The Healing

The year that just passed yesterday, 2008, brought me that which I had not experienced in a long time: rest. Sleep. And ultimately, healing.  

Almost exactly a year ago, I underwent a secluded meditation that aimed to empty the self out, amongst other objectives. Days later, on the New Year night, I woke up in shock from a dream - only to feel a great deal of something leave me. I had just read excerpts from Eckhart Tolle's book Power of Now, with my attention drawn in particular to the phenomenon of the "pain body" - an unconscious entity within the self that thrives on suffering and, of course, unconsciousness. It is that part of the egoic self that thrives on pain to further its illusion of separation.  

At this point, I will go on a small tangent suitable for the strong-nerved. It is this "pain body" (by any other name) that some believe possesses the human - "possession" here referring to that paranormal/extraordinary phenomenon that is described variously in clinical and spiritual literature but essentially refers to the same condition. In movies on the subject, it is shown in its extreme form, within the extraction of the pain body referred to as an act of exorcism. That, of course, is literal truth to some and a commentary on the condition of the individual or collective psyche to others. 

Yet everyday people are overwhelmed by strong emotions that would seem utterly absurd should one be able to step back from and out of the context and just see the situation and the characters within. The greed rampant in the world, for instance, has led to more destruction and chaos than an individual in a scary movie possessed by distorted, horrific, growling demons. We are faced with a crumbling planet and collapsing social-political-economic systems with staggering monetary and intangible costs. We are perfectly used to a media that brings murder, insanity, vulgarity, crassness, and abasement of all kind a mere few inches away from our body. And we engage in this theater. 

By the end of 2008, many, many people and societies around the world have become acutely aware of this phenomenon that may go by any other name. There is a hue & cry for self-restraint, and an active global shift towards "doing good." Entire communities have sprung up around causes of goodness such as care for the environment, promotion of values of motherhood, and paying-it-forward. At the same time, a process of individual and collective purge continues, with very visible effects. 

A year ago, on the night of December 31st, 2007, I woke up a start from a dream where I was being shown into a hospital. Within that swaying state of consciousness within sleep and awakening, I sharply felt something leaving me. I thought I heard a scream and I let out what I considered a sharp yell, but what came out of my lips - as I felt like dead weight - was a faint whispering addressed to my roommate. She thought I whispered in my sleep. As I lay in panic, I felt... empty. After a spike of fear that had lasted only a few seconds, I thought the subject of my roommate and my discussion that eve before we retired to bed - the pain body - had indeed suddenly dashed out of my system. My roommate had been reading through the book Power of Now and had brought the passage to my attention, as part of my work on cleansing my Self. 

Later, I picked out Eckhart Tolle's book and found that he himself had experienced a much more intense version of the same experience. The cleansing of his self from the whirlpools of past and future were spontaneous and sudden. 

My route remained more academic - I was thinking about it, and thinking about a thing makes it grow - and therefore it took me an entire year to proceed with a further "clarification of my intent," as my spiritual method puts it. Certainly, thre were no rituals like we see in the movies to drive out the egoic self - rather a very contemporary approach that involves an opening to life while gently cleansing the heart of malice, envy, fear, greed and other such ailment of the self. 

The result has been a revelation of my life purpose - the meaning which emerges after our inner resistance dissolves. Yet I have not obsessed over outcomes. I have - after a long time in my life, after spending a great period in the academic and corporate world as a "Type A personality" - honored the journey more than any destination that I could preconceive. I have, therefore, rested, slept and wept a great and unprecedented deal the entire year of 2008. 

To have honored myself and to have accepted my own condition, even as the world around me experiences its own painful ego shattering, has been a tremendously liberating, rewarding experience of my life. 

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
- Rumi

Image credit: "Saturday Afternoon" by Edson Campos - from Art.com

Believer's Refuge

"Take refuge in the Cave
God will spread Hu's* grace over you, and will endow you -
whatever your outward condition -
with all that your soul may need."

-Qur'an, Chapter Al-Kahf (The Cave), verse 16

...And so, because this verse has affected me deeply, I remain hidden, in my refuge, in the proverbial cave... until times are rendered anew. Until I am ready to emerge, as WHO I AM.

