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Friday, January 29, 2010

Who am I?


“Tidak ada sesuatupun yang lebih dekat kepadamu selain dirimu sendiri, jika kau tidak memahami dirimu, bagaimana kau dapat memahami orang lain?

Kau mungkin berkata, “aku memahami diriku”, tetapi kau salah!…Satu-satunya yang kau ketahui tentang dirimu hanyalah penampilan fizikalmu. Satu-satunya yang kau ketahui tentang ‘nafs’mu (jiwa) adalah ketika kau lapar kau makan, ketika kau marah kau berbuat kegemparan. Semua binatang memiliki kesamaan dengan dirimu dalam hal ini.

Kau harus mencari kebenaran di dalam dirimu… Siapa dirimu? Darimana datangnya dirimu dan kemana kau akan pergi? Apa perananmu di dunia ini? Mengapa kau diciptakan? Dimana kebahagiaan sejatimu berada?

Jika kau ingin mengetahui tentang dirimu, kau harus mengetahui bahwa kau diciptakan dari dua hal. Pertama adalah tubuhmu dan penampilan luarmu (zahir) yang dapat kau lihat dengan matamu. Bahagian lainnya adalah jiwamu. Jiwamu adalah bahagian yang tidak mungkin kau lihat tetapi boleh kau ketahui dengan pengetahuanmu yang mendalam.

Kebenaran akan kewujudanmu ada di dalam jiwamu. Hal lainnya hanyalah pengabdi bagi jiwamu.”

- From the book of Imam Al Ghazali “The Alchemy of Happiness”

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Menjadi seorang yang suci

“Kau tidak akan menjadi seseorang yang suci hingga kau laksana bumi, baik terhadap golongan yang soleh mahupun golongan pendosa diperlakukan secara sama,

dan hingga kau laksana awan, yang menaungi segala sesuatu,

dan hingga kau bagaikan hujan, yang mengairi segala sesuatu, walaupun mereka mencintainya atau tidak.”

- Sheikh Abu Yazid al-Bisthami

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Is Reality Merely An Illusion?


An interesting article on the subject of Reality Vs Illusion. This article was send to me through an email subscriptions in the last couple of days. I am sharing this with all you.

Every action and all matter that has developed in the universe conforms to what we know as reality. The idea that our universe passes like a giant's dream, or like a product of a very complex virtual reality program, more closely resembles an ingenious science fiction script than the crude and imperfect world in which we move every day.

However, the reality that we perceive seems to be contrary to scientific logic, if we bear in mind that matter hardly exists. The construction blocks of visible matter are atoms, which are merely small nuclei lost in the middle of a great spacial emptiness, surrounded by nearly invisible particles (electrons) that orbit them at magnificent speeds. If our bodies were to be put under a powerful microscope, what would be seen would probably be a sea of sand grains in perpetual motion.

According to recent research in the field of quantum physics, all of what we know as matter -- the solid cement of what appears to be what our reality is composed of -- could be nothing more than quantum fluctuations in the middle of the empty universe.

A group of physicists led by Dr. Stephen Durr from the John Von Neumann Institute in Germany confirmed that the sum of the three subatomic particles that make up protons and neutrons (called quarks) barely represent 1 percent of their total mass.

Such evidence suggests that the rest of the nuclear mass would consist of gluons, ephemeral particles that bubble in the middle of the emptiness, which function to maintain the unity among the trio of quarks inside protons and neutrons. This fact suggests the hypothesis that our tangible reality might be mere fluctuations of emptiness or purely nothing.

The Other Truth

What we see with our physical eyes is greatly reduced to a convenient scope. Possessing a pair of eyes that could see only microscopic particles would make it impossible for us to move in a world with objects so large, as the objects with which we generally interact are composed of billions and billions of microscopic particles.

According to biologist Richard Dawkins, rocks only feel hard and impenetrable to our hands because they can’t penetrate each other. For us, it is useful to have notions of hardness and solidity as it helps us navigate our world.

Navigating in an illusory reality, we have to accept that somewhere in the universe another reality can be found. There could be a gigantic slumber, a crazy bubble, or God, if you will.

Since the reality of particles cannot be more than smoke and shadows, it could be that the real existence of all objects in the cosmos resides in one or more parallel spaces. Many scientists speculate that, just like a three-dimensional object can project a two-dimensional shadow over the ground, a multidimensional universe (like the case of the String Theory) could cast a shadow in three-dimensional space.

