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Friday, June 25, 2010

Life Quotes - Opening of the heart

If we could live our lifes bases on this principle we could become one of the happiest man on earths, life full of joys and freedom.

Stepping Into Freedom

"When we can acknowledge and accept our own shadows, our negative self-judgment lightens. When our negative self-judgment lightens, our negative judgment of others lightens simultaneously, and compassion for the pain of others arises."
Joan Hoeberichts

You Open Yourself

"When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently."
Pema Chödrön

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

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

He Said


السعى لاكتشاف السر - من أنا؟

Today poem is by Rumi, notice what he said at the end of the poem where he claimed that the only way to benefit from this life is by keeping true to ourselves. We cannot be true to ourselves unless we know who we really are. This require us to know our true identity, and our true life purpose in this world. And yet when come to providing the answer to this questions, as usual Rumi can only give a vague idea about them...it is up to us to really search for the answer.

Those who seek will find them..وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ - And those who strive in Our (cause),- We will certainly guide them to our Paths: For verily Allah is with those who do right. (Al-Ankabut: 69).

If we cannot find the answer to it, it only meant we are not serious enough, not hard enough with our searching and pursuit for the answer. Only those wo really seek will find them. Those who found them will remain silent and say very little..except to those who is ready to hear the truth.

As narrated by Abu Huraira:  I have memorized two kinds of knowledge from Allah's Apostle . I have propagated one of them to you and if I propagated the second, then my pharynx (throat) would be cut (i.e. killed). Source from here: Volume 1, Book 3, Number 121:

The second type of knowledge is the secret knowledge, knowledge of the path to know our trueself. A road that could only be traveled by the brave one with a fearless heart.

HE SAID
He said, "Who is at my door?"
I said, "Your humble servant."
He said, "What business do you have?"
I said, "To greet you, 0 Lord."
He said, "How long will you journey on?"
I said, "Until you stop me."
He said, "How long will you boil in the fire?"
I said, "Until I am pure.
"This is my oath of love.
For the sake of love
I gave up wealth and position."
He said, "You have pleaded your case
but you have no witness."
I said, "My tears are my witness;
the pallor of my face is my proof.'
He said, "Your witness has no credibility;
your eyes are too wet to see."
I said, "By the splendor of your justice
my eyes are clear and faultless."
He said, "What do you seek?"
I said, "To have you as my constant friend."
He said, "What do you want from me?"
I said, "Your abundant grace."
He said, "Who was your companion on the journey?
I said, "The thought of you, 0 King."
He said, "What called you here?"
I said, "The fragrance of your wine."
He said, "What brings you the most fulfillment? "
I said, "The company of the Emperor."
He said, "What do you find there?"
I said, "A hundred miracles."
He said, "Why is the palace deserted?"
I said, "They all fear the thief."
He said, "Who is the thief?"
I said, "The one who keeps me from -you.
He said, "Where is there safety?"
I said, "In service and renunciation. "
He said, "What is there to renounce?"
I said, "The hope of salvation."
He said, "Where is there calamity?"
I said, "In the presence of your love."
He said, "How do you benefit from this life?"
I said, "By keeping true to myself
Now it is time for silence.
If I told you about His true essence
You would fly from your self and be gone,
and neither door nor roof could hold you back!
Poem by: Maulana Jallaluddin Rumi
Source of picture is from here

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

Monday, June 21, 2010

اَلْطَرِيْقُ اِلَى الله - The way to God

اَلْطَرِيْقُ اِلَى الله هُو كَثِيرُ - وَلَكِنْ أَقْصَرُ وَأَسْهَلُ هُوَ خِدَمَةُ الْآخِرِيْنَ ، وَلَا يَزْعُجُ الْآخِرِيْنَ ، وَجَعَلَ الآخِرِيْنَ سَعِدًاء

One day a man asked a sheikh how to reach God. “the Way to God” the sheikh replied, “are many as they are created beings.  But the shortest and easiest is to serve others, not to bother others, and to make others happy.

If you wish to draw near to God, you must seek God in the hearts of others. You should speak well of all, whether present or absent. If you seek to be a light to guide others, then, like the sun, you must show the same face to all. To bring joy to a single heart is better than to build many shrines for worship, and to enslave one soul by kindness is worth more than the setting free of a thousand slaves. The true man of God sits in the midst of his fellowmen, and rises up and cats and sleeps and buys and sells and gives and takes in the bazaars, and marries and has social intercourse with others, and yet is never for one moment forgetful of God.

The above is from the saying of Abu Sa'id, a great sufi and poets, Shaikh Abu-Said was one of the earlier Sufi poets. He lived more than two centuries before Jelaluddin Rumi yet, like Rumi, much of his mysticism follows a similar path of annihilation in divine Love.

From my own small experience and knowledge there is a great truth in what has been said. Many others have said about the same things, for example Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty said "A sin committed does not harm an individual so much as looking down upon one's own fellow human beings".

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

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The question of destiny ?

The question of destiny is a very complicated matter to understand ..

However, I like and adopted the view of Syaikh Ibnu Atho'illah, the author of a famous book "Kitabul-Hikam", on this subject, he said: الغافل اذا اصبح ينظر ماذا يفعل، والعاقل ينظر ماذا يفعل الله به

Those people who fail to fail to understand that the true meaning of tauhid which is that everything is running according to terms destine by God, in the morning is worring about what he should be doing that day whereas a person with sound understanding of tauhid would see only what Allah had destined for him that day.

ابن عجيبة said in his kitab إيقاظ الهمم شرح متن الحكم:
الغافل هو الجاهل بالله ولو كثر ذكره باللسان والعاقل هو العارف بالله ولو قل له ذكر اللسان

الغافل - are those who are do not know Allah even though they do a lot of zikrullah with their tongue whereas العاقل are those who know Allah even though they do less of zikrullah with their tongue..

وقول عمر بن عبد العزيز : أصبحت وما لي سرور إلا فى مواقع القدر
And the saying of Umar bin Abdul Aziz: In the morning i would rejoice with nothing except with what Allah had destined for me.

May God opened our hearts to the proper understanding of destiny.. It is most important key to peacefull living..

(p/s : I am testing my new found skill - typing with arabic keyboard and at the same time enhancing my knowledge of arabic..)

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

Monday, June 14, 2010

Saved by a Poem



Kim Rosen, author of "Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words" speaks about loving -- and fearing -- poetry and how poems can be a powerful medicine to heal and transform individuals and our world.

Many of the great Sufi mystics in the past such as Rumi, Attar, Hafiz, Yunus Amre, Saadi, Mahmud Shabistari,Ibn Arabi, Omar Khayyam and many others have been able to encapsulate and share their spiritual experiences through them. Many of the most truly important sufi message and secret are reveal through them. Reading these sufi poems can uplift our own consciouness.

However some of this "life secret" could only be understood with the help of the wise and enlightened being.

Many of these poems could be found on the internet. One of such site is The Poets Seeres.

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

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Kindness



----Kindess-----
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Presence



--- PRESENCE ----
This we have now
is not imagination

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

Those come
and go.

This is the presence
that doesn't.

It's dawn, Husam,
here in the splendor of coral,
inside the Friend, the simple truth
of what Hallaj said.

What else could human beings want?

When grapes turn to wine,
they're wanting
this.

When the nightsky pours by,
it's really a crowd of beggars,
and they all want some of this!

This
that we are now
created the body, cell by cell,
like bees building a honeycomb.

The human body and the universe
grew from this, not this
from the universe and the human body.
--Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

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