I began my training in my early 20s in a rigor of shame after a flare up of my arrogant temper. I was given practices but not told what results might be expected or what to seek. I gradually learned to hold my mind steady, to observe thoughts as background, to note as the senses stirred emotion which quickly stimulated volition, thought and action. It made me better able to apply attention as a way to put a wedge into the workings of my internal process and slow things down. The growing experience of settled concentration and the widening into awareness and being able to feel the difference between the two was like sailing tight into the wind or reaching, sails out like a butterfly with the wind astern. I was beginning to sail better.

Through years of meditation practice I was more able to settle in peacefulness and more to the point of this discussion, I was experiencing vivid moments of pleasurable sensation and joy that were not stimulated by external circumstances. A regular practice of being in this state quickened my responsiveness to joy in everyday life. Possibly this is what the Sufis call polishing the mirror of the heart. Going on to train in the dhyanas – the absorptions – was undertaken with a fierce little German nun called Ayya Khema. This process was about steadying these states of joy, bliss, clarity and theoretically, detaching and moving on through them to very abstract states of unity.

Sufis speak of the lover merging with the beloved – la ilaha illa allah – there is nothing else but unity. In Christianity it may be the transcendental grace of love – the open heart of Christ – I have too little knowledge of the teachings to speak on them. Less floridly in Buddhism, it has been described as experiencing the vessel of the body/mind as an empty glass filled with the same air inside as surrounding it, then dissolving the glass. Well, that’s the zen of emptiness – beyond joy into the full ecstasy of unity.

These states of mind are notated very precisely in the Vedas and have been cultivated by Hindus and then Buddhists for over three thousand years. For Sufis, it’s probably a longer lineage.

The teachings begin in facing up to discontent and restlessness, exploring the causality of clinging and aversion but then with a developing calm, a glimmer comes, and then flashes of joy. It isn’t necessarily a fast track to happiness and it certainly doesn’t eliminate sorrow. The practice however does much to reduce suffering and it opens up our own joy – still mysterious and wonderful – but an attribute of our own nature.

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The Journey of Returnby Karim Parkhurst

The Journey of Return

(…but how?)

How do we begin?

This is how:

Hazrat Inayat Khan says this concerning the mechanics of the opening of the way:

‘So long as the adept has not balanced [her] breath, and controlled it, and mastered it, it cannot bring about the proper result. Therefore it is of no use to try to make use of the breath for psychical or occult attainments until one has caused the breath to be in such a condition that it can work properly in the body. Many therefore are not successful in spiritual attainments because before making use of the breath in the body, they want to produce psychical phenomena. You cannot play Beethoven on a piano which is out of tune. The body is the instrument for every experience, worldly or spiritual, and it is not right to say that the body does not matter, only the spirit counts. It is just like saying that it does not matter whether the instrument is tuned, it is the music that counts.

…By a deep study of breath a seeker after truth will find that as every particle of [her] body is formed and nourished by breath so from that and according to that [her] character is formed.’

‘…to live a fuller life the wise in all religions have taken the breath in hand and awakened atoms and centres which are instruments for these faculties. As soon as breath touches these centres it makes them vibrate and then they do their

work. Therefore breathing activities given to a mureed are like the winding of the clock. Once in twenty-four hours the clock is wound and after that it goes on without effort.’

‘…the body is an instrument for experiencing life; both the worlds, that within and without, are reflected in this instrument. Therefore purity of the body is the first essential thing, and the most essential, in the path of spiritual attainment.

…All the passages in the body are connected with the centres, which are most important in spiritual development, and it is upon the cleanliness and purity of these passages that spiritual development depends…’

And if we have done this?

This is how:

Sa’d Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari said this:

‘Gulshan I Raz’

Q. Who then is he who attains to the secret of unity?

Who is the understanding one that is a knower?

A. That man attains to the secret of unity

Who is not detained at the stages on the road.

But the knower is he that knows Very Being,

He that witnesses Absolute Being.

He recognises no being but Very Being,

And being such as his own he gambles clean away.

Your being is naught but thorns and weeds,

Cast it all clean away from you.

Go sweep out the chamber of your heart,

Make it ready to be the dwelling-place of the Beloved.

When you depart out, He will enter in,

In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauty.

The man who is loved for his ‘pious works’,

Whom the pains of ‘negation’ purify as a room that

is swept,

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The Journey of Return

Hefindsanabodeina‘laudablestation’,

Hefindsaportionin‘whateyehathnotseen,norear

heard’.

