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Post by Ben on Apr 19, 2006 23:20:48 GMT -5
4.18.06 Many people seek lordship, control, and mastery over others so their desires (animal impulses) can be free. It is the fortunate one who seeks lordship, control, and mastery over their desires (animal impulses). This provides more freedom for those around them and more freedom for themselves.
Example: Someone is bent on the people around them acting in a certain way so they don't have to adjust their innability to attain qualities like patience, forgiveness, and mercy.
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To keep business straight:
Refining the intention to do the service for the sake of goodness, peace, love, etc. This is a bee line path to obtain the particulars one is seeking. Basically this is evidence that there is a way to be, which is rewarded, and a way not to be, where withholding may occur. If true wealth is in being spiritually developed, might then it be better to do a small thing for the right reason rather than do a big thing for the wrong reason? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4.19.06 On expectation: Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in his command to Mu'ath said, "...not to rely on hope and expectation...be aware of Allah at every stone, tree, and town, because every fault prescribes a return either in private or in public."
In the example when a person does not react in the way you expect, or says something, or does something you had not hoped or expected them to do, it is best to continue to show excellence to them, be leinient in your speech to them, and withdraw if the situation becomes heated. If you are expecting a person to act in a particular way, you are setting yourself up for disappointment, trouble, and frustration. If you do not practice showing politeness and excellence to people in general, why do you expect in general to have these qualities shown back to you? Not displaying these qualities puts you on the losing end of the equation, "a prescribed return either in private or in public." If you desire goodness to be given to you, you first yourself have to give goodness. "You have to give to take (Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal)." Even if you do this, expecting high qualities from creation isn't really a sound investment given the very coarse nature of the creation. If you decide you want to be able to give goodness to others you first have to give it to yourself. Treat yourself well, set high standards of how you treat your own life. Once this is established in yourself, you can better give it to others. This is the Sufi way, the Tariq al-Muhammadan (pbuh). Truely in waging the battle (mujahada) with the lowly animal desires in yourself are generous returns for steadfast efforts. First wage the battle against your desires (animal impulses), then with your heart, meaning the things that you love that are not good, then wage the battle of refining the soul's qualities.
A few journal entries. Hope you enjoy them.
Ben
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Post by Ben on Apr 22, 2006 22:12:24 GMT -5
As evening settles down gently across the valley, with its lights blooming across the waters of the bay golden and misty, warm feelings from my chest are pulled forth to speak. Drawn by their ropes from the depths of my heart shining and beautiful.
They tell tales somewhat unfamiliar to the day's cackling and ranting. Weaving cars down the freeway, the looks in the thousands of eyes I see at the station, the talk flying around at work, yes, quite different indeed. An all together foreign language, old, wise and weathered.
They are calls. Songs singing sweet melodies that raise the hairs on one's neck. Directing the undeniable right to an ever available love.
As the mists thicken and the lights fade the tune again adjourns. But it sits silently aside saying, "You saw what you saw, now take up the reigns and proceed". And every action embodying the tenets causes jubilent applause from the angels and solemn lowering of the heads of humans.
The darkness ushers in the secrets and excellences. Lifting off infinite foundations, rising, and echoing the highest virtues across the universe.
Sunset on the Bay.
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Post by Ben on Aug 27, 2006 1:50:20 GMT -5
8.26.06
Willingness or better yet surrender
Wow. Posting the word surrender in the religion section is sure to bring about a fine pulp of illusion baring down into some folks' psyche. Sure, if one still hasn't taken the time to search far and wide for what these folks are calling "God". Surrender in this case would mean surrendering to another's image or understanding of the Most High.
Truth is, anything the human being can concieve of, God is higher. I recently heard someone say, "God is beyond all likenesses". Meaning, anything that you can think of, God is not like that thing. Beyond your comprehension, completely. I think it may be safe to say on one level that this or that thing is a trace or a part of. But to get the whole, beyond all capabilities of the human being.
Unrelated in a direct way is the topic of discussion for this post on willingness or surrender. We'll see if it ties back in at the end.
Willingness aka "yes". I am not talking about the "yes" you used to give your Mom when she told you to do your laundry and you didn't want to. I am talking about the kind of "yes" that is moved by love. Love for the divine. Love for the higher spiritual aspect and it's refined qualities. The more direct this love a person has, the more straight the shot.
When a person truely loves something, he or she is willing to do virtually anything for that thing. Say you have children. A love hard to understand if you don't have them. You are willing to do just about anything and everything for that child. You are willing to go through so much pain, so much turmoil at times in order for that child to have what it needs. Sure it hurts but the willingness born out of that love overrides the pain. If the willingness is strong enough, one can bare heavy loads like the ant. Carrying what ten people normally carry. It is the willingness, or this "yes" born out of the love that makes it all happen.
Love being the fuel for this phenomenon, it isn't all that strange that out of the ordinary qualities tend to rise up. Because it is born from the love, it has a place in the divine rank and it is in accordance or flows with the down pouring of the truth or reality of existance. When something is in accordance with this reality, defying the illusory coarse reality most are familiar with becomes relatively easy. You start to see miracles.
Willingness however is a prerequisite the human being needs in order to enter this domain of miracles and truths.
