Wazifa (words used in zikr)

Quotes from VIK

The beauty of the repetition is that you are training the unconscious. You are instilling a thought-form, a seed thought, in the unconscious at the archetypal level. We could even say it frays pathways in your brain, so that the thought pops up into the conscious from the unconscious when called upon.VIK

As an example, imagine you have been invited to a party. You ask who is coming, and are told so-and-so and so-and-so; and then there is a name, and you think Oh no, if that person comes, I am not coming. But you remember having said the wazifa Rahman (compassion), and so you say Yes, OK. Somehow you have built something in your unconscious, and somehow it has registered there. It has a label. Rahman has a meaning for you that the word compassion does not have. It has gained a meaning by all that you have put into it. VIK

Zikr

Dr Roza was asking about zikr . I was doing some reading last night. I like to spend nights in Ramadan reading and trying to understand more of what I do not understand.
Mind you I am just a poor and lowly student of sufism and I am not being modest when I say this . I realise there is so much I do not understand nor know enough to expound but what I have experiential knowledge of , I willingly share.

Zikr literally means rememberance. This I have quoted below from Hazrat Inayat Khan my murshid perhaps needs a littel elaboration to help our understanding.I am quite good at simplyfying things and I think the reason is because my limited brain is simple .like when I want to explain medical stuff to laymen I use layman language and nobody is aware that I have actually forgotten a lot of the medical jargon and in my mind what I understand is what I explain to laymen!

So in brief what Hazrat Inayat Khan said is that what we hear from others , or see in writing for that matter has an effect on us, we process it in our brain and then it causes a reaction in our emotions. The reverse is also true, what we feel , we then process in our mind and express as words or speech. Simple isn t it? You do realise of course that we react differently and have different emotions over the same words spoken to us?I rememer seeing a very moving ceremony being performed from teacher to pupils where the teachers walked past the pupils and lit candles held by the puplis. I cried because I was so touched. The man beside me laughed and I asked him why. And he replied, because I was pleased with the ceremony..

Ooops I ve gone off on a different tangent..Next , HIK says, that which comes from within as inspiration , ilham comes involuntarily , ie we can t will it, we can t force it out..these mysterious things that spout out of us from deep within our beings, which is the secret of highly evolved humans...But when we use a wazifah ie a zikr ,usually of the 99 names or some verses from the Quran or prayers taught by the Prophet, then we do it voluntarily and it has an effect on the mind which then has an effect on the heart ..the heart mind you is the portal to all that is Divine.
So when we recite the wazifa, not out of pride but out of our need to be in contact with the divine then what is within the heart , that which is in contact with the Divine will manifest and impinge on our mind and we become aware of it and can act upon it.

Every spoken word is a re-echo of thought, and every thought is the re-echo of an emotion. And, as the activity from within manifests on the surface, so the word spoken takes its reverse process: it is reproduced on the mind, and from the mind it is reproduced on the heart, the factor of feeling. That which comes from within comes involuntarily, and what enters within from without enters voluntarily. Therefore, Wazifa is taught by Sufis as a voluntary production of a certain thing on the mind and in the heart, mind being powerful to produce that which is impressed upon it from within and without, and the heart being a still more powerful factor to produce that with which it is impressed from within and without.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

The sand in the oyster

The young girl who came into my consultation room burst into tears the minute she got in. She did not look like a minah karan ( to borrow a term some of you had in your blogs)but she told me she was an operator in Kilang Cubic at Air Keroh. I did not quite buy that , she did not look the part. She had the air of a student . I asked her about it and true enough she was waiting to do her degree having finished her diploma in IT.
She told me how a few days back , she no longer could control her actions. She broke down an cried because of severe pain in her body. Yesterday she walked out from her job on the assembly line without saying a word to her supervisor. She needed to work only one more month but it seems she could not cope. She had been working for a month already.
I handed her 2 paper napkins, one of which got throughly soaked in no time.I listened attentively not interupting except with a small question or two and when she stopped talking I brought my chair nearer to her so that I was facing her closely and I paused for a moment , trying to understand the situation.
I said to her, I think this is a case of a refined soul meeting with much coarser ones. I knew the way the girls in the factory were.They had a herd mentality and they had cliques . Woe if you did not belong! And don' t you dare attract the attention of the male technicians...all of which this girl seemed to have done.
She had to bear with the sharp and wagging tongues , with the negativity surrounding her , with the taunts and snickers and sneers and she was not used to the bitching.
Actually I did not tell her this, the minute I had said to her I think you are affected by negativity , she poured out the whole scenario.

I said to her, consider yourself lucky because you are getting a first hand experience of negative women who know no better way of being. And, you know exactly what to look for when you want to chose a husband. You meet his family and you can evaluate the women in his family so you know which ones you do not want for your relatives.

When self esteem is high, it does not matter what people say about you so hold your head up high. Protect yourself with doa Nur and the verses that give protection namely Al Fatihah and the 3 Quls and imagine Allah's Nur surrounding you like a bubble and their hateful words falling harmlessly to the ground. It is your choice to let the words hurt you or not.The secret here is that they enjoy seeing you hurt but when the words stop hurting you, they also stop doing it for
they see you are no longer affected by what they say.

She told me she felt bad because she had become angry with God and stopped praying for a few days.

I told her God gives us tough love to help us be strong and grow in spirit and that if she lived to be a thousand years and did not pray but started praying 3 days before she died, God would count that more than the thousand years she did not pray for God is Ar Rahman and Ar Rahim,
Merciful and Compassionate, All Forgiving.

Noticing

Noticing

Noticing is detrimental to one's (in)sanity
Noticing how the same situation
Maybe right , or wrong
Or neither wrong nor right
Noticing things may seem
The same yet is not
Then certainty becomes uncertainty
Notice things repeating
Notice yourself repeating too..
Notice when you notice
You notice what you did not notice
when you were not noticing
Yes noticing is a hazard to sleep....

Nostalgia and getting reorganized

Montaza Palace Alexandria Egypt
Montaza Gardens , Alexandria

So I finally got all my documents and files onto one hard disk which upon the advise of my son I finally bought . Awhopping 160 gig in a casing that comes complete with a fan. I am now in the process of reorganizing my files, scattered over several pc s and notebooks. My scatter brained habits that save me time in the short term make me slave over my files in the long term. How on earth do I expect to write my book when my writings and notes are all over the place?When I upgrade my computer, the older ones I pass on to the front desk , hence I do not bother to save all my documents. Recently a friend asked me for one of my articles which she said is in one of the Risalah Pemimpin publications of my organization. Would you be surprised I could not find it?And the dozens of articles I wrote for Utusuan under Wadah Wanita Islam..I cannot find half of them!Somebody from a publishing house phoned me and suggested I write a book on communication and said I already have half a book in all the writings I had already. If only I can find them. In december of 2003 I made a nostalgic visit to Egypt namely Cairo and AlexandriaI went with dear hubby and my last born. Alexandria , beloved Alexandria was as lovely as she was when I studied there more than 25 years ago. I wrote this when I got back .

25/12/20003

25/12/20003
Just back from Egypt with travel insomnia !!! It is way  past midnight
and my body clock says it is the late afternoon!


Here is a reflection I wrote just now relating my experience in Egypt, I
just got back less than 24 hours ago!  It is about anger and
intolerance, my own , which I share with you .

I have learned so much about myself by going back to my roots in Egypt
the place where I spent 7 years of my life studying, , mostly in
beautiful Alexandria, and I looked in wonderment at it's beauty while I
also knew of it's miseries, I focused on the beauty and found much peace
although my peace will always be tinged with a sadness for the human
condition


Memories of my past stirred within , I realised a lot of things I had
done that I wish I could have done differently The sadness and regret I
felt over people I had hurt in the past was from my anger..and now it
was as if scales had fallen from my eyes as I saw things from a
different perspective than before and realised my anger was from my own
selfish vantage point and I could not see from the point of view of the
people I had been angry with, shopkeepers, landladies.....etc I saw them
now so differently.A  palpable regret washed over me as I looked into
the fresh young face of the grandson of my now deceased landlady from
more than 20 years ago..I did not remember what the quarrel with her was
about, I only remember my anger, if only I could turn back the pages,
how differently I would have handled it....

I had not been able to see from the point of view of the people I had
been angry with, shopkeepers, landladies..now , returning as a tourist
after 23 years, used to comfort, used to ease, seeing the difficulty
with which the people lived and eked out a living through no fault of
their own except for being born in the wrong place, my perspective had
changed.

