Wanted some opinions on my experience when I visited a Sufi Master years ago....

[ॐDominicusॐ]

Hey Guys,

Been lurking here for the last 4-5 years, but just recently joined to contribute to threads.

 

Anyway, I don't really have many questions left in my life, but this one I have always wondered about.

 

Before I got deep into Taoism, Zen, Advaita ....I was a general Mystic, Christian Mystic, and Universalist studier ...of things. This is going back almost a decade now.

 

I had heard of a Sufi Master being in town on the West coast and went for a 3 day retreat to sit with this person. I had studied some Sufism and found that they were also speaking of merging with the One, the Absolute, .....blah blah blah it's all connected anyway in my perspective.

 

So anyway, I go over there, and we do lot's of sitting practice, mindfulness, warming/stirring/opening the heart, submitting the ego/mind in surrender to the heart. It was cool. I enjoyed it and had some experiences with the heart, insights, realizations.

 

So day 2 of 3, I go back to my hotel room, and in the middle of the night (I always sleep on my stomach) I wake up to find a subtle person, astral being, something, basically standing on my back/shoulders not allowing me to move and telling me to submit.

 

Granted I freaked the Eff-out over this and started various prayers/mantras of protection and this being left, freeing me to move around.

 

The next morning, I went back to the last day of the retreat and the Sufi master says, "There are plenty of teachers around us right now, past Sufi masters who have passed on, all part of an ancient lineage, all around us right now helping us to submit ......and I was like "DAMN!!!!!! I Just experienced One last night!!!".

 

Granted I have since experienced various Beings and things of the afterlife and what not, but the question I wonder about the most is this ......

 

If all those Sufi Masters eventually merged into the Absolute and had all detachments let go of and attained, let's just say, an Enlightened state, why were so many of them still hovering around attached to the next master in line and working with people from the other side? I mean, I can see/understand the whole Bodhisattva aspect of this ....

 

...but the other part of me is saying/thinking ....in Enlightenment, your done, you are no more, there is only That ...it is seen that there is no need for anything in a sense, all is illusion, and Buddha nature is ultimately inherent in all. I don't get the sticking around part of that lineage and wanted to see what your guys' opinion is on the matter

[Aetherous]

No master, Sufi or otherwise, would pin you down and tell you to submit. And if they were a master, they wouldn't flee when you said prayers of protection.

[RiverSnake]

My understanding is that many Beings choose to hang around and act as inner contacts for there lineage and to continue the line and help cultivators. I think they choose to stay around probably more out of compassion than anything else and that this perhaps may be part of their cultivation after life.

 

Also my understanding is that on the other planes of existence space and time tend be irrelevant. Beings can be anywhere they want to be....whether its up i the Buddha fields or hanging out around these parts.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace