Christmas 2013

Even if December isn't even nearly right, whatever:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS, we love you!
Now, I've invited my dear friend Vatican Frank and everyone else.
So first, make your breath long and deep and ever so refined, like music.

And now – let's all breathe in: Kyrie eleison – and out: Christe eleison.
And in: Christ-in-me – and out: United with all.
And in: all the love, the joy, the peace you can draw into you –
then out: all that love, that joy, that peace out out out into your world.
And really FEEL IT!

Don't join any clubs, and don't jump on any bandwagons, BUT:
also never be afraid of praising God,
and never be ashamed of praising God,
and never ever entertain the notion "I'm not worthy" – because you're not –
and it's NOT ABOUT THAT!

Trust me on this – or hear it yourself:
the rocks and trees and rivers and
every living breathing form on this Earth
(hence the fullness thereof)
is praising the glory of God ceaselessly –
for "atoms reel in praise of Thee!"
Now get very very still … and BE.

And now: let's say we rock! 

 

Breath of Buddha, Breath of Christ

As Christmas Approaches: The Breaths

Friends, readers, browsers: this is to be put to use and it's free. This is nothing new, I put it to practice but am not its originator. This is as old as Buddha and as fresh as your own very next breath, it is for all regardless of what you call your faith, your religion, your ecclectic sortof-sortof, or most valuably: your highest most intimately cherished reality.

And as Christmas approaches I decided this year to put this out there, as it has been received, and in my own manner of presentation – if being Christian (whatever denomination or however you define that) you take this and own it, make it yours – not by reading and thinking about it or having an opinion about it but only by giving it your devoted concentration and following the simple few steps, you will be really fulfilling both the Sermon on the Mount and the Prayer of St. Francis: by letting yourself be made an instrument of service in the most Christian real sense there is. Now do it and I'll shut up:

Sit up straight, whether on a chair (feet flat) or on a mat or rug, however you best do that, back straight but relaxed, neck also. All breathing is through the nose. What you do with your hands is of little matter, mudra or no mudra or hands held or free – just concentrate. Take a few shallow breaths, a few deep ones, some strong then gentle, adjust – consciously adjust your breathing to be long and deep, into the belly and back out, let your focus settle in your chest, just central there, your Heart. Just breathe. You can direct your thoughts better with any of the following, they are only three suggestions of many: Inhale “Toward the One” and exhale “United with All” (meaning all the illuminated souls who are actually leading you in this as we speak) – or, inhale “Christ in me” and exhale “United with All” – or if you're Jewish doing this you can inhale “Ha-Shem Echad,” and exhale “Baruch-Ha-Shem” – whatever works for you.

Now: you have adjusted your breathing and it's long and deep, you should focus your most devoted thought on Whom or on That which you most love – and yes, you are “worthy” of doing this – let the feeling in the center of your chest open to that and receive that. Let into you the presence of your greatest Trust, your greatest Love, let yourself imbibe that, be sourrounded by that, just as the conducting wire (you) inside a glass bulb is surrounded by a generated current and light is produced going outward. Just breathe this way. Let it fill you, in and around you. As this is a Christmas Concentration I'll address it accordingly. Let Jesus abide here, or as it says in Scripture, put on the Mind of Christ, you can even mentally intone Jesus Jesus if it helps – now we can begin.

Refining that breathing, refining like a bare thread coming and going, breathe into yourself all the Love you can draw in from the Universe, from the Cosmos, from the space around you, from so many dimensions, and from the here-now, and in reality. And breathe it out, out, out. Let it be with you, let it be in the room, let it abide, in and out. Whatever else is there with you, family or cares or worries or joys – let all this be of no disturbance, for you are sovereign, let this all be baptized in your breath, as you breathe in and then breathe out all the Love you can muster.

You are a sun, can you visualize that magnificent star up close? That is you, burning, producing such heat and such light – do you not feel your gut loosening and expanding even as you breathe in and out of your Heart (like I told you)? You may be an idiot all day long the rest of the week but right here and right now, you are Being Divine: Who loves ya? Who's with ya? Who'dja invite over to breathe with ya? Spirit is here and real – God's own breath is inside your breath.

