terry

You know, cat, I'm a leo (huge toothy feline yawn). People occasionally ask me if I am religious, and I respond, no but I'm spiritual. There is a vertical dimension, do you see? Whether taoists sufis jesuits or freemasons are religions or not all are spiritual and that is the focus here. So what does "spiritual" even mean? In the vertical dimension there are body, soul and spirit. The conventional path is to climb, to become free of blame. The mystic - in this case, heraclitus - says "the way up and the way down are one and the same." Continuing with broad strokes: The conventional, western notion of so-called arab philosophy (written in arabic as a philosophic lingua franca, like latin, and originally primarily in syriac and persian) is that its golden age ended with averroes. There was a turn in western thought from subtlety and mysticism to materialism and rationalism. Alchemy became more about making gold than about making spiritual gold. The scholastics in the popular mind were obsessed with such ideas as how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The notion of circle after circle of choruses of angels was ridiculed and that echoes down to this day. But the angels were their higher aspirations. Up through avicenna the greek tendency to personify spiritual principles and to seek higher states of being was harmonized with religion. The aim of the aristotelian "arab" philosophers was to prove the truth of revelation, to equate the angel of intellect with angel of spiritual insight. They thought plotinus' enneads were written by plato, and like plotinus they saw a path lit by realms of "angels" that led stepwise from incarnation to spiritual freedom dissolved in god, a god beyond conception. Averroes, aquinas, bacon led the way to philosophies supporting the modern humanist view that man is primary and god his copilot. Avicennism remained a powerful influence in islam and underpinned sufi ideas of spiritual advancement. God, the hadith tells us, speaks to us only from behind a veil (hijab). Or by an angel, known as the pen, for the angel writes directly on one's heart. The mystic, bowed and bloody from trying to penetrate the veil, seeks the help of angels to thin it, so as to let in more and more light. In arab philosophy there is the alchemy of jabir ibn hayyan and in the west boehme etc. Newton was heavily involved in these vertical spiritual concerns as was leibniz. Their calcuii remained as cornerstones and their mysticism is forgotten. The whole turn of the west was to practical concerns, extractive self-aggrandizement that has characterized mainstream world culture every since. Philosophies that didn't support the "truth" of science, to support technology, to support maximum exploitation of resources, were marginalized. Thus the technical abilities of humanity expanded at the expense of spiritual and moral development. And while islam is still a vibrant religion, the religions of the west have dried up spiritually. This is setting aside the influence of capitalism, not to mention communism, on the religions of china. Negative theology survived the demise of angelology, and thus we have the christian mystics, notably john of the cross. A remnant of angelology remains in the eastern church with its icons. Meister eckhart is a towering figure among mystics. What I'm trying to get at is this realm of the soul betwixt heaven and earth, the light which makes it through the veil. Where reason cannot go, a realm where the objects of every day life are symbols and reference points in a higher reality, one of mind soul spirit beyond generation corruption, beyond life and death. A realm in which there are many persons, principalities and powers, many heavens, many angels, hells and demons too. This imaginal world has been explored and described in poetry song story and sermon. It has no practical value whatever! and so you can't get it from amazon or search for it on google, talk about it on facebook or connect to it with your phone. One only needs a prayer carpet or cushion and some stored water. terry

A religion is theistic, not to split hairs. Sufis worship god because they love god. from TRAVELLING THE PATH OF LOVE SAYINGS OF SUFI M AS TERS EDITED BY LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE Sufism is a mystical path of love. It emerged in the Muslim world in the eighth century in small groups of seekers who were known as “Wayfarers on the Mystical Path.” In their deep passion and longing for God they realized Truth as “The Beloved,” and therefore also became known as “The Lovers of God.” Later they were called Sufis, possibly referring to their white woolen garments (Sûf ), or as an indication of their purity of heart (Safâ’ ). These small groups gathered around spiritual teachers and, in time, matured into fraternities and orders, with each order bearing the name of its initiator.

