Tuesday, December 28, 2010

"There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world;

there is only the comparison of one state with another.

Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.

It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....

the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope."

Non- Mahram

Imam Muslim narrates from Jarir ibn Abdullah (Allah be pleased with him) who says:

”Iasked Allah's Messenger about the sudden glance on a Non - Mahram. He commanded me that I should turn away my eyes.

Imam al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim narrate in their Sahih from Uqba ibn Amir (Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah said:

“Do not go near [non-Mahram] women.” A person inquired: “What about in-laws?” The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) responded, “The in-laws are death.”
The least likely of your sincere falsehoods is your words: ‘I am a Sufi!’

Contention - Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad :)

Sunday, December 26, 2010

"A tree lives for thousands of years by maintaining a very simple and inexpensive yet totally inspiring existence."

A small seed, which has neither force not arms, accepts conditions of darkness, pressure, cold and dampness. Instead of complaining or blaming others, it uses these conditions as sources of energy. In the same way, man can lead a free life and be at peace with himself.

~ George Ohsawa
I try and I try and I try. But I can't get no satisfaction.
Bumbled he, the humble bee,
Over roses very thorny,
With sweet cargo upon his knee,
...In a poem oh so corny.

-- A. Powette
‎'Ask in order to understand, and do not ask in order to find fault, for surely the ignorant man who wants to learn resembles a man of knowledge, and surely a man of knowledge who wants to be difficult resembles an ignorant man who wants to find fault.'

Saturday, December 25, 2010

"What's really unbearable is the eternal mediocre shame of some people;
and the lack of bravery which marks them; their prudence; their pretension to live in a reasonable and well-planned way."

My soul is tempered now for good, and now is indestructible, resolute even through the worst storms, devastations or loss. My knowledge of life and the human heart is now so keen that I know the two months ahead will bring me more sorrow, largely because I will not pander to mundanities nor to anything alien to the dreams, thoughts, a...nd feelings of my true personality.


Isabelle Eberhardt
Trust in Allah, but tie your camel -Hazrat Muhammad S.A.W
" Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammed Ali Jinnah did all three"

- Stanely Wolpert
wisdom beyond widom:


think like an adult and feel like a child..
Luqman al Hakeem said to his son:

“O my son! I have never regretted because of keeping silent. If words are silver, silence is golden.”

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

“God is with the broken-hearted. When your heart breaks, it’s a good thing – the breaking of the heart is what opens it up to the light of Allah. The dunya is designed to break your heart, to crush it.” [Shaykh Hamza Yusuf]
Ruin is the road to transformation.


From the movie 'Eat Pray Love'
Only a true believer fears hypocrisy whereas the hypocrite himself feels safe from it.

- Hasan al-Basri

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said,

"A person is on the religion of their close friends, so be careful of whose close company you keep." [Ahmad]

Ibn Ata'illah said:

"Only seek the company of those whose state uplifts you, or whose words guide you to Allah."

This is the core of one's company. Other company is sought to fulfill rights, spreading good, or seeking benefit, worldly or religious--without waste or harm.
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

- Albert Einstein
‎'Tell me, friend, which place you want me to take you to - I want to go to the city of the Messenger, in search of the Station of Radiance and the Red Sulphur.'


- Ibn Arabi (The Book of the Journey by Night)
"And certainly, We shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. Who, when a misfortune befalls them, say: 'Truly, to Allah we belong and truly, to Him we shall return'. They are those on whom the blessings, forgiveness and mercy of Allah descend upon, and it is they who are the guided ones." [2:155-157}
All the languages you know have their source in Allah. A yearning to be with those who speak your tongue/s is just a shadow, not a soul necessity. Those who don't 'understand you' are simply there to help you understand that you cannot define yourself by the things you love or find important. Accepting such relations feels like death simply because it is.
Ha-Ya-Ya = (a doubly imperfect verb) To live, be alive, be ashamed, spend (the night) awake, fertilize the earth, keep anyone alive; spare any one, let anyone alive, remove prudency, modesty and shamefulness, make immodest, To be in good condition, have the means of subsistence, to be apparent or distinct, have prolonged or preserved life, free from evil or harm, have dominion, be honored,receive benefit, to salute, to enliven/revive/give life to, to nourish, vivify/re-vivify/revive/resuscitate, endue/quicken with life, (said of land) to be tilled and made productive, to remain awake, to shrink from a thing, to forbear, to feel or have a sense of or be moved or affected with shame/shyness/bashfulness, be ashamed/shy of doing a thing, disdain or scorn a thing, abstain from a thing/refuse to do it.
Bayazid Bistami (ra): I shed my self as a snake sheds its skin.