But while the stain of his own being remains on him,

The knowledge of the knower assumes not the form

of experience.

Until you cast away obstacles from before you,

The light enters not the chamber of your heart.

…..

This is just a fragment of the wonderful ‘Gulshan I Raz’ (The Mystic Rose Garden) by the Sufi mystic Sa’d Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari, written in A.D. 1317 (A.H. 717) in answer to questions on the doctrine of the Sufis.

Must we not work for this?

Shabistari himself lived in a village (Shabistar) near Tabriz in the province of Azerbaijan, which was part of the newly founded (heathen) Moghul Empire.

Before his death in Tabriz in A.D.1320, he lived to see the Emperor Ghazan Khan convert to Islam along with all his subjects (said to number nearly 100,000).

Something must have stirred their hearts to bring about such change.

For us…?

Having done these things, and more, then…

This is how:

Abu’l Hasan ash-Shadhili, in discussing how the contemplative comes to God only after abandoning all initiative, desire, and choice, drawing on a sacred tradition (Hadith Qudsi) of the Prophet, said this:

When God wishes to have her [the contemplative] reach Him, He facilitates it in this way. He makes manifest to her some of the sublime attributes and holy qualities whose divine epiphany hides from the soul of the servant her own attributes and qualities. This serves as a sign that God loves her. Thus He suggests to her the following divine tradition related by the Prophet:

‘When I love her, I become her own ear with which she hears, her eyes with which she sees, her hand with which she gathers, and her feet with which she walks.’

In that state the servant [of God] has surrendered her will, wishing only what her Lord desires, and is united with God not by any human effort but through God’s gracious mercy.

Ah! That is how.

----- * -----

May God grant us the ears to hear, the eyes to see, the hands to gather and the feet to continue to walk on this blessed path.

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Sacred Reading: The Tuning of the Heartfrom Volume 8a, Sufi Teachings

by Hazrat Inayat Khan

SPIRITUALITY is not necessarily intellectuality, nor orthodoxy, nor asceticism. Orthodoxy, asceticism, or intellectual pursuit after truth, are all the various ways people have taken in order to reach the spiritual goal; but the way is not the goal. If there can be a definition of spirituality, it is the tuning of the heart.

In this material age of ours heart quality is totally forgotten, and great importance is given to reason and logic. When we argue with a person, he wants us to argue with reason; we must be logical. Sentiment and idealism have no place. It is because of this that humanity is getting further and further away from spiritual attainment. That which is the chief and the best quality is ignored; and by ignoring that quality it becomes dead. If a poet happens to live in a village where no one understands poetry, if an artist lives in a town where no one cares for his pictures, if an inventive genius has no opportunity of bringing his inventions out, their faculties and talents become blunted and finally they die; and the same happens to the heart quality: if it is not taken notice of, if it has no opportunity to develop, if it is ignored, then this quality becomes blunted and in the end it dies. As it is expressed in a song, ‘The light of a whole life dies when love is done.’ What remains? There is no sign of life; what remains is intellectuality expressing itself by the power of egoism. It is difficult to live in the world because selfishness is ever on the increase.

There is a certain fineness that belongs to human nature, a certain nobleness, a certain independence. There is a certain ideal, a certain delicacy, a certain manner. And all these become blunted when the heart quality is left undeveloped.

I have been traveling for many years, seeing people engaged in the pursuit of truth; and to my very great disappointment I have found many who, although interested in higher things, are yet arguing and discussing, ‘Do you believe what I believe?’ or, ‘My belief is better than your belief’, always intellectually. But we do not need to use so much intellect in seeking God, in attaining spirituality, for this does not come through intellect; it comes by the tuning of the heart.

People will say that this may be so, but that all the same there are many emotional and affectionate people. But emotional people are not always loving people. Maybe outwardly, but very often the more emotional people are, the less loving; for one day their love is on the rise, next day it drops. They are just moved by emotions like clouds. One day the sky is clear, next day it is covered over. One cannot depend upon emotions. That is not love; it is the feeling nature that should be developed, the sympathetic nature.

Besides there exists, especially in the Western world, a false conception of the strength of personality. Many have understood this wrongly, and under the guise of strength they want to harden their hearts. Many think that for a man to be touched or moved by anything is not natural or normal. On the contrary, if a man is not touched or moved it is not natural; he is then still in the mineral kingdom and not yet in the human kingdom. To be human and not to be touched or moved by something touching, appealing, only means that the eyes of the heart are closed and its ears blocked; that the heart is not living. It is the wrong understanding of a high principle. The principle is that man must be feeling yet at the same time so strong that however much feeling he has he should have enough strength to hide it. It does not mean he must not have feeling; a man without feeling is without life.