* "His"

Seeking Cover

These words, found in the beautiful book Women of Sufism a few nights ago, spoke so strongly to me. 

Take refuge in the cave:
God will spread His grace over you, and will endow you --
whatever your outward condition --
with all that your soul may need.

Chapter Al-Kahf (The Cave) 18:16

I have somehow picked up the book again to read at bedtime nowadays. This passage glowed and attracted me as I was reading about the Sufi spiritual practice of khalwa (the secluded meditation) - that I have also undertaken. What a practice!

I undertook it for two nights spent alone in a room; the meditation that is essentially a replication of the experience of death emptied me first, and then filled me with Divine Presence. These days, as I have secluded myself to empty myself, as I seek stillness, and I seek cover for my own heart, perhaps nothing cold have resonated so strongly with me as this Qur'anic passage about a group of young believers and their dog who seeked refuge in a cave.

May my heart be blessed with Grace! Amen!

Look Within Your Heart!

My dear woman,

Neither in the tomes ancient,
Nor in words of women and men wise -
Neither in the prayers of the kind,
Nor even in the warm embrace of lovers...

At some time, not even in the spirit that protects you
lies God within.

When you come so far,
Then no further shall you go.

For now there is no going back or forth,
North or South, East or West.
Stop and look now within your heart,
Where always, ever God does rest.

---

Dear Prophecy:

You feel dismay? But of course! Enjoy the feeling, and surrender to it, so it shall reveal its secret. It tells you that you indeed shall not get anything from anyone at this moment. It tells you, in other words - there are always, ever, other benevolent words we grasp hardly - it tells you that you have reached the point where you must now find the remedy within you!

You won't see anything if you look around, for it is the moment to look within.

Look within your heart, my dejected self, look within your heart! Celebrate your dejection - it is a sign post! Look! Look! Look Who's coming to stay within!

Surrender!

****

Condition

At night I witness great dismay within, and in mornings, I wake up to witness Joy.

Whatever it may be - surrender, surrender I must!

Trust! Trust!

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.

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!

Through the Looking Glass, Troublesomely

My very troubled Prophecy:

You have put your face once against so close to the glass, you no longer know you are looking out a window... that you are in a room which is enormous, and full of mystery, and in which you experience the magic of being. When you are in the room, that is.

Where are you?

I am no longer amused by your condition - right now, I am downright concerned.

As long as you keep putting your face against this window, you will keep being moved by what's beyond you. You know this is what troubles you; as, indeed, does it trouble any - but some are unconscious of their condition. Then again, why do you speak of others? Do you not have matters to handle of your own, at this moment?

The Other-ness is You-ness, unperceived by you. You begin with you, and you never end.

...Let's come back to the matter at hand.

You are your own project, and your project is you.

Please do not be foolish enough to take upon your shoulders to calculate the moves and matters of others in this world. You will never succeed with the utter madness this will present to your perception. And if you indulge in the affairs of others, no wonder you'll have to keep looking out the alluring window, and miss the magic in the room. Besides, how do you know the meaning of all that you see? Seeing could be blind believing, but it is experiencing that matters - and you only experience your own experience.

Step back.
Step back, and see within the room.
See the Now.
What do you see?

Why are you troubled with the past - which has a way of resurrecting itself that you have not yet gained a control over?
Why are you troubled with the future - which is a product of your fertile imagination with an immense power to create?
Do you see the connection?

Break all these connections - allow yourself the true independence of being - which, my troubled dear me - is the freedom of being you.

You have a right to be in this world, and to experience it - not just the sorrows, but also the joys. Who ordains you to prevent the flow of your being?

Your Ego.

Remember, it's Ego that sustains on all separation, because ego is separation by another name. You will miss on half the Universe if you see just one side to everything. Joy = sorrow. And, forgetful human! you! - don't you see that there is but only a fine gossamer veil that separates you from the Land Beyond Joy & Sorrow?

I liberate you from the compulsion to trouble yourself, Prophecy. Be. Just be. Let love, which is connective, and not ego, which is separative, be you guide. Let even not my words manipulate you, for I am no wiser than what I allow myself to be, which is insufficient.

A heart that loves is also a heart that fears on occasion, Prophecy, because it is a heart that is involved in its own being. (When I am an established meta-physicist, I will work out what that means - but right now it is as roundabout as it is! :])

.

