So Much Beauty – The Persian Verses of Rumi

Have we taken Allah out of Rumi’s poems?

New Age “translations of  jalaluddin Rumi’s works have become a type of ‘spiritual colonialism.’ We in the West have been bypassing, erasing, and occupying a spiritual landscape that has been lived and breathed and internalized by Muslims from Bosnia and Istanbul to Konya and Iran to Central and South Asia.” Extracting the spiritual from the religious context has deep reverberations. Islam is regularly diagnosed as a “cancer”  by people today and we are loathed to think that the  greatness of Sufi Poems are based on the Islamic faith.

In the 1800s, colonialist-minded translators found it difficult to reconcile Rumi’s poetry with their preconceptions of Islam as a “desert religion,” whose followers were forsaken with “unusual moral and legal codes.” In the twentieth century, prominent translators, such as R. A. Nicholson, A. J. Arberry, and Annemarie Schimmel, made limited headway into producing versions that stayed more true to the original Persian prose, but these translations have not been the most widely circulated among Western readers.

earlier translations of Rumi’s works – possibly

by R.A. Nicholson

That title is held by Coleman Barks, the American poet and interpreter responsible for re-introducing Rumi’s poetry for English-speaking audiences in recent decades. Barks, who does not speak Persian and is not trained in Islamic literature, has recast earlier translations of Rumi’s works into “fluid, casual American free verse,” according to Christain Science Monitor.

For his part, Coleman Barks sees religion as secondary to the essence of Rumi. “Religion is such a point of contention for the world,” he told me. “I got my truth and you got your truth—this is just absurd. We’re all in this together and I’m trying to open my heart, and Rumi’s poetry helps with that.” One might detect in this philosophy something of Rumi’s own approach to poetry: Rumi often amended texts from the Koran so that they would fit the lyrical rhyme and meter of the Persian verse. But while Rumi’s Persian readers would recognize the tactic, most American readers are unaware of the Islamic blueprint. Some have said, compare reading Rumi without the Koran to reading Milton without the Bible: even if Rumi was heterodox, it’s important to recognize that he was heterodox in a Muslim context—and that Islamic culture, centuries ago, had room for such heterodoxy. Rumi’s works are not just layered with religion; they represent the historical dynamism within Islamic scholarship.

Rumi used the Koran, Hadiths, and religion in an explorative way, often challenging conventional readings. One of Barks’s popular renditions goes like this: “Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there.” The original version makes no mention of “rightdoing” or “wrongdoing.” The words Rumi wrote were iman (“religion”) and kufr (“infidelity”). Imagine, then, a Muslim scholar saying that the basis of faith lies not in religious code but in an elevated space of compassion and love. What we, and perhaps many Muslim clerics, might consider radical today is an interpretation that Rumi put forward more than seven hundred years ago.

Such readings were not entirely unique back then. Rumi’s works reflected a broader push and pull between religious spirituality and institutionalized faith—though with a wit that was unmatched. “Historically speaking, no text has shaped the imagination of Muslims—other than the Koran—as the poetry of Rumi and Hafez,” it is said. This is why Rumi’s voluminous writings, produced at a time when scribes had to copy works by hand, have survived.

“Language isn’t just a means of communication,” the writer and translator Sinan Antoon has said. “It’s a reservoir of memory, tradition, and heritage.” As conduits between two cultures, translators take on an inherently political project. They must figure out how to make, for instance, a thirteenth-century Persian poet comprehensible to a contemporary American audience. But they have a responsibility to remain true to the original work—an act that, in the case of Rumi, would help readers to recognize that a professor of Sharia could also write some of the world’s mostly widely read love poetry.

Jawid Mojaddedi is now in the midst of a years-long project to translate all six books of the “Masnavi.” Three of them” have been published; the fourth is due out this spring. His translations acknowledge the Islamic and Koranic texts in the original by using italics to denote whenever Rumi switches to Arabic. His books are also riddled with footnotes. Reading them requires some effort, and perhaps a desire to see beyond one’s preconceptions. That, after all, is the point of translation: to understand the foreign. As Keshavarz put it, translation is a reminder that “everything has a form, everything has culture and history. A Muslim can be like that, too.”

earlier translation

Have we hi-jacked Rumi and moulded him to our own understanding – Yes indeed,  is that a bad thing? No! Indeed no. We have not destroyed the original Rumi and who would want to? We have  expanded on his wonderful poetry and by so doing, opened him and his works to an international audience and an entirely new generation. I think we have done good! 

