Quotes: Stillness, silence and the present moment

 

Be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign

that you’ve died.

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

The speechless full moon  

comes out now.

- Rumi

 ” The discovery of the truth is the discernment of the false. You can know what is not. What is – you can only be. Do you understand that the mind has its limits? To go beyond, you must consent to silence.”

- Nisargadatta

 

 

 We can’t listen and receive if we’re constantly creating and projecting. We can’t observe or be aware of what’s behind us: Unconscious motivations, habits, energy blocks, knots, drains, etc., if we are busily creating more of the same.  We need to learn and value the art of listening and observing.  

We find this place of Silence through surrender, after perhaps years of struggle to dis-cover the false self.

 - Bob Fergeson 

 ” There is a way between voice and presence where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wandering talk it closes.

 - Rumi 

 ”It is, moreover, only in the state of complete abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures.”

- C.G. Jung

 By learning to observe our thoughts rather than mechanically react on them only, can lead to a new level of being, one in which everything is possible, even our own becoming.

 - Bob Fergeson 

 Only through staying in the present, and Being, can we be free of our mind and its misery, and access the power of Now.

 Now – that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.

 The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor’s edge of Now – to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot survive in the Now.”

 - Ekhart Tolle 

 Free thinkers are generally those who never think at all.”

                                              – Laurence Sterne

 A listening which is attentive yet not reactive, and unaffected by circumstance and the constant changes of thought and mind.  

 - Bob Fergeson

 Knowing that all thought is reactive and one step behind the present moment, we may begin to just listen, to observe without reaction. In this quiet, listening mind, something Real has the possibility of entering.

                                                -Bob Fergeson

 

The mind won’t allow you to be in the moment…ever.

 - Vicki Woodyard

 To see more quotes on various aspects of the spiritual quest please check out my other blog at :

http://upadesha.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flight of the Soul Bird

Equating the human soul with a bird is found in myth and mystical literature all over the world. From Hallaj to Sanai and Rumi, Persian mystical poetry has used the symbol of Bird, beautifully. The human soul, like a bird can choose to remain caged in this perishable body or fly towards Liberation. Ibn Sinna (Avicenna) used this motif and Ghazali wrote the Risalat at-tayr, “Treatise on the Birds”. The nightingale of Sufi poetry, yearning for the rose, singing night and day of its unfulfilled longing and union, suffering without complain the sting of its thorns – is the soul longing for eternal beauty. It is this longing that inspires the soul bird to sing. Longing is the most creative state that the soul can reach.

 Rumi often spoke of the soul as a white falcon, exiled amidst the black crows, or a nightingale in the company of ravens. Rumi’s pun on the word falcon or baz, which in Persian also means “again”, or ‘return’, refers to the baz’s desire to come back to its Lord and Master.

 However the symbol of the soul bird’s jouney to is final abode is ingenuously developed by Attar – the master story teller of Iran, in his epic poem, Mantiq u-tayr, “The Birds’ Conversation”, also known as “The Conference of the Birds”. Fariduddin “Attar” (= seller of essence and scents), a druggist by profession, is considered by many as the greatest of the Mathnavi writers of Persian mystical poetry after Rumi. He was born in Nishapur (north-eastern Iran) and died there most likely in 1221 C.E. The idea of traveling and ascension towards the spiritual home, so dear to the mystics of Islam, found its most poetic expression in Attar’s poetry. The Mantiq u-tayr was modeled on the, Risalat ut-Tayr, Treatise on the Birds composed half a century earlier by another Sufi master, Ahmad Ghazali (d. 1126 CE).

 The “The Conference of the Birds” revolves around the decision of the birds of the world to embark on a journey to seek out their king, the Simurgh – their debilitating doubts and fears, and the knowing counsel of their leader Hoopoe. Each bird falters in turn, whereupon their leader urges them on with parables and exemplary stories, including numerous references to some of the early Muslim mystics such as Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya, Abu Sa’id ibn Abi’l-Khair, Mansur al-Hallaj and Shibli. The different birds represent the different personality types among humans as well as the complex characteristics that make up the human individual.

 In these 4500 odd couplets, Attar speaks to all of us – to our inner being. We are all born with wings, but few of us discover them in our lifetime. Wings to fly back to our home – the abode of the mystical Simurgh – the Lord of all Birds, who lives on the world encircling mountain of Kaf. This journey ultimately is the soul’s progression towards inner perfection.

 The different stages along this spiritual journey, which may take a different sequence in different individuals, are symbolized by Attar as seven valleys. Perhaps the series of valleys are used to denote that this journey is not that of a single ascension. It occurs in stages, and once you have crossed one valley, you find yourself at the bottom of another. Valleys can be both enchanting and entrapping and the wayfarer may be tempted to linger on or get trapped in one of them. These seven valleys may be interpreted as follows:

 

The valley of Longing and Searching: This stage represents the longing and searching of all creatures, who unknown to themselves, long for their original home. It is the strange yearning that overcomes some of us when we listen to beautiful music or behold Natures’ beauty – its mountains and valleys, oceans and springs…… It is this longing that drives us from one desire to another. Not knowing what it is that will quench our thirst once and for all – the Trishna of the Advaita yogi.