A resolve within me strengthened, to try to never hurt anyone with my
words or deeds, something I knew was quite impossible but indeed I would
try my best.

Even as I knew it would be  futile of me to think I could succeed
perfectly in being the light that shines in darkness, the rose that
blooms in barreness, the tree that shades from the burning sun, I
realised that I tried too hard sometimes to be all of this, yet, perhaps
it would have been far better for me to just be in the moment,
appreciating people, forgiving them their wrongs and not wronging them
in the least.

I almost succeeded though not quite in discarding my activist mantle, my
healer mantle and my teacher mantle, I still found myself explaining
things in the way I' m quite used to in my teaching mode, even though I
had resolved to be just another tourist...I wanted to just take in the
sights and sounds without getting heated up over things, , to be healed
not to heal, to learn and not to teach , yet a part of me would not let go.

I became very angry when I visited Montaza though, because the beautful
sea was marred with rubbish, the lovely beaches had garbage because in
winter the workers are on holiday but thinking back on it, who am I to judge others

When I came to the  Hussein Mosque in Cairo (near the famous Khan Khalili market
 where foreigners get respectably and willingly slaughtered every day with cut
throat prices that seem fair to us greenies ) where Imam Hussein's head is
buried , with sadness overwhelming me over the sad affairs of Muslims with tragedy
 written into it's history almost as soon as the Prophet died, I saw the people
who came to visit this shrine, and heard the beautiful zikr  being recited  I saw
 love and compassion and a deep yearning for perfection which is also the
 human state ... Sallu ala Nabi Sallalahu Alaihi wa salim taslima

I also saw how the simple faith of a simple person who shone in goodness..in
the man who offered hot tea to one of my fellow Malaysians when he braved the
cold and dark to pray in a mosque for fajr, was eloquent in its language of deeds
 ( lisan ul hal).The friend said to me,this is a land of the good ,
 the bad and the ugly and I wanted to add, the beautiful...as my mind's eye
 remembered the achingly beautiful Meditarranean sea and the lovely coast road ,
 with it's date trees , the leaves wrapped up to protect against the raging winds
 that I remember put me back 2 paces for every 5 I took when I was foolish enough to
try to walk against the wind. There is some kind of lesson in this somewhere,
don t walk against the wind walk with it, don t swim against the current ,
swim with it.Don t go against God's will, surrender to it.

Can I then not forgive the shoe polish man who asked for more for
polishing my shoes than he originally agreed upon? He saw in me a rich
foreigner who could well afford more.. no reason I thought , no reason
for anger..there are far more important things to be angry about,
certainly I did not have to have anger over a man who asked me for money I could
afford to give.

Hectic Friday

Lady's clubs like to have their lectrures in the afternoons on Friday because the lunch break is long , to acomodate Friday prayers and so I had agreed to give a lunchtime lecture for the women staff of KUTM in Air Keroh today. So it was a mad rush from Masjid Tanah to Air Keroh and back again. It's no joke talking for an hour during bulan puasa but of course that is nothing compared to the training I did last weekend, that was being on the move and talking facilitating for 8 hours while fasting!But of course we have gotten used to it..But today , after the mad rush to and from Air Keroh back to my clinic to see patients before and after , I had a buka puasa date with hubby and he cannot see well enough to drive , because of the optic neuritis he is recovering from..and as I mentioned before , I am not the world's best driver!
And clinic today had quite a number of special cases..one was a pakcik who was quite degil( stubborn). He knew he had hypertension 2 years ago and refused to do follow up prefering to share his wife's hypertension medicene instead since his wife went for regular check ups. And as sometimes happens, his wife who went for regular check ups passed away, while the stubborn pakcik survived his wife, minus the medication he used to take from her ...
And so when I checked him today , his BP was 200/150mmhg. My usual emergency management is to crush 10mg of nifedepine and place it under the tongue to be absorbed sublingually and it was only by telling the pakcik since he did not swallow it he did not break his fast did I manage to persuade him to take it. He kept looking at his watch, as if I was keeping him from something important.His BP did drop 10mmhg for both the systolic and diastolic but I felt it was still dangerously high. I talked to him steadily calmly and slowly , addressing also his daughter whom I had invited to join the discussion. I then wrote a referral and said to the daughter , do not use harsh language , he was stressed enough, what with having to cope with his wife's recent passing and I left the decision to him and his children. I feel that is the best I could do...I had considered suggesting spiritual healing but perhaps I was also pressed for time and did not get around to it.

The other special case was a lady who came all the way from Johor , some 4 hours away, and, her sister who had recommended she see me came from Kuala Lumpur. I listened and listened, and for cases like this , it is what I do best. Listen with compassion feeling my heart space expanding and accomodating her problems within, being a witness and connecting to God via prayer and zikr. I gave her a verse from the Quran which we commonaly call ayat 1000 dinar which for me has always been a miraculous verse and told her to have full faith . I also told her even though it seemed like her problem was insurmountable and the only way out was to seek a divorce , still there was one option yet left untried and that was to change her internal feeling about her abusive husband . I told her , you despise him and he can feel it even if you do not put it in words. You look down on him and he in his turn wants to show you who is boss. Marital rape is about exertion of power. So I said, if you cannot respect him then respect his position of husband. If he has good the size of a grain of rice then focus on that and ask God to expand his goodness.Whatever it is , it is worth a try , even as you work to free yourself from a bad marriage. She had actually married below her status, she is a teacher while he is a taxi driver with little education. It is my experience that such cases go into marital abuse rather easily.

Finally I prescribed for her a homeopathic remedy to strengthen her spirit so that she could have the strength to do what she needed to do. I also called her sister back in and asked her to help her sister all she could.

Her sister asked me in private, can I direct her husband to see you? By all means I said, for I had felt the husband truly needed help .You judge him to be a monster? I see a man trying to be a husband and trying to get his wife to accept him but not knowing how to gain her love and respect, resorting to bullying and control instead. Would he be willing to change? For the sake of their 3 children , living in emotional trauma, I pray so.
When she left I felt a coolness in my chest. I usually do after seeing cases that needed me to give my full attention, my healing presence and my prayers . I kind of feel healed after the sessions.
It did not use to be like this..I used to get exhausted by such cases. Perhaps because I did not know enough not to exert myself but to allow the Divine to work through me, for God is the healer and we , we are only God's servants.

Our emotions

"The key is to not resist or rebel against emotions or to try to get around them by devising all sorts
of tricks; but to accept them directly, as they are."
-- Takahisa Kora

Pycnogenol was asking me about the training center I wanted to start.
I'm not going to try to convince you of how perfect I am that I can think of coaching others to deal with their lives. I'm as bad as they come, I have my crappy days, my bossy days , my teary days..You name it , I have them..

So what is the difference I could make in the people I train ?I view our bodies and how it works, our emotions and how they work as something that can be discovered ..We can discover what pushes our buttons , what makes us tick , what moves us .Indeed we can. And different people have different modes.Having said that there are certain parts of us that have a physiological element to them and we re act according to the stimulus in patterns we have acquired , that we learnt even before we were born, in our mother's wombs.

It is healthy to have emotions, and it is also healthy to be angry , to be sad, annoyed ..you name it...View the emotions as the ripples on the surface of the lake which changes according to the exctiting factors acting on the surface of the lake. A pebble, a breeze, a leaf, an insect, a fish jumping out.....Fluid, changing and moving ...

Look at children playing, they come to the playground , new kid on the block, make their moves and soon get accepted so they move from lonely awkward as part of the group. Then they play experience joy and excitement then a kid falls, and starts to cry, others may ignore the kid, one of them goes to comfort the kid, and soon the kid starts to play again, pain forgotten , sadness forgotten. And so on and so forth. Fluidity of emotions .Emotions as visitors in the parlour of your being, they come for a visit , stay for a while and leave.

Leaving what? The depth of our being hold the Self and the Self in its essential state is joyous and peaceful . Has a depth of qualities such as compassion love beauty harmony, different quantities of which acounts for the difference in the personality and in what they aspire to.

And so , it is that when we understand this, we understand that stuck emotions are the problem and how they get stuck and how to unstick them becomes a necessity if we want to reveal the Self in all its splendour.

I want to thank and bless all those who wished me happy birthday. Yes indeed it is a joyous one , inspite of the surface crappiness because I was lonely ...for the company of my human beloved..

7 things and birthday !

