A New Energy

So finally I finish my detour through Mind-Boggle, Heart-Twist Land. Since the past two day, I've got back to my spiritual practices, which are to keep me centered, stable, and STILL in an ever-changing illusion called the World. I have learned Reiki healing since April, but had not been practicing.

A series of events that I had seen fore coming since March started manifesting this week. It's almost as though I have been writing my fortune. It was, in my imagination, dreadful. But by the time the events have started unfolding, I am ready. It all concerns my role as a teacher and adviser in the inter-twined lives of a few persons, to whom I am often also a student by the very nature of how knowledge sharing works. Assuming the role of a teacher has been a challenge, which I will write about separately as this marks not just a new chapter in my life, but my very life itself!

The result of the shift that had been taking place in the last few weeks is this: many things have come full circle. I feel an integration happening despite my lack of attention and devotion to my practices. My life has become a living practice.

Since last night, I have felt a great deal of pain leaving my body. I know that while some pain is due to my athletic misadventures and being the tomboy, much of it is part of my psyche, and a collective psyche.

And that just connected a dot for me!

Eckhart Tolle speaks of a collective woman pain body. Could it be that my attention's new focus, the Feminine Principle, is the beginning of my work with healing this psychic body?
Very likely. Because repeatedly I have been in conversation with women, since the last year, about their Selves, about who they are as opposed to what they have had to do.
I think Allah has chosen me to undertake a project I shall deliver on, Allah be willing. Amen.

This is a thought I need to mull over, Prophecy!

A Woman's Fallacy

The problem is that women all over the world, and in the society that I know most - my own - are brought up under this oft intangible belief that they are lesser beings, created for the sole purpose of scrificing and pleasing others around them. If they don't have a role to play, women would not exist on their own.

That's the deep, entrenched construct that manifests in such a variety of abusive, bizarre behavior in women, and by extension, their (our!) relationships.

I've never thought of myself as a woman, rather a human, much to the chagrin and the bewilderment of my parents who, despite their tradition-breaking, expected me to be that well-behaved, tea-serving daughter.

It's the tea that always got to me. I could wash the car or sweep the front yard. But the decorated tea! *

I never really made it my problem to be a woman or not. To me, the world was about humanity.

So it's with much surprise, a little trepidation, and much more wild curiosity that I am observing the feminine energy entering my life. What a phase, and how many awkward situations has it got me into already!

But there must really be a time for everything, and it's time for me to detour from the Human to the Feminine.

A few situations I just expected (almost feared) happening, happened. By the time they did, I was ready and afraid no more. (Yes, I am troubled by dealing with people's problems, especially the feminine kind. Yet this subject has started dancing in my life all around me. The time has come, eh!?)

It was all pre-planned by Fate that I would see a book titled Women of Sufism on the bookshelf in South Africa. I took a photo of the cover all Jason Bourne style (it looks suspicious when you're so fascinated with someone else's books!), and I got the book from USA at the beginning of this month.

And what a revelation it is!

Here it is in my hands. I find it so revealing, so life-altering, I'd recommend a copy to any woman who's been brought up to believe that she is a lesser mortal.

This being "a lesser mortal" is all rooted in the myth that Eve came out of Adam's rib.

And that is a patently false myth. In Qur'an's fourth chapter, named "Women," the very first verse declares that we were created from "one self (nafs)," into a pair. Very conveniently, this "nafs" (Arabic for "self") is penciled as "Adam," the masculine man, in translations, albeit parenthetically.

Well, "nafs" in Arabic is feminine.

And Eve never came out of Adam's rib. It is a human-created myth designed to degrade women.

Allah declares often in the Qur'an that "everything is created in pairs." This is the Divine Law. So how could humans have been created as a single man, only upon whose desire woman was created from his rib? Does God ever design like that? Has not Allah invited humans countless times in the Qur'an to study the signs and learn the Design of the Universe? Does this myth tally?

But people do not read. They only assume, at best.

And as someone noted, if Eve indeed follow Adam in the process of creation, then she is the most evolved form of creation. Which essentially means that womanhood is the highest form of creation. Not surprisingly, Allah has preferred a woman (the archetype "mother") three times over a man (the archetype "father") - as even a layperson of a Muslim would know.

So. One of my current missions in life, taking a life on its own, is to study and teach the truth of Femininity, of Womanhood.

May that liberate women from the abusive bondage we have worked ourselves into. And may that, in turn, liberate the entire humanity from its transgression on the Feminine Principle.

Aameen!

* I wrote this as a personal blog about a year ago; back when it was merely a private musing to me, shared with people who personally know me. The tea thing was more of a joke. I actually love making tea. The truth behind that reference is that I do not like performing that task as if it's a "women's duty, to be performed as a slave task." A year later, I take much more pride and pleasure in my femininity. As ever, I believe in experiencing joy in performing the daily tasks, for men or for women. I also have always believed that certain tasks are more suited to women and to men, respectively. Yet we can occasionally and freely cross those boundaries when need or wish be. The Divine Law is not into micro-managing minutae.

Bless you!

(July 25, 2009)

No-thing Happening

Dear HU,

Your love has made me good-for-nothing-else. I constantly think of You, and You have taken out of my mind and heart - You have wrenched apart from my life, torn away from my heart - anything or anyone that occupied them, because I perceived them as else, and not part of Your Design.

That perception is my flaw. But I am not writing to speak of my flaw, rather of my love, which is inevitable.

