The Creation of Adam

The One whose great light shines upon this world and the next and through whose bounty Adam’s plain clay produced a rose garden. In the blink of an eye His boundless power shaped the universe, visible and invisible. He had only to speak Kun (Be!) and all matter became. This one potent word moved the Divine Pen, which drew infinite beautiful shapes and designs on the void’s pristine tablet. The sound of this one word created both worlds, including our father Adam’s first mortal breath. As well as the mind given Adam in order that he know the universe, in order that he seek and find all causes. When Adam first saw himself as a being distinct from the rest of creation, he plunged deep into thought to discover what he was. His thoughts traveled from his being out to the vast cosmos; then from the totality, his thought returned to this partial world. The material world around was a fraudulent trivial thing, single, Like the number one, spread around, with all numbers being but its repetition. The worlds of matter and the spiritual realms were born through that single sound – breath. It came, and returned from whence it came. But here, there is no coming and going back. If you watch carefully, you see that coming here is the route of your return. Everything returns to its origin. Both worlds, one hidden from the eye and one seen, become one and the same, and are gone. Praise be to God who is before all time, who decided the beginning and the end of the two worlds in one breath. From the Gulshani Raz of Shabistari (1317 CE)

Working With What is Undefined

Everything that is created comes from the inner worlds. The energy of life flows from the uncreated emptiness out into the planes of manifestation. This is why events first constellate on the inner planes. As the energy of life comes into manifestation, it becomes more visible. At first it takes form as a pattern of energy, a fluid, dynamically flowing reality out of which the primal oneness of creation begins to differentiate itself. This is the archetypal dimension where undifferentiated energy constellates into the forms behind the physical world. Finally the energy of creation enters the physical plane and becomes part of the world of the senses, at which time it becomes fixed into matter, into a physical form or event. Once energy becomes embodied, takes form on the physical plane, it is fixed and more difficult to work with; it requires more effort to change. On the inner planes one can move energy through conscious attention, while on the physical place change often involves laborious effort. This new energy demands our attention and our participation, yet it is hardly visible, glimpsed mostly in dreams and visions. How can we work with what we do not know, what we cannot see? First we need to know that this energy is present, and that although it is invisible, our consciousness can become attuned to it. Like subatomic particles, which are visible only through their effects, this energy can become known through its signs, the way it interacts with us. This energy of oneness dynamically moves, interacts, and constellates in a new way. Because this energy is new and undefined, there are no fixed rules, and yet it has certain qualities that will define the nature of our participation with it. For example, it is so new that we ourselves must be as free as possible of our personal and collective conditioning in order to work with it. Also, this energy has an impersonal nature and a global dimension that require that we shift our focus away from our own individual inner journey and give ourself to the work of the whole. And it is an energy of life itself, and so it demands that we live it in all aspects of our ordinary everyday existence. This energy and the patterns through which is comes into creation cannot be defined or described with any exactness. Instead they require a new way of relating to life, of interacting with life as an energy flow rather than something fixed or static. If you try to grasp it as a defined concept you will be frustated, because it is too fluid and alive to be made concrete. As with flowing water, the moment you hold it, its essential quality of motion disappears. Yet through observing its movement we can come to know some of its qualities, how it flows, how it carries things along. The energy patterns of life are very dynamic, but if they are met with an attitude of receptivity and attention they can reveal to us their nature and how to work with them. This is a time of wonderful opportunity because we have the capacity to create our own destiny, to work directly with the energy of life as it comes into being. We may have to renounce our spiritual expectations and leave behind many patterns of conditioning. But there is a celebration waiting to be lived and we are being asked to participate. This shift is so fundamental that it requires courage and a sense of adventure. We do not know what will happen and yet we are standing on the edge of a new age that has arrived so completely we have barely noticed it. The danger is always to try to make something concrete and defined, to look for clear advice or an exact path to follow. But the mystic who swims in love’s infinite ocean knows that nothing real can be defined, it can only be glimpsed or hinted at. We need both commonsense and a commitment to what is new. We have to live the reality of what is here as well as the infinite possibilities of the future. This energy will affect us each in our own way, and will often go undetected because it is so new. We always look for what we know, for the way our conditioning has prepared us. What is wondrous and unexpected takes longer to accustom ourselves to. Nor do we realize the degree to which our intention, our attitude, our individual participation can affect the life of the whole and the way the future will unfold. At the dusk of a patriarchal era, we are still conditioned to being children who are told what to do. The future is here and waiting to be lived, and it carries the stamp of divine oneness. The energy that is needed to change everything has arrived, and although it has not yet come into manifestation, we can work with it. The energy of divine oneness is not separate from us, and individual consciousness has the capacity to become directly attuned to it. Through conscious attention we can work with this energy as it comes into manifestation. One of its qualities is that it carries within it the knowledge that is needed in order to work with it. This knowledge is also fluid, organic, relating directly to “the need of the time and the place and the people.” This is why the first task of the future is to learn how to be attentive and responsive. The knowledge of the future is too dynamic and too responsive to the changing conditions of the moment to be fixed. It is given freely, and only requires that we give it our undivided attention, that we say “yes” to the now. Through our conscious participation this knowledge is revealed to us; it comes alive through us. We are needed to help this energy come into being, to bring it alive in our world. Without our conscious cooperation the future will not be born in its full potential. We are the book in which the knowledge of oneness is being written.[] (Llewellyn Vaughan Lee. “Working With Oneness”. The Golden Sufi Center. California, 2002.) p. xv-xviii