I realise I have to do this soon before I don t have anybody to tag because they have all been tagged ..I was tagged by Dr Roza!
Anyways, yesterday was my birthday and I would not bore you the the depressing details of having a birthday in the fasting month with even my nearest and dearest away ...I had a lot of SMS s and greetings tho!
7 things I plan to do:
1. write a book
2. start a training center
3. finish reading a book from cover to cover
4.Do a certificate course in NLP
5.Learn to work a video cam
6. Learn to edit a video clip
7.Spend the middle of Ramadan deep in meditation ..in the depths of the night..( when I get used to less sleep)
7 things that I can do:
1. I can teach
2. Write poetry ( does it need to win a prize?)
3. Type fast ( does it have to be accurate as well?)
4. Listen with presence ( when I want to that is, otherwise you get half an ear while I am multitasking on something else
5. Drive a car ( not the best driver around that is for sure)
6.Relieve a headache by placing my hands on the head( You want me to relieve yours?)
7.Concentrate on what I am doing so well that the lightning can strike and break a window and have the glass scatter all around me and not notice..( Yes this actually happened)

7 things I can't do:
1. Climb a mountain
2.Work without causing a clutter
3.Drive a bus
4.Park into a small space ( neither can I do side parking but don't tell the JPJ people that)
5. Lay bricks
6.Scuba diving
7.Read Japanese

7 things that scare me:
1. Having no money
2. Being flamed on list
3. Being sent to prison
4.Being in an accident
5.Hantu Raya ( poultergeist)
6.Making a wrong decision that harms my patient
7.Going out in the dead of the night on retreat in the woods because I need to use the outhouse and my torchlight dies ...( bears? )

7 random facts about me:

1. I get moved to tears quite often
2. I raise my voice when I 'm upset
3.I like to be alone at times and love my own company
4.I like pastry
5.My maternal granpa was a great Vet
6.I get along with people of any race and religion
7.I feel very strongly about any form of abuse of people/ animals

7 things I say the most:
1. Astaghfirlah
2.Insya allah
3.Sakit apa ni?
4. Buka mulut
5.Pergi baring atas katil tu
6. Laparlaa, bila you all nak gi beli makan nih?( not in the fasting month)
7.Terima kasih / thank you
7 people that I want to tag:
1.Hana
2.Aimi
3.Whalesoundarvish
4.Murni
5.Anasalwa
6.Fatima
7.Beatrix Kiddo

My garden again

My son in law Hidayat is making a roof over our koi pond. He is using the Acacia saplings which grow all around . Acacias are not native to Malaysia and they grow very fast and are considered a pest tree . Some 10 years ago , when they built some terrace houses across the road from my house the developer planted acacia trees by the road side. In almost no time at all, my house which is flanked on both sides by vacant lots became an acacia woods. There are birds all the time ( I love the sound of birds) and it is shady but you cannot imagine the dry leaves that acumulate and the tiny acacia seeds cause a lot of allergies for the children. I suspect some of the koi died from eating acacia seeds that had fallen into the pond hence the need to build a roof over the pond. It has been very hot lately and the plants in and around the pond are sun scorched.
Hence the roof.I am trying to get some attap rumbia for the thatch..
This is the view from my bedroom window. It gives me no end of joy to just look and see the koi lazily swimming. They are not expensive koi, I bought them from about RM3-6 when they were about 5 inches long..and it was so sad when the beautful pink and white koi and another golden one just died..apparently for no reason which is why I suspect some kind of poisoning since they were not sick at all. Koi can live to 100 years old ...

To Be Hanif

To be Hanif ........Post inspired by Sume's blog entry Biology of the Spirit 5th October.

If you believe in evolution, it might have started when man in his primitive form left the trees. If you believe in creation, it might have began with Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge.Point is both may be used to further mankind if we can just get over differences and mistrust. One school of thought need not be a threat to the other. Though I believe in Allah, I don't see the shame in celebrating mankind as a biological organism and all his accomplishments. On the contrary, I see it as celebrating the creation of Allah. (Sume)

Our human condition is the result of the stage of developement of our consciousness. Perhaps only now it is beginning to dawn upon many people that we can acomodate all beliefs and points of views because what they are is they are points of views based on what each person is able to perceive and seen in that light, nobody is wrong. That the perception may be flawed and the reasoning maybe in error is less important than that each individual does their best to work something out to the best of their ablity at each point in time. And , it is people who work hard to have a point of view who also work hard to defend it while those who don 't usually do not care enough to defend anything.

I wrote the above statement to bring us to the point of the Hanif attitude enjoined in for us in the Quran. While having a faith and belief in the Islamic view as we understand it ( and there are many approaches and ways of understanding ), we also believe in all that is sent to all Prophets and we also believe in all the holy books . Not only that, we do not differentiate between the Prophets and the books, we accept them all and we differ only in how we see what is revealed to us and how we understand the revelation. Having said that , it requires a lot of wisdom to not want to defend our views while at the same time expound them . This means we have a dialogue rather than an argument and open ourselves to be able to change our views if and when our perception changes with the information exchange that takes place in a dialogue..I can already hear the voices objecting to what I have written here.
"But the other books and Prophet's teachings were abrogated with the revelation of the Quran "
My answer to this is, yes, that is my position also but that does not stop me from respecting and accepting that the other person is still following the teachings of the Prophets prior to Prophet Muhammad. In fact I realise that my position is more acomodating than any followers of the older Prophets because Muhammad being the last World Prophet and Islam being the youngest major world religion , I acoomodate all other Prophets while followers of other religions will have a problem with those that came after who they follow no matter how hard they try to reason it out. I see it this way:
I have an open source software system called Open Office. Open Office can read micrsoft office and a whole lot of other suites as well.It can open HTML, spreadsheets. presentations , word documents,..almost anything.
But the reverse is not true. Microsoft Office cannot open the Open office documents at all. Islam then is the Open Office of religions and if a Muslim has not been able to be like the Open Office application , then they want to think about why not.

references from the Quran:

O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware. (QS. 49:13)

The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying. (QS. 2:285)

Abraham was not a Jew, nor yet a Christian; but he was an upright (Hanif) man who had surrendered (to Allah), and he was not of the idolaters. (QS. 3:67)

The Complete Human 3

The nafs amara is our survival self. If you look in terms of the energy center then it is the first and second center. It is about feeling comfortable, it is about eating drinking resting, sex and all that we need to do to get the things that lead to the comfort.

Abraham Maslow wrote in his Theory of The Hierarchy of needs that some needs preceded others.
And the survival needs preceeds all other needs. When people are at the survival stage, it is rare that they can go any further than fulfilling their basic needs and it would be difficult for spirit to grow. Which is why the Prophet asked us to pray that we would not be afflcited with a poverty that leads us astray..or keeps us at base camp...

Of course the Ustaz when he talks about the nafs amara will tell us that this is the nafs that is evil and makes us do the bad things. Actually it is related to the reactive self or what Himayat calls it the historical self. In wanting to survive , we learn to react in a "fright fight flight"kind of way. This is not bad in it's self. Neither is the selfish thinking that comes with it bad except that it makes us do things that are not aligned with the Real. It is really a sad state of affairs that most people actually never move beyond these basic needs to reach the higher levels of actually realizing their potential which is what being a Complete Human is all about. A Complete Human in my understanding is a human being who has realised all his/her potential and indeed they are different in diferent individuals. We were all given different essential qualities but they are all there within everybody and all of us have the potential to become the Complete Human.

I have found that labelling parts of us as bad does not really help us to grow but owning all of our selves and understanding their reasons for being go a long way is helping us to get out of the survival mode and start growing.

So one way out of the nafs amara mode is to go against our inclination for comfort, for more sleep for more food , for more comfort . This seems to be so difficult for many of us. Yet most of us actually do get out of this mode but only enough to fulfill the need for comfort food clothing etc.
When our thinking exterpolates this need into tastier food, more comfort, more luxury , we actually work very hard but then we work hard in order to feel good . What Pir Zia said is that we sacrifice Joy for pleasure for there is no real Joy except what comes from our journey towards completion and actualizing.

The Complete Human 2

Dr Roza asked:
What does it mean to be in touch with reality, within and without?
A short answer will be , to be present to the self from within , ie in touch with emotions understanding them , be in touch with thoughts understanding them , more than this , be in touch with the domain of the heart..the essential self within. And without? be present to the present moment , not only what is inside of one but what is going on outside , focus on the present moment. Savour its feel , open all the senses to the sounds the visuals the feel.Take it all in and be in it...
Life is in the Now.