However much one studies psychology, theoretically or practically, one will not attain to spirituality. Spirituality does not belong to intellectuality. It has nothing to do with it. In connection with spirituality, intellectuality is only useful in so far as an intellectual person can better express spiritual inspiration.

One might ask if it is not natural to attain spirituality. Does it not come without any effort on our part? And if it is not natural, then what is the use of attaining spirituality? The answer is that spirituality is not only for human beings but also for the lower creation, for every being; not spirituality in the sense we usually understand it, but in the sense of being tuned to one’s natural pitch. Even birds have their moments of exaltation. At the setting or the rising of the sun, the breaking of dawn, in moonlight, there come times when birds and animals feel exalted. They sing and dance and sit on the branches of the trees in exaltation. Every day they feel this exquisite joy. And if we go still further and if we have eyes to see life in those forms in which others do not see it, in the rock or the tree, we find that there are times when even the trees are in a complete state of ecstasy. Those who live naturally, who open the doors of their heart, whose soul is in contact with nature, find nature singing, dancing, communicating. It is not only a legend, a story of the past, that saints used to speak with the trees. It is an actual fact and is the same today as in the past. Souls are always of the same nature. They are the same, only we have become unbelievers, we have no confidence in life. We have become material, we have closed our eyes to what is before us. Souls can become saints and sages today just as in the past. Are the stars not the same as ever? They communicate also today with the one who is able to understand them. But we have turned our back on nature; we live in an artificial world; we have not only become material, we have become matter itself.

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Sufis in all ages, mystics of India, Persia, and Egypt have considered the awakening of the heart quality to be the principal thing in life. For all the virtues that the priest can teach and prescribe, all the virtues that one is told to practice in life, come naturally when the heart opens. One need not learn virtue; virtue becomes one’s own. Virtues that are taught, how long do they last? If there is any virtue it must come by itself; spirituality is natural. And if animals and birds can feel spiritual exaltation, why not we? But we do not live a natural life. We have tried in our civilization to be as far removed from nature and natural life as possible, breathing an artificial atmosphere contrary to climatic influences, eating food which we have manufactured, turning it into something quite different from what nature had made it.

The most important question is how to make the best of our life, how to make the best of this opportunity which is passing by us. Every moment lost is incomparably more valuable than the loss of money. As man comes to realize this, he will more and more come to the conclusion that while he thought that he was progressing, he has really been moving around in the same maze.

If only he had found the door, that door which is called by the wise spiritual attainment! However well educated one may be, however much one has collected or accomplished, however much power and position one has gained, none of this will be lasting; there is only one thing which is everlasting and that is spiritual attainment. Without this there will always be dissatisfaction, an uncomfortable feeling. No knowledge, power, position, or wealth can give that satisfaction which spiritual attainment can give.

There is nothing more easy and nothing more difficult in the world: difficult because we have made it difficult; easy because in reality it is the easiest thing possible. All other things one has to buy and pay for. We have even to pay for our water. But for spiritual attainment we do not need to pay any tax. It is ours, it is our self; it is the discovering of our self. And yet what one values is what one gets with difficulty. Man loves complexity so much; he makes something big and complicated and says, ‘This is valuable.’ If it is simple he thinks that it has no value. That is why the ancient people, knowing human nature, told a person when he said he wanted spiritual attainment, ‘Very well; for ten years go around the temple, walk around it a hundred times every evening. And go to the Ganges. Then you will get inspiration.’ That is what should be done with people who will not be satisfied with a simple explanation of the truth, who want complexity.

One often hears people say, ‘I once had deep feeling but that feeling is all gone, it is lost. Now I have no more feeling.’ That really means that something in them has died. They do not know it, but something of great importance has

died as a result of their being affectionate, loving, kind. Perhaps they have met with the bad qualities of human nature and have become disappointed; and so the feeling heart has taken the bowl of poison and died. There are others who out of self-righteousness or keen perception of human defects, out of their critical tendency, begin to hate before they can love someone, letting hate come first and giving love no chance.

