To embody patience is, at the least, to show no haste in matters that require time. This requires a presence that is fully in the moment and, simultaneously, outside of time. Only in this way can we give each thing its proper time. But the mental awareness alone is not sufficient to induce a holy patience. Something else is required—a sense of the Divine Presence.
Recording of weekly sohbet with Shaikh Kabir and Camille Helminski.
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Imagine yourself standing with millions of other human beings at Arafat, stripped-down to bare essentials, wearing a simple sheet of white cloth, all distinctions of wealth, position, and national identity erased. All you have is the sum of your life's thoughts, feelings, and deeds, the net result of your relationships, your loves and hates—all these things that have shaped your soul, what you are. The people on Hajj are experiencing that today. We all will experience it one day, on the day of conscious recognition.
Most of us spend a lot of time each day trying to meet our responsibilities, doing the work we have to do, keeping up the communications we have to keep up. We ask questions like “Am I doing my job right?” “Am I fulfilling my responsibilities?” “Am I doing my work as well as I should/could do it?” This is the focus of much of our everyday consciousness. But Mevlana takes us far beyond our everyday concerns by putting them into a perspective that’s quite shockingly different from the way we often see things. What’s shockingly different is that upon entering that dimension, that Reality, all the questions are answered and put into the perspective of trust and faith. We can even say a kind of bliss results.
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As our spiritual awareness grows so does our awareness of our own limitations and helplessness, yet we must not allow that awareness to separate us from God. The advice of the Qur'an, Ibn Abada, Rumi and all the saints of this path is that our primary jihad (struggle) is to remember God, to trust God, to call God's presence and see God as our companion in all our states -- in our weakness and in our strength. That becomes our abiding awareness of the Mercy that is the essential characteristic of the universe and will not leave us in a state of helplessness forever.
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This theme is an advanced teaching. It presumes that we have to some extent developed a healthy capacity for will. By will we mean the capacity to choose consciously; and will power is the capacity to follow through on what we have consciously chosen. Only then can we glimpse the meaning of “Claim nothing, let the Divine do.” A healthy will is a will that more often than not chooses what is good for the soul and is independent of the whims and desires of the lower self. It is at this stage that this theme becomes applicable.
The key points on the project of spiritual development describe a dynamic, very complete process that takes in every aspect of life. Times and human conditions continue to change. Today we live in a world where more choices and possibilities are presented to human beings than ever before. This requires us to find some realistic and appropriate form of spirituality so we can go deep and be liberated from that from which we need to be liberated.
The first steps in this process may be intellectual. However, we must never forget that Reality or Truth is beyond anything we can say or formulate, and yet as human beings we can realize ourselves more completely if our ideas are in harmony with our possibilities. It may not be possible or necessary to say what Absolute Truth is, but truth for the human being is something like this: We are integral to the Truth not separate. Not a mere part, but integral. And we can experientially realize this.
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Audio recording of the community conference call held on Jul 31, 2011.
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Ramadan has so many dimensions: purification, sacrifice, community, the still and subtle emptiness of the heart. It reorients us in so many ways. Ramadan is less something that we do—instead it is a force field we enter and are transformed by. But it does take intention and effort on our part. If we can, we participate in the fast. Perhaps we also find other intentions, new aspects of awareness that become part of this sacred time. I’d like to share something I’ve learned.
The Poetry of Rumi read by Kabir & Camille with great Sufi musicians from California, Iran, and Turkey. CD $15 Call 831-685-3995 or order online