the following poem and commentary from: Haleh Pourafzal. “Haféz.” IN NEITHER OCEAN Go away preacher—What’s all this commotion? It’s my heart hurting and you have no notion. My human balance God crafted from air is a point so fine it’s erased by emotion. ‘Til beloved’s lips satisfy my desire, the whole world’s advice is babble in motion. Your servant cannot travel two paths at once; the prey in your net swims in neither ocean. Though intoxication has shattered my life, the seeds of truth arise from that implosion. O heart, don’t groan from beloved’s cruelty, for now you know the sad song of devotion. Haféz, don’t weave tales, don’t entice seduction; I know all the spins and spells of your potion. In these seven verses, Haféz tells a story set in his unique worldview: a noisy preacher who has no clue, a fragile peace of mind blown away by emotion, obsession with the beloved at the expense of blocking out common sense, the inability to choose between the paths leading to the sacred and profane worlds, a new truth emerging from a shattered dream, a lesson learned from direct experience, and, finally, the biluminous teasing of the poet himself for all his “spins and spells” of levels and meanings. The shattered nature of life from the implosion of intoxication is an oft-repeated theme. This shattering is the disintegration that occurs when we embody the brightness of the divine. Because it is overwhelming compared with our limited experiences, the shattering in turn magnifies the desire for more sustained direct experiences of divine unity. That desire becomes the mystic’s lifelong quest.

this quote about a sufi poet might resonate with daoists Excerpt From: Haleh Pourafzal. “Haféz.” Were we to paraphrase Haféz in English, the condensed wisdom of the poet’s writings would read something like this: If you yearn for inner peace and want to know love, if you wish to be a spiritual seeker like me, you can search for your personal treasure through ecstatic intoxication. I give you my thoughts at the entrance to this tavern of intoxication. Taste them as a first sip of spiritual wine. This pathway to inner peace is at odds with two deadly enemies: hypocrisy and profanity. Hypocrisy is the way of established order as it seeks to protect and prolong itself at all costs. Profanity is the mindless waste of those who react destructively to established order. At the same time, ecstasy demands that you seek ultimate pleasure. But be aware. If the pleasure embodies either hypocrisy or profanity, you will be at war with yourself. The weapons for this war and the openings to this pleasure are all within you. You must find them in your intoxication and then use them in the material world. Such application requires constant attunement with your inner core, acting on direct instinct, and deep laughter that unties the knots of emotion. If you are truly journeying to love, your final goal must be only one thing: perceiving and expressing truth.

from the tao te ching: The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of the ten thousand things. from the quran In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful The declaration of faith, "there is no god but god" is senseless to a taoist. The tao, the void, nirvana are all negative theology, which is also important to filosofeh. Also to sufism in the abstract but sufism is a religion of the heart, a religion of love and sufis are happy to worship god and abnegate self. Enthusiastically, ecstatically, actively. Taoism is a correction to the masculinity and activity of confucianism, itself also not a religion of divine worship (nor is buddhism). Taoism is a yin response to the overactivity of the well meaning souls who pave the road to hell with their intentions. Worshipping the masculine god (aka "emperor of heaven") and of course his representatives on earth is subverted by taoism, though they share with confucians a touching belief in the goodness of humanity. Religion west and east has been distorted by being deliberately created and deployed by empires. Empires love the divine right of rule. Both sufism and taoism were subversive influences, preserving truth from coerced convention. The leaven in the bread of their respective cultures. Power is itself a lie. God alone is great, or greatness has no meaning. Those who seek and attempt to use power depend on lies, and lies depend on truth, or there would be nothing to lie about. Truth, on the other hand, does not depend on lies. Truth does not depend on the world of generation and corruption, the world of birth and death. Creating a martyr only underscores truth. Sufis love martyrdom. Islam creates martyrs.Taoists avoid praise and blame equally. Confucians want to be free of blame. These are mutual dependencies. Taoists and sufis raise a glass to their sober brethren and invite them to lighten up.

Thanks for posting this. Not just a classic, bra, a landmark that stands alone. I'd love to find another like it. Perhaps something new? With 8 billion humans someone should know something. A thesis perhaps.

Daoists don't worship god and sufis do.