Having let all the Love into you and, going out from you, circulate and expand, now continue on by refining still finer and drawing likewise into yourself all the Joy you can bring in, and circulate that through and on out, just as you've been doing. Feel it? It is yours, it is you – yeah, you're worthy of it, you're worthy of it – it's not about you anyway, and yet it is entirely you giving yourself to its Doing – there's nothing theoretical here. Either you're with it or you're not.

Let this continue for a few breaths, then refine, refine, draw in finer still, all the Peace you can let in to your limitless capacity – you sun of God you! – you are the very space itself, embodied as you, just breathing! Don't blow it by thinking – you're there, now stay there! As this Peace which passeth understanding is real with you, going out from you, see how all this Love, all this Joy, all this Peace is contained as one breath of Compassion which you allow to expand out with every outgoing breath – it's as though you're no longer even there doing it, just it is there doing you.

Head and Heart are not apart – you direct this toward yourself and toward everything and everyone in the room, and on out through that window into your neighborhood, hovering just long enough to feel it take, and radiating and broadcasting out to the area, the district, the city, the country, the world, the earth, people you know and don't know, people you love and those you don't even like (no ifs ands or buts), people you've hurt or who've done you wrong, Nature: the forests, mountains, the waters of the Earth, the animals and critters, let it go out to wherever it is needed, whether to disaster areas, war zones, slums or crime-concentrated areas – or just to any nameless faceless individuals out there who may desperately need the witnessing touch of your Love and your Joy and your Peace, your Lovingkindness, your Compassion, breathing onto them and into them. Now.

Not my words should dictate how far out this goes or how far in – what you feel, feel it, go with it, trust, trust, trust.

And what now? Just breathe and breathe and be with it – feel feel feel: you are All-One but not alone.

(Just to give yourself a kick in the seat to get going on it, here are two unmistakably suitable reads:)

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2012/01/candle-for-farthing.html

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/12/suit-or-truth-about-santa.html

Weekend of the Aftermath, Newtown Conn.

It defies logic to deny that what happened in Connecticut yesterday or Aurora recently, etc., was perpetrated by other than someone owning guns. I know the statistics, thousands lose their lives in car accidents, in household accidents, or swimming. Right, so we can’t outlaw cars, goes the argument, or kitchen knives or ladders or pools. Anything can be used as a weapon, but “anything“ is not a weapon, it has many various purposes, and can only incidentally serve as an instrument of death. Only guns, however, are designed and manufactured with the one single intent and function of killing, the question of murder aside. And guns are and will remain our most very lucrative business.

As long as we hold dear our American “2nd-Amendment-Rights“ mentality and its sorely misguided interpretation which argues that “guns don’t kill, people do“ (wrong: people with guns kill), we will continue to see and to suffer more of this. Those who honor and uphold the gun lobby’s enormous clout over govt. and human dignity may also include many “pro-lifers“ who would see in the recognition of a woman’s right to decide for herself over abortion, a license to kill, to murder. And then simultaneously insist that everyone and anyone can just stockpile an arsenal of assault weapons because “the 2nd Amendment says so“… One is convinced that this part of our population actually identify “being American“ with having the “right to own and bear arms,“ just like that. Which is like countless Muslims I’ve met who identify being Muslim with avoiding pork – why it’s that simple.

These friends of the NRA and the firearms industry in general may shed crocodile tears over yesterday’s murder of children, or no tears at all. Sarah Palin never apologized for placing crosshairs over Rep. Gifford’s face shortly before the latter was shot in the head. No remorse can be expected from such elements of our society, these upstanding Americans, nor responsibility.

My Christmas at any rate will be a sober one, mighty sober, reflective and in anguish. I’ll be physically here in Belin, but my heart will be spending the holidays in a certain township in Connecticut.

So Rana and I sat up all evening and late into the night (Berlin time, the service started at 8pm EST) glued to CNN. We recognize that for those broadcasting it's all the business of infotainment, in all its cynical glory - but we had to watch because we are afixed, we are in anguish.

