• Lost and Found

    November 25, 2017

    Do you know that you spend most of your time and energy being lost?

    I have a menu of lost enterprises. I can get lost in my thinking, lost in my business, lost in conversation, lost in watching television.

    When I find myself, I experience a moment of irrational joy and a surge of energy. Ah yes, here I am in the real world. Emaho, as the Tibetans say, absolutely amazing.

    Finding myself is spontaneous. In that moment, I have no agenda, nothing to change. I see it as complete agreement, no reservations.

    Now, I am going to suggest to you another feature of this state of finding. I mention it hesitatingly because, although I wish for you to look for it and recognize it, I do not want you to adopt this as a goal. Because the irrational joy of the state is intimately connected to its spontaneity. What do I wish you to see? That this state has an immediate sense of orientation; it is this which accounts for the experience of finding which is so different from being lost.

    By orientation I do not mean the points of the compass or the four directions. I mean an inner sense of orientation, as if you are facing something. If you are able to sense this quality of facing, and stay with it for a few moments, it may reveal something to you. First, what you are facing is indefinable, mysterious, but this lack of form is not at all uncomfortable.

    Second, the irrational joy of finding yourself, there and then, clearly and exactly arises from contact with this indefinable something. So, the moment of finding contains you, this other and a wonderful connection which expresses joy.

    Now, you could say that you have remembered yourself and that would be partly true. But it would be just as true to say you have been remembered. There are two sides meeting, acknowledging and completing each other. In no time at all, without words.

    I think it is very likely you have had this experience. Perhaps you can even recall it. Being human, we quickly forget and become lost again.

    Many times over the years I have challenged you to find evidence of God in your life. Thoughts and theories are not evidence. You may reject the very idea. That doesn’t matter either. The existence of God does not depend on your acceptance of it. The evidence is in the subtlety of human experience without any required reference to religion or theology. All it requires is to enter your own experience and perceive it, with fresh eyes and fewer preconceived ideas.

    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Confidence

    October 17, 2016

    The ordinary meaning of this word is to feel good about yourself, to think that you are up to the task, whatever that task is. This use of the word correctly exposes the orientation of our time, as words do; an orientation to oneself.

    The original meaning is to be or to act con fidele (with faithfulness). Implied in this understanding is that confidence does not come from oneself, one’s abilities, but rather from a relationship which is faithful, one to the other. This orientation suggests that humans need a relationship to enable them to be confident. To be confident, I need to be faithful to someone or something which will hold me in place, keep me from wavering.

    A relationship that inspires confidence cannot be constructed by the mind. Faith is not blind, or rather, it is blind to the ordinary human world because it relies on seeing into another world, a world of honour, truth and love that transcends the temporary alliances and values of the world around me.

    Do you know the immense relief that comes from this relationship? I do not care what name you have for it. In our work, this relationship is said to be remembering. It is returning to the connectedness that has always been there when I cease forgetting.

    I forget. I become identified with my roles, personalities, aims and desires which isolate me in myself. All confidence is lost. I am left to bluff my way, whistling in the dark, plucking up my courage, alone.

    I remember. I am present. I feel connected. I am not alone. This is beyond reason. It is fact. It is what the heart knows as an organ of perception.

    Can I remember? I notice that I cannot remember when I am in a state of contraction, when my heart feels constricted. I notice the things that bring this contraction. I learn to avoid these things where possible. I learn to release the sensation of contraction. I learn the gestures that can expand my heart.

    Am I willing to do battle for the state of connectedness? In this battle, when I remember, I am helped, I am remembered. I learn that the wish to remember is met and seen and I am held. This is confidence.

    Tags: , , , ,

  • On Zikr

    April 11, 2015

    Last night in zikr you said something about it being an encounter with yourself. Isn’t it about fana, the annihilation of self?

    Zikr is many things and it incorporates many possible points of view. It is not logical or linear. You have to find out what it is for you, not what it is supposed to be. Zikr is an invocation, a call to enter a relationship. Speaking of zikr, Ibn Arabi asks: “Where were you and where was I when we had our meeting?” It’s all about the meeting. What happens there is up to the two of you.

    Do you know where you are? Conceptually, you think you are in the zikr chamber in a certain building on a particular street. Your position is fixed by ideas and by your personality which is held together by fixed postures and muscle tensions along with the perpetual humming of one of your habitual emotions…you  have at least three or four…anxiety, disagreement, elation, greed…

    To change where you are, you must first relax the physical, release habitual tensions, become more fluid. Mind clears. Direct sensing becomes possible. Where are you? Sensing looks for orientation. There are the sensations of the body, of breathing, and there are other more subtle influences. The space around you has texture and movement, the turning of the planet, the radiation of stars? There is no need to speculate or itemize. You enter the present. Heart awakens, feelings are engaged that have no name. You have become human again. This is the first remembering, re-establishing what it is to be human, you remember yourself. This is where you are. The conceptual world is nowhere to be found.

    Now you must let go of the sense of being the center, cease to be the active one. Can you sense that you are seen? Does this naturally give rise to a feeling of humility? Do not be rushed. Can you agree to be experienced, recognized, accepted? Is there a feeling of intimacy in this contact? Who is it that recognizes you? Is this your Lord? What could this mean? There is nothing abstract in this feeling of being seen. There is nothing theoretical about this Lord. This is not the mentally constructed God of the religions. This Lord is unique to you, the pattern from which you were created. You were made in the exact image of this One. This is the second remembering, in which you are remembered.

    The repetition of zikr begins. Sound enters the body, circulation is altered, breath synchronizes and lengthens. Silence follows. Fikr, fikr-a-sirr. The molecules of the body, mind and heart are newly ordered, formed as a key for a lock which opens another chamber in this house of many mansions, where your Lord may be worshipped and honored and glorified in all the ways that He has devised in order to share Himself with you. You are entering a co-dependent relationship. Because you exist and turn in His direction, He may experience His own splendor in your response to Him. The adoration is mutual. You have entered Suhrawardi’s Na–koja–Abad, the Country of Nowhere. This is where you are.

    I have said, in my response to you, that my Lord is He. Do not let pronouns disturb you. The conscious universe takes form in every being and finds itself in every possible human expression including genders beyond our knowing. In this hall of mirrors, no one else exists.

    Tags: , , , , , , ,