EYE POETRY

The Earth is Our Spiritual Body

When I’m reading the book of nature I’m reading it through my soul. - Satish Kumar

As humans our villain is the mind. It conforms to the illusions and lies of society and is based on fear when compared to our natural authentic self.

Nature is our shadow.

Our soul, which is always seeking the journey rather than fulfilling the desires of the flesh finds tranquility in the mundane. Never looking for recognition always in direct contact with the Divine.

Living in the material world has its challenges, which is the beautify of life because our lessons are not always apparent at first but like a student or journalist we dig and seek truth of our self so that one day we may uncover our authentic selves.

Nature as our shadow shows us that we are supported. At one time we used to live in harmony with our environment. We learned that we’re apart of a bigger family rather than separate. Today, in the age of civilisation, our lost culture of reverence to nature has caused us to become a villain like characters you find in classic films. 

However, when we relinquish all ties to the ego to the love of the material world and seek the recognition of the Divine we find ourselves. We find that we are perfect just the way we are. We find love and acceptance. We find a life without illusion and judgement. Most importantly, we find our heart. 

Inna Allaha la yu ghayyiru ma biqawmin hatta yughayyiroo ma bi-anfusihim.

Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. - 13:11, the Quran

Soulful Journey

Inna lillahi, wa inna ilaihir rajiun.
Indeed we are Allah’s and to Allah is our final journey.

Human beings have a great many things to learn from our family members. And when I speak of family members I don’t mean the one that society has limited our minds to. 

Once the earthly veils have been lifted then we become realized. That our body is like clothes for the soul in that one changes the body at the start of the soul’s new journey.

Our true birthing place is that of the souls of the earth. The wind being our breath and the wind being our final resting place at the end of the journey. Our family being all that nature has created from the mountains to the sea to the birds and the trees. 

Everything in the heavens and earth belongs to God. Even our soul belongs to God. Our possessions are temporary gifts not long-term accomplishments.

The animals being the wisest of our ancestors teach us that it is not necessary to hoard food but when we relinquish our ego and maintain our devotion to God, daily needs no longer become needs.

I come running to the end of Your Street;
Tears are washing and washing my cheek.
Union with You - what else can I seek?
My soul I surrender as your name I repeat.

Please remember those who are perishing due to famine, war, natural disaster and natural causes. They are you and you are them. 

Rhythm is Life Disguised in Motion

Sufis, in order to awaken in man that emotional nature which is generally asleep, have a rhythmic practice which sets the whole mechanism of body and mind in rhythm.

All labour and toil, however hard and difficult, is made easy by the power of rhythm in some way or other. This idea opens to the thinker a still deeper scope for the study of life. Rhythm in every guise, be it called game, play, amusement, poetry, music or dance, is the very nature of man’s whole constitution. When the entire mechanism of his body is working in a rhythm, the beat of the pulse, of the heart, of the head, the circulation of the blood, hunger and thirst - all show rhythm, and it is the breaking of rhythm that is called disease.

Rhythm plays a most important part not only in the body, but in the mind also. The change from joy to sorrow, the rise and fall of thoughts, and the whole working of the mind show rhythm, and all confusion and despair seem to be accounted for by the lack of rhythm in mind.

In ancient times healers in the East, and especially those in India, when healing a patient of any complaint of a psychological character known either as an obsession or an effect of magic, excited the emotional nature of the patient by the emphatic rhythm of their drum and song, at the same time making the patient swing his head up and down in time to the music.

A keen observation shows that the whole universe is a single mechanism working by the law of rhythm; the rise and fall of the waves, the ebb and flow of the tide, the waxing and waning of the moon, the sunrise and the sunset, the change of the seasons, the moving of the earth and of the planets - the whole cosmic system and the constitution of the entire universe are working under the law of rhythm. 

Source: Hazrat Inayat Khan

Changing Waters

The following is a tale by Sayed Sabir Ali-Shah, a Sufi saint of the Chishti Order, who died in 1818.

I would like to offer this food for thought because it invokes questions about the need for human beings to either fall victim to the silent majority syndrome, which is when many are aware of the numerous ills of the world or society chose to ignore reality for fear of being excluded from the majority who consider themselves acceptable or cool or what would be considered the ‘in crowd’. 

For example, Cheikh Aamadu Bamba Mbàkke was ridiculed, exiled and accused of what the US would term as a terrorist because he sparked jealousy amongst other tribal chiefs at the time who didn’t like that he was disrupting the social balance. Many other figures from Mandela to Lumumba to current Burmese pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Imagine if voices like these chose the path of the silent majority.

Instead they realized the greater struggle. 

Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.

On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.

At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

Climate change happens but no one listens, Wars continue but no one cares.

Basically we live in a world of babbling fools - many who are ruled by their arrogance, intelligence and egos. If we take a close look in the mirror when we choose to mimik that of the masses then we too become babbling fools. Those fools will one day perish and a new generation of fools reborn, which has been the cyclical nature of the earth for some time. But the legacy and changes of those brave souls who dared to challenge the established order will live on forever.