They will not understand my condition and keep presenting me with worldly affairs. Some of them know that this is not where my heart lies, but they keep persisting. Is this the last temptation You are judging my firmness with? Are there yet more to come?

Because You can carry on; I am satisfied enough in You to say that I am not distracted from You but for small moments. And then I turn back to You.

And I keep this condition capsuled within my heart as I must carry on in the world as if no-thing is happening.

Genius. Power. Magic.

Prophecy,

Here is what you needed. Keep asking loud, clear questions from the Universe. Your answers are ready. They will arrive in quick succession.

For now:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
-Attributed to Goethe

reckless

Dear A,

i believe in you so recklessly. i don't care what the world says, or they have fashioned me to think - in my heart, i think like none of them nor do i pay any credence to them over you.

well, well, why do i speak of the world? it's about you, and i. i believe in you. i do not doubt. i enjoy this relationship only when it's this reckless, this dangerous, this direct, and so out-of-my-clumsy-control.

someone once said to me, "belief is when you jump off a cliff, and know God will catch you."
i said, "no! belief is when you fall off a cliff, and you care not whether you are caught or not! what if you are meant to die and fall? what if you are meant to be caught just the very moment before you hit the ground, and just a moment before, you lose all your faith? what then?"

to believe, to truly believe, is first not to be foolish enough to linger by and trip from a cliff where one is not meant to be. and if is either in an accident or adventurous enough to be caught tumbling down in such a situation, then belief is to enjoy that absolute uncertainty.

not even uncertainty, for that is the other side of a search for certainty.... but rather this calmness, this blankness, this absence of mind.

this fullness of joy.

and that is how recklessly i abandon myself to you.

Certainty

So now I realize what it means. The only certainty is death. The one who seeks certainty must seek death. Or put the other way, it is the death of a thing that can make us absolutely certain. Put another way, only when we let go, are we certain.

I was being such a coward. I say I seek courage. And I advice others about facing death - that is, putting and end to an ever-splitting set of possibilities growing and growing, by making a decision. But I wasn't taking my own medicine.

The truth is, isn't it, that the one who gives advice needs it most? Not just any advice, but that very advice that they give. The truth is, isn't it, that the one we seek is found in our own Self? The truth is, isn't it, that the one who knew one's self, knew God?

I got a message the other day, right after I declared an intent:

"Eventually, however, he realizes that the 'friend' he is truly longing for is his own inner self, whom Shams of Tabraiz had so clearly reflected. He becomes the sun that warns and transforms hearts, attracting people from all creeds, classes, and religions."
-Rumi

My search ended last night. (Or perhaps it began.)

I realized that I have to take a decision. The one who stares at one closed door becomes blind to the hundred doors that open. That is such an act of lack of faith. Somehow it is embedded in the human perception, though, to see the black dot, and not the whole white sheet it's on.

So I stepped back and back, into the realm of the Hidden, until I saw more than I was seeing. I saw possibility in death. Actually, I saw liberation in accepting death as death.

The decision, I saw, was mine. All relationships, my teacher says, need only one person - the person who determines the relationship and its nature for themselves. I looked, and I saw that I wasn't truly accepting death of the past. The only reality is now. If we reverse to the past, we turn back to time, and that sets up in a futile race against our own growth and maturity. Against the expansion of our own Universe.

I decided to accept death. That means, I enter the realm of the Uncertain again. The realm of chance, of accident, of spontaneous magic.

I am taught that the Hidden lies behind and within the heart, and the Manifest lies before the eyes. I reckon that what channels the possibilities from the Hidden to the Manifest world is our unconditional surrender... so that the Hidden travels into the Manifest. In simpler words, a possibility realizes itself only when we get our of its way, stop our active or passive resistance.

I accepted the death of the past, and submitted to the possibility of chance. Of course, that requires faith in that what is given to me is always better and more beautiful than what I could ask myself.

So be it. I accept this. How liberating this is! I can now look at my Universe again with undemanding, cool eyes.

my irresistible game

Dearest Friend,

i weep and sleep and weep and weep because i know that it will cause you worry. how manipulative of me! but i want to cause you worry! *laugh!* after all, i am a woman. this is my vengeful little tactic to attract your attention.

oh no. no. no. i won't stop! i'll do it relentlessly! because you have caused me such worry too. you come, you go, you come, you go, you appear, you disappear, and then you appear with a gift. you make me think you've walked off and away, and then you help me when i most desperately need it. you keep me engaged in nothing else but your moves. it gives me a headache! nay, it gives me a heartache - i no longer have a head! you drive me insane! sometimes i am not sure, which one of us is the woman?

yes, i know you enjoy your games. you deprive me of your attention because you want me to seek you out. i understand the meaning of the glances you steal towards me. and i also know you know that when i am not looking, i am looking indeed. of course i am! how irritating, that you know this! i am looking at nothing but you, so i turn away from you, pretending you're not there. foolish me!

so. you see, i have learned the games from you. of course, i never quite master the play. of course, i always feel like i am losing, i cannot hold off any longer. of course, i know you also expect me to not give up.

so i don't give up. i weep, i weep, and i worry myself sick to draw your attention.

you see, my faith in you is no lesser than your hope in me that one day, i will come and find you. one day, through all barriers and resistances that surround you, i will come and find you. one day, removing the veils, having crossed over all chasms of this separation, i will come and find you. one day, through this web that you have spun to amuse you in your lonesome being, i will come and find you. one day, having sought you and lost and sought you and sought you, i will come and find you. one day, each step that you took towards me will bring me to you. that day, you shall have a friend, me, who does not desert, but only pretends to lose interest, sometimes due to envy for i feel you looking away, sometimes due to a weariness of unrequited love as i await this day!

