Looking back on things: The Path I walked to becoming a Darvish in 2008 Part 2

Hey Friends,

I just wanted to take a brief second to explain why I am writing these autobiographical posts. Lately a lot of people have been asking how I came to walk the path.  There is no other answer than I don’t know. I feel many times the human mind is incapable of grasping the scale on which thing really work. I am sharing these experiences with you in the hope that’s maybe you will find the answer in your own way.

You know looking back on the things, I have no regrets only smiles. It’s very easy to imagine that because we have an experience of something we know all about it. It’s also easy to imagine that our degrees and academic, intellectual achievements and maybe even religious achievements are a panacea for all life’s problems, but they are not unfortunately. At least that is what I have come to see. When your down and out your science degree, or masters doesn’t mean a damn. Same as when you are bedridden and sick these things past a certain point where they serve their purpose are useless.

I feel that the events of my life in many ways helped to break down the smaller will so that The Greater Will could be felt. We are all hit on the head in this life, no one escapes it free of scars, and some of us need to be hit more in the head before we can wake up.  Supposedly the earth is like, for the sake of example the third grade, we come to learn and perform specific tasks and then we continue upwards with our evolution. In keeping with that thought, it has been said that at this plane of existence we learn more through suffering and strife than we do from good things. Human beings are indeed forgetful. We can be given a gift every day for years and we will be more apt to focus and reflect on the day we didn’t get a gift, ignoring everything else.

But to continue as some of you who know I had sickle cell anemia, I was sick and weak for a bit early on in life. That in the combination of both parents working and my own mental propensities; I lived in my mind a lot and was very cerebral. I remember reading in a cool article on John Updike how “Updike recounted how a sickly childhood on a farm in Pennsylvania prepared him for a cerebral life”. Anyways I spent most of my free time reading, and reading and reading. As with a decent percentage of interesting stuff I read the book sort of fell into my lap. Looking back on those times I can see a pattern: intense reading soul searching trying to understand, a period of observation and a period of despondency towards reading and a sort of angst that settled over me. During the intense readings I just so happened to read the right book at the right time, or talk to the right person at the right time and had an epiphany of some sorts.

I think especially in terms of any mystical spiritual practice or seeking that, everything we come across is nutrition. Sometimes because we aren’t guided or we don’t listen to our guide we over eat or we eat the wrong things and we have to wait a while before we can digest again. Those periods of despondency are sometimes a lengthy digestion of what we have read. Many works written by people on the path exist on many levels; they aren’t just nice collections of words. Rumi’s Mathnavi, Ghazzali’s Alchemy of happiness, The Emerald Tableaux, the works of Geber, the poems of St Francis Assisi I can go on and one, but these works are the best example that comes to mind. All these words work to expand the heart.

I remember a discourse by I think it was Bawa Muhaiyadeen who said that though man cannot drink the entire ocean he can drink his fill, and that the goblet or the cup to do that with was the heart. These works and these writing expand the heart to make it a larger container. However one can only read books there has to be action, right living, service to fellow humans etc. here is a cool quote from Bahauddin – the father of Rumi. It was said that a caravan of 90 camels was needed to carry his books alone.

I was thinking about the piece of bread I have just eaten and the drink of water I have taken. This revelation came: each bit of bread and taste of fruit has a tongue and a language of praise that gets released when it enters a human body.

The same analogy of transformation extends to influences that came from the stars and transmuted matter into the elements: earth, air, fire and water. Those in turn became plants which became animals and then human beings with their flexible way of speaking that can become praise for the compassion as well as the anger of God

I saw bread and water dissolving and moving through my organs, carrying the qualities of the mystery. They were flower with the ability to speak, saying, There is nothing that does not celebrate and praise.

Because my intellection and my memory are flowers in the hand of the mystery that supports and inspires existence and give the scripture, I pray to be given wisdom in the form of books to transmit the taste of love nad the pleasures of expansion. Do not ignore these writings. The fallen angel Satan saw the appearance of Adam only. He did not see the essence. Inside these rough words are secrets. Dont miss them.

I have a few things to take care of Ill be back

See you then

Dave

Tags: becoming a darvish, eviction, Food For Thought, Idries Shah, Inspiration For Today, my path, My readers rock!!!, no furniture, Spirituality, Sufis of Antiquity, Sufism, The Occult, the path, trails and tribulations, Uncategorized, Yoga