Music & Video - One Love Around the World
Ivan M. Granger July 31st, 2009
One love, one heart,
Let’s get together
and feel alright…
Archive for July, 2009
Niffari - Stand at the throne
Ivan M. Granger July 31st, 2009
Stand at the throne (from The Standing Of the Presence Chamber and the Letter)
by Niffari (Muhammad ibn al-Hasan an-Niffari)
English version by Michael A. Sells
He said to me:
Stand at the throne.
I saw the sanctuary.
No gaze attained it.
No cares entered it.
In it I saw the doors of every reality.
I saw the doors on fire.
In the fire was a sanctuary.
Nothing could enter it but the sincere act.
When it entered, it came to the door.
When it came to the door, it stood for the reckoning
I saw the reckoning
single out what was for the face of God
from what was for the other-than-him.
I saw the reward was other-than-him.
I saw that the act, sincere in him and for him alone,
raised from the door to the highest plane of vision.
When it was raised, there was written upon the door:
“It has passed the reckoning.”
Eat from my hand,
Drink from my hand
Or you will not be equal to my obedience.
If you do not obey me on my account,
You will not be equal to my worship.
If you cast off your fault
you will cast off your ignorance.
If you recall your fault
you will forget your lord.
In the garden
is everything thought can bear
and behind it more.
— from Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality), by Michael A. Sells
/ Photo by red twolips /
There is so much to explore in this “standing” that I leave it with you to contemplate. Just a few of my own thoughts…
Nothing could enter it but the sincere act.
Love that.
I saw the reckoning
single out what was for the face of God
from what was for the other-than-him.
The day of reckoning, Judgment Day, is when we are sifted to discover what in us is a pure reflection of the face of God from that which is “other-than-him.” But Niffari sees that even the “reward” is “other-than-him.” He seems to be reminding us that to truly pass the “reckoning,” we must seek the Eternal not for the sake of a promised heavenly reward, but for the Eternal alone.
I saw that the act, sincere in him and for him alone,
raised from the door to the highest plane of vision.
When it was raised, there was written upon the door:
“It has passed the reckoning.”
A sacred puzzle: The reward is not the reward; God is the reward.
Eat from my hand,
Drink from my hand
Or you will not be equal to my obedience.
This is a statement of inner mystical initiation. Depth here to explore…
If you cast off your fault
you will cast off your ignorance.
If you recall your fault
you will forget your lord.
I love these lines too. A reminder to us that obsessing on faults, imperfections, or sins keeps us cut off from the Divine. The proper approach is not to linger on one’s personal or spiritual failures; that simply strengthens the illusory walls between the individual awareness and the Eternal. No, one must see those “faults” clearly, and seeing them clearly no longer cling to them, allowing them to simply fall away without self-condemnation.
We define ourselves by our faults, and create spiritual separation through self-condemnation. When we let them simply fall, the walls we imagined separating ourselves from the Eternal show themselves to have never been. “Ignorance” finally disappears and we see we have all along been standing in the presence of the Divine.
In the garden
is everything thought can bear
and behind it more.
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Niffari (Muhammad ibn al-Hasan an-Niffari)
Egypt (? - 965) Timeline |
Every ignoble act
Ivan M. Granger July 31st, 2009
Every ignoble act says –
“Save me from myself!”
Every noble act says
the same.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel - God Pursues Me Everywhere
Ivan M. Granger July 29th, 2009
God Pursues Me Everywhere
by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
English version by Rabbi Zalman M. Schacter-Shalomi
God pursues me everywhere,
Enmeshes me in glances,
And blinds my sightless back like flaming sun.
God, like a forest dense, pursues me.
My lips are ever tender, mute, so amazed,
So like a child lost in an ancient sacred grove.
God pursues me like a silent shudder.
I wish for tranquility and rest — He urges; come!
And see — how visions walk like the homeless on the streets.
My thoughts walk about like a vagrant mystery –
Walks through the world’s long corridor.
At times I see God’s featureless face hovering over me.
God pursues me in the streetcars and cafes
Every shining apple is my crystal sphere to see
How mysteries are born and vision came to be.
