Christmas Thoughts, From Rumi and Me

Christ is the population of the world

and every object as well.  There is no room

for hypocrisy.  Why use bitter soup for healing

when sweet water is everywhere?

(Rumi)

and from me:

As Christmas ends,

here on the other side of 12 21 12,

make change in the world, dear friends,

by being the Jesus in yourselves. . . 

wishing you a blessed holiday,

every single day.

And again, from Rumi:

Lovers think they're looking for each other,

but there's only one search: wandering 

this world is wandering that, both inside one

transparent sky.  In here

there is no dogma and no heresy.

The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did

about the future.  Forget the future.

I'd worship someone who could do that.

On the way you may want to look back, or not,

but if you can say There's nothing ahead,

there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes

with both hands.  The cure for pain is in the pain.

Good and bad are mixed.  If you don't have both,

you don't belong with us.

When one of us gets lost, is not here, he must be inside us.

There's no place like that anywhere in the world.

(Rumi - both translated by Coleman Barks)

(both photos taken at Cheestnut Ridge Park, 

in Orchard Park, New York)

return to the garden

(all photos by Makropoulos)

At the moment when the infamous residents

of the original Garden Eden

ate the apple, something happened:

the human brain began so quickly to grow, so

much so it began to rival

God's

.

And not knowing this new power they so quickly had in hand,

they panicked.

If they had not panicked so

A + E may have discovered,
far too early,
 the distinctive 

pleasure of mind, the intense

satisfaction one can gain

from imagining worlds.

Ultimately, they, both woman and man,

might have gotten lost

in their own individual revery.

Like two fools in front of a TV,

they would have climbed inside themselves

-- godlike, indeed, one and only --

and that would have been the end

of the human race,

before it even began.

But that was not the plan.

God had intended all along for woman

and man

to make manifest the many dimensions of Him/

Her/

(Whatever pronoun we must deploy

to speak of God.)

But if so early in the game

the human players got distracted,

it would be the end.

Amen.

So God, in Her infinite wisdom,

put an end to that:

He decided that humans, 

more than any other species,

would have the distinct ability

to take intense pleasure in the act

of coupling, and presto!

it worked. 

Man and wife produced

legions, and with that too came

                         jealousy

                         pride

                         leachory

                               treachory

                             and 

                         falsehood =

all the products of minds misused

and bodies abused, in the 

lusty quest for self stimulation.

But meanwhile we have reproduced

indeed, and invented History

(written by the few, not always the wise;

the wise, in solitude, advanced technology).

And here we are now 

at the crest of infinity.

In our spare time,

we have created a facsimile 

of God=Expansive Mind,

but in our limitations

and morbid manipulations

we cannot see

that God is with us

and in us

right now.

O man, listen to birdsong.

O woman, cease your labors.

The earth pulses with life;

we are her masters.

It is our responsibility to care for her

as it is our appointed duty.

In the word huma, hu represents spirit, and the word mah in Arabic means water.

In English the word "human" explains two facts which are characteristic of humanity:

hu means God and man means mind, which comes from the Sanskrit mana, mind being the ordinary person.

The two words united represent the idea of the God-conscious person; in other words, hu, God, is in all things and being, but it is man by whom He is known.  "Human" therefore may be said to mean God-conscious, God realized, or God-man.    from: The Music of Life, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

words have left me for awhile (what follows is a short poem from Rumi)

( larkcrafts )

Birdsong brings relief

to my longing.

I am just as ecstatic as they are,

but with nothing to say!

Please, universal soul, practice

some song, or something, through me!

(by: Rumi)

excerpt one: "The Sole Origin is Sound" by Hazrat Inayat Khan

"The life absolute from which has sprung all that is felt, seen, and perceived,

and into which all again merges in time,

is a silent, motionless, and eternal life . . . .

Ever motion that springs forth from this silent life is a vibration and a creator of vibrations.

As motion causes motion, so the silent life becomes active in a certain part

and creates every moment more and more activity,

losing thereby the peace of the original silent life.

It is the grade of activity of these vibrations that accounts for the various planes of existence.

These planes are imagined to differ from one another,

but in reality they cannot be entirely detached and made separate from one another.

The activity of vibrations makes them grosser,

and thus the earth is born of the heavens. . . . "

(from: The Music of Life by Inayat Khan)

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted (by Rumi, illustrations by Odilon Redon)

(  oceansbridge)

This place is a dream.

Only the sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.

Everything cruel and unconscious

done in the illusion of the present world,

all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,

and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,

all the quick, sexual wanting,

those torn coats of Joseph,

they change into powerful wolves 

that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes come now,

the swift, payback hit,

is just a boy's game

to what the other will be.

