Meeting the Sufi Sheikh, and getting rid of ego

Being “fair” when someone has hurt the hell out of you (meaning, has really hurt you) is not easy. But that’s a test we all will go through soon, according to Sufi Sheikhs. Whether one is Sufi or not, we should all be very aware of the signs and moods this world is going through.

The spiritual lesson that is at work – in this time and age - is to wish your brother/sister the best, because whatever one wishes for others will be returned unto him/her. We all know the concept, but to live it is another matter.

What if we are all faced with a quick cause-and-effect life? What if everything we do, we are rewarded for, or punished for, right on the spot?

Contemplate this and be ready for what’s coming. If you are a Sufi then you must be familiar with the notion that we are approaching the end of time. Prophet al-Mahdi and prophet Jesus are soon to make their appearance on earth, along with al-Dajjal (the anti-Christ). Those who are not ready for their arrival will suffer, and getting ready is about getting our inner world ready. Getting rid of all our inner baggage, our hatreds, our egos… is a must.

Prophet Jesus will descend in Damascus, inshAllah!

Ego… that’s the enemy. Ego likes to follow illusion, likes grandeur, loves to be the center of everything. Ego loves fame, money, fun, chaos. Ego loves to compete, ego loves to follow whatever that doesn’t require it to discipline itself. Discipline is ego’s first and foremost prison.

Big egos don’t like to submit to God and to His Prophet Mohammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

How do we submit to our Lord? We do as He likes… not only externally… we prepare our hearts for what He likes. God tells us not to look at people’s faults… to look within. Most of the people in this time and age look outside, they fight whomever they think is “attacking Islam.” They lead external wars with others and leave their inner battlefields open for devils of every kind! They lie, cheat, envy and hate, and still think that when they accuse others of being “kuffaar” (non-believers), they are being on God’s side. Do you think Allah loves us to be ugly and hateful? No.

This comes from my Shiekh’s wisdom, may Allah bless him and bless us under his wing.

Living in two worlds in Damascus

In Damascus, one can look at both worlds (Dunya - earthly life – and the Hereafter) at the very same time. This city is structured in a way where you can indulge in the most mouth watering of food varieties, at the same time spend hours of solitude at the mosque, in pure harmony.

Sufi disciples here might spend the afternoon at an extremely relaxing coffee shop, have a cup of tea with Damascene sweets, then walk back home to recite their Zikr (remembrance of God) in great solitude.

The Sufi disciple is usually a walker who passes through tough trials to get rid of the love of Dunya from his/her Heart. But once that is done with, one is allowed to go back to Dunya and live the good life that God has given us permission to live.

In Damascus you have everything in great moderation: A life of entertainment that seldom rubs shoulders with sin (unlike other capitals of the Arab World that have gone the extra mile into obscenity)… a life where the love of religion does not go into fanatism but stays within the bounds of “love.”

Head covered women in Damascus are different from women in other parts of the world… they are strong women with the freedom to live life fully, while keeping their hearts (and looks) within the codes of Islam. They walk around, go to souk, work, stay home, write, attend concerts, dine out, dance and live life without the heavy iron hand of fanatic extremism at their throats.

In fact, conservative Muslim families over here are miles and oceans away from anything resembling hate. You seldom sit with a conservative family that makes you hate the day you were born from the excess of preaching (whereas that’s exactly what you go through in Wahhabi-ruled societies).

Go to Jordan and sit with a conservative family and prepare yourself for suicidal thoughts at every interval. Go to Saudi Arabia, and within 2 minutes you’ll be chalking with the suffocating extremism.

In Syria, even the most conservative of families live within very relaxed atmospheres of moderation. It’s very difficult to describe what this means, without experiencing it first-hand… but all one can say is… no matter where you are, in coffee shop or mosque in Damascus, you are free to breathe, and you are grateful that God made it possible for something like this to exist.

Ode to Allah

When we were little kids, believing in Allah was such an easy thing to do. He was with us all the time. If we started eating we were reminded to recite His Name to bless the food; if we wanted to tell our classmates we were telling the truth about the fact the teacher was planning a pop quiz, we swore by Allah’s name; if we intended to go to sleep, we marveled upon Allah’s beautiful day.