I'm looking forward to when you have the time to peruse izutsu's book. It took me a long time to read and contains many delights. The discussion of sufism explores ibn arabi's views in depth. The section on taoism is heavily deistic and points up the centrality of divinity to taoism (in contradistinction to those chinese speaking taoists who believe their culture never taught them about god). Not sure how far into filosofeh you want to go but a few broad strokes might be in order. The arabs preserved the greek classics of plato, aristotle and plotinus through the middle ages, Al-farabi translated and wrote extensive commentaries, conforming greek ideas with muslim theology. Avicenna, ibn arabi and averroes developed philosophies based on these works. Al-ghazali criticized the aristotelians for unbelief and averroes responded to the criticism. Since the works themselves predated islam, one may say that sufism has its roots in greek philosophy and in particular the neo-platonism of plotinus, whose theory of emanations featured largely in al-farabi's work and deeply influenced sufis like ibn arabi. Avicenna extended al-farabi's work on aristotelianism (platonism was often conflated). Aristotle was concerned with being qua being in ways that were understood by the early muslim philosophers but then buried and forgotten by the western scholastics who superseded them. The west only rediscovered the depth of aristotle's vision with brentano-husserl-heidegger and phenomenology. There was a high water mark in arabic philsophy around the time of averroes. Averroism believed that there was a universal intellect that all humans participated in, a very neo-platonist idea and reminiscent of plotinus. This was rejected by thomas aquinas and the west went a very different way, affirming the reality of the individual ego and subject object perception. In averroism the indvidual mind is a node of the one mind, like the internet is composed of individual computers. The computers share a language and basic operating system. The individual is created as such by the network, the collectivity. Without a comprehensive language essentially understood by all there would be no communication, no network, and no individuals as such. Each individual mind only exists as a feature of the network. We are all one. This hardly scratches the surface. If you have a particular interest we could open a thread about that. Ismailism? Where would we put the thread? terry

I read his novel about afghanistan. The sufis books and some of the study material. No I am not a devotee. I didn't find his actual lectures all that inspiring. He was a collector of study materials and a promoter. And he had a sense of humor.

I don't agree with either of these statements. The contraries are closer to true.

anyhows whatever thread you pull, it all unravels to the names every named object is a facet of the one gem every plant you look at is a sprout of one plant every animal part of one organism this one has 99 most beautiful names ttc/feng One The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of the ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery.

if you bums want to talk about heidegger, I could open a thread on heidegger, ditto swedenborg, or anyone I mention... nietzsche? dogen? averroes avicenna aristotle and filosofeh... the roots of sufism in neo-platonism, plotinus the original sufi? as monkey likes to say, "it's all one to me" try me

There's a sufi story... about a drunk laying in a gutter. A friend comes along, and seeing his condition, lifts him up on his shoulder and starts to carry him home. As they are walking the drunk peers around and sees another drunk lying in the gutter. He calls out to him, "If you only learn to hold your wine better, you could be walking around freely, like me."

i have all of shah's books, or most of them, and know most of the stories well enough to repeat many of them without having to look them up. I find the stories immensely useful. Here's one that could serve, from "tales of the dervishes" When the Waters Were Changed ONCE upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad. Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character. On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water. When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding. At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

I don't want order... drunk and disorderly, thats my condition... (I'll probably run afoul of the police if I haven't already "keep a clean nose and watch for the plain clothes don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows") besides I posted on a number of threads already, so many I was blocked for a day...if no one responds there is no dialog and I have nothing to say... rubaiyat of oar khayyam, trans fitzgerald XXXIX. How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit Of This and That endeavour and dispute? Better be merry with the fruitful Grape Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. XL. You know, my Friends, how long since in my House For a new Marriage I did make Carouse: Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

thread thread thread thread A Dream Within a Dream Edgar Allan Poe - 1809-1849 Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow: You are not wrong who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep--while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? from "thirty poems," hafiz, trans murray: LXXIV (Since reason is of no use to the lover, he must abandon himself to chance and to impulse. It lies in himself whether he shall prove to be of the chosen few who may achieve that perfect union which they seek.) KNOWING love's ocean is a shoreless sea, What help is there? - abandon life, and founder. Bring wine; don't scare us with Reason's prohibition: That magistrate has no jurisdiction here. When you give your heart to love you make the moment lucky: No need of auguries to perform good deeds. Ask your own eye whose is the murderous glance ; 0 friend, this is not Fate's crime, nor the stars'. Pure eyes discern him like the crescent moon: But not all eyes have scope to see that splendour. Seize the chance offered by the drunkard's road: Like the clue on the treasure-track, not all can fmd it. You are not moved, witnessing Hafiz' tears ? I cannot understand that heart, harder than stone.