As of Now: An Animal Enlightenment (2 of 2)

Continued from Part 1
From my personal diaries, January 29, 2008

Animal Consciousness

It was in the Kruger National Park, away from any person I had known all my life, alone in most senses of the word, that I put to practice what I had been learning earlier in Africa. I decided to see without looking. The whole obsession of spotting the Big Five – elephant, rhino, leopard, lion, and buffalo – was frustrating. Early the second day, stretching our necks and darting our eyes over the landscape in the hope of spotting an important animal, I remembered that as a child, I would have been ecstatic simply to have been in a jungle! There I was, in Africa, in the wild, with animals nearby most likely hiding in the tall summer grass, feeling thoroughly ungrateful and tired having spotted yet another impala.

Then I took stock of my situation, and undertook a few actions. I thanked my life for preserving itself; I thanked my Lord for giving me life at all. I thanked all favorable chances for bringing me to the jungle, amidst the trees, surrounded by the possibility that wild animals will cross my path. I allowed myself to feel the hidden-ness of the animals, the scent of their proximity. I bowed lightly to the trees, acknowledging their graceful presence. They shivered in response.

I asked my consciousness to travel in all directions, instantaneously, to let the animals know that there was someone amidst them who loves them. I am not going to stare at them. They are not objects. They are alive, swift, agile, wild! They are in touch with nature! They are animals!

I want to behold the raw energy of their presence, to allow myself to feel those parts of myself that resonate with their energy. I have respect for my animal self, which was me before I became me as I am.

I resign to the fact that no animal was ever sighted because a human was looking and staring in their direction. Rather, the animal was there, and the human chanced to have looked at that place just then; or the human was an agile hunter who had anticipated the animal's behavior and plotted to cross their path. This is how things happen. This is the duality. My set of eyes produces no animals. In half, I depend.

On the other half, the animal depends on me to hold it in awe, for it to be, relatively, an “animal” – wild, raw, powerful and dangerous – indeed.

An unlikely large number and variety of animals – including the Big Five – appeared on our path during the tour. In particular was the leopard who loitered about nearby, and didn't go until we had the fill of our sighting. Rather, we got a little fatigued by the wearing off of novelty, I admit. I joked to the guide that I had prayed for these extraordinary sightings. But the truth was that I had submitted to the wilderness; with the general satisfaction that my life was no longer out to get me.

So far, it was I who had been getting my life, holding it by its poor throat and chortling it to produce my self-created end or else die!

I gave that all up.

Then, The Submission

I gave all that nonsense up – as wholly and unconditionally as I could.

By the time of the miraculous leopard sighting, I had come to believe that life is at once smaller and larger than I. And it is benevolent to the extent that I am benevolent to myself. There is no other Secret other than “I am.” In those moments, whatever remained in me of false hopes and expectations – I gave up.

I took my memory out of me, and blew it back in the direction of The Universe.


--
Note: All photos were taken by the blogger "The Prophecy" in the Kruger National Park. Not to be re-published without permission. For the interested, there are more animal close-up shots and videos - especially of the Leopard. Please email inquiries. (Email address on the blog A Quest for Beauty; a Lust for Life!)

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As of Now: The Absence of Memory (Part 1 of 2)

From my personal diaries: Jan 29, 2008


I am possessed by the strangest of sensations: I feel like a woman who's lost her memory. Last week, I knocked into someone who I have known like the color of my nose. I knew her – she is the sister of a close friend with whom I have seen some ups and downs of life. We've been together, I can tell. But for the life of me, I couldn't then and I cannot now recall her name. Who is she?

It's just one of those many things that are completely gone from my mind.

I don't, for instance, feel as though I was there, two weeks ago, watching wild animals in Africa. I look at the photos I took, and they give me an eerie sensation. As if I know them – but then what am I doing here? Sitting in the bleakness of Karachi, with no idea of where I have come from, and where I am going to. Do I belong to the world of animal sightings and roaming the wilderness? Do I belong here, staring at my laptop which, partly due to its uncooperative operating system, seems unfriendly and unfamiliar? Do I belong to neither a place?

Aye, that seems to be the root of my very pleasant cluelessness.

