2008: Let us Make it a Better Year.
Once more the year reaches to its conclusion and we look back on a year
which, when it began, had all the promise of an empty page on which we
could compose sublime thoughts and find for ourselves new opportunity,
with renewed hope for a better things; for a more prosperous peaceful
and harmonious society. Instead we see continued violence, prejudice
and rancour; we see selfishness and lack of understanding for others;
we see mutual distrust and we see that with all his technical
achievements man barely rises above his animal nature - indeed such
achievements may often have been abused to increase man's narrow
selfish habits. There is discord within the family of man as there too
frequently is within individual families. Extreme and narrow minded and
misguided interpretations of religion assist in furthering discord between
different groups. Man continues it seems with great recklessness and
invention to pursue his own path to self destruction. Sometimes the
impassioned cry can be heard 'if there is a God full of compassion how
can He let this happen?' Even the planet itself seems to be crying out at
its treatment at the hands of man.
In the Qur'anic account of the flood of Noah, Noah's son, not accepting
the offer to board the ark his father had built, swims towards what seems
to him a more secure option, a mountain. He is drowned with all the
others who mocked at Noah's inspired vision of a vessel of safety. He
relied instead on his own intelligence and reason to save him. Just so in
these days man, in his pride at his own abilities, insists on striking out
towards imagined safety and finds himself lashed by increasingly high
waves and on the point of drowning in his own pride, and it is only then
that he cries out 'how can a merciful God allow this to happen?'
Now the issue is as to what constitutes the Ark of real safety in the
modern world. Where can we find real shelter from the storms that
threaten to engulf us? The customs and traditions of religious belief is
the answer given by many but frequently this amounts to little more than
superstition and customary inherited beliefs and practises dressed up as
religion, that may have little more value than grasping a piece of
driftwood. What I want to propose as the Ark of safety derives from what
Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi called 'the roots of the roots of the roots of
religion'.
I also want to go further and say that individually we must, so to speak, be our
own Noah. To build within ourself the Ark of security - as I have tried to suggest
below.
The Sufis often say that in some sense the whole universe is in fact within us.
This means that in one way all the Prophets, known and unknown, all the truly
wise and inspired ones, exist within us as well as existing as historical
personages. In that sense too 'the roots of the roots of the roots of religion' exist
within each of us. Therefore let us look at how to build the Ark we need within
ourselves because ultimately we too can aspire to be that Ark and that will not
be without its effect on the world around us. Indeed just as many find security in
the holy Qur'an , the Bible, The Baghvad Gita, and works of wisdom and
enlightenment such as the Masnevi of Mevlana Rumi, we too may be to a
degree, a source of security for others in our daily lives by integrating divine
inspiration into the very structure of our personality.
As a way of building our ark I propose to explore a little the soci-economic stages
described by the great Delhi divine Shah Wali Ullah. This may seem a strange
jump at first but bear with me and I hope you will see what I mean by doing this,
and God willing our ark will reach its mountain resting place at last.
Shah Saheb perceived a relationship between four different stages of social
development and the layers of our inner development. The first or, so to speak,
'core' relates to our basic human needs for shelter, food, and our sexual needs.
At a social level this does not require anything but the most primitive level of
organisation. Inwardly this implies that the needs of our essentially animal nature
are met satisfactorily. If these are met then a second social layer in which the
need to rely on others for differentiation of tasks arises - (i.e. for individuals to
develop skills in hunting, farming, cooking etc). Socially specialisation relies on
mutual cooperation, trading of benefits etc. Inwardly this implies that the different
elements of our human nature, our intellect our, heart, our imagination, our
perception, sense of morality, conscience etc fulfill there own tasks and develop
mutual cooperation. Just as in a society that encourages the different
professions to develop, we also, in some sense become our own internalised
doctor, nurse, teacher, organiser, soldier, policeman, driver etc. At the next level
of development (the city state) we begin to get social structures and hierarchy
required to maintain order. Within us this implies ensuring the intellect functions
as ruler receiving suitable inspiration from a higher spiritual source and
percolating it down to faculties such as the heart which provides the necessary
energy. Our thoughts need to be trained, our impulses restrained etc through a
process known as 'perpetual service' (perhaps I will return to this in another
article).
All this is a gross simplification of Shah Saheb's sublime wisdom, and there is a
fourth level of development he describes, but it is enough for the purposes of
this article to convey a general impression that the various inner forces need to
be brought into order, just as social development requires structure and order.