Excerpted from Rozina Ali’s recent article The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi

Link to article

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-erasure-of-islam-from-the-poetry-of-rumi

Sex, Rock and Roll And Those Other Messiahs – Book Review

 

Buddhist monk in orange robes sitting in Angkor Wat, Cambodia – David Bowie

 

So you are attracted to Tibetan Buddhism and David Bowie, have read some really good books and learned a few meditation techniques, now you want to delve deeper and spend real time with Buddhist Masters? How do you guard against being fooled by a charismatic charlatan? What criteria do you apply to your search for an authentic teacher? Lama Jampa Thaye’s advice reflects a commonsense approach:

“Although one may come across examples of authentic Buddhist masters who dress or speak unconventionally, there is no licence in Buddhism for unethical behaviour. Thus oriental or occidental masters who claim their selfish and abusive behaviour is a display of ‘skillful means’ or ‘crazy wisdom’ are to be given a wide berth – unless we want to jump over a cliff hand-in-hand with them.”

Sound advice, I have nothing to add to this except these few words.

…

I have been and still am a seeker. Older now and perhaps a bit battered by the experience but still a seeker. I have ceased to question stars, books and alchemy. I have begun to listen to the teaching my heart whispers to me in the dead of night, when all is still.  Eve

 

David Bowie:

 Mary Finnegan has a new book released about David Bowie called the Psychedelic Suburbia: David Bowie and the Beckenham Arts Lab.

 

You can read it in about two hours. It’s all about who was there, who was who and leaves one with the feeling of who cares.  Well, aficionados of David Bowie days will care and read it, particularly now that he is dead, and young people into bi-sexuality.  So will those curious about the  “sex, rock and roll” and  early drug scene in the sixties. A pretty large and  marketable crowd.

What is interesting is  that in Mary’s blog post  in 2013, in the archives at her website Flower Raj,  she writes about her motivation for writing,  which was to expose the”horror stories”  and the “dark side, the very dark side” of  Tibetan Buddhism that she sees has gone down a wrong path. This is because of corrupt Tibetan lamas, she says,  and the naiveté of old flower children, like Mary.

In this  post she also notes she became a “one-woman activist”  to expose her Lama Sogyal and his corruptions, as well as the shadow side of Tibetan Buddhism which she knew quite well. She  was a one woman activist and she did expose Sogyal the predator Tibetan  lama , relentlessly. For she knew a great deal about the dark side of Tibetan Buddhism,  having been in his inner circle. She was one of his older  female students who ‘pimped” for him to find young ,  naive women to join his Lama hareem.  Unknown to the public, pimping for their lamas is a common task of devoted Western Tibetan Buddhists inside their communities or sanghas.  Mary also writes explicitly about her  experience,  in her short memoir about Sogyal.

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1)Rigpa:“Behind The Thangkas” (link to the book on line.)

1. This would have been the better book and more helpful to the younger generation who sadly now will  be fooled by this book about David Bowie. This of course is the one people will want to buy. It is a shame, all the same, because Mary was a feminist voice for the many women that had been abuse by this Tibetan lama and so many others like him. She was a feminist voice with experience of the sexual abuse inside these Tibetan Buddhists sanghas that  appears to have been silenced. I post this link for those who wish to read the entire details.

 

hhtp://www.extibetanbuddhist.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-mary-finnegan-and-the-marketing-of-tibetan-lamas/

 

http://theflowerraj.org/ 

highly recommend this blog.

The Guest House – Rumi

Vinca Major – found it growing at the very back of the garden

 

 

The Guest House

 

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

 

All photos are my own and taken today while out in the garden. The top photo is of spirea buds, the rest are of crocuses under the Weeping Ash Tree, and along the garden path. Eve

 

 

Under the Weeping Ash Tree

 

Crocus

 

 

 

 

No Death, No Fear – Spirituality

NO DEATH, NO FEAR

…The day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

l opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants. And my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time…

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Mirrors – Spirituality

We, so often in life, serve as mirrors for one another. We look to our relatives to find out whether we are loveable, look to others  to see if we are capable of being loved. We want to know we carry an innate radiance within ourselves. And what a tremendous gift, to enable someone’s return to the awareness of their own loveliness.