The End of Being

I only know that in the year 2007, I had reached the end of my being, as it was then. The year carried forward a series of spectacular what-shall-I-call-them? – losses – all around me. Gold turned to dust, yet I was still untouched by the death of all things that I owned, or things that owned me. I stayed put in the eye of the storm, watching its destructive wave unfurl around me.
I remember losing the least bit of interest or anxiety. I recall I had realized that nothing of my doing was going to work; and that my heart would set on immediate fire if I went in any but one direction.

And in that one direction I went. Without thought. Without plan. Thought with a degree of uncertainty and with some fear. Yet in my inner heart, with absolute certainty, I walked into the Uncertain.

I left what I called my home, and went to where my heart was going. I went to Africa.

Oh, Her African Odyssey!

There were some vague notions in my mind of what could happen during that sojourn. And with those notions was a laughter at them, for I knew nothing will be like I could design or expect. The safest was to ensure the mundane: take care of travel arrangements, buy clothes, buy a camera, buy a PDA, put them all into the rucksack I had acquired earlier only to remind myself that I am born to wander.

I took the invite of my host – and decided not to ask any questions. Who are you exactly? Where do you live? What kind of facilities will be available to me? What do I need to bring with me? What shall I do once there? Why have you invited me, by the way? What do you expect of me? What should I expect of the visit? What shall I do afterwards?

None of these questions I asked. Why should I have?

In my previous life, I had had the opportunity of examining some liars and psychopaths at close proximity – that is to say, experientially. Which is to say, they exercised their craft upon me. And I knew what they were up to, but didn't ask them a question. I always felt I need to ask myself why do things happen to me the way they do? Why, indeed, are things happening to me at all?

In an even earlier life, I have never felt that things sort of fall upon my head somehow. Good, bad, sudden, distinct, funny, absurd – I used to know what was going to happen, and took it as it was. I used to possess an instant knowledge of where I was and what to do.

When I left for Africa, that fluid life was part of my knowledge bank, but nothing I was experiencing any longer. I had vague feelings that I wanted to reclaim that past – and on the other hand the sad realization that there is no such thing as “reclaiming the past.” Many fine people have fallen into this trap and I didn't want to be like them.

I didn't want to be like anyone – for all my heroes and goals have appeared short the instant I have reached closer to them. All my definitions and dreams are pygmies. They're like too short clothes that I don't wish to be restrained by, certainly not forever.

And thus, I asked no questions about the one thing that my heart had felt so very sure of in a long time. I felt safe. I felt secure. And I honored my feeling by tainting it with no logical, reasonable doubt.

I went to Africa, all judgments and expectations suspended. I pardoned myself from the self-created necessity of always having a goal. I submitted to life as it appeared – vast, tranquil, still, and deep – on the horizons of my perceptions. I left the shore, and floated into the Sea.

To quote my Teacher, then onwards, all experiences made me feel “I knew that I knew!”

Without “doing” too much or too many varied things, I felt a vastness of experience and of being-ness just encapsulating me. I felt the past and the future of Africa in its air; but I was curious about neither. I felt the incredible diversity of human race and class, of strife and resolution. I felt unconditional love too.

Above all, I did feel the not-feeling of that certain consuming fire which had been making me sick and insane over the past few years. The painful sickness that had driven me near my physical death suddenly left me one night. I became a free woman.

It was a New Year the next morning. I woke up with an emptied heart, feeling light. Feeling as though I had no memory, only an intellectual recollection of events I had been witnessing. I could as well be talking about someone else.


~~
Continued next.

Feeling Near Death: Being the Black Hole

And so, having had all those experiences, and knowing what I knew of how people who knew of their coming death behaved, I worked out the truth about my coming death - with a little help from my friends.

There is no truth, except the truth of the situation - and while I presume to know nothing, this much is certain, I am nearing death.

When we near death, and we find out that we are dying - we feel no happiness. Nor even sadness. That at least is my case - and I think for many others. Those who act otherwise put their names in books for not behaving properly in the face of what is to come, sure as... death.

I wrote to my Teacher. I said I have understood my condition finally. I have understood the inescapable nature of my situation. My pain is not going to end - I am. Neither is my joy going to grow - I am.