(this, and the above, from
artunframed )

And this groggy time we live,
this is what it's like:
                             A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living
in another town.
                    In the dream, he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believes
the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

artinthepicture

The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze.
But we are older than those cities.
                                 We began
as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life,
and into the animal state, and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring when we slightly recall
being green again.


venu

                     That's how a young person turns
toward a teacher.  That's how a baby leans
toward a breast, without knowing the secret
of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences,
and though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are.




canvaz

Guest House, by Rumi

( mocoloco )

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each as been sent

as a guide from beyond.

(unusual architecture )

(more to come from me, soon. . . .)

Excavating The Heart

( roadblues )

Just when you think

all its fields 

have been plundered,

all its valleys

have been rendered 

fallow, and all

it mountains stripped

of their precious hold,

you'll discover

there are hidden places there -- 

subtle coves, rich

with luscious, newborn

vegetation waiting for the sun.

The heart is a boundless planet,

regenerative and full,

waiting to reward you

if you treat it with respect and love.

Stand

at the threshold,

in the glittering priceless rubble

of memory, past happinesses, pains

and lost opportunities

and behold

the new vistas there.

Tred gently there,

speak softly, using

only words that mean

what they say,

and be silent

when the words are not enough.

Listen

to the heart's native tongue

that speaks in birdsong,

rustling leaves,

distant chimes,

and gentle surf.

Be still and allow

amazement.

( samuelatgilgal )

Birdsong From Inside The Egg, by Jal al-Din Rumi

( RowdyBlue's WonderBlog )

Sometimes a lover of God may faint

in the presence.  Then the beloved bends

and whispers in his ear, "Beggar, spread out

your robe.  I'll fill it with gold.

I've come to protect your consciousness.

Where has it gone?  Come back into awareness!"

This fainting is because

lovers want so much.

A chicken invites a camel into her henhouse,

and the whole structure is demolished.

A rabbit nestles down

with its eyes closed

in the arms of a lion.

There is an excess

in spiritual searching

that is profound ignorance.

Let the ignorance be our teacher!

The Friend breathes into one

who has no breath.

A deep silence revives the listening

and the speaking of those two 

who meet on the riverbank.

Like the ground turning green in a spring wind.

Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.

Like this universe coming into existence,

the lover wakes, and whirls

in a dancing joy,

then kneels down

in praise.

(Rumi)

(also from Rowdyblue )

SUMMER FEAST FOR THE SOUL: Being Spiritual in the Age of the Cyborg

( sk8rrbol )

There is a message

on this blog,

on which I am consistent,

and it is a message about change

-- the dramatic change that I do feel we are all facing --

and an appropriate way to face it.

Humanity is changing so rapidly

right now,

we're going crazy.

Reality is shifting faster

than I can type this posting,

and faster

than you can read it.

Technology is overtaking us;

we can do with technology now things that

our bodies could not do in a lifetime;

we can use technology

to fix our bodies. 

We are living in the age of the cyborg.

( danpankraz )

Furthermore,
we are in
The Age of The Grid:

this is

a time when we can all be

in the same place, at the same time:

the same place,

(as long as we redefine "place"

as where we are in our minds)

at the same time.

Bottom line.

You know it and I know it.

People can play in Second Life

with folks on the other side of the world,

just as long as we agree to be there

at the same time;

people can blog about the problems they have

with their cars

as long as they agree to be on a car blog

at the same time;

people can do a number of things,

both licit and illicit,

with strangers,

all at the same time,

if we all agree to be here at the same time.

All you have to do is make sure you turn on your computer

at the same time I do, 

and I'm there,  as are you

along with

 several other hundreds of thousands of people

in the world.

Therefore,

the internet could be used

to unite humans

under one purpose--

All we'd have to do

is agree

to turn it on

and let it dictate where our mind is at

at the same time.

And humanity would be joined

in one spirit,

in whatever spirit

the people who commandeer the computers

put us in.

Isn't that funky?

Isn't that scary and wonderful?

This would be most wonderful if the spirit

we joined in were to be one

of cooperation and love.

This would also be wonderful if the spirit

we joined in were to be one

of spiritual growth and harmony.

Crazy right?

Well, here's a link to a group that is trying to do

precisely that:

I'm going to do it.

How about you?

Body and Soul

(fatherdavidbirdosb)

"You don't have a soul; you are a soul.

You have a body."

C. S. Lewis

I was at a religious service this morning

that was wholly based upon the above quote.

