Night Occupied Me

Night occupied me with an oak of a man, medium in stature: holding forth in a public square, raging against the relentless wind, standing firmly against the rising tide of the times.  He addressed a jeering crowd like some prophet of old.  He spoke of nations and of defending secure borders.  He spoke in defense of the defenseless, the innocent, the abused, and the truth.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He said,

"Woe to you,  pathetic rabble of the Antifa, and woe to all your mentors and groomers, woe to the Lügenpress which gives you a stage for your antics, woe to this mob of politically correct terrorism!  Hypocrites!  A generation of vipers you are!  You go all the Snowflake, over any little grudge or body-check!  But when it comes to reality-checks, you're selectively blind as bats, and narcissistically reactive as bats out of hell!  You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!

"You call yourselves 'autonomous' - no, you are all automatons of the very system which subsidizes and grooms you selective moralists and morons!  You permit yourselves every limitless privilege and aggression toward those not pandering to your demands, as toward those not suiting your totalitarian agenda.  Then you cry 'Nazi' and 'fascist' or '-phobe' when challenged or called out on it!  You twist the facts to suit your flatulent program and self-preening wishes and wants, selling yourselves as fake victims to the fake press!

"For real life victims in the real world you've no empathy and no brave, thoughtful words!  Just a shrill cliché of jaded 'feminism' in the ears of those who cannot avoid your pathologically bludgeoning presence!

"Woe to you all, you cannot save your asses for a fart!  That very God you all mock is not asleep, but watching with compassionate objectivity as you advertise for your own nations' suicide, and He will recieve your sorry asses when you fall into the pit you are digging for yourselves!  That slide into the abyss will not come so kindly however - and the moment any one of you finally grows a conscience, that moment will prove to be your worst nightmare of a revelation!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I don't know who he was in the night, his face remained a mystery as did his name.  But the sun shone off his forehead.  The burden of human suffering shone in his eyes, and the balm for it as well.  A fierce love for Humankind and all that breathed, ranted in his heart.

His fire was in my belly.

"Balm of the Arab Masses"

I had a dream of which I very rarely tell, and at the same time have referred to in one or two poems ("Cornerstone of Your Faith," for example).  The dream's importance in my life turns on the time and place and circumstances in which it came, but also as a task (or so I 'd understood it) for me to fulfill in my life, and to this day I am wondering whether and how, and whether in the literal or universal sense, but there it is:

Summer of 1976, I'm 21 and leave Boulder for the one and only "Sufi Camp" I would ever attend, and it was at Neve Shalom, a piece of land smack at the midpoint of the boondocks on the Latrun road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  Across from us was a Benedictine monastery which produced wine - of course.  Neve Shalom was already an established plot of land used for the purpose of Peace Alternatives, of bringing groups of youth together, Muslims and Jews, Christians, Israeli and Palestinian...here was where the four week long camp was to be held and was held; preceded by a three week long work camp to set the camp up; I was in it for the full 7 weeks, and it was all and altogether an experience that's remained with me for life. 

Three individuals were to have been the main feature, not the only but the main, here:  Banefsha Gest, one of the earlier pupils of Samuel Lewis in San Fran, Murshid Hassan who she first introduced to us in the first place, in Boulder, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter who taught in Penn., a wonderful and dynamic man.  The Camp's intention was to bring Jews and Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis to work together, worship and celebrate together and to eat together - and together we performed the Dances of Universal Peace given by Murshid Sam Lewis with all the Hebrew and Arabic and Christian phrases, etc., to finally sow these seeds on Israeli soil, where Sam Lewis never set foot (he'd been practically everwhere else).  This did happen.

As as it so happened, Reb Zalman was certainly there and we in-joyed each other's presence very much.  Banefsha was most certainly there, it was sort of "her" camp - there was much to appreciate about her, but she had this ego.  And that was the rub, why Sheikh Hassan was not physically at the camp, she'd had a falling out with him, and that was its own story.  Where was he while I was there?  He was with us at our house in Boulder, staying there on his 2nd of 3 visits (I got to catch him on the 1st and then later the 3rd) - so in a typically comically "Sufi" madcap way, it was all perfect.  He was where he should be and I was where I should be.  And after his first visit with us in Boulder I carried plenty of what he'd put out there in me.