What is necessary is to develop a sympathetic nature and to sustain its gradual growth. Just as it is difficult for the student of voice-culture to practice with his voice and yet not to let it be spoiled, so it is with a sympathetic person. While developing, he runs the risk of spoiling the faculty of sympathy; in other words, the more loving a person, the more chance he has of being disappointed. The greater the love, the greater the fragility of the heart and the more susceptible it becomes to everything, until it can break at any moment. The one who walks in the path of sympathy should take great care that his way is not blocked; everything will be trying to block his way, and it is his own perseverance that will keep it open.

By lack of development of the sympathetic nature a block is produced in the mind and in the body. In the physical

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body there are some nervous centers, centers which are awakened by sympathetic development. And by lack of sympathetic development they remain closed. It is for this reason that a butcher is less intuitive. Everything that keeps man from sympathy robs him of intuition, for in these finer centers sympathy develops life, and the absence of that sympathy takes away that life.

So it is in the mind. When the heart is not sympathetic there is something missing in the mentality of man, and it is sympathy which opens it. The Sufis know the medicine for this disease, and it is the practice of the art which is called Zikr or Mantram. By practicing that particular art in the right way one activates these fine centers by vibrations. By the repetition of certain mystic words the centers begin to vibrate. Very often after only a short time of doing these practices a person feels quite different, especially when a mental thought is held during that time; thus concentration is developed at the same time. It helps the love-nature or sympathetic nature to be deepened or centralized, and as it begins to flow out an atmosphere is created, a spiritual atmosphere; this all comes from the development of feeling.

During my pilgrimage to the holy men of India I saw some whose presence was more illuminating than the reading of books for a whole lifetime, or arguing a thousand times about any problems. They do not need to speak; they become living lights, fountains of love. And as there is infection in disease so there is also infection in spiritual attainment. One feels uplifted and full of joy, ecstasy, happiness, enlightenment.

No doubt one person may be more impressed than another; upon one the influence is much greater that upon another. It all depends upon the individual. I remember a lady once telling me, ‘Since you came my husband has been very nice to me.’ But eight days after I had left the town where I was staying, she wrote to me that her husband was just as he had been before. It makes a great difference what person it is, for it is just like the effect of fire. On stone, on iron, on wax, on paper, on cloth, on cotton, on every object the effect of fire is different, and so on every person the effect of spiritual personality is different.

Once I met a learned man, a doctor of philosophy with a great many degrees. We spoke about the deeper side of life. And he became very interested in what I said and told me that he thought very highly of me; so I thought that if I were to tell him about my teacher how much more interesting it would be for him. I told him, ‘There is a wonderful man in this city; he has no comparison in the whole world.’ ‘Are there such people?’ he asked, ‘I would very much like to see him. Where does he live?’ And I told him, in such and such a part of the city. He said, ‘I live there also, where is his house? I know all the people there. What

is his name?’ So I told him. He said, ‘For twenty years I have known this man, and now you are telling me about him!’ I thought to myself, ‘In a hundred years you would not have been able to know him.’ He was not ready to know him. If people are not evolved enough they cannot appreciate, they cannot understand others. They cannot even understand the greatest souls. They may sit with them, talk with them; they may be in contact with them all their life, but they do not see; while another, if he is ready to understand, needs only one moment. This philosopher had known my teacher for twenty years and yet he did not know him; I saw him once and became his pupil for ever. This man was learned, he was very intellectual, but he saw him with his brain; I saw my teacher with my heart.

The one principle to be remembered in the path of sympathy is that we should all do our best with regard to the pleasure of those whom we love and whom we meet. But we should not expect the same from those whom we love and whom we meet. For we must realize that the world is as it is, and we cannot change it; we can only change ourselves. The one who wants others to do what he wishes will always be disappointed. That is the complaining soul, the one who all day long and every day of the month is complaining. He is never without a complaint; if not about a human being, then it is the climate; if not about the climate, then about the conditions; if not about someone else, then about himself.

He should remember that self-pity is the worst poverty. The person who takes life in this way, who considers his poor self to be forgotten, forsaken, ill-treated by everybody, by the planets, even by God, for that person there is no hope; he is an exile from the garden of Eden. But the one who says, ‘I know what human nature is, I cannot expect any better, I must only try and appreciate what little good comes from it and be thankful for it, and try and give the best I can to the others’, has the only attitude which will enable him to develop his sympathetic nature. The one who keeps justice in the foreground will always be blinded by it; he will always talk about justice, but he will never really know it. For the one who keeps justice in the background, the light of justice falls on his way and he only uses justice for himself. When he has not done right towards others he takes himself to task, but if others do not do right towards him he says that this also is justice. For the just person all is just; for the unjust everything is unjust. The one who talks too much of justice is far from justice; that is why he is talking about it.

