The spiritual influence of Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) is increasing among people of diverse beliefs throughout the western world. Rumi is now recognized here in the West, as he has been for seven centuries in the Middle East and Western Asia, as one of the greatest literary and spiritual figures of all time. Rumi is a spokesman for the religion of love in the language of the heart. Recent translations of Rumi’s work have brought forth a variety of different qualities, exploring the subtlety, grace, and electricity of his verse. This book presents his spiritual teachings concisely and comprehensively, in a translation that touches heart and mind.

The Mathnawi, from which these selections have been taken, is one of the greatest spiritual masterpieces ever written. Its content includes the full spectrum of life on earth, as well as the vertical dimension to the highest levels of metaphysics and cosmic awareness.

AFTER eleven years of turning to the Mathnawi of Jelaluddin Rumi for “light,” the idea came that this light might be made more readily available to more people in the format of a “daybook.” Rumi: Daylight comes to you as an offering, as a tool, as a possible source of insight and refreshment, support and encouragement. It may be used from the first day of the year to the last to deepen a whole cycle or at special moments, opened randomly.

May your hand be guided as you turn the pages; and may the voice within these words soothe and strengthen your soul. For the way is only difficult until it becomes easy. Moments of ease, though, may come and go numerous times before one arrives and learns to live in a new land. The verses are presented here in the order in which they would be found within Books I and II, which hold roughly a third of the 25,632 lines of the whole six books of the Mathnawi.

Although other possibilities presented themselves, keeping true to the pattern woven in the Mathnawi seemed best. As when one walks along the shore of the ocean, one finds treasures in the sand, so here, too, one may look down and discover a precious piece to hold close for awhile. In making this selection, I attempted to choose short sections that would stand alone and elucidate our lives. I recognize though that any selection is limited to time and place, and that were I to journey through the same two books of the Mathnawi now, I might surface with different lines to share with you, or if you made that journey yourself, you might choose different words. Those published here are a beginning and will, I hope, give a strong taste of the guidance and wisdom that comes through the vehicle of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, may God preserve his secret, and help us all to recognize

the shop of Oneness, the Ocean that has many harbors, yet where there is no division between man and man, or woman, but only a unity of souls in the process of return to their Creator, Whose breath lives inside each one and helps to guide us home.

Many thanks flow out to all who have lent support to this project—many helping hands and hearts have been involved in the process, among them are Lora Gobel, Tom Goldberg and George Witterschein who helped in editing.

What a blessing it has been to work together with my husband, Kabir. We are grateful for the extensive groundwork established by R.A. Nicholson in his full translation of the six books of the Mathnawi. Kabir and I hope to continue our work with the Mathnawi and bring kernels from the remaining four books to you soon. Continually sustaining us has been the presence of Sheikh Suleyman Hayati Dede, may God preserve his secret. He mirrored to us in reality the beauty and breadth of Mevlana Jelauluddin Rumi, witness of God. May we take Mevlana as an example and open to the whisper of God in our own hearts that our words, too, may become fragrant and full of nourishment.

Camille Adams Helminski Putney, Vermont

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The Crucified Monk | Icon of the Monastic Life

Around the entrance of refectories in Orthodox monasteries, there can sometimes be seen a shocking image of a monk being crucified. The unnamed monk silently reposes on the cross, whilst around him he is assailed by terrifying demons and skeletal figures. Just as shocking as the image itself is the inscription which accompanies it: The True Life of a Monk

Monasticism is an ancient Christian practice which developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., around the time when Christianity became legalized in the Roman Empire and persecutions practically ceased. This has sometimes been given as a reason for the rise of monasticism: the desire for zealous Christians to flee from the world where living the Christian life was suddenly comfortable, “easier”, and even fashionable. However, all the greatest monastic saints, in their writings, give one source for their motivation for entering a monastery: the Gospels.

A perfect example of this is from the life of St Anthony the Great. In his hometown church, Anthony heard the Gospel reading proclaimed, as if spoken to him directly: “If you would be perfect, go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and come and follow me.” And so Anthony was inspired to live a life which became the foundation for monasticism, putting forward the basic motivation for monks and nuns ever since.