Bayazid Bistami (ra) had seen Allah (swt) in a vision (Kashf) and said to Him

"O Allah (swt) what is the way to You?"

Allah (swt) responded

"Leave yourself and come to Me".

Saturday, December 18, 2010

"Fall down seven times,stand up eight!"

(Japanese Saying)
"O fools awake! The rites ye sacred hold
Are but a cheat contrived by men of old
Who listed after wealth and gained their lust
And died in baseness and their law is dust"


- Al Ma'arri
"Moses said to his people, ‘Turn to God for help and be patient. The earth belongs to God. He gives it to those of His servants whom He chooses, and the future belongs to the God-fearing." -


- The Quran (7:128)

Rumi..

‘Why do you sit there with your own thoughts?
If you are a man, go to the Beloved!

Do not say, ‘Perhaps He does not want me’.
What business has a thirsty man with such words?

Does the moth think about the flames?
For Love’s spirit, thinking is a disgrace.

When the warrior hears the sound of the drum
at once he is worth ten thousand men!

You have heard the drum, so draw your sword without delay!
Your spirit is the sheath of the all-conquering Dhu al-Fiqar!

You are Husayn at Karbala, think not of water!
The only ‘water’ you will see today is the sheath of the first water!
(Mevlana Rumi, Kulliyyat 3656-62, trans. W.C. Chittick)

Friday, December 17, 2010

در نوای زندگی سوز از حسین ۔۔۔ اہل حق حریت آموز از حسین ~ اقبال

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Ghalib..

جز قیس اور کوئی نہ آیا بہ روۓ کار
صحرا مگر بہ تنگیِ چشمِ حسود تھا

آشفتگی نے نقشِ سویدا کیا درست
ظاہر ہوا کہ داغ کا سرمایہ دود تھا

تھا خواب میں خیال کو تجھ سے معاملہ
جب آنکھ کھل گئی نہ زیاں تھا نہ سود تھا

لیتا ہوں مکتبِ غمِ دل میں سبق ہنوز
لیکن یہی کہ رفت گیا اور بود تھا

ڈھانپا کفن نے داغِ عیوبِ برہنگی
میں ورنہ ہر لباس میں ننگِ وجود تھا

تیشے بغیر مر نہ سکا کوہکن اسد
سرگشتۂ خمارِ رسوم و قیود تھا
..yun kehye k shaair ka kaam mehz mushahida he nahin, mujahida bhi us per farz he-gardo pesh k muztarib qatron main zindagi k dajla ka mushahida us ki benai per he, use dosron ko dekhana us ki funi dastras par, us k bahao main dakhal andaz hona us k

" shouq ki salabat aur lahu ki hararat per"................



..........................aur ye teno kaam masalsal kaawish aur jedojehd chahte hain........

--Faiz. Dast e saba





kahan se ayee nigar e saba, kidher gayee

Abhi chiraghe sar e rah ko kuch khabar nahi
"What I have lived for"



Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.



Bertrand Russel (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970)

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_russel
The heart's home, first to last, is thy city of union

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The disciples of Isa ibn Mariyam (AS) came to him and asked;

“O spirit of Allah, is there anyone else like you alive in our time?” He replied: “Yes indeed, Whoever has the dhikr of Allah in his heart,and is silent in thought, and who learns from what is given, surely that one is like me.”


- translated and authenticated by Hazrat Muhammad al-Ghazali

Thursday, October 14, 2010

.

i.

can you hear me talking?
can you hear me
screaming, in this
silence that’s pounding inside my
head, pulsing inside my
blood and weakening me,
slowly? can you hear me?
can you
hear

me?


ii.

being around you
only makes the loneliness worse
when you leave.


iii.

‘calm down’,
they tell me.
‘just calm down.’
how?
‘deep breaths.
just take a deep breath.’

except i don’t really
want to breathe
anymore.


iv.

make it go away.
please. just make it go
away.

Amidst the shadows
In the silence of night
The sum of our fears
Materialize…

No sun to warm the skin,
No smile to soothe the soul,
Just shadows of darkness,
The unconscious self wakened…

The façade of confidence,
Slowly fades into the night.
Loneliness the reality,
The mind lost in self doubt.

It weaves insidiously,
Relentless is its power.
In silence our souls hunger,
Fears shrouded in the night.

Tormented by a self portrait,
Exposing flaws and imperfections…
Alone cloaked in shadows,
Battling against self despair…

Vanity yearns for perfection,
The ego craves validation,
The heart aches for love,
And the soul seeks peace…

Our greatest fear,
Loneliness…
The greatest sadness,
We have all known it.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

"He who truly knows is the one in whom sound actions, pure supplications, truthfulness and precaution speak out; not his tongue, his debates, his comparisons, assertions or claims"


Imam Jafar Sadiq - Lantern of the Path
Now when I read words, no matter how well conscructed or beautiful, they are still words, there's a discord between recognition of meaning and image that has them dried out and stale by the time my mind has developed a reality that corresponds with their message. I am worded out. I need to be revived by the natural world.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Be Lost

Be Lost in the Call
Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?

Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you've never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
Yet clean away the mud and straw,
and a mirror might be revealed.

Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.

My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
You return just as you left.
Where are the traces of my gifts?

We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.

-
"Love is a Stranger", Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1993

Monday, October 4, 2010

Holistic wisdom of Rumi

Whoever is loved is beautiful, but the opposite is not true, that whoever is beautiful is loved. Real beauty is part of loved-ness, and that loved-ness is primary. If a being is loved, he or she has beauty, because a part cannot be separate from the whole. Many girls were more beautiful than Laila, but Majnun did not love them. "Let us bring some of these to meet you," they used to say to Majnun, and he would reply, "It's not the form of Laila that I love. Laila is not the form. You're looking at the cup, whereas I think only of the wine I drink from that cup. If you gave me a chalice studded with gemstones, but filled with vinegar or something other than wine, what use would that be? An old broken dipper-gourd with Laila-wine in it is better than a hundred precious goblets full of other liquid."


Passion is present when a man can distinguish between the wine and the container. Two men see a loaf of bread. One hasn't eaten anything for ten days. The other has eaten five times a day, every day. He sees the shape of the loaf. The other man with his urgent need sees inside into the taste, and into the nourishment the bread could give. Be that hungry, to see within all beings the Friend.


Creatures are cups. The sciences and the arts and all branches of knowledge are inscriptions around the outside of the cups. When a cup shatters, the writing can no longer be read. The wine's the thing! The wine that's held in the mold of these physical cups. Drink the wine and know what lasts and what to love. The man who truly asks must be sure of two things: One, that he's mistaken in what he's doing or thinking now. And two, that there is a wisdom he doesn't know yet. Asking is half of knowing.


Everyone turns toward someone. Look for one scarred by the King's polo stick.


A man or a woman is said to be absorbed when the water has total control of him, and he no control of the water. A swimmer moves around willfully. An absorbed being has no will but the water's going. Any word or act is not really personal, but the way the water has of speaking or doing. As when you hear a voice coming out of a wall, and you know that it's not the wall talking, but someone inside, or perhaps someone outside echoing off the wall. Saints are like that. They've achieved the condition of a wall, or a door.



-Translated by Coleman Barks with A.J. Arberry

Saturday, October 2, 2010

"If you come across the gardens of Paradise, then graze therein."

They asked, and what are the gardens of Paradise?

He said

"the groups of dhikr."
Come!

Without You,
I've given up on everyone else.

...

Come!

If I was asleep back then,
I'm staying sleepless right now.
Come O My Soul,
I've become a resident of the Tavern,
Till the Day of Judgment.
I've estranged myself so much
From everyone else,
That I've become a stranger to myself.

Come!

O Seeker of the World's mysteries.
Look at me:
I've become the mysteries myself.

Come!

I've already gone insane for Your Love.
If I was a flourishing town back then,
I'm nothing but ruins right now.
For Your Love,
I've even given up
On my family and households.
Out of pain of Your Love,
I've even moved in with the pain itself.
When I saw my soul
Becoming One with Your Soul,
I even became a stranger
To my very own loved ones.
I used to talk days and nights
About how Love being
simply a Myth.
Now out of Your Love,
I've become a Myth myself.


Rumi.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Firaq

Last as first the question rings

Of the Wills long travailings;

Why the All-movers,

Why the All-provers

Ever urges on and measures out the Droning time of things.

- Hardy



Ab tak khul na saka ye raaz,

kyun hay aalam soz-o-gudaz,

Kyun qudrat ne,

Kyun fitrat ne

Har ik se chhed diya hay naghma-e-saz.

- Firaq



Her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks and so

Distinctly wrought

That one might say

Her body thought.

-John Donne



Hari bhari rago.n mein wo chahakta bolta lahoo,

Wo sochta hua badan xud ik jaha.n liye hue.

- Firaq



And blossom by blossom the spring arrives

- Swinburne



Bahar ghuncha ba ghuncha chaman mein aati hay.

- Firaq



And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

- Wordsworth



Mauj-e-darya ka tarannum bas gaya ruxsar mein.

- Firaq



Source: Rooh-e-kaynaat, ed. Dr Rizwan Ahmad, Pub. Ramnarainlal ArunKumar, Allahabad, 1996)
Recently, while councelling, a friend and I, discussed the often destructive power of personal stories. We saw how debilitating it can be to see the events in our lives as reward and punishment. If I get this job it means I've finally healed my mistakes of past. If the tests reveal a maglignant or terminal dis-ease then it must mean I haven't been doing enough spiritual work.