A quick background, so as to put the dream in still better perspective.  Since the age of 19, now going on just over 2 yrs., I had gone around washing, literally washing, and massaging feet (with almond oil and intuitive reflexol.), as my inner discipline/ love-task to connect as directly as I could with the beginning of the Last Supper in John.  I washed the feet of street transients in Boulder, of students, of guys and women, of the hot and beautiful and the far from hot and not very beautiful, in fact as much and as willingly even-mindedly, the very shabby and dirty, and of my compadres in the house (our khanka / at times ashram), and of every guest who came to us - and that meant as well some pretty prominent ones, including among others, Pir Vilayat.  I had my wash cloth and plastic basin, my hand towel and oil - for a long period I was even seen going around in a Moroccan woven jalabea, sometimes barefoot myself, sometimes with sandals or shoes.   This was all okay in Boulder back then.   And I did this at Neve Shalom where I also brought this concentration to a close.  Pir Vilayat had told me after doing his feet, I should go on to full-body and work on that, which I already had but now expanded more to it.

Among the various Zikrs / Dhikr-Allah (ceremonial Remembrance of God through repetition) evening sessions (often called Hadhrat, or Presence) we did with Murshid Hassan in Boulder, there was one very soft and mild one, or a version of it, where we stood clenched together in a line or a wide circle swaying left, chest, right, chest, left... intoning like a breeze:  Ya...Huu...Ya...Huu.   (By the way, the original "Jews" addressed God with Remembrance of "ya hu," hence Yehudim, its form YaHuwa may appear familiar: Yahuvah, Jehova...)

So I'm on my flight to Israel via Tel Aviv.  I'm starting to compose my Christ-poem which you have already read, "A Prophet's Reward," making myself very receptive, primarily through the text of the gnostic Gospel of Thomas which was unearthed at Nag Hammadi some 30 yrs. earlier, and through the Shiva Sutras of which there were some 107 or so listed at the end of Paul Reps' Zen Flesh Zen Bones, and I found myself picking one and concentrating on that, it was focused on the outgoing breath and holding that point between the exhale and the inhale.  And "dying".  I believe through these two practices, the Thomas Gospel and the Shiva Sutra, I received all the impressions I needed for this poem which was also centered on the washing of the feet.  On the evening I finished this poem, that August in '76, in a big tent at Neve Shalom, Ramadan had just begun.  It was about 1 a.m. and I went into the open field and zipped myself up in my sleeping bag and was out.  I woke up around maybe 8 a.m. with tears streaming from my eyes after having the following dream - which I'd tried to crawl back into but that didn't work:



In the dream I was in  a hole in the ground - in later reflection clearly a well, but there was no water in it, we were standing dry.  We were three:  myself, Reb Zalman and Banefsha.  Murshid Hassan who was not with us there but was thoroughly present and dominant in spirit - or literally, on and in the breath - in that we performed the "Ya Hu" dhikr between us three, hands and arms clenched, swaying in that dry well.  While there was no actual water in which we stood, the entire atmosphere in it and surrounding us and reflected in the dhikr was full of the water element.  And added to this we were weeping together.  Why?  Well one, we were so deeply moved.

And two:  what is most sacred to desert dwellers?  Water.  And where was this well?  In the middle of the fucking desert.  While we were in this condition, there surrounded us inside the well a voiceless voice, that is, no one spoke and yet the voice-impression surrounded us and permeated the place even as the element water had - you could say, it spoke in our hearts and addressed us there.  It said, and I remember this, it referred to our dhikr in there and the condition it brought us to:  "This is the balm of the Arab masses."  - 'of' or 'for' are the same here, the 'balm for the masses' was meant and I also strained to grasp later whether 'Arab' or 'poor' was said, and remained certain with my first impression, that by 'Arab' was meant 'poor' - and not in any positive or any coddling sense.  I did also understand - or misunderstand, but I maintained for a long time - that this was more universally meant, not just 'the Arabs' - today, I see that differently, as I also always maintain:  the real enemies of Islam are the Muslims themselves.  But the dream:  it was really clear to me afterward, that this was the voice of Prophet Muhammad, and the 'well' was his own heart.  Period.