And I can't agree with it more.

And I just had to post it here.

Those of you who have waded through

some of my past entries, may recall what I've said about our bodies

as our avatars, in the very same sense that humans slipped into other wordly

skin in the film Avatar.  

And that is, 

fundamentally,

what Lewis is saying above.

Specifically, it reminds me of something that I,

Makropoulos,

wrote in a much earlier entry on Second Life:

"You see, I feel that I'm already

in an avatar. 

This body,

I live in,

is my earthly

avatar,

it's the form I chose

to use for 

this stretch of time

on this earthly domain.

I have enough trouble,

and enough fun,

negotiating this earthly

avatar,

why the hell would I need another?"

(Who Needs A Second Life?)

 And I really believe this is true.

We are spiritual essences,

sent to spend a little time

in the material domain.

We're sort of sent on a mission,

the same way the humans were sent on missions

in the film Avatar.

This is why I thought that film

was pretty fabulous,

but also pretty funny,

because it had humans

getting into another form

so they could return to the garden,

so to speak. 

(I write about that elsewhere, too.  Please follow links

to the word "avatar" on the side or below

if you want to see more

of my rambling thoughts

on this.)

The humour of it all is two-fold:

#1: I really believe we are already in avatars,  Our avatar

is a human body.  My cat's avatar is a feline body.  But we are all 

part of the same shared spirit that is our origin.  (So why the hell put on 

another avatar, if you're already in one?)

#2:  Notably, when we were put into these human avatars,

we were already in The Garden. The problem is:

we got caught up in thinking that The Garden,

and Our Bodies (aka: Avatars) constitute Everything,

when in fact they're just constituents of a Larger Whole

(that no human could perceive.)  But of course

we as Humans

have fucked up our Earthly Paradise so much

thinking that we were the Be-All and End-All,

and so now we make movies about 

putting on primitive avatars

so we can live in The Garden,

again.

 ~ ~

"You don't have a soul; you are a soul.

You have a body."

C. S. Lewis

 

~ ~

At church (OK, yes, it was a church,

to be specific:

a Unitarian Universalist Church

)

this morning,

they welcomed a new child

into the assembly.

Now, as a 425 year old Greek Woman;

I was raised in a Christian Tradition,

being born into the Orthodox --

I have moved around,

from country to country,

and in each one, sought the Church

where I could celebrate my personal beliefs

publically, and comfortably:

I was only Orthodox until I discovered the Jesuits,

and then I had to become Roman.

I longed to be

a Jesuit Priest.

No, not a nun,

a priest.  I could tolerate not being able to marry

if I could think the thoughts of a priest.

When I told any Jesuit Priest my desires, they would always draw away in fear)

I was Roman Catholic for Centuries.

Then I married an Englishman and went Anglican;

then I lived in Turkey and contemplated Islam.

It did not frighten me.

In many ways, the study of Kabbalah and the Sufi tradition best

acknowledge my personal beliefs.

But for now, I'm trying Unitarianism,

occasionally visiting a Sufi group

nearby --)

Today, I witnessed for the second time only,

a Unitarian "baptism"

Yes, they use water,

but not in any startling way:

the Minister holds a white rose,

and presents it to the child

before dipping it into the water,

and touching it to the child's head.

Today,

as the Minister held the rose

out towards the baby boy,

the child reached out,

and grabbed the stem of the rose firmly.

He clearly knew it was for him.

And the Minister,

wisely,

said: "may you grab every opportunity life gives you

with equal energy and certainty."

And I thought:

that Child will, for

that Child's will 

is ingrained in

his Soul (Soul aka; Spiritual Essence),

that Substance that Combined

and entered

His Chubby Fleshy Avatar

is a bold one.

That is who he is.

Which reminded me

of another belief

that I firmly hold:

we are each our Essential Self

at the time of our birth,

and as children,

we act out our truthfulness

in every gesture and sound we make.

It is the Process

of becoming part of society

that messes us up,

beginning

with loving,

with parenting,

then schooling,

then friending,

then loving,

then working,

then hating,

then mating, 

then loving,

then reproducing,

then loving,

then playing,

then aging.

The soul inside of you,

the Spiritual Essence that is 

the Real You

(not to be confused with your body,

which is rather randomly chosen)

is the child in you.

And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (The Bible. Matthew 18:3 ).New Living Translation (©2007)

The Child in Me is Gentle;

the Child

in Me is Quiet

and Kind.

I had not encountered her

for a long time,

until a few years ago,

when I fell

childishly in love

with a man who

 appeared to do the same

with me.