And the journey to being the Complete Human starts with base camp. Our base camp is our Nafs Amara. It is the part of us that was made for us to survive. It is instincts and sensations all designed to make sure we act to preserve ourselves as we journey to completion . Many of us however get stuck here. And getting stuck here is like setting up base camp in order to climb Mount Everest and then because it is so comfortable and feels so good to be there , we decide to stay there and forget about the climb. Whoa , not such a good analogy for the likes of me because I m not one to test my physical endurance by climbing anything!But this is the analagy Pir Zia used.

Understanding the workings of the Nafs Amara goes a long way in helping us to understand how not to get stuck in it. And I think this is enough for today!

The Complete Human ( Insan il Kamil)1

It seems to me as if I know nothing about the Perfect Human yet that is what I aspire to. How does one aspire to what one does not know? It cannot be, one has to know to aspire to something.


What does it mean to be human? To have a body that functions like other animals, needing food, having a nervous system that has an autonomic part that functions without our conscious effort.
And then having a conscious part that seems to have a will. Or does it?
When the consciousness is a tribal one the individual will is subject to the tribal will.
There is a verse in the Quran that saya: When the angles asks an individual who is doing himself harm, why did you do this? And the individual replies, because my forefathers did it.
Not good enough an answer...If this answer is good enough then tribal consciousness is not good enough either. Doing something you found your parents doing is not good enough.
This reminds me of the story of the baked aubergines. Mum was baking aubergines and she cut the tops off. Daughter asked mum why do you cut so much off the top and mum says this is the way grandma did it. Daughter asks did you ask grandma why? So they phone grandma to ask and Grandma replied, because my baking tray was too small and the whole aubergine did not fit so I cut the tops off.....Mum's tray was big enough though.....
So that is what comes out of doing something just because your mum did it, you lose some aubergine!

No, I will not be able to get to the definition even in this post.
I think I may need the whole of Ramadan to ponder and write on this.
But my thought today is that the complete human is one who has a natural tone, is comfortable in his/her skin...and is at peace within and is in touch with reality , within and without.


Each human personality is like a piece of music,
having an individual tone and a rhythm of its own.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Aquarium

This is my bedroom and my husband who is still convelescing from his severe septic shock finds it therapuetic.The Persian kittens are Shirazi . My daughter brought them back from Egypt.
They are Naruto and Helwa. I did relate how Naruto was lost one night!

See this post to understand what happened in May He fell sick in The Land Below the Winds

This is my new workstation . Had to have it custom made to fit a corner of my bedroom.

UNIVERSAL MAN

I did a search for Universal Man and came up with this here :

The term “universal man” was coined by Jacob
Burckhardt, the Swiss historian and exponent of cul-
tural history, in his classic study, Die Kultur der
Renaissance in Italien (1860). He used it to charac-
terize the fully developed personalities of fifteenth-
century Italy, meaning by the uomo universale a dis-
tinctive social type: one who combines comprehensive
learning with the practice of one or more of the arts
or professions.

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv4-59

Then I also found this here by Rabindrath Tagore.

And in my next post I hope I will manage to present my teachers version of Universal Man a term which he used to explain Insan ul Kamil.

Indian Nobel prize winner for literature

UNIVERSAL MAN

By Rabindranath Tagore

There was a time when we prayed for special concessions, we expected that the laws of nature should be held in abeyance for our own convenience. But now we know better. We know that law cannot be set aside, and in this knowledge we have become strong. For this law is not something apart from us; it is our own. The universal power which is manifested in the universal law is one with our own power. It will thwart us where we are small, where we are against the current of things; but it will help us where we are great, where we are in unison with the all....

Thus we find that, just as throughout our bodily organization there is a principle of relation by virtue of which we can call the entire body our own, and can use it as such, so all through the universe there is that principle of uninterrupted relation by virtue of which we can call the whole world our extended body and use it accordingly. And in this age of science it is our endeavour fully to establish our claim to our world-self. We know all our poverty and sufferings are owing to our inability to realize this legitimate claim of ours. Really, there is no limit to our powers, for we are not outside the universal power which is the expression of universal law.

It is the same with our spiritual life. When the individual man in us chafes against the lawful rule of the universal man we become morally small, and we must suffer. In such a condition our successes are our greatest failures, and the very fulfillment of our desires leaves us poorer. We hanker after special gains for ourselves, we want to enjoy privileges which none else can share with us. But everything that is absolutely special must keep up a perpetual warfare with what is general. In such a state of civil war man always lives behind barricades, and in any civilization which is selfish, our homes are not real homes, but artificial barriers around us.

Yet we complain that we are not happy, as if there were something inherent in the nature of things to make us miserable. The universal spirit is waiting to crown us with happiness, but our individual spirit would not accept it. It is our life of the self that causes conflicts and complications everywhere, upsets the normal balance of society and gives rise to miseries of all kinds.... We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to the laws of the universal forces, and to realize in practice that they are our own. So, in order to be happy, we have to submit our individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and to feel in truth that it is our own will. When we reach that state wherein the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite is made perfect, then pain itself becomes a valuable asset. It becomes a measuring rod with which to gauge the true value of our joy.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Shifting consciouness

Below are 7 levels of consciousness that clearly outline a path for our evolving consciousness:

- tribal and mass consciousness - one obeys the group and lives by trial and error
- individual consciousness - one develops a stronger sense of self and ego
- seeker’s consciousness - one asks questions and seeks independence
- intuitive consciousness - one develops the heart and is becoming spiritually aware
- group consciousness - one serves a higher good filling the needs of others
- soul consciousness - one experiences spiritual service.

Delfin Knowledge system

A Tribute to M Scott Peck

I just read in the newspaper, a tiny column in the foreign news that M Scott Peck who wrote the Famour book The Road Less Travelled has died.

This author and this book were an impetus for me to struggle to walk on the more difficult less travelled road.
He started a chapter with the words Life is difficult. It is really and finding shortcuts and trying to bypass the pain life's problems bring makes life more painful. Hence facing life head on and doing the difficult is actually the easier way.

If you have not read this book, I suggest you go pick one up. Also enlightening are A Different Drum and People of the Lie. Nowadays there are so many books which have the kind of spiritual approach and it is the latest in management even.
Steven Covey's the 8th Habit is an example of spirituality in the workplace and in life. Practical ways of approaching the pains and problems of life which after all are mere sand in the oyster kind of irritants to help us grow pearls.

So here are a few quotes from the late Scott Peck , told to Robert Epstein in an interview for Psychology Today:

Can you tell me more about the roots of your spirituality-about the intellectual and experiential side?

All my work can be traced back to my Harvard college thesis, "Anxiety, Modern Science and the Epistemological Problem." I outlined three basic ways to try and look at things. They can be looked at as if they were caused by something external, or they were caused by something internal, or they were caused by relationships between things. Unfortunately, none of these three ways can answer all the questions we have. That is, our questions about the cause for intellectual anxiety. Increasingly, modern science is about our realization that we just don't know. Much of my life since has consisted of working out that thesis. The answer to understanding things is not one of those three, but all of them simultaneously. It's more than a paradox-it's a "triadox."

I am really an empiricist, a believer in the importance of experience. I've had all kinds of experiences with God in terms of revelation through a still, small voice or dreams or coincidences. Hundreds of them. Once, a secular Jewish woman wrote a negative review of me in The New York Times, ending it with the comment that unfortunately, most of us don't have a direct phone line to God. I wrote her back and said, "You know, please don't think that my phone works very well. A lot of times I can't get ahold of God, and sometimes the phone rings and I forget to answer. So I suspect there are a lot of people who deliberately leave the phone off the hook because they have these same experiences and they just don't recognize them as the miracles that they are."

In the 1970s, when you wrote The Road Less Traveled, where were you at spiritually?

Although I was raised in a profoundly secular home, I had a belief, an awareness of God, from as far back as I can remember. In poetic form, there is a footnote in The Road Less Traveled about my earliest memory: "In the autumn, when I was three, my mother woke me from dark sleep to see the northern lights dancing in the cold. In her warm night arms, I danced all the way to China before she carried me in. I still dance, and I do not know if I can ever forgive her for such love." That is quite a first memory. I credit my mother with that, rather than credit God.