Is there then no reward at all in sympathy if it leads only to disappointment? Life’s reward is life itself. A person may suffer from disease or be most unhappy and sad; but if he were asked, ‘Do you want to be turned into a rock?’ He would say, ‘No, rather let me live and suffer.’ Therefore life’s reward is life; and the reward of love is love itself.

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Loving is living, and the heart that closes itself to everyone closes itself to its own self.

The difference between human love and divine love is like that between drill and war. One has to drill in order to prepare for war. One has to know the phenomenon of love on this plane in order to prepare to love God who alone deserves love. The one who says, ‘I hate human beings, but I love God’, does not know what love means; he has not drilled, he is of no use in war. Whether a loving person loves a human being or whether he loves God, he shows no trace of hatred. And the one who has hatred in him loves neither man nor God, for hatred is the sign that the doors of his heart are closed.

Is it not a great pity that we see today among the most civilized nations one nation working against the other, a lack of trust and the fear of war between them? It is dreadful to think that humanity, though it appears to be progressing, is actually going backward to a greater extent than has ever been seen in the history of the world. Are we evolving or going backward? What is missing is not intellectuality, for every day people are inventing more and more ingenious things. Then what is missing? It is the heart quality. It seems as though it is being buried more deeply every day. Therefore today the real man is being destroyed, and the false part of his being is continuing. Better conditions can only be brought about by the individual who realizes that it is the development of the heart which can accomplish this, and nothing else.

Very often people coming to hear me say afterwards, ‘Yes, all you say is very interesting, very beautiful, and I wish too that the world could be changed. But how many think like you? How can you do it? How can it be done?’ They come with these pessimistic remarks. And I tell them, ‘One person comes into a country with a little cold or influenza and it spreads. If such a bad thing can spread, could not then the elevated thought of love and kindness and goodwill towards all men also spread? Thus we should see to it that there are finer germs of goodwill going from one to the other, of love and kindness, of the feeling of brotherhood, of the desire for spiritual evolution; they will have greater results than the other ones. If we all took this optimistic view, if we all worked in our small way, we could accomplish a great deal.’

There are many good, loving, and kind people whose heart goes out to every person they meet. But are they spiritual? It is an important question to understand. The answer is that they are very close to spiritual attainment, but they are unconsciously spiritual. They are not spiritual consciously. Very often we meet a mother or father or child in whom we see a deeply loving tendency; love is pouring out from them, they have become fountains of love. Yet they do not know one word of religion or of mysticism. But this does not matter. After all what are these names? Nothing but nets for fishes to be caught in, which may then remain in those nets for years. Sometimes these are big names with little meaning to them, but much is made of them by those who want to commercialize the finer things. Very often it is a catering on the part of so-called spiritual workers to satisfy human curiosity and to create a sensation even in the spiritual world. Nevertheless truth is simple. The more simple one is and the more one seeks for simplicity, the nearer one comes to truth.

The devotional quality needs a little direction; that direction allows it to expand itself. The loving quality is just like water. The tendency of water is to expand, to spread, and so the loving quality spreads; but if a person is not well directed or if he does not know himself, then instead of deepening it becomes limited. The love quality must be deepened first before it spreads out. If not, what generally happens to those who set out to love all human beings is that in the end they hate all human beings, because they did not first deepen themselves enough and so lacked more and more the strength of attraction.

The Sufis have therefore considered spiritual culture to be the culture of the heart. It consists of the tuning of the heart. Tuning means the changing of pitch of the vibration. The tuning of the heart means the changing of the vibrations, in order that one may reach a certain pitch which is the natural pitch; then one feels the joy and ecstasy of life, which enables one to give pleasure to others even by one’s presence because one is tuned. When an instrument is properly tuned one does not need to play music on it; just by striking it one will feel great magnetism coming from it. If a well-tuned instrument can have that magnetism, how much greater should be the magnetism of the heart which is tuned! Rumi says, ‘Whether you have loved a human being or whether you have loved God, if you have loved enough you will be brought in the end into the presence of the supreme Love itself.’