If this theory is correct, every object and organism in this world would not be more than a gross representation of objects and organisms in a more "real" universe. Coinciding with this theory, the existence of an extracorporeal mind in another dimension might be the ideal explanation for why we have memory, as the atoms in our brains are replaced hundreds of time throughout the course of our lives. According to Steve Grand, author of "Creation: Life and How to Make It," none of the atoms that make up our bodies today would have been in our bodies during an event in our childhood that we remember.

Grand suggests that matter moves from one place to another and reunites momentarily so that you can be you. Therefore, you aren't the matter of which you are made. This would imply that our real bodies are in the space that we cannot comprehend -- while a virtual body, a mere container, would be what is in what we call reality.

Shadows and colors of light are crude projections of a "more real" reality. The universe that we live in presents itself as something even more illusory, where bodies, minds, and planets are parts of a great magic trick without a magician or an audience.

Scientists in Hanover, Germany, working on the GEO 600, which is an instrument that detects gravitational waves, believe they have discovered a "granulation" in space-time that indicates that our universe is nothing more than a giant hologram.

Those responsible for the GEO 600 believe that, in the same way a digital image loses resolution with significant increase in its size, the captured interference in the detector could be interpreted as the universe’s limited resolution of what it’s capable of providing to human eyes. There’s an exact point where the hologram of reality begins to "pixelize" itself.

The scientists suspect that the precision of the GEO 600, capable of detecting variations in longitudinal waves at the subatomic scale, served to discover the tiniest grains that compose the three-dimensional holographic universe, projected from the bidimensional confines of its interior.

You and I, Only Holograms

The idea of a holographic universe isn’t new. In the 1990s, scientists Leonard Susskind and Gerard Hooft suggested that the same principal that makes a two-dimensional image on a flat surface look three-dimensional could be applied to the entire universe.

Then, why do our senses perceive reality in such a distinct and "voluminous" way if we appear to be no more than shadows on a flat screen? The problem could be that our human eyes and our powerful telescope lenses conform to the reality of such a hologram of the rest of the universe.

The second point to consider is that our organic brain can also be found in the illusion, never being able to interpret a universe with a greater or fewer number of dimensions than can be perceived.

Neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, founder of the Center of Cerebral Research at the University of Radford in Virginia, thinks that our brains are holograms interpreting the hologram universe, mathematically constructing a reality interpreting frequencies that come from another dimension -- a domain of significant reality that transcends time and space.

Nevertheless, the theory of a holographic universe of only two special dimensions conflicts with multidimensional theories arising from the roots of the superchord theory. Before this mark of a disparate hypothesis, many scientists already suspected that the universe is a hologram or illusion created by particles in the emptiness. However, all of the scientific efforts to comprehend the truth amid the mirage have become trapped in a frustrating array of unprovable theories.

Many vanguard theorists think that the disturbing breach in the field of quantum physics and relativity could explain historically argued phenomena in the scientific field, like those in which the mind doesn’t seem to be associated to the brain -- such as near-death experiences, remote vision, and precognition.

In whatever case, Plato’s allegory of the cave would seem to be the most rational option now for explaining these vivid daily experiences that our brains interpret as being real appearances of the world.

By Leonardo Vintiñi / Source: Epoch Times
The same subject matter can be found at http://www.secretbeyondmatter.com/


If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Doorkeeper of the Heart


Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You --

O God, I can't live in this world
Without remembering You--
How can I endure the next world
Without seeing Your face?

I am a stranger in Your country
And lonely among Your worshippers:
This is the substance of my complaint.

A story as related by Rabiatul Adawiyah.

I saw myself in a wide green garden, more beautiful than I could begin to understand. In this garden was a young girl. I said to her, "How wonderful this place is!"

"Would you like to see a place even more wonderful than this?" she asked.
"Oh yes," I answered. Then taking me by the hand, she led me on until we came to a magnificent palace, like nothing that was ever seen by human eyes. The young girl knocked on the door, and someone opened it. Immediately both of us were flooded with light.

God alone knows the inner meaning of the maidens we saw living there. Each one carried in her hand a serving-tray filled with light. The young girl asked the maidens where they were going, and they answered her, "We are looking for someone who was drowned in the sea, and so became a martyr. She never slept at night, not one wink! We are going to rub funeral spices on her body

"Then rub some on my friend here," the young girl said.
"Once upon a time," said the maidens, "part of this spice and the fragrance of it clung to her body -- but then she shied away."
Quickly the young girl let go of my hand, turned, and said to me:

"Your prayers are your light;
Your devotion is your strength;
Sleep is the enemy of both.
Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.
If you ignore it, if you waste it,
You will only turn to dust."