And our instruction, to take this out there, struck me while still in the dream as being like - or being literally, in dream-symbol - carrying a pan full to the brim of water on our heads over the desert to the thirsting masses without spilling a single drop - some undertaking, that.  And this made us weep further.  And with that I woke up, still weeping.  And with, oy, such a headache!

And my Christ-poem was finished and would be read aloud that morning by Banefsha to all present, and my dream was intact even if I wasn't - don't ask me whom I then told this to, I don't even know any more, I was no longer in touch with anyone there interestingly enough.  Except one correspondence to Zalman in 1980, where I hand-typed some 100 letters to Jews and Christians and their respective organizations and congregations, of my intention to some day and somehow make it to Germany as an American Jew and, yes, in the spirit and reality of Christ (some Jew, eh?), on my own recognizance and following my own inspiration (with encouragement form my Teacher but in no connection with any group or sect) to connect specifically with the population of the post-war born generation, mine and the one just prior - of younger Germans who MUST largely be normal feeling human beings like myself (yes, they were) and therefore, if I as a Jew was still so affected by the Shoa, I figured - and I was right as rain here - how thorough and yet ignored, unrecognized by everyone else must their burden be as children and grandchildren of the perpetrators and members and accomplices and those compliant, of the Nazi generation!  I had to meet them and let them meet me, to listen and share with each other, to find each other, to let them know that here was at least one American and Jew who wanted to meet them and hear them out and join with them - and to expose myself to exactly what not one single Jew or American I ever met even once ever considered or considered possible, ever mentioned or even wanted to look into.  Where was our compassion!  If I were the child or grandchild of Nazis, I figured, I'd want to shoot myself.  We needed to meet and we needed to embrace.

As fate would have it, I wound up in the Army in '86 and without my asking and without asking me first, they sent me here to Berlin - really, the Army was the horse I rode in on.  So I joyfully got here, joyfully stayed, stayed longer, remained.  And my hunches were all true and produced 23 yrs. of relationships.  So fine, I'm in Berlin, now what do I do with all these Arabs and world's third largest Turkish population in one city?  The trend is not, nor ever was, toward Sufi thought, Sufi tolerance, Sufi dhikr and universality - rather toward nationalism, mythological Islamic supremacy, playing the victim while milking the generous social system here for all its worth, producing more kids while barring them from normal schooling, i.e., from participation in important and normal activities if not keeping them home altogether, maintaining a parallel society which no politician has the balls (or ovaries) anymore to challenge with any teeth, and of course keeping a tight hold on family holdings in Turkey and shuttling between the two - keeping the wheels greased so that they can get what they want out of Germany without holding a whit less onto the Anatolian illiterate, superstitious and controlling village-mentality.

 I advised a dear American friend who wishes to travel to Pakistan to bridge understanding between Christians and Muslims, that what she is bringing with her there is not popular, certainly not now - and is this an understatement!   On the other hand, when Murshid Sam Lewis (also known, in fact specifically there in Pakistan, as Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti) was over there and in India in the '50s and the '60s, as well as Egypt, Japan... meeting Sufis and dervishes and roshis and masters and saints and swamis of a whole range of caliber and standing and attainment and energy, he was constantly running into them, as American as you could get and yet recognized everywhere he went as one who'd "got it"  - and initiated into and brought further along by several orders and schools - his life demonstrated that when you are there in the breath and conscious of what you are doing there, magical things do happen, which "don't get written up in the papers, as not-news" as he often loved to point out.  This all fed into his eventual breakthroughs in San Fran.