So we watched the memorial with all the nice eccumenical eulogies and then the local town hall rep., the gov. and the Prez. We were enormously and deeply affected by the rabbi who was the first of those invited to get up there. and coming a (relatively) close second was the Muslim imam. there were no thirds. The rabbi put out what was and is most needed. no one (unfortunately) could give what this rabbi gave - his words were sparse and to the point and from the heart with broken voice...and then he sang. Not the Kaddish exactly but a deeply deeply gripping Hebrew hymn tailored for this occasion, and with such a richness of grief and of authentic mourning and sadness and reality. I was already standing at the moment and remained there as he beckoned the hall to all stand, and I wept throughout his wonderful, terrible, blessed singing. THAT was a mourning, which must have brought the breaved infinitely more sense of being understood than all the shit which preceded and followed. thank Jehovah, that the Jewish expression still has it in it to deliver when it comes to something like this.

The Muslim came in 2nd in my book, less for what he said or quoted, although parts were good - I mean that from the standpoint of real spiritual gut-power - but he scored with me on authentic emotion and it was clear to see how broken and stricken he was.

Unfortunately - and here I had to comfort my dear protestant Rana - everyone else, from Catholic to Methodist to Lutheran to Pentecostal to even Baha'i to whatever else, offered with more or less practiced emotions, the awful awful usual victuals of bla-bla-bla, dry, "reassuringly" full of platitudes, colorless, prepared, predigested, and dead. dead words, no music (or nothing which could remotely compare with what Rabbi Shaul from the local synagogue put out). We bemoan that the Christian clergy just doesn't have it any more, or ever so rarely. her priest and pastor from her childhood, he had had it in him in full, he would have brought the house down with the ardent simplicity and co-grieving which was sorely lacking in that parish yesterday.

Well, that was our take.

And I KNOW exactly what I would have said or done on that pulpit had I been there, and in what measure. I know exactly because as I said to Rana, what they don't grasp at all (except the rabbi in this case) is that with people in a bereavement of this magnitude especially, and so immediately after as well - you HAVE to go down into the pain, the SHIT, you HAVE to get your fingernails dirty, your knees have to be covered with the earth of humility, you have to do this first and reach their hearts BEFORE you speak of elevating, ennobling, eternal verities.

You have to get across to them that their lost ones are here and now and in reality AS in eternity, to get their focus on that love which binds us defnitely and palpably and tangibly and powerfully. You can't embrace or empower anyone with platitudes about any kind of churchy "afterlife," you have not earned the right to do that - unless and until you can feel the snot in your own nose and the choked breath in your own heart, and say what really is, that the loss and the grief and the sadness and the horror and the pain and the sheer torture of living every moment from here on with this knife in one's heart IS REAL. And to BE with that, and to be with that with them. THEN and only then, can one go from there to elevate and bring the thing home.

http://news.yahoo.com/tearful-plea-victims-dad-deadly-rampage-233719408.html

UPDATE, 19 Apr. 2019 and 07 Dec. 2019:

Wolfgang Halbig - Sandy Hook Trial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjfIp4MwizQ 

Psy Ops Goes Mainstream (fixed audio) - (All the world’s a stage, and they want you to believe their story is real. I give you some examples of faked reports that led us to war and then I introduce very unlucky people who were at multiple tragic events. I move on to one example of why they tell stories and then show you a theory as to how they are able to do it. MORE...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMVvjzTMjMI

 

The Suit, or The Truth About Santa

(as I lived it in Berlin, Christmas Eve 1990)

'Twas the night before Christmas...no, that would be leaving out too much. 'Twas a couple weeks before I entered the Army, living in San Francisco I made one lone attempt to live out a dream I'd often nurtured: to be a department store Santa just once in my life. And really BE it, express it, do an Edmund Gwinn on it, inspired by the old “Miracle on 34^th Street,“ but it was not to be. I called two or three large stores who offered this, and the answer was always: senior citizens only. They don't use 30-year-old Jewish Coloradan health-care givers, down-and-out in San Francisco. My luck. No sign of snow anyway, some cheer.

Berlin, 1990, five years after that disappointment in the City on the Bay. I'd just lived through City on the Wall, and a new era was in the making, hardly dared dreamed of – and now my own little dream was about to be realized, hardly could I have imagined.