With such a basic Scriptural motivation for monasticism, this way of life becomes a lot more interesting for every Christian.

The Icon: “True Life of a Monk”

The image of the crucified monk is didactic: an icon for contemplation, not veneration. The subject of the icon is not a named Saint, but an unnamed, generic figure of a monk – or a nun if it is found in a female monastery. In its fullest form, the image looks as it does in the picture above from an Athonite fresco. Initially quite confusing, the image is replete with inscriptions which fully explain what is going on, and the only barrier to understanding is not being able to read the language of these inscriptions.

I can give no better explanation of the icon than to reproduce an extract from the The “Painter’s Manual” of Dionysius of Fourna, an 18th century Greek text for iconographers:

Draw a monk crucified on a cross, clothed in a tunic and a monk’s hat, barefoot and with his feet nailed to the footrest of the cross; his eyes are closed and his mouth shut. Just above his head is this inscription: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips”.

In his hands he holds lighted candles, and next to the candles is this inscription: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which [is in heaven]“.

On his chest he has a tablet like a hassock, which says: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

On his stomach is another scroll, like a title, with these words: “Do not be led astray, O monk, by a full belly.”

Lower down on his body is another scroll which says: “Mortify your members which are upon the earth.”

Lower down again, below his knees, is another scroll which says: “Prepare your feet in the way of the Gospel of peace.”

Above, in the top arm of the cross, make a title nailed on with this inscription: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of my Lord.” On the three arms of the cross make seals, and in the right one write this: “He that endures to the end shall be saved.” In the left-hand one: “He who does not renounce everything is not able to be a disciple of Christ.” On the seal above the footrest of the cross: “Strait and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life.”

To the right side of the cross paint a dark cavern with a big dragon in it coiled up, and write: “The all-devouring Hell.” Over the mouth of the dragon is a naked young man with his eyes bound by a cloth, he holds a bow and shoots at the monk. On his bow is a scroll which says: “Maker of lust.” Write this inscription above him: “The love of harlotry.” Above the cave put many snakes and write: “The cares.” Near to Hades put a devil dragging at the cross with a rope and saying: “The flesh is weak and cannot resist.” At the right-hand end of the footrest put a spear with a cross and a flag and write on it: “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.”

To the left of the cross make a tower with a door, out of which comes a man sitting on a white horse, wearing a fur hat and robes woven with gold and trimmed with fur. In his right hand he holds a cup full of wine and in his left a lance on the end of which is a sponge; a scroll is wrapped around the lance which says: “Take delight in the pleasures of the world.” He shows them to the monk. Write this inscription above him: “The vainglorious world.” Below him put a grave out of which Death is coming holding a large scythe on his shoulder and an hour-glass in his hand, and looking at the monk. Above him is the inscription: “Death and the grave.”

Below the hands of the monk on either side put two angels holding scrolls; write on the scroll of that on the right: “The Lord has sent me to help you.” And on that on the left: “Do good and fear not.”

Above the cross represent heaven with Christ in it, holding the Gospels on his breast open at the words: “Whosoever will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” In his right hand he holds a king’s crown, and in his left a crown [of flowers]. Below him to either side are two angels, looking at the monk and showing him to Christ, and holding between them a long scroll with these words: “Fight that you may receive the crown of righteousness, and the Lord will give you a crown of precious stones.”

Then write this title: The life of the true monk.

Some versions of this icon will be simplified, or will show demons surrounding the crucified monk firing arrows at him (see the first image of this post). The arrows and spears directed against the monk will be identified by inscriptions as various “passions” (vainglory, lust, gluttony etc). see The seven deadly sins

The image painted for monastics to contemplate and therefore properly belongs in a monastery. The “true life of a monk” is not necessarily the true, Christian, life for all of us. If we are not monks or nuns, we should not pretend to be so. Yet insofar as the monastic life is based in the Gospel and instructs all Christians on how to live a Christian life, the icon of the Crucified Monk can be useful. While ever “lay” Christians read monastic literature like “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”, retreat temporarily to monasteries, or in other ways draw on the monastic experience, they can also gain benefit from this icon.