Try this; before going out into your day empty all pre-conceived notions about what is going to happen or how you think things are going to go and be willing to just experience your day. Be willing to experience all the feelings that may or may not happen. Be willing to let anything unfold both within and without yourself. Barring extreme circumstances on the outer that would put your integrity in jepordy i.e. don't take physical action when your sexual desire unfolds within you and orders you to jump on the woman walking down the street.
When you walk out the door just start saying yes to everything.
Most people filter their reality because they are either scared of, or sad about what they think is going to happen. Therefore, in a subtle way, cut off the emotions, cut of the feelings, cut off the ideas, cut off...
This is a good way to keep yourself from experiencing pain. But it is not a good way to keep the radio station tuned into the subtle aspects.
So, in short, the prerequisite of willingness' final exam is usually the willingness to experience pain.
Often times, pain isn't so bad. Most of the time when pain comes we try so darn hard to not feel it that it causes more distress than it, in and of itself, has the power to render upon us. It's a matter of being willing to experience the pain in order to move, to grow, to learn, etc. When you hit this one on the mark, you'll find some interesting things.
You find when you begin to let things roll through you in a state of willingness or surrender that pain begins to not hurt so bad. You find that it is our holding onto pain, or our resistance to pain that causes the most discomfort. You will also find a voice from within your heart with the surrender that speaks when the painful situations arrive. Your wife says something that really digs into your gut. You usually fight that pain with all your might, find a way to throw it back either directly or indirectly, "no" I do not want to be experiencing this at this time. I want to be comfortable.
The truth of the matter is, is that this is not the way it works. There is a fambous saying, "those who are not willing to go through the fire, will not enter the garden". Also, "what do you do when you want to purify gold or extract gold from a rock? You throw it into a fire." Much the same with the purification process of the heart. Look at the olive, the olive symbolizes the heart in many cultures, the olive branch sybolizes peace. The olive has to first be cured with salt and / or an acid in order for it to become tender, delicious, and ready to be consumed.
So rejecting this process seems to be a problem people run into. Bob Marley said, "walk back through the heartache, walk back through the pain". More and more I feel that Marley possessed so many Holy qualities. No wonder his music is so accepted by and large. The fragrances of the truth, the traces of the reality of existance call everyone, white, black, yellow, young, old. Hardwired into your chest. Not to be denied in this life or you'll see that you lose things. Every time you deny core truths that eminate from the heart, you lose something. Be it time, relationship, work, place, etc.
So willingness or surrender to start the process or to make the process a speedway.
I experienced during my illness a phenomenon with this surrender or willingness many would find to be miraculous. It started with a healer I was working with telling me, "just start saying yes to everything, yes to every situation, yes to every emotion, yes, yes, yes, etc."
At first it was coarse. With this you have to be willing to cry. Saying yes to a situation where your parents tell you you are worthless is tough. But there I was and there was this situation and "yes". But, like I said and didn't explain earlier, with this yes is a voice that becomes more pronounced in the heart. Sure my parents were wrong, sure it hurt and was unbelievable, but it was happening to me and...why not..."yes". It was hard but when I became willing to let that situation be and not fight it I heard that voice from my heart.
The voice from my heart expained to me in the utmost politeness and gentleness that the reason my parents were being this way to me was because I was being in a very similar rigid way about making sure I was taking the right medications. I "saw" how I would get so tense and fearful about making sure my pills from the MD were on schedule, in line, etc. The voice from my heart also explained how I should be in a better way about this. The voice came with a feeling, and images. I felt the gentleness and looseness in a divine and pure way that I had not felt before. I proceeded to follow this voice in my heart and do what it asked about the pills and low and behold my parents stopped being the way they were being with me. This qulaity of rigidness I should add hadn't been just about the pills. It was a theme that I had been carrying for a long time about various things. Old bandmates should remember this quality in me very well.
My resistance to the situation was actually blocking this voice from my heart. The voice of the divine is very polite. If you say no to it. It will be polite and not force it's way onto you barring extreme circumstances where divine intervention is warranted. That is the way of real religion. Polite.
So, fascinated with this willingness and "yes" I proceeded to practice. I walked out into the garden behind my parents house and just let everything be as it was. I didn't place any of my pre-conceived notions onto anything the best that I could. I paused to look at a flower. As I looked at the flower I got a feeling. I said yes to this feeling. The more I let myself just surrender to what was really in front of my face the more interesting the situation became.
For the first time, looking at this flower, accepting and surrendering to everything it was, it's true beauty and essence opened in front of my eyes. I was fascinated to find that in one way my non-accepting kept me free from experiencing pain and negative things but it also blocked me off from experiencing higher levels of beauty and excellence.
So there I was, awe struck by the beauty of this flower, who's essence was simply washing through my body. In fact, I could feel my realization of this beauty healing the physical components of my body. It was a higher beauty that I had not experienced in a long time. Turns out this quality was essential for the life and proper functioning of my organs.
I did it with music. Turning on the radio (classical station) late at night and laying in bed surrendering to whatever and wherever the music took me. Whatever emotions the music brought out in me I simply let them fly, completely. Sensations I had never known before and one's that I had long forgotten from the early days of my childhood began to become commonplace again.
In personal interactions this surrender opened avenues of truth and psychic ability. Simple being willing to let the fear and saddness and anger wash over me would in turn reveal the voice in the heart telling me exactly what the person was really thinking.
