Reynold A. Nicholson - The Voice within your Hearts

Deep in our hearts the Light of Heaven is shining
Upon a soundless Sea without a shore.
Oh, happy they who found it in resigning
The images of all that men adore.
Blind eyes, to dote on shadows of things fair
Only at last to curse their fatal lure,
Like Harut and Marut, that Angel-pair
Who deemed themselves the purest of the pure.
Our ignorance and self-will and vicious pride
Destroy the harmony of part and whole.
In vain we seek with lusts unmortified
A vision of the One Eternal Soul.
Love, Love alone can kill what seemed so dead,
The frozen snake of passion. Love alone,
By tearful prayer and fiery longing fed,
Reveals a knowledge schools have never known.
God’s lovers learn from Him the secret ways
Of Providence, the universal plan.
Living in Him, they ever sing His praise
Who made the myriad worlds of Time for Man.
Evil they knew not, for in Him there’s none;
Yet without evil how should good be seen?
Love answers: “Feel with me, with me be one;
Where I am nought stands up to come between.”
There are degrees of heavenly light in souls;
Prophets and Saints have shown the path they trod,
Its starting points and stages, halts and goals,
All leading to the single end in God.
Love will not let his faithful servants tire,
Immortal Beauty draws them on and on
From glory unto glory drawing nigher
At each remove and loving to be drawn.
When Truth shines out words fail and nothing tell;
Now hear the Voice within your hearts. Farewell.

1868-1945. Professor of Arabic. 

R.A. Nicholson was a scholar of both Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism, and widely regarded as one of the greatest scholars and translators of Rumi, the 13th-century Persian Sufi mystic.

Nicholson was born in Yorkshire and educated at Aberdeen and Cambridge.  He became a lecturer in the Persian language (1902-26) and Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge (1926-1933). He is considered to have been a leading scholar in Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism who exercised a lasting influence on Islamic studies.

His most influential books were the Literary History of The Arabs (1907), The Mystics of Islam (1914), and his exhaustive eight-volume work on Rumi's Masnavi.  He also translated Muhammad Iqbal's first philosophical Persian poetry book Asrar-i-Khudi into English as The Secrets of the Self.

Jennifer Welwood - Renuncation

There will always be voices that promise you greatness and glory:
They call out from the worldly marketplace;
They call out from the spiritual marketplace;
They call out from the fill-your-holes-marketplace;
They call out from the bigger-better-more marketplace.

Do not buy their false promises, or purchase their ephemeral wares;
What fulfills for a moment is not worth the price of your soul.
There are heights that will lift you, but not when you try to ascend them;
There are powers that will fill you, but not when you make them your own.
There are treasures, and there are imitations of treasures.
If you have lost your true gold, at least turn away from the glitter.

Want only what is true.
This will lead you to the well of your deepest sorrows.
Follow that passageway, all the way down;
Become the dark emptiness of your absent core.
Be still. Don’t measure the waiting.
Be still. Let the waiting become a fire.
Be still. Let the fire show you its secret heart:
A strand of clear light running through you.
Gather yourself there, and the luminous universe opens.
In that vast expanse, fathomless, infinite ocean of light,
Lose yourself, and find yourself, and become what you already are.

http://jenniferwelwood.com/ 

Hafiz - Not with wings

Here soar
Not with wings,



But with your moving hands and feet
And sweating brows--



Standing by your Beloved's side
Reaching out to comfort this world



With your cup of solace
Drawn from your vast reservoir of Truth.



Here soar
Not with your eyes and senses



That turn their backs
On the earth's sweet stumbling dance
Which needs you.



Here love, O here love,
With your mouth tender and open upon your lover,



And with your heart on duty
To the souls of rivers, children, forest animals,
All the shy feathered ones and laughing, jumping,
Shining fish.



O here, pilgrim, Love
On this holy battleground of life



Where there are bleeding men
Who are calling for a sacred drink,



A gentle word or touch from a man
Or God.



Hafiz, why just serve and play with angels?
They are already content.



Brew your knowledge well for men
With aching minds and guts,



And for those wayfarers who have gained
The rare courageous thirsts
That can never be relinquished
Until Union!



Hafiz,
Leave your recipes in golden drums.



Tie those barrels to the backs of camels
Who will keep circumambulating the worlds,



Giving nourishment
To all our tender wondrous spheres.



O here Love, O love right here.
Find your happiness, dear wayfarer,



With your beautiful lips and body
So sweetly opened,



Yielding their vital gifts upon
This magnificent
Earth. 