- from “Human, God’s Ineffable Name,” by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, freely rendered by Rabbi Zalman M. Schacter-Shalomi. Available from the Reb Zalman Legacy Project
/ Photo by lonelyhome /
God pursues me everywhere,
Enmeshes me in glances…
This evening begins the observance of Tish B’av, the day when the Jewish people remember the terrible tragedies they have survived. A good opportunity to share this poem by Rabbi Heschel (in a translation by the wonderful modern-day teacher, Rabbi Zalman M. Schacter-Shalomi).
And see — how visions walk like the homeless on the streets.
So often we want life to be easy, a series of triumphs, and that’s natural. But we can’t let our desire for that vision of life blind us to the terrible tragedies — personal and planetary — that also mark us. The human soul is an immense being, one that must be able to incorporate trauma as well as joy, and somehow make of those elements a great, complex work of art that is the evolving self.
Many blessings.
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Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel |
What we love
Ikkyu - A Fisherman
Ivan M. Granger July 27th, 2009
A Fisherman
by Ikkyu (Ikkyu Sojun)
English version by John Stevens
Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.
— from Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu, Translated by John Stevens
/ Photo by Untitled blue /
I like Ikkyu’s gentle mocking here.
The deeply committed spiritual path can so often become all consuming — scholarship, meditation and other practices — that we either become attached to the path, or engrossed in our own efforts, and in the midst of it all we forget our true goal… what is sometimes called in the Zen tradition, Original Mind.
In true Zen style, Ikkyu cuts through all impediments, even those within his own spiritual tradition, in order to bring us back to the realization that our goal is immediate, right here, and utterly simple. It is not hidden behind arcane texts. It is not attained through uninspired, dogged effort.
When we have readied ourselves, it is simply there. Sometimes all we need is the simplest reminder of fundamental truth — a solitary fisherman singing his timeless chant on the river at night.
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Ikkyu (Ikkyu Sojun)
Japan (1394 - 1481) Timeline |
Hafiz - A New World
Ivan M. Granger July 22nd, 2009
A New World
by Hafiz
English version by Haleh Pourafzal and Roger Montgomery
Let’s offer flowers, pour a cup of libation,
split open the skies and start anew on creation.
If the forces of grief invade our lovers’ veins,
cupbearer and I will wash away this temptation.
With rose water we’ll mellow crimson wine’s bitter cup;
we’ll sugar the fire to sweeten smoke’s emanation.
Take this fine lyre, musician, strike up a love song;
let’s dance, sing all night, go wild in celebration.
As dust, O West Wind, let us rise to the Heavens,
floating free in Creator’s glow of elation.
If mind desires to return while heart cries to stay,
here’s a quarrel for love’s deliberation.
Alas, these words and songs go for naught in this land;
come, Hafez, let’s create a new generation.
— from The Spiritual Wisdom of Hafez: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love, by Haleh Pourafzal / Roger Montgomery
/ Photo by Paul Keller - A new generation at the Tomb of Hafez /
It’s been far too long since we last had a selection by Hafiz, so today… A New World.
split open the skies and start anew on creation.
The lines of this poem read like lovely poetic embellishments, but there is more going on here than ecstatic wordplay. Beneath the poetry, Hafiz is using precise esoteric language. The “rose” of the rose water. A “fire” that is also sweet. Becoming as egoless as dust before the West Wind… Meanings to contemplate and explore within.
If mind desires to return while heart cries to stay,
here’s a quarrel for love’s deliberation.
I particularly like these lines. The “mind” Hafiz is talking about is the conceptualizing, projecting mind. It is this mind that must be absent (or stilled) before we can see reality directly. When we do this, our sense of self shifts. We no longer imagine ourselves to be the little ego, we find ourselves centered deeply at home within the heart. For the first time we fully recognize the heart as being present.
But — if the mind desires to return once we have discovered the presence of the heart, well, that’s a dilemma… “a quarrel of love’s deliberation.”
come, Hafez, let’s create a new generation.
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Hafiz
Iran/Per (1320 - 1389) Timeline |
Not data
Ivan M. Granger July 22nd, 2009
Knowledge is not the accumulation of data
or the formulation of thought.
True knowledge is to merge
with the living field of knowing itself.
Dorothy Walters - The Moment
Ivan M. Granger July 20th, 2009
The Moment
by Dorothy Walters
“We Must Die Because We Have Known Them”
(Title of a poem by Rilke, taken from the
sayings of Ptah-hotep, ms. from 2,000 BCE)
And not once,
but many times over,
again and again,
how we disappeared
into that deep well
of darkness, shuddering beneath that load of silence,
clinging to our narrow ledge.