Then the young girl disappeared.

In love, nothing exists between breast and Breast.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?


Excerpts from Doorkeeper of the Heart Versions of Rabi'a by Charles Upton

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Monday, January 25, 2010

Dilarang berdukacita terhadap dunia

Peringatan dari Hadis Qudsi

“Barangsiapa yang berpagi-pagi di dalam keadaan berdukacita terhadap dunia, tidak akan bertambah hampir ia kepada Allah melainkan bertambah jauh. Tidak akan bertambah di dunia melainkan keletihan. Tidak akan bertambah di Akhirat melainkan azab. Allah akan mencampakkan rasa dukacita yang berterusan, kesibukan yang tidak ada kerehatan, kefakiran yang tidak memperolehi kekayaan dan angan-angan yang memanjang ke dalam hatinya.”

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Free Will

You say, "I myself have Free-will,
For my body is the horse and my soul the rider,
The reins of the body are in the hands of the soul,
The entire direction is given to me."

Oh! foolish one, these are falsehoods and delusions
That come from an illusory existence.

As your essence is nothingness,
How can you have Free-will?
Seeing that your being is one with not-being,
Whence comes this Free-will of yours?

Imagination distributes actions
As in a play or a farce,

For when your actions were planned,
Before your existence,
You were created for a certain purpose,
By the desire of the Truth.
Therefore man is predestined, before his existence,
To certain appointed work.
. . . (Oh, wondrous ways of Thine, without how or why!)

The honour of man consists of slavery,
In having no share of Free-will.

Of himself man has nothing,
Yet of good and evil God asks him,
Man has no choice, he is under control.
Oh! poor soul, he seems free, yet is a slave.

Give yourself up to the Truth,
For you are helpless in his grasp;
Freedom from self you will find in the All,
And, O Dervish! in the Truth you will find riches.

This article which was posted much earlier may be relevant as it was about the same topic. Click Here

By Sa'd ud Din Mahmud Shabistari who was born in Persia, in Shabistar, near Tabriz, about 1250 CE. His best known work, The Secret Rose Garden was written as a reply to questions by a Sufi doctor of Herat. The above is from the said The Secret Rose Garden

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Differences and Distinctions




Differences and distinctions
are merely a starting place,
a place of the beginning,
a place before understanding.

There is a Wholeness,
Completeness,
beyond differences,
beyond distinctions.

The one who does not know
will see differences and distinctions everywhere,
While the one who truly knows
will see the wonders of Divine Glory everywhere.

Poem from Journey of the Heart collection


If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Monday, January 18, 2010

Surrender


Surrender is a moment in time when, standing on the bridge of daily chores watching the flow of the Great River of Life, one suddenly realizes the true source of all that is beautiful, and that our true destiny is to be willfully and joyfully engulfed by the Great River.

That is the moment of giving up selfishness, clinging and stubborn independence. And in that moment, there is no choice but to leap from the bridge and plunge headlong into the Great River, willing to be carried wherever It may choose.

Poem from Journey of the Heart collection

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Friday, January 15, 2010

What is in your purse?


The story below is related by the great Sufi teacher Attar:

As the Prophet Isa and his disciples entered a village, some of the villagers began to harass the Prophet, shouting unkind words and harsh accusations.

But the Prophet answered them by bowing down and saying prayers for their happiness and well-being.

A disciple said to him: 'You prayed for these men, aren't you filled with anger toward them ?'

Prophet Isa answered: 'I could only spend from what I had in my purse.'

When the situation is pleasant and comfortable, it is easy to be nice. But when we're faced with an unpleasant situation, then we begin to react from the very foundation of our being and automatically draw from of the depths of our purse. If, in such difficult situations, we respond in an unwholesome manner with anger, fear, hatred or violence, then that shows all too clearly what our purse really contains.

So, my dear friends, what's in your purse?