this is how my heart is. i play games, but never does my attention desert the object of my love. how can it? my attention is sustained, as is the attention of anyone who loves. there is love in my being, and once i have felt this state, it does not desert me even if i wish to escape from it some time - never truly do i wish that anyway. i am blessed that i cannot now say "no" through folly.

not that i wished to, ever. for i know that the only purpose of my being is that day when i realize that there is no barrier, no resistance, no veil, no chasm, no separation, no web... and that you seek and i am sought. that it was always so that you came to me, while i was busy playing my games - disappointing you, perhaps, but never enough to make your hope in me end.

meanwhile, whenever you worry that i have turned away from you, i know it in my heart, and to be truthful, i worry too. at that while, i weep. perhaps to play a game, perhaps to be played by it. but certainly, always in the hope that you will look at me again, as you irresistibly do.

...

The Time Traveler's Lover

Dear Quest & Lust:

Am I looking for a soul to share my spiritual journey with? Why, how dare I, when you are my original, sincere, spiritual soul mate!

Ha ha!

It just occurred to me that I feel that old buzzing need of wanting to share my feelings and experiences with someone. I talk to Allah, but at some point, that becomes an abstraction to me. Poor, unrealized me! But one should accept themselves as who they are, right?

So a while ago, I was reading this book called Women in Sufism and oh my! I could barely get through the chapter, Hidden Ways, for I had such a strange sense of connection with the story! It is about al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi and his other-worldly spiritual relationship with his wife. He chronicled their inter-twined spiritual journey in his autobiography.

Not named but as the mother of their son, Abdallah, "Umm 'Abdallah" dreams messages for her husband, and also develops herself spiritually through these prophecies. The wife and husband "are together in the same place," as indicated by the guides in the dreams.

Now, what a strange, and beautiful relationship! But the strangest is the resonance I feel with this story. It's as if I have known this before; it's as though I expect to live it somehow. Just one of those things we know. I know. I just know.

Even the language of some of the dreams she has, as reported in Women of Sufism, is eerily similar to the poems I have been writing. Consider this:

In her dream:

"The bird hopped upwards, climbing form branch to branch..."

From my recent poem, Choices:

"Yes, I choose!
And so I hop
and grow
from branch
to branch
to branch
to an ever-branching branch."

One of the dreams of this unnamed woman also resembles strongly in imagery a dream I had years ago, one that I have been thinking of lately for some reason. The one with the beautiful, silent fountains in ponds of white marble... the whole scene lit up with the bright light of the Moon.... It is one of the most beautiful dreams I have had, though I have seen richer imagery.

In a very similar dream, at-Tirmidhi's wife is given knowledge for her, and him.

My amazement does not cease here. There is mention of herbs in the same dream: the guide - presumably Khidr - presents the evergreen myrtle to her, and shows that he is keeping some for her husband. He also shows her herbs in his other hand, indicating that those are not perennial as the myrtle, but green in some seasons, and gone in another. This is an allusion to the sustained (evergreen) spiritual state of the couple, who are blessed with myrtle. The other herbs are for those who are true also, but not firm in their spiritual achievement.

What bewilders me is my interest in exploring herbs, and their uses and meanings, and the wish to have the company of a curious soul on this journey. To explore and learn the meaning of this beautiful existence. To wander in the enchanted garden, to know the Truth of Being...

I am not sure how this wish plays out in reality... but then I am not telling the truth, because I know how wishes play out in reality. But I digress.

This is so uncanny. Their whole story reads like the story of my life as I have imagined it. Now I am not very comfortable detailing it; but let it suffice that I have placed a great personal importance on sharing my life with one with whom I share a spiritual connection. I almost take it as my destiny; it's one of those things we feel have already happened to us, only we live to live it out.

Sometimes there are presences that I engage with - now that I pay attention to the matter, I am not sure who they are or where are they coming from. Who is this certain presence I have always been aware of, but which yet hasn't revealed? I know some come from over space, but there are certainly some who come over time.

Time, time! This strange veil!

Reading this chapter made me feel like I am the lover of the fabled time-traveler. I sense a presence. I know it's quite here, but not still quite here. Where, exactly, in time, does it all come together?

I await the answer. I await the Hidden to become Manifest...

Learning to Dance

One of the toughest challenge that I find in my life is to be brave when I am completely crumbling inside. Sometimes that feeling occurs so often - I get up a morning happy, and by evening I feel the weight of the world on my heart... or I wake up with a sense of foreboding, and then work the day towards changing my world, deliberately. And I sleep in content.

I believe in spreading courage, not despair - especially when there is much apparent reason to have despair without. I find opportunity and beauty even in problems and ugliness. Yet maintaining that perception has not always been easy.

Especially lately, I see my Universe changing astoundingly quickly, sometimes several times a day. I find my heart unmanageable, I want to cry, I feel as if I would die and having nothing... this sense of loss... even this sense of loss does not stay long enough for me to savor it... and then suddenly I find a fullness, an un-describable richness surrounding me.

The past three months have been such a tumultuous ride. I cannot truly say what I think - but it seems that Destiny has seized me, and I have seized Destiny in an uncomfortable dance.

It's like trying touching the nose of your mirror image by touching the mirror, and feeling annoyed at seeing the hand actually moving away from the nose. It takes some learning to get going along with the way the whole thing works. I am at once fascinated, and frustrated. I cry with happiness, and then with sadness.