He passed away in Jan. '71 at the age of 75, after tripping in Dec. of the top step of the flight of stairs in their house in San Fran and suffering the expected concussion and any other such injuries as a fall like that can bring on.  That was the entire story as I always had it - there was never anything else to it.  Yet at the beginning of this year, I received word which was from pretty unquestionable sources, and supposedly corroborated when my source asked further (by certain former pupils of Sam's from that time), and that this was already well known among at least some in the Sufi Order - but news to me and very disturbing at that:  he was supposedly or evidently pushed down, at that dawn hour, by a Muslim fundamentalist (what one was doing in THAT house and moreover at THAT hour, beats the hell out of me).

He did not have "friends" among the Muslim Association of San Fran, although he was due to meet with them in the near future. He never had anything to do with them, he just did what he did (and cnfirmed to him by Sufi Barkat Ali in Pakistan) and was better at it than they ever would be: he brought hundreds to chanting "Allah" - and the Muslims blocked any dialogue he may have offered.  Once they approached him in regard to the Dances of Universal Peace which he'd received in inspiration directly from the spheres and the instruction to manifest this directly from real Sufis, the "Muslim Bruddas" approached him there around '67, and said, "We don't appreciate what you're doing," they meant using the sacred Arabic phrases in Dance, praising God and producing actual joy - they didn't like that.  He replied, without losing a beat, "Oh I'm sure you don't - but the only matter of importance here is, whether Allah appreciates it."  He said they took off in a huff without another word, and that he knew then that their arrogance would net them a smashing loss of face in the '67 war with Israel, he saw that coming.

I went on to advise my American friend to always stick with what she knows and come from experience, to stay open to inspiration but trust Allah and no Muslims.  S/He's got your back, I cautioned, they'll try to put a knife in it.  And last of all, I offered her this as a Great Concentration:

"On the in-breath:  TOWARD THE ONE, on the out-breath:  TOWARD THE ONE.  Let it sink deep, take it in, anchor it, let it guide you and energize your work and cover your ass."

Polemical Epistle to the Progeny of the Prophet

O "Jihadi"...!

Where is the Prophet's own genuine smile on your lips,

the goodness of his heart in yours?

Where shines the light of his forehead on yours?

O shun all the pork you want, rapers of Islam -

those unslaughtered pigs are no worse off for it -

nor can their lives decide your inner destiny.

But until you learn to grasp "er-rahman-ir-rahim" and practice it,

O bigots and charlatans! the blood of the swine

shall be regarded as cleaner than thine

which through your precious vessels runs!

Dark your hearts and narrow your minds,

pathetic your feeble myth of Muslim unity:

on the memory of the Prophet a shameful blot;

intrigue and hate-mongering, that is your legacy.

Your misguided "jihad" makes only you at enmity with God.

S. Inayat-Chisti, Berlin 2007

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=428lJH-ihts

Cornerstone of Your Faith

Gratitude gives latitude when attitude allows you

                                                                 to nurture Space -

Taking this deeply to Heart, you let it impart
                                                           life-bestowing Grace.

There is a well, easy to stand in, I have been there;

its waters are deep, they carry an atmosphere
                                                          like no other.

It is the Heart-Source of the Prophet, he told me so,

that late-summer night in a field west of al-Quds:

SING! Bismillah ir-rahman ir-rahim!

SING! In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Beloved!

This is the very Cornerstone of Qur'an!

This, he said, "the Balm for the Arab masses," the antidote

to every vain pride, to all bigotry, to male aggression -

ir-rahman ir-rahim, compassionate, merciful -

whose shared root means Womb:
                                     that should tell us something.

If you don't yet know "In the Name of God,
                                     the Compassionate, the Merciful" -

to which you pay cynical lip-service
                                                       and reject its Guidance -

then you are not yet ready for "Allahu-akbar,"
                                                                God is Most Great -

which you use as a bludgeon out of primitive motives

rather than a sword to cut through your ignorance.

You reject the Balm vouchsafed from the
                                                            Prophet's own breast,

embracing instead that Bomb strapped to your own chest,

as you enter the crowd in the marketplace.

BREATHE "In the Name of God,
   Most Gracious, Most Merciful," with every step you take!

WALK "Bismillah ir-rahman ir-rahim,"
                                                  with every breath you draw!