I am. And I will not be as I am.

Dying is very essential concept if one is to go with the flow of the Universe, Prophecy.

Have you heard of the black holes? Yes I am speaking of the celestial pinheads. Most of the times, we describe the characteristics of black holes. We don't know nor tell what black holes are. Stephen Hawking made a significant attempt in A Brief History of Time. Of all that I remember of his work, I remember the dimensions folding around a black hole.

And that's all the knowledge I need - even if Hawking's theory has been disregarded.

Here is what I think:

A Black Hole is a cosmic metaphysical metaphor of a human who has annihilated in the Essence of Being - and in doing so, has concentrated in their being the force of the Universe - which explains the inexplicably huge force of the black hole.

It is the point of infinity, the point where our personality annihilates.

It is death, and still being alive in a way that Dimensions of Space and Time become meaningless - they are beyond the event horizon.

Nothing is truly known of the black holes except they exist - and they are known by the influence they create on their surroundings. Theories suggest that black holes are formed by stars collapsing within. I do not know where the research on the physical phenomenon will settle - and there is much I have forgotten of what I knew of the science of black holes except the general details... yet I see them clearly as a metaphor of an annihilated Self, that sustains itself with the Universe.

--
[Lengthy side thought has been deleted and put in a separate post. It's for that part of my mind which is shocked that I make such an apparently mental statement as above.]

--
My friend Peter did the favor of putting the truth about my death in words for me. He wrote to me, after the recent event of yet another armed invasion of my family's peace and privacy, that I should consider the possibility that I am dying.

I know since early this year, when I lost much of my years' worth of work and know-how in freak accidents, that I am going to die. One has to see and respect the signs. The death of everything around you - and the death, Prophecy, of feeling and finding meaning in the Mundane, is the clear sign of approaching death.

Given the nature of time - the quanta-ified nature of time - we can make a decision at every second, every quanta-i-fication of time. So one can't say for sure if they are going to die completely - but it's a choice to be made and I will, given the signs, choose the option to die completely.

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Note: I started writing this note on, well, October 4th 2007. Today is actually Dec 08, '07. I don't remember much of what I was going to say - in fact, I may just be feeling shy of what I was then so sure to say.

This blog post is so disconnected. When I started writing, Prophecy, I was in the exact state which I was describing in the post. I am no longer in that mindset - so I don't know what I was going to say. There are two thoughts: One, that I had neared death when I wrote this post and its predecessor. One.point.two, that death is a metaphor for stopping being as one is - which, then, is followed by being someone else - a fresher Self. (Not a new Self - I'll tell you why on this journal.) Two, that when one is in the state of annihilation, they are like a black hole, or being absorbed into one.


A black hole, according to some explanations, is a space between two Universe spaces. I remember reading as a child - I'll remorsefully add that I had an extraordinary knowledge of time/ space/ gravity as a child-teen - that it was believed that stepping into a black hole would lead to another Universe on the other side. That's because the black hole has a tremendous mass within, which makes one wonder if it's falling in somewhere? Anyhow that's my recollection of readings from a younger age.

To come back to the point - the black hole is the annihilation of matter in Universe. The annihilation of a human in Being's Essence is much he same. These are metaphors for each other, depending on which school of thought one sees it from: the only-literary, or the spiritual.

Feeling Near Death: Memoirs of Moments Before a Death

Edit: I have renamed the blog post.
Feeling Near Death: Memoirs of Moments Before a Timely Death
How would I presume to know what's Time? And what's Timely? I haven't absorbed fully all I have learned.

I've known through stories that people display a strange behavior when they learn they are nearing death: in short, to these prescient people, nothing means anymore, except the meaningful do.

And now it has happened to me.

Since 2004, I have thought - OK, maybe, this one more step to go. Yet another step, but one more. Then it will be over. The pain will be over. And I can be free. Then I can enjoy the everyday. Then I can, actually to begin with, participate in it.

Meanwhile, I have gone through so many experiences and stages.