In all this time, my heart has broken and re-mended and broken and re-mended and broken and re-mended so many times. I have no control over this. I have no idea of what's happening. I only see my whole life as a ribbon unfurling in the wind.... it flutters, and with it, my heart, my love, my fear, my courage.

There is no sealed guarantee about what I must expect in my life, that I can wrap in a velvet bag and put under my pillow so I can put my head comfortably over it and sleep. There is no knowing what my heart will go through in the next few moments. It might just break again, and I might have to go on being brave despite all ache. I don't know. It might experience unexpected love again, and I might be bewildered at how I attract such beautiful energy despite my doing nothing. I don't know.

I just don't know. But I feel that slowly, somehow, I am learning the steps to this cosmic dance. This, perhaps, is the only thing that helps me get by through this Uncertainty of Being.

 

Memoir-izing: My Life's Story, After Intent

This yet unpublished blog was written on the morning of Thursday April 10, 2008.
I did not publish because I felt there was a promise in this I was not going to keep.
Three months later, however, this is exactly how my life has played out after a series of fortunate incidents.

----
April 10, 2008


I am supposed to be preparing my notes for a business meeting, but the call comes again: loud, clear, inevitable.

And so I am back to doing what I am meant to do: watching my life, and writing about it. I don't know why, I don't know what for - I only know how. That's my only power, that's my soul's liberation.

I am astounded but not surprised at the utter destruction the whole illusion of my existence has undergone within a few days right in front of my eyes, right in my hands. Perhaps it was the putting my hands on the illusion that destroyed it, but then so be it. Now.

Then every moment now is a blessing in itself. Those who learned this secret sailed through the illusion. So where's the blessing, now? The blessing is that everything around me has stripped down, such that the inevitability of my path has become startlingly clear. Where was I running off to? Even if I physically or emotionally removed myself from my circumstances, the story would have stayed in my heart, and I would have felt that strange, unnamed gap between where I would be and where I ought to be. That unnamed, buzzing, persistent feeling some identify and label as existential angst.

I'd rather choose death, than angst at being. Which is to say, I'd rather choose that the unreality dies, than to be bound to it. This is hell. I am not dying in hell. Not me.

I am living, by the blessing of death of time, my dream. What a strange dream it is! How fascinating, how rich!

Notice words as you speak, Prophecy: you say, "I am living my dream." It is indeed still a dream you are living. A dream you have created to fascinate yourself. You said to your dream, "Be!" And it became. Such is the method of creation.

I have made a few decisions that actually were inevitably made for me... however that works.

• I place my trust in the clear truth that Allah is Merciful, Beneficent. That Allah is Beautiful, and Hu loves beauty. That this Multiverse is created on the principle of being, and there is no non-being, which is why I am alive. That my life is beyond ritual and force - it is to live Beauty.
• I liberate myself from the whole illusion of being by submitting to Allah.
• I embrace the Uncertainty that comes from living moment to moment. I see the joy in not knowing where shall I be next, or whether I shall be at all or not. I recognize that any sorrow arising from this decision is actually the other face of joy.
• I love.
• I let go of control of my Self.
• I heal and be healed.
• I get out of the way of my own writing. It's happening, I am writing memoirs and essays, and I am not going to stop myself from this.
• I choose Love over the Deep Blue Sea. That, to me, is a literary reference: Love is my country, and the Deep Blue Sea is every place else. I don't owe anything, anything. But I love. Love shows me the way, and I love Pakistan. Not out of a sense of compulsion, not out of a sense of sacrifice or enforced martyrdom. Out of free choice, out of joy, out of pure love. I choose to live here, transforming myself and my country at once. Her life is my life, and that is how I relate to my physical being. I love Pakistan; I choose Pakistan.
• I bring out the best in others by reminding them of their dream, and helping them see the place in this world that their soul wants to reach; thereby gaining Connection. I decide to share open knowledge, but force none by way of my expectation or attachment.
  
• I have decided to have conversations, and show by inspiration and experience to all who I am meant to show the beauty of this design.
• I pursue the unraveling of mysteries that amuse me.
• I engage with the abundance of Nature - in-joying the forms of life and consciousness spread about me... the animals and the plants and all other species.
  
• I learn from whichever source I can, wherever I can, whenever I can.
• I travel God's Earth far and wide in search of knowledge and to answer my questions; and to bring the knowledge home.
• I allow my Self to be freed from others' manipulations, expectations, and baggage even if it means I have to let them go, they have to see me go, or either of us have to die or live more fully.
• I trust that in its beauty, the Design hurts no one. It provides adequately and beautifully for us all. And that which I destroy for myself lives on in its own life. I am neither the master nor the servant of creation.
• I choose nothing, and I give up!
• I am thankful when I am given to; and I am patient when I am taken from. For I understand in the depth of my being, that everything is as it is. It is the perception that matters.
  

And so, "Be!"

I Walk Alone: The Next Journey

Now fools don't understand the meaning of walking alone. They think it means someone is traveling solo, with no one in sight.

Wasn't it ninth grade or earlier when the literary difference between "alone" and "lonely" was clarified? Or must I hyper-link the hyphenated words to their dictionary definitions - which could be inadequate for dictionaries are written by humans.

Anyhow, why am I so miffed at people I cannot even see? It's very foolish also to talk of "people, people." Most of the times, the word "people" refers to our projections of our own devils and angels.

