(This was a
thoroughly ad hoc piece dashed off as a favor to a life-long
friend, at his request, and it addresses just one of many remarkable
encounters with remarkable Beings out of my life – which I normally do
not see a need to broadcast, or not until such time as seems fit. Which
seems now, thanks to the favor I was doing in telling it fresh and
getting it out there – maybe it's time. Nonetheless, without styling it
up I'm leaving it as written, simply a shared memory, with only the
intention that it serve some purpose, as my hunch tells me it will:)
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Murshid
Hassan, also referred to as Sheikh Hassan, of Nablus (on the West
Bank), I think of Jordanian roots himself and of Hashemite lineage, came
to us on three visits, in Boulder, all at the 1700 Mapleton St. house,
or Sufi Khankah,
Garden of Samuel. The first (ca. 1975-6) and third (ca. 1976-7) visits I personally experienced and remember; the second
visit was exactly while I was at the Jerusalem Camp which would place
his being in Boulder in July and/or August 1976. He was originally
expected to be at the Jerusalem Camp and a large part of why I went,
things worked out a tad differently however, and it would figure back then, that he'd be exactly at the house I'd just left for 7 weeks while I was away.
But
I'll go in order, Sufi Order that is, made to order. Banefsha Gest,
one of the original students of Murshid Sam in San Fran, stayed with us,
as had dozens of mostly real bona-fide Memorables and Notables in all
those packed years in and out of Boulder. There was, for example....ah,
but I digress. Nope, not gonna do it. Banefsha, having known Isa
earlier in San Fran and now flirting with him on and off amidst much
laughter and sharing about Murshid Sam, now told us of the coming of a
really bona-fide guy named Murshid Hassan, he was already in San Fran I
think and Isa saw to it, as always, that he got the invite to stay a
spell with us. Murshid Hassan was already of indeterminate age, and how
Banefsha had first met him was like this:
She's on a dusty
bus in dusty Israel somewhere, presumably on the West Bank or somewhere
in the Old City but certainly among Arabs. As she sits in that bus, in
walks this old guy in white, with a green turban-like
agal or band over his white
kaffiyeh – as we'd know him later and as you see in pics of him for example, doing the
zikr-of-blessing
with Joe Miller. He walks onto this bus, with his walking stick and
grinning like Murshid Sam and darting his eyes about from face to face
with the Krishna Glance, greeting everyone with
as-salaamu-aleikum, as-salaamu-aleikum.
And he stops dead at Banefsha, sits with her, demands to see a photo
of her Teacher, of her Murshid. So she goes through all these pics,
Hazrat, Pir Vilayat...
no, he says, not that one, not him, not him...and then he sees Murshid Sam's mug and stops there –
that one! Evidently those two Murshids had
seen plenty of each other where they'd
met
on the non-material plane(s) and he knew right away who his buddy was
and told Banefsha as much. Not that he ever spoke English, and her
Arabic was not all that much as I recall, her Hebrew even less, but
that's how I recall her telling it.
Banefsha with Murshid Sam Lewis
Her husband at the time,
or ex- or soon-to-be-ex-, Michael Gest, with whom we see the two (with
child Joshua as a baby in tow) being married by Murshid Sam – or under
his auspices – on a hill in San Fran, toward the end of the movie
Sunseed
– this same Michael was escorting Murshid Hassan all over, and after
Banefsha had gone it was Michael and Murshid Hassan and us all in one
house. First visit. I think Michael's Arabic was up to it. It didn't
seem to matter. Murshid Hassan seemed hardly in his physical body, very
funny-spacy, while at the same time totally present, but he had to be
shown his way up the stairs and such. Isa told us then or later,
Murshid Hassan was doing a healing work on the House and was so in
other spheres that he wasn't much on the ground. This I can attest to and fully relate to. I was there.
The simple charisma of his Being, the electric feel of him, the sitting around after the
hadhrats, or standing
zikrs,
were indelibly impressed on us all as on me. Sitting around with him
till all hours it was cigarettes one after another, yacking, breathing,
sitting together, sharing in the slurping up (from each their own hand
of course) of an odd combination of powdered sugar, ginger, and maybe
black pepper as well. Called it
jenzibil, which is nothing other than the Arabic (as I'd gotten later while taking the language) for
ginger.