well then...hehehe.... this is from “feeling the shoulder of the lion,” rumi, trans barks… THE GAZELLE A hunter captures a gazelle and puts it in the stable with the cows and the donkeys. The gazelle runs about wild with fear and confusion. Every night the man pours out chopped-up straw for the barn animals. They love it, but the gazelle shies quickly from side to side in the big stall, trying to get away from the smokey dust of the straw and the animals milling to eat it. Whoever has been left for a time with those who are different will know how forsaken this gazelle feels. Solomon loved the company of the hoopoe. “Unless she has a valid excuse to be absent, I will punish her for not being here with the worst punishment there is.” And what might that be? What the gazelle is going through: to be confined somewhere apart from your own kind. The soul is that way in the body, a royal falcon put in with crows. It sits here and endures what it must, like a great saint, like an Abu Baker, in the city of Sabzawar. Once the great king Khwarizm besieged Sabzawar,. They gave up easily. “Whatever you require in tribute we will give.” “Bring me a holy person, someone who lives united with God, or I will harvest your inhabitants like corn.” They brought sacks of gold. They knew that no one is Sabzawar lived in that state. “Do you think I am still a child that I should be fascinated with coins?” For three days and nights they called through the town looking for an Abu Baker. Finally, they saw a traveler lying in a ruined corner of a wall, sick and exhausted. Immediately, the recognized a True Person. “Get up! The king wants to see you. You can save our lives!” “I’m not suppose to be here. If I could walk, I would already have arrived in the city where my friends are.” They lifted him above their heads on a board like corpses are carried on and bore him to the king. Sabzawar is this world, where a True Person wastes away, apparently worthless, yet all the king wants from Sabzawar is such a one. Nothing else would do. Muhammed says, “God does not look at outward forms, but at the love within your love.” The Qalb, the inner heart, that space in which seven hundred universes are just a lost speck, we’re looking for that in the small, seedy town of Sabzawar! And sometimes, we find it. One who has that love is like a six-sided mirror through which God can look at us, here. The gifts come through such a one. His palm opens without conditions. That union cannot be said. I leave this subject with you. Wealthy people bring money. God says, “Bring devotion to one whose loving mixes with mine.” That love is what God wants. That love is a mother and father to us and is the origin of every living creature. You might say, “Lord, I have brought this heart-love.” “Qutu, an ordinary town in Turfan is full of this kind of love. Instead, bring the Qalb of the Qutb, the soul of the soul of Adam.” God waits for that. One may wander days in Sabzawar and not see such a being. The noblest native in Sabzawar might come, and God would say, “Why do you offer this rotting corpse? Bring the inner love of one who can save Sabzawar.” Just the sight of them together, a native of Sabzawar and a True Human Being, who might be traveling through, is painful. Yet sometimes they talk. A townsperson may behave kindly toward a Qalb-person, but it’s almost always hypocrisy. He nods and says yes. He acts sincere, but he’s really tricky, and looking for an advantage. If a saint accepts his hypocrisy, he’s saved, and that often happens. The holy ones love to buy damaged goods, and turn lying into truth. If someone’s trickery seems charming to you, remember he’s only your saint, not a real one. Someone who is like you will often sound prophetic. Renounce sensuality so you can sharpen your spiritual sense. Your olfactory nerve has been deadened. You cannot catch the fragrance of sweet musk or ambergris. It’s as though they no longer exist for you. All this time, our gazelle has been running back and forth in the stable! For many days this precious animal wriggles like a fish thrown up on dry ground. Like dung and rare incense closed side by side in a box. One donkey says sarcastically, “This guy is wild! He must be somebody special!” Another, “With all his ebb and flow, he must be making a pearl. Probably a cheap one." Another, “Why can’t he eat what we eat?” Another donkey gets indigestion and offers the gazelle his fodder with a formal invitation. “No thank you. I am unwell too.” The donkey is offended. “Don’t be so aloof. Are you afraid of what people will say if you’re seen eating with me?” The gazelle doesn’t answer, but he thinks, “Your food is for you. It revives your strength. But I have known a pasture by a creek where hyacinths