There used to be a sense of surrender that flowed into our lives easily. We were not fanatics, we did not hate other people; in fact we celebrated our love for Allah with our Christian childhood friends with the same feverish enthusiasm. We recieved gifts at Christmas and were reminded God is Love at every turn, as we chewed on Turkey and held hands with our Thanksgiving company and prayed to Allah. Allah was there all the time, very much integrated into our every step of childhood.

We were reminded that if we showed talent that it was a gift from Allah, and we had little egos, and much belief in the fact that yes, our talents were Allah’s… and no one ever accused us of being weird or fanatical about it.

But in adulthood, mention Allah twice during the day and you’re eyed with suspicion, especially if you don’t look quite “the type.” These days Allah is reserved for people who look Allah-inclined… Alas!

Allah is the love of every race, color and kind; He is not reserved to a certain “look.”

The right for women to choose from a Sufi perspective

 

When mothers rule

The right to choose from a Sufi perspective

Motherhood in Sufism has a distinct set-up that varies greatly from what I like to call “TV-branded popular Islam.” In the Naqshbandi path, thriving in Damascus and the path I personally follow, motherhood overrides fatherhood; it has greater jurisdiction over siblings, futures and marriage. A mother’s role in Arab societies is usually boiled down to being the secretary of the general manager (i.e. the husband), but in Sufi tradition, she is “the” captain of the ship.

As the world assigns two days in March to observe the feminine icon (Mother’s Day and Women’s Day), stories of interesting mothers flood to mind. Before going into that, one cannot help but note that matriarchal societies are usually remembered as societies that exist outside the Arab context. Feminine personalities who have helped shape Islamic tradition have been removed out of the historical narrative by the patriarchal “Wahhabi” stream, which inarguably positioned women as children makers with voices, bodies, hair, and existence the Devil likes to use to tempt men. This said, women who used to sit with Prophet Mohammad – in the same mosque and room with men – to learn from him at the dawn of Islam, have been eclipsed in school text books, TV religious programs, and everything that communicates the current image of Islam.

In Sufism, however, the historical narrative of what women have done and can do is completely different. Regarded as an underground movement in the Gulf in particular, Sufism is a healthy, over-ground activity that takes place in Syria. Here, women are treated differently. I don’t have textbooks to support this argument, but I have my mother’s family to testify for it. Part of a long lineage of Sufi mentors, my grandfather is an all-Syrian Sheikh whose mother, grandmother and great-grandmother happen to be strong, independent women who have dared to frequent the mosque to debate in-depth Islamic topics with “peer” scholars and Sheikhs, during times (such as the Ottoman rule) when every woman in Syria had worn three folds of black veils to conceal their faces.

His wife, my grandmother, may she rest in peace, was a self-taught poet, writer and thinker. Everyone in the family used to come to her for council, may she rest in peace. She was not a terrifying, terrorizing woman, as some might think, seeing how pivotal her opinion was in shaping the destinies of her children. On the contrary, she was a soft-spoken, shy, and quiet woman dedicating most of her time to reflection and “Zikr” (daily Sufi ritual involving the silent remembrance of God’s names).

As it turns out, my grandmother isn’t the only one. I have very recently learnt that Sufi women in the Naqshbandi path have matters related to marriage placed entirely in their hands. From the Naqshbandi perspective, final approval of a potential husband is a matter that two people in the world have the right to consider: the mother and her bride-to-be daughter. If the mother likes the groom, and her daughter is helplessly in love with him, then the wedding is green-lighted regardless of the father’s opinion, or the tribe’s. The father, naturally, has to accept the decision his wife and daughter make, and if he doesn’t, they can go for it anyway.

I asked my Sufi Sheikh the other day, “what if the father isn’t Sufi and is against the marriage?” He answered, “If the girl’s heart wants the man, and if her mother’s heart feels right about it, the marriage takes place regardless of the father, because at the end of the day, the girl will be getting married, not her father.” When I looked puzzled, he explained, “a mother’s heart can tell if it’s a good match. She knows her daughter better than anyone, and she can always rely on her heart to get her the right answers.”