Yet the darkness, sometimes,
unfolded as light.
Our atoms dissolved in it,
each separate molecule opening
into a radiant disk of feeling.
How still we became,
witness and thing seen,
spectacle and observer,
each point admitting an untrammeled flood.
— from Marrow of Flame : Poems of the Spiritual Journey, by Dorothy Walters
/ Photo by tiny white lights /
Yesterday, my wife and I had brunch with Dorothy Walters and Elizabeth Reninger. A delightful conversation with lots of wisdom wrapped in laughter. Inspired me to share one of Dorothy’s poems this morning…
(Don’t forget to check out some of Elizabeth Reninger’s excellent poetry, as well!)
—
This poem by Dorothy Walters so beautifully evokes the state of awareness of the sacred experience.
how we disappeared
into that deep well
of darkness, shuddering beneath that load of silence…
The silence she is talking about is a psychic silence, a stillness of mind and quietness of awareness that is so all encompassing that your personal sense of identity disappears. It can be like diving into a “deep well” of silence.
Yet, for many mystics, within that “darkness” we find ourselves infused with a dazzling light.
I especially like her description of how “our atoms dissolved” in that light, “each separate molecule opening / into a radiant disk of feeling.” She’s got it — right there. Each part of ourselves, every cell and sinew, every tremor and thought, opens to itself in delight, and we discover that we are that which causes them all to shine and hum as a whole.
And the final verse: the stillness, the unity of observed and observer, the two recognized as one, sharing an “untrammeled flood” of bliss.
Beautiful!
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Dorothy Walters
US (1928 - ) |
Hidden success
Ivan M. Granger July 20th, 2009
Live for hard success,
slow success,
hidden success.
Music Links
Ivan M. Granger July 20th, 2009
If you receive the Poetry Chaikhana via email, you may have noticed that the links to listen to the music selections stopped working last week. CDBaby changed the format of their web site, and the “Listen” links in the Poetry Chaikhana emails no longer work. As a temporary solution, I have changed the links to take you directly to the CDBaby web page for the CD, and there you can click to listen to individual music samples. But I’m not satisfied with that as a permanent solution — too many steps.
When I have the time, I may have to completely redesign how the music selections work in conjunction with the Poetry Chaikhana. And it’s possible I’ll need to change to using Amazon.com for the music selections, instead. I like supporting the smaller company and the independent musicians and artists CDBaby represents, but it looks like I’ll be able to get the whole process integrated into the emails more easily with Amazon.
Hadewijch - All things
Ivan M. Granger July 17th, 2009
All things
by Hadewijch
English version by Jane Hirshfield
All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast
In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated
I have
touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide
Everything else
is too narrow
You know this well,
you who are also there
— from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield
/ Photo by nunui /
This is the mystical recognition: the realization that in your Self of selves you are immense!
All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast
Just read those lines again.
Everything that can be called a “thing,” each item of perception and thought is just a glimmering sliver of the whole Being we inherently are. No body, no name, no job, no history can truly contain what we are. A glass of water can suggest the lake, give us a taste of it, but not contain it.
The middle section of this poem is almost erotic in its naked yielding to “the Uncreated,” in the recognition of how that “touch” completely “undoes” us. That too is the mystical recognition. As we finally realize that we are not contained by the body or the social roles we play, where then is the boundary of identity? Where do you say, Here I stop and beyond is not-me? That point no longer exists. We are “In the Infinite;” our source is “the Uncreated.” Those old, limited identities are undone, they fall away, and the inner core of the Self, the Heart, is spread “wider than wide.”
But why bother with explanations? You already “know this well, / you who are also there.”
| Hadewijch |
Rabi’a - I carry a torch
Ivan M. Granger July 15th, 2009
I carry a torch in one hand
by Rabia (Rabi’a Al-’Adawiyya)
English version by Charles Upton
I carry a torch in one hand
And a bucket of water in the other:
With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven
And put out the flames of Hell
So that voyagers to God can rip the veils
And see the real goal.