Living in the barracks installation which had once housed Hitler's private HQ, I was employed on the side as masseur in a tiny rec center on this very compound. In a building where the Gestapo once tore muscles and shattered joints, there I was working at deep-relaxing muscles and helping joints bend better. It was called Hi-Light and offered a massage service as well as limo-rental, video-rental, ping-pong and a small library, whatever came to the mind of whichever military wife happened to be running it at the time, and was open to creative inspiration. I was available on commission by appointment, according to contract I also gave quarterly workshops. This all ran until the last American military installation was closed for The Drawback, 1994.

In December of 1990, Kelly from Texas was at the helm. She was a congenial sort, and as with her predecessors I often had a good hearty chat with her in the office after an appointed session on the bench. On this particular day she hit me with a volunteer request. Would I be willing to go house to house, flat to flat, for three evenings running, ending with Christmas Eve, in the military housing areas? Would I be willing to do it unpaid, although families responding to this clever little offer were paying a fee of five bucks for Santa to spend 2-5 minutes “dropping by“ and enchanting the kiddies? Would I be willing to have Kelly as a “Rudolph,“ sledding me and about four “elves“ in green from the Berlin American High School around in her van? My heart jumped.

I said, “Maybe. First tell me about The Suit.“ The Suit was grander than I could have dared hoped: the costume itself was totally alright, with enough room for pillows, and as only the boots were missing, I stuck with my military boots, the kids would just have to deal with that. The main thing, the beard and the wig, were as good as it gets, cotton would help the eyebrows, nothing was loose-hanging, it was perfect. As a pipe smoker with a nice collection, I would use my very long- stemmed number which was right out of the traditional illustrated poem – everything was set. So would I do it? I said, “One other thing. Snow. Tell me about snow, I want snow.“ It hadn't snowed a winter in Berlin worth mentioning. That year it would, and did, and how. I told Kelly, leaving the snow open to chance, “Yes. I'll do it, I'm in. Am I alone with this?“ No, it seemed there was one other Santa going on his own tour for the Hi-Light, a Master-Sgt., a tall and lanky, rather banal and colorless fellow who thought that just wearing the threads made the theme, as if just wearing the duds made the dream, and when I heard that he was all they had and they needed a second for another tour, I said, “YES KELLY! YES! I WILL BE YOUR SANTA!“

And so it went. I fit into the whole shtick like an apprentice to the Real McCoy. I went through every tour those three evenings with one thought: I am He. What would He do if He were Me? And what would The Universe wish to communicate to all these children, or to a specific not-yet-encountered child - in the form of a kitsch-traditional, warm'n'rosy Santa – this creative Universe so electrically resonating with compassion, with warmth and love, pregnant with joy like a Santa.

The effect was a complete outward transformation, and inwardly I was morphing into my interpretation of a divinely-dropped North Pole Messenger of love, of joy, of goodwill, of Christmas warmth and cheer at its best – no clichées, no bullshitting, no “acting“ but being it, taking my time actually paying attention to the kids, listening, playing, laughing and joking – and sharing that twinkle of the glance. And it worked. The ho-ho was heartfelt, and slipping into the role I rolled in and out of each visit feeling enriched and in more than a few cases tangibly enriching.

Among all the many various drop-ins, at some I was known by military co-workers, and for them it was “Sam-ta Claus“ - explaining to the young and inquisitive that the military boots were a logical gesture of solidarity with the troops – heaven forbid it should mean I was actually some seargeant- dude dressing up for a stint... Most of it all went pretty much according to program, I spent anywhere from four to five minutes per visit, and there were quite a few of them. And it was fun.

There were about four incidents which will always remain with me from the latter two evenings. I worked the crowd, as they say, on gut instinct and hunch, or call it intuition. My elves were sometimes nonplussed, trying to remind me that time was running, as five turned into ten minutes, ten into twenty. I reminded them with the sternness of a Papa Christmas, that we were on my clock, not Hi-Light's, not Kelly's, not the 5-dollar fee's. They gulped and must have thought, “Oh, shit, the dude's gone mental, he actually believes he's...“ And they dealt with it.