I cannot help but wonder why Arab women would import Western-made theories on feminism when they had this to bank on!

 

This article was published in Forward Magazine – March 09

Damascene dizziness and Sufi ‘Aaaaahs’

 Prophet Zacharia is described as an ‘Aaah-er’ in Quraan. God calls him “Awwah” – he sighs a lot. Sighing is the function of Heart. When heart is longing for The One, one sighs and sighs, and when one’s heart is really troubled with the pull of longing, one’s mouth keeps on calling out with Allah’s “Aaaah” sound.

Aaaaaah, ya Allah, Aaaaah.

Zacharia was “Awwahon 7aleem” (an Aaah-er and beautifully patient). He recieved God’s favors after demonstrating a lot of longing and a lot of beautiful patience in waiting for God’s response. Unwavered faith in Allah is disconnected from the shakles of Time.

So, Aaaaah ya Allah, Aaaaah…

The Arab man’s schizophrenia

When I was kid, I met many Arab thinkers, writers & intellects, owing to the fact my mother & uncles are writers & poets. It hit me at a very early age that the man behind that great novel, poem or art work is a man of not too many principles… He writes about ethics, love and the wonder of living when in reality he is far removed from anything noble or courageous… or Great.

One of the major poets in the Arab World, who happens to be known all over the world, was in a party organized in his honor some years ago. He wrote some of the Arab World’s best poetry, a man of deep sensitivity to life’s challenges, beauty and mystery. After gulping down the second glass of scotch, he started hitting on every moving female in the room, cats included. What a sad spectacle!

This schizophrenia is mind boggling. What a man writes does not reflect “who” that man is. The question is: Who writes? His soul???

The same goes to one of Egypt’s most known caricaturists, may they both rest in peace. Great art, but a dysfunctional person… I know artists usually pride themselves for being free from conformity, but does that entail adopting sleaziness as a life style?

Musicians too have that aura around them that proves to be false once you dance a little bit closer to the fire. They project an image of sensitivity, love and liberty… the minute you rub shoulders with them you find out that all the theoretical things their music is all about, is indeed theoretical. There is great hollowness behind great expressions of music, articles and art!

In this time and age, creative men are a danger to humanity (LOL). No, really, they are. A man who lives in the realm of thoughts, ideas, dreams, art and music is a man who is not aware that his daily life is void of all of the things he philosophizes about. Instead of spending time building character, he simply imagines it. He deceives himself into thinking that the minute he “expresses” great ideas, he automatically “becomes” them. He preaches Love when he might be the worst sadist you could bump into with a heart of stone. He preaches loyalty when he has no clue that loyalty transcends the cheating part into other landscapes that he never even ventured into. He is satisfied with where he is standing because he has a good picture in his mind about who he is – a two dimensional picture that is shaken and torn at the first test of time.

Men with great charisma, who inflict dizziness on the female kind, are dangerous species. They base all their interactions with you on the false aura they create around themselves, on illusion. They make you swoon under the influence of words they like to use frequently: “freedom,” “love,” “liberty.” You fall in the God forsaken trap, then the aura starts to disperse. You are left with the naked truth biting at your fingers for having been so stupid to fall for it all.

Where is the noble man of great heart and faith? Many men think if they are ego centric, charismatic and proud of themselves they are automatically at the footsteps (or peaks) of Greatness. Greatness has nothing to do with words, parades, popularity or achievement. It has nothing to do with status, ego or the way we project ourselves to the world. Very recently a man of super huge ego told me he had gone through many trials in life that made him ego-less. What kind of a mirror do people look into before coming up with conclusions of the sort about themselves?

The ego is a very tricky, slippery place. Sufis take their mureeds down untrodden paths to harness the ego. Once you’re done with earthly ego – that holds dear status, material achievement – you are now ready to taste the fires of freeing yourself from the shackles of spiritual ego. It’s not an easy journey, getting rid of earthly ego (of desires, false senses of security,  paradigms of thinking that have the Self as the center of the universe), one is ironed day in and day out with the coals of self-importance, spiritual & intellectual alike.