The tire really hit the road however in the spiritual practices. Willingness and acceptance, if practiced, helps to reveal how things really are. So in the spiritual practices this acceptance and surrender allowed the miracles to open up and run through my existance. Like I said, the divine is very polite, just like a no will be honored, a yes will also be honored. Let me tell you, the divine force that is, is delighted when you turn to it and say "yes". It's a celebration for light and a victory for peace. Ever been in a room with a bunch of rejoicing angels? Pretty sweet feeling.
Not to say the struggle ended or that this willingness was just there to stay. No, not at all. There are opponents. Lots of them. Fortunately, there is only one avenue the dark can get in. It's through our desires that encite to "evil". The "animal impulse" to be short.
This is why you find so many spiritual paths and religions doing things like fasting, not sleeping much, not engaging in material things, etc. Think of what an animal wants. It wants to fill it's stomach, it wants to be sensationally satisfied, it wants to sleep, etc.
This animal impulse is born out of the physical body we inhabit. The "clay" per se. We, as human beings, posses within us both the coarse physical and the innermost divine secrets. As you look around you at the people you will find varying degrees of each aspects dominance over the person. You will find many who's demenor simply resembles a dog who can speak. They go for exactly what a dog seeks, literally. This is an extreme case but if you look you will see it.
On the other hand you will find those who's spiritual aspect dominates this animal aspect. They feel light, they guide to good things and engage in good things. So, why fasting, no sleep, etc.
It's like cultivating a plant. If you give a plant water, it grows and if you water it enough and give it sun it will flower and bare fruit. On the other hand if you cut off a plant's sunlight, water, air, etc. it begins to wither and die.
This is the reason so many spiritual paths and religions engage in fasting, no sleep, being in seclusion, etc. It cuts off the coarse animal nature and that nature is, if one is persistant with this, greatly dimished. At the same time these folks engage in spiritual exercises. Exersises that cultivate the waters of truth, the sunlight of peace, the fertile soil of a just way of being.
So you see varying degrees of this in people. Animal vs. Spiritual. It is important to mention that if you cut off something's means of survival and it begins to die, this thing will either struggle to survive or experience pain in the dying process. Same with squelching the animal aspect of the human being.
When one fasts, takes less sleep, engages in spiritual exersises etc. and the animal begins to die. It is a painfull process which is where the surrender and willingness come into play greatly dimishing the pain.
On the other hand, when one engages in sleeping around, killing others, cheating, lying, stealing, the spiritual aspect begins to die and it is also a painful process.
Ultimately, if the spirit is cultivated enough, the physical becomes no more than a well trained tool. Instead of the person living to satisfy his or her physical desires, his or her physical being becomes a tool to satisfy the desires of the divine, which are peace, love, mercy, justice, freedom, etc.
The animal learns it's lesson not to mess with the stronger, more powerful spiritual nature. Try this; whenever you get angry, throw yourself into an ice cold shower. No matter how much you think you are right. No matter how justified you think you are. Whenever angry, say to your animal nature, "I warned you, into the ice cold shower."
If you do it enough this simple training of the animal aspect reaps enormous benefit. Put fear into your desires. Remind yourself about where they lead. You want to put hesitation in that aspect that tells you to strike back like an animal, dominate like an animal, secure provisions like an animal. After a period of cleaning these aspects a middle of the road approach can be established but first it is necessary to employ a little disipline. If you realized that following the animal nature is a trap of the darkness, and leads to extreme hardship in the long run, you might start asap.
Really, the desires that encite to dark things is the only avenue that those "other entities" can get in through. If this avenue is tight, grown over, constricted and under your foot with a watchdog at it's gate, you won't have many problems. However, if a person cultivates it by answering it's every call (like an animal), opens it up, clears it's way, gives it strength, the forces that oppose the goodness of the divine have a great chance of infiltrating and occupying the lands of your heart. Once that happens it is even more difficult to repair the damage it causes both to you and the resulting damage one causes to others due to this aspect.
The opponents: The Shaitan (the source of darkness, known as the devil), the evil humans (the humans who have been taken by this force of darkness and act according to it's will), the malevolent spirits (those undying spirits unseen to untrained human eyes that live side by side with us).
A lot can happen with those three. A lot can be lost. The only thing in our hands is our ability to cut down on their ability to affect us by cutting off their road into us.
You will find that if you do engage in getting your desires that encite to the animal impulse under your foot and in your control, that hidden motives and hidden desires you posses will be revealed to you.
Just can't get away from that need for excessive material things, just can't get away from that need for sensational satisfaction, just can't get away from that need to control things.
Each desire has a root and that root is a place in us where we have illusory beliefs that the divine will not suffice us. We pick these beliefs up along the way, be it from our very DNA, to our life experiences. It's about looking, and re-educating ourselves as adults. While the heart and soul of most newborns is unblemished the nature of that heart and soul isn't realized. Essentially, sometimes you don't see what is in the room until you step out of the room.
We all were there. When you get in touch with it, while in this adult life, you feel that familiar oneness you had as a child. That's real religion. Not what some folks are pushing out on the street. The only difference is, is that as adults, when we strive to get back there, we learn how it works. The child doesn't know how it works (based on the comings and goings of this physical world that is). The child is just in it.