 The valley of Love: This is the all consuming Love which purifies and the lover is regenerated and altered by it to such an extent that his very being undergoes a change – his every fiber is purified and raised to a higher state, resonating to a higher tune. This is true loving surrender, irrespective of religious tradition, reputation, name or fame, like the Love of Majnu for Laila; like the Love of Sheikh Sanan for a Christian maiden for whom he gave up the rosary for the ‘infidel’s’ girdle, like the Love of Mirabai for her Giridhar Gopal – the Bhakti and Samarpan of Bhakti yoga.

 The valley of intuitive Knowledge: Also known as the wisdom of the heart, marifa  or gnosis, this is direct revelation of the truth as apposed to ‘ilm’ or discursive knowledge. This is the Atmagyana or Atmabodh mentioned in Advaita. This revelation leads to detachment from all things perishable (valley of Detachment) and the realization of the unity of all existence (valley of Unity) – of both the phenomenal and the causative world. All opposites melt, everything is renounced and everything is unified. All forms merge into one singular Essence.

According to Jami, ‘ Unification consist in unifying the heart, that is, purifying it and denuding it of all attachment to all things other then “The Truth”, including not only desire and will but also knowledge and intelligence’. These valleys or states lead to the valley of Bewilderment, this is the long dark night of the soul, referred to by many Christian Gnostics – a state of perpetual sadness, and consuming desire – the agony of being in Love but not knowing with whom.

 Finally in the valley of Poverty and Annihilation, the thirty birds who undertook the painful journey in the search of Simurgh realize that they themselves – si murgh (=thirty birds in Persian) are the Simurgh. The story thus ends with one of the most inventive puns in Persian mystical poetry. This is the ultimate sought after state of fana – the nullification of the mystic in the divine presence when the seeker finds his way into the ocean of his own soul, all longing ends. However, this is not the end. When the soul has finished its journey to God, the journey in God begins – the state that the Sufis call baqa i.e. the absorption and abiding life in God,  the Sat- Chit- Ananda of Advaita. Here the soul traverses ever new depths of the fathomless, divine being – which no tongue can describe. Referring to this state Ghazali says ‘When I saw the rays of that sun, I was swept out of existence. Water flowed back to water’. The water drop finally falls back into the ocean, and the mortal form of the moth is reduced to smoke and ash in his Beloved flame’s embrace. It is the Nirvana and the moksha of the soul-bird which has finally returned Home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kabir: the weaver of mystic

Where do you seek me O devout?
I reside neither in the temple or in the mosque
neither Kashi or in Kaba
Neither in rites or in ceremonies
Neither in Yoga or in renunciation……
the true seeker shall find me in a moments realisation

for I reside in the very breath of your being….

(translated from the ‘Bijak’ collection of Kabir sayings)

Sometime in the 15th century lived a julaha – a ‘low caste’ muslim weaver, who preached the oneness of all men and all beliefs, the futility of all religions and rituals and the eventual passing away of all that is of flesh or of material in this phenomenal world. His name was Kabir.He claimed no sainthood or a personal philosophy. He taught the religion of love, in a language that could be understood by all – the twilight language of the mystic poets, bhakti saints and sufi poets. Kabir was the first, the first to imbibe a pluralistic tradition in his teachings and poetry, the first to transcend both Hinduism and Islam. Many were to follow in his foot steps….Akbar, Dara Shikoh, Amir Khusro…., but Kabir was the first to win the hearts and souls of the people who mattered – the common people of this land.An illiterate, he spoke of the highest esoteric truths in a simple language. A simplicity that the ‘learned’ pundits and maulvis are incapable of. One can see the synretistic reflections of Advaita theology and intense and personal passion of Islamic mysticism in his spontaneous compositions.Indian sufis in Delhi, Agra and Kashmir were reading his poetry during the rule of Jehangir and Shah Jahan. He was a predecessor of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religion and the sacred Guru Granth Sahib contains a substantial number of Kabir’s verses. Kabir is believed to have been born around 1398 and died around 1448. Most of his life was spent in the Banaras-Magahar region of present Uttar Pradesh . He was a family man and did not retire from the world to pursue a life of contemplation. He lived the simple life of a Julaha and died like one, earning his living at the loom and spurning the company of the ‘learned’ and royality alike. He beleived that the simple and hardworking life of an ordinary man was the world in which the quest for Higher Reality could be fullfilled.According to Kabir, every individual has to find his own Path and seek liberation from this illusory world of Maya. This, he says, can be achieved through unwavering love for the Higher Reality or God and compassion for fellow humans. He compares the individual soul or atman to the Hansa or swan, who will leave the cage of this body and fly away into the vastness of the limitless sky: 