Bowing to Allah as a selfless person, clean from any thought, any possession, any attachment, is the very reason why one cries at night on the pillow. Allah, you alone can bring me salvation, you alone can guide my soul, you alone can free me from me. You alone can free me from everything that is not You. Amen.

Men who have 3-meter thick walls around them…

There is a certain breed of man who is locked within a thick, 3-meter wide wall; bullet proof, water proof, everything proof, that you cannot reach that man easily. Why am I complaining? – I am a good example of the same kind of wall-locked woman.

But it is quite interesting and challenging to see the “protection” mechanism at work. The worst kind of man (romantically speaking) is the man who maneuvers from behind barricades. He comes out to meet you when you’re totally un-interested, and runs back in at the faintest sign of interest. Very tiring in deed, very tiring.

He communicates with you using everything, but straight-forward language, as medium. He knows (and that’s the part I hate) that you are picking up on all the sign language he is using; he plays with your heart’s strings from a distance, making sure it beats a little bit for him, but without putting himself in a compromising position where he has to reveal himself, and open his heart and get involved and fall in love, and … eventually get hurt (or hurt you). I know, it’s the getting-hurt part that keeps them hiding inside their shell. 3adi.

The merits of straightforwardness

A few days ago I met a Sufi man, not for the first time, he happens to be in my community of Sufi chanters, regularly attending Zikr (Sufi gatherings and Hardas). He shocked me with his straightforwardness, although what he said was something I knew already. Hearing it out loud was something completely different.

The veils inside

It’s very interesting to see how there is a wall between what we think about inside our heads and hearts (we are veiled & divided), and the expression we create into the universe. Some thoughts dwell inside our hearts and minds for decades but saying them out loud can make them lose their meaning, or maybe shock us a bit, or take them from the safe realm of being inside our “Secret” (sirr) and out into the desecrating world we live in.

Some people treat love this way, they cherish you so much that they don’t let you know – unless after they lose you – and of course when you realize how great their love for you has been while they have been making you walk over broken glass and coal, you start appreciating your training in the field of communication. Communicators are people with such a great blessing, not all people have that talent, my heart goes out for the ones who don’t (myself included)!

Benchmarking love

What the Sufi man did was create a new benchmark for my expectations from men; a very high, unreachable one. He vocalized the impossible; I am positive no other man would be comfortable enough with his soul to say what he told me – it’s totally out of this world. He is a Sufi Sheikh with whom I have frequent conversations, we have great rapport, and understand each other without even talking. Sometimes he reads words right off my mind before they reach my tongue.

What he told me made me realize that there are at least 3-meters of wall & clay and steel around the man I am faintly, barely, occasionally, distantly, and  patiently “flirting” with… if this description applies (talk about great fun!). It’s the thickest wall I have every bumped into in my whole life… so thick one really wonders… is there something going on or what is this exactly.

Raising the white flag on you, my Damascene gazelle.

Fate & the asking of Hearts: Ibn Arabi reveals…

Many recent conversations I had with people I’ve known for a month or two, spoke to one time or more, or met for the first time, were about general info: how come you decided to do this or that? or change this? or be here…?

Many questions are answered this way: “It’s Fate. It just happened and I don’t know how. I was planning on going one direction and God steered me into another and here I am.”

When you give an answer like that people think you’re avoiding the “real” answer and stare at you blankly as they wait for the real answer to come. What you just said simply doesn’t register; it’s like when people don’t really listen when they ask you: how are you today? And you say, “good, it’s been busy, but all is well.” If you ask them next day about the answer they got, odds are they’ll stare at you blankly because they weren’t supposed to remember in the first place!

Back to the Fate remark. So you say it was Fate, you get the blank stare and the usual, “yes, buss, ya3ni, how come you did so and so?” Meaning, “we live in a world of cause-and-effect and each one of us has a life that is more or less steered by someone else who has got a plan lain out for him/her – like parents, family, siblings, fears, society, restrictions, social codes, relatives – so how come you are making decisions on your own, and what made you make those decisions, and based on what?”