In one flat there was a young mother with her little daughter. Different than the other families I'd been seeing, the air semed laden with an unspoken blue-mood. It expressed the overall tension over the Gulf deployment, Desert Shield was close to becoming Desert Storm, and everyone was more or less on edge in the face of unknowns. I wasn't here for commercial purposes, but on quite other business: Being Christmas. After entering the kitchenette with a hearty greeting, I sat on the nearest chair and motioned the girl toward me, inquiring as to what was on her heart. If you can't do that, what are you doing Santa for? She hesitated, and her mother, leaning against the counter and reflecting this mood as well, courteously explained that they were both concerned about Dave, a family member or friend being in the Gulf, and what danger might await him.

Nodding sagely (Santa does that), I drew the girl to my knee, hugged her gently closer, and spoke very softly to her. Naturally we had one simple rule, if you happen to know what the parents had in store for the child you could “promise“ that – but you don't promise anything you can't, nor can anyone, deliver. So for warm-ups I asked her if she knew who I was, then I asked her if she knew where I lived. When she answered with North Pole, I told her, “No, that's what everyone says, but the truth of the matter is, I live in your heart, right there in your heart, that's where I live. And all year round I am there, loving you, watching you grow, and there is nothing, nothing you can do that could make me love you less. I am seeing everything, just like they say, only I am not thinking bad or good, I am just loving you.“ Well, good for the warm-ups, that got her up on my lap. Her mother's lips were already quivering.

“Now then,“ I went for the gold. “You're going to get this and that for Christmas, aren't you? I don't have to tell you. But you are worried about Dave, and we are thinking about Dave, now aren't we? There are things even Santa cannot promise you in so many words, there are things we just have to leave up to Jesus, and there are things we just have to leave up to God. So what to do? Well we can pray, can't we? You pray with me, with ol' Santa. Now see if you know this song, and anyone who knows it can sing it with us, right now and right here, and we will offer this song up like a prayer for Dave to come home safely. Alright? Alright, now here goes...“

I broke into one of my own most favorite childhood songs from Pete Seeger, also performed by Simon and Garfunkel, “Strangest Dream“ - the whole song from beginning to end, softly and yet with a penetration which carried the mood in that kitchen into a level of refreshed hope and wonder at the power of possibility. If that ain't Christmas. And the child was much more relaxed, and the mother was brushing away tears, and the elves dealt with it. My clock. In Sufism we call this: effacement-of-the-self-in-the-elf, in Arabic, fana-fi-santa.

Shortly after, the elves got a taste of Santa's irritation. We made a stop at one flat where the only child there was an infant, not even half a year old by my reckoning, and with web-cam running and the adults making jolly, I was supposed to gratify their selfish whims of scaring the living bejeebers out of a little one who had no idea what this massive red and bearded intruder bursting through the door was after. And the child burst into screams of terror, to the gaity of these perverse American idiots. Not even then did they have a clue that they were being stupid. I gazed very gently on the child, then growled at the parents and guests a sarcastic “Merry Christmas“ and beat it out of there in less than half a minute. Their five bucks. The elves, following me down the stairs, were shocked and bemused at hearing Santa muttering a very un-Christmas “such bullshitters,“ and “Santa don't play that shit.“

It was the third incident which most moved me. There the elves had to really learn some patience, and live with my Santa-wrath. While I was equipped with a never-empty sack of little brown baggies of goodies for each child no matter how many I encountered, it was part of the deal that a family could leave a bag with a present or two with a note for me to bring it into the apartment as if it was from the Great One himself, a nice touch when one thinks about it. I was not however, expecting what hit me at this domicile: One, maybe two wrapped little boxes, and a note taped on the door, addressed to Santa, requesting that he ask the girl “in which bed she's been sleeping“- in which bed she's been sleeping? They wanted to draw me into their twisted family dysfunction? My intuition was on alarm, I grimaced as I ripped the note off and crunched it in my North Pole fist, I growled with a side glance to my wondering elves, “Santa – doesn't – play – this – shit.“ And we went in.