Let it fill your atmosphere - give,
                                              abandon yourself to it utterly -

after all, God knows, it is your own true nature.

Let it carry you beyond hope and fear into certainty

                                             as no ideology can ever impart;

let it deliver you of your devisive judgemental loathing,
arrogant piety, with a Lovingkindness which opens
all doors and quietly overwhelms the world before you!

I see you on the street, self-isolated in your narrow-minded
     macho pride, your cherished anger worn on your sleeve -

                           "in the Name of God," you say,
               "the Compassionate, the Merciful" - as you butcher
     your own sister for wanting to determine her own life!
or you shoot her in the face, abetted by the family,
to uphold an "honor" which the Prophet
                                                       would find truly puzzling!

A twisted blasphemy this,
                       using the Cornerstone of the Faith to justify
                     political and every other self-serving agenda!

Behold:  when a wicked tribe rejected
   the Prophet's Message, scorned him and drove him out,
                                              scattering thorns in his path,

he recited only "Bism'illah ir-rahman ir-rahim"
                                                   with each prick and insult -

now it is you who scatter the thorns before the Prophet

by rejecting the Compassionate, the Merciful in favor
of cloying self-pity, of internecine blood-letting,
               and of ideological tyranny.

Whenever Religion becomes the property of bigotry,

whenever Faith is measured in fanatical scorn -

there is the Muslim Islam's own worst enemy,

there are the prophets stoned in the square.

SAY:  In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful,
           and mean it, learn to be grateful for your existence!

SING:  Bism'illah ir-rahman ir-rahim, and behold the simple
          everyday glory of God's own deft Hand
       working through you, blessing and cherishing you,
               and the ground you walk on!

You want honor?  Then always honor the One Self in all.

You want influence?  Good, then don't ever
                                    take your next breath for granted.

Remembering God for His own sake
           relieves you of poverty-mind:  always let
   the majesty and dignity of your Noble Lord and Cherisher
 overwhelm you, and join it - acknowledging, after all,

                                         that He dwells within you as you.

Go now, and make yourself a fragrant gift to the world,

a reflection of Paradise Here and Now, and in Reality.

- S. Inayat-Chisti, Berlin, Nov. 2005

A Prophet's Reward

July-Aug., 1976, Neve Shalom, Israel

On that evening before his Departure,

  the holder of the secret of Life

   bent low his head

    in the last private moment

     among his friends

      to pour into their own hearts

       one perfect Son's joy and sorrow

        on being called to his Father.

Removing those garments

  which distinguished him

    from his companions at the table,

     this personification of our souls'

      deepest prayer

       proceeded with towel and basin

To exemplify, as he had exemplified

  so often unnoticed,

   the attitude of the beloved Son

    of a loving Father.

For by his example alone could he in silence

  exhort his brothers to love

   the One in Whom

    we live and move and have our being.

Yet who had eyes to see?

  Who can hear the simple message

   of the gentle hand caressing

    the dust-laden foot?

Did Abraham recognize his stranger-guests

  when he washed them

   and fed them

    and gave them to drink?

One would doubt for the rest,

  it takes but one,

   and the doors of the heart

    are closed straight away.

And to him who would doubt

  did our beloved say:

   “Without understanding this

      you can have no part of Me.

“This – this is the holy sacrament!

   Why did I tell you to discard

    your swords, your pens

     and your books

      which deny men their Life?

“For the same reason that I would

   not defend Myself.

    Nor allow you to defend Me.

     O Father, Father,“

      he breathed a deep sigh

       and then continued,

“How shall I liken this generation?

   Will no one let his feet

     respond to the melody

      which the Father pipes through Me?

“Who will take up the tune and follow Me?

   Is there no one among you

    who can see what is being done?

“This night is the balancing point

   between the worlds:

    are you with Me now in this

     last hour?

“Verily, the feet are the key

   to Understanding and to Wisdom.

    And Wisdom is born out of the bond

      of Knowledge with Compassion.