Nature Below, Amid and AboveEarth beneath my feet, sustaining, nurturing … beholder, nourisher, motherBeauty, colour, variety, feeding, green balm, healingExpanse, open, silence, light, celestial gift of space By Hamida Janice

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‘Ruh’ (soul), our physical virtual world & our affairs:A Sufi Pondering

by Nur Al-Alam

We need both the body and the soul, but there will be no true peace or satisfaction until the soul is allowed to be the inspiration for all that the body does, and the body becomes merely the soul’s instrument for the direct experience of love, harmonyandbeautyinthisworld.…Tofindtheenduringpeace, satisfaction and joy which are our birthright, the body must act in harmony with the inspiration, longing and inner guidance of the soul. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Over the years I realized that one of the many benefits of becoming a Sufi is that you feel your intimate connectedness to the Almighty through its creation. Time to time, many beautiful thoughts and wisdom become evident to you so that you can become more and more confident in your faith and love of God.

So in this article, I’ll be attempting to describe a few thoughts and ideas that surfaced in my mind when I was pondering on the connectedness of God to us. In fact, this thought-wave, or in Hazrat Inner Khan’s words, ‘Inner Guidance’, came to me almost four years ago. I recorded it at that time – just like a hundred plus other thoughts, but did not dare to write or disclose it to others. However, this Qur’anic verse inspired me to share it with all; Allah says: ‘When your Lord gives you bountiful blessings, speak about it’ (93:11).

I was pondering on the thought, ‘I’m connected to Allah through the “Ruh” and I’m connected to my family through the blood.’ So my Earth connection is through the blood, and my heavenly connection is through the ‘Ruh’. Allah SWT said in the Holy Qur’an, ‘Qul-il Ruh Min Amrillah’- ‘Ruh is the affairs of Allah’. Ruh is the sub-routine of Allah. So whatever I am doing with my body, I am doing it through the Ruh. So Ruh is doing it because I am the tributary channels, a media instrument, through which God discloses himself. As Hazrat Imam Al-Ghazali said, ‘If we believe in the majesty and the beauty of Allah, in ALL the creations in this universe, in the same way, Allah is guiding us through every event in our life’. So whatever I’m doing is part of the guidance from Allah. So I am connected to Allah through the Ruh. But I have all the characteristics, all the face, all the colour of my skin, all the behaviour, all these things are I inherited through my blood, through my family. But this has nothing to do with my heart. The physical heart is connected (the Lotifa), to the energy centre of my body, but the subtle heart of virtual body is connected to the

Ruh, the strenuous substance which Imam Ghazali talks about in his book, Marbles of Heart.

I use this virtual body when I am sleeping and I am dreaming; and in the dream I enjoy food. The other day, in my dream, I went to a garden where I saw beautiful flowers, beautiful trees. And I saw that in all of the trees hanging there in each branch, all of the food items were those I like, my favourite foods. Not only that, I was enjoying the smells. I was even able to taste a few items on my tongue. I was salivating in the dream.

In my dream, I was actually not using my physical body; I was using my celestial body. That celestial body has the celestial heart, and that heart is the heart on which we can reflect Allah SWT. Where we can do the prayer that Hazrat Inayat Khan taught us to pray with these words, ‘Oh Allah, draw us closer to thee, every moment of our lives, until in us be reflected, thy grace, thy glory, thywisdom,thy joy and thy peace.’ That’s the state or Haal we are all working towards: through our wazifas, through our living this earthly life, through our zikar practices, we polish our celestial heart so that through that heart, the glory of Allah is reflected in us.

Another feeling that is becoming part of my prime thought is that we are nothing but dust. I am nothing but dust. I am nothing but a dot. I am nothing but a drop of water separated from the ocean. Allah is the ocean and I am the drop. A drop of water which is trapped in trees. A drop of water which is trapped in my cucumber that I ate for lunch. A drop of water which is trapped in my blood. A drop of water which is trapped in the orange juice that I drank for my breakfast. A drop of water that floats in a cloud. A drop of water which came from the ocean but came onto this plane through the rain, and then got into the trees and became trapped in my body, through the transfer of fluid from my dad to my mum, and then I came into a being, a piece of flesh and blood, my physical body where this drop of water is trapped. But the light of the Ruh which came from Allah SWT, is the one making my body talk, that is the one making my body think, that is the one which is doing everything. That is the one which is revealing the secrets of Allah.