But it was

a beautiful love

partly because it helped me rediscover

the Child in Me; I was

wholly and fully

myself

with him,

and I could not figure out

why I hadn't found My Inner Child before,

since I'd been there all along.

It was the simplest thing in the world,

yet it was the hardest.  Because society

would belittle, and does belittle, the 

Common Sense of The Child.

But in fact, 

the Common Sense of The Child

is equal to

the Common Sense of the Essential Spirit.

So,

to return to one's childishness

is to return

to one's Essential Self,

the Self

we were meant to be

in The Garden,

before we went and messed it all up.

 ( dailymail )

It's that easy:

find the Child in You,

and be True 

to it.

But it's also very very hard:

for to find 

The Child in You,

you must be able to distinguish Who

You were before

a parent first called you "stupid"

or told you not to pick your nose,

or reprimanded you for talking to loud,

or for chewing with your mouth

open.

That's right:

you must find the You

you were before

someone broke your heart the first time,

or lied to you,

or yelled at you for picking their flowers,

or raped you

or beat you

or didn't feed you

or locked you in a room.

I found my Essential Me,

My Child,

and Shared My Childish Love

with one who I thought felt the same

in return.

Unfortunately,

my lover

grew jealous and angry

and worked very hard

to hurt Me,

and succeeded.

(Yes, he acted like a child.)

And now my Child cowers

behind a door in my Heart,

afraid to come out again.

Any human who has had that experience

I describe above

has trouble finding their Child;

and if Your Child 

has been hurt many many times,

it is hiding even deeper inside of you

as a child would do.

But it's still there.

(And don't forget--

this Child is the Essential You,

the Spiritual You

that moved into your body

at birth)

Am I still angry at my lover?

No.

Only hurt.

Deeply hurt.

I don't blame him,

because I really believe

that the only way his 

Inner Child could Justify

hurting another Child

would be because he was

hurt so so much as a child.

He was abused

as no child should have been 

abused,

and in his knowledge

that the abuse he received

was unjustified, he feels a need

to impose it on Other Children,

so he won't feel so much

like a freak.

But he's not a freak.

He's a Child; he's a sad sad spirit

whose fate in this lifetime

was to live in an avatar

that others abuse

continually.

I don't blame him;

I can only love him

still,

and pray for him,

and hope his Inner Child

was not hurt so badly

that it is eternally lost to itself. 

"You don't have a soul; you are a soul.

You have a body."

C. S. Lewis

Dvinity and the Diva in You

aspireauctions

Divinity is the 

                                  imperfection of God;

but it is still the

                              perfection of man.

(Hazrat Inayat Khan The Unity of Religious Ideals, page 119)

Divinity, according to Hazrat Inayat Khan,

is "God personified"

Divinity is the physical manifestaion

of the divine idea

held within the mind

of every man and woman.

"Divinity is reduced God and enlarged man."

Divinity in this equation is

the intersection point,

the intermediary, 

between God and humanity.

Divinity is of God but it is not God.

layoutsparks

God is total

unutterable

all,

inconceivable

in words,

capable of conceiving us,

but we

are not capable of conceiving g-d.

The Divine is our route,

it is the nearest we can get

to conceiving the unknown and unknowable

g-d.

The Divine

is God Captive

in the Realm of Humans;

it is the seed planted and engendered there,

by the spark within each of us,

and when we open

our hearts

our mouths

our wombs

to produce our understanding of the 

divine,

we produce

divinity.

In reality, divinity is

the expansion of the human soul;

divinity is human nature

in God. . . . (Inayat Khan, p. 116)

umich/limitedforkatlas

Thus, there are as many deities as there are

perceptions of the divine.

And that is why

we should not,

we must not

chastise another,

              if her

              or his

divinity looks different from our own.

We are all responding to the same compulsion

to represent something sacred,

we who seek the divine are all listening

to the diva inside of us.

ourscience

Each human carries the seed

of divinity within --

Some religious authorities have tried to recognize the divinity

of Christ while ignoring the divinity of humanity.  They

have tried to make Christ different from what

may be called human; but by doing so they have not been able to keep

the flame alight, for they have covered the main truth that religion

had to give to the world, which was that divinity resides in humanity,

that divinity is the outcome of humanity, and that

humanity is the flower in the heart of which

divinity was born as a seed.

 (Inayat Khan p. 118)

-- I fear these words as much as I see the absolute sense in them.

I know some people may read them and immediately

leave this blog and never return.

That's the risk I take

when I write these nutty entries.

And yet, I write these words here, these words that indicate both

the absolute humanness of Jesus

(who was also divine)

and the potential divinity

of each human.

