From Dr Bitkoff’s Going and Doing
“It is emotion, expectation, wanting, loving, going and doing, that helps make life a more complete experience. Momentary pleasure and accomplishment, without them, in some respect we would be like a cracked, empty jar; never fulfilling our promise of holding and caressing rare spices.”
Reader’s Comment
How can it possibly be so? On the contrary, in going emotional “high” one must eventually go “low” and in going “low” one must go “high”. In wanting one will always want more. In loving one is always a hair away from hatred. In going there must be a coming, and in doing or accomplishing there must be an undoing or failure. It is precisely these states of “momentary pleasure” which cause the state of momentary distress or sadness. It is this incessant movement/fluctuation of the mind which causes a being to be “like a cracked, empty jar; never fulfilling our promise of holding…” anything at all for very long. How can you fill a cracked jar? How can you ever satisfy a mind which lives in a dualistic reality? How can that which is totally dependent upon natural happenings, devoid of any true Will, be ‘rare’?
Some Thoughts
I feel what makes sufism from different from some other paths I’ve seen is said quite wonderfully here in this quote
What is the difference between the work a Sufi does and another mystic? In the East the Yogi mystics are the best known, and it is worth while to consider what difference there is. The Yogi tries to touch the infinite by diving deep into his innermost being; and the process he takes is to close himself and move away, as far away from the world as he can. And by doing this he reaches that depth which is the goal everyone is seeking. The methods of the Sufi differ herein from those of the Yogis, in that the Sufi opens himself to all that is good and successful. He says that to go back to the infinite without all that is beautiful here is absurd. He wants to love all the beauty of the earth, and so he opens himself. Therefore his part is very difficult — to love and yet not to be attached; to be in the crowd, and yet in the solitude; to be in the world and yet be above it. He sees God in opening himself to the beauty of the world.
A major emphasis on the Sufi path is attentiveness and witnessing as encapsulated in the phrase “Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God.” As a human being we go through moments of pain, moments of elation and of course everything in between. The Sufi way is to be in God’s presence no matter what we are going through. We are taught through remembrance, meditation and other practices to be in a state of witnessing, and attentiveness. While we work, while we suffer, while we rest while we sleep, in our highs and lows we continue to be in the Presence. Initially while we may conceptually have an understanding of what is going on, it take, from my experience, some time to come to an experiential awareness and understanding.
Slowly on the path the mind is put as is said tradition, under the control of the armies of love. Which means that the mind is gradually purified through the mystical experience, through the direct experience of the truth. During this process the ego is gradually transformed. In sufi psychology this is seen in the following progression
1. an-nafs al-ammarah (the Commanding nafs).
2. al-nafs al-lawwamah (the blaming nafs).
3. al-nafs al-mutma’innah (the nafs at peace).
(Please dont ask me to pronounce these). Furthermore there are moments/states of dhyana where the mind is absorbed in the heart (the vehicle for the perception and experience of the Divine.)
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I like this quote because i feel in many ways it summarizes the sufis approach to live in this world to the fullest but doing so in God’s company. Btw I am in no way trying to make any mention or talk about yoga or the yogi. it just happens to be in the quote as it came to me.
Sufis and Yogis can respect each other, as the only difference between the Yogi and the Sufi is that the Yogi cares more for spirituality and the Sufi more for humanity. The Yogi thinks that it is better to be God; the Sufi thinks that it is better to be man, because if one is only spiritual, there is always the danger of a fall; our body has the tendency to fall down. The Sufi says that as all the needs and desires of this body and its senses exist, one should satisfy them; he says that we should have whatever we can have, but if we cannot have it, we should not care. Yet there is no inner difference between the Sufi and the Yogi. In wisdom there is no difference; if there seems to be any it is only a difference of form.
Related articles
- Story: The Golden Caress by Dr. Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Responce to some comments on Tears Along The Way By Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Going & Doing by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- The Great Awakening by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Who is a Sufi by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- When Will The Champions Arise? By Dr. Stewart Bitkoff – Responce to a quote by Idries Shah (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Heart As Mirror Exercise by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- The Secret Protects Itself by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- God Men & God Consciousness by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Remember by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Sufi Practices of Remembrance, Contemplation, Meditation, and Self examination (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Higher Knowledge & Spiritual Experience: What to Buy? by Dr. Stewart Bitkoff (mycaravanofdreams.com)
- Must sufis live without wealth? – By Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh (mycaravanofdreams.com)
There are several points here. First, the path is not the Truth which is ONE, it is a path of which there are many. The path, therefore, is irrelevant. Only BEING (the ONE Truth) matters. Paths can be an opinion but never a truth. Truth can’t have a path. It just IS, Pathless path. This is why it doesn’t need any walking rather a return from all the walks. And a pathless path can only be walked unwalked.
If one goes to the top of a mountain and secludes one’s self, or if one is at the center of the parade of life, their associations will inevitably follow. Therefore, the path is always an inward path. There is no external path. Just because one says, “I am a yogi” and secludes himself or one says “I am a sufi” and drinks from every fountain, this does not mean that one has attained. So many people claim enlightenment but the enlightened man is a rare jewel. Essentially, the external is irrelevant to the state of Being which is an internal matter.
The Truth which is Now…that is to say, if one is enlightened and sits alone in a cave, or if one is enlightened and walks in detachment at the heart of the parade…is to be in a state of detachment from the external. Ramana Maharshi did not mind the insects eating his flesh in that cave because his inner state was not in fluctuation. Others may have walked amongst the people, ate and drank with them, danced with them…but still his inner state was not in fluctuation. The state is the same.
I feel there is a confusion between a being who is on a path and chooses to seclude himself in order to attain enlightenment, and one who has actually attained it. Neither seclusion nor inclusion is a guarantee of anything. Only the inner state of stillness will bring one to an inner state of stillness, there is no dualism, no experience of pleasure in opposition to pain, or high in opposition to low, or beauty in opposition to ugliness. One can only BE when one IS as IS. There is no other way to BE than to BE. There is just ONE, not many, not halfs….and here ONE means NONE/Void…no opposites exist in Void from which Everything emmanates. Isn’t it so?