Ibn Ata’ Illah - How can you imagine ?

How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He is the One who is manifest by everything?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He is the One who is made manifest in everything?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He is the One who is manifest to everything?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He was the One who was Manifest before there was anything?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He is more manifest than anything?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He is the One with whom there is nothing else?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when He is the One who is nearer to you than anything?
How can you imagine that something else veils Him
when if it had not been for Him, there would not have been anything?

A marvel!
See how existence becomes manifest in non-existence!
How the in-time holds firm alongside Him whose attribute is eternal!

  from Ibn ‘Ata’ Illah the Book of Wisdom/Kwaja Abdullah Ansari Intimate Conversations, Translated by Victor Danner / Translated by Wheeler M. Thackston

A Sacred Riddle

Suddenly,
Like a shot,
Pitch black,
Silent as a tomb,
I am upright in bed.

I hear the Voice.
It speaks my name.

There is a calling to it,
As if to say,
Yes, lad, I’m talking to you,
So, wake up, sit up, and listen.

I’m listening.

It Speaks:
“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Silence again.
The darkness returns.
Just me, sitting there,
In bed.

Wait a second.
Did I say, returns?
Yes, there had been Light, too.
I hadn’t noticed until now,
Remembering, writing it down.

Instantly,
The familiar doubts arise.
Had I really seen a light?
Heard words?
There’s no such thing as lights,
Much less discarnate words.
Am I nuts?
Must have been a dream.

I feel the sheet between my fingers.
Across the room, the clock glows
Four eleven.
Around the corner,
The refrigerator hums,
Endlessly defrosting. Energy saver my foot.
This is no dream.

At my desk,
Flashlight in hand,
I write,
“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Upper case letters.
Had I heard them,
Or guessed them?
Never mind, what’s written
Is written.

Uh-oh, here they come again,
Mr. and Mrs. Doubt.
We’re back!
If there had been a voice,
Not to mention a Voice,
Why didn’t the four-legged one,
Asleep in her bed beside mine,
Awaken, and bark?

Point taken.
But what if,
The Voice
Is her Master’s voice, too?
No stranger, no bark.
Elementary, my dear Watson.

“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Think about it.
If there is you and me,
And one of us is infinite,
How can there be “you and me”?

If one of us is infinite,
There can’t be any one else.
There is no and in infinite,
No and and no else.
Just the infinite one.

Infinite isn’t some thing
And not another.
Infinite is infinite.
There, there are no others.
You name it,
Infinite is.

Take your pen,
A scrap of paper,
And draw, let’s say, a circle.
Label it “Infinite Being.”
Now, on the same scrap of paper,
Draw an other.
Any other.

Go on. Don’t just sit there.

Can’t be done, can it?
Infinite Being, being infinite,
Leaves no place to draw
Anything
Else!

”If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

Oh, sure, if pressed
I can answer that. Like —
You are, let’s say, God, and
I am, let’s say, me.
You create me, and
I worship You.
What’s the big deal.

But if
You Are Infinite
And if (big if)
I understand rightly what infinite is
Consider it from every angle
Contemplate its every implication
Imagine every possibility
Decipher every meaning
Up, down, back, forth,
I see
There’s no where left
For me.

I need space,
Like any tree,
In which to be.
A little time, too,
Would be nice.

But if
You Are Infinite
You’re already occupying
All the space
All the time
There is.
Leaving not so much as a microsite
For me.

And yet,
Clearly, I am here.
I touch my dog, and can feel her,
I touch this paper,
The desk, the chair,
And feel them.
Touching proves me.
Tango, ergo sum.

But if, once again,
You Are Infinite,
Then …
Who’s touching
Who’s feeling
Who’s Sum?

“If I Am Infinite, who are you?”

It’s a nasty riddle
You lay upon me
This dark and blessed morn.

Once asked, it must be solved.
But once solved,
There is no thing left.
A salt doll strolls into the ocean,
Never to emerge again.

The sun rises.
I release the pen.
The four-legged one, now awake,
Tail wagging,
“Let’s go out.”

Okay, I wonder,
If You Are Infinite,
Who’s my dog.

 

The Zoo Fence

Ulla AllU - One Voice!

art Parablev

 There are many speakers, only ONE voice.
Appearing separate and with a choice.

In the hall of mirrors the ONE stand,
Giving reflections of more than ONE brand.

Mistaken itself with more is Existences constant chore,
Yet, always ONE at the core.