My kids, i.e., Cathy's girls, Miriam and Molly (and Rachael's later
siblings – Jimmy was so little) got a kick out of Murshid Hassan, as he
played with them, bringing his two index fingertips together and saying
tootie-tootie. They wanted him to do
tootie-tootie
again, he was such a novelty for them, naturally. There was also an
infant brought by, and Murshid Hassan stopped teaching, he clammed up
and smoked, he wouldn't give out Teaching for the moment. He explained
why: he said,
every child under seven is a Sheikh, and every child
under three is a Murshid, so I cannot teach in their presence, I am
their Mureed. That is what he said and that is what I remember to this day.
And I remember once him saying, cigarette in hand and making a
tiny gesture with his fingertips,
Hassan is verry verrry small – and God is verry verrry big... We all had a good chuckle over this rendition of
allahu-akbar. Hanging out with Hassan.
The
hadhrat, a word meaning Presence, as
zikr
of course is Remembrance (Hazrat, as in Inayat Khan, is the same word,
pronounced and therefore spelled according to location, with
dh or with
z),
was powerful really beyond words. I remember everything, all of it. I
remember how he walked along the line or inside the circle, as the case
may be, banging at either his small
dumbek hand-drum or more
likely his large-surfaced tamborine-without-the-jingles style drum or
also medium-sized hand cymbals: The beat was always pretty much
ta-TA-ta-TAA, ta-TA-ta-TAA, ta-TA-ta-TAA...not altogether different from the
Hare Krishnas...
And
he sang. And recited the 99 Names, and sang some more. And we swayed
and chanted as he'd instructed. It might start with just
'a-allah-a, ha-allah-a, ha-allah-a..., and eventually progress to
allah-hayy-da'im-hu (God is Life, He is everywhere, all-present), or just
yaa-hu, yaa-hu
(oh, He, oh, He). I cannot do justice by describing it, but if I were
in the room with you I know I could demonstrate it, I could deliver.
For me it's all, all those years, and all these decades later – it's all
like yesterday! For me it's fresh, it's now, it's preserved with love,
in the breath every day.
After going through the Names, or
wazifas, he would, in his ecstatic condition, invariably launch into leading us in a hardy recitation of
al-fatiha, the opening Sura, uniquely preceeding this with two specific
wazifas, invoking The Alive (
al-hayy) and The Self-Subsisting (
al-qayyum), so it rang electrically in our, in my ears to this day, so: …
al-FAAA-ti-HAH: YAA-hayy YAA-qayyum! Bism'illah-ir-rahmaan-ir-rahim!... etc.
In
my memory I hear him singing – what, I cannot say, verses of either
poetry or more likely a litany of a particular chain of transmission – I
hear his melody, his goat-like voice, and then he stops: and we all
respond, as instructed, with
a-LLAH a-LLAH, a-LLAH a-LLAH...
Sometimes,
there in the center, with those cymbals, he'd do some turns, even
spinning like a very drunk old dude. Like those yiddish songs about the
rebbe dancing - only much hotter, much wilder, tighter, up-the-spine.
His most often spoken and often recalled
wazifas, to my recollection were,
ya-hayy,
ya-qayyum; and
ya-fatah and
ya-latif
(these being: O Life, O Self-Sustaining, O Opener of the Way, O
Subtle). And as for the subtle, he gave us also the Arabic word
ghaib, which is precisely and correctly to be understood as The Unseen.
I
cannot specifically recall when or whether he received a foot washing
with thorough oil massage from me, but it would bespeak my custom at
that time with above all such guests, that this would have occurred. If my memory serves me, just for the record - and I cannot vouch for the full accuracy of this - the Orders or lineages he carried and expressed were or may have been: Qadiri, Bedawi, Naqshbandi, Suruwardhi, Rifa'i.
He also was good for clasping hands with you in a
zikr-of-blessing or
zikr-of-initiation, it could be standing or sitting, as with Joe Miller – and leading you in a strong breathy whispered
allaha-allah, allaha-allah, allaha-allah, left and right, back and forth, rocking together, rocking...
Just as Murshid Sam explained that
zikr brings atoms together and holds them in concentrated space, Murshid Hassan had us understand that
hadhrat produced heat, plenty of heat to burn the psyche, into which bonfire we should cast all of our
good qualities as well as our
bad qualities.