When we see the goodness in others, we enable them to ‘flower from within’, and of self-blessings. This is what ‘Metta’ is all about, really. It’s the reteaching of loveliness to all we come in contact with. I cannot write too much on Metta because I am not the best practitioner of the art. Here is something I found recently that I hope you will enjoy.

Creativity — for me — that’s where the power is, that’s where the healing is. Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, to make something that is beautiful and not destructive, or to make something that is useful and not destructive, that’s the healing power of the artist.

For me, as someone who spends so much time in solitude, it has been about making actual objects—making stories and making quilts. And making friends with somebody, that’s very good too. And we, all together, make political movements; we make changes in society.

we live in a culture that bombards us with destructive images that are killing us

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One of our big problems is that we live in a culture that bombards us with destructive images that are killing us.

…

I think that children are battered so badly by destructive, negative images from television, mainly, and the movies, that they often have no idea that they can ‘create’ in a way that’s not destructive. They actually think that creation itself is destructive. That’s a terrible place for us to find ourselves in, where our children really believe that.

– Alice Walker

Transformation – Spirituality

viola in the wind

Time to say goodbye to the computer for a while. My visa was late in arriving, I very late in leaving. Here is a dainty little quotation to ponder upon in the meanwhile.  Now to  flowers again, I am sure they could tell a tale or two about the harshness of life. I have watched them grow and bloom through the cold winter season. Watched them battle each new storm, bend in strong winds, and battle with the hard frost and yet even then, they all kept their beautiful smiles.. Well done flowers. 🙂

 

“The basic pain of feeling separate and disconnected is fundamental human experience. Yet when we consciously reside in the physical feeling of separation, we come closer to recognizing its insubstantiality. Continually bringing the light of awareness to our viscerally held beliefs, our pretenses, our anxieties, begins to dissolve these self-imposed boundaries, the boundaries that block awareness of the vast reality of being. This is the slow transformative path to freedom.”
~
Ezra Bayda

Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts)

 

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Also several abstract art photos:

 

my garden – spiria? not sure of the spelling of this beautiful flower

roses in summer – my garden

“I” Or “Me” Or “Mine” – Spirituality

Source Beauty Of the Arts

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The undisciplined mind is like an elephant so I  have suggested that, if we are to be genuinely happy, inner restraint is indispensable. We cannot stop at restraint, however. Though it may prevent us from performing any grossly negative misdeeds, mere restraint is insufficient if we are to attain that happiness which is characterized by inner peace.” ~ Dalai Lama quotation from Ancient Wisdom, Modern World

…

I am not ashamed of my very human responses to the painful and difficult things of life. I get angry, hurt, and despondent just like anyone. I do things that greatly embarrass me at times. I have plenty of shadow stuff to work on, just like anyone. But I have learned that *whatever* arises in my thought, and heart, is something that needs my attention, something that I need to look into, with curiosity, compassion, and loving-kindness.

It doesn’t really help to think, “I shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts or having such feelings.” It’s too late. You already did! These feelings or thoughts, which arise due to causes and conditions, we identify as “I” or “me’ or “mine.” And it does not help to deny it or to suppress the arising. Yes, sure, it’s a red flag, maybe even a neon sign flashing for immediate attention! The arising thought or feeling may point to some serious stuff. Our moral sense of the wrongness of something is *essential* to a healthy being. Never try to suppress or ignore your moral nigglings and alarms! But the first step to freedom is being honest enough with ourselves to admit the “truth” of what has shown up for our attention. And the “truth,” in this sense, is simply *what is* — yes, I am feeling this, yes, I felt that, yes, I am thinking this, yes, I thought that, yes I am doing this, yes, I did that. Just the facts, ma’am!

I find that genuine regret and remorse only arise when I am unmindful of some painful arising of feeling as “I” or “me” or “mine” and don’t give it what Buddhism calls “appropriate attention.” Some thoughts and feelings can be looked into and quickly dismissed; others may require deep self-investigation and courageous path-finding. If you really listen to your heart, you will know what to do.