Individuals will be functioning at different levels of development and within
ourselves we may make some progressions to an ordered state within, and at
times fall back to a more primitive level. The more advanced levels incorporate
and refine the more basic levels rather than supersede them entirely. Self
discipline, balanced with rewards, is required as the levels progress. The need
for a source of guidance and inspiration in advising the ruler becomes more and
more evident. It is in the context of an integrated personality too that the religion
of Truth becomes most effective, and the wisdom of divine law and the actions it
advises and proscribes become more meaningful. The individuals outward
actions become sincere and beneficial and they become best prepared for the
life hereafter. In Islamic terms it is when the believer becomes Mumin.
This then is so to speak an indication of what we need to build the Ark of an
integrated and developed personality. It aims to ensure that the ever present
divine inspiration is given the optimum conditions to reach each level and part of
us with its blessings and abundance, which actually never cease, from its
source. The spiritual guide acts inwardly as the advisor (the medium for divine
inspiration) and will at times outwardly reinforce his guidance when he perceives
this to be useful. It is one of the reasons the spiritual guides tend to ensure that
the disciple meets his core needs first i.e. they will generally emphasise getting
suitable employment, a modest home and marriage to ensure the first level of
development is satisfied. Circumstances however vary.
And what of Love, you may ask - you have not even mentioned Love? I am
grateful for your thought because that brings us to my recent visit to Konya for
the Seb-i-Urus of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. As regular readers of the web site
will know, by the Grace of God, I have visited this occasion for the last eleven
years. On this occasion I wanted to describe some facets of my visit precisely to
illustrate that an actual entire city can become illumined by that divine
inspiration. You see I actually did mention love above but hid it under the cloak
of the words 'divine inspiration'.
This year was full of variety yet also overflowed with that recognisable but never
adequately describable sense of heightened illumination and well being. People
who were there or have attended occasions like this will know what I mean
through the prism of their own experience - others will have to settle for limited
description of outward events. Like a wedding there is a gradual build up of
expectation and during that time there are various, so to speak, sideshows. Of
course my visit commenced with ziyarat first to Shems then Mevlana and then
the other saints of the city.
As it was the 700th year of Mevlana's birth, the occasion was marked by Unesco
and there was a symposium which brought together 'Rumi scholars' from around
the globe. Some parts were held at the Seljuk University several miles out of
central Konya. This mainly consisted of Turkish Scholars but also scholars from
India and Caucasus. However for two days there was a gathering of English
speaking 'Rumi Scholars' held in one of the rooms used for slide shows just
facing the entrance to the Shrine. I was unaware of its location but had
previously met a young man who had recognised me from Ajmer Sharif. As I left
the main shrine complex he walked out of the door opposite as if it had been a
planned meeting and reminding me I had said I would like to meet Carl Ernst, he
escorted me in to the narrow room. It was laid out rather like the inside of an
aeroplane with just two or three seats on each side of a long aisle. In that sense
the other 'passengers' were indeed an august body of scholars, aside from Carl
Ernst there was Leonard Lewisohn, Franklin Lewis, James Morris, and William
Chittick and many another Rumi scholar of repute. We were treated to talks on a
miniature painting of the tree of life as an illustration to the famous story of the
Greeks and the Chinese artists, with enlargements of minute details: and on
various other aspects of the Masnevi. It did indeed feel as if we had taken off on
plane. It was strange to come out from the room to find oneself not emerging
from a lecture hall as one normally thinks of it but to be facing the entrance to
the shrine itself. I attended twice but other matters also intervened and pulled me
away but it was nice to be able to express face to face one's appreciation of
these labourers in the field of scholarship and academia.
I spent quite a lot of time this year with Ali Baba, Nuri Baba's successor, and at
his behest described the occasion of meeting Nuri Baba to be recorded for
historical reasons on computer. There were of course many hours of Zikr and
Turkish music.I found the usual but neverthless remarkable charm of the Konya
folk was again evident in abundance. I also passed Bayram (Eid) with Ali Baba
going with him to his house for breakfast following the morning Eid prayers.
There were many meetings with people of many nationalities as always. Essin
Chelibi (Mevlana's descendent, and her mother and other family members were
as ever the epitome manners and kindness with invitations etc. Farouk Chelibi
arrived in time to conduct the Dua Torreni (the central event of the festival.
