One Thousand Names for God

26 November 2010

on the streets of Philadelphia . . . " the city of brotherly love"

THEY ALL BECAME VERY FRIENDLY

Ivy O. Duce

Alain Youell related the following story to me:

"Once when I went with Don Stevens to visit with Baba in Meherazad, we stayed there a week. Baba had us all playing his game of seven tiles (or else the card game), and Baba always made up his own rules for such games. The one consistent rule was that whoever lost had to rub the ground with his nose. It was rather strange that Baba rubbed my nose to the ground quite a number of times during that week.

"The meaning of it only came to me about a year later when the doctor in London decided that they would operate on my nose. I had had a very troublesome infection in that region for a long time and no one had seemed to know what to do for it. The operation was a very difficult one, but it was very successful and I have never had any further trouble with that infection."

Of course it is my thought that at the same time when Baba was working on Alain, he was also probably accomplishing much with the game. He always said that he did not play these games just for fun, so in some part of the world there must have been someone or some group winning, or vanquished, when the loser had to pay so humbly for losing.

Alain also said that up until then he had never gotten along with his family. In fact, he had left home at the age of fourteen when his mother married a man he did not like. However, his relationships with his mother, his brother and so forth were always very poor.

At this time Baba told him that he must now get on with the job of getting along with his family. So on returning from India he went to visit his family and made every effort for harmony and was astonished to find that from then on they all became very friendly.

HOW A MASTER WORKS, pp. 715-716
1975 © Sufism Reoriented, Inc.

Personal |

22 November 2010

for love . . . for now . . . forever

The Nature of Nature

A breeze can lift a cloud
The wind can bend a tree
A wave can bring a thousand shells
     from the bottom of the sea
The ice upon a mountain top
     can carve a million rivers
The sun can warm a field of flowers
Your pain can give me shivers
There is no need to tell you more
     about the way you make me feel
In time, I hope that Nature
     uses Love to help us heal

20 November 2010

a poem from Derek

my best friend posted this to his blog on October 6, 2010. he told me it was about me, but i try not to hold on too tightly to that. it would really hurt too much if it were true.

sunshine in rain
i think of you
and i go on.
listen to raindrops
drip down outside.
don't really care
what zip code you're in,
just where you reside,
so long as you're there.
comfort during pain,
pools of laughter
cure a sorrow drought.
i can sometimes feel
sunshine in rain,
love after loss,
always tomorrow
come dreck and dross.
say what you must;
hold onto the real.
pray no sin, no lust.
another day gone.
another day new.

looking for mr. right . . . mr. wrong . . . mr. how now? . . .
mr. right now!

Marriage is a funny thing
we make it so impossible to conceive
and yet we continue to believe
in its ultimate transcendence

But, it has nothing to do with a white dress.
i think in lavender, blue and green
and wonder about "forever"
and what it means

The idea is there of "soulmate"
but has anybody ever really mated the soul?

the "soul" is One in nature
the "soul" has no division
the "soul" is One in heart, and mind,
and kind, and vision

Does the God of All — the One and Only
find Himself alone, unloved, and lonely???

Is there more to know
than "the Bible tells me so???"
is it true, perhaps, that You
are "bigger" than Jesus, mr. Who?????

18 November 2010

ok, buddies. let it rip!!!!!!

HINTS FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS

Meher Baba

For rendering spiritual help you should have a clear understanding of the following four points:

1.   Apparent descent to a lower level
It may often be necessary for you to apparently descend to the lower level of those whom you are trying to help. Though your purpose is to raise people to higher levels of consciousness, they might fail to profit by what you say if you do not talk in terms they understand. What you convey to them through your thoughts and feelings should not go over their heads. They are bound to miss the point unless you adapt it to their capacity and experience. However, it is equally important to remember that while doing this, you should not actually lose your own high level of understanding. You will change your approach and technique as they gradually arrive at deeper and deeper understanding, and your apparent descent to the lower level will be only temporary.

2.  Spiritual understanding ensures all-sided progress
You must not divide life into departments and then begin to deal with each department separately and exclusively. Departmentalized thinking is often an obstacle to integral vision. Thus if you divide life into politics, education, morality, material advancement, science, art, religion, mysticism, and culture — and then think exclusively of only one of these aspects — the solutions that you bring to life can neither be satisfactory nor final. But if you succeed in awakening spiritual inspiration and understanding, progress in all these spheres of life is bound to follow automatically. You will have to aim at providing, as spiritual workers, a complete and real solution for all the individual and social problems of life.

