Then it will really be.......
Monday, December 31, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
The story of Bayazid Bestami
That magnificent dervish, Bayazid Bestami, came to his disciples and said, "I am God." It was night, and he was drunk with his ecstasy. "There is no God but me. You should worship me."
At dawn, when he had returned to normal, they came and told him what he'd said. "If I say that again, bring your knives and plunge them into me. God is beyond the body, and I am in this body. Kill me when I say that."
Each student then sharpened his knife, and again Bayazid drank the God-Wine. The sweet dessert-knowing came. The Inner Dawn snuffed his candle. Reason, like a timid advisor, faded to a far corner as the Sun-Sultan entered Bayazid. Pure spirit spoke through him.
Bayazid was not there. The "he" of his personality dissolved. Like the Turk who spoke fluent Arabic, then came to, and didn't know a word. The Light of God poured into the empty Bayazid and became words.
Muhammed did not dictate the Qur'an. God did. The mystic osprey opened its wings in Bayazid and soared.
"Inside my robe there is nothing but God. How long will you keep looking elsewhere!"
The disciples drew their knifes and slashed out like assassins, but as they stabbed at their Sheikh, they did not cut Bayazid. They cut themselves.
There was no mark on that Adept, but the students were bleeding and dying.
Those who somewhat held back, respecting their Teacher, had only lightly wounded themselves.
A selfless One disappears into Existence and is safe there. He becomes a mirror. If you spit at it, you spit at your own face.
If you see an ugly face there, it's yours. If you see Jesus and Mary, they're you.
Bayazid became nothing, that clear and that empty.
A saint puts your image before you. When I reach this point, I have to close my lips.
Those of you who are love-drunk on the edge of the roof, sit down, or climb down. Every moment spent in Union with the Beloved is a dangerous delight, like standing on a roof-edge.
Be afraid up there, of losing that connection, and don't tell anybody about it. Keep your secret.
"Delicious Laughter"
Maypop, 1990
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| (credit : earthrites.org) |
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Heaven's secrets
never say
no one knows the way
never say
profound humans
can't be found
just because
you're kept out of
heaven's secrets
you think everyone
is like you
Translation by Nader Khalili
Rumi, Dancing the Flame
Cal-Earth Press, 2001
You claim skill in every art
and knowledge of every science,
Yet you cannot even hear
what your own heart is telling you.
Until you can hear that simple voice
How can you be a keeper of secrets?
How can you be a traveller on this path?
Version by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
A Garden Beyond Paradise
Bantam Books, 1992
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Everything will perish except His own Face
28. Al-Qasas Verse 88
وَلَا تَدْعُ مَعَ اللَّهِ إِلَـٰهًا آخَرَ ۘ لَا إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ۚ كُلُّ شَيْءٍ هَالِكٌ إِلَّا وَجْهَهُ ۚ لَهُ الْحُكْمُ وَإِلَيْهِ
تُرْجَعُونَ
And
call not, besides Allah, on another god. There is no god but He.
Everything (that exists) will perish except His own Face. To Him belongs
the Command, and to Him will ye (all) be brought back.
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| (Credit : DREAMSTIME) |
Such is the seeker of the court of God:
when God comes, the seeker is no more.
Although union with God is immortality upon immortality,
yet at first that immortality consists in dying to self.
The reflections that are seeking the Light
disappear when His Light appears.
How should reason remain when He bids it go?
Everything is perishing except His Face.*
Before His Face the existent and the nonexistent perish:
existence in nonexistence is truly a marvelous thing!
In this place of presence all minds are lost beyond control;
when the pen reaches this point, it breaks.
Mathnawi III:4658-4663
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Threshold Books, 1996
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