This year I chanced to attend the main Sema on the night of the 17th. I had gone
to Ali Baba's Dergah and there met friends who were going.to the main Sema
hall - I mentioned I was had not got a ticket (the term 'like gold dust' springs to
mind). I had intended to spend the evening in Zikr with Ali Baba but the Dergah
was too full even to get into the room and I decided to return to my hotel - I must
confess wondering what Mevlana had planned for me. On arriving I sat with
someone I had recently met in the foyer. We were just discussing how
completely impossible it was to get tickets this year when into the room
somebody walked, waving tickets. One does not let such opportunities pass
easily so half an hour later I found myself walking into the grand main hall with
fireworks going off in the background, whilst from another hall the president and
prime minister of Turkey and entourage entered by another door. They gave
speeches that drew loud applause from the crowd but as they were in Turkish I
will be able to excuse myself from passing on their contents.
From a rich collection of small and large events I must pick out one other for you.
That was the occasion when, sitting in Tahir's small shop with my good friend
Abdullah when three Iranian people came in after some discussion they were
invited to take tea. A young man in the party asked me if I knew the Masnevi - I
replied of course I was very fond of it. At that he burst into a highly artistic
rendition in the distinctly Persian manner, of the first 18 lines. Some dutch
friends who had been departing returned to listen enraptured by the powerful
voice and verse. It became immediately obvious he was a trained and
professional singer of the highest calibre.
One could give many another example of the outward manifestation of Mevlana's
blessings and, were one permitted to speak of such things, of his abundant
inward gifts. The point of mentioning all this in relation to the festival is that it
presents us with an outward model of our inner integrated personality. When we
have prepared and developed our inner city state then it can accept readily the
blessings that Divine Love bestows and we ourselves can become a 'city of
Love' as Konya is known. The intensity of this is sometimes greater as during
the festival and at other times more differentiated. Just so in our inner city state
during the normal working week, so to speak, the glow of inward divine love
manifests itself in a distinct and so to speak separate way within each of our
inner faculties or 'departments', leading to an inner sobriety. At festival time
however these tend to fuse together manifesting in spiritual intoxication,
illumination and unity.
So now it is the time to wish for you that the new year brings both steady
progress in the labour of self integration, and periods of festival from time to
time. May your own 'city' flourish.
A very happy, prosperous, and benign New Year to you all.
Once more the year reaches to its conclusion and we look back on a year
which, when it began, had all the promise of an empty page on which we
could compose sublime thoughts and find for ourselves new opportunity,
with renewed hope for a better things; for a more prosperous peaceful
and harmonious society. Instead we see continued violence, prejudice
and rancour; we see selfishness and lack of understanding for others;
we see mutual distrust and we see that with all his technical
achievements man barely rises above his animal nature - indeed such
achievements may often have been abused to increase man's narrow
selfish habits. There is discord within the family of man as there too
frequently is within individual families. Extreme and narrow minded and
misguided interpretations of religion assist in furthering discord between
different groups. Man continues it seems with great recklessness and
invention to pursue his own path to self destruction. Sometimes the
impassioned cry can be heard 'if there is a God full of compassion how
can He let this happen?' Even the planet itself seems to be crying out at
its treatment at the hands of man.
In the Qur'anic account of the flood of Noah, Noah's son, not accepting
the offer to board the ark his father had built, swims towards what seems
to him a more secure option, a mountain. He is drowned with all the
others who mocked at Noah's inspired vision of a vessel of safety. He
relied instead on his own intelligence and reason to save him. Just so in
these days man, in his pride at his own abilities, insists on striking out
towards imagined safety and finds himself lashed by increasingly high
waves and on the point of drowning in his own pride, and it is only then
that he cries out 'how can a merciful God allow this to happen?'
Now the issue is as to what constitutes the Ark of real safety in the
modern world. Where can we find real shelter from the storms that
threaten to engulf us? The customs and traditions of religious belief is
the answer given by many but frequently this amounts to little more than
superstition and customary inherited beliefs and practises dressed up as
religion, that may have little more value than grasping a piece of
driftwood. What I want to propose as the Ark of safety derives from what
Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi called 'the roots of the roots of the roots of
religion'.
I also want to go further and say that individually we must, so to speak, be our
own Noah. To build within ourself the Ark of security - as I have tried to suggest
below.
The Sufis often say that in some sense the whole universe is in fact within us.