and anemones and sweet basil grow. My food is there. Some destiny put me here, but I can’t forget the other. If my body gets old and sick, still my spirit can stay new.” The donkey seems to know what the gazelle is thinking. “Yes, anyone dan brag in strange country. Who’s to know?” The gazelle, “This musk gland identifies me, but no one here has a nose tuned to that scent. Donkeys like to smell donkey urine on the road, and that’s all.” Muhammed says, “True surrender is odd in this world. Even ‘Islamic’ relatives avoid a perfect saint.” He or she may look human, but there’s a lion nature inside. If you’re happy being a cow, stay away. Potiphar, the king of Egypt, in a dream once saw with his spiritual eyes seven well-nourished cows and seven lean cows that came and ate the fat cows. Lean cows are lions inside, like a True Person who can detach you completely from the dregs of your cow-nature and make you so pure and spacious that your foot touches Orion’s belt. How long will I keep caw-talking like a crow? Husam, why did you kill your rooster? “Because I began to hear the friend’s voice inside me.” A rooster loves lust, and lust again, and instant satisfaction of lust, that poisonous, cheap wine. If it weren’t necessary for procreation, Adam would have castrated himself in shame over his own lechery. Satan comes to God and says, “I need some powerful bait.” God gives him gold and silver and herds of beautiful horses. “Bravo!” says Satan, but his lip drops, and he screws up his lemon face. God throws in the other precious metals and the gemstones. “Oh thank you! And might there be anything else around here that I could use?” God gives the marbled meats, and the tasty sherbets, and the silk robes. “But I need something that will hold and keep holding like a rope woven of palm-fiber, so that your holy people can show their holy strengths by bursting something very powerful. I want an even more cunning lure.” God brings wine and a harp. Satan smiles a crooked half-smile. Those are not exactly what he had in mind. The suddenly, as though a dry path appeared through the Red Sea, Satan saw the beauty of women, and he began to dance. “More! More!” The hazy eyes, the fascination of a soft cheek, a cheekbone, a reddening lip, the glance that burns a man like a cumin seed on a hot fire-brick! A young woman’s light, coquettish half-walk, half-run springs to Satan’s eyes like a revelation of divine glory, and a lifting of the veil. Some comment on the text, We created man woman in the best physical and mental proportion, and then We reduced them to the lowest of the low. The garden beauty, to which the angels bowed down, after a time, was dragged by the hair by Gabriel and led out. Why? Why was paradise lost? Why does a date-palm lose its leaves in autumn? Why does every beautiful face grow in old age wrinkled like the back of a Libyan lizard? Why does a full head of hair get bald? Why is the tall, straight figure that divided the ranks like a spear now bent almost double? The bright-red anemone grows saffron. Lion strength weakens to nothing. The wrestler who could hold anyone down is led out with two people supporting him, their shoulders under his arms. These are all messages from the fall. What fault was committed? God answers, “The crime is that they put on borrowed robes and pretended they were theirs. I take the beautiful clothes back, so that you will learn the robe of appearance is oly a loan.” The sheaf-stack belongs to God. Human beings are gleaners. Rays from the sun. The earth-colored glass makes everything seem diverse, but that glass eventually shatters. Your lamp was lit from another lamp. All God wants is your gratitude for that. Lend, is the divine command. Make God a loan from your existence, and see what fortunes accumulate! Diminish a little, for your own sake, all this eating and drinking, and watch a new basin fill in front of you. Then God may say, “Death, give back what you took.” But you’ll turn away. You won’t want those things. Sufis throw away their wanting and their objects. They abandon pieces of clothing in the dance, and those articles are never returned. They are given to the singer, or divided among the dancers. They arise from a briny, annihilating ocean into pure clarity. They confront the world openly with its arrogance and its hypocrisy. They are warriors for non-existence. The planter works with the most joy whose barn is completely empty, the planter who works for that which has not appeared. Second by second I know you’re expecting some sure understanding, some spiritual perception, some peace, but I am not allowed to say more about this mystery, or else I would create a Baghdad in the wilds of the Georgia mountains, and there would be no more doubting!

