Sat Kartar

After listening to much confusing talk, I asked him, how often did he read the holy book? He replied sheepishly that he never read the book, because, the script was in another language, and the words were rather difficult.

However he knew the messages and their meanings thanks to his elders and the preacher. I asked myself how could a person who never read the book nor understood the language quote so confidently from it? Looking at my wanting to know more he offered to take me to the local preacher.

The preacher was excited by the opportunities of my joining the fold. He was better able to explain about the holy books and the message better than my acquaintance.

He had spent some years in learning the ropes to becoming a priest. He spoke confidently, sprinkling his sermon with quotes from the holy book. I could understand little as he prattled on delivering his standard pitch, perfected by its repeated delivery.

Yes the book was not easy to understand, the language, the context, challenged him, but the senior preacher knew so much more and he had taught him and was often guided by him.

Here I was receiving a sermon and explanations delivered by someone, who acquired it from a paid preacher who got it from an older paid preacher. The text that was quoted so frequently, may or may not have been understood by any of us but we were all simply regurgitating the same thing without experiencing anything.

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This is exactly how dogma grows. No one understanding what they say, but just parroting it. To show loyalty to a group, society, community, religion, to exercise dominance over others based on our knowledge.

The followers increase in numbers and and more adherents are pulled in by lure or coercion. Even the greatest edifice built will collapse sooner or later if the foundation is weak.

As long as no one asks a question everything is fine. Like the Chinese whisper effect a message finally delivered something vastly different from the original message. It is shallow because it does not stand on original truth, often being tainted by the biases of the communicator. Worse, it is a pure textbook exercise, with no one having experienced anything.

Believers are certainly guilty of this lapse, but so are opponents, who seek to condemn a faith or a people without trying to truly understand what it means and how it is relevant.

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Next time you are lectured on the good or the evil of an individual, people or a faith, it might be a good idea to understand what the person giving the message really understands and has experienced.

All religious knowledge is invalid unless it is experienced. It does not belong to us. It can be ours only after experiencing it. Then and only then can it blossom into spiritual wisdom and an awakening.

Monday, January 30, 2017

What Jesus said about killing to eat?

'Thou shalt not kill, for life is given to all by God, and that which God has given, let not man take away. For I tell you truly, from one Mother proceeds all that lives upon the earth.

Therefore, he who kills, kills his brother. And from him will the Earthly Mother turn away, and will pluck from him her quickening breasts.

And he will be shunned by her angels, and Satan will have his dwelling in his body. And the flesh of slain beasts in his body will become his own tomb.

For I tell you truly, he who kills, kills himself, and whoso eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats of the body of death."

~ Jesus

Excerpt from, The Essene Gospel of Peace

Monday, September 26, 2016

I saw my Lord

I saw my Lord with the eye of the heart.
I asked, ‘Who are You?’
He replied, ‘You’.

~ Mansur Al Hallaj

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If one studies history of divine souls, one will always find find that those who preached love, compassion, universal brotherhood, respect for life, etc. you will find that they were inevitably persecuted by the government and the dominant religious authorities of the times.

Jesus Christ, The Sikh Gurus, are well known examples but much less is known about the Sufi saint Mansur al-Hallaj. The people followed them in large numbers turning away from the priests and preachers of the times, towards these divine souls and masters. Following them because they stirred their souls and enlightened them.

However arrogant leaders of religious and political institutions can not accept nor forgive anyone who enlightens the masses. So they always try to destroy these great beings.

But what difference do earthly matters of life and death make to the soul that is divine, and transcended this material world? They may destroy the body but not the soul, nor can they silence the words and the teachings.

One can also observe this, from the life of Mansur al-Hallaj (858 - 922). He was a Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and a major teacher and influence in the Sufi tradition.

He spent long periods in meditation and was imprisoned by many who disapproved of his claim to be true only to the one God rather than to protocols of social and religious custom.