You get the picture.


Trouble is, these stories seem to hold such a powerful grip on us. They feel hardwired in our brains and bodies. They trap us inside a vision of our lives that's painful and contracting. So - how do you shift out of such a story into the peace and possiblity of the present moment? That's where the lets Etch-A-Sketch comes in.


Once you're aware that a story is in play, think of that gray screen from childhood. Remember how you could create the most elaborate image on the screen and then just shake-shake-shake it away? Well, you can do the very same thing with an unhelpful story. It only seems hardwired, but isn't really.


The next time one shows up, make sure not to align with it, or fight it. Instead, take a big sighing breath and literally shake-shake-shake. Just as a gazelle in the wild shakes all the trauma out of its system after being chased by a lion, we, too, can cleanse and reset our body-mind.


Once the grip of the story releases, we're left in a state of gratitude, freeness, expansion and flow. From there, all good things happen!!
Zehaal-e-miskeen makun taghaful, Duraye naina banaye batiyan.

Do not overlook my misery, by blandishing your eyes and weaving tales,

Ke taab-e-hijran nadaram ay jaan, Na leho kahe lagaye chatiyan.

My patience has over-brimmed, O sweetheart! why do you not take me to your bosom.

Shaban-e-hijran daraz chun zulf, Wa roz-e-waslat cho umer kotah.

Long like curls in the night of separation short like life on the day of our union.

Sakhi piya ko jo main na dekhun, To kaise kaTun andheri ratiyan.

My dear, how will I pass the dark dungeon night without your face before.

Yakayak az dil do chashm-e-jadu, Basad farebam baburd taskin.

Suddenly, using a thousand tricks the enchanting eyes robbed me of my tranquil mind.

Kisay pari hai jo ja sunave, Piyare pi ko hamari batiyan,

Who would care to go and report this matter to my darling.

Cho shama sozan cho zaraa hairan, Hamesha giryan be ishq an meh.

Tossed and bewildered, like a flickering candle, I roam about in the fire of love.

Na nind naina na ang chaina, Na aap aaven na bhejen patiyan,

Sleepless eyes, restless body, neither comes she, nor any message.

Bahaq-e-roz-e-visaal-e-dilbar, Ke daad mara gharib Khusro.

In honour of the day I meet my beloved who has lured me so long, O Khusro!

Sapet man ke varaye rakhun, Jo jaye pauN piya ke khatiyan.

I shall keep my heart suppressed if ever I get a chance to get to her trick.



~ Amir Khusro
Khabaram raseed imshab ki nigaar khuahi aamad;

Sar-e man fidaa-e raah-e ki sawaar khuahi aamad.

Ham-e aahwan-e sehra sar-e khud nihada bar kaf;

Ba-umeed aanki rozi bashikaar khuahi aamad.

Kashishi ki ishq daarad naguzaradat badinsaa;

Ba-janazah gar nayai ba-mazaar khuahi aamad.

Balabam raseed jaanam fabiya ki zindah maanam;

Pas azan ki man na-maanam bacha kar khuahi aaamad.



English Translation.



Tonight there came a news that you, oh beloved, would come – Be my head sacrificed to the road along which you will come riding! All the gazelles of the desert have put their heads on their hands In the hope that one day you will come to hunt them…. The attraction of love won’t leave you unmoved; Should you not come to my funeral, you’ll definitely come to my grave. My soul has come on my lips (e.g. I am on the point of expiring); Come so that I may remain alive - After I am no longer – for what purpose will you come?

Saturday, September 25, 2010




‎'the Kalima was inscribed in such a way that all the wows connecting the clauses formed the oars of a boat - the boat of salvation which carries the faithful safely to the shore of the Beyond.'

Friday, September 24, 2010

"Meaning is not in things but in between; in the iridescence, the interplay: in the interconnections; at the intersections, at the crossroads. Meaning is transitional as it is transitory, in the puns or bridges, the correspondence."

—Mallarmé
How much does a man live, after all?
Does he live a thousand days, or only one?
For a week, or for several centuries?
How long does a man spend dying?
What does it mean to say,

"for ever"?

- Pablo Neruda
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

-- Dylan Thomas

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Releasing self

into Greater Self

I become subtle

and

Ascent in love

and

go with the flow,

calling all hearts to Joy.

Opening heart into Great Heart

I cry out,

and

change and evolve,

calling all hearts

to

The One.

Deepening peace into Great Peace

I surrender

and

free

and free my boundless self,

calling all Hearts to The Source ( Allah )


...