There
was heat, there was light, there was sweat, there was energy crawling
out of your skull, through every pore, it was a most exquisitely rich
and grounded ecstasy. Here yet gone. And so the visit went. It was
during one of these visits – and I'm afraid even I could not directly
confirm for Isa later (when he'd asked) which visit it was, but I am
certain it was the first or the third, i.e., while I was
present, even if not – indeed not – in the room personally when Murshid
Hassan made Isa a Murshid, rather I was told it immediately after, and I
do not doubt or dispute it one iota to this day, whatever anyone else
might have said concerning it, I don't care. Murshid Hassan – and I
believe this as well, so call me a fool who believes, but I have my
reasons and they've never failed me: the guy (God bless and vouchsafe
his memory in my heart forever!) had been known (we got this from
Michael Gest) for performing the
shish back home, but only there, not here.
Banefsha confirmed this also and had told us how he had done this with her, on her body. The
shish, just like
shish-kebab,
involves taking a spit or a short sword for all I know, and running
either someone or some vegetables and bits of lamb through – depending
of course, on whether we are dining or performing a
Sufi-dervish
experience you can write home about and no one will believe you. He
was known for doing this, while the person was in an induced trance
through
zikr, no pain invloved, and then speaking of spit, he
would dab some real spit from the tip of his tongue on the
alleged/apparent/real wound and, muttering therewith
allah,
would seal the open wound and there was nothing there, not even a scar.
Have I seen this? No. Have I heard of such things and more coming
from such regions or from India? Yes. Do I buy this crap, do I
actually believe this for one moment? Yes, all of it, 100% hands down
and without argument. And
this, coupled with what all I
was present for and
did experience, qualifies me to tell this all from memory.
Up in that room, Murshid Hassan told Isa,
I'm
making you Murshid, and whereas I perform the shish physically there in
places where they are so primitive and physical that they require that –
you, here in the American culture, you I'm giving the transmission, to
perform the psychic shish, as they need that here. What I'm giving 'em physically there, you'll give 'em here but in the psyche. That is my transmission to you.
That
is what he did and that is what Isa went on to do. And I did not have
to be in that room to know this to be true. We all got good and
shished.
Just as an aside, Banefsha,
as she told it,
had been kept behind a sort of curtain by Murshid Hassan as he
harangued the Muslims back in the West Bank somewhere. He had Banefsha
deliver a short address about being Woman, whom these Muslims never got
right, and the future is going to the Women so the males better get
their Muslim act in gear and think about that,
words to this effect, and then Murshid Hassan pulled back the curtain behind which she'd spoken and in front of all these Muslims gave her the
shish right in the side of her neck – she told us she'd noticed nothing, it was the
thought,
the fact that this spit or sword was actually in and through her neck
that made her suddenly want to break her calm and freak, at just which
point he wet his finger tip and dabbed there with
allah and it
was over. Go figure, buy it or not, I'm telling what I remember, and
it's all about Murshid Hassan, and just be glad I'm not digressing!
In July of 1976 I left for the Jerusalem Camp, at
Neve Shalom,
a fine plot of land smack in the boondocks exactly between Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv, just off the long and lone Latrun Rd., on the other side
of which was a Benedictine monastery which produced wine. During the
'67 War this was no-man's-land. Now we were building (the camp itself),
eating, praying, dancing and worshipping together as Jews, Christians,
Muslims, Sufi-mureeds, as a plan to plant Murshid Sam's seeds
(Halleluja-The-Three-Rings) on Israeli soil, which he'd chosen not to do
during his lifetime, leaving it to his mureeds to do. I will say, the
following poem did come out of all this while there:
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/05/prophets-reward.html
as had the following experience:
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/10/balm-of-arab-masses.html
I
am only mentioning this, and without going into anything else about the
Camp itself as it would be a huge digression, because the three major
figures planned to lead the Camp were to be Banefsha herself, now
divorced or separated from Michael, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi of
Temple University and of Naropa (and a former "partner-in-crime" with Murshid Sam) – and
Murshid Hassan, with whom Banefsha, who had quite an ego of her own, had
had a falling out which I guess was to be permanent. Therefore,
Murshid Hassan was not to be with us at this Camp (it's alright, others
indelibly remembered were, and I survived the disappointment) – no, he
was making his second visit to our House in Boulder, on Mapleton St.