In my senior year at Friends Seminary, a little Quaker school on the edge of Greenwich Village in New York City, I took an elective course in world religions. The book we used was very objective, and it contained quotes from the Upanishads and Zen Buddhism. It wasn't that these religions taught me mysticism, for I was already a mystic. But for the first time, I had a religious identity. I had come home. And so I called myself a Zen Buddhist at the age of 18.

Around age 30 I found myself thirsting for a less abstract religion. I'd always been into Jewish mystical stories, Hasidic stories. Then I discovered Sufism. All Sufi stories are about psychotherapy and teaching and learning. So I started being nurtured by the Muslim mystics; they were a little more down-to-earth.

I'd turned down a lucrative Harvard fellowship and stayed in the Army as a psychiatrist. Together with a senator's aide, we toured the new drug-abuse programs to get a feeling for how they were doing. One of the places we went was Fort Jackson in South Carolina. When we got there, everyone wanted to see this controversial new show coming to town called Jesus Christ Superstar. That show was a real eye-opener. It was the first thing that put me in touch with Jesus' humanity and realness.

The other major thing was reading the Gospels at the age of 40. I lay in bed at night reading the New Testament. And just as I had felt with Jesus Christ Superstar, I was blown away. Now I think a small part of the Gospels is made up. But I found this incredibly real person. Jesus was lonely and sorrowful and scared-an unbelievably real person. And it was at that point that I began to take becoming a Christian seriously. Some people who arrive at Christianity start with Jesus' divinity, and some with his humanity. With me, it was his humanity. And only later did I begin to get in touch with his divinity, which was initially difficult for me to swallow.

Fasting continued

So now we have the moral aspect of fasting :

Here is a quote:

I once saw a dream in which Sultan al-Masha’ikh asked me if I was practicing saum. I answered that I would practice saum if he commanded it. He replied, “Practice the saum of the heart.” Several days later I asked Shaykh Nasir al-Din Mahmud, “What is the saum of the heart?” He replied, “Sultan al-Masha’ikh meant by this that you should practice muraqaba.”
—Siyar al-Awliya’

My teacher says that this muraqaba is the absitnence from the denial of the reality of God's omnipotence and omnipresence. Yes I know that is a mouthful! What it means is to be constantly connected via the heart ( qalb) with God.You want to know how that feels? First you have to keep knocking on the door of your heart, or rather the portal which the sufis call the latifah, plural lataif and then one fine day the door opens and you will know it when it opens.
When it remains open then you have that constant connection. I 'd have to warn you that it makes you very softhearted and is strictly not good for business.

Finally we have the spiritual aspect of the Fast:

Sufism means being at ease with God.
—Ibn ‘Ata

Saum is for me, and I am the reward that comes with it!
—Hadith Qudsi

You don't want to twist your brain over what my teacher said about this aspect.The gist of what he said is to realise God as the Prime mover, to be a puppet moved only by God.

Why do people serve food that make people sick?

This is again wedding season . And I start asking the usual question. Why do people serve food that is too hot , too spicey or has gone bad? I have so many cases of diarrhea and gastritis from people who have been to weddings. Ya Rabbi, if you want to feed people then feed them food that is good for them, nourishing food ...
So make sure it is palatable not too spicey not too hot and do not serve food cooked overnight!
I would have thought it is common sense but common sense does not seem to be so common around here!

Fasting ( For Beatrix Kiddo)

On Saturday a friend asked me to write an article on Fasting because the fasting month is about 2 weeks away. I was away from home and busy giving a seminar but the minute I got back, I wrote furiously and the result is the article below. Of course having written so hastily , the article left much to be desired and I realise that I had not even touched on the spiritual aspects of fasting.

If you wanted to have a complete idea about fasting you can read my article here

The Muslim Fast

This article is a complete guide to successful fasting.

Quoting from my teacher

The essential spiritual task of Ramadan is saum. Saum is an Arabic word meaning “to be at rest.” Life is natural and rhythmic when activity and repose are mutually balanced. Tragically in our postindustrial world repose in the true sense of the word has become a lost art. The annual observance of saum during Ramadan is an occasion to revive this important human capacity.

This being at rest actually does not really mean we actually stop working and just lie back. Actually we work as usual and I have a full working day but we do not eat or drink. I know you may be thinking "wow that sounds unhealthy". Actually unless you have very serious health problems it actually helps most health problems. Even the dehydration was found to have a postive effect. Actually it is not really very long, a half day abstinence lasting about 14 hours.

I did say I wanted to focus on the spiritual aspect so here goes:
Actually for most people who fast , there is hardly any spritual aspect. They just get awfully hungry and thirsty in the daytime and at sundown they gorge themselves full of food and then desperately chew on all the munchies for fear of starving to death. Many of them are quite overweight actually....So they have a fear of starvation and fasting but aren't you amazed they do it anyway? It is quite amusing really that Muslims for the most part observe the fast even if they do not say their prayers and do all sorts of against the tenets things.

So when does it get spiritual ?

Let us go through the fast physical mental and then emotional. then moral and then spiritual:

Murshid says:

Physical

The physical saum consists of abstinence from food, drink and sex during the hours of daylight. When the active processes of the digestive and reproductive systems are suspended the body undergoes a catharsis that effectively cleanses and re-sensitizes its subtle channels.

Fasting lets the breath pass through every vein and tube of the body, which is possible only when there is no foreign substance in the body to block the channels. When the breath has touched every particle of the body, the body naturally becomes more sensitive and the pores of the skin open, making the centers transparent, so as to feel, outwardly and inwardly, all that is to be felt.<>

This is not going to happen if the person fasts like what I described earlier!

OK now for the mental aspect. Mind you most people who fast don 't fast the mind!! And fasting the mind is good practise to get spiritual.

The mental saum consists of abstinence from cognitive habits that deceptively objectivize subjective experience. True objectivity is intersubjective and universal. When the inner and outer senses are re-consecrated and oriented toward the unity of being, the hard edges of duality soften and the mind becomes deep and still.

To achieve this state the seeker gives up untruths and half-truths, gratuitous argumentation, gossip, and all manner of excess verbiage—uttered or unuttered.

I have verily vowed a fast to the Most Merciful and cannot speak to anyone this day.
—Qur’an 19.26

So how does one do the above? For one thing it sounds really difficult right? Here is one way. Everytime you open your mouth to say something , before you say it ask: It what I am about to say true? Am I sure it is true ? How sure am I? Ok if you keep getting a positive answer to these questions go ahead and say it otherwise keep silent. I think that will do for a start.


So on the emotional aspect , quoting again my teacher who quotes other sources:

The emotional saum consists of abstinence from reactive, fear-based strategies of repression and compensation that diminish and beguile the heart. Liberated from the defenses and substitutions to which it has unnaturally adapted, the heart reposes in the clear perception of its true desire: the Immortal Beloved.
--Pir Zia

Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and your bodies naked, that perchance your hearts may see God in this world.
—Hadith

My heart attains self-sufficiency by eating its own flesh and drinking its own blood
---Hazrat Inayat Khan)

And again you may wonder, how does one do the above? Steven Covey says , we are not our emotions. It is true , emotions are like ripples on the surface of the pond and the depth of the pond remains calm . Understanding this we observe the surface ripples from our depths ..and how do you getto the depth?...that is a loooong story.

And we also have the Moral aspect and after this the spiritual aspect which means this post is not complete yet.......

Saum

Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and your bodies naked, that perchance your hearts may see God in this world.
—Hadith

Sebulan lepas pesakit saya beritahu saya.Makcik puasa hari ini. Makcik puasa Rejab! Pesakit saya ini menyebabkan saya teringat bahawa Ramadan hampir tiba.
Teringat saya bahawa kena cepat tempah baju sebelum tukang jahit enggan terima tempahan . Sudah tentu anak-anak akan sedih kalau tidak berbaju raya!

Hari ini adalah 2 minggu sebelum puasa. Saya lihat di Bandar Kuala Lumpur penuh sesak orang memberli belah , kebanyakkan orang Muslim. Di pasaraya sudah ada kueh raya dan kurma dijual dan rak-rak baju penuh dengan baju-baju yang baru sampai dengan fesyen terbaharu , sedia untuk dibeli orang orang yang akan ber Hari Raya selepas sebulan puasa. Suasana sibuk bercampur meriah.

Kebanyakkan persediaan yang kita buat untuk puasa berbentuk material. Tetapi tidak semua. Ada juga orang yang sudah mula puasa sunat melatihkan diri untuk puasa. Ada yang masih puasa ganti sebab tangguhkan sehingga saat terakhir dan mungkin ada yang akan bayar fidyah sebab tak sempat ganti.