Their “buss ya3ni” also implies, “don’t talk to me about Fate, that’s philosophy, come down to earth and talk to me in simple cause-and-effect terms and don’t stuff the conversation with the unknown, or the beyond… let’s touch upon the external shell of things and let’s not delve into things unfashionable like talking about our lives from complicated spiritual viewpoints & contexts.”

You pick up on the underlying message, you revert back to your subconscious for more answers and you find out that the answer is: “It’s Fate. I didn’t really plan it, although I wanted it, I didn’t work for it although I sent that application or made that call, I didn’t pursue it, in fact I was pursuing something else when Fate steered me into taking those actions, those decisions… how did Fate do so? By planting in my heart the true desire for them.” Well, gladly those words never came out of my mouth; I think this would be a great departure from coolness if I ever did – lol.

Follow your Heart

Someone recently said to me, “follow your heart.” I wanted to say, “I am following my heart,” but it sounded too lame so I didn’t utter those words. Fate & Heart are very close brothers. Heart is where destiny leaves its messages, if we listen carefully and follow the Heart’s true calling, we fulfill destiny’s call, if we don’t, we suffer. One learns this the hard way. Every single time one ignores the Heart, one ends up hurting oneself. Every time one follows one’s Heart, one is relieved from the fires of not living within integrity, true spiritual integrity.

Living within integrity seems to be more than just living within the ethical codes one believes in. There is the spiritual integrity that comes from one living in perfect harmony with one’s Heart and inner calling. That’s the integrity that brings about the thing people look for in magazines, jobs, trips, romances, love stories and friendships: Peace.

Peace becomes a frequent visitor when one is living within spiritual, Heart-grown integrity. Nights become sleep-ful when one is waking every day to a life lived within what Heart wants and truly desires. And this is not some theory about mastering one’s life, their are experience-rs who have tried it, tasted it and known it.

Ask your Heart – “Istaftee Qalbak”

In Sufism, Ibn Arabi (Qaddasa Allahu Sirroh Al Kareem) says that what God throws in the Heart is what one must revert back to, listen to and follow. He writes in one of his two books, “The Meccan Revelations” and “Rasa2el (Letters of) Ibn Arabi,” that the Heart is the place where God plants His Will. Therefore Ibn Arabi advises souls, “Istaftee Qalbak,” (ask your Heart).

Do you have any idea how hard it is to ask your Heart? Your Heart; not ask yourself, or ego, or thoughts. Ask your Heart. You Heart does not include mom’s opinion, nor what Opra says, nor what media in general agrees on, nor what most marketing books say is true, nor what your peers believe is what is best for you, nor is it your own perception about your own destiny and occupation, nor is it about your great desire for that man/woman that comes from somewhere other than the Heart, nor is it about what history has proven to be the promise of those who look and live like you, me, us.

Asking one’s Heart is about putting aside all paradigms, taking off all cloaks, all hatred, all desires, all thoughts, all anticipations, all plans, all pressures, all pasts, presents and futures. Asking Heart is about not knowing, not controlling, not demanding, not steering… it’s about total surrender to that message in the Heart, which might be totally out of this world (if one happens to have a narrow view on life).

Asking Heart (Istiftaa2 al Qlab) is about being free from everything, everyone, every “reality” (for realities are not Truths), it’s about reaching a level of consciousness where there is La Ilaha Illa Allah (there’s no god but Allah). Expectations, desires, ego chatter, plans, opinions (etc) are gods. In one’s Heart, when all of those “aghyaar” (Sufi term meaning “others”) are left outside the sacred room of the Heart, the Truth reveals itself, and Fate unfolds, one’s true calling is vividly heard and you start following your path.

Hats off to those who follow the Heart, who are brave enough to do so, who don’t fear anyone, who boldly step into the unknown with great faith in their Heart’s calling and greater faith in the source of that calling, Allah, the Most Beautiful, the Most Generous, the Most Merciful who’s set up on His Throne (Al Ra7man 3ala al 3arsh iStawa…).

Sisters in the smoke & the Syrian cigarette

The smoking sequel goes on. Moral of the day: Don’t fear falling back into old habits, for they may take you down new paths and journeys (I’m not encouraging smoking, just making it kosher for the day).

