ISLAM SUFI

From the Golden Sayings of  Sufi Sheik Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Reh)

A Riddle

What did we see first when we came into this world, and what do we want to see again? There is something we saw before that we desire to see again now. Think about this mind, this eye, this desire, this nose, this ear, and reflect deeply. Think about the passage we came through and desire to see again. If we understand this, we may be able to bring some peace to our minds. We saw something when we came to this world, and now we desire to see it again. What is it we saw earlier, and what is it we try to see again?

The passage we came through is our place of birth. If we think about how we escaped from our jail, that dark room of the womb where we were imprisoned, we will understand something about that prison and what it really is. If we understand this we will have peace. Why did we enter that dark cave? What is our form composed of? Earth, fire, water, air, and ether make up this form. How did they enter inside there? Through what connections did they get there? The connections of arrogance, karma, and illusion (maya). What happened to these eight (earth, fire, water, air, ether, arrogance, karma, and maya)? What became of them? They are what imprison us, are they not?

This mind is the cause. Think about it. What entered that cave was imprisoned for ten lunar months and then came out. But having come out, we are still imprisoned by that jail. Why is this so? And why do we try to reenter the cave? Why does the mind try to go back there? Why does it go back in again? Think about this with your feeling, awareness, intellect, judgment, wisdom, and divine analytic wisdom.

If you analyze this with your divine analytic wisdom, you will see the path which can give you peace. Right away you will realize, "Oh, this is the path. This is how peace will come." You should find that path and once you have seen it you will know, "Oh, this is the path of peace." Once you understand, you will begin to ask, "What will bring this peace to this mind which has so many millions and millions and millions of states?" You don't need to sit and think about this all day, but you must reflect, understand it, and know it.

We carry this baby-mind around with us all the time, we keep this monkey-mind around all the time, and we keep this dog of desire around all the time. We take the three of them everywhere to help us. Wherever we go, these three qualities of the mind come with us. This dog always wants dirty, filthy, foul-smelling things, even feces. Like a large German shepherd, it drags you along while it sniffs at all these things. It keeps howling, "Woooo! Woooo!" It is so strong that it pulls you in the direction it wants to go and you keep following it. Then there is the baby. Whatever this baby sees in the store, it wants. It cries, "Give me this, give me that, give me this. Buy me this, buy me that." When you buy one thing, the baby plays with it for a while, then discards it, and demands something else. It demands everything it sees, and you have to keep supplying these gifts. That baby has no peace whatsoever--it cries all the time. And then there is the monkey. The monkey of the mind is equivalent to seventy thousand monkeys. When it sees a tree, it jumps. When it sees a piece of fruit, it jumps. When it sees a branch, it jumps. When it sees a leaf, it jumps. It jumps at whatever it sees. It assumes different forms and leaps at everything. Since this is their nature, how can you ever hope to find peace if you take these three with you?

Therefore, my children, who are the gems within my eyes, you must consider: if you hang onto these three how are you ever going to meditate? Even if you close the door and chant, "Ah ing" or "Oh ing" or "Om" or anything else, these three never go away. You may close the door and chant, you may close your eyes and chant, even if you stand on your head and chant, even if you fold up your body and chant, they will never go away. Whether you hide in a cave or hide in the dark, these three will be there. They live in such places: that is where the monkey jumps, the baby cries, and the dog pulls you around.

# posted by abdul raheem syed ( Sufi786) : 3:41 AM  0 Comments

From the Golden Sayings of  Sufi Sheik Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Reh)

Day-to-day life is a prison. From the time we appeared in the dark cave of the womb and throughout our entire life, we have been in jail. How can we live in this darkness? Some try to find peace in these prisons by accumulating money, by getting married, or by taking drugs. Some try to find peace by drinking whiskey, beer, and brandy. This is how they search for peace of mind. Others try to find peace through meditation and yoga. Others try to find peace through mantras and ritual offerings (pujas) or by giving away their money. People search for peace in so many ways, but we must reflect, we have to think: what will give us real peace? What is the treasure that can give us peace? We have to search for the path of freedom and escape from the jail in which we are imprisoned. Only then can we attain real peace in our life.

