There Are Things

There are things which cannot be discussed
and those which may not be; the one
because language however eloquent will not suffice, the other …
because there are matters which transform matter
and which are therefore kept unavailable to the probing, curious ego
of the conditioned mind and character not yet ready – perhaps never,
or unreceptive to the Knowledge and the way toward it, requiring everything.

Because the purpose of that soul and the maturity of that personality,
the ripeness of the interest in reaching the most primal and likewise ultimate
re-cognition of Being Human, and to receive the training and the strength to
also hold and to carry and to use, to apply this – is more than an apprenticeship;
it is a gift by grace and can only be met with the sincerest of gratitude and humility.
One arrives with condtioned reasons and replaces this with humility;
even that humility will be surrendered for effacement. There are things...

There is hierarchy, deny it or not, in but not of this world; as there are those
serving the work of drawing consciousness into the Human form,
each holding a position at a place in this world yet not, perhaps hidden from view,
and a point in time yet transcending time measured, perhaps hidden from view.
Spiritual democracy is for this world, the right of each to develop
undominated by another's insistence by force on what should be adhered to.
Hierarchy is without name or form, yet has its names and its forms –
one will not find it however, but only the indicators if that is to be –
and those, right before one's nose. Soberly, neither seduced
by the exotic nor the banally bland familiar, but quickened through awakened eye.

This world is full of contradiction, and by this world is meant perception.
The hierarchy is stable, and there is no discussion, no debate, but liberation.
In the scope of democracy one should question and challenge – but oneself,
and all that one has bought into from all around oneself, this requires discipline.
In matters of hierarchy not of this world of shadow-control and shadow-force,
questioning is stilled, argument has no place – to meet it requires more discipline,
the will to reach consciousness and be free requires surrender of will to Reality.

Discourse on this at all belongs to travellers there, not to those who have arrived.
One is taking liberties even writing this, and to be positioned somewhere in this work
is to be confronted with contradictions as well – and to learn to bear that with grace.
One may be called to take positions one had never imagined, or to take no positions.
It is of inestimable value to learn to cleanse the heart of sides and angles, to eschew
manipulation both internal and external, to take a stand if need be and stand fast.

For a time, or some time or some other time – one needs to gather and hold strength,
cultivate trust, cultivate prayer, cultivate action and repose alike.
Alone the appreciation of the fact that there is a work, that there is a hierarchy
of consciousness – not of ego – and that there is service and something being served,
for the entire benefit of oneself even as one leaves that for the entire benefit of
Humankind, for the liberation of this seemingly fixed world – alone this appreciation
amounts to receptivity toward transformation, not metaphoric but real.

Without once using the word God, one has meant exactly that.
Lest one ask concerning Love, one is pointing to exactly that.

NO-MAN

(ca. 1983-4, Buddhist Psychology Studies; inspired by this, F. Kafka, R. Serling,

 American Book Of The Dead,...and my driving record)

"No-Man is an island, No-Man stands alone ..."

(Donne?...why, no - it's all just starting)

Bill N. sipped his morning coffee with a relaxed air not ordinarily granted him. How long that momentary relief could be extended he had no idea. His four-year-old daughter was slowly filling her mouth with soggy Rice Krispies, her face low in the bowl, her eyes cautiously keeping vigil on daddy's state of mind. No, not really, on his outward behavior perhaps, but – could she really know his states, his condition? At her age? Perhaps better than anyone, who knows?

As he peered over the rim of his cup their glances locked. Each was imbibing is or her respective morning tonic slowly, watching every possible change in the other like two gunslingers circling in an old Western. Ah – she trembled! no, it was he, he was being overcome with a tremor starting from the back of his head and extending through his neck, his shoulders, his ribs; his breathing was slowly becoming stifled. Still her gaze, innocent or knowing, kept its bead on him.

Every object in the room had to it a kind of lucid certainty, was communicating its awareness to him through his periphery and, it would seem, beyond. Everything contained in the kitchen – and certainly the kitchen itself – possessed a quality of is-ness which struck Bill N. forcefully, even arrogantly, and drew all of his attention most accutely to the eyes of his daughter, who had not flinched one muscle except to bat an eyelash now and then and feed her face, in the rhythmic, even mechanical manner she did now.