The experience of non-priority - when all things seem to be on an equal plane, and it's impossible to prioritize one over the other.
The experience of nearness, when everything and everyone is dear to your heart.
The experience of aloofness, when you wake up one day, and suddenly feel you are not connected.
The experience of unanimatedness, when you feel that all people you are seeing are unreal, and you are on the outside.
The experience of animatedness, to such a degree of subtlety, that you can move your fingers, and feel the winds stir with it.
The experience of silence, when you hear the hollow in your heart.
The experience of noise, when you feel whispers in every movement of the wind, in every corner you turn to.

Experiences. After experiences. And experiences.

My solace was that at least, I now feel. Anger, retribution, like, love, dislike, hate, forgiveness, empathy, lust, piety, self-pity, self-revulsion, self-acceptance - I feel. I felt them all, and went though it all. In the expectation that one day, I will be normal again.

Why did I expect that? I don't know why, except that that is what everyone seemed to be aspiring to in general. And so I thought I should give up my dreams and imaginations, and be normal.

And if you heard a sneer there, Prophecy, it's because there is. Yes, Prophecy, when I say "dream," I mean it in that grand way. I mean it when I said I will give up dreaming - I meant clearly to be understood that I value this whole dream thing.

And then what happened, Prophecy, would you want to know?

I stopped dreaming for real. I gave up, Prophecy, I gave up.

Once again.

All this struggle that I have made, in a way all my life - and ever since the tragedies that have come my way since 2000 - tragedies that turned horrible since the fateful days and nights of 2003/4... the terrors of those days and nights when I couldn't understand how will I keep my head up and straight the next day... or whether I would be alive at all... I did think I would die Prophecy, or at least there was nothing to live for.

But Propehcy, meanwhile, something happened.

Meanwhile, Prophecy, over the edge of pain, I discovered Life.

I've heard of some extreme experiences things, but I didn't know one could have them emotionally-mentally. I thought one had to dive from the sky for that kind of thing.

So in the struggle to stay alive, to find what good could there be in the hearts of people, to challenge myself to determine if I am or could be loved, I found.

I found hearts with love and giving. It's almost like discovering an invisible specie. But it's a state of mind, Prophecy, and once you have it... or wait, rather, it's a condition of heart which changes in turn the state of mind... and once you have it, you see.

You see them all around you. The quiet types. The answering "I am here" types. The talking with eyes types. The listening in silence types. The keeping an eye about types. The caring for animals and plants types. The working without complaint and with joy with their heads down type. The non self-aggrandizing types. The silently fulfilling types. The appreciators of small things types.

The types of people who are capable of giving and receiving love. You see them, Prophecy. You see them.

I saw them, and in that condition of heart, and state of mind - I found myself utterly capable of selfless love, and not ashamed to receive love. I decided to turn this power towards the elements, Prophecy, and that's when I learned how words can bring rains, and how when you run your fingers through the currents of air, you make wind stir. I knew I was the Butterfly who could flap her wings and stir the elements.

And this much I felt, Prophecy, and more, moments before I learned I was going to die.


Image: N. Wayne Taylor, The Mandala Series - after a near death experience

Bending spoons - May the force be with I

The power that I have felt within the three days of not complaining is tremendous. It is something that I haven't felt since a long time.

These are my feelings:

• No one can solve my issues.
• I have the the power to solve my issues and create opportunities.
  
• If and when I do not complain, my mind is compelled to come up with a novel way, a solution around the problem.
• If complaining, in some way, takes our energy out of us and disperses it in the wide, open, black space - then being thankful and quiet starts reigning the energy back in.
• There is nothing to complain against or even to have praise for . It is only my state of mind.
  

Something from The Matrix fits in beautifully:

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

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The boat shook, but we have arrived, Captain!

Day 3

Yesterday was the third and last day of my resolve to not complain. The penalty for the occasional slip-up was to send peace upon the energy of the universe/multiverse ten times (aka durood shareef) followed by thanking the Lord ten times (i.e. uttering "Shukar Alhamdolillah ya Rab-il-Aalameen").

I woke up early - something I have been having trouble with since I started working again after a year-long hiatus. The first complaint that I uttered was, also, very early.

There is a vacant plot next to our home, which has now been walled. Within the boundaries of that piece of land has grown a plentiful jungle... with seeds of a variety of trees carried on the wings of air. There are tasteful berries, the medicinal neem, and the thorny keekar.