And it is true.

When Jesus said that the only way to salvation 

is through him,

he didn't mean to deify him,

he meant to work

through him,

through the metaphor he offers

in the script he provided.

It is important to note

right now

that Jesus never wrote down words.

He acted.

His script was one of deed;

it shows us how we all should

act and do if we intend

to embody the divine that dwells

in each of us.

Do not worship Jesus,

worship is a passive act.

Rather,

if you find his story to be a story

that fits your perception of divinity,

well, then,

imitate him,

walk in his shoes,

for the argument Jesus poses

is the most convincing argument

for the end of violence.

Notably,

(and I've said this a few times already)

in our current world

people who do take Jesus' words and actions

literally and live then literally

suffer one of two fates:

* we kill those people, perceiving them to be dangerous

* we chastise and alienate those people, condemning them as ignorant.

The time has come

it is now

to stop killing and chastising

the lovers of peace and truth;

the time has come

to join them.

I am not lying.

I never lie.

We have had our second chances.

The time is now.

My charge is clear; my message, simple:

if we could all just stop this bullshit

and find the divine within ourselves,

and embody that divine, then

without a doubt,

Jesus would come

Jesus would be here.

In that sense, one may call man

a miniature God, and 

it is the development of humanity

which culminates in divinity; thus

Christ is the example of the culmination of humanity

(Inayat-Khan, p. 119)

bobtowery

my worst habit (two poems by Rumi)

( gamesandwallpapers )

My worst habit is I get so tired of winter

I become a torture to those I'm with.

If you're not here, nothing grows.

I lack clarity.  My words

tangle and knot up.

How to cure bad water?  Send it back to the river.

How to cure bad habits?  Send me back to you.

When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools,

dig a way out through the bottom

to the ocean.  There is a secret medicine

given only to those who hurt so hard

they can't hope.

The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.

Look as long as you can at the friend you love

no matter whether that friend is moving away from you

or coming back towards you.

~  ~ ~

( hickerphotography )

Pale sunlight,

pale the wall.

Love moves away.

The light changes.

I need more grace

than I thought.

(Jelaluddin Rumi 1207 - 1273

translated by Coleman Barks)

Rumi on Jesus, part I

~ * ~

Christ is the population of the world,

and every object as well. There is no room

for hypocrisy.  Why use bitter soup for healing

when sweet water is everywhere?

~*~

Another Trinity -- from "God the Infinite" by Hazrat Inayat Khan

(photo by Makropoulos)

". . . the Spirit of God is incomprehensibe

because that which comprehends itself

is intelligence, God's real being;

and comprehension has nothing to comprehend 

in its own being.  No doubt, in our usual terms

it is the comprehending faculty in us which we call

comprehension; but this is not meant here, for intelligence

is not necessarily intellect.  Merit is something which is comprehensible;

it is something which is clear and distinct, so that it can be made

intelligible; but intelligence is not intelligible except

to its own self.  Intelligence knows that I am; 

but it does not know what I am.

"Such is the nature of God.  Intelligence would not have knows its own power

and existence if it had not known something besides itself,

so God knows Himself by manifestation.  Manifestation

is the self of God, but a self which is limited, a self

that makes Him know that He is perfect when He compares

His own Being with the limited self which we call nature.

Therefore the purpose of the whole of creation is the realization

which God Himself gains by discovering His own perfection

through his manifestation.

"Among Christian ideas there is one which, if we can solve its riddle,

helps us to discover the truth of life.  It is the idea of the Trinity.

What keeps the soul in perplexity is the threefold aspect

of manifestation, and as long as the soul remains puzzled

by this, it cannot arrive at the knowledge of the One.

These three aspects are the seer, sight, and the seen;

the knower, knowledge and the known.

In point of fact, these are the three aspects of life.

One aspect is the person who sees; 

the second aspect is the sight, or the eyes,

by the help of which he sees; 

and the third aspect is that which he sees.

That is why one cannot readily accept the idea

that what one sees is the same as oneself,

nor can one believe for a moment that the medium

by which one sees is oneself, for these three aspects

seem to be separate and to be looking at one another's faces,

as the first person, second person, and third person

of Brahma.

"When this riddle is solved by the realization that the three are one,

then the purpose of the God-ideal is fulfilled. . . . "

(from: The Unity of Religious Ideals,

by Hazrat Inayat Khan)

(If you have time, read this alongside

some of my entries about 

the Creation,

the Palindrome,

and God's Desire

to See Himself)

thank you for reading 

this blog--