Those ideas made me think the other day, when I was getting all bad news at work and home. Everybody around me started behaving like enemies. Everyone was causing me financial damage and emotional pain. Then came

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‘Ruh’ (soul), our physical virtual world & our affairs:A Sufi Pondering

the consolation message which soothed my heart. This message was that sometimes the Beloved One can set you up to test your integrity and sincerity. He can make those people around you behave a certain way so that he can watch you to find out how you behave in those situations, how you handle those calamities. Do you really fall into the trap of ego fighting with them, starting reciprocal animosity and hatred toward them? Or do you obediently accept it as a test from God and face it with courage,

sacrifice with forgiveness, give love to all and malice to no-one? He definitely tests your attachment to earthly wealth, name or fame. If we truly give our ‘willing surrender’ to Him, then those earthly losses or gains will bother us no more and we can taste the peace and harmony Hazrat Inayat Khan speaks about, or that which Al-Ghazali refers to when he says ‘Allah is guiding us through every event in our life’.

At the beginning I was mistaken in four respects.

I sought to remember God, to know Him, to love Him.

When I had come to the end, I saw that He had remembered me before I had remembered Him,

That His knowledge of me had preceded my knowledge of Him,

His love toward me had existed before my love to Him, and had sought me before I sought Him.

Bayazid Bistami

You can have all the good things – wealth, friends, kindness, love to give and love to receive – once you have learned not to be blinded by them; learned to escape from disappointment and from repugnance at the idea that things are not as you want them to be.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

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The Pilgrim and the Prophetby Zubin Leonie Shore

The calling to the 2015 retreat at the Dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan was clear. When the registration package arrived with preliminary instructions for the focus on ‘The Spirit of Guidance’ there was a feeling of being on the right track. By establishing our intention for the retreat that feeling deepened. The retreat participants became pilgrims in that a pilgrimage may be defined by an intention, which can be supported by repentance (recognising a sincere desire to change one’s behavior), by sincerity (which compensates for our shortcomings), and by hope (including not being discouraged by our limitations).

On arrival we found ‘progress’ with the neighbors undertaking to build two apartment blocks, so the temple within was built in the rhythm of the external building. On day 1, at the rear of the 100 metre block, the bamboo scaffolding extended above the ground floor and a set of four apartments was placed on the walls below. On day 2 the bamboo scaffolding was extended upwards and a third floor was added, surely that would be enough? However on day 3 the fourth floor was added, the bricks of the levels below were rendered, and on day 4 the bamboo scaffolding was extended and a fifth floor was added. There it appeared to stop, changing the skyline of the neighborhood.

Concurrently at the front of the block a team of about twenty workers excavated by hand and removed the dirt by basket around the clock until a two story basement had been excavated. Each morning on the walk to get flowers the progress would be investigated. Surely this hole in the ground threatened the 16th century archeological gate and the marble prayer wall of the Dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan, potentially undermining their foundations? By midday a truckload of bags of cement were delivered, unloaded and began to be mixed by hand and the underpinning of the archeological gate was given priority. The next morning a 50 metre long retaining wall some four metres high shored up the edge of the property closest to the marble prayer wall of the Dargah, giving some relief to those worried about subsidence. A small excavator was brought in to remove the lid of the water main, however dirt continued to be removed from the basement by the basket load, and steel mesh was laid. Next morning the entire basement had a concrete floor with brick work outlining the apartments, stairwell and utilities. That was a week’s work in the external world!

Within the retreat we pilgrims were reflecting on the prophets. Human beings devoted to the God ideal, with the ability to perceive the Spirit of Guidance and able to inspire people to the inner life with their teachings. Hazrat Inayat Khan spoke at length on this aspect of the prophets:

Regarding Jesus: ‘The Prophet brings love and light which is the food of every soul to the world, …. the love of God, the love of life itself. The presence of the Prophet speaks of it if only the heart has ears to listen’.

Of Krishna: ‘Every soul is striving to attain God, not as a Judge, but as a Beloved. And every soul seeks God, the God of Love, in the form it is capable of imagining’.

The Buddhist embodies the Spirit of Guidance in the Bodhisattva, the essence of reason, the subtle reason; the finer it is, the less it can be explained in words.

Zarathustra prayed to the Light within to guide him by all evidences that Nature presented before him, to strengthen the conviction that all is of God, created by God and ruled by God.

The Prophet: not solid wood but the empty reed becomes a flute, to be tender so as to respond to every call for sympathy and firm as to bear all things, to be in the world and not of it, to live and not to live, for God alone lives.

No sooner is the God Ideal brought to life and the worshipper turns into Truth … and in the light of that absolute Truth, the seeker finds all knowledge.