       Therefore be ye diligent -

         and watch what I do.“

The hand was not separate from the foot

  nor the water separate from the breath

   of this Yeshuah,

    this our Friend who taught us

     the meaning of Friendship

      with his Life.

Wherewith our Teacher

  took and washed our feet

   giving special care to each companion

    as though they were the feet of his Father.

When he finished washing our feet,

  he rose, ever so slowly

   and evensofar as we his brethren

    felt new life in our limbs

     and in our hearts,

      his own seemed now to carry

       a massive load.

And in a moment his eyes

  were once again clear and penetrating,

   his voice softer yet commanding:

“Who receiveth any in My Name receiveth Me

   and so doing receiveth My Father.

    Who receiveth a prophet,

      to him shall be a prophet's reward.

“You ask, Where is Grace,

   when will we see the God of our fathers?

“Verily, wherever ye stand,

   whomever ye face,

    whatever may appear to happen,

      know this to be the Grace,

       which reveals itself to you even now

         if your hearts are ready to see:

“That in My Father's sight,

   the last shall be made first

    and the first made last.

“As only the Father can love

   have I loved you;

    henceforth take ye up

     and follow in My Way,

      and become the Truth,

       that Life may be yours.“

He looked at each of us

  directly and coherently,

   regarding each person

    as though according to his station,

     and then shared further his secret:

“Witness, each one of you, as you partake,

   and know that you partake, if you would,

    of a broken heart.

“Be not saddened nor confused,

   for I will bear this sorrow Myself, willingly,

    that you may learn wherefore

      its nature and its source.

“I am with you, I am with you,

   therefore be glad of spirit.

    This wine I pass amongst you

      as the flowing water which poureth forth

        from the broken heart.“

Raising his hands as though

  in benediction, he fairly shouted,

   “See, see, and be transformed!“

And for that moment, in the midst

  of such overwhelming silence,

   certain ones among us nearly conceived

    of the magnitude of the Love

     which this single being embodied.

He joined us all hand in hand

  and said:

   “Wretched limbs

      have you always amongst you -

        take care of them;

         those in poverty always are with you -

           feed them;

“But truly, I send you out

   as healers of broken hearts

     from all walks of life,

      as now I break Mine in order

        to prepare you

         for what is to come.

          Go out and mend all hearts

             in remembrance of Me.

“Do you think that I am come

   to bring condolence for one another's beliefs?

“I tell you, I am not come

   to bring condolence but a healing scalpel

    to put an end to the suffering

     caused by so many beliefs.

       Not by placating, but by understanding

         the nature of beliefs

          can you be free.

“A knot tied in a moment may take a lifetime to undo,

   but know what is in your sight

    and all that is hidden

     will be revealed unto you.

“Begin, therefore, at the Moment,

   as I have shown.

    For the feet shall prepare the way

      to the Heart,

       and at the feet doth the way begin.

“The way hath been shown;

   the hour is come,

    and the cock croweth, O it croweth -

     Who shall be prepared to answer

        in My Name?“

And at the end of that sacred communion

  we sang the closing hymn

   and wept as lovers do before parting.

Then sitting awhile in deep contemplation

  we listened as our beloved Friend

   gave his final blessing to us.

And rising before those who stayed with him

  he whispered,

   “The hour is come.“

JUBILATE!

(For about two solid years until the point of this writing, I had been known for going about - on campus, on the streets, in parks, and finally there at Neve Shalom, with water basin and towel, with almond oil in hand, washing the feet of anyone, literally anyone, who accepted the offer. It was my own way of internalising what I had gotten out of the Gospel of John. This poem developed and evolved directly out of inspiration drawn from that Gospel and the Secret Gospel of Thomas, the teaching of Murshid Samuel Lewis, and working with the 112 Breath Sutras given by Lord Shiva. Upon finishing it, about 1 a.m. in August of '76 and crawling into my sleeping bag in the middle of a field, nearing the end of our “Jerusalem Camp,“ I received a rather profound dream instructing me what to do with the world Muslim community, and feel challenged to this day as to how to bring that to fruition. The poem was published in the April '77 issue of "Sonflowers," put out by the Holy Order of MANS.)