3.  Spiritual progress consists in the spontaneous growth of understanding from within
As spiritual workers, you have also to remember that the spiritual wisdom you desire to convey to others is already latent in them, and that you have only to be instrumental in unveiling that spiritual wisdom. Spiritual progress is not a process of accumulating from without; it is a process of unfoldment from within. A Perfect Master is absolutely necessary for anyone to arrive at Self-knowledge, but the true significance of the help given by the Master consists in the fact that he enables others to come into the full possession of their own latent possibilities.

4.  Some questions are more important than answers
You, as spiritual workers, must not lose sight of the real work the Master desires to get done through you. When it is clearly understood that spiritual wisdom is latent in all, you will no longer be anxious to provide others with ready-made answers and solutions. In many cases you will be content to set up for others a new problem or to clarify for others the nature of the problems they face. You may have done your duty if you ask them a question that they would not ask of themselves, when placed in some practical situation. In some cases you will have done your duty if you succeed in putting them in a searching and questioning attitude, so that they themselves begin to understand and tackle their problems along more fruitful and creative lines. To give them a deeper point of view or to suggest to them a fruitful line of thought and action may itself mean much more than thrusting upon them the results of your judgment.

The questions that you may help them formulate for themselves should neither be merely theoretical nor unnecessarily complicated. If they are simple, straight, and fundamental, these questions will answer themselves; and people will find their own solutions. You will have rendered indispensable and valuable service to them because, without your tactful intervention, they would not have arrived at the solution of their multifarious problems from the spiritual point of view.

DISCOURSES, 7th ed, pp. 347-348
1987 © Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust

Work |

16 November 2010

Love Poem

time goes pole pole
and slowly, slowly
my heart grows

if you were to say
"i love you"
in a silly way —

too easily
too confidently
too brash

the pole pole mole
would never
open her eyes to you

but a blind eye
can see everything
and pole pole —

i love you, too.

14 November 2010

The Turning of the Key

THE YOUNG SUFI'S LOVE FOR GOD

Bill Le Page

Three young Sufis were condemned to death by the Sultan for heresy. One stepped forward, asking to be beheaded first. The Sultan was amazed, and asked why a man in the prime of life should seek death so eagerly.

The Sufi replied that every moment in life is precious because it can be spent in remembrance of the Beloved, and he wished to give his brothers the extra moments of life by dying first. "One moment of this world is better than a thousand years of the next world, because this is the place of service and that is the place of proximity, and proximity is gained by service."

The Sultan was so impressed by the young Sufi's love for God that he pardoned all three and said, "Ask a boon."

They replied, "The only boon we ask of you is that you should forget us, and neither make us your favourites nor banish us from your court, for your favour and displeasure are alike to us."

The Sultan wept, and dismissed them with honour.

THE TURNING OF THE KEY, pp. 153-154
1993 © Bill Le Page

Dharma |

13 November 2010

Blasphemy

Yesterday, Derek told me that it was "unscientific" to talk to (and hear from) God. He didn't really say it in exactly those words, but this has been a longstanding discussion I have been having with this dear one, for a long time, and I am well aware of his opinion on this subject. My darling Derek, for all his resemblance to Jesus (he did, after all, rise from the dead!!!) is a hard one to sell anything "spiritual" to. He is a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic and scientist, and he wants *proof.*

I guess all the chattering I do, out loud, to people I am thinking of and entities who pester me, is not enough scientific proof for most people that I actually experience this stuff. Any bizarre person on the street can do that, and it really has no meaning, overall . . . right? The people who do this stuff end up homeless and in mental hospitals, mostly (yup, I've been there on both counts) and all that scientific stuff we do to them in those hospitals always seems to ***cure*** them . . . right??? Because, science is so sure that *they* are the crazy ones, right????

What I have had the hardest time convincing Derek of is that I AM a scientist . . . to the core!!! I call myself a "science experiment" all the time. I've tried all kinds of medication to "cure" myself of this mental illness, and I have experimented with all kinds of adjustments so that I can have a normal life. I've tried long term psychotherapy (years of it!!), ancient healing techniques from the East, the "location" cure (if you are unhappy in one spot . . . move!), having relationships, leaving relationships, staying close to family members, rejecting family members . . . I've tried everything I can think of, and I have done it very scientifically. And, today, I feel a lot better!!! I feel GOOD, even. Doesn't that appear to be sound medicine and a methodical approach to healing? Experimental method. hmm.