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Perhatikan lah aib sendiri


"Ada lah satu kecelaan apabila kita lupa kepada keaiban yang ada pada diri kita sendiri lalu memandang keaiban orang lain. Kita sering menyebut-nyebut keaiban saudara kita yang lain yang patut kekal tersembunyi. Andai kata kita orang yang berakal nescaya kita tidak akan mengaibkan orang lain. Pada diri kita sendiri penuh dengan keaiban, andainya diperhatikan cukuplah bagi kita."

- Ahli Sufi

Pandangan di atas adalah selari dengan pendapat Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty (R.A.) yang berkata "A person who has firm faith and believes in Allah doesn’t complain of others behaviour"  yang membawa maksud seseorang yang benar (kuat) aqidah dan keimanannya kepada Allah tidak akan bersungut (berkata dengan tujuan mengeji atau mengumpat) atas kelakuan serta perbuatan orang lain samada kepada dirinya sendiri atau kepada orang lain. Ia lebih suka memilih diam dari berkata-kata sesuatu yang menyentuh peribadi atau kelakuan orang lain. Sekiranya ia memberi nasihat, nasihatnya adalah yang bersifat umum sahaja tanpa mengaitkan dengan mana-mana peribadi.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Knowledge of all things is within us.



According to Ibnu Arabi, Allah deposited within all of us knowledge of all things, and then He blocked us from perceiving it; this is one of the divine mysteries that reason denies totally and thinks impossible. This mean that we are not able to gain this knowledge using our reasoning and thinking ability alone. Most of this knowledge is also not available by normal method of learning through books.

"And He taught Adam the names - all of them. Then He showed them to the angels and said, "Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful." (Quran 2:31)

The nearness of the mystery to those who do not know is like God's nearness to His servant, as proclaimed in His words,

"We are nearer to Him than you, but you do not see" (Quran 56:83) and His words, "We are nearer to Him than His jugular vein" (Quran 50:16).

Despite this nearness, the servant does not perceive or know anything; no one can know what is within himself until it is revealed to him moment by moment.

For those who seek and travel on the path to know himself this special knowledge will be revealed directly to him moment by moment. But this is only so after he reached a certain level of "knowing himself".

To reach to that stage he must do so under the guidance of Wise Spritual Master. It is wise for us not to deny the existence of such knowledge.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Wise saying of the living sheikh


Do you think that this creation can be in existence without a Lord? Do you think that for this existence, for the whole creation, which is in existence, there is no one saying, This belongs to me"? Do you think that for all this creation no one is coming, saying, "I created it"?

What is that foolishness? But nowadays people do not ask this question. They say “It was in times unknown and in an unknown space. We don’t know its beginning nor its end. Therefore, we don’t know anything about that One...” - Sheikh Muhammad Nazim Al-Haqqni


If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Dua jenis kematian



Sebagai mana yang diceritakan oleh Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani di dalam bukunya Pembukaan kepada yang Ghaib (Futuh Al-Ghaib)

Sesuatu perkara telah mengacau fikiran saya pada suatu hari. Batin saya berasa berat dengan beban dan saya pohon kesenangan dan kesentosaan dan jalan keluar. Saya ditanya apa yang saya mahu.

Kata saya. "Saya mahu mati yang tidak ada kehidupan dalamnya dan satu kehidupan yang tidak ada mati di dalamnya,"

Maka saya pun ditanya apakah jenis mati yang tidak ada kehidupan di dalamnya dan apakah jenis kehidupan yang tidak ada mati di dalamnya, jawab saya:

"Mati yang tidak ada kehidupan di dalamnya ialah matiku dari jenisku sendiri supaya saya tidak melihatnya sama ada memberi manfaat atau memberi mudarat, dan mati dari diriku sendiri dan keinginanku, tujuanku, dan harapku dalam hal dunia dan akhirat, sehingga saya tidak ada dalam semua ini. [Sheikh Abdul Qadir menganggap makhluk langsung tiada ada kuasa memberi manfaat atau mudarat sedikitpun kepada beliau dan berusaha mematikan keinginan nafsunya kepada selain dari Allah, hatta balasn akhirat sekalipun. Beliau berada didalam keadan tawakal seperti mayat ditangan yang memandikan mayat. Iaitu mati dari kehendak dan keinginan diri sendiri - Rbain]