I could weave a carpet. There's a sufi story about a locksmith who was falsely convicted of a crime and sentenced to death. He languished in prison for weeks awaiting execution. His wife tried to send him packages but the jailers refused. Finally the night before he was to die, the jailers allowed his wife to give him a prayer rug she had woven herself, that he might pray before dying. The locksmith was not much of a prayer, but since he had no options, he kneeled on the rug and bent his head to the ground in submission. When he did so he saw that his wife had cleverly woven a diagram of the wards of the lock into the carpet at the place his head would rest. With this information he was able to free himself and was reunited with his beloved.

I don't always, so I'll respond. Diogenes was carrying on in the agora one day when someone reminded him that the good citizens of sinope had sentenced him to exile. He responded, "And I sentenced them to stay home."

"god alone is real" "there is no beloved but god" "there is no lover but god" prof william chittick lectures on ibn arabi, nafas rahmani https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEZV1XIKPhQ

there is no god but GOD!!!

aloha pak, My formal practice, such as it is, is only to just sit. Currently a half hour each morning and evening. If I even think about meditating I get a buzz and start to melt. Very gradually it has become easy and most pleasant. Otherwise I just try to do the best I can. Of course, every being does the best it can by nature, so it is easy to do and hard not to embellish and navigate and comment and etc etc. Snow white does her best while the seven dwarves make their characteristically immature and short-sighted comments, craving love and discipline and eventual maturity and authenticity. Seems newbies are restricted so while I can post I will continue in this message with what I want to talk about. My major focus is the work of ibn arabi. I'm not a sufi and have enough experience with so-called real sufis not to have any interest in organizations. I'm interested in hermeneutics, in ta'wil. I like coleman barks if not ladinsky, and think fitzgerald's version of omar khayyam superior to literal sufi versions. I see all religion philosophy science literature psychology through the lens of art and music. All truth is art, as keats says. All art is poetry. All bullshit is prose. The nexus here with taoism is in the names. God taught adam all the names. God the creator says to a thing "be" and it is. The kernel here is that existence is simply the names, the symbols we manipulate in order to kindle consciousness. In taoism, the ten thousand things are the direct result of naming, they are "the named." I cannot stress strongly enough that this is the root of all consciousness and to understand this is the end of all seeking. To begin with, a couple of quotes from william chittick, "ibn arabi, heir to the prophets": In effect, among all creatures Adam alone was taught" the meaning of the name “God” itself. He came to know and understand this name and all subsidiary names by knowing himself, made in God’s form. This sort of knowledge does not come by means of discursive thought, but directly from the nature of things. Ibn ‘Arabi refers to it as “tasting,” a standard expression for unmediated knowledge: God taught Adam all the names from his own essence through tasting, for He disclosed Himself to him through a universal self-disclosure. Hence, no name remained in the Divine Presence that did not become manifest to Adam from himself. From his own essence he came to know all the names of his Creator. (F. II 120.24) In the multileveled reality that is the human self, the traces of God’s names and attributes are relatively internalized. They extend from the corporeal to the spiritual realm, and they circle around the heart, the luminous center of the being, the spirit that God blew into Adam at his creation. In meditation, we (may or may not) have access to the ocean of consciousness unmediated by symbols, the womb of existence; reality. In a real sense this ocean is unconscious, unclouded by mediation, by explanation and reflection. The cloud of unknowing in which coping is perfect and self-consciousness is absent. Reality includes both this vast ocean of unconscious voidness/potentiality, and our tiny little shadow of a consciousness of this infinitely vast reality. It is our tiny little consciousness I want to put in perspective and examine. The nuts and bolts of consciousness are the names, the little marks we put on this vast sheet of paper. The taoist formula is "the blank that is a blank is not the true blank" and we find similar in the diamond sutra. For example, the horse that is a horse is not the true horse. An ordinary reasonable common sense person sees a horse and sees a "horse" - a variation on a theme, maybe it is