People have not understood this. So instead, they keep trying to find other kinds of peace of mind. Since the Second World War, for the sake of money and business, the world has invented so many new forms of meditation. With these new and different types of meditation, people think they have found a new 'peace of mind '. God's laws, human conscience, justice, truthfulness, patience, serenity, kindness, and duty have all been forgotten, and in their place man has discovered new forms of meditation that will supposedly bring about new forms of peace. People remain in their prisons, yet they still call it peace.

You can never reach real peace this way, my children. If you want to attain true peace, you must think. If you want peace, ask yourself what will make you peaceful. If you want peace of mind, you must first release yourself from jail. Your life is filled with accidents, and you are imprisoned by thoughts, sights, and sounds. They are your jail. They lock you in the prison of this body, the prisons of religion, race, caste, and blood ties, the prisons of money, desire, and love. All these are jails, are they not? Only when you free yourself from these, will you reach peace.

The mind contains all this. You can lock the doors, close the house, climb a tree, stand on your head with your feet in the air, close your eyes and sit cross-legged, hold your breath, close your mouth and shut your eyes, and do many forms of physical exercises, but to reach peace while remaining imprisoned is extremely difficult.

You have to think. The world is searching for peace. If you reflect for a while, you will see that there are very easy ways to attain peace. What are these ways? Whoever created this prison, this body of ours, it is through Him that we should seek our freedom. In other words, there is One who created us and He is the One who nurtures us and raises us. That is the point. There is one truth. We must understand the source of this truth and through that knowledge be freed from our attachments and from our jail. Only then is there peace. This is easy.

# posted by abdul raheem syed ( Sufi786) : 4:43 AM  0 Comments

From the Golden Sayings of  Sufi Sheik Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Reh)

Like this, the mind has an infinite number of connections. These include the karmic connections which are the qualities and thoughts of the mother and father, the qualities of earth, the blood ties to the parents and their arrogance, and the ties to water, fire, and food. Many such ties exist. These connections are transmitted from the mother and the father to the fetus. Millions and millions of karmic connections, which are not earned by the fetus itself, collect in its blood, in its lymph, and in its flesh. From the minds and qualities of both parents come the connections to happiness and sorrow, sadness and turmoil, torpor and darkness, fights and quarrels. That which was formed in the embryo out of these connections is the mind.

Because of these connections the mind seeks to achieve countless states. Many potentialities (tattwas) exist within the mind. From the moment it is formed, good actions, bad actions, good and evil, hell and heaven, truth and falsehood, darkness and light, right and wrong, purity and impurity, love and sadness, patience and anger, sorrow and happiness fill the mind. This mind which contains all these energies (shaktis) is like a baby. It is a baby mind and a monkey mind, a dark mind and an ether mind, a mind of the elements. Because it contains all these states, it is very strong. No one can calm the mind. How can we stop this mind? It cannot give itself peace. We must think about this a bit. Throughout the world, people hang onto the mind and search for peace. But peace cannot be found this way.

When the embryo is conceived, it is imprisoned in the fallopian tubes for the first three days, and then it is locked in the dark prison of the womb for nine months. When the tenth lunar month dawns, the infant frees itself from that dark prison. After the child is freed from the dark cave of the womb, the parents and relatives carry him, wash him, clean him, and keep him in the prison of their laps. They envelop him in their laps, not allowing him the freedom to go here and there. After that he is imprisoned in his crib, and later he is imprisoned in his nurse's lap. So for the first two years, he goes from jail to jail--from his parent's lap, to his crib, to his nurse's lap, and then he enters the prison of school where each grade is a jail in itself. When he leaves grade school, he enters the jail of college. He graduates from that only to begin the prison of jobs. Next he enters the jail of marriage, then the prison of wife and children. Later he enters the jail of old age, sickness, and disease, good and bad, wealth and poverty. His whole life is a jail until finally he enters the prison cell of death. After that, we do not know if he enters the cell of good actions or of bad actions.

Like this, man experiences varying states of sadness and happiness, of wealth and poverty. In the prison of the mind, his entire life is spent like a shadow. Not for one day, not for one second, does he ever attain freedom from this jail. Man locks himself in this continuous state of imprisonment. For the sake of the body, or for the sake of wealth, we hold onto things which can cause us accidents. We hold onto these things for the sake of money, for sex, for happiness, and then we try to meditate without ever freeing ourselves from these prisons. It is not possible for one who is in prison to reach a state of peace or tranquility. Is that not so? We must think about this.

# posted by abdul raheem syed ( Sufi786) : 10:51 PM  0 Comments