There were the parents, with the boy, the older of two childen, dressing the tree it seemed, everything appearing quite normal, none of them actually moving toward me or getting into The Visit much, just carrying on with what they were doing. Then I saw the little sister, seemed not older than four, standing at a distance in the living room apart from me and from the family, standing and looking – well, for me quite clearly traumatized, if one looked at it. And that evening I was looking.

I dropped the rocks, and left the others who didn't even take notice, and sat my big North Pole ass down on that couch where she was, and gestured her to come nearer. My previous experience over Dave and Pete Seeger had prepared me for this moment, and I was dismayed to see that this precious child's clear inhibition, her blank stare unmoved by any little humor on my part, was too deep to just be distracted by grins and jests, it was a sign of trauma. What the game here was I could not for the life of me surmise. But with the same wrathful energy coursing through me toward her parents I radiated toward her in concentrated, attentive stillness, all the compassion I felt toward her, all the cherishment, all the joyous love and aching to wrap this little one in my heart.

I got her over to me and went through the same chat as with the other girl the evening before: who I am, where I really live, and it took twenty full minutes to get her to a normal child's responsiveness, a turning up of the lips, a glint in the eye again, a voice. I told her that I watch over her, that she is an ever, ever so good little girl, that I love her, that Santa loves her, that Jesus loves her, that she is loved by God every moment of every day, and that no one, no other person big or small, may tell her differently.

I had to work for those five bucks, I had to penetrate hard rock in what time I had, and I wasn't leaving till something gave. I addressed her with the authority of my office in The Suit, I addressed her with the sovereignty of love. And I stayed with her till she could return to normalcy, if even for that moment. And she got it. And the elves, I think they got it too. Her family got nothing, they were beyond reach. Had I seen anything tangible I could have reported, I would have alerted our youth services. I left there without a word to the others, but took one last lingering gaze at the door, toward the little sister still standing by the couch in that living room, still apart from her family who had missed everything and would still. And she returned my gaze and was back with the living, I hoped, to stay.

Kelly made a grand “Rudolf“ in all that generous Berlin snow, and we wrapped it up from there. A day or two later she asked me what all went on with my tours, several families had called her up especially to tell her they got far more for their five bucks than they'd bargained for. I said, “Oh hell, you know, Kelly, the Master-Sgt. probably had more goin' on in his bag than we'd thought...“

My tours were over, it was Christmas Eve, and I just wasn't finished, after waiting all these years to be The Fat One. I visited a five year old girl I personally knew, a fair piece away in Kreuzberg, not one of your better-heeled districts in town. I had some fun with Berliners en route waiting for the subway and while riding it, appearing as this totally American Clichée of Christmas walking around in an area uncharacteristic for this, being outrageous, greeting people in my still broken German and getting the jaded, seen-it-all Berliner or dour Turkish faces to break into bewildered smiles and laughter. If this wasn't fun, what the hell is!

En route back to my barracks, still in full dress and character, I left the subway and took a short bus run to the front gate. The driver and other riders seemed to know this American shtick, but sitting there as well was a very traditionally dressed, middle-aged Turkish Muslim couple, who checked me out and seemed to figure in a polite way, as I was reading their faces, “Well, yes, this is their Christmas holiday, it has nothing whatesoever to do with us of course...“ How wrong they were, as tonight Santa was there for everyone, and so was Edmund Gwinn, who'd spoken Dutch to the little Dutch girl on his lap, to a watching young Natalie Wood's astonishment, and the “Miracle on 34^th Street“ was about to be transfereed to “Finkenstein Allee“.

I waited till we reached my stop, made a belly-ho-ho, wished everyone “Frohe Weihnachten,“ this being, Merry Christmas, and directly at the shocked but delighted Muslim couple, a ringing “as-salaamu aleikum, wa-rahmat-ullah wa-brakatu-hu!“ - this being, peace be with you and mercy of God and His grace! An especially Muslim touch to this season of joyous love and renewal.

I wondered how the Master-Sgt. was holding out.

- S. Inayat-Chisti, Berlin - Dec. 2011 

(Pir Vilayat Khan doing my Shtick, early '70s)