brown, taller than most, sway backed. A child sees a unique animal with many interesting and special features. A horse dealer sees a whole set of parameters individualizing the horse. The horse that is simply categorized as a "horse" and is dismissed and unacknowledged as an individual sentient being by the average person is not the true horse, the authentic horse, the being looking at you and trying to say something about the world and its condition in respect of the liberation of all sentient being. Every thing has a name which is its unique essence, from which its thingness derives. It is not its "thing in itself" reality but its naming which makes it exist. Unnamed things do not exist, Even the Unnameable is beyond existence. What exists for us is purely symbolic but is taken uncritically as real, which is the problem. True reality may be "tasted" and directly perceived (as in the suttas) without the mediation of symbols. Even more interesting is that new symbols may be created and the old ones given new names. Other planes of being may be accessible. We may create, god-like, imaginal worlds "nearer to the Heart's Desire." It is henry corbin who has made luminous the work of ibn arabi and put it in the context of western spirituality, blending in heidegger and swedenborg, another nexus I would love to explore if there are any heideggerians or swedenborgians, and even if there aren't if I can be tolerated. Best introduction to this material is tom cheetham's "all the world an icon." And william chittick's volume on ibn arabi is sublime. izutsu's book opens with this: I Dream and Reality So-called ‘reality’, the sensible world which surrounds us and which we are accustomed to regard as ‘reality’, is, for Ibn ‘Arab!, but a dream. We perceive by the senses a large number of things, distinguish them one from another, put them in order by our reason, and thus end up by establishing something solid around us. We call that construct ‘reality’ and do not doubt that it is real. According to Ibn ‘Arabi, however, that kind of ‘reality’ is not reality in the true sense of the word. In other terms, such a thing is not Being (wujiid) as it really is. Living as we do in this phenomenal world, Being in its metaphysical reality is no less imperceptible to us than phenomenal things are in their phenomenal reality to a man who is asleep and dreaming of them. Quoting the famous Tradition, ‘All men are asleep (in this world); only when they die, do they wake up,’ he remarks: The world is an illusion; it has no real existence. And this is what is meant by ‘imagination’ (khayal). For you just imagine that it (i.e., the world) is an autonomous reality quite different from and independent of the absolute Reality, while in truth it is nothing of the sort1. . . . Know that you yourself are an imagination. And everything that you perceive and say to yourself, ‘this is not me’, is also an imagination. So that the whole world of existence is imagination within imagination.2 What, then, should we do, if what we have taken for ‘reality’ is but a dream, not the real form of Being, but something illusory? Should we abandon once for all this illusory world and go out of it in search of an entirely different world, a really real world? Ibn ‘Arab! does not take such a position, because, in his view, ‘dream’, ‘illusion’ or ‘imagination’ does not mean something valueless or false; it simply means ‘being a symbolic reflection of something truly real’. The so-called ‘reality’ certainly is not the true Reality, but this “must not be taken to mean that it is merely a vain and groundless thing. The so-called ‘reality’, though it is not the Reality itself, vaguely and indistinctively reflects the latter on the level of imagination. It is, in other words, a symbolic representation of the Reality. Excerpt From: Toshihiko Izutsu. “Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism.” My interest here is not simply to deconstruct and understand the imaginal and symbolic nature of the reality we perceive, but to take hold of the machinery generating this imaginal world and tweak it, bend the rules like morpheus. Talk to angels like swedenborg, visit heaven and hell like blake. Go for magic carpet rides, rub the lamp and open the treasure house. There is no "magic" here which contradicts the laws of physics, no levitation or passing through walls, though there is much conjuring. Lastly I want to emphasize ibn arabi's comment that life is a dream from which we wake up at death. All stories about heaven and hell and life after death are metaphors. One dies to ego and wakes up to the divine presence. The day of reckoning resembles the confrontation with ego many experience through psychedelics. The elaborate egyptian death rites all actually refer to the passing over of the ego into cosmic consciousness. And so on. Hey, thanks for listening! terry

