A prayer for a receptive heart

We empty our hearts of reflective thinking, and we sit together with God (Al Haqq) on the carpet of adab and spiritual attentiveness (muraqaba) and presence and readiness to receive whatever comes to us from Him–so that it is God who takes care of teaching us by means of unveiling and spiritual realization. So when they have focused their hearts and their spiritual aspiration (himam) on God and have truly taken refuge with Him–giving up any reliance on the claims of reflection and investigation and intellectual results–then their hearts are purified and open. Once they have this inner receptivity, God manifest Himself to them, teaching them and informing them through the direct vision of the inner meaning of those words and reports, in a single instant.

Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi

#from the Beshara nine day course in Jakarta, July 2009.

Rumi: One, one, one

It’s been a long time. Let’s fill in the void with Rumi.

ONE, ONE, ONE

The lamps are different, but the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain’s lamp-shop, forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire,
The Light streams towards you from all things, all people, all possible permutation of good, evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different, but the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down, to blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see you are gazing at the Light with its own ageless eyes.

#from the Beshara nine-day course in Jakarta. What a blessed life.