Ultimately, we learn that it is beyond our comprehension. Not our territory to master. Simply a territory to dissolve into. Dissolution into the divine cannot take place without one's willingness and surrender, very polite indeed. A willingness to abandon our very existance. In a deep way, our very existance is illusory, so why do we continue to fool ourselves?
Peace
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Post by The KoIRan on Aug 28, 2006 15:51:00 GMT -5
Didn't "God" create us in his image? So when i think of what god is he can't be what he's told us because what he is beyond imagine. Now give me a lamb skewer and get back out there drilling for oil; there's a fat kid in america that can't get to BK until he has more oil.
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Post by degicank on Aug 29, 2006 12:32:35 GMT -5
Yes.
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Post by Ben on Oct 24, 2006 0:52:21 GMT -5
10.24.06
Fasting and turning away from the desires
Fasting is one of the amazing common threads found between many, many spiritual paths. And why? Good reasons, it helps in many ways. For instance it helps to weaken the power of the pull to the self oriented desires. It also obviously purifies the physical body. It also serves to humble if you remember in the throws of hunger and thirst what the poor people of the earth experience each and every day. It is a major thing in all monotheistic religions and a major thing in many other spiritual paths.
I would like to pull the focus to fasting as a means to diminish the pull of the self oriented desires.
Know that the self oriented desires are one of the two greatest enemies you have for your spiritual success in this time of physical life. Know that this physical world is coarse and amoung the lowest realms. Freeing yourself from the attachments to it is a prime objective to any serious seeker of truth.
What are the main self oriented desires? The animal impulses to sex, sensation, security, power. Physical things for a person can be sought after in frantic insanity to fulfill these desires. Money for instance can satisfy one's need for power, sensation, sex, and security. Food can fulfill the sensational aspect and the power aspect. Know that if you see yourself or another taking either of these two things in excess the animal impulses are at play. These are broad examples and many avenues are sought to satisfy these desires. For the energetic folk, know that each desire corresponds to an energy center of the body or "chakra". Sex the root, sensation and security the lower belly, power the solar plexus.
Can you see through your reason that answering these desires increases their pull and power. Can you also see through your intelligence that answering these calls kill the higher aspects of heart, soul, and spirit. The satisfying of these desires also leads to the destruction of the physical body. This destruction is a sign for those who reflect to turn away from these impulses.
It is important to mention that it is only the impulse that needs to be turned away from. You need money to live to an extent and food to eat to an extent. In some rare cases, where one has turned away from the self oriented desire impulses and cultivated the higher lights to go completely without the food or money. It is rare and if you have to ask if you are there, you are not.
Fasting is an easy layman's gate to begin entry into the higher worlds. It is as easy as not eating and drinking anything at first. In the development of fasting one eventually goes to withdrawing totally from creation to dissolution or annihilation of all aspects be it self, heart, soul, and spirit into oneness / God, or as I like to say into Allah.
Fasting diminishes the self oriented desire impulses by cutting off their "food" or source of existance in your being. Just as a plant needs water to grow, if the water is cut off the plant begins to wither and die. As above, so below. The higher lights need to be cultivated in such a manner by turning to them and lighting them up in the heart by attending to one of the rightful wholesome practices or natures. So fasting cuts off the life source to these desires and they begin to die.
What happens when they start to get cut off? It would be as if you were in a room of shouting rampant frat guys and slowly they started to be removed. At first you wouldn't have to pull your friends right up to your ear to hear them. The more they were removed you would be able to hear your friends very clearly from a comfortable distance. Such is the nature of the lower desires as compared to the higher lights. Rampant animals to friends.
Just as you can imagine however a rampant drunk frat guy who wants to be in the room might put up some resistance when you try to remove them. Much the same with the self oriented desires. They put up a fight. It's a natural dynamic and the last ones standing in the room are usually the most clever at avoiding removal. But know the only reason they won't be able to be eventually removed is if you have in fact befriended them in some way.
Say you feel weak and you see that one of these frat guys is tough and strong. You maybe make friends with them to protect you. Or, one of the rampant individuals is a sexy sorrority sister who gives you the best pleasure you have ever had. You might keep them because you just can't do without the lust.
It is a good sign but dangerous when breaking these attachements that the darkness begins to offer you these things. And know that the darkness will offer you those things that answer to your lower self desire impulses. Power, sensation, security, sex. It's a trap and you'll need to clean your desires to be only for the higher aspect to escape it.
Using the example above you can sway yourself by listening for and following those "friends" you begin to hear more clearly as the self oriented desires are removed.
It happens, you fast and fast and fast with SINCERITY. Meaning, really, truthfully, wanting to rid yourself of these animal traits. If the sincerity is not there fasting will simply earn one hunger and thirst. You really have to want the peace, love, mercy, real justice, and freedom.
So again it happens, you fast and fast and fast with sincerity and behold you begin to get in touch with some finer aspects of your self. Your good qualities begin to be polished. You notice that you aren't as angry, you don't want to watch porn anymore because it just feels nasty, you have these instances where goodness coincedentially increases in your life (and there is no coincedence), etc. This is a result of the cultivation of higher light in your being. It is a magnetic force energetically and is strikingly beautiful to see play out.