Ud Jayega Huns Akela,

Jug Darshan Ka Mela

Jaise Paat Gire Taruvar Se,

Milna Bahut Duhela

Naa Jane Kidhar Girega,

Lageya Pawan Ka Rela

Jub Howe Umur Puri,

Jab Chute Ga Hukum Huzuri

Jum Ke Doot Bade Mazboot,

Jum Se Pada Jhamela

Das Kabir Har Ke Gun Gawe,

Wah Har Ko Paran Pawe

Guru Ki Karni Guru Jayega,

Chele Ki Karni Chela

this can be loosely translated as :

                                                   Alone you shall fly O Swan

                                                                 

                                                                     This world is a brief fanfare

                                               Like a leaf that falls from a tree

where to it will fall,

where to the wind will carry it

no one can tell

once your life is over

servitude and slavery is over

the omens of Yam (Death) are strong

it is Yam (Death) you will encounter

Kabir had immersed himself in the praise of God

and God he will attain

 the Guru will reap his karmas

and the desciple his.

 

 

 Kabir’s another composition addresses the Swan thus :

O Swan let us talk of ancient tales

Sufism: Being in love with Love

As I navigated my way through the maze of lanes in Nizammudin West (Delhi), that led to the durgah of Amir Khusrow, I was appalled by the filth, and crass commercialization that seem to ooze from every corner of those lanes. ‘Could these lanes really lead me to the shrine of one of greatest Sufi poets of this continent …?’, I wondered to myself, struck by the irony of the fact that the final resting place of such divine a soul was now surrounded by the most base of human passions.
I began to reminiscent as I trudged along – ‘Who were these beings called ‘Sufis’ …?’. They were of flesh but without its weaknesses, ever lost in the love of the Divine. Yearning, seeking and then, rejoicing in the union with their Beloved. One cannot define Sufism, or for that matter mysticism, it would be like trying to hold water in a clenched fist. A true Sufi is in love with Love. Love that is all encompassing and infinite, for isn’t love another name for God? The great Sufi poet Rumi describes this Love as “drinking without quenching”. The essence of Sufism is to be in love with God with such intense passion that it leads to the dissolution of the Self (fana) and the lover becomes one with the Beloved.
It is in essence similar to the Bhakti Yoga of Hinduism. Complete love leads to complete surrender to the will of God. With the ego no longer an obstacle ‘illusion’ is replaced by ‘awareness’ of the divine nature of all things. However one cannot be initiated into Sufism by reading about it or practicing the various rituals associated with it or by contemplation. It is a spontaneous process like falling in love. It just happens to you by divine grace or not at all.
Historians describe Sufism as the mystical core of Islam, tracing its roots to Prophet Mohammad who is believed to have received two fold revelations – the one embodied in the holy Koran and the other in his heart. The former was meant for all and the latter was to be imparted to a selected few through a line of succession. However according to Sufis the essential truths of Sufism exist in all religions. Sufism is like river which has been flowing through many lands, imbibing the culture and religious beliefs of the region it flowed through.
As I reached the durgah, waving aside the various hawkers selling all kinds of ‘religious’ trinkets, I was in for a disappointment. The durgah itself seemed to have been robbed of its sublime aura by the decades of decadence that had befallen the people in charge of its upkeep. The so called ‘custodians’ of the durgah had become scavengers of faith. I returned home to my collection of Khusrow’s soul stirring compositions, they were now his only incorruptible legacy.

 

 

Notes: Nizamuddin, is a south-Delhi locality named after the dargah of the Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya. Next to his grave lies buried his greatest disciple: Amir Khusro who was a poet, philosopher, musician, and linguist. Amir Khusrow Dehlavi (1253-1325) brought music to sufism and made it sing, blending folk and classical music, Amir Khusrow was the genius who through his love for the Divine, music and poetry, defined the pluralistic traditions of the Indian subcontinent. It is noteworthy that both Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusrow were against organised religion as they believed that the clergy were more interested in power than in spreading the word of God.

 

 

The image at the top is an artist’s impression of Amir Khusrow

The Path

This world they say is an illusion….a dream. Our thoughts and actions are like threads of a net that we weave around ourselves. A veil has been drawn over our mind’s eye and we live out our lives bound and blind folded. Life, they say is a play of shadows through which most of us sleep walk.Few have awakened from this sleep and have tried to show light to the rest of humanity. They succeeded only partly, passing away, leaving behind empty forms to be distorted and misused by their followers.Holy books, sacred messages, rites and rituals, they say, are mere shells. The spirit within, having long departed, along with the Messenger. These shells and forms are mere signposts for those who seek the formless…..and only the true seeker, they say, will find the Path.

Buddha: the Awakened One

It is said that soon after his enlightenment the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha’s extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence.

The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?”

“No,” said the Buddha.

“Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?”

Again the Buddha answered, “No.”

“Are you a man?”

“No.”

 

 

“Well, my friend, then what are you?”

The Buddha replied, “I am awake.”