EYE POETRY

Cheikh Bamba’s Alchemy of the Heart

Image credit

A Muslim visionary and spiritual leader, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba dedicated his life to writing poetry on meditation, rituals, and Qur’anic study. His teachings emphasized the virtues of pacifism and the importance of hard work. 

He taught his followers that salvation comes through submission to Allah, hard work and being of service to others - a departure from conventional Islamic teaching. 

The life of the Cheikh is a testimony of his commitment to the revival of authentic Islam, the religion of Peace. 

Cheikh Bamba inaugurated a new era in the history of Islam and of the role of black people in what is sometimes called African Islam.

Listen to what an adversary turned admirer had to say about Cheikh Bamba:

By 1919, Antoine J. Henry Lasselves, the Administrator of the District of Diourbel, was assigned to watch the Sheik’s activities. His role was to observe the Sheik at any time of the day and send regular reports to his superiors. Here is what he wrote at the end of his mission:

“This Sheik Bamba is gifted with some innate power whose origin the human mind cannot understand so as to explain his befriending capacity. The way people give up themselves to him is extraordinary and their love of the Sheik is unconditional. He seems to have some divine light and secret similar to what we read in the stories of the great prophets and their people. But this one (the Sheikh Bamba) differs from them by his purity of heart, his generosity and his wishing good to friends and enemies alike. These are qualities his predecessors would have envied him, whatever the virtuousness, their piety or prestige were. The most unjust and ignorant people of human realities are those who accused him on false grounds, alleging that he was interested in temporal power. I am sure that the prophets and saints who waged holy war did it without having half the forces that he has got.”

Observing a Mental Fast During Ramadan

                                    Photo property of: creativesam

Reading and talking about Oneness of God is one thing,

But to enliven it is another matter all together.

There are many for whom Oneness is just a spiritual theorization,

For the friends it is Seeing the Friend’s Face in every direction.

O Beloved One, help us walk in your friends’ footsteps,

For towards them flow Your tender love, mercy and grace.

~ A Dervish Prayer

The secret of religion is Law (rights). The secret of Law is conscience. And the secret of conscience is love.

The holy month of Ramadan was an opportunity for millions around the world to cleanse, detox or purify oneself. As well as become conscience of our place in the fabric of life. During the fast I chose to abstain from solid foods altogether and opted to break fast with only juice, water and sometimes herbal teas. For me this special month was a time of rejuvenating my spirit and purging my attachments to a past that will be of no benefit to my successful future. It was a time of rekindling a lost desire for self-love, which ultimately allows me to unconditionally accept others and most importantly brings me closer to the divine.

After a long night of Zikr I sat in silence and realized all the challenges that arise from the mind and pondered whether I could actually obtain spiritual growth while maintaining the same patterns and rhythms that fuels the world’s hate. I realized that while denying my physical self the indulgence of food so as to obtain a higher level of consciousness that I had failed to implement one important change.

Engaging my mind in a mental detox or ‘mental fast’. What’s the use of seeking purity if at the end of the fast period we go back to engaging in negative thinking, gossip and verbal destruction?

The last seven days of Ramadan I decided to partake in a ‘mental fast,’ which is one of the most important tasks by Sufi alchemists in one’s search for inner transformation. As soon as I made the decision many obstacles occurred and presented me with a host of fears and negativity that I had never realized were prohibiting me from reaching the next station in my growth. I like to call these moments, the storm. The storm happens to shake up one’s very existence as a test of faith, perseverance, flexibility and to determine whether one’s foundation is intact.

Everything has its cyclical nature. Tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes and storms are the earth’s revolutions. The people’s storm, like that of the revolts raging across the Arab world, is also nature’s storm because that’s where our true roots lie. - Simba

Tai Chi Chuan, which literally translates to Tai - supreme, Chi - ultimate, Chuan - boxing is an ancient Chinese form of internal alchemy that represents an expression of living life to it’s fullest, bending like a bamboo in the face of even the strongest winds, while continuing to grow supple and strong. 

I’ve no doubt have my bouts with the earth’s most strongest winds. Our relationship is like a child and their parent. Sometimes the gentle, subtle winds come as a comfort but during the daily rigorous regime I leave full of fatigue. As the seven day mental test continued I meditated on the meaning of the chapter I just finished in the book, ‘The Mysticism of Sound and Music’ by Sufi Mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan where he describes the rhythm of life and how the minds’ motions give way to either joy or illness. 

Confronting truth and reality has made this month truly a holy one in that I was able to realize how powerful our thoughts and words are towards others and our own destruction. During prayer I uttered the words of my spiritual guide Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, ‘For all those who have sought to destroy me, I wish that no harm comes to them on my behalf.’ I hope that I start this New Year with a new spiritual lens that allows me to view the world from a new level of purity. I hope that future mental fasts instill upon me even greater truths and that the I learn to embrace even the strongest of winds because in the end everything comes from Allah. By embracing this fact I moved one step closer to freeing a mind that had been enslaved to world full of sheep.