So what do you do? You listen to these "friends" who you begin to hear more and more clearly as the noise of your self oriented desires begin to diminish. You follow what these friends say, you act in accordance to their natures, you begin to take on the good and do away with the bad.
Good and bad? Is the corporate entity that enslaves the people in China the same as the grass roots sustainable farmer? No, but there is deep wisdom.
So with fasting there is a beautiful thing. The diminishing of the lower self oriented desires and the increase of the higher aspects.
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Post by Bill on Oct 24, 2006 19:18:07 GMT -5
Good reading Ben. It is Ramadon<sp> right now correct? That means no eating while the sun is up correct?
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ben1133773311993311
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Post by ben1133773311993311 on Oct 25, 2006 1:25:10 GMT -5
Ramadan just ended. Just reflecting on a few of the benefits I experienced this year. I forgot to add notes on the overwhelming sense of freedom one gets when the lower desires are diminished. It's enough to make you want to dance in the streets and tell everyone about it. It also helps with not getting bumped around by all the stresses at work.
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Post by F The Muslims on Oct 25, 2006 2:39:15 GMT -5
If brainwashing is making you forget about being addicted to drugs and your own ego than you are not as strong and humble as you play on this board. You could have gotten enlightened through christian methods but it wasn't "overthrow" the government enough for you so you choose, in a very non-American manner through a Non-American organization, to show the world around you how messed up it is because they have not found what you think you have.
How many people at your islamic superdome are on terror watch lists? How many people have been sheltered in your community of "prophets and peasents" that are guilty of jihadist murders aginst americans? Is it not enough to despise ones self so much that you jump feet first into a religion that is so filled with hatred of the west that they wouldn't even accept you based purely on your skin color and national origin?
Your quest is not over; you must answer the struggle with-in.
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Post by joe on Oct 25, 2006 15:44:02 GMT -5
When you point your finger at someone 4 fingers are pointing back at you. I used to have a shirt, "Jesus: protect me from your followers!". Personally I alway thought Islam must be on the right track, since it builds on Jewish, and Christian beliefs. Why don't you share some of your beliefs before attacking Ben's? Chill the f out and watch "Crazy": www.gnarlsbarkley.com/downloads.php
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Post by Ben on Oct 26, 2006 3:13:24 GMT -5
Thanks to the one who made that last response. It really made me stop and think about some issues again. I've come out of it feeling refreshed and reestablished in a few concepts I had not thought about in a while.
I would like to share again just how I entered Islam:
I entered Islam through Sufism. Sufism is what some would call the inner aspect or the mystical aspect of Islam. Meaning, everything about the religion, not just the outer rules and regulations. Sufism to many of my friends doesn't resemble a monotheistic practice at all but more resembles a spiritual path like buddhism or a native american spiritual way.
When I started practicing Sufism, I was able to give it my all. Much because I had a life threatening illness and was bed ridden. I contacted an old friend of mine I knew from 827 west college ave. This particular friend has always had from the beginning of our relationship left a deep impression on me as an honest, well balanced, and talented human being. I was sick and needed help bad.
This guy, Jim Keeley was his name, had left 827 with three others to attend a four year energy healing school called "The Barbara Ann Brennan School of Healing". Barbara has a very popular book with the hippie folk called, "Hands of Light". It's an energetic healing textbook we were all really into and played around with while we lived together. Take a look at it at Barnes and Noble when you get a chance.
I knew Jim had graduated with high honors from Barbara's school and he had also attended and graduated with honors from Tom Brown's school of wilderness survival in NJ. Tom Brown also has many popular books about using spiritual mastery to survive in the wild. Tom walks on and teaches a Native American spiritual path.
Jim had been working steadfastly on healing for the 5 - 6 years I hadn't seen him. After many traditional medical doctors and many alternative medicine doctors had failed to remedy my illness I gave Jim a try.
When I called Jim for the first time I was very suprised at how he responded to me mentioning my illness. I simply said, "I have an illness the doctors haven't been able to treat".
He said immediately and without hesitation, "you have x, y, and z".
I responded by saying, "I know you have been working at healing all the time since I have seen you but, really, over the phone, with no symptoms explained?"
He said, "Don't believe me? Call Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe, he is one of my teachers, he'll likely tell you the same and give you remedies."
Now Jim had been in my mind and still is (I talked to him a few weeks ago) one of the most outstanding human beings I have ever met. One of those guys that just makes you feel good to be around. When he talks, people listen. I called Dr. Jaffe.
Dr. Jaffe, one of the pioneers of alternative medicine in the US, and a major player in the uprising of Sedona Arizona as a new age Mecca, had a similar response to Jim right over the phone. I have to admit, I was very skeptical. He told me an herb I could go pick and make tea out of, told me to do hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and also told me to get some healing sessions with a healer student of his named Rahim Bronner.
Out of my doubt I looked up the medical tests one could get to proove if what they were saying I had was true. Luckily I was seeing an open minded doctor at Geisinger Medical Group in Bellefonte named Brett Osterling who performed these tests for me.