Nausea overcame Bill N. and following a brief moment of utter blackout of vision or thought or any sense, he was transported to a quite different scenario, with a steering column thumping him in the chest and blood trickling fast from his nose.

One prominent sound accompanied the blast to his body, the sound of metal colliding with metal at sufficient velocity to apply great shock to his entire system, enough to take a life. His mind immediately assessed the entire situation, computing in one familiar second the next sequence of events and eventualities: consideration of casualties, of damage, of insurance, of faults and responsibilities,; police, perhaps state troopers, ambulence, witnesses, would-be witnesses; did he have his license and was his watch still functioning . . .

Somewhere between shattered and clear, Bill N. drew himself gradually from his now totaled '78 Pontiac and approached the probably distraught others – if this one involved any others – he was getting really tired of this sick joke, time and again. The morning was crisp, the sunlight was exhilirating despite the circumstances; he wished like hell he could be anywhere else but here. As ambling bodies gathered around him and various blue and red lights flashed in his eyes the stabbing pain in his head returned and he swooned. The weight of his back rested flatly on the padded stretcher as the sickly blue-green halls of some dreaded place rolled past his view.

Looking up at the attendant who loomed over him manning the stretcher, his eyes came back into focus and he summoned all of his strength to exercise his feeble voice. "Where's my car?" The clean-shaven attendant looked down without moving his head an inch in Bill N.'s direction. A faint turn of his lips to one side denoted a condescending mixture of pity and amusement. Considering whether to tell him again at all, or just to keep walking to the ward, the young man answered finally and with markedly detached professional patience, "Bill, you've just come out of electro-shock treatment, there's no car; this is your home and I'm taking you to your room now."

And the eyes went right back up and the stretcher went right on rolling and Bill N. could have burst an artery with rage, were he not too, too wiped out just now to express anything. And his glazed eyes merely fixed on that ceiling, welling up with tears, lips tightly pressed. Bill would like to have fought the confusion which dominated his sensible mind; however, he was likewise altogether aware, nauseatingly aware, that it wouldn't come to anything to grasp at that.

You see, Bill N. was doomed by a sentence he didn't recall invoking upon himself, doomed to pass fluidly from one experience in time to another, with no delineations, no linear time reference, no certainty of what might consciously be happening with him at any moment, no control over the process, and what was most profound of all: no solidity whatsoever of anything except just as it was happening in the exact moment. If he could somehow be awake for the blackouts, perhaps there was solidity in that. No, Bill N. was doomed, and he knew it. He hadn't always known it but he knew it now – but where did that get him?

He strode up to the rostrum and placed himself in front of the large Kiwanis Seal on the wall, and grabbing the podium with both hands awaited the dying applause; he greeted and addressed the invisible audience hidden behind glaring floodlights. Introducing his topic, he spoke on a subject in which he was well-informed, and keeping track of his time began to draw to a close. Suddenly a harsh and unnerving sensation came over him, imperceivable to an observer, as familiar to Bill N. as it was unwelcome.

His forehead broke out in perspiration, his head throbbed, cold clammy dread overwhelmed him as he fell into the clutches of this unknown justice which prevailed over his existence – for there was no person or society behind it, and no way out, as the floodlights grew in area and brilliance, penetrating his shut eyelids and insisting, insisting – what? - that he not give in to the blackout?

Bracing himself he passed on and on through this scene and that, each experienced with full-bodied sensuality and presence of mind, and each punctuated with the oncoming sense of desperation and dread, and final termination through a simple exchange in reality – or rather, perspective of motion, since reality could not be named. Right now he was typing a short-story for a class – ah, so he was a student, a student! No – he was at a wedding – whose? Ah, so he was really this member of this family – or was he – that member?

Bill N. was a Flying Dutchman of sorts, traveling groundless over many grounds, an island without fixed location, alone with not even enough time to be alone where he could get a handle on anything – because in every situation he thought he was there! "That's me standing on the rostrum, that's me visitng my father in this nursing home, that's me snapping pictures of the bullfight in Madrid – now, it's happening now, and it is it must – be – so!"