Apapun memang kita suka sediakan diri untuk Ramadan.Di sini saya ingin sarankan beberapa perkara untuk mendapatkan Puasa yang berkesan dari segi kesihatan ruhani dan jasmani.

Puasa sebagai suatu latihan ruhani adalah sebuah ibadat yang berat sebab dia melibatkan menahan diri dari makan ,satu perbuatan yang halal bagi kita semasa tidak berpuasa. Ia menyebabkan rasa letih lesu dan dahaga , mengubahkan tabiat tidur dan makan kita sebulan lamanya! Bukan mudah nak lakukannya tetapi amat indah bila dapat dilaksanakan dengan sempurna .

Sebenarnya dari segi kesihatan badan , puasa yang kita amalkan selama lebih kurang 14 jam dalam sehari ada banyak manfaatnya. Bila kita menahan diri dari makan dan minum , angota badan yang terlibat dengan penghazaman dapat rehat. Sel-sel badan juga dapat keluarkan bahan buangan dengan lebih baik sebab dibebaskan dari proses perkumuhan bahan makanan, Pemecahan lemak yang berlaku mengeluarkan toksin yang terperangkap dalam lemak. Untuk mendapat manfaat ini ada beberapa syarat:
1. Sistem pembuangan najis perlu berfungsi dengan baik dan tidak boleh sembelit Kalau kita sembeli semasa sebelum mulakan puasa, ini akan menyebabkan proses perkumuhan dan pembuangan toksin yang berlaku dalam hati kita tidak efisyen dan seterusnya sel badan tidak akan dapat membuang sisa perkukuhannya dengan baik maka badan kita akan simpan segala toksin dan akibatnya sakit kepala, mulut berbau, lenguh badan dan lesu. Untuk mengelak perkara demikan pastikan kita makan banyak bahan berserat dan juga minum banyak air pada hari-hari sebelum mula puasa. Kalau perlu , ambil ubat lawas buang air besar yang bertindak lembut seperti asam jawa atau lactulose yang boleh dibeli di farmasi. Lactulose adalah gula yang tidak hazam dan tidak akan bertukar menjadi glucose maka boleh dimakan oleh orang kencing manis. Lactulose bersifat prebiotic dan adalah baja untuk kuman baik dalam perut kita ( acidophillus ) . Maka dengan mengambil lactulose kita dapat betulkan iklim dalam usus kepada yang paling sehat.
2.Semasa berbuka dengan bersahur , pilihan makanan sepatutnya yang mudah hazam dan berkhasiat serta seimbang. Ini bererti kita perlu merancang menu berbuka supaya demikian . Pastikan jangan ada pembaziran sebab orang lapar memang akan ada kecederungan untuk menyediakan makanan yang terlalu banyak!
3.Elak makanan yang kita tahu menyebabkan kita sakit. Ramai yang tahu makanan mana yang dia alah dan boleh menyakitkannya. Saya ingatkan juga supaya jangan makan makanan yang terdedah terlalu lama dan tidak disimpan dalam peti sejuk .Bakteria dinegeri panas seperti Malaysia ini amat cepat membiak dan walaupun makanan tidak berbau basi, mungkin sudah cukup bakteria untuk menyebabkan keracunan makanan. Kalau boleh jangan makan makanan yang telah berada dalam peti sejuk lebih dari sehari kecuali yang telah dibekukan selepas dimasak. Kalau kita tahu ada alahan pada setengah makanan , memakan makananan tersebut semasa berbuka boleh mencetuskan allergi. Prkara ini boleh berlaku sebab alergi pada makanan lebih ketara apabila kita makan bahan itu semasa perut kosong
4. Elak makanan yang terlalu pedas dan berempah sebab pada masa puasa kita tidak minum dan perut kita kosong.Memakan makanan berempah boleh menyebabkan masaalah penghazaman dan juga masaalah buah pinggang.
5. Selepas berbuka , cuba minum sebanyak air yang anda boleh. Yang lebih baik adalah air bersih dan pada zaman sekarang yang banyak pencemaran ini bererti meminum air yang telah menjalani proses penapisan yang baik. Semasa solat terawih , bawa botol air dan minum di antara solat.
6.Kalau minum minuman berkafein, anda perlu faham minuman begini akan menyebabkan asid dalam perut bertambah dan bagi setengah orang akan menyebabkan pedih hati semasa berpuasa Juga, kafein boleh menyebabkan jantung berdebar dan juga susah dan tidur.

Selain dari saranan tentang makanan ada beberapa pesanan yang saya ingin sampaikan yang boleh sempurnakan puasa kita

1. Jangan susah hati kalau kurang tidur, Bila kita kurang makan , dengan sendirinya kita boleh berjaga lebih lama tanpa mudarat
2. Jangan buang masa dengan sia-sia, Gunakan waktu dengan bijak sebab pahala ibadat bulan puasa berlipat ganda. Bila baca Quran , pasti anda menghayati ayatnya dan jangan semata berkejar untuk habiskan bacaan. Memang baik kalau dapat khatam tetapi bagi saya manfaatnya adalah dengan merenungkan makna ayat dan merenungkan bagaimana kita nak jadi insan Al Quran.
3.Sedekah sebanyak yang boleh dan masa ini adalah masa yang baik kita cari saudara -saudara kita yang miskin dan hadiahkan dia apa yang dia perlukan untuk persediaan hari raya. Biarlah apa yang dirumah kita kurang indah demi untuk ketepikan duit itu untuk mengembirakan orang lain. Sederhana dalam belanja serta murah hati terhadap sesama insan adalah sunnah Rasul SAW.
4, Tumpukan perhatian bulan Ramadan kepada bulan Ramadan dan jangan terlalu pandang kedepan kepada Hari Raya. Orang Alim menunggu puasa bagaikan nantikan anak kesayangan dan mentangisi pemergiannya maka kita cuba ikut begitu . Mudah-mudahan bila kita cuba ikut tersingkap untuk kita hikmah dan rahsia bulan Puasa dan kita pula jadi alim.
5. Cuba jalankan pekerjaan seperti biasa terutama yang bekerja pejabat. Jangan sampai orang bukan Islam mengatakan prestasi kerja orang berpuasa adalah kurang. Insya allah disiplin kita dalam hal ini menjadi contoh yang baik kepada manusia yang akan kagumkan satu ummat yang berpuasa kerana Allah dan jalankan amanat dia dalam bekerja.

Insya allah kita akan berpesan lagi perkara-perkara yang perlu di lakukan untuk mengalami Hari Raya yang gemilang dan direda ALlah.

Selamat menjalankan ibadah puasa yang berjaya,

He/She is:

He/She is brave who courageously experiences all things;

he/she is a coward who is afraid to take a step in a new direction;
he/she is foolish who swims with the tides of fancy and pleasure;
he/she is wise who experiences all things,
yet keeps on the path that leads him to his destination. Hazrat Inayat Khan

New York State

I had been meaning to say something about where I was last month but never got around to it.
I 'm not about to give an acount of it though ..why?
Because ! Haaa what kind of answer is that you ask..
This here is Mushtaq cooking Tacos for me . Yes men cook in the US.
We were on Sheikh Taner's farm in Nassau which is in New York
State not far from Albany.

And this is where I was before I went to the farm in Nassau.
It was about half an hour from Nassau.

And from there I went to Yonkers ...the train from Albany
to Yonkers cos me $US39 so stop grousing about petrol bills and
bus fares in Malaysia.Just imagine it cost RM9 to take a bus from Melaka to KL
and that same 2 hours cost $US39!! Since RM9 is less than $2.50,
this means that the fare in New York is 20 times more than in Malaysia!

What is Sufism really ?

Dr Roza said:

nurelhuda- I believe tasauf has been part and parcel of Rasulullah's s.a.w. teachings. The problem arises when people starts to separate it , tearing it away , putting it in a 'speical' position (almost like making it secular), giving it a certain nomenclature and finally practicing it as separate entity. Those are the deviant ones.Sufism, as long as it conforms to the teachings of Rasulullah like all other 'wadah' (like tariqat for instance) is insyallah allowed. After all, it's a tool to get closer to Allah swt.

This is what I have to say as a reply:
When one says it is a tool, then that tool is something that needs to be taught. If a religous teacher teaches you to pray and to read the Quran but he only passed on to you the words without the spirit behind the words, you will not get the spirit and that spirit is sufism.