The blood work came in and sure enough, both Jim and Dr. Jaffe were right. The only problem was that the traditional treatment for the disease I had was expensive and dangerous to the liver. I hesitantly started taking the powerful pharmaceuticals regardless. The tests showed a rare systemic fungal infection. The infection centralized itself around my heart and brain but was throughout my entire body. This explained why every time I ingested sugar I had to be abulanced to the ER not able to breathe and having small heart attacks. The infection is rare in that usually only AIDS patients get it. I tested negative for AIDS / HIV but none the less I had it and it was a mystery to why my immune system was so compromised. The pharmaceutical to treat it was called Diflucan. I had to take an AIDS patient's sized dose everyday. It was painful and had to be accompanied by other cocktails from time to time.
I followed Dr. Jaffe's remedies and started the healing sessions along with the drugs from my doctor. My MD said, "If these guys can pull that out over the phone, their course of treatment might be just as miraculous".
I did the Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy with an alternative practicioner, got the herb (wormwood), and did my first sessions. No mention up to this point about anything Islamic.
The healer, over the phone, guided me in a gentle way to my heart, and we began to address the emotional pain I was feeling associated with the illness. The healer also told me how when he was my age he played basketball for UCLA and was slated to go to the NBA when he came down with a mental disorder. He said that he healed completely through the work he was offering and I, in my position, was willing to give it a good try.
In the homework he gave me was a meditation practice he called "the remembrance". He said the practice focused on clearing and cleaning the heart solely. The idea was that if the heart was clean and pure, the body would be also. "The remembrance" involved sitting in a quiet space with your eyes closed and repeating the name, "Allah".
"Allah"? I thought. What is this cooky stuff? He said, "well, if you don't feel comfortable saying that name say the name that means for you something along the lines of the all encompasing entity of my existance. Something like, "the creator", "the one", "God", "Elohim", "Namaste", etc. I chose "the one" but decided to give "Allah" a try after.
I sat and did the practice everyday for an hour like he said. Repeating, the one, the one, the one, the one. It calmed me down but nothing special. I even tried "Allah" but I would immediately see an Osama bin Laden holding a machine gun picture in my minds eye.
The sessions were good but after a few weeks I was getting tired of spending an hour everyday at what seemed to be doing nothing. Luckily I didn't stop. One fateful day while giving the name "Allah" a try after repeating the one, the one, the one, I felt something new happen.
I was saying the name "Allah" and looking at that annoying picture of Osama in my mind's eye when some sort of force rushed into my body. I flopped like a fish in my bed for a few minutes feeling like I was being electricuted. When it stopped I felt like somthing had popped out of my belly. The sensation was like the one someone gets after putting down a backpack after a long hike. I was just lighter in a way. I couldn't explain it really, but something definately happened.
I rushed to the phone to call Jim. He laughed and said that it sounded like a normal release in healing. He said, "keep going with it, see what else happens". I felt like I had stumbled upon some sort of secret power. Nothing like a little hope for the bed ridden and terminally ill.
I thought it was interesting the next few times I did the remembrance. The Osama image was no longer burned into my mind. It came and went but this force would also come after a while and settle into my being. Kinda like taking a warm bath. I told the healer I was working with about it. He recommended taking a look at a book of his called, "Music of the Soul".
In this book he said were a few easy to follow spiritual teachings that employ the remembrance as their corner stone. I went online and downloaded the section of the book he recommended and as per his instructions 1) wrote one of the passages by hand out of the book everyday and 2) did the remembrance after I wrote each passage.
The subject matter of the book didn't appear Islamic, in fact, it read much like stereo intructions to me.
i.e.: 1) Al-Ammara - (the place where one is listening to the orders from the darkness) (content) There are many things from the nafs (self oriented desires). This word "nafs" contains all the things that come from your self - your perception, your hearing, your feeling, the voices in your mind, and the desires of your heart, that say this and that or ask why or what. When you begin to walk in the way, you find two opponents inside yourself. The "nafs" sit inside you and the evil whisperer (ash-shaitan) is also inside you but from the outside. An example of this place one can be is when the shaitan came to Adam, may peace and blessings be upon him, in the garden. The shaitan began to speak to the "nafs" (self oriented desires) inside Adam telling him to disobey the order of Allah. The "nafs" of Adam listening and giving in to the voice of the shaitan is the place of al-ammara. The "nafs" speaks inside you and the shaitan speaks outside you to the nafs, but they both speak with the same voice. Do not listen to the shaitan. You must do the remembrance. Allah says, "first listen to Me". What do you do in this place to discharge the voice of ash-shaitan? Remember the name (remembrance), pray, and walk (develop and change). Continue and do not stand still. Give mercy. Strive hard, and after that you continue to a new place.
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So I wrote everyday and did the remembrance. I felt more and more like I had stumbled onto a big secret because every time I wrote one of these passages and did the remembrance, the passage would reveal itself symbolically in my day to day life. Meaning, I would read something and than that very thing or teaching would carry itself out in front of my eyes as I went out in my day.
I studied hard. Baffled by this force coming to me and the coincedential happenings throughout my day I continued very seriously. I thought, "wow! Dr. Jaffe and Jim were right about the illness. There is this mystical force coming over me and making me feel better. There are too many coincidences happening to ignore. This might be the way for me to heal from this horrible illness!"
It's a long story to tell at length, this is only a little, but the next major turning point was when I connected with the spiritual teacher who, in a long line of teachers starting back in 600 AD, represents currently these teachings on earth.