The day (22.12.2008) when I collapsed into my need for a cigarette, I had to take mom somewhere boring (some book signing event), so I had the car to myself for half an hour. After having to smoke my first cigarette – due to unbelievable joy that visited me from the great unknown that morning, I took the car for a ride around Damascus’ busy streets.

I went to Mazzeh, and hurriedly parked the car anywhere, anyway arbitrarily in the street, where a few passers by eyed me, having stormed out of the not-too-well-parked car to buy a pack of fags – no pun intended – and a lighter from Hamada. Then of course, from the supermarket next to it.

Mom hates the smell of cigarettes (let alone the not-so-good news of the habit kicking back into my life), so I opened all the windows and drove away to savor my 2nd cigarette that day.

Since the last time I worked a lighter was almost 2 years ago, I broke the one I had just bought while nervously trying to produce fire (FIRE!!), so I slowed down, with music blasting, windows open, with a red nose (because of cold and addiction) and was totally zoomed in on trying to create a spark from the broken lighter in my hand. I kept on creating blue spark after another in hopes of creating any glimpse of fire, to no avail.

I was dying for a cigarette when an angle passed by in the shape and form of a middle aged woman. She passed by and saw me crazily struggling with my lighter, a cigarette in my mouth, parked the wrong way on a busy street, with flash on, absolutely unaware of my surroundings. She kept on walking and looking at me, we caught eyes, but I didn’t really “see” her – then she took a few steps back and said, “you need a lighter, I understand, we are sisters in the smoke, we understand and feel with each other, ya 7araam (oh, poor you), there you go,” and she lit her lighter for me, extended her hand through the window across, I stretched myself over to the passenger’s seat next to me and received her timely rescue very gratefully. She made sure my cigarette was doing alright, then backed off and bid me good bye.

I was taken by this woman’s great understanding and compassion for me. This is Syria. People pick up on your need, feel it and act on it. This never happened to me elsewhere. But in Syria, people feel with you, they have great empathy for each other. I am glad I smoked that cigarette, it allowed me a nice interaction with a nice lady. Thank you, mysterious lady!

El mohem, I puffed away, losing most of my senses in the act, driving speedily, with hair flying all over the place, windows open, cold air whipping against my cheeks, other male drivers maneuvering to cut me off (because that’s exactly what I was doing to them – we call that “batwaneh” in Jordanian dialect – from “between,” and which is called over here “mta7asheh” or “zig-zagging”).

And then it hit me… what am I doing? This is so un-Sufi; this reflects adolescence on wheels! I immediately went into another trance of thoughts, of hours of reflection on my self accusation, what is Sufi and what is not, and whether I was being judgmental or not… and that’s another story altogether. The important thing is my first pack of cigarettes ever in Damascus is sitting next to this keyboard, waiting for me to pay it a visit…

The side effects of joy: Holy smoke!

It hit me like a train crash; Joy. I opened my email yesterday morning to find great news that I have been waiting for, for a few months, a lot of hours, many self-inflicted comas. When you wait for something to happen, secretly praying to Allah that it happens, getting ready for it not to happen, going through all the stages of patience, faith, surrender, acceptance, bracing yourself for whatever God has in store for you – and then it happens… you crash under the pressure. You simply crash, especially that out of all the tens of tens of attempts your ego tried to make it happen, the only move you make with no strings attached, no hope, no expectations, not even the slightest light shining through from the tunnel of life – works out, and works out greatly!

Joy is a sensation that starts somewhere in the mind or soul, I don’t know where. Your cells open up and start breathing after a long period of waiting, they want to celebrate, they want to lose control, they might even want to sin and become as carnal as they could muster. They have been dormant for so long under the spell of patience, it hurts when there comes sudden joy. It hurts when a 3 meter-wide gate opens instead of a small window, it’s mind blowing to see sudden rain after long periods of drought. Ya Allah, ya Allah, why do we suffer in loss and gain, sorrow and joy, why don’t we just flow?