And on and on it went, unrelenting for Bill N. And at this very moment, most pernicious of ironies: Bill has just experienced another rebirth – as you, reading for your enjoyment or curiosity a short-story about Bill N.

So good luck, Bill.

"The bad news is that we are in free-fall,
with nothing to hold on to, and no parachute;
the good news being, that there is no ground."

(Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche)

Bees-m'illah – or, The Dervish Gets The Honey

I once observed a swarm of bees
carrying their traffic in and out of a tree;
for two years running, according to season,
I'd lift my head into their midst, my reason

was to hear them, feel them more nearly
and hum at their timbre, imbibe it more clearly –
and humming was intoning, and this no less singing,
our own space intoning – I still, awash in their winging.

On raising my pitch just so, they flew faster –
when lowered, they slowered; then after
some minutes this humming grown quicker:
the drone manifested as pure Nature-Zikr.

Sufis have a nose for where the pollen's kept,
they've alone gathered Knowledge, while Muslims slept –
Love's own Zikr gathers atoms together, sovereign world!
Out of such was true honey combed, as the Dervish whirled.

When drenched in Love you pant, “There is no God but Reality!”
this is no property of ideology, nor is it the colorless banality
of crawling, supremacist, sado-maso, herd-submissive pork-squeamers –
but rather a Statement of Sovereign Love in Action, in God immersed!

I have been asked to pen something on Sufism in light of developments in Mali

Sufism dates back to the first Human Beings, it is neither a religion nor a philosophy, while giving them their life and depth and dimension, as it expresses from the source of both.

Whereas for a believer God is a reality, a Sufi apprehends God as THE reality, and arrives at this through direct experience of God and nothing less. She has donned the mantle of many faiths through the ages, lending each its peculiar form and the scent of love, harmony and beauty. And whereas Sufism is immeasurably older than Islam, which to the uninitiated appears to claim it for itself, the fact is that Sufis alone have given Islam all that is of value in it. Sufism is free and the Sufi belongs to no religion, it is the essence of all faiths.

Sufis may traditionally be Muslims, but Muslims are no Sufis, rather they have persecuted Sufis for centuries into the present, and we will be seeing more of this.

The Sufi can coexist in real mutual appreciation with anyone, embracing all forms and requiring none, but the Sufi cannot coexist with bigotry, racism, all manner of hypocrisy, faking, mass manipulation, supremacism, slothful indifference. Having said that, I have to point out that the Sufi can coexist with every kind of ignorance, as she does this all the time.

The most profound expression in English of Sufism in our time, is in the following invocation, whose value is - as with all things given by Sufism - only in the practice and realization of it:

“Toward the one, the perfection of love, harmony and beauty, the only Being, united with all the illuminated souls who form the embodiment of the master, the spirit of guidance.“

Now the spirit of guidance which demonstrates Sufism as the Source and not the effect of any religion, not the “mystical side-show“ of any faith, as bookish academics so often portray it – this spirit of guidance is most beautifully expressed in the part of this Sufi prayer addressing it:

“. . . Thy light is in all forms, Thy love in all Beings: in a loving mother, a kind father, an innocent child, a helpful friend, an inspiring teacher. Allow us to recognize Thee in all of Thy holy names and forms: as Rama, as Krishna, as Shiva, as Buddha. Let us know Thee as Abraham, as Solomon, as Zarathustra, as Moses, as Jesus, as Muhammad – and in many other names and forms, known and unknown to the world. . . .“

It should be clear by what is happening in Mali, in Pakistan, and certainly elsewhere, that Sufism - which proposes an ever forward movement of conscious Human development, both embracing tradition and yet traditionally, even notoriously breaking with it, both disappearing into any surrounding culture it finds itself sharing a corner of the planet with and maintaining an unwavering position in deference to the truth, to the light, indifferent to and independent of dogmas, institutions and ideologies of every brand or intensity.

What shall be the difference between Islam and Sufism, then, when they both have a penetrating power? Where Islam penetrates with dogma, sectarian warfare, supremacist tendencies – the Sufi penetrates with light, and her interests lie in effacement in God over religion.