This means that in one way all the Prophets, known and unknown, all the truly
wise and inspired ones, exist within us as well as existing as historical
personages. In that sense too 'the roots of the roots of the roots of religion' exist
within each of us. Therefore let us look at how to build the Ark we need within
ourselves because ultimately we too can aspire to be that Ark and that will not
be without its effect on the world around us. Indeed just as many find security in
the holy Qur'an , the Bible, The Baghvad Gita, and works of wisdom and
enlightenment such as the Masnevi of Mevlana Rumi, we too may be to a
degree, a source of security for others in our daily lives by integrating divine
inspiration into the very structure of our personality.
As a way of building our ark I propose to explore a little the soci-economic stages
described by the great Delhi divine Shah Wali Ullah. This may seem a strange
jump at first but bear with me and I hope you will see what I mean by doing this,
and God willing our ark will reach its mountain resting place at last.
Shah Saheb perceived a relationship between four different stages of social
development and the layers of our inner development. The first or, so to speak,
'core' relates to our basic human needs for shelter, food, and our sexual needs.
At a social level this does not require anything but the most primitive level of
organisation. Inwardly this implies that the needs of our essentially animal nature
are met satisfactorily. If these are met then a second social layer in which the
need to rely on others for differentiation of tasks arises - (i.e. for individuals to
develop skills in hunting, farming, cooking etc). Socially specialisation relies on
mutual cooperation, trading of benefits etc. Inwardly this implies that the different
elements of our human nature, our intellect our, heart, our imagination, our
perception, sense of morality, conscience etc fulfill there own tasks and develop
mutual cooperation. Just as in a society that encourages the different
professions to develop, we also, in some sense become our own internalised
doctor, nurse, teacher, organiser, soldier, policeman, driver etc. At the next level
of development (the city state) we begin to get social structures and hierarchy
required to maintain order. Within us this implies ensuring the intellect functions
as ruler receiving suitable inspiration from a higher spiritual source and
percolating it down to faculties such as the heart which provides the necessary
energy. Our thoughts need to be trained, our impulses restrained etc through a
process known as 'perpetual service' (perhaps I will return to this in another
article).
All this is a gross simplification of Shah Saheb's sublime wisdom, and there is a
fourth level of development he describes, but it is enough for the purposes of
this article to convey a general impression that the various inner forces need to
be brought into order, just as social development requires structure and order.
Individuals will be functioning at different levels of development and within
ourselves we may make some progressions to an ordered state within, and at
times fall back to a more primitive level. The more advanced levels incorporate
and refine the more basic levels rather than supersede them entirely. Self
discipline, balanced with rewards, is required as the levels progress. The need
for a source of guidance and inspiration in advising the ruler becomes more and
more evident. It is in the context of an integrated personality too that the religion
of Truth becomes most effective, and the wisdom of divine law and the actions it
advises and proscribes become more meaningful. The individuals outward
actions become sincere and beneficial and they become best prepared for the
life hereafter. In Islamic terms it is when the believer becomes Mumin.
This then is so to speak an indication of what we need to build the Ark of an
integrated and developed personality. It aims to ensure that the ever present
divine inspiration is given the optimum conditions to reach each level and part of
us with its blessings and abundance, which actually never cease, from its
source. The spiritual guide acts inwardly as the advisor (the medium for divine
inspiration) and will at times outwardly reinforce his guidance when he perceives
this to be useful. It is one of the reasons the spiritual guides tend to ensure that
the disciple meets his core needs first i.e. they will generally emphasise getting
suitable employment, a modest home and marriage to ensure the first level of
development is satisfied. Circumstances however vary.
And what of Love, you may ask - you have not even mentioned Love? I am
grateful for your thought because that brings us to my recent visit to Konya for
the Seb-i-Urus of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. As regular readers of the web site
will know, by the Grace of God, I have visited this occasion for the last eleven
years. On this occasion I wanted to describe some facets of my visit precisely to
illustrate that an actual entire city can become illumined by that divine
inspiration. You see I actually did mention love above but hid it under the cloak
of the words 'divine inspiration'.
This year was full of variety yet also overflowed with that recognisable but never
adequately describable sense of heightened illumination and well being. People
who were there or have attended occasions like this will know what I mean
through the prism of their own experience - others will have to settle for limited
description of outward events. Like a wedding there is a gradual build up of
expectation and during that time there are various, so to speak, sideshows. Of
course my visit commenced with ziyarat first to Shems then Mevlana and then
the other saints of the city.