It starts with feeling totally blown away, then you thank Allah a hundred times or more, you get swept away with feelings of every sort… those are powerful emotions that overtake your system… and then you crave for a cigarette, for in deed, old habits die hard.

You smoke that lonely cigy, you get dizzy with euphoria, you are silent, as ever silent, for you have learnt to go about life silently. You don’t know how to celebrate joy, you have forgotten what it’s like to jump up and down, because you have lived through thick and thin and know that joy is the sister of sorrow, and both should stay locked inside the heart. You know exhibitionism is against your spiritual beliefs… so instead of telling the whole world: I got it… you smoke a cigy. And when you do, they kick back in, your addictions to life find the perfect opening in the door, that little crack in the shell, and they hurry back in before you compose yourself and treat that moment of joy like any other moment of daily, mundane living.

After almost two years of quitting the fag, you can be defeated by a sweeping moment of joy, and become a smoker again.

It’s funny how the second day (today), you wake up shaking with your desire for another cigarette. You smoke but still you are shaky, the whole world means nothing when the body craves for a puff. You come back from your little smoking trip only to find you have two thoughts in your head; am I smoking because of joy? Or am I just crashing under the pressure of too many good things happening at the same time in such miraculous timing and power?

God bless you Syria. This only happens here! Oh, and this happens when Syria decides to become smoke free in public places in 2009… hmmm.

Being free…

Freedom is yet to be benchmarked. No one can claim “being” free, yet one can claim “feeling” free. The only way to feel free is to compare it to another state. One feels “freer” but not just free. It’s like wanting so badly to go to the bathroom, and once the business is taken care of, one feels free. But it’s not freedom, it’s the feeling of being freer than what was more suppressive.

The freer one gets, the more mediocre past freedoms will sound. Then you realize freedom is from within and you start bringing back everything past you threw away in the name of freedom, because you walked the path and you know that freedom is illusive.

That’s why ritual is beautiful. Ritual is home of the disillusioned. You try to find freedom by breaking down social codes, by venturing into the unknown, by throwing away discipline, only to find yourself back into the realms of discipline and ritual, praying five times a day, sitting daily on your own to do Zikr (recitation of Allah’s names & prayers).

There is great freedom in stillness, in being able to let go of the whole world while you are locked inside a room. There is great freedom in being married to discipline. There is great freedom in submission to The One, Allah, the Most Beloved, Most Glorified, may Your Name be my Compainion, dead or alive.

The day the camel ran over to kill me…

Two years ago, or maybe last year, I can’t remember… I went camping with my friends in this place called Little Petra, 10 kilometers away from the well known Nabataean city of Petra, south of Jordan. (I sound like a press release, don’t I?).

El mohem, my friends stayed in the major tent at the camping site to play cards, one of the most boring things one can do on a trip (or generally). So… I decided to pick up my guitar and lyrics and sit on my own in an acoustically rich spot a bit out of their sight, but only a few meters away. I picked a cushion-filled area romantically nestling in a hollow cracking open the desert mountain hugging the site. The acoustics were great so I sat there for an hour or so singing, experimenting with sound and enjoying the experience.

At one point when I was still in the Zone, unaware of my surroundings, very much taken by the experience, focused on the new song I was making, I looked up… and it looked like a huge camel standing in the distance had just locked eyes with me. The minute our eyes locked, he started running towards me producing clouds of dust around him…

Darn, he was fast, there was no time for me to do anything other than stand up and lean on my guitar. In a second I could tell I was trapped, and no escape plan would work; I was inside a hollow, to run forward was to get even closer to him and die earlier. So I decided to accept my fate and die where I was standing. It hit me that I was going to die that day. “That’s it,” I said to myself. I savored those last moments of awareness, of being who I am, of being “alive” – and uttered “Ash-hadu Anna La Ilaha Illa Al Allah wa Anna Mohammadan Rasool Allah” in my heart. A certain quiet came over me and I was ready to leave my body to my next life.

Life felt so trivial at that moment, nothing mattered anymore, there was emptiness and a camel running over to kill me.

The camel was one meter away, one meter away, when two Bedouins jumped in from nowhere, controlled and steered him away. They struggled with him a bit, but managed to walk him back to the tree he was tied to.