Two more words hardly understood - but that's not what I am writing about.

I am writing about the determination that come heaven or hell, I am taking the journey that is so clear in my vision: a journey of seeking, of exploration, wonder, curiosity.
I am going to explore knowledge from wherever it comes.
I am going to experience nature.
I am going to read fascinatingly liberating literature... the type that does not trap the mind in intellectual discourse, but frees the human soul to fly!

~.~.~.~
I won't say anymore. I just realized I made this declaration earlier, but never published it for I was then not sure. Months later, that is exactly the track my life has taken. Our intent does not go to waste, eh? It grows on its own.

Later this year, I am joining whatever caravan inspires me.
I am going to take as my fellow traveler whoever strikes me as a courageous soul.
I wish to be surrounded by Friends, Lovers, Seekers.

...Not mine, you fool!
Hu's!

New Chapter in My Book

I know that somehow, I am writing a book. And with the evolution of this book, with all my choices of The Word, my life is evolving too.
Hadn't I rendered my Universe completely anew when I decided to play on the name of a book in jest, and said the words: "Heal, Stray, Love"?
I think the Universe had changed itself then, because it was listening very keenly.

Isn't this what SE had said?

We create the universe we live in, daily. The real work of being alive is to discover how we write the code.

So many people have told me that I must write, and asked me if I will?
Yes, I am writing, I just don't now for the life of me, all puns intended, what is this book going to be!

Oh, well, I do know, but I didn't know what form each chapter will take. It is a living book!

Today, I added a new chapter to the book of my life. I made an intent; which is going to be the chapter where the story turns. I know; I just know.

It's a little bold of me to do so near-publicly, but my sense of reckless play with the Universe is heightened. I see the world in my fingers, and I play. I fear so little, perhaps nothing at all.

The Search

So Prophecy,

Everyone searches for what is popularly known as a "soul mate." There are two realities to this Truth:

First Reality: The one we are searching for is none other but our Self.
The quality we intuitively search for - well, how do we even become aware of this quality?
We become aware of it because it exists within us as our own true highest potential.
So it is amusing how many of us go about demanding from the Universe what indeed is what we ought to bring out from within.
With a grown consciousness, we may become aware that what we require of our world is actually what our world requires of us.

So my search for courage has ultimately led me within. It had told me that for seeing courage in the world, I must display it. As I did what I was younger and more intuitive. To have felt this courage re-awakened with is to have experienced a great liberation!


Second Reality: And then, indeed, we may be able to find another like our Self.
It is a matter of this world, isn't it? We look for someone who completes or complements us.
I have been advised that I need a "rational" man in my life.

I do not seek rationality! I seek what the world would define as irrational: to complement a soul like mine, I seek a man of courage.
A man of irreverence for glorified structures and systems; a man who does not just have an opinion, but the courage to manifest his belief. A man who can take death's blow on the chest. That is the sort of man I seek - not a rational, self-protecting shadow of a person.

I seek someone who is no longer deluded by duality. Who does not see poor and rich; evil and good; far and close; separation and unity; love and hate - who, in Rumi's words, I can meet in the field beyond the fields of right and wrong.

My beliefs are ancient in many ways. I believe in some fundamental values that make men, men and women, women and make humans, humans. Courage is for all humans - it manifests differently in men and women, of course.

I am just fascinated with the idea of a man who can lift his arm to weild the metaphorical sword: who can fight, with bravery and with fearlessness, for what he believes in. Who has absolute equanimity under adversity. And who does not desert his ground like a coward.

Above all, I detest cowardice in any person.
Cowardice is different from not showing one's full potential of courage, as having courage is the culmination of a process of maturation.

So when I seek courage, within or without, I seek a maturation, without which courage is not possible.

The Highest Concern
My teacher teaches that courage is the highest human concern - and yet it is not a matter of age.
I believe this, for I understood courage better as a child than as an adult who grew into a world of compromises and where all looked to each other for setting the rules, ignoring the Principles of Being.

I think human societies have been raising children to be cowards for too long - especially men, who grow up with a sense of entitlement. In the face of reality which eventually arrives in all lives then, this weakness begins to reveal itself in the form of a search of happiness, of security, of avoidance of pain, of a permanency.

Such people can never take courageous decisions, can never walk alone.

I walk alone, Prophecy, I have always walked alone. And on my journey, whoever comes to walk with me has to have the courage to walk alone and on their own feet also.
I seek this strength in my close relations, in my friends. And to a greater degree - to an absolutely fascinating-me degree - I seek that also in a man.

Beyond the mystical veil before which we believe there is no soul mate, I believe there is such a thing. If it is indeed intended for us to have a match in this world, I believe that in every moment, there is a soul in the world that completely relates to our own. I seek that soul with belief.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~

So there. I have made an intent. I have blown a wish into the wide chasm of the Universe.
So be it.

A Heart of Courage?

So: courage, courage!

Uff! This word has troubled me so much lately - so I am going to pass on my trouble into the big, vast voids of the Universe!
So my wish can Be!
~.~.~.~.~.~

Above all, Prophecy, I have sought courage in my life.
In my own actions, and in those of others. It very often led to judgments from the world; but also a quiet support - for which I am thankful.
Yet courage requires no expectations, and such friendliness with death that we are ready to stand by our belief even if we are the only one believing, and the whole world - the whole, vast, entire world - is turned against us! That we may face the death of our being if we persist.