As it was the 700th year of Mevlana's birth, the occasion was marked by Unesco
and there was a symposium which brought together 'Rumi scholars' from around
the globe. Some parts were held at the Seljuk University several miles out of
central Konya. This mainly consisted of Turkish Scholars but also scholars from
India and Caucasus. However for two days there was a gathering of English
speaking 'Rumi Scholars' held in one of the rooms used for slide shows just
facing the entrance to the Shrine. I was unaware of its location but had
previously met a young man who had recognised me from Ajmer Sharif. As I left
the main shrine complex he walked out of the door opposite as if it had been a
planned meeting and reminding me I had said I would like to meet Carl Ernst, he
escorted me in to the narrow room. It was laid out rather like the inside of an
aeroplane with just two or three seats on each side of a long aisle. In that sense
the other 'passengers' were indeed an august body of scholars, aside from Carl
Ernst there was Leonard Lewisohn, Franklin Lewis, James Morris, and William
Chittick and many another Rumi scholar of repute. We were treated to talks on a
miniature painting of the tree of life as an illustration to the famous story of the
Greeks and the Chinese artists, with enlargements of minute details: and on
various other aspects of the Masnevi. It did indeed feel as if we had taken off on
plane. It was strange to come out from the room to find oneself not emerging
from a lecture hall as one normally thinks of it but to be facing the entrance to
the shrine itself. I attended twice but other matters also intervened and pulled me
away but it was nice to be able to express face to face one's appreciation of
these labourers in the field of scholarship and academia.
I spent quite a lot of time this year with Ali Baba, Nuri Baba's successor, and at
his behest described the occasion of meeting Nuri Baba to be recorded for
historical reasons on computer. There were of course many hours of Zikr and
Turkish music.I found the usual but neverthless remarkable charm of the Konya
folk was again evident in abundance. I also passed Bayram (Eid) with Ali Baba
going with him to his house for breakfast following the morning Eid prayers.
There were many meetings with people of many nationalities as always. Essin
Chelibi (Mevlana's descendent, and her mother and other family members were
as ever the epitome manners and kindness with invitations etc. Farouk Chelibi
arrived in time to conduct the Dua Torreni (the central event of the festival.
This year I chanced to attend the main Sema on the night of the 17th. I had gone
to Ali Baba's Dergah and there met friends who were going.to the main Sema
hall - I mentioned I was had not got a ticket (the term 'like gold dust' springs to
mind). I had intended to spend the evening in Zikr with Ali Baba but the Dergah
was too full even to get into the room and I decided to return to my hotel - I must
confess wondering what Mevlana had planned for me. On arriving I sat with
someone I had recently met in the foyer. We were just discussing how
completely impossible it was to get tickets this year when into the room
somebody walked, waving tickets. One does not let such opportunities pass
easily so half an hour later I found myself walking into the grand main hall with
fireworks going off in the background, whilst from another hall the president and
prime minister of Turkey and entourage entered by another door. They gave
speeches that drew loud applause from the crowd but as they were in Turkish I
will be able to excuse myself from passing on their contents.
From a rich collection of small and large events I must pick out one other for you.
That was the occasion when, sitting in Tahir's small shop with my good friend
Abdullah when three Iranian people came in after some discussion they were
invited to take tea. A young man in the party asked me if I knew the Masnevi - I
replied of course I was very fond of it. At that he burst into a highly artistic
rendition in the distinctly Persian manner, of the first 18 lines. Some dutch
friends who had been departing returned to listen enraptured by the powerful
voice and verse. It became immediately obvious he was a trained and
professional singer of the highest calibre.
One could give many another example of the outward manifestation of Mevlana's
blessings and, were one permitted to speak of such things, of his abundant
inward gifts. The point of mentioning all this in relation to the festival is that it
presents us with an outward model of our inner integrated personality. When we
have prepared and developed our inner city state then it can accept readily the
blessings that Divine Love bestows and we ourselves can become a 'city of
Love' as Konya is known. The intensity of this is sometimes greater as during
the festival and at other times more differentiated. Just so in our inner city state
during the normal working week, so to speak, the glow of inward divine love
manifests itself in a distinct and so to speak separate way within each of our
inner faculties or 'departments', leading to an inner sobriety. At festival time
however these tend to fuse together manifesting in spiritual intoxication,
illumination and unity.
So now it is the time to wish for you that the new year brings both steady
progress in the labour of self integration, and periods of festival from time to
time. May your own 'city' flourish.
A very happy, prosperous, and benign New Year to you all.
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