I stood there for a few minutes. I had the awareness of a dying person a second ago, now I had to bring back all the attachments and mental processes related to living. I was still on earth… what a feeling!

I carried my things and went to see my friends, who were all stunned because they saw the camel run and thought I must have been dead by now. It all happened so fast and they had no time to move (or they were traitors hung on a game of cards and didn’t mind losing one of their troupies for a lousy victory). We laughed about it, and they all were happy to see me come back from the tunnel.

What I learnt that day was… death was an easy thing to do. Just trust in Allah and let go. I also captured the true taste of freedom; when you let go of everything and see one Truth, Allah – when there’s only Allah, there’s great freedom. Freedom is to shed all skins, all things, all of life and stand timeless in a moment where there is nothing, no past, no tomorrow. A moment of goodbye is freedom.

Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? “God is One.”
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don’t call all these lights “the Light of God”;
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
…Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.

- Rumi

Allaaaaaah!

It’s popular belief among Sufis that Damascus is the Spiritual Sufi capital of the world. Ibn Arabi is buried in Damascus along with a huge number of “Awliya,” whose knowledge, love and history are threads that weave into the fabric of Damascus. Those threads do not leave the fabric; eternally yours, Dimashq.

This city has so many secrets that are revealed to those who have white hearts; unattached to material life, clean from greed, ego and lust. This city is Love manifest. This city is mercy, kindness and generosity. No where else in the world has the Soul this place has, nor is there a place close to being as beautiful inside-out like Damascus. I am a traveler whose been to so many countries for music & media. The two most beautiful cities I’ve been to (not only visually, but also experientially) are Damascus and Istanbul. You can feel – with every cell in your body – how these two cities are cities of Light. You walk down the street and you feel happy; not the fleeting kind of happiness one feels eating chocolate, or receiving a love letter. It’s happiness that touches the very deep core of one’s heart, of one’s being.

Uttering God’s name “Allaaaaaaah” in Damascus is an experience on its own. Allah ya Damascus, Allaaah!

By the river Barada, I knelt down and cried

To the river Barada, on the occasion of two rain showers only, ever since winter announced itself:

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river

moving in you, a joy.

When actions come from another section, the feeling

disappears. Don’t let

others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.

Reach for the rope

of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will.

Because of willfulness

people sit in jail, the trapped bird’s wings are tied,

fish sizzle in the skillet.

The anger of police is willfulness. You’ve seen a magistrate

inflict visible punishment. Now

see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you

would see how you’ve

been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.

How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don’t

insist on going where

you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Your

living pieces will form

a harmony. There is a moving palace that floats in the air

with balconies and clear

water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained

under a single tent.

- Jelaluddin Rumi

Moving Water

Water has so many metaphors. It can quench the thirst of the physical, emotional and spiritual traveler. In Holy Quraan, water is mentioned in so many contexts, signifying different layers of meaning: Higher heavenly knowledge, cleansing by Muhammadan Light, worldly prosperity, spiritual prosperity.

So many Water references exist in the Holy Quraan, which are actively used in the Sufi tradition. These include different references to “springs” that stem in the heavens. Earthly water (H2O) is a physical manifestation of spiritual water. Although H2O is a double edged sword that can quench one’s thirst as well as drown nations that are struck by God’s wrath, spiritual water has no duality about it. It cleanses, teaches and fills one with Light.

The symbolic act of cleansing one self ahead of prayer by taking up the act of “Wadoo” goes far beyond the mere cleansing of the body of carnal dirt. Wadoo is the act of accessing spiritual water that cleans eyes, ears, feet, hands and head from things that are beyond earthly sweat. When one dips hand in water, calling upon God’s name with one’s truthful heart, one is cleaning ears from spying on people’s secrets, from things like listening to gossip and backstabbing, or from tempting speech that takes one down the paths of darkness. One is becoming clean from worldliness. When one cleans mouth with water, remaining parsley bits go away, most importantly the mouth is being washed from its sins, its lies, gossip and wrong doing.

The river Barada, is not just a river. It’s the receiver of holy water flowing through infinity – to cleanse us inside out.