In Abraham the Sufi considers human life as a line with two ends, one immortal and one mortal, one unlimited and one limited. By self control and conquering the ego we arrive at the eternal goal.

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The Pilgrim and the Prophet

These pilgrims spent the week in practices to develop self control, and study of some of those who have attained mastery, and the importance of the Spirit of Guidance in the life of each person to make use of each moment. And we pray, ‘Spirit of Guidance, source of all Beauty, Creator of Harmony, Love, Lover and Beloved Lord Thou art our Divine Idea’.

Hazrat Inayat Khan: ‘Thy whisper to the ears of my heart moveth my soul to ecstasy. The waves of joy which arise out of my heart form a net in which the Living Word may swing. My heart patiently awaits Thy word, deaf to all that comes from without. O Thou who art enshrined in my heart, speak again to me; Thy voice exalteth my Spirit.’

From all of us readers of Spirit Matters over the years we want to thank you Sakina from our heart for this beautiful Newsletter, always full of colour, beauty, harmony and love. A true Sufi publication. Every edition was unique and special for the time that it was in. Personally I would like to thank you also for illustrating my stories so beautifully and making them so presentable. Altogether what you have done has been inspiring and we are grateful for it. Of course they are here for posterity on our webpage!!! Technology is wonderful. So once again we send you our gratitude, appreciation and love!!From all of us in the International Sufi Movement, Nuria

Dear friends,

Although it was by my own wish, I feel sad that this will be my last time to edit this newsletter. In 2016, my life will change again and I need some more time and energy to devote to those changes. For the past few years it has been a gift to be able to produce this little publication for SMiA. For those who have sent messages of praise for it, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words and encouragement. Truly, however, it has been the contributors who have made this newsletter an ongoing venture – so thanks to all of you, especially to Nuria and Azad who have filled these issues with many words of wisdom and beautiful images. As we all know, Spirit Matters would not exist without you. I would also like to acknowledge our other regular contributors of articles, poetry, images and little quotes – Nur Al Alam, ChamanAfroz, Zubin, Talibah (Iqbal) and Ananda in particular. You have given us many pages to ponder upon and enjoy over the years. Additionally, I have much gratitude for Yaqin for making the newsletter so presentable and readable on the webpage. We have a new contributor this issue as well. I would like to thank Julia Christie for her inspiring artwork on the cover of this issue, and for finding the quote about peace. I think she did a fantastic job with my very vague brief – oh, something Christmassy. Thank you, Julia, for being part of the journey with Spirit Matters. And as we are in the throes of the Christmas season, I wish you all a very happy and safe Christmas, and a very soul-nourishing and bountiful 2016. Love, Sakina

Farewell to the Editor

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NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVENuria DalyPhone: 03 9561 4861Email: [email protected]

VICE-PRESIDENTCelia GennPhone: 07 5494 0724Email: [email protected]

SECRETARYZora FlorenPhone: 03 5348 7603Email: [email protected]

TREASURERAzad DalyPhone: 03 9561 4861Email: [email protected]

INTERNATIONAL SUFI MOVEMENT CONTACTS

GENERAL REPRESENTATIVES24 Banstraat, 2517 GJ The Hague, NetherlandsPhone: +31 70 3657 664Email: [email protected]

GENERAL SECRETARIAT78 Anna Pulownastraat, 2518 BJ The Hague, NetherlandsPhone: +31 70 346 1594Email: [email protected]

SUFI MOVEMENT WEB SITESInternational: www.sufimovement.orgAustralia: www.smia.com.au

REGIONAL CONTACTS AND REPRESENTATIVES

ACTTalibah Josephine LolicatoPhone: 02 6297 5107Email: [email protected]

NSW – SYDNEY Hamida JanicePhone: 02 9387 5263Email: [email protected]

NSW – BRUNSWICK HEADSZubin ShoreRosegardenPhone: 0478 679 533Email: [email protected]

QLD – GLASSHOUSE MOUNTAINSCelia GennPhone: 07 5494 0724Email: [email protected]

SOUTH AUSTRALIA – ADELAIDEKarim and Bahkti ParkhurstPhone: 0427 671126 or 0429 996950Email: [email protected]

TASMANIAHabiba AubertPhone: 03 6223 6085

VICTORIA – MELBOURNENuria Daly (details above)

EDITOR, Spirit MattersSakina Kara JacobPhone: 0448 839641Email: [email protected]

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Contacts


Documents

Spirit Matters December 2015