But don’t ever be ashamed of being human and for having your human feelings. You can’t control the thoughts and feeling that arise as “I” or “me” or mine.” They come unbidden, whether we want them or not. And they tell us all about ourselves, sometimes more than we want, or even sometimes can bear. That’s OK! The good news is that what we can always own, and should own, is our *response* to what arises as “I” or “me” or “mine.” Let that response be mindful, attentive, curious, wise, patient, and compassionate.

Sometimes, we may think we are our own worst enemy, and I suppose in a certain sense that’s true, in that we cannot escape the effects of our own unskillful, selfish, ignorant thoughts and actions. But we are also our own very best friend, for everything we think and do tells us something about us we need to understand and know. If we will only get to know ourselves and investigate ourselves, we will indeed find we are our own very best friend. As we learn this, we become, as the Buddha once said, lamps unto ourselves, and the light in our hearts will take us all the way home.

Eve in Collusion with Steven G.

Sacred Substance – Reincarnation/Spirituality

The Sense of the Sacred and the Feminine Body,

excerpt from a talk given by Angela Fischer at the event “The Feminine and the Earth”, July 2014.

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What is little known, or has been almost forgotten, is that our bodies are sacred and that the body of a woman is sacred in a very particular way.

And if you realize how much and for what a long time the feminine has been violated, and how the feminine body has been treated and regarded, it becomes all too clear how vast the consequences to the spiritual and to the inner light altogether are.

We are used to see this from the perspective of women, and this is of course true: women have been hurt and violated. But widening your view and looking at it from the perspective of the light, of the sacred in the world, of the divine, we see the tremendous violation and denial of the divine, which occurs when you suppress it that much in relation to women.

Why is the body of a woman sacred in a particular way?

Because she has the possibility and the capability to bring the light of a soul into the world.

There is an expression… people say, they “make children”. I don’t like this expression, because women don’t “make” the children, men don’t make them either, neither are they made by both of them together.

What we do is, we make ourselves available and we guide them into the world. We do not make them. And a woman is created in such a way that she can be very close to this and can contribute a substance of her body and of herself, also of the inner substance, not only the physical one, so that the light of a soul can manifest and take on a physical body.

This means, at first she receives the soul. This is the beginning.

There is a tradition that says that in the beginning the soul that is coming into the world is sitting on a woman’s shoulder, before the child matures in the womb. And the woman is created like this – she receives. Like an antenna that receives. She is able to receive a soul. Of course, sometimes a woman and a man receive a soul together, but it is the shoulder of a woman where she is landing.

And secondly the woman prepares a space for this.

She opens a space so that the soul can come closer and find the conditions to manifest within this space.

And the third aspect is that a substance in women – a sacred substance that is living in the cells of her body and in her spiritual centres – participates in the process of light taking on form. Without this substance it is not possible.

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How Souls Choose Their Parents and Families

by Lindsay on October 10, 2013

Years before my baby girl was born, I had a dream that I had a daughter. She came to me and gave me a hug, told me I was her mother, and told me her name was Evelyn.

That dream imprinted on my memory and my heart. So much so that when I found out I was pregnant, I knew I was carrying a girl, and she had already told me her name: Evelyn. Meaning wished for child, which couldn’t be more true!

In order to evolve, our souls come to Earth more than once.  I know that as I’ve grown and changed and learned about soul contracts and reincarnation, my thoughts and beliefs have gravitated to this notion.  For those of you who are on the fence about reincarnation, I invite to you to explore the idea that a soul is born into a (different) body for many lifetimes.

It is my belief that once a soul has made the decision to have (another) earthly incarnation, the first step is to decide on what kind of life they want. This is contingent upon what lessons they wish to learn. This involves being matched with a parent or set of parents. This process really depends on the soul’s purpose and desire for specific lessons and lifestyle.

For example,  if two souls had been together before, perhaps as a mother and daughter set, then they might wish to relive that experience again or perhaps relive it in reverse, so the daughter becomes the mother in the new lifetime. Sometimes, the soul wishes to incarnate in a particular part of the world, and the choice will be less specific to the individual parent.

As diverse as people are, so are our souls and what we wish to create and experience in our lifetime(s).

 http://www.thedailyawe.com/2013/10/how-souls-choose-their-parents-and-families/