Obviously I cannot comment on this second visit, as I was not there. I
got plenty of Banefsha's version of the falling out, and later Isa (now
Murshid Isa) told me another aspect of it:
Banefsha, he said,
had felt ripped off by Murshid Hassan as she had put it,
and she was right – but what he was ripping off was her ego.
Quite
honestly, Isa had not been certain whether I'd return and that I'd have
passed through a test of my loyalty which I wasn't even aware was that –
it was so obvious to me that in spite of Banefsha's story and cajoling
to reconsider going back to Isa-who-was-in-cahoots-with-Murshid-Hassan
(who was now the bad guy – my first real taste of how distracted with
the petty and political this shit can get) of course I'd be returning,
and the morning after I did, where Isa came down and saw that I was back
and there at morning
sadhana as if there had never been a matter of question, he bent low and kissed my head.
One
other little side-anecdote, as it occurs to me before I forget –
Michael Gest had once told us, and Isa shared this with Murshida Vera
Corda when she came visiting and had had questions concerning the verity
of Murshid Hassan, she was also very touched by this telling: Michael
had been taking walks with Murshid Hassan, during which he found himself
sort of treating this old man like a child, and telling him,
oh, Murshid, look over there at that, and oh, Murshid did you see that? and in doing so suddenly realized, like a
zen moment, that it was
he himself whose awareness was being heightened, Murshid Hassan was nodding to him,
quite aware of the
thises and thats
which Michael had kindly meant to point out. Then, on this or another
walk, Murshid Hassan called Michael's attention to a section of a field
of long grass or wheat as it was swaying in the breeze, back and forth,
gently giving itself to the movement of the breeze – like dervishes in
hadhrat – Murshid Hassan gestured to them, looking at Michael, waiting for him to get it, and said merely, with a wave of his hand:
yaa-hu, yaa-hu.....
Now
– there remains only the third visit to tell of, this being possibly in
'77, it cannot be later because by '78 we had all moved out to
The Farm on Ben Weems' land near Lafayette.
Who cares – it's the third inning, I mean visit. Murshid Hassan is definitely
not spacy this time, he is
very
much in his body, very powerful – certainly for his age. I believe
Michael is accompanying him, or maybe someone else out of San Fran where
they've just come from. I don't quite remember now, but for the
telling it hardly matters. I'll give what does matter. Some of it is
amusing. He had come with a young American woman in tow, they had
actually married, no shit. She was quite alright with it, I hoped she
knew what a culture shock she had coming, and it was one of those path
and destiny things, to leave an heir behind for one, and I'd heard
quite some length of time later that she had indeed born him a son, and
I'm dead certain there was no Viagra in play. Now Murshid Hassan
never ever told or
even implied to us that Islam is any big deal or that we should be Muslims or even pray like the Muslims – he dispensed with
all of this crap,
he was there to give the real stuff. So he probably really was the
maverick renegade befitting a Sufi. His juice was real, his light was
real, his God-madness was real and thoroughly infectious, may I never
ever recover.
I had earlier mingled with, hung with, joined
and prayed with Muslims in Boulder, there were more than enough of them
and CU was stock full, they were as varied and as stiff then as ever and
today and will be tomorrow. I will restrict my commentary to the
translator we had gotten a hold of. Dr. Hasan Yakubi, a Palestinian of
course, was on the CU faculty, I had known him earlier, he recognized
me, found my approach to Islam then flaky and I gradually got over my
tolerance-fever and saw in light of Murshid Hassan what a cast of jerks
these Muslims really were. So meanwhile, and not to digress further,
Yakubi was to translate for Murshid Hassan – what a fucking riot, this
prick (he was, I'm sorry) was fasting the day I am recalling his being
with us – might have been the only day at that – and we being stupid
kept offering him tea or snack and he politely refused, but I recall his
arrogant irritation (which he of course kept private) at Murshid Hassan
who as a Muslim should know better than to not behave very Muslim and
not fast or anything – it really grated on Yakubi, and I saw this. So
of course did Murshid Hassan, who could give a flying fuck about Yakubi
and hardly ever looked at or addressed him directly, pretty much ignored
him.
Once there had been a youngster who was being a kid and
tumbling about – or maybe it wasn't even here with us, maybe it had been
in San Fran and we were being told about it, no matter: Murshid hassan
had scolded the child, just this one, harshly, and explained to the
perplexed or inquiring adults, that this very child was destined to be a
Murshid one day in his own right.
Who knew?
One
mid-morning during this third and last visit, there at Mapleton, in the
spacious back yard, where we hung out on the dry lawn with Murshid
Hassan – and where he lay in that star formation on his back like a
baby, something which he'd taught us: you lay flat on your back, head a
little turned back, arms and legs all spread out and stretched out and
relaxed, just relaxing and even sleeping like that,
and breathing through the heart, in and out through the heart,
taking in the Cosmos, take it all in and letting it all out – well,
while hanging with The Man, someone came out from the house and told him
he had a phone call. He got right up, this old guy in a white shift
like some long linen night-shirt, he just got right up and strode with
the gait of a 30-year-old across the lawn into that house to take the
call. Hiking up the hem a bit as he did to free his stride, I could see
his fine brown calves – this was no old man, this dude moved with
command and a purpose, and he was just getting up to take a call!
So
my last of the recollections, barring any which may later resurface,
which I however doubt – deals with the gym which we had rented to use,
in fact we had used it earlier during Reshad Feild's stay and sojourn
with us and among us, where he had taught and guided us and saw to our
full performance of the Mevlevi Sema – but without digressing into that,
and leaving you at least with this:
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/10/sema-at-fort-dix-rendezvous-with-rumi.html
I will continue with the
hadhrats in that gym with Murshid Hassan some while afterward:
There
are three times in my life that I saw light, actually saw light. The
first time was when I first walked in on Isa during the Dances, summer
of '74 at St. John's Episcopal on Walnut St., and it was first a sort of
white light, then it was actually what I came later to understand to be
The Clear Light. The third time was early afternoon in a dimmed
bedroom in Boulder on July 15th, 1979, at Rachael's birth, as I received
her from out of her mother and held her before giving her into the
hands of the nurse-midwife. And the second time I had seen light was
there in that gym with Murshid Hassan, during
hadhrat. It was all just as it had always been, the same
hadhrat,
as in the livingroom on Mapleton. Just more room here, more space,
more than we actually needed, there weren't sooo very many people there.
But wow. And there was light. And there was sound. And it's all
with me now and every day, it's all yesterday for this kid.
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2013/11/for-it-is-he-that-beckons.html
And mornings when I run my beads, and come to the
subhan-allah, alhamdul'illah, allahu-akbar,
I have to think of that young wife of his from San Fran, en route back
to Nablus, sitting with us, beside him in that gym, taking a break,
hearing Teaching, breathing together, smokes and
jenzibil,
she's doing her beads and he gives her a light rap on the wrist telling
her to do it with concentration. That always stayed with me, for two
reasons: one, because of course that was right, and the other, less
pleasant and certainly unenviable, that while he was no Islam-pusher
with us, she would certainly have to get used to certain customs and
aspects when they get there, and it might have been also toward her
protection that he prepare her for all that. I often think of her and
nurse the hope that it went well with her there, all things considered.
Myself,
I perform all of my same Sufi practices spanning four decades now,
without being burdened at all with the negative thought-associations of
Islam – much the same way I can think of elephants without thinking of
circuses, laboring at log removal, or any other form of domesticated
captivity – I think of elephants storming through the African or Asian
wilds, or showering at a river, or tenderly shepherding their herd. That's what
hadhrat and
zikr are really like.
All
things considered – and there is much, as we both know – this was
really The Gift coming from The Gift to bestow The Gift where The Gift
already was. In other words, nowhere else that I know of, could I,
could we, have experienced and received all that we had in those years.
All things considered.
http://www.yesodfoundation.org/Yesod-RZLP/Renewalist_Blog/Entries/2014/7/3_Rabbi_Zalman_Schachter-Shalomi%2C_Father_of_Jewish_Renewal%2C_Dies_at_89.html
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2013/12/getting-religion-ii.html
http://youtu.be/8jk4ZB2SfPY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x43W4_Vi9LU