I had been passed along to another healer because I needed more attention that Rahim could give. After crying on the phone about my illness, the pain, the weight loss, the terminal outlook, my new healer told me to give this guy "Sidi" a call in Jerusalem.
The voice of a very old man answered the phone. I said, "Rahima Schmall told me to call you and ask about my illness and to take an oath with you."
He sighed and said, "Say I promise God (I repeated after him everything), to carry your message, the message of peace and love and mercy and freedom and justice. I promise you, to walk your way, the way of all the Prophets, all my life, amin."
He then said a verse in Arabic that I didn't understand at the time but reads something like: Those who keep an oath with God keep an oath for themselves and those who break an oath with God break this oath for themselves".
I said, "what should I do about my illness?"
He shouted, "BE READY FOR MY SPIRIT!", and hung up the phone.
After hanging up the phone I thought, "what in the hell did I just do? Who are these cooky people. Are they a cult? What am I getting myself involved in?" All sorts of horrible thoughts crossed through my mind. David Koresh, Osama bin Laden, you name it. Every bad image of religion crossed my mind. Little did I know what was about to happen.
That night I sat doing the remembrance. I was enjoying that same warm feeling that I had come to know to settle into my heart by doing this. I couldn't explain it, but it would happen none the less. So there, just sitting saying, "Allah, Allah, Allah, etc." and.... WHOOOOOOSH!
I saw something like a golden bolt of lightning strike. It struck me in the chest. When it hit me, I literally exploded inside. I fell into a perplexing state, one of those, "there was nothing, but there was everything" concepts. Just this white and golden light, it was beautiful, a consuming oneness.
I came to in the room and just thought about what Sidi had said, "be ready for my spirit".
I continued developing by reading, writing, doing remembrance and doing what the teachings said. Things like; be polite, give love to those around you, don't listen to negative voices in your mind or around you, keep praying for help. All the while just more and more amazing things happening to me both inside myself and outside myself.
Months and months went by, I was no longer bed ridden but it was clear I was dying. I didn't worry all too much after a point. I just had this inner peace, satisfaction, and amazement at this "secret" that had come to me. I used to think to myself that surviving my illness would just be an extra added bonus. I was content to die feeling like I had completed something. Ready to go to the next world with this near constant inner peace.
I became psychic through this practice. I became prone to visions and time / space breaking phenomenon. I was alone studying this stuff out in the PA countryside just about everyday. I no longer communicated with any healers except once a month just to say I was alright. I would talk to Jim from time to time to refine my thinking and perspective, taking this experience higher and higher.
All the while just not making the connection that what I was doing was actually an Islamic spiritual way. I couldn't understand, based on what I was experiencing, just how could this be an Islamic thing? Islam was suppost to be Osama, and bombs, angry men, oppressed women, brainwashed subserviant idiots plauging freedom on the earth. How could this thing, that was the most profound thing that had ever happened to me in my life, be an Islamic thing? I didn't bother with it too much, it was too good and too fulfilling to deny. I just kept it to myself and went flying on my merry way.
It was also a very direct thing. The readings in the book would give a basic guide on how to be in a loving way but the phenomenon of the force that would come during the remembrance coupled with all the chance happenings would really be the way I would learn. I was suprised that each time I would turn the page in this book "music of the soul" the ensuing chapters would be related these direct experiences. Almost like the book was watching what was happening to me. The new chapter would explain how to go farther, and farther, and farther.
I was lucky to have such a quiet time in my life to go through this. I came to be grateful for the illness for this. Had it not come I could very well still be miserably toiling away trying to make it as a musician.
My old girlfriend Heather and I used to be what we called spiritual people. We used to pray a Native American prayer before the meals and do medicine wheel stuff like that. Right before I got sick I remember quite clearly reading in John Coltrane liner notes that he used to just want to be part of something that was authentically good. I thought, "that sums it up for me, to be part of something that is really, truthfully, through and through, an authentically good thing." I changed my personal prayer before the meals to be that, "oh creator, please may I be part of something that is authentically good". Weeks later, heart attacks and asphixiation. Little did I know.
So we pick the story back up in the country side of PA. All these beautiful things happening. I would tell the hippies in town about these things. They seemed to like to hear about them. I would explain what I had learned and stuff. We all used to eat together in the back yard of a Barnard Street hippie house. Steve Faubel Jenna Batt, and Nate Herman used to be there with me just about every day. We used to have just awsome talks and talks about peace, love, mercy, freedom, etc. A very special time for me and I will never forget just how valuable their friendship was to me at that time. It was a very pure time as I think they would also report. Very child like. Although these great things were happening to me, I was still dying. MD's giving the terminal quietness, all I had to hang onto was this feeling that something great was going to happen despite the unprobable outer situation.
There is another report about what happened from here to the miracle I experienced at the Sufi retreat center in Maryland. Bill... could you find that post about the healing and tell the folks where they can find it?
An important detail I left out in the miracle story is how when I saw the angels, and saw the Prophet Isa there was also a tunnel of light when we turned to look. When I asked the Prophet Isa in gratitude, after I knew I had been healed, "what I should do"?
He said, "all you have to do is bow (be grateful, give thanks)". We then turned, there was a tunnel of light. At the end of the tunnel was the Kaa'ba in Mecca. The black cube Muslims pilgimage to and circle around. It is also the direction all Muslims pray to when we make our daily prayers.
