...BEHIND THE VEIL

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Attitude

Once there was an old and very wise man. Every day he would sit outside a gas station in his rocking chair and wait to greet motorists as they passed through his small town. On this day, his granddaughter knelt down at the foot of his chair and slowly passed the time with him.

As they sat and watched the people come and go, a tall man who surely had to be a tourist -- since they knew everyone in the town -- began looking around as if he were checking out the area for a place to live.

The stranger walked up and asked, "So what kind of town is this that we're in?"

The older gentleman slowly turned to the man and replied, "Well, what kind of town are you from?"

The tourist said, "In the town I'm from everyone is very critical of each other. The neighbours all gossip about everyone, and it's a real negative place to live. I'm sure glad to be leaving. It is not a very cheerful place."

The man in the chair looked at the stranger and said, "You know, that's just how this town is."

An hour or so later a family that was also passing through stopped for gas. The car slowly turned in and rolled to a stop in front of where the older gentleman and his granddaughter were sitting. The mother jumped out with two small children and asked where the restrooms were. The man in the chair pointed to a small, bent-up sign that was barely hanging by one nail on the side of the door.

The father stepped out of the car and also asked the man, "Is this town a pretty good place to live?"

The man in the chair replied, "What about the town you are from? How is it?"

The father looked at him and said,"Well, in the town I'm from everyone is very close and always willing to lend their neighbour a helping hand. There's always a hello and thank you everywhere you go. I really hate to leave. I feel almost like we are leaving family."

The older gentlemen turned to the father and gave him a warm smile. "You know, that's a lot like this small town."

Then the family returned to the car, said their thank yous, waved goodbye and drove away.

After the family was in the distance, the granddaughter looked up at her grandfather and asked, "Grandpa, how come when the first man came into our town you told him it was a terrible place to live and when the family came in to town you told them it was a wonderful place to live?"

The grandfather lovingly looked down at this granddaughter's wondering blue eyes and said, "No matter where you move, you take your own attitude with you and that's what makes it terrible or wonderful."

It's attitude, not aptitude that determines altitude. Happiness is not something we find, it's something we create.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

A Matter of A Man and His God

MOSES AND THE SHEPHERD

Moses heard a shepherd on the road, praying,

"God, where are you?

I want to help you, to fix your shoes and comb your hair.

I want to wash your clothes and pick the lice off.

I want to bring you milk

to kiss your little hands and feet

when it's time for you to go to bed.

I want to sweep your room and keep it neat.

God,

my sheep and goats are yours.

All I can say, remembering you,

is 'ayyyy' and 'ahhhhhhhhh.' "

Moses could stand it no longer.

"Who are you talking to?"

"The one who made us, and made the earth and made the sky."

"Don't talk about shoes and socks with God!

And what's this with 'your little hands and feet'?

Such blasphemous familiarity sounds like you're chatting with your uncles.

Only something that grows needs milk.
Only someone with feet needs shoes.
Not God!

Even if you meant God's human representatives,

as when God said, `I was sick, and you did not visit me,'

even then this tone would be foolish and irreverent.

Use appropriate terms. 'Fatima' is a fine name for a woman,
but if you call a man 'Fatima', it's an insult.
Body-and-birth language are right for us on this side of the river,

but not for addressing the origin,

not for Allah."

The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and sighed and wandered out into the desert. A sudden revelation then came to Moses. God's voice:

"You have separated me from one of my own.

Did you come as a Prophet to unite, or to sever?

I have given each being a separate and unique way of seeing
and knowing that knowledge.

What seems wrong to you is right for him.

What is poison to one is honey to someone else.

Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,

these mean nothing to me.

I am apart from all that.

Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better

or worse than one another.

Hindus do Hindu things.

The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.

It's all praise, and it's all right.

It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship.

It's the worshipers!
I don't hear the words they say.
I look inside at the humility.

That broken-open lowliness is the reality, not the language!
Forget phraseology.

I want burning, burning.

Be friends with your burning.
Burn up your thinking and your forms of expression!

Moses,

those who pay attention to ways of behaving and speaking are one sort.

Lovers who burn, are another.'

Don't impose a property tax on a burned-out village.
Don't scold the Lover.

The "wrong" way he talks is better than a hundred "right" ways of others.

Inside the Kaaba

it doesn't matter which direction you point your prayer rug!

The ocean diver doesn't need snowshoes!

The love-religion has no code or doctrine.

Only God.

So the ruby has nothing engraved on it!

It doesn't need markings."

God began speaking deeper mysteries to Moses. Vision and words, which cannot be recorded here, poured into and through him. He left himself and came back. He went to eternity and came back here. Many times this happened.

It's foolish of me to try and say this. If I did say it, it would uproot our human intelligences. It would shatter all writing pens.

Moses ran after the shepherd. He followed the bewildered footprints, in one place moving straight like a castle across a chessboard. In another, sideways, like a bishop. Now surging like a wave cresting, now sliding down like a fish, with always his feet making geomancy symbols in the sand, recording his wandering state.