"In each mirror, each moment. A new face reveals His beauty." - Fakhruddin Iraqi

"Jealousy and most of all your sufferings are from believing you know better than God" - Hafiz

The Polarities of Love

Union and separation, love and longing, sweetness and despair, the polarities of the mystical path leave us bewildered and confused. Why are we left here behind the veils of separation when we know that separation is an illusion? Why are we caught in the prison of duality when our heart knows the deeper truth that 'everything is one'? The more we meditate and pray, the more we remember Him Whom our heart loves, the more alienated we feel in a world that appears to have forgotten Him. Somewhere we know what it is like to be loved beyond measure, and here we are left in a world where love is too often equated with demands and co-dependency. The eternal question of "Why are we here?" has an added poignancy when we have felt the infinite nearness of our real Home.

He Whom we love has abandoned us and only the pain of separation reminds us that somewhere He is 'closer to us than our very neck vein.' We carry the pain of remembrance in honor of our love, yet only too often we feel betrayed. How can such a Beloved desert us? How can such a Beauty veil Her face? Doubts bombard us as the mind tries to convince us of the stupidity of our quest: to look for what you cannot find... to long for an invisible Beloved who has only brought you pain... In many ways consciousness crucifies us on our search. The subtleties of torture with which the mind can torment are known to most travellers on the path of love.

Underlying these difficulties is the fact that while the nature of love is to draw us to union, the nature of the ego is separation. Love comes from the heart, the innermost core of our being which is our connection to the Absolute. Love is "the essence of the divine essence" (Massignon 1982, III, p. 104), and so dynamically pulls us towards oneness. But the ego is born out of separation. The ego's existence is defined by being different: "I am different from you." The path towards union with God takes us away from the ego with its sense of separate existence and individual identity. This is why the Sufi says that the first step towards God is the step away from oneself. Love calls us to come away from ourselves and enter the state of oneness where only the Beloved exists.

The ego and the mind belong to a dimension of separation and duality. The ego exists through its sense of individuality and separation; the mind only functions through duality: through comparison and differentiation. The power of love lifts the veils of duality, threatening the ego and confusing the mind. The ancient path of the mystics takes us back to the source where distinctions and differences dissolve just as "sugar dissolves in water." On this journey the ego and mind rebel as their identity and function are attacked. Love draws us into the gladiatorial arena in which we fight our own liberation and resist the pull towards oneness. But those whose hearts are committed know, like the gladiators of old, that death awaits them. They know that "When Truth has taken hold of a heart, she empties it of all but herself (Massignon 1982, I, p. 285).

We hide from the love which alone can heal us. We run from the Truth which torments us. But like the encroaching tide, the tremendous power of love gradually smooths away the ego's paltry marks in the sand. Slowly we come to recognize the infinite ocean as our real Home, an ocean where, in the words of Rumi, "swimming ends always in drowning" (Liebert 1981, p. 30).

(Llewellyn Vaughan Lee)

The Heart's Awakening

The spiritual path begins when the heart is awakened to His eternal presence. The Beloved looks into the heart of His lover and in that instant the lover knows the secret of divine union, that the lover and Beloved are one. The glance of the Beloved carries the consciousness of His eternal presence.

The Sufis call this glance the moment of tawba, the turning of the heart. The inner awareness of His presence turns the heart away from the world and back to God. He calls us back to Him with a momentary glimpse of His face. This glimpse is love's most potent poison that begins our dying to the world, our journey back to God, for "How can I look at the world around me, how can I see it, if it hides the face of my Lover?" (Tweedie 1987, p. 87)

The inner awareness of union awakens us to the pain of separation. When the heart knows that in its innermost essence it is united with God, we arc confronted with our own isolation, with the knowledge that we are separate from God. It is only because we have been given a glimpse of union, had a sip of this divine wine, that we are made conscious of separation. Without the knowledge of union, how could we know that we are separate? Without having experienced the bliss of His presence, how could we know the agony of our own isolation? The pain of longing is born from the glance of God.
From the beginning of the path, the opposing states of separation and union are engraved into the heart and psyche of the spiritual wayfarer. The consciousness of union becomes the pain of separation that reminds us of our real Home. The heart's remembrance of its Beloved is kept awake by the fire of longing. We long for Him whom we love, and the greater the love, the greater the pain of longing. Love and sadness become the substance of our inner existence. In the words of 'Attar,

