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Let nothing be inside of you.
Be empty: give your lips to the lips of the reed.
When like a reed you fill with His breath,
Then you’ll taste sweetness.
[The Pocket Rumi, trans. Nevit Ergin with Camille Helminski]
How might we consider fasting a meditation of the body? In our muraqaba (meditation) practice we cultivate a quiet, sensitive inner state that facilitates presence and connectedness. Fasting adds the bodily dimension and extends the practice into the social fabric of our worldly life. Sometimes this brings additional challenges. Since the physical realm is subject to the constraints of time and materiality, when we fast we may notice more acutely the grip of outer worldly concerns, including the prevalence of aggression, impatience, doubt and despair in today’s humanity.
When emotions and thoughts arise and recede during muraqaba practice, we return to the center of our being and prepare yet again to be present and to bear witness. When we fast, we face specific struggles that often manifest as discomfort, obsession, appetites, negativity and sometimes importune behavior. With both practices, we learn to make internal course corrections to respond gracefully to episodes of heedlessness. And with a sincere appeal to God’s Mercy, astaghfirullah, we begin our reset.
Mevlana illustrates the core struggle the seeker faces as intention and will are pulled in a contrary direction by the bonds of the worldly attachment. Here Majnun and his camel pursue cross purposes, and Majnun’s journey is delayed:
If Majnún forgot himself for one moment, the she-camel would turn and go back…
The spirit, because of separation from the highest Heaven, is in a [great] want; the body, on account of passion for the thorn-shrub [of sensual pleasure], is like a she-camel.
The spirit unfolds its wings [to fly] upwards; the body has stuck its claws in the earth.
“So long as thou art with me, O thou who art mortally enamored of thy home, then my spirit will remain far from Laylá.”
[Mathnawi IV: 1535, 1545-47, trans. R. A. Nicholson]
Every time Majnun drifts off, the camel turns around and heads back to the stable. Once he comprehends this and acknowledges the camel’s nature, Majnun dismounts in exasperation, determined to part ways with his mount. But he injures himself, and ultimately, he surrenders fully to his Rabb, his Lord. Mevlana symbolically depicts him as having become a unitary sphere, rolling and at God’s service:
How should love for the Lord be inferior to love for Laylá? To become a ball for His sake is more worthy.
Become a ball, turn on the side which is sincerity, [and go] rolling, rolling in the curve of the bat of Love,
For henceforth this journey is [accomplished by means of] the pull of God, while that former journey on the she-camel is our progression [made by our own efforts].
[Mathnawi IV: 1557–59, trans. R. A. Nicholson]
The passage suggests an inflection point where effort and will are eclipsed, where that former journey gives way to the realm of intimacy, and the pull of God is acknowledged. If we get a taste of this higher level, where self-interest and personal agendas subside, our understanding of intention and will may never be the same.
This Ramadan, with so much duress and suffering across the world, I’m exploring aspects of the practice in different public settings, including at work and while commuting. My narrow aim is to cultivate spiritual perception, which of course is not really the result of effort. But the practice is humbling out in the rough and tumble world, and an opportunity to repeatedly "get back on the horse." Recently, while riding the train home from work in Oakland, I slowed my breath and refocused my gaze, peering across what in this case was a noisy and rowdy cross section of humanity. I asked to be shown possible examples of nafs-i mutma’inna, the Essential Self. And in time, in that golden late-afternoon sunlight, I did notice several younger and older people whose thoughtful, peaceful faces appeared to reflect a quality of the Beloved. Despite all the commotion in the train car, there was a threadlike quality of serenity and reverence.
For the sake of God Alone seems important and integral to intention-setting, a ladder leading out of the well of self-interest. Even if this is challenging as a concept and an awkward translation, it is familiar advice from the teachings of the saints. The saying is a reminder that we can shift our frame of reference, as we do casually when we say, “Mash’allah,” or, “Insh’allah.” A finger pointing to the heavens.
Practicing with intention and will, and cultivating sincerity can help us draw closer to the Beloved. Observing the fast in the best way feasible creates a time of enhanced possibilities, in part because it reconnects us to natural phenomena and cycles of time. We witness the glorious arrival and departure of sunlight, or perhaps behold the moon as it travels in its phases across the night sky, and we can listen more to exquisite Qur’an recitation. Enhanced spiritual perception may also help us observe and consider the long reach of our own shadow, and guide us back into the light. And when we dedicate our practice for the sake of God alone, we may receive spiritual nourishment consciously.
Over and above the food you eat to maintain yourself physically, there is another food, as the Prophet said: “I spend the night with my Lord, and He feeds me and gives me drink.” In this world you have forgotten that other food and occupied yourself with the food of this world.
[Fihi ma Fihi, Discourse 4, from Signs of the Unseen, trans. Wheeler Thackston]
~ Zakiuddin McNulty has been a student of Sufism for more than 30 years. He lives in Fremont California, works at an energy efficiency consultancy, and leads the Bay Area Threshold circle.
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