So there, with the Prophet Isa and the angels, I bowed in the direction of the Kaa'ba and had, as I wrote, another dissolve into what felt like oneness.
Looking back at that point I think I could say that was the time I really resolved and entered Islam. Nobody told me I had to be a Muslim, nobody told me I had to do this and that Muslim thing, the only thing was a suggestion to repeat the name "Allah" over and over again and see what happened. After that point I plunged into taking on the outer Muslim practices like the daily prayer, the fasting during Ramadan, the giving of charity to the poor, the intention to one day make it to Mecca if possible, and declaring "there is no God but God, and Muhammad is a messenger of God".
Not a single person ever suggested to me to take on one of these tenets of Islamic faith. It was through a miraculous and direct experience with what I, beyond a doubt, know was a higher power. And I continue to experience that higher power directly to this day. My wife had much the same experience that I had.
It has taken four years of intensive study after that initial period of experience to weed through all of this Islamic prejudice both others and myself have had questions about.
What I have come to know is that there is a terrible, terrible, misunderstanding. The Islamic faith these days, in and of itself, is in pretty bad shape. Much like other monotheistic religions and spiritual paths, a few, or a lot of bad apples for that matter tend to spoil the bunch. But even with a large majority of Muslims not walking the walk per se you have to wonder about where we get our images of this religion from. I think that if one were to really search out the real message of Islam for a time, they would be suprised at what they found.
I can safely say that I know more about Islam than many people from Islamic countries. This is a result of an intensive and painful search to find out why this incredible thing I was experiencing was being represented in the media as Osama, angry men, oppressed women, and medival minded idiots blowing up buildings.
Are my friends and I on a watch list? I can imagine so. However, we don't have much to worry about. Are they going to listen to us talk about being peaceful human beings? Sure, let them listen, they might learn something.
But you have to ask yourself at this point, who should we be watching? A bunch of fanatical nomads with AK-47s out in the Arabian desert? Or the folks that just overturned Habaeus Corpus? The folks trying to bring nitro glycerine onto an airplane without an airplane ticket? Or the folks who are stealing elections? The folks who are getting wiped off the face of the earth? Or the folks spending the people's tax dollars to tourture, bomb, and kill other human beings for what reason? Weapons of mass destuction? Nope. Democracy? Don't think so. 60% of this country's citizens now believe that 9-11 was an inside job. But if 9-11 wasn't the Arabs, just what is going on here? Check out "9-11 loose change" on the web, google it. Wiping out a country's infrastructure for kidnapping two soldiers? What would we do if the Arabs had a Guantanamo? Something just doesn't make sense here.
But, I can see how if one doesn't really sincerely look with intelligence, they could miss it. Like I said, it took me four years to weed through the mess.
In summation, as a friend to many of those on this board, I say peace to all the seekers of the truth, on whatever path, religion, of any color, any gender, with no separation, peace, and beware of anything that speaks contrary to love. For I am sure that if we all knew our religions and paths well, we would see that there is only one way. The way of peace, love, mercy, justice, and freedom.
Assalaam wa alaykum rahmatu'llahi wa barakatulu
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Post by Joe on Oct 26, 2006 7:23:20 GMT -5
If you are reading this, you are on the watch list. Sorry for my goofy past activities. (see trash talk area)
Yo Ben I'm in Grad school!
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Post by Bill on Oct 26, 2006 12:38:58 GMT -5
Ben your a great author, keep it up. I think you have a talent here that you may be passing up. Each time you post one of these I have trouble concentrating on other things I have going on and can't help reading this story. Even though I've read it, heard it and have even spoken to you about it numerous times...!
James or whomever made the dumbass post, you're a dumbass.
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Post by Flaws of Islam on Oct 26, 2006 13:43:35 GMT -5
If Muslims won't accept Jesus as being the son of God or/ one with God, how does islam atone for sins. And also, if Jesus is the answer to the question of sin, why as a christian do I need islam?
What is a Fundamentalist? Is Islam a religion or a form of Government? If Islam is a Government, should it fall under the protection of the US Constitutions ”Freedom of Religion act”? If Islam is a Government, and a religion in one, what parts of the Koran need to be deleted or revised in meaning as to remove all possibility that a reader could misinterpret the content thus producing though patterns which could perceive and produce a design for a government structure. If Islam is a Government and is not protected under the ”Freedom of Religion act”, should Moslems be considered traitors to the American way?
Surely this degimuslim can guide the weary through these questions. there are 100,000,000 + more to be answered. Most involving hate of the western society and EVERYONE on this message board (ie americans)
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Post by Also on Oct 26, 2006 13:49:03 GMT -5
Where do you get the number of 60% as the amount of people in this country (no country stated) who believe that 9-11 was an inside job? Sounds like air america or mike moore himself has been injecting (via rectum) loads of leftist lies and fear mongering. Yes you liberals can fear monger too; look at that cunt cindy sheehan.
I would be very suprised if 5% of ALL americans think or could believe an idea that 9-11 was an inside job. Now weather a bunch of muslims (who are rumored to still be alive in remote locations by family members) committed this act is just as hard for me to believe but i will not claim that 60% of americans believe that scenerio either.
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