In form through continuity,
Boundless divinity, formless in infinity,

Never born, never to die, Existence freely fly.

When in the stillness there are no pieces and chess.
Only ONEness in recess.

Embracing nothingness in its fold,
No formless or form to hold.

 http://www.beyondpoetry.com/

Mark McCloskey - Avoiding the Void

   Our problem may be very simple in life; we find that we must keep doing, thinking, going, listening, running, talking or else what shall we be? We love to be filled with noise, images, words, thoughts, memories, fantasies, sensations, people, pleasures and good feelings. When these things are not, we feel bored, alone, scared and quite possibly angry and confused. The brain needs input almost continuously. When there is a lack of input into these amazing computer-like brains our thoughts can fill in. We believe that these thoughts about self, about ego (the "I") are the reality and that there is nothing more. We know of this space in between the thoughts, the words, the actions, but it seems we pay it no heed or we do not want to look there. But what is it about this silent space inside that we do not wish to face, that we try to keep covered by any means.

   I would offer that in this silence is who we are. That means not only every memory of every moment of our lives, many of which we can not face a second time because they are too painful. But it also means our true being-ness is right there, able to be experienced in the stillness of a moment free from everything, from every thought.

If you have not figured it out yet, this silent awareness, this Pure Silence is always there in you despite the exterior noise, the thoughts, the memories and to recognize it all you need do is stop for one second all the exterior and interior garbage and relax into that stillness at the core of your being. This is that which has been called God itself! This is who you are, your True Self! This is the Nothingness which contains everything! And yet we seek to avoid this at all costs. We are always avoiding this void by hook and by crook. We need to fabricate, manipulate and do.
 

   All peace, all order, all sanity, all goodness, truth and love is right here in you in the Pure Silence that is beyond intellect, beyond will, beyond understanding. Just stop and listen with your soul. Everything is here. Everything is you.
 

You are that which is is-ness itself.

 Pure Silence 

Jeff Foster - Love's deeper commitment

art Rassouli

Let’s not commit to a future together. The future is so unknown, and we are so fluid, and tired of pretending that we know.
Our thoughts and feelings are ever-changing, uncontrollable, like a wild ocean of love.
Our desires wax and wane; our dreams are born and die in every moment.
Let’s not commit to a form of love. The forms are always shifting, like the tides.
We do not need security here. We are not seeking comfort, but Truth.
Let’s make a deeper commitment; one that cannot be broken or lost.
To presence. To meeting in the here-and-now.
To bringing all of ourselves. To knowing, and letting ourselves be known.
To telling the truth, today; knowing that our truth may change tomorrow.
To bowing before each other, even if our hearts are broken and tender.
No promises, no guarantees.
Loving takes courage! Yes!
For love is a field, not a form. Let us commit to the field, remember the field in every moment of our precious days on this Earth.
In ten years’ time, we may still be together. We may have children. We may live together, or live apart.
We may never see each other again. This may be our last day.
If we are honest, we really do not know; not knowing is our Home.
We may be friends, or lovers, or strangers, or family, or we may remain undefined, beyond narrative, our love unable to be captured in words.
Here at the edge of the known, on the line that once divided sanity from madness, and doubt from certainty, we play, we dance, we drink tea, we touch each other, we cry, we laugh, we meet.
We sacrifice comfort and predictability. But what we gain is astonishing: This tremendous sense of being alive. No longer numb to the mysteries of love, the mysteries of our bodies.
A little raw, perhaps. A little shaky. Maybe a little disoriented, but perhaps this is the price of being totally free.
Maybe an old part of us still seeks Mummy or Daddy, that Magic Person who will never leave, always be there, take away the loneliness repressed in our guts. Loving that frightened part too; bowing to that part too, but no longer being controlled by it.
And they will ask:
What about your future?
What happens if you have children?
How the hell do you define yourselves?
Why are you afraid of commitment?
Why do you run from security? Comfort? Future?
They will say you are crazy, or you don’t understand love, or you are lost, or you are unloving and selfish, and you will smile, and understand their fear, for their fear was once yours, and you cannot abandon your path now.
And nobody has to walk with you. Ever.
At some point, only Truth will satisfy. A living Truth, renewing itself each and every moment, the wild Truth of the open heart.
When Love and Truth are One, when the Commitment is deeply rooted in the breath, we can finally face each other without resentment, and explode into the most melancholy sunsets, held in the most profound joy.
Walking alone, together, alone.

 http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

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