All I can say is, I believe in God *and* dinosaurs. I believe in God *and* evolution. I believe in God *and* DNA. I believe in God *and* physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology and all the wonderful achievements of science. To me, God is the *ultimate* scientist . . . and I really love Him for it.

06 November 2010

The Essence of Marriage

Last night, a friend asked me what marriage meant to me. My response was quick . . . but honest. I said "aisle, dress, kid (before it gets too late.) you know, the real deal."

But, honestly, I had none of that with Derek, and I still consider it a truly bona fide marriage. We eschewed all convention and exchanged gold rings in a jewelry store in front of the clerk. We told people we had been married by a "J.P.," which to most people means "Justice of the Peace" or "civil marriage." We took it to mean "jewelry person," but still considered the whole thing very official. Derek took his vow according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I took a silent vow ("things that are real are given and received in silence" — Meher Baba.) And, we called ourselves married, and we meant it. Today, I consider him my "ex-husband" . . . but we never had to go through a messy, state orchestrated divorce & thank God for that.

It was as real as real could be . . . and much happier than my first marriage (which, by the way, included "aisle, dress, and kid.") So, when my response was so quick last night, I really wondered about myself. How do I *really* feel about marriage??? What does it consist of??? What makes it "the real deal," after all????

All I can say is that with the new man in my life, I really want the whole nine yards — in a way that I have never wanted it before. This time around, I feel a deeper love than I have ever been capable of, and a deeper commitment to "happily ever after," if it is at all possible. "The real deal" today, means that I never want to part ways, over ANYTHING . . . I want this one to work, and I want both of us to work it REALLY well, so that we are together in old age and that all of my fears about relationships are finally healed up.

My final analysis on this subject is this:

If you are ready for that in your 20s . . . GREAT. If you can't manage it until your 40s . . . congratulations for finally making it there. If you want to eschew convention & have a jewelry clerk perform your ceremony, GO FOR IT. If you are a same-sex couple, or not sure about whether kids are in your future . . . SO WHAT??? Shoot for "happily ever after" and forget about the other stuff. After much thought, I must say, that THAT seems like "the real deal" to me.

02 November 2010

Spiritual Perfection does not mean "no suffering." Just the opposite, in fact.

A yogi can do all the jugglery by using psychic powers. He can abstain from food, go without sleep, leave the body at will, or stop his breathing, et cetera. Spiritually considered, a moral, good man who works in the world selflessly for others is much better and stands higher than many yogis with all their occult powers of performing miracles, which are nothing but jugglery without any spiritual importance at all; because whatever a yogi does is for his own individual self, and hence he is not selfless. He overcomes one illusion by creating another, which differs fundamentally from the teaching and work of a Sadguru or Qutub.

Lord Meher, 1st. ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 7, p. 2232.

It is foolish to think that a person who has reached the highest goal has done so at no personal cost. It is a very childish viewpoint to think that "perfection" is granted at birth or developed effortlessly. Intense suffering is required for the individual, and works along the laws of karma. Evil doing of all kind must be worked out flawlessly in the person undergoing the "unveiling." This person does evil, thinks evil, acts evil and portrays all of the evils within himself or herself along the way. Do not think that this growth is easy, by any means. It is TORTURE. But, it is worth EVERYTHING it takes to be a person of honor and dignity . . . afraid of nothing and nobody . . . in the end.

I love you

LOVE ONLY GIVES AND GOES ON GIVING

Meher Baba

When love draws you to Me, don't ask for anything. When you are in My presence, be a silent recipient. Ask and you lose. Love has no questions and hence expects no answers. Love itself is the answer to all questions. The more you love Me, the less you question. Love is eager to respond to the slightest wish of the Beloved, and there is no scope for why and wherefore while obeying the Master. When in my sahavas (company) be attentive and receptive to what I may say, but do not question.

Pampering the intellect brings forth innumerable questions. All these questions can be answered but that is not spiritually indispensable. Mere intellectual explanations will not take you out of the muddle of your mind but will puzzle you all the more. Try to grasp what I have already said. To demand anything from the beloved is an insult to love. Love only gives and goes on giving till the will of the Beloved alone manifests through the lover.

Sahavas |