OUR heart, says Kabir Helminski, “gives qualitative experience of life.” According to him, “Every human being longs for a relationship. To be in relationship to another conscious being, who is present with us, is one of the greatest experiences of life. We can move through various stages to reach a point, where we feel there is a presence, an Infinite Being operating in our existence in all the events of life, in all manifestations, an intelligence, a compassion that nurtures, guides and educates us all. Rumi sometimes calls it beloved to give it a metaphoric personal form.” He says, “Should You stop being my beloved, my affairs would be disastrous, my Comforter, my dear Companion, nothing happens without You.” This something, which is beyond our perception, is truly cosmic.
The unnumbing of the heart begins through the consciousness of this presence. One can call it a comprehensive awareness that can at any one time, encompass our thinking, our emotions, our bodily perceptions and our behaviour. It is close to what people call mindfulness, a state when mind becomes quiet and emotions little more still. We begin to access this deeper level of experience and feel the existence qualitatively, realizing that we live in a Universe made up of so many incredible qualities, the qualities of awe, majesty, tenderness, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, the qualities of beauty and meanings. In this state, we are not preoccupied with desires, comforts and pleasures of the body, but live in an awakened state, conscious of our sensory feelings and become whole. Feeling the presence is the first step and this presence or mindfulness eventually opens up to heartfulness, which Sufis call remembrance of God. Remembrance of God becomes real; when we sense that, our presence is related to a vast ocean of presence and is sourced to something much greater in a vast infinite ocean of Being. This is what we call ‘Divine.’
When the individual presence begins to feel the relationship with the Infinite Presence, you realize it is vital and that you need this awareness moment to moment. “I need to be grateful. I need to be in a state of wonder. I need to be aware that there is cosmic intelligence operating at every detail of life. That life is not just an accidental happening of events randomly impacting each other, that this universe, this existence is more about mind and information rather than things. That this Universe is not just of information or quantities, but also a Universe of qualities. From this infinite source, infinite qualities are manifesting and these qualities are all here to educate our hearts, to awaken us to the awareness of true nature of existence, which is an existence of beauty, of generosity, of what we in religious sense call Grace.”
Yunas Emre a 13th century mystic poet from Anatolia Turkey says, “I haven’t come here to settle down. I’ve come here to depart. I am a merchant with lots of goods, selling to whoever will buy. I didn’t come to create any problems, I’m only here to love. A heart makes a good home for the friend. I’ve come to build some hearts. I’m a little drunk from this friendship, any lover would know the shape I’m in. I’ve come to exchange my twoness, to disappear in One. He is my teacher. I am His servant. I am a nightingale in His garden. I’ve come to the Teacher’s garden. To be happy and die singing. They say ‘Souls which know each other here, know each other there. ‘I’ve come to know a Teacher and to show myself as I am.”
In another poem, Yunas Emre says, “To love the world is to be afflicted. Don’t be a thorn, become the rose. Let your maturity unfold. The thorns will only burn. God created prayers, so that human beings could ask for help. It is too bad if you haven’t learnt to ask. Accept the breath of those who are mature. Let it become your divining rod. If you obey only your ego, things turn out wrong. Renouncing the world is the beginning of worship. If you are a believer, believe this. Respect your parents and your ancestors and you will have fine astral clothes one day. But if you earn the complaints of neighbours, you will stay in hell forever.”
Marakba. Kabir Helminski says, “In Sufi tradition one of the practices is called Marakba, which means attending to one’s heart or paying attention to one’s heart after it is cleared of distractions and trivialities. One simply directs one’s heart towards the divine patiently, in stillness to be able to receive whatever gifts divine brings. Allah ho is the word for divine presence, it means together with the Infinite. This Marakba or contemplation in silence or in stillness, gives you the purified heart (the heart that is not filled with idols) the idols that our ego creates, which could be self-importance, power, or wealth. When the heart is cleared of idols, the all compassionate, the Rehman can take seat on the throne of your heart and guide you directly.
Ecstasy. “Sufism is a body of techniques for producing ecstasy. Ecstasy in Arabic is called wajd. In Arabic, three words sound the same, wajeed means to find and wajod is the word for being. When you have found being that is wajd (ecstasy) so ecstasy is just the experience of finding being. This is the natural bliss of existence. This is what Rumi was drunk with and wanted to share with us. That ecstasy was not a state he was grasping; there was no greed in it and it came from his total devotion to the core reality, which we call, ‘The Divine.’ This for Rumi was something very personal, because he says, “You, You. You.”
“Were something to happen without You, the world would be overturned. The Garden of Eden would turn to Hell; nothing happens without You. Should You stop being my Beloved, my affairs would be disastrous. My Comforter, my dear Companion! Nothing happens without You. Without You, life would not be delightful nor death joyous; how can I rebel against Your sorrow? Nothing happens without You.….” Quran says, “Indeed in the remembrance of God, the hearts find tranquillity. “ “My Lord, forgive and have mercy, You are the best of Forgivers.”
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi.
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