aloha demon, This is poor logic. Like saying there is no virtue in bravery for if there were, frightening people would be Good. No virtue in endurance, fortitude, mercy, kindness, compassion, etc. . Suffering has gotten a bad rap since the greeks because they were homophiles (actually, anthropophiles) and regarded women as less than slaves. Regrettable necessities for the production of male heirs. Women and slaves did all the repetitive work of keeping a household and the men did the "real" work making things and talking politics and philosophy, and drinking and screwing each other, Feminine virtues were denigrated and masculine virtues extolled. The greeks of homer and socrates didn't generally make female statues and only celebrated male beauty (with appropriately small genitals, large ones being characteristic of barbarians). So greek philosophy and the resulting western christian incarnation of neoplatonism have followed the misogynist view that action is superior to inaction, activity to passivity. Feminine virtues such as tolerance, kindness, mercy, affection, nurturing, caring, loving, teaching, nourishing and so forth have been regarded as unmanly and thus inferior and worthless. Jesus said "suffer the little children...". That is, put up with them, tolerate them, allow them space to grow and learn. To suffer is to put up with, to take it and not complain, show fortitude, endurance and the immense courage of the (feminine) soul in coping with the unknown, chaos, the void. As for god, I like zennist r h blyth's response when they asked him if he believed in god. He said, "If you do, I don't; if you don't I do." "God" only makes sense as a concept if you believe in ego. No ego, no personification, no god. Alternatively, there is one person, only god and he is everything and being indistinguishable from anything doesn't actually exist as any sort of entity. One without a second, as it were. Like the big bang makes no sense because the universe has no relative size and can't make noise without ears or a medium to vibrate. Just accept it, bra. Don't think about it. God is unknowable. The sword of discrimination can't cut itself, teeth can't bite themselves. Mind cannot know mind. All your attempts to penetrate to the truth are all still up there on the screen, and it is the screen itself you are looking for, right before you all the time just look! terry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrr_YWBRlx4

aloha, For may years I used to keep coins in my pocket to throw yi jing hexagrams, but people wondered why I was jingling my change all the time. Especially alone in the bathroom. I developed a technique of using playing cards, Red would be three, black would be two and three blacks would be a six, old yin, three reds a nine, old yang, and seven and eight young yang and young yin. I would play three cards at a time to get a line and work my way up. It looked like some sort of solitaire. Playing cards, obviously, are a decayed form of tarot, designed for oracular use. The four main human motivations are illustrated by the major and minor suits, spades are death, hearts are love, the majors; clubs are physical coercion, diamonds are bribery, the minors. The ace is the one ring that binds them all, the faces are the faces we see, the pips are their values. I found that reading the faces and the pips and looking for patterns enhanced my perception of the oracle. terry the shape of my heart (sting) He deals the cards as a meditation And those he plays never suspect He doesn't play for the money he wins He don't play for respect He deals the cards to find the answer The sacred geometry of chance The hidden law of a probable outcome The numbers lead a dance I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier I know that the clubs are weapons of war I know that diamonds mean money for this art But that's not the shape of my heart He may play the Jack of diamonds He may lay the Queen of spades He may conceal a King in his hand While the memory of it fades I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier I know that the clubs are weapons of war I know that diamonds mean money for this art But that's not the shape of my heart That's not the shape, the shape of my heart And if I told you that I loved you You'd maybe think there's something wrong I'm not a man of too many faces The mask I wear is one But those who speak know nothing And find out to their cost Like those who curse their luck in too many places And those who fear a loss I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier I know that the clubs are weapons of war I know that diamonds mean money for this art But that's not the shape of my heart That's not the shape of my heart That's not the shape, the shape of my heart

aloha waterdrop, Many images are visual. Hexagram 62 looks like a mortar and pestle for grinding things small. Hexagram 27 looks like a pair of jaws. If yang is bright and yin is dark, then heaven is most bright, earth is most dark. Given the symbolism of the trigrams, nearly all hexagrams can be interpreted in terms of the trigram's meanings. The cauldron shows a fire fed by wood/air. The well shows organic wood lifting life giving water upward. The doubled trigrams are emphatic. Hexagrams like contemplation are a visual doubling of the trigram mountain, inner truth a doubling of the trigram fire. Sit with the hexagrams long enough and they whisper their names in wordless language. Like the patterns on a turtles back. terry