Which heart shows courage when nothing seems to be going "right?" When there is no instant gratification in the pursuit of one's belief?
That heart is the true courageous heart; this is the heart I wish to have.
~.~.~.~.~.~

Courage

Courage!

Where do I begin? Lately, the subject of courage has occupied my life with such force and presence, I can think of little else.
Courage, courage!

Hmm. It at once awakens memories and feelings. But the stories of all lives are long, so I shall not tell mine for now. In this moment, all I know is how dearly I needed to have courage in my life, again.

For some time, I have felt this void in my life.
And I have felt a sense of disliking for who I was, and what my life had become.
This disengagement from my self and my world was becoming a painful void. It possessed my energy.

Until, after many years, the virtue of courage came alive in my life again. And now I feel the difference.
I have always believed.
I have lived and loved my life.
I believe life is in itself a gift - a beautiful, precious thing.

To live life, a human need certain principles, virtues - whatever name people choose to give to these.
Courage is the highest human virtue.
It makes us take decisions.
Decisions are what take life forward, and life only grows from within a circle to the outside.... like a ripple.
That is a healthy life, a growing life; a life, which, indeed is qualified to be called Life.

Life is the act of waking up, of growing outwards, of multiplying.
Decisions from amongst choices - those vast, fractal choices - make this growth possible.

I think I was showing the courage I felt within; or perhaps, it was being directed in sustaining me, in sustaining my life when it completely ebbed.

----

Watching, patiently.

So Prophecy,

It's time for a recap of the recent situation.
...
Oops! I don't exactly feel like reviewing now! So. Just a summary.

Thank you for being patient. With yourself, and with your world around you.
If you ask, I have *no clue* on what is happening and what is going to happen.
Then again, I have a dream, a sense, and an intent.
So far, the Universe has unfolded not so unfavorably.
You see - didn't you? - that patience held the process together. Our unkindness destroys us before we are made. It is vital for someone aspiring to be a human of knowledge to learn the virtue of waiting, and watching.

Watching! Ah, watching!
What is meant by watching?
The blind and the seeing are not equal, nor is the watching by the two.

You watch, and then you become aware, you become sensitive to your world, your being.
If not, then you are not watching at all - you perhaps have a sensory optical mechanism at work, but no translation of the stimuli is happening.
That, my dear Prophecy, is the difference between the blind and the seeing.
(Some fools think that to be "blind" means to have faulty eyes that cannot pick up visual stimuli. Each person's definition of a concept shows their own level of awareness. You can tell a person's knowledge by their definitions.)

So see the process,
but also, then,
do what is due.

Patience is admirable. But also remember to take action where action is required, where it is appropriate.
This is the world of yin and the yang: the potential and the kinetic energy.
When you are patient, you energy is in the potential phase. When you have watched, and it is the moment for you to act, the energy transforms into the kinetic.
Either way, it is energy.
Patience is a great energy. Use it wisely.

Believe in the slow work of God.

...

Unrevealed

...and when they find
the world
devoid of answers,
or hiding, hiding, that there is -
my eyes lift up
and search the sky
praying, praying, for what is
unrevealed.

Between

Prophecy!

My heart is in that state of no state... where I am between hope and fear in alternating moments. Sometimes, I want to cry; sometimes, I feel Beauty swirling about me. And then again, I want to cry. Just lie down on grass, look up at the sky, and cry until my heart comes to rest and I sleep.

I have been doing this very often lately - I don't care what the world thinks or how it spins. I just understand my own state of being - that is all there is to my life.

Well. So. The heart of the matter is that I want to cry all the time, and this is why one has a blog. To express their strangest thought of the oddest moment.

I don't know what is going to happen, Prophecy - but then again, this is all as I had known it to be. I just didn't know that time would come so soon and so truly overwhelmingly! The times that had been in my imagination since childhood...

Oh well, they arrive! I am not sure that I am ready - but then am I crazy? Who is ever ready for something that unfurls and unfolds on its own? One just goes with the flow.

I am gripped by an intense uncertainty. This, they say, is a blessed state. Hmm....

I just know that something momentous will happen. It might even happen without anyone noticing what's really going on... we become increasingly desensitized to heightened alerts to our senses... losing all meaning. The blind and the seeing are not equal; and only the seeing shall see. So, something will happen.... I am not sure what will it be.... but while I know its nature would be cataclysmic, I also know what and who will be saved, and why.

I assure you, there is an opening. Know it, keep it in sight, and when the right moment arrives - take it.

.

How I Learned The Golden Rule From a Strange Series of Events

"That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind."
The Ethic of Reciprocity (The Golden Rule)

So, yesterday was a strange day: I woke up feeling extremely tired and weary. There was no electricity all morning, and I ran late for a meeting I wanted to go to early. Mornings are just better to get work done. But power never came.

Finally, when I figured I don't need the ironing and the styling and can just step out of the house - it was already around 2 pm. I reached a client's office. Minutes later, the key person I was working with had to leave on account of an emergency. I said no problem, let's work when things are sorted out. People are important, not things and affairs.

Anyhow I sat there clueless and unable to get up and return or to do any meaningful work at all. After a couple of hours, I requested to have a cab arranged to drop me back home. The cab arrived. I packed up to leave. Seconds before I stepped out of the office, the cab meant to pick me basically just ran away. I was left stranded at the gate. "Nothing,"I took a deep breath, "is going to be on time today." Another cab was sought. Funny, the second driver gets a call from the first, they're somehow related; the first describes he just marooned a client. The second inquires why, to which the first reportedly replied, "My mind suddenly got confused; I didn't know what was I supposed to do, so I left."

