Quarreling With God

Just What Kind of Builder Are You?

You created the earth and sky, human and jinn,

Are you some master architect, a builder?

You made the moon and sun, the constellations in the sky -

Are you the maker of these, or just the one who shines them?

You made rivers run without legs and feet,

The ground without foundation, the sky without pillars,

You made them stand just like that,

Are you a prize-winning engineer?

The wind blows without wings or windmills,

Did you make all these mountains with wheelbarrow and shovel?

You deal death to every living creature,

You give life and take life --

Are you a wheeler-dealer?

You built eight heavens for humankind

Your name is rather large

So why did you throw Adam out of Paradise?

Do you need the wheat or what?

Are you a farmer?

When Your name is One -- You made it a thousand,

I have never seen such a skillful hand as Yours,

You create green trees and then you dry them up for wood,

Are you some kind of lumberjack?

You speak to Archangel Gabriel from behind a screen,

Then you descend to earth to listen to Your news,

What have you to do with the fires of hell?

Do you own a bath house, are you its coal-stoker?

You hide Yourself and then you watch us,

You mess with people's mind,

You made that bridge thinner than a human hair,

Do you have a running river on your property?

Are you a landscaper?

You made this summer worth all the winters

You made this autumn to balance the spring,

You made a scale with two sides to measure--

Are you a shop keeper, a vegetable grocer?

It is said that in hell's cauldrons tar is boiling,

Great entertainments under earth now showing,

It is rumored you keep thousands of dragons--

Are you an ice cream seller or a snake charmer?

Are you a slave trader that you make some people slaves?

Are you a teacher that you read and write those books?

Are you a bookkeeper always tallying the figures?

Are you an accountant or an innkeeper?

I'm not afraid of your hundred thousand hells--

The name All Compassionate--doesn't that come from You?

Didn't You call Yourself the pardoner of sins?

Pardon my sins then. Are You a liar?

Would it cost You your reputation to forgive me?

Even the king would pardon me if he heard my case.

I don't think You'd lose anything from Your treasury.

Why don't you forgive me? Are you lacking something?

If humans are imperfect, is that really good for your reputation?

You reside and move in every heart.

You take all these lives and then you return them.

Are you a caravan driver who picks up and delivers?

You know I am the servant, You are the King.

You speak through me as I repeat Your name.

You are in my soul as a cherished guest--

You are my heart's beloved.

Do you think You're a stranger?

You make me the guide, but You speak through my mouth;

You negotiate internally with Azmi.

You take dream excursions to the unfathomable peaks.

Are you the tour guide?

Are you the dreamer?

Azmi (16th c.)

Translated by

Jennifer Ferraro with Latif Bolat

Salam Ramadhan

PLEASE CLICK HERE

The Power of Words

The Journey

Taken from:

beyond the world  A PATHLESS PATH – Readings Leading to AWAKENING & Inner Freedom

The Journey Each of Us Take

Posted on 27 June 2011

Though the following are roadsigns to the Himalaya Mountains, yet they remind us of our spiritual journey …

To expect an overnight spiritual awakening of some kind simply to fix what is in our unresolved heart
is only to short lived our faith in what we are embarking.

* * *

When we are rash in expecting spiritual awakening as something that can be created by the self,

we can only expect an ego crash.

* * *

Spiritual journey is not some kind of escapism but rather a gradual path of understanding
that leads to awakening. Enjoy the ride rather than thinking of the end.

* * *

Your journey defines your destination. Destination is not a place but rather an end.

Hence what you get at the end is what you have developed in the journey.

* * *

Forget about desiring anything or resisting anything when you step into the spiritual path.
It is not about getting anything or anywhere but on the contrary, drop everything, including the self.

* * *

Consistently check your mental attitude as that is where fabrications are.
If you don’t, its proliferation will blinds you, deluding you into spiritual ego.

* * *

We are all too familiar with ego crash whenever our spiritual expectation is not met -
yet strangely, we repeat it again as if we do not have it enough!

* * *

When you are not awake to your thoughts, you are dreaming it,
making it real and hence, will surely be frightened by it.

* * *

And so in the end, wakefulness is necessary, for without it
suffering becomes a reality, albeit a dream.

Note:

Copyright

© Hor Tuck Loon and www.illusiontoreality.com [2008 and forward]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of materials (except books’ extracts, quotable sources, youtubes, images), without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Hor Tuck Loon and www.illusiontoreality.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The One Who Sees

If anyone has eloquence, a listener draws it out:

the teacher's enthusiasm and energy

are derived from the child he teaches.

When the harpist who plays twenty-four musical modes

finds no ear to listen, his harp becomes a burden:

no song comes to mind, his ten fingers will not function.

If there were no ears to receive the message from the Unseen,

no prophet would have brought a revelation from Heaven.

And if there were no eyes to see the works of God,

neither would the sky have revolved,

nor would the earth have smiled with fertile greenness.

The declaration lawlâka** means this,

that the whole business of creation

is for the sake of the perceiving eye

and the one who sees.

**"But for you," referring to the Holy Tradition (hadith qudsi):
"But for you (O Muhammad) I would not have created the worlds."

Mathnawi: VI: 1656-1661

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance

Threshold Books, 1996

Free In Every Way

... Free from Freedom Itself ......

..

(image credit : HERE)

Take someone who doesn't keep score,

who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,

who has not the slightest interest even

in his own personality:
He's free.

Version by Coleman Barks,

"Open Secret"

Threshold Books, 1984

(image credit : HERE)

happy is the one

who doesn't need to try

getting wealthy

or remaining poor

free from people

and worldly worries

a stranger to himself

free in every way

Translation by Nader Khalili

Rumi, Dancing the Flame

Cal-Earth Press, 2001 

(image link)

Peaceful

is the one

who's not concerned

with having more or less.

Unbound by name and fame

he is free from sorrow

from the world and

mostly
from himself.

Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi

Rumi: Whispers of the Beloved

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1999

Two Wings

  سورة النبأ  Sura An-Naba (78) Verse 8

وَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا

And We have created you in pairs
(male and female, tall and short, good and bad, etc.)

(credit image - HERE)

God turns you from one feeling to another

and teaches by means of opposites,

so that you will have two wings to fly,

not one.

Mathnawi II: 1552; 1554

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

"Rumi: Daylight"

Threshold Books, 1994