Rasul SAW was a Mercy to all of Humanity ( Rahmatan Lil Alamin) not a mercy to Muslims only which means that the spirit of Islam pervades all that is good in Humanity.When I say the spirit of Islam, I do not mean the cultural Islam , what I mean is the Universal meaning of Islam which means Surrendering to God's will. What does surrendering mean? To understand the meaning of surrender one would have to live a life of doing God's will every instant of time in one's life..It is to this goal that the Believer journeys.It is for this reason we ask for guidance in our prayers 17 times a day" Eh dinasiaratal mustaqim" and it is for this reason we are constantly saying Astaghfirllah...bowing humbly to God for not succeeding fully....

God in His Mercy made humans able to seek and find Haq which is truth and truth is Universal in Nature , not relegated or belonging to any race or any religion for that matter.
Those who have an awakened spirit, an awakened heart will recognise the Haq as if it is their own child . It would resonate in their very beings and make them tremble and vibrate and bring tears to their eyes.

There are even times when those we call deviant have more recognition of the Haq than those we think are in the right for in the end it is not our judgement that matters but that of God's.

It is my conviction that no human has the right to think of another as a deviant or wrong in what they believe. Our duty is to remind our friends our colleagues and our brethren to do good and doing good means helping humankind, helping justice, helping the environment .

As the surah Al Asr says:

Surely mankind is at a loss
Except those who have faith ( Faith in God and faith in the hereafter)
And do good deeds
And remind each other to Truths
And remind each other to Patience.

Finally, I would like to add, many speak of that they know nothing of and it is like trying to imagine what a durian looks feels and tastes like without having even seen one...only hearing about it from others who have a mixed reaction ..some say it is heavenly, some say it is obnoxious ......and someone decides to pick one opinion via heresay and speak on it as if they' ve seen it or tasted it....

Modes of Learning

A patient of mine who suffers from anxiety neurosis from time to time..there are times when he thinks he is almost normal asked me yesterday how to be peaceful. I wanted to teach him a technique that would help , and I asked him to focus on his breathing. He stopped me and said , no, not now , I 'll do it at home, just give me the instructions and whatever zikr . I told him..yes I can do that and you can then go home and try it and nothing happens, it does not help. Why would that be he asked. I replied, when you do it with me, I am taking you through the moves and there are verbal and also non verbal things that get communicated.When you go back and do it at home, you will not get the non verbal parts because I will not be there to communicate them to you.
He then agreed to go through the practice which I told him would take less than 5 minutes.
So we both focused on our breath, and I had told him to close his eyes so he could focus better. And on observing the breath, you will find it becomes slower and calmer..and then I added a simple zikr which translate as Lord, You are Peace. He did that also , and, then I added another simple prayer, Lord, expand my chest ..in Arabic that would be Rabbishruli Sadri...So we did this for 5 minutes...
Perhaps because I learn by doing , which means my mode of learning is kinesthetic,,,believe me most people learn best by doing...I had insisted on this way of teaching him....

We 'll see how it goes ...but from my experience it really helps the patients who practice it after learning it from me.....

Nexus Resort Karambunai Sabah

Nexus resort is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to : Here see for yourself.

Right and Wrong

You know, is sometimes very difficult to set rules of right and wrong because there are times when right in one situation is wrong in another. To be able to understand this is great wisdom indeed and to be a good jurist we have to have this ability to discern what is right for the situation in question. Scott Peck has written about this in his book The Road Less Travelled.
And here is another quote from HIK on the same:

"There is no action which the Sufi calls right or wrong, for every action can become right and can become wrong; it depends upon the use or abuse of the action, its fitness or unfitness. Right or wrong depends upon the attitude and situation, not the action. This naturally gives the Sufi tolerance towards another, and makes him ready to forgive another and unwilling to form an opinion about the action of another person. This attitude keeps the Sufi far removed from saying that peace is good or war is good. The Sufi will say, "War is good at the time of war, peace is good at the time of peace."HIK

Religious people dealing with sinners

drroza said...

The old adage, 'It takes a criminal to understand a criminal' may be true to a certain extend as they should know better how the brain mechanism works in those 'criminal' minds. But that does not mean that someone of religious background cannot be compassionate to them. Only the other day I comented on Crimsonskye's blog that I find a stark contrast between christian missionaries and muslim dhaie ( this is just a generalisation- may not be true always) whereby the christian missionaries are more approachable and less prejudiced. This goes to show that people with strong religious hold can and should be able to treat drug addicts/ criminals as well if not better. In fact as a muslim doctor, we are at an advantage as we have the Quran and sunnah to help us deal with the addicts.

1:27 PM

There is the story of the king who has 2 servants, one who makes a lot of mistakes but is always aware of them and always repentant and the other servant is perfect and is proud. Guess which one the King likes best?

You could say the proud servant is a zealot.
The difference is one of religiousness which focuses on the mercy and compassion aspects of God and the relgiousness which focuses on the punishment aspect of God. There are Quranic verses and Hadith which point out the the Mercy of God far exceeds his punishment but many are focussed on punishment rather than mercy.

It helps when we view sinners as people with potential for a lot of good. And we view their temporary state of being caught in self destructive behavior as a stage they are passing through and we can then see our role in giving them our helping hand.

Remember story about the murderer who went up to a Shaikh and asked if he could be saved even though he had killed 99 people? The Shaikh became the 100th person he killed when the Shaikh replied he was a goner. He went to another Shaikh who then told him to go to a town of very good people and live there to get salvation. He died on the way and the angels fought over him to bring him to heaven/hell and brought their case to God who told them to measure the distance he was from the city.He was more than halfway there..and the angel in charge of heaven won the dispute over his soul. ..I can t quite remember the origin of this story but I think it is a hadith and was told by the Prophet to bring home the message of God's mercy.

Also as regards Muslim Daie:
Muslims daie instead of focusing on Muslims, they have to realise their role as Khalifah of the Universe and also they have yet to realise that Muhammand is Rahmatan Lil Alamin, ie a Blessing for all Creation, not a blessing for all Muslims.( Mind you this is a very huge blanket statement that is sometimes not true so take it with a pinch of salt and don 't mind me)

Americans and Australians

This is not about race or country and I am just reporting what Dr Walter Ling told us.
The American Psychiatrist was talking to the Australian one and the Australian said to the American , " We have the same history, we are from an immigrant population"
The America replied " You are descended from a bunch of criminals."
And the Australian replied" And you are descended from a bunch of religious zealots..At least we understand sinners and have a compassionate approach to drug addicts."

Think about it...
How do you view addicts ..and other so called sinners....what is your approach?

Workshop over the weekend

I was in KL over the weekend, at the Legend to be exact.I actually do not like worshops very much but go anyway for the occasional gems I can get from the distinguished speakers.When the speakers are not very interesting my body has a way of switching off and I really do not hear anything , at least not with my conscious mind ;) .

Here are a few gems from Dr Walter Ling;
The adolescent mind is a mind under construction. It is best to keep this mind under construction in a safe environment for it to develope. In other words, let whatever needs to blow itself out or apart or whatever in an environment which is safe ..mind you I know what it does not mean is to restrict the adolescent..there is a fine line between letting loose and total control which parents and educators have to find. This workshop was one about drugs and adolescents are at that age when they want to live dangerously and the connection between the emotional center seeking rewards is not very well linked to the thinking part that understands long term consequences of actions and once exposed to these mind changing and brain changing drugs in the adolescent age, there is no reversing things!

Here is some more on the adolescent brain

Summary of New Research on Adolescent Brain Development

Recent developments in brain research provide scientific support to the theories on the limitations of youth's decision-making.

• Researchers at UCLA, Harvard Medical School and the National Institute of Mental Health have traced the development of a child's brain to adulthood.
  
  
• Through neuroimaging technology researchers have discovered that in a process called "myelination" a normal healthy adolescent brain develops during adolescence.
  
  
• The brain's maturation process continues through adolescence and is not complete until the early 20's.
  
  
• The area not yet fully refined and focused in the adolescent mind is called the prefrontal cortex.
  
  
• The prefrontal cortex is the largest section of the brain, slowest to develop, and undergoes the most drastic changes during adolescence.
  
  
• The prefrontal cortex is responsible for complex thinking. It allows the mind to organize, perform abstract thinking, prioritize, anticipate consequences, control impulses and conform behavior accordingly.
  
  
• To compensate for the underdevelopment of the prefrontal cortex, the adolescent brain relies heavily on another area of the brain called the amygdala, which creates a tendency to react on instincts.
  