This jungle is towards the south-east of our home, and that poses a challenge: a blocking of sunlight, and sometimes the air. Besides, since no one can jump into the jungle to cut down the trees, the jungle has grown wildly and completely spills over into our home.

So my first complaint was: "Oh now this jungle is totally blocking the air!" Immediately paused, decided it was a breach of contract, and promptly paid the penalty. A gush of wind ruffled the hair of the jungle and set my spine tingling. I thought the sound was beautiful.

I also remembered that a few months ago, I had wished that I lived (and worked) in a place where brids sang. This little forest had responded: over the past few months, a variety of musical and colorful birds including robins, parrots, and the mad cuckoos had taken up place there. Each morning, I get up to hear birds I cannot recognize the variety of. Each morning they remind me that this is a new day. Each day, I somehow forget to see how the most trivial and absurd of my prayers come true. I think I am, like most fellow humans, busier seeing what's missing rather than pausing to appreciate what IS.

But not yesterday, which was a day without complaint; a day which brought me a personal understanding of the blessing of being thankful.

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Metaphysics, the mind, and a day without complaint

Day 2:

Hmmm.
Hmmmm.
Hmmmmm.

I am going to find the right words to describe this day without stepping on my resolve to not complain for three days.

I found the day very challenging, and my mouth nearly burst with the desire to yak. Some thoughts did run through the mind, which were promptly chucked out. Resistance is futile. It is best to sit back and watch what's going on in the mind. I have found this process to be very revealing - shocking, even.

The earlier part of the day was spent in a rather controlled fireworks display (my mood). I told my mind: think, think. There is another way. You will find a way!

My mind told me that the key was to break the routine. To rely on myself. To keep my power within me. And, for heaven's sake, not to seek external support or help. My mind told me that for a fiercely independent person like myself, I had taken over the cloak of someone unlike myself - a dependent, solution-seeking being - and that until I was either this or that, the clash was going to prevail.

A couple of nights ago, I had opened a book, hoping to find wisdom. I love opening random books on random pages, and often finding exactly what I need. (A friend tells me it's quite an art. We always find what we are looking for!) The book told me quite a few things.

It said: Loss of temper indicates (spiritual) weakness. It is somebody else who has violated the code of moral behavior, so why should it anger you?

The book also said something wonderful: Take out the thought of weakness form your mind and the weakness will go.

I remembered that as a child, we were masters of the knowledge of controlling our minds. We knew that a state lasts only as long as we entertain it in our minds. Don't read past in a hurry. This is no ordinary piece of info, it is a metaphysical truism.

A state lasts only as long as we entertain it in our minds.

As a child, we could shake our heads and move on. The adult world, however, is bizarre. The adult world has somehow grown to believe that life is a set of issues. Why, it is as if we'd think that a car is something that you change the oil and battery of, occasionally.

I say a car isn't even something we drive. A car is something that takes us places! And if there is no car, well, we can still go places.

Think. Think!

The mind must see the worlds of opportunities that are created and destroyed every instance. The mind has the choice to move one from one world to another. And another. And another. Go. Go. Go.

After feeling short at the absence of electricity that held up my work, my mind thought. It gave me an alternative schedule for the day. I went out, shopped, and had a fabulous time treating myself to wonderful things.... and getting work done. The day did not go as I planned. But I am in another world now. I have no past. I have no future. I have this moment to forget the past, and be not anxious about the future. From this world to another I go this second!

Think. Think!

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Thank You

Last night, I made a resolve. For three days, I am not going to make any complaint. I am not going to say one self-deprecating word. I am not going to whine about the electricity. I will not comment upon the weather in any way that shows that I disagree. I will not talk to one person about another, and I will not say anything unhelpful about the government.

If I utter or think one such statement, I have to remedy it by sending peace upon the energy of the universe ten times, and follow it with praise to the Lord ten times. It takes a while, and serves as a reminder to my mind what it owes its existence to. And it allows the mind to see what it may be forgetting to see while complaining: themany, many gifts and the Beauty of Life.

Complaining, in some ways, takes our energy out of us and disperses it in wide, open, black space. It tells us, in some reverse psychological way, that we aren't masters of our fate. Why, I don't say that we create our fate, but we gradually master it like we master knowledge that we don't create either.

Day 1!