I said nothing. I had seen the cat several times in the Matrix today, I was sure, and something was being re-loaded or unloaded. "If I am lucky," I reflected, "I am perhaps being saved from an accident. Or I am walking into one. Either way, I have no control over the events of the day." I reached home to find the gate locked, with no one home to attend, and me without a key. Actually my parents slept soundly inside, shaking off a jet lag, and the door bell was off due to load-shedding, again! I contemplated jumping in, but didn't want to give on-lookers fresh ideas on how to rob a house. Twenty minutes later, I was let in when my brother came home with a key.

I slept early but badly as my whole body refused to calm down. The best way for me to earth any negative energy is to sleep on grass or floor. I rested on the floor.

The events of the day had a parallel theme to them: that of my unplanned elopement with Fate.

I was tired the day before yesterday. I felt as if I had reached The Wall, and I had my nose pressed against it. I felt a dangerous feeling surge in me: I felt constriction, I felt death.

I checked my SMS's and found an invite to a trip to the mountain. I did a bit of research, and made up my mind that I was going to look into the arrangements next day. I then went to sleep during the night determined that I will run away without notice. Then I woke up yesterday morning, and experienced a truly fascinating thing: the Universe acting bizarre, and nothing happening on time. Yes - Time! That eternal curse of the human mind!

But I continued with my unplanning. As close as one can come to "leave the world behind," I did yesterday. There had been a great discontent in my heart - and I was ready to "give it" to a few persons. I kept repeating to myself: "I have reached the end of grace - I have reached the end of grace! No more!" I just decided to smash everything I built to bits - because I could not go on. Or so I felt. I could not go on like this!

I checked the trip details, and almost mentally prepared myself for what could be a taxing journey. I told my chiropractor I want to leave. I told my client I am just going away, and left them puzzled. I cut off contact from friends - retaining just the last bits of kind response. I tried calling Amatullah Armstrong, perhaps she would understand my condition? But her phone refused to connect, and my phone's battery ran out.

I've seen this kind of thing before: I am supposed to work out my situation myself, I know.

I understand I feel great anger, rancor, frustration. I almost want to finish off some "business." Strangest of all, I perhaps want to attract some attention by behaving oddly.

And I don't like that. I do not like my Self when it seeks attention. There is something going on here that I must figure out. After all, all events we don't want at least teach us something, thus becoming meaningful in our lives.

I knew if I write the whole thing down, I'll eventually understand what's happening. I need to observe the strange behavior of the Universe.

Today the strange streak of events continued. I woke up in the morning and remember I saw my grandmother in my dream. She signed some papers and showed some unusually assertive behavior, for which I was glad.

Upon waking, my parents informed me that my grandmother has fallen ill, and they are going to go attend to her. It is late night now, and my aged grandmother is being taken to the hospital. I knew what my dream meant. [June 23: She'd had a paralytic attack.]

Besides that knowledge, I also woke up to resolve I am not going to be like her in one respect: that of leaving the world to hide behind a strict devotion to prayer. My prayer is staying alive - so what am I doing now? Planning to go somewhere at once to be not known and to be noticed?

My heart finally gave me kind advice. It said, "Never make rancor or resentment with another the basis of your action. Go away wherever you want or do whatever you do if you feel the action is truly for you and by you."

My path is the path of love, of heart. My heart is not an evil heart, it is a heart that loves - and it is hurt for love, it gets angry about love like only a human heart could. I have always felt that people who take actions in fits of rage or despair only live to regret or avoid their guilt - and that love can be built stronger if we can control that rage that kills us within. Rage is not the answer, truthful decisions are. If someone or something hurts us by its very being, it is better to be kind, to let go gently and to free oneself kindly - than to remain in rage.

If I am enraged, I am supposed to take a decision or to calm the assumptions of my own mind - all the while honoring my true feeling: rage! To honor a feeling is to simply acknowledge that it exists, and from that understanding, work to a solution.

Strangeness continued as yet another time, my cab didn't arrive today to pick me up to take me to physical training & then work. The client canceled for today, and I kept changing my schedule of commitments. Finally I decided that there is one thing that stops the madness of time: sharing abundance with someone who is in need. Also, I must become present in the NOW. The moment I decided this, the foolish cabbie who had turned off his phone arrived at my door an hour after the call time. He almost ran away again as I went in to collect my things to get going. What madness! But I decided not to give in to any bizarre event any longer. I didn't ask him for explanation - I knew it was the Universe talking to me. I needed to talk to the Universe directly.

And then, suddenly, I figured out what was happening!

Had I expressed a wish to throw everything away, leave it all behind - had I expressed a living death wish? Did I say that I am going to be angry, take decisions based on sudden changes of mood?

Well, the Universe heard, and it answered right back. Forcefully. Clearly. It would NOT cooperate. It would run away from me, if I run away from it. So be it!

I learned several things at once:

• Decisions are not to be based on our relationships with others, but on our relationship with Being.
• Anger is no good, on Self or the Other. The best basis of action is to do the appropriate thing.
• If I hurt the Universe, or plan to, it will hurt me. I watched within a few hours how the Golden Rule works: I planned to abandon my Universe, my Universe showed it will leave me stranded.
• I am loved, but being ungrateful.
  
