1.
God is your mirror in which you contemplate yourself and you are His mirror in which He contemplates His Divine Attributes. - Ibn Arabi
God is nearer to man than his jugular vein. - The Qur'an 50:16
The true mystic is not a devotee lost in ecstatic communion with the One, or a reclusive saint who avoids others. The true mystic lives alongside other people - coming and going, eating and sleeping, buying and selling, marrying and chatting - but not for a moment does he forget God. - Abu Sa'id Ibn Abil-Khayr
They are such whom neither wordly commerce nor striving after gain can divert from the remembrance of Allah, and from constancy in prayer, and from charity: They are people filled with awesome consciousness of the Day when hearts and eyes will be convulsed (from the horror of the torment of the Day of Final Resurrection).
- The Qur'an 24:37
- The Qur'an 24:37
2.
Sufi Way to Muraqaba, Meditation and Tafakkur, Contemplation
The devotee or seeker sit at a quiet, undisturbed space or place and closes his or her eyes in order to be single pointed in the contemplation of Allah. This is the beginning of muraqaba (meditation). The state of contemplation on the created world and on the self inside muraqaba is called tafakkur.In this the heart of the seeker is drowned in the realization of the qualities of God and the heart is given a tremendous faith, devotion and state for God which start as spontaneous holy pulse of contemplation on divine. At this the seeker's outer senses become dimmed, whereas he abide in the sea of Love of God.
The head of Sufi lineage, Prophet Muhammad, upon him peace said, "A single moment of immersion in contemplation is better than a whole year of voluntary worship." On the contemplation of the delicacy of creation he said, "To be in a moment of contemplation (on the beauty of creation) is better than seventy years of worshipful service."
He also goes on to state that "the contemplation on the gnosis of God for a moment is better than the worship of thousand years."
In a bodily pure state (after taking a full bath or after ablution state, islamic practice of ritual purification, a mode of baptism with water as taught by Prophet Muhammad) one should sit down and with full concentration should recite the following until the mind and heart are calm: At the same time he or she should be aware of the meaning, so that slumber doesn't approach the body and mind.
ALLAHU HAZERI
God is Nearmost / God is Present.
ALLAHU NAZERI
God is Watching Over Me / God's Glance is upon Me
ALLAHU MA'YEE
God is with me / God is Here
When the outer world is asleep, at that hours of the silent night or after the late night prayer (tahajjud) is the best time for muraqaba.
When all thought-stream are concentrated, when the inner heart is focused and calm then (without the aid of the tonque) the heart will be only beating in hope of the reflected light of divine epiphany.
When one attain such state, the seeker feels a heavenly peace and bliss and become absorbed in it. In that state of absorption by the divine essence and epiphany of divine light, an annihilation reaches. The power of speech is taken away so that the mystery of God is sanctified in mystery alone and not divulged.
Shaikh Abdullah Ansari has said that in this you will be ecstatic in the Love of God. To be successfully able to contemplate upon the Lord in single mindedness is a stepping success in gnosis and oneness. By this the separation between the servant and Lord is removed.
In a further developed stage of sadhana (striving, jihad), the sadhana of Raja Yoga (the highest form of divine union), in Sufi Path is the hardest hurdle to cross.
At this stage, the devotee remains hidden from the common people's eye sight in a remote place. Bodily and spiritually when the seeker reach abiding in God, Baka-bi-'Llah at that stage the seeker goes into this sadhana. This stage is not an open subject or discussion matter for public domain as words are an injustice and deceiving.
It is only fair to hint that even before this stage the habit of eating, drinking, speaking, seeing, hearing, breathing, sleeping, action of bowl movement are slowly reduced to its Furthest. The sadhana at this stage involves the closed sadhana for all bodily openings namely that of eyes, nasal passage, mouth, sexual organs etc.
When the seeker is free of all temptation become spiritually charged, energized and powerful, then his or her whole being begin to become godly (rabbani).
- Adopted and freely translated from Sufis of India (2nd Part) by Mobarak Kareem Jawhar
3.
My Master taught me a lesson:
"Any moment you are negligent in remembrance of God
is a moment spent in denial of God."
These words opened my eyes to reality,
And I fixed my attention on the Lord.
I then placed my soul in His protection-
Such was the love I cultivated in my heart.
Having thus bequeathed my soul to Him,
I died before death – to live in Him.
Only then did I attain the goal of life, O BaHu!
~ (Kalaam) Sufi Words of Sultan BaHu
4.
Muraqaba - Watching
The watching began when the faqir guarded against the wrong actions of the self. Then the watching deepened to an attention in fikr which prevented anything 'other' entering into the awareness. However there is a final stage of watching which is the summit of gnosis.
It envelops the dislocation of awareness which is the experience of unity. Let us look again. In stage one you step up a Watcher to watch the outward and make it pure. In the second stage the Watcher watches the self in its inwad deceptions. From this emerges a prfound stage in which the Watcher is voided of any thing or form to watch, held only by the act of calling on the Name. This leads to the Original Void. Then the seeker moves between the worlds, drawing sensory and meaning into closer and closer, finer and finer balance. When light dawns you know that you do not see Allah, but Allah sees you.
Ihsan. This not 'pure monism' or any other simplistic philosophical position - it is a situation that cannot be expressed in linear expression or formulae for its is subtle, dynamic and secret. The wird (sufi practice) of this time is the Wird-as-Sahl.
Allahu Ma'ee. Allahu Nazirun alayya.
Allahu Shahidun alayya. 66 times.
- from The Hundred Steps by Shaykh Abd al-Qadir as-Sufi al-Murabit
COMMENTS