— from Women in Sufism: A Hidden Treasure - Writings and Stories of Mystics Poets, Scholars & Saints, Edited by Camille Adams Helminski
/ Photo by nblumhardt /
What can I say? I like the spiritual ferocity of this short verse.
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Rabia (Rabi’a Al-’Adawiyya)
Iraq (717 - 801) Timeline |
Not fully present
Ivan M. Granger July 15th, 2009
What we call the ego
is the individual’s particular way
of not being fully present.
Seyh Ibrahim Efendi - The Sufi Way
Ivan M. Granger July 13th, 2009
The Sufi Way
by Seyh Ibrahim Efendi
English version by Jennifer Ferraro & Latif Bolat
They say the Sufi way
is to give one’s life away.
The Sufi way is to become a sultan
on the throne of the soul.
In the station of the Path,
it is to destroy appearances.
In the station of Reality,
it is to become a guest
in the innermost palace of the heart.
They say it is to be pure of body,
the light of the Beloved.
The Sufi way is to gradually take off
the dress of earth and water.
They say it is to burn up in Love’s fire–
The Sufi way is to be utterly inflamed
with the light of the Beloved.
They say it is to believe and follow the rules–
The Sufi way is to discover the rules
of the multitude of heavens.
They say it is to become a medicine for every ailment–
The Sufi way is to know and become all the secrets
of creation.
They say it is to destroy the illusion of bodies–
The Sufi way is to open the secrets of the body
with the key of the Divine Names.
O Sufi, to comprehend it, one must be it.
The one who gets lost in words
will never be their meaning.
They say it is to become the secret of God
within one’s innermost heart–
The Sufi way is to read the outer signs
and know the inner meanings.
They say it is to be in wonder
at the greatness of creation–
The Sufi way is to be constantly amazed
by the nature of Reality.
They say it is to make each heart
the throne of God–
The Sufi way is to remove all else but God
from the heart’s dwelling.
They say it is to watch over all humanity–
The Sufi way is to cover East and West
with every breath.
They say it is to shine as brightly as the sun–
The Sufi way is to perceive God
in every minute thing.
They say it is to be in harmony
with every kind of person–
The Sufi way is to appear
in a hundred thousand forms daily.
They say it is to be like Solomon
to the whole universe;
The Sufi way is to understand
and speak in every language.
They say it is to become an ocean
from a single drop–
The Sufi way is to make your heart a cellar
to hold the wine of the Truth.
They say it is to become a human being
illuminated with the light of Being–
The Sufi way is to destroy Being utterly
in the light of Non-Being.
They say it is to become a life
for each particle of life–
The Sufi way is to die a thousand times
and return to life each moment.
They say it is to become a master
of wisdom and eternal justice–
The Sufi way is to become an eye
looking out from every hair.
They say it is to surrender
your soul to the Beloved–
The Sufi way is to become
the soul of the Beloved.
They say it is the proof
of Muhammad’s message–
The Sufi way, O Ibrahim,
is to embody God
as one’s own self.
— from Quarreling with God: Mystic Rebel Poems of the Dervishes of Turkey, Translated by Jennifer Ferraro / Translated by Latif Bolat
/ Photo by M.Omair /
Regardless of your religious or spiritual tradition, this poem is one worth contemplating deeply. Re-read it. This is one of the reasons I started the Poetry Chaikhana: While so many in religion bog down in the minutia of the tradition, mystics are never satisfied with mere form. They know one must get down to the real ground. The mystic is content with nothing less than to touch the truth in its most universal purity. Merely following the rules never satisfies the heart or soul.
O Sufi, to comprehend it, one must be it.
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Seyh Ibrahim Efendi
Turkey (1591 - 1651) Timeline |
Action, stillness, heart
Ivan M. Granger July 13th, 2009
Let every action
be a perfect stillness
in the heart.
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi - Secretly we spoke
Ivan M. Granger July 10th, 2009
Secretly we spoke
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
English version by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
Secretly we spoke,
that wise one and me.
I said, Tell me the secrets of the world.
He said, Sh… Let silence
Tell you the secrets of the world.
— from Art & Wonder: An Illustrated Anthology of Visionary Poetry, Edited by Kate Farrell
/ Photo by Kivanc Nis /
This short verse by Rumi brings a smile to my face… and silence to my thoughts….
Have a wonderful weekend!
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Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 - 1273) Timeline |
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