• I need to be truthful; and at the same time, stop imagining. If I am consistently led to imagining ill, then the key question is where is the discontent coming from?
• Perhaps I should remove myself from my circumstances. There is violence in the air, and I absorb illness from my surroundings. Yesterday, a couple of people expressed to me an almost similar discontent; that quite buzzing feeling. So I will go, but not at the cost of breaking hearts. If I break expectations, it must be for Allah's sake, not my private agenda. In taking action for Allah is blessing; in serving self's interest is hell.
  
• This is all for the good, and the better. I must align my perceptions quickly, for the Universe is under a great shift - the NOW moment is out to abolish the past and the future. The Matrix indeed is being reloaded.
• The Universe is really a mirror of my being. What I do to it, it does to me! This is very insightful spiritual lesson that I was meant to have.

Having learned these, my strange mental condition - "constriction" as its technically called in spirituality - nearly abolished. I feel an expansion of the heart, a calmness. Amatullah has prayed for me, and I have, of course, chosen not to run away.

Amatullah said, "Sometimes we try to move a giant tree, when Allah only expects us to plant a seed."

So I sit, I wait for the seed to show what it will grow into. If it dies, so it is by the will of Allah.

I am not at odds with my Universe anymore. May my heart be in peace!

---
Published on June 23, 2008. I will not edit it shorter!

Seeking My Attention

Oh World!

I have felt so tired and weary of you today. And I pride myself on being a seer of Beauty.

Yes I know! The heart of the believer is in Hu's hands, and Hu turns it whichever way Hu wishes.

So my heart keeps turning.

Yes, what a trick to attract the attention of the careless, me! It is not uncharacteristic for one who feels ignored of our attention to start teasing us, to pretend disinterest in our presence, to act as if they care for all but for us.

I have seen it in humans, and sometimes I am puzzled - why am I the ONLY one not being included? Only to realize, "Ah! I am then the only one whose attention is sought!" I see it in eyes that seek my (dis)approval. I have seen this before.

So. What a manner my attention has been sought in! I am tired in every sense of the word - in every manner - in every which way... and yet I perceive Beauty.

... And what do I perceive now?

A collapse of Time. The spreading of the Now moment so far and wide, that there is no room left for the past or the future.
Many will perceive this as an illness, as an ailment and a handicap. They will not survive. Those who understand the subtlety of this shift will know that the only possible moment to live in is NOW.

Oh dear Prophecy! Now I have seen a few more things! Now I have seen beauty even in the breaking and hurting of my every single fiber.

Forget Hu not!

.

Not All Words Are Spoken - a poem

Not All Words Are Spoken

You know
some things are just not spoken.
They are felt.
In hearts
that truly communicate
with one another.

There are three kinds
of speaking:
One with words,
The other with actions,
and the third is.
Just a state of being.

It is this state of being
that is
the most profound form
of any living speech.

It is this third kind
that is heard only by
hearts
of the finest perception.

It is that hunger
that is on the face
of someone with dignity, but no means.
You hear it, and you feed them kindly
never making them feel you knew.

It is that wetness
that is in the eyes
of a loved one, who won't complain.
You sense it, and you do everything
within your means to ease their pain.

It is that joy
that shines from the skin
of a shy one, who barely dares to tell.
You perceive it, and you hold the hands
from which bursts forth this light.

It is this third kind
of speech
where you can hear
the past, the future, and all the time.
It is the truest,
the purest,
and of course the most significant.

It is this third speech where you will find
all answers
all true meaning.
You touch, taste, smell, see, hear, and feel this, as it is a state of being.

To sense it, to honor it, to be it
is to have that subtlest perception
few hearts are blessed with.

-RA aka The Prophecy
--

The Hidden, The Manifest

Prophecy,

And now there's nothing but this strange elopement that is occupying my fancy since last evening. The Universe has presented to me the kind of heedless moment that I have been looking for.

I must be terribly crazy to consider it now, but something in my heart has prompted me, "Go!"

It's that voice that obeys no reason; that voice if which when we become aware, we are often terribly afraid of. The voice that takes no command from the world; the voice that has no past, no future, and no explanation. It just speaks, and we just follow.

It speaks to me and my sense of being and of adventure so strongly right now, I hear nothing else.

This morning shall show me how events play out. Whether I hear the song of Life; or the luring flute of Death.

Anticipating...

Die Before You Die

Prophecy,

It's amazing, isn't it, that the advice we give to another could perhaps be something we need ourselves? And so you shared your words of inspired wisdom with another, who seems wiser than you - because he would take the advice. I think he is lucky.

Do you take advice when it's given to you - wholly, fully, completely, without looking back?

Can you think of another person who needs to show more courage in their life?
You.

It is always the case. The one we are "looking for" is us. That may indeed be a law of the Spirit you are yet unfamiliar with, but with experience, this seems to be the emerging case.

Have courage - do not seek it in the actions of others. Don't put your heart in trouble to which it does not belong. Take a decision - take it with strength - take it with conviction. Be sure in your heart there is no expediency. Ask your Lord's permission, take a deep breath, and then do what needs to be done. In every decision that is appearing to you and that needs your attention. From the smallest to the greatest.

Do not think your death will come in many, many years - decide to die, now!

Die before your death, do not linger in the world that is no more. Do not split your soul in many. To die before your death is to die in every moment - which, of course, is to be born afresh and anew in the NOW moment.

Few have that courage, because not all are meant to taste the liberation that awaits on the other side of the hell of waiting.

Your physical life will not come again and again - that is, not that you know of!

So die as soon as each moment dies, and be born as soon as each moment is born. That will enrich your life with a taste so great!

May Allah be with you. Aameen!