  
• Biologically, adolescents do not have the same abilities as adults to control their actions and make sound decisions.

Merdeka

Yesterday was Merdeka again. Our country is now 48 years old .I was shouting Medeka along with thousands of others..even though I was at home in front of the TV at 12 midnight on the 30-31 August. It did not fail to arouse in me a certain sense of belonging, and also that choked up feeling of love for my country.

Yes indeed I love my country , I love the people , the land , the trees the flowers , the dirt the garbage, the silliness , the stupdity, and the love..the love.

What love you ask?What love can I feel except what wells up within the depth of my being .
How to describe the joy of being with another human being sharing their hopes and worries and fears.Indeed sometimes I m so wrapped up in wanting to do something else that I fail to listen to the person who sits in front of me telling me of their aches and pains and hopes and fears yet when I do , how richly am I rewarded by the love.

Like the Chinese woman who came this morning , she wanted me to see if she was really pregnant and was wondering if perhaps she was menopausal because her menses seemed to stop and start for the past months.

Something made me do a scan and what a surprise both for me and for her that she was already 5 months pregnant ..at 43 years old! She kept saying oh woe, how embarassing for me, what a disaster and I kept saying, this is good luck, this child will bring you luck , will be your joy and your comfort when you are old.
She phoned me again this afternoon wanting to confirm her delivery date, confiding in me that her husband also laughed at her for not realising she was pregnant even though she had been pregnent 4 times previously! I laughed with her and we discussed where she was going to have this baby and I again reassured her that it was ok.
I pray it will be ok..I did not need for her to worry about trisomy and such stuff we think is more likely in pregancies of women above 40..my friend the gyneacologist said the risk is not that very high and an older woman is likely to be a much more loving and wiser mum that a younger mum. I wholeheartedly agree..

Illusion and reality

Illusion is the cover of things; reality is the depth of things. The body is the illusion; the soul is the reality. The flower is the illusion; the fragrance is the reality. The fragrance is the spirit of the flower; it persists.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

Ways to Distinguish Intuition from Lower Levels of Information

This piece I got in the mail, it answers the post before it about impulses from God

Ways to Distinguish Intuition from Lower Levels of Information

"It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are." -- e. e. cummings
The more aware we become, the more intuition develops for us. The more we can access
our intuition, the faster we grow and change. The key is to understand the language of
intuition. How can you tell if the 'inner voice' is God's,other beings, other people's
projections or your own judgmental thoughts? The tips below will help you discriminate
and discern the TRUTH.Read the list over often and get a strong sense of how to discern higher guidance. Expand your inventory of how you sense the higher or lower information that comes into your physical and non-physical senses.


• LOWER LEVELS OF INFORMATION ----- HIGHER LEVELS OF INTUITION
• demand obedience or surrender ----- suggest, advise -you make your own
decisions
• conflict with one's personal ethics ----- no conflict with personal ethics
• create fear, negativity ----- create love, inspiration, empowerment
• are generalities, long winded ----- are relevant, short,intelligent, unique
• are conditional ----- are unconditional, appropriate and natural to you
• appeal to curiosity, ego ----- appeal to goodwill, beauty, unity
• from confusing, competing voices ----- from still, single knowing voice
• affirm ultimate authority for itself ----- counsel surrender to higher power
• require no personal effort ----- need personal effort
• guidance from subconscious ----- guidance from the Soul
• emotional desires, glamour ----- higher spiritual guidance
• benefit the receiver ----- benefit the good of the whole
• fixed interpretations ----- many levels of interpretation
• create dependencies ----- create interdependence
• promote separation ----- reflect oneness, wholeness, unity
• are self conscious ----- are other conscious
• affirm mediocrity ----- promote making a difference
• reflect a part of the whole ----- reflect the whole
• are emotional, mental ----- are intuitive
• focus on things ----- focus on essence and values
• result in loss of self ----- result in self discovery
• focus on desires, wants ----- focus on soul needs
• address individual ----- address community
• deal with form ----- deal with symbols, truths
• concerned with self will ----- reflect divine will
• create victims ----- require accountability
• are sporadic ----- are disciplined
• create stress ----- create peace of mind
• are personal ----- are impersonal
• are restrictive ----- are expansive
• are particular ----- are universal
• are controlling ----- are allowing
• focus on self ----- focus on others or Soul
• focus on destination ----- focus on process
• are exclusive ----- are inclusive
• are judging ----- are accepting
• are scattered ----- are focused
• are limited ----- are unlimited
• focus on material ----- focus on spiritual
• are reactive ----- are proactive
• are concrete ----- are abstract
• focus on past, future ----- focus on now
• deal with personality ----- concern Soul
• produce inertia ----- generate growth
• stuff in ----- draw out
• focus on quantity ----- focus on quality
• are selfish ----- are altruistic
• are superficial ----- are deep
• create resistance ----- create flow
• focus on lack ----- focus on abundance
• are static ----- are dynamic
• focus on me ----- focus on humanity
• create illusion ----- reveal truth
• focus on work ----- focus on service
• focus on mine ----- focus on God's
• use force ----- use power
• focus on effect ----- focus on cause
• take ----- give
• produce fear ----- experience love
• emphasize doing ----- emphasize being
"Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors
before."
-- Joseph Campbell

Impulses from God

A comment from segovius
Is it not a problem that every impulse is from God?

I have many impulses that it would quite surprise me if that were the case. It's a conundrum that is not so easily solved it seems to me

.My reply is that we would have to distinguish impulses from our reactive survival self and the impulses coming from the heart.

The survival self thinks in a heauristic fashion and thinks that it is rational but it usually not the case because this thinking is pretty much reactive and takes some shortcuts .



The languange of the heart or as the sufis say Kalam Al Batin is a much more subtle thinking that fuffills a higher purpose . It takes practice to distinguish between the two and it also takes practice to actually hear the voice calling from within.

A prayer of Hazrat Inayat Khan is:

Open my heart that I may hear thy voice calling to me from within.

Unless this channel is opened we hear but our hearing is distorted hence the distortion is then manifest in our distorted wants and needs .

A Longing for the Beloved for example may manifest as a seeking for the one true love, and this may come out as changing partners ever so often because the love one has found does not fit the ideal in one's mind...and this behaviour may one day cease when one realizes the Beloved is non other than God...then one is able to love the human beloved who is less than perfect.

Helwa and Naruto

These are 2 Shirazi kittens.
I ll post a picture of them when I can
Naruto disappeared yesterday evening. He wandered out of the house and when we noticed him missing , went to look for him, not a meow did we hear.
So we spent the night in prayer, Acik, Maryam Dayat and me.
My zikr was Lailahaillah Haq..and the prayer was that Naruto be safe and be returned ...
Next morning as I was doing my ablutions I heard a meow from the bathroom window. I heard it once and did not believe my ears and then I heard it again.
I rushed out , and Abang came in at the gate and said, there is Naruto in the scrubland beside the house..and he went to get Naruto.
Naruto is not himself today , he did not want to eat, his heart was pounding ..he seemed a bit dazed...
What happened to him?
We can only guess...

Seeking God

There are three ways of seeking God in the human heart. The first way is to care for every person with whom we come in contact, in our thought, speech, and action. Human personality is very delicate. The more living the heart the more sensitive it is; that which causes sensitivity is the love element in the heart, and love is God. The person whose heart is not sensitive is without feeling; his heart is not living, but dead. In that case the divine spirit is buried in his heart.

The next way of practicing this religion is to think of the feeling of the person who is not at the moment before us. One feels for a person who is present, but one often neglects to feel for someone who is out of sight. One speaks well of someone to his face, but if one speaks well of someone when he is absent, that is greater. One sympathizes with the trouble of someone who is before one at the moment, but it is greater to sympathize with one who is far away.

The third way of realizing the Sufi principle is to realize every impulse that rises in one's heart as a direction from God. Realizing that love is a divine spark in one's heart, one blows that spark until a flame may rise to illuminate the path of one's life.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life Purpose?

Everything starts with yourself -- with you making up your mind
 about what you're going to do with your life." -- Tony Dorsett

Prayers

Allah al Makhluk fi'l itikadat

Through your prayers,
God creates Himself through you.
hadith

Friend of God

The sign of the friend of God is that he has three qualities: a generosity like that of the ocean, a compassion like that of the sun, and a humility like that of the earth.

-Bayazid in 'Attar, "Tadhkirat"