Eid Mubarak to all!

Your dance just took me today, and suddenly I began to whirl. All the realms spun around me in endless celebration. My soul lost its grip. My body shed its fatigue. Hearing Your drum beat and Your hands clap, I floated up to the heavens.” - Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo ©Simba Russeau. 2010 Sahara.

Once a very famous ori came to grandshaykh Abd Allah Daghestani in Damascus and said, “O my master, I come to you after studying the Psalms, the Torah, the Bible, and the Holy Quran. I have studied all kinds of philosophy, all the religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, everything. But still I feel nothing in my heart. I feel no satisfaction in my heart. On the contrary, it is as if I were standing on a cliff about to fall. I have become so shaky that I go from one center to another, seeking what is Real, trying to find Reality. Where can I reach that Reality and gain satisfaction in my heart ? Where can I find my Lord? Finally, I have come to you. After you, I am not going to go anywhere. I have been everywhere. I have asked famous philosophers, orientalists, people whom I considered saints. I have read everything I could. Yet when I asked any scholar a question, they gave me an answer I already knew. They did not give me anything new. I am confused. I heard your name and I have come to you. Will you give me an answer to my question? Whatever you say, I will follow and believe. But if you do not give me an answer, I shall remain as I am-confused and uncertain for the rest of my life.”

Grandshaykh said, “My son, if you take the seed of an apple or any fruit and leave it there to dry for hundreds of years, it will remain dry. But if you take that seed, put it in a field, plant it, and then come back after one month, you will find that it has sprouted from the earth as a green shoot. If you dig into the earth to try to find that seed, you will not find it. It has vanished. Something new is there. If you continue to water that plant, it will grow into a tree and that tree will give fruit. But where is the original seed? It has disappeared. The original seed is no longer there. That seed has become a large tree now loaded with fruit. Similarly, if you take an egg and put it under a chicken for a certain number of days, after those exact number of days have passed, that egg disappears and a new chick comes forth. Something new comes into being. If you look under the chicken you will no longer find the egg there. The egg has vanished. It lay a certain number of days under that chicken. Then it emerges as a new generation. Something similar happens with a human fetus when it is in its mother’s womb for about nine months and ten days, without connection to anything outside, alone. Yet after those nine months and ten days of loneliness, it will come forth a new generation, a new creation.

“My son, in each of these three examples I have given you there was something that went into seclusion. The seed cut itself off from the material world above the ground and went into seclusion for thirty or forty or fifty days. Then a new plant emerged. The egg went into seclusion under its mother with no connection to material life outside its shell and came forth as a new generation. The sperm went into seclusion in the mother’s womb for nine months, without connection to the external world of this material life. After this seclusion, it emerged a new generation.

“My son, if you do not enter into seclusion, if you do not say to yourself, just as a seed says to itself, ‘I want to cut myself off from the materialistic life of this world and vanish from it for the love of God and for the benefit of creation-for the seed begets fruit-if you do not experience a retreat like this, if you do not cut yourself off from material life, forsake your ego in complete sacrifice and vanish into nothingness to exist only in God, you will never find your ultimate reality, your true self. You will never be like that tree that bears fruit for everyone to eat. If you will not to be like that egg and sever yourself from materialism, retreating into the shell of seclusion, existing only in the Presence of your Lord, meditating, concentrating on Him, worshipping Him, and keeping His Presence always in your heart, you will never find that happiness and satisfaction you seek.

Why must you imitate that sperm that enters into seclusion for nine months ? It is because the mother’s womb consists of three layers. This was mentioned fourteen hundred years ago in the Quran [39:6]2 at a time when no microscopes existed. The Prophet (s) also said that the womb of a mother is made up of ‘darknesses’, that is, layers. Hence, if you do not enter into this loneliness, severing your bond to everything external, cutting yourself off from the material things of this world to be alone with your Lord, and thus make connection to your Ultimate Reality by fitting that image you wear here to its original there in the Divine Presence, you will never know satisfaction no matter how many books you may read. For when you read, you only ‘hear’ the books. The knowledge they contain is only ‘heard of’ knowledge’. It is not real. Yet in seclusion, you not only hear, but you feel. You not only see, but you smell. It is then that the eyes of the heart open. My son, if you do not enter into seclusion, your heart will never feel the contentment you have been seeking for so long.”

Immediately, the scholar said, “You have given me the answer I needed. My heart is open. Show me the way.” Grandshaykh gave him permission to enter into seclusion in a certain place, cutting himself off from everything. The scholar entered that place an ordinary man. After one year, he emerged a saint.