Mansur was finally incarcerated for 9 years. Rather than getting destroyed, he rejoiced and used the time to meditate, realising that he and God were but one. When he emerged from his cell he kept uttering the the words, "An Al-Ḥaq" (I am the Truth)

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He achieved the highest level of spiritual evolution when he proclaimed, that there was no separation between him and God. This kind of statements are considered revolutionary and very dangerous by the clerics and the state for it negates their power over the spiritual individual.

What would happen if the masses followed Mansur?
He was repeatedly asked to publicly recant, but he steadfastly refused. Unwilling to change his statements, he was finally sentenced to death. Mansur was not only to be killed but to be so destroyed that it must frighten others not to deviate from norms laid out by religious leaders.

Thousands of people witnessed his execution on the banks of the Tigris River. He remained defiant, and uncowed even as he was led to the scaffold. He was first punched in the face by his executioner, then lashed until unconscious, and then decapitated Witnesses reported that Al-Hallaj's last words under torture were "All that matters for the ecstatic is that the Unique should reduce him to Unity," after which he recited the Koranic verse 42:18. His body was doused in oil and set alight, and his ashes were then scattered into the river.

Mansur Al-Hallaj taught people to find God inside their own souls. He preached without the traditional Sufi cloak and used language familiar to the local population.

Among other Sufis, Mansur was an anomaly. Many Sufi masters felt that it was inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet Mansur openly did so in his writings and through his teachings.

Mansur al-Hallaj claimed, "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God."

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Did I tell you, I love you?

Once again as I embarked on a long journey, without my wife, I felt the pang of separation from my love and friend. I was filled with thoughts and emotions.

When our being overflows with emotion it drives thoughts out of the mind emptying it, even if only for a brief moment. Then in this emptiness many thoughts surge in.

What if I never get to see her again?
Its strange, that I have surrendered to Mohini, yet rather than becoming less I am further enriched, physically, emotionally and intellectually. This I guess is the power of love and friendship.

I always want to tell her that she means the world to me and I love her, and a thousand other things. Words and thoughts which a man and woman, friends, and lovers should be sharing with one another, but for some inexplicable reason almost never do so.

Soon after leaving I usually sent her a message from my phone. The message could reflect care, love, regret, a joke, something romantic, advice, maybe even a reminder, whatever it is I feel at that moment. True friends and lovers never adulterate their feelings with too much thought.

I asked myself, 'If you love her, why did you not tell her directly?'
For one my wife never believes me, after all the grief I give her.
Secondly the last time I hugged and told her I loved her, , she spun around and confronted me, "Are you having an affair? "
"Of course not, I replied."
I thought to myself, "By God! what a delightful thing that would be."

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I like to converse with myself.
Why do we seek to cling on to what we have? Maybe this is all that we have.
There is God I am often told.
But where is He?

God, He seems so very far away. The more I approach Him the more distant he seems to be. How many steps more must I travel to reach Him? And there are so many middle men. My wife and my family, they are here and now. I have invested so much in these relationship, of course I have a right to expect a return on my love and devotion.

This is nonsense. If we expect something in return for our love and devotion then it's not love, its business. A commercial deal of give and take.

Again I asked myself, 'what if I never saw her again?' The survivor would be devastated. Really? Why should it be so?

From experience and understanding, realisation is born which blooms into acceptance.
Worry never robbed tomorrow of its sorrow, it just robs today of its essence.

We come alone into this world and alone we shall leave it. How silly we humans are, that for the brief time we spend while we are here, to gather so much? As if we will live here forever. Things, relationships, wealth, position, status, all we should relinquish voluntarily or they will be snatched away from us anyway. Give and give with joy and without expectation. Share and share with compassion.

Love is not a demanding but a giving. Only an Emperor can give with magnanimity. Where as a beggar is exacting, expecting his or her due in full, and if possible even more.

Love and friendship fortunately are unlike money.
If we give and love unconditionally, the more we give the more we are enriched.
Maybe I have evolved, maybe I have just grown too comfortable and lazy, maybe I am trying to fool destiny. I am lucky that I live like an emperor, I treasure just the moment, and I never send her sentimental messages anymore.