The pain of love became the
medicine for every heart,
The difficulty could never be solved
without love.
(Schimmel 1975, p. 305)

By Llewellyn Vaughan Lee

The Lotus Flower and the Honeybee

Look at the pond. In a large pond, there are fish and frogs and crabs and water snakes and insects and water bugs and oysters and crocodiles and hippopotamuses and otters. Many things live in a pond. Lotus flowers also live in a pond. They are beautiful flowers, with gorgeous colors and a natural honey. But the fish and frogs and other things that live in the pond do not drink that honey. They do not search for that honey. They do not even realize that the lotus has honey. The frogs may sit or jump on the leaves of the lotus, but they do not know that there is honey in its flower. They do not have that understanding.

But, a honey bee that lives far away on a mountaintop, or a honey bee that loves far away in the jungle, can smell the honey of the lotus flower. It will fly straight toward the flower, making the sound, “Keeee, keeee, keeee.” It will fly very fast until it finds the honey. As soon as it comes to the flower, it buzzes around, then sits upon it, and stops moving its wings. Its sound ceases. Then it puts its nose down into the flower, extracts the honey, and rubs the pollen on its legs. The bee does not hurt the flower, does it? It only takes the honey and the pollen and then flies away. It flies back to the original place, depositing the pollen on other flowers and storing the honey. That is what a bee does. Every honey bee does this. There are millions and millions of honey bees, and each one does its duty like this.

Similarly, God has created people in the world. We live in the pond of illusion, the pond of maya. We live in the huge pond of forms that come from the earth, fire, water, air and ether. These forms are the pond of illusion, and we with our mind and desire swim in this pond. Even though we are swimming in illusion, the lotus of the heart also lives there, naturally. Within that lotus flower of the heart there are natural, beautiful qualities, beautiful actions, beautiful conduct, patience, compassion, tolerance, peace, unity, and tranquility. This fill the lotus and make it beautiful. When these qualities blossom within, the flower of the lotus opens. Then its beauty is known and its beauty speaks. It becomes indescribably beautiful, with so many colors and hues. And deeper within that beauty is the true natural honey which is God. God, His power and His truth have such a beautiful taste! That taste is the honey of knowledge, the honey of wisdom and the honey of light. It is the taste of the honey of God and the honey of god’s justice.

In the pond of illusion there are bad thoughts, satan’s qualities, drugs, lions, tigers, crocodiles, frogs, scorpion, fish, donkey – everything. They do not gather the honey which is the power of God, God’s light, and God’s truth. They do not gather the honey of knowledge and the honey of wisdom. They live near the flower of the heart, they live all around it, but they do not accept the honey of truth. Blood-ties, our relationships, religions, and races all live around that flower. Arrogance, karma, maya, lust, anger, greed, miserliness, fanaticism, envy, obsession, intoxicants, theft, murder, and falesehood all encircle the flower. In that pond, there are the four hundred trillion, ten thousand ‘spiritual miracles’ of the mind – things that people claim to be miracles. They all fly around and around this flower. It is possible that they might sit on the flower of the heart, but they do not know about the honey inside. Only the honey bee which comes from the mountaintop knows the taste of the honey.

God is our original Father. He is the One who made us, the One who protects us. He is our Father. When God sees the beauty of the honey of the heart, the honey of knowledge, He comes with the buzzing sound of “Rrrrr”, and He comes with the resonating sound of “Hoooooo.” When He sits upon our heart, it does not hurt. He does not hurt our life, and He does not hurt our existence. He gives beauty to beauty. He gives love to love. He comforts us, makes our heart happy, makes our flower of our heart blossom, and then extracts the honey. He extracts the honey of love, the honey of compassion, the honey of good qualities. He extracts that taste and takes it to His paradise, to His judgment to His place of justice. He stores the honey there, and then tomorrow, when we go to the kingdom of God, He will give that honey back to us. The He will make us peaceful, and He will keep us in paradise. This is what God does.

Think about this a little. The heart of grace must contain good qualities. You must have good thoughts, you must have peace and tolerance, and you must realize this explanation in your life. You must attain patience, tolerance, peace, and justice. If you fill your heart with good things, your heart will be beautiful, and God will make you the leader of His kingdom. God, the greatest father of all, will take you unto Himself. You will gain victory, peace, tranquility and serenity here, as well as there. []

(M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. My Love You My Children. The Fellowship Press, Philadelphia. 2006. p. 63-65)