Berkenaan kehidupan yang tidak ada mati di dalamnya, ialah kehidupanku dengan lakuan tuhanku dalam keadaan saya tidak ada wujud dalamnya, dan matiku di dalamnya ialah wujudku dengannya. [Sheikh Abdul Qadir menganggap semua kewujudan selain daripada Allah itu tidak wujud pada hakikatnya dan yang wujud hanya lah Allah semata-mata. Makhluk tidak ada perbuatan sendiri melainkan Allah yang melakukan perbuatan. Seperti firman Allah di dalam surah Al-Imran
"..Dan bukanlah engkau (wahai Muhammad) yang melempar ketika engkau melempar, akan tetapi Allah jualah yang melempar ...Al-Quran 8:17)
- Bagi beliau itulah kehidupan yang sebenar-benarnya - Rbain].
Oleh kerana saya telah mengetahui maka ini telah menjadi tujuanku yang paling berharga sekali."
Gambar foto diambil disini

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Monday, January 4, 2010

Redha itu sikap utama Insan


Tiga perkara yang wajib bagi seseorang mukmin dalam semua keadaan ini ialah:

(a) Melakukan segala perintah Allah;
(b) Menjauhkan diri dari segala yang haram;
(c) Redha dengan hukum-hukum atau ketentuan Allah.

Seseorang mukmin hendaklah jangan tidak ada tiga perkara ini. Oleh itu si mukmin hendaklah memikirkan perkara ini, bercakap kepada dirinya tentang perkara ini dan anggotanya melakukan perkara-perkara ini
– Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani (Pembukaan kepada yang Ghaib - Syarahan Pertama Halaman 17)

Menurut Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Jilani selain ketaatan kepada Allah di dalam hal yang disuruh dan dilarang, redha dengan hukum-hukum atau ketentuan Allah adalah merupakan kunci paling utama menuju kebahagian yang hakiki.

Sebahagian tanda orang yang redha itu ialah ia sentiasa bersikap tenang dan sabar di dalam semua keadaan, tidak merungut apabila ditimpa kesusahan, tidak menceritakan kesusahan yang dihadapi oleh nya kepada orang lain kerana ia sentiasa bersangka baik kepada Allah yang mengetahui hikmah segala sesuatu yang berlaku.


"Boleh jadi kamu membenci sesuatu, padahal ia amat baik bagimu, dan boleh jadi pula kamu menyukai sesuatu, padahal ia amat buruk bagimu ; Allah mengetahui sedang kamu tidak mengetahui.." [al-Baqarah:216]

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Friday, January 1, 2010

Five Mysteries of the Universe


Even today, there are scientific phenomena that defy explanation. If history is anything to go by, resolving these anomalies could lead to a great leap forward, so what are the greatest mysteries, and what scientific revolutions might they bring?

1. The Missing Universe

Everything in the universe is either mass or energy, but there's not enough of either. Scientists think 96% of the cosmos is missing. They have come up with names for the missing stuff - "dark energy" and "dark matter" - but that doesn't really tell us anything about them. And it's not as if they're not important: dark energy is continually creating new swaths of space and time, while dark matter appears to be holding all the galaxies together. No wonder cosmologists are searching for clues to their whereabouts.

2. Life

I know you think you're more than a sack of molecules, but why? Next time you see a tree, ask yourself why that is alive when your wooden dining table is not. The phenomenon we call life is something that biologists have almost given up trying to define - instead they're investigating ways to make different combinations of molecules come alive. Bizarrely, the best hope is similar in chemical terms to laundry detergent.

3. Death

Here's the flip side: in biology, things eventually die, but there's no good explanation for it. There are hints that switching genes on and off controls ageing, but if our theory is right, those switches shouldn't have survived natural selection. Then there's the argument that an accumulation of faults does us in. However, there are plenty of whales and turtles who seem to age ridiculously slowly - if at all. Of course, if we can work out why, that could be great news for future humans (if not for the planet).

4. Sex

Charles Darwin might have fathered 10 children, but he couldn't understand why almost everything in biology uses sexual reproduction rather than asexual cloning - sex is a highly inefficient way to reproduce. We still don't know the answer. The suggestion that sex's gene shuffling makes us more able to deal with changing environments seems plausible, but the evidence is scarce. At the moment, sex only seems to exist to give males some role in life.

5. Free Will

If you want to keep your sanity, look away now. Neuroscientists are almost convinced that free will is an illusion. Their experiments show that our brains allow us to think we are controlling our bodies, but our movements begin before we make a conscious decision to move. Some researchers have already been approached to testify in court that the defendant is not to blame for anything they did. A scary legal future awaits.

By Michael Brooks / Source: The Guardian

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark