"Maya"—a Love Letter, about Loss

Excerpt from the letter "Loss", sent to my ever-fearful but brave Love:

My dear man:

Thank you for not dismissing any of my thoughts, questions, and even half-baked oddities... for honoring my concerns, and for giving me straight, honest responses when that's all I need.

You are such a beautiful soul. A Sufi (authentic one) would have a field day with you. You see, as you guessed, being a Sufi Muslim does help me in many ways, as the "Sufi way" is to learn all about these intricacies of the self -- its highs & lows, its conflicts & contradictions, its changes & growth -- in short it's a path of self-knowledge. 

...

Not all Sufis use the same method to understand the truth of the human condition. Hence there are different "methods" -- distinct by their name & character. Interestingly my particular method (aka "tariqa" -- the Arabic term for "method") contemplates this reality of "loss". 

This is exactly what the conclusion is: "Loss is guaranteed."

Indeed, life is seen as a process of incremental, inevitable loss. Therefore, here's the only choice: At the moment of (often, inevitably sudden) loss, are you ready to give it all up? Because it doesn't matter even if you're ready. You're going to lose it all.

Ah, at this moment, I must share with you a beautiful 3-second long dream I saw some ten days earlier: I'm standing at a wide, endless road. Suddenly a fog occurs, thickens, and envelops me. I realize if it builds up, it will "take my breath away". I shall die.

It does, and I feel a helpless joy. My body shrivels, my breath is inevitably drawn out, and I fall like an ecstatic rag doll somewhere in this cloud-of-a fog.... happy that I'm going so quickly and won't have to do anything about it....

Never found out if I died completely, I woke up as I fell in the world's shortest dream. 

I had an incredibly good feeling. Death in a dream is good omen (for a Sufi, anyway). One, it means something significant has changed in our lives for the better. Two, we are closer to being ready -- for change, even for the big, accidental moment.

...

I wasn't all so joyful all my life. Even as a child, I'd step out of a house festivity or a gathering of friends and just contemplate on how this, too, shall end. Sometimes I cried at those times. Mostly, I turned to the sky or a garden if one were near, and just reflect upon nature. How everything goes on... and yet stays put in an essential way....

Oh! Just occurs to me! Have you read Jostein Gaarder's novel "Maya"? It's a translated work and hence not the world's most fluent read. But perhaps I hadn't understood its sometimes bizarre theme. Read it years ago.

Dear, the meaning of that work unfolded over the years. It is the story of Frank, an anthropologist (?) estranged from his wife Ana after the unbearable death of their only child. As the millennium turns, Frank wonders if he'll ever love and have a child again? Realizing that it took millions of years for this planet to produce him, he wonders if all those years of history he contained shall go with him....

"Maya" is a beautiful piece of work. Perhaps a good read for you.

...

With love and a smile,
_R

Sent: April 06, 2009

The Celestine Prophecy

Excerpt from a letter, 'The Celestine Prophecy', sent to my Beloved:

"I see, in my vision, an open field. In that field, people come from a 100 dimensions. Some come from this or that territory; others come from this or that faith; others, still, from generations. All are welcome.

It is the inevitable future of humankind, and it's shaping right under our very noses. The evidence is mounting.

My darling, as a person who has chosen to take responsibility to enlighten others about her, I have a tough battle at the moment. I am at once betraying the darkness, and I do not feel welcome anywhere. I have no home, having stepped out of my old home.

But that is the choice. It is inevitable. I will get through this phase. Millions of others in a similar place have got through, millions still getting through...
My darling, love will prevail in the end. For now, that may be all that we need to believe in."

—Her

Dated: March 22, 2010; 12:05 AM

Art: Summer Solstice, by Laurie Pace

Discourse: Virtue Is Not a Dependent Variable, Nor Is The Self

Virtue is the Master of creation, not its production. Virtue originates as a decision within the Self, and it is not dependent on outward circumstance or creation. Nor is it selectively applied (towards things we like or dislike). Virtue that is a dependent variable (on what the Other is doing or receiving or goving back) is not virtue at all—it is a self-serving transaction and wickedness. (I.e. I will do good to you only if you behave in ways pleasant or favorable to me, otherwise I will punish you or the rest of existence for feeling 'screwed'.)*

Self is the origin and the Master of Virtue: it decides whether or not to be virtuous. The resources for being virtuous are plenty inside a human being. The task is the recognition of that inner resourcefulness, that fulfillment. It is both a matter of gratitude, and beyond that, a Trust that neither grasps nor can be grasped. In other words, it does not even require counting one's blessing for one is already blessed by having existed at all. This existing is the marvel, and there is no word sufficient for grasping, explaining, and thanking that. How could the Self thank the Self enough or at all?

The Origin is a point of rest from which all creation has emerged.

Man forgets that he is the source of all creation that he senses, perceives and experiences. Therefore Allah 'reminds' him of his original truth and condition. This Remembrance cannot really be acted upon or altered—it can only be known, felt, experienced. This is a point of Assurance for Man. This is our Sustenance.

That Which neither sleeps nor blinks an eye supports us at the deepest level; and this is what allows our tiny bodies to rise upwards against the tremendous gravitational force of the Earth in the first place. Have we calculated the mathematical odds of this defiance?

Virtue is therefore not a transaction with creation. "I'll be good to you if you're good to me, and I will get after your life if I don't like you for some reason" is not ethic, virtue or morality—it is meanness, selfishness, wickedness.

Virtue is the decision of a Self that is free at the point of its origin, and by transacting virtuously with the creation, the Self buys its ticket for outward freedom in the manifest world.

The Tree of Virtue is already planted in the heart of Man, for the core of Man's heart is a Virtuous Self, and all we need to do is to let that Tree sprout, and nurture it with good/right deeds and remembrance.

And Allah knows best.

– –
* Of course that does not mean we do not need to take steps towards liberation. We need help, nourishing, encouragement, support, training, guidance and tough love in order to become more fuller humans.

~

rn

Saturday, January 04, 2013
Karimabad, Hunza Valley

Discourse: Virtue Is An Inner Quality, Displaying Outwardly

Virtue isn't about being a nice person, or a 'yes man' to holy-sounding things while not putting them into consideration or practice. You don't need to say holy things even, if you are doing the right thing in practice—for correct outward practice is an indication of inward correctness and beauty. (Hence, "They are known by their signs.") 

Virtue is both an outer doing, and an inner quality.

The inner quality produces the outer quality.

You go to a neighborhood and they keep their streets filthy, and you go to another, and they keep them clean with flowers blooming, water sabeels for the thirsty, and places for unknown travelers to sit. 

What is the difference? 

Too often, we are led to believe it's money. Or some form of, "If only we had more". That is quite the opposite of truth: Money may facilitate some displays of virtue, but it is absolutely not needed. A poor man can be virtuous with whatever little he has, and Allah brings barakah (multi-flowing growth) to his/her deeds. Secondly, having lesser often enables greater virtue, for it enables a greater and more precise quality of attention—which is closely related to manifesting virtue in 3D reality (ie expressing the virtue that is sitting within). Having more is often disabling to virtuous expression and quality. That is because virtue is an inside-out quality; and the manifest law of nature is that things grow from smaller to larger (before shrinking back to death), and creation grows outwards from a central point—the example of which is the life and shape of a tree. Branches don't put together a trunk, a trunk yields branches that often grow beyond it. Starting from a smaller place and with lesser outward means may enable more virtue than otherwise.

Above all, virtue is an act of will, and outward resources are not required to CREATE will, they are the PRODUCT of it. When virtue requires resources for its expression, outward resources gather to facilitate its emergence.

As for whether virtue is a necessary quality for outward living, or whether it is just an activity as optional as a game of cards or Monopoly?

Yes, indeed. Virtue is required, it is needed. We would not have food to eat and roads to drive on if Virtue disappears. What would happen if a building contractor built a bridge without the quality of virtue involved in the enterprise? They may build a flimsy bridge, which will one day accidentally take lives and cost money—two things we are very concerned about in the outer world.

What is the difference between a 'good' sweeper and gardener, and one with lesser work quality? It is virtue—and its twin sister, virtuosity, the ability to do things beautifully, which is in itself a product of inner goodness and quality of deification and attention. The sweeper, or their cleaning equipment, or the structure of their work and duty, may have virtue or lack it. This will directly affect the quality of work produced outside.

In fact you can trace all economic and technical  and educational and such 'infrastructural' qualities back to the quality of human virtue that had in turn produced those technological or economic or educational or political or environmental condition.

The root cause is therefore Virtue, and it has a very real and direct impact on the physical world outside. The quality of outside existence, in as far as existence is under human rule and management, is a direct product of human virtue's quality.

~

Ramla Akhtar-Neuhaus

10:15 pm

Thursday, January 02, 2014

Sitting listening to music being played overhead

Dining Hall, Old Hunza Inn

Karimabad, Hunza Valley

The Cultivation of Self

Whatever seed you sow in your spirit now will later become your 'call'. Put another way, your spirit calls you *now* to fulfill a promise or commitment you'd made earlier. All your calls were planted in you once upon a time. You may have been too small to even know or remember. You may have been a toddler. You may even have been in pre-eternity; which is to say, you were not even born. The 'call' was planted by an ancestor.

But this is not the only source of your call. Our Source runs deeper than our immediate person, family, or self. Sometimes the Root of the Root calls, and we hear its call traveling all the way up the tree of life, to the bud or branch that we are.
~

rn 

Sunday, December 02, 2012

Art by Vincent Van Gogh

Short Discourse: Virtue Is The Ground the Self Stands On

The physical body may walk on Earth, but the inner human walks on the floor of right deeds and character, increasingly cemented and matured. This inner construction forms the true and lasting story of our lives.

Likewise, the economies and societies of the world outside may be formed on ideals, aspirations and charters, but what really matters and manifests and 'lasts' (until it, too, passes) is the slow work of a careful and deliberate hand. Societies that have built their fabric up naturally and thoughtfully flourish. Other systems eventually burst and collapse. 

This is what I know to be Real.

~

rn

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

You Are The Map Of Your Life

If only you do what matters to you will your life ever be sensible. You are the map and scheme of what your life ought to be, and what it must look like. If you feel lost, angry, hazarded, dull, over-excited... you are going by someone else's instruction, someone else's map. (That 'someone else' can be the over-culture, or an idea.) When you live by your own code, above all, you feel comfortable with yourself. Even your trouble and strife makes sense.
~

rn 

Tuesday, December 04, 2012