Especially during Lent, when the life of all Christians becomes that little more ascetic, we can see the image of the “True Life of a Monk” as the image of the “True Life of a Christian”.

• The birth of Jesus in man

In Sufism, the four traditional forms (white, black, red and green) of this initiatory death represent the practices which aim to extinguish spiritual lusts as well as carnal concupiscences read here in French

The Green death: Death to the universe. 
Death thus understood, death with regard to the universe, becomes, with the desire to enter the path, the first step of the itinerants towards God. In Sufi thought, it has four aspects: a white death, a black death, a red death and a green death.
The white death is hunger, which is akin to enlightenment. The black death is realized when the Sufi practices and succeeds in enduring the evils caused by men or even all evil in an absolute way, which is likely to sadden the self/ego which becomes darkened. The Red Death consists of subduing him, which ends up killing him.

Finally, the green death consists of wearing the dress which becomes, by dint of being patched, variegated like the earth in spring.
Spiritual death here below is therefore the supreme privation. But, for Sufism, there exists, here below also, another death, this one eminently positive: death with regard to the universe, which is rebirth and which is access to the first home of the other. -of the. Such death results in life, it is itself life.
The words of Hallâj are eloquent in this regard: 
“Kill me, my comrades, it is in my murder that my life lies! My death, it is to (over)live; and my life is to die!”

We change Reality by changing our Perception of it

There is much to be learn about Eternity by living in Time

There is much to be learn about Time by living in Eternity

Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani al Rabbani

Islam and the Transformative Power of  Love

Before the modern-day obsession with social and political issues, the strand of learning often called Sufism played a major if not predominant role in all Muslim societies. What distinguishes Sufism from other approaches to the Islamic tradition is the fact that it considers the transformation of the soul the goal of human life, while looking at dogma, ritual, and law as means to this end, not ends in themselves. (Sufism is a problematic and controversial term, but probably more adequate than “mysticism” or “esotericism”, both of which carry too much baggage to apply in any more than superficial ways to the vastly diverse assortment of teachings and practices that are directed toward spiritual transformation in the Islamic tradition). In keeping with the worldview established by the Koran, Muslim scholars addressed three major issues: activity, understanding, and transformation.

Activity became the specialty of the jurists, the experts in the Shariah, who took it upon themselves to define right and wrong deeds. Understanding was the spe­cialty of various schools of theology and philosophy, ranging from the dogmatic to the mystical and metaphysical. Transformation was the specialty of spiri­tual guides, many but not all of whom came to be called Sufis.

If we want to choose one word to designate the process and goal of transformation, we can not do better than “love.”

To explain why this is so, I will summarize the understanding of love as it was discussed from early times. Specifically, I want to look at two issues that run through all the discussions, namely the ontological and moral imperatives.

The ontological imperative means that all things love by nature.

The moral imperative means that human beings, by virtue of their own specific nature, must refine and perfect their love or suffer the consequences.

Any thinking that can be called Islamic grounds itself in tawhīd, the notion of unity. Briefly, tawhīd means that all reality is utterly contingent upon the one supreme reality, called God by theologians and the Necessary Being by philosophers. What imparts a specifically Islamic color to this universal notion is the idea that Muhammad was the last in a series of 124,000 prophets sent by God.

Strict attention to unity brings us face to face with the ontological imperative:

Everything is exactly what it must be, for all things are under the control of the One. Among the many Koranic proof texts cited in support of this imperative is the verse «His only command, when He desires a thing, is to say to it “Be!”, and it comes to be» (36: 82).

Theologians called this word “Be” the creative command (al-amr al-khalqī).It is eternal, which is to say that, from the human point of view, it is re-uttered at every moment. As a result, the universe and all things within it are constantly renewed. Read more here

Stupid that everyone in his case
Is praising his particular opinion!
If Islam means submission to God,
We all live and die in Islam.”
Goethe (West-East Divan)

Goethe, the “refugee” and his Message for our times

As Paul Kingsnorth in 50 Holy Wells say: “Who knows what the future holds? Not me. But as the chaos of the Void accelerates, a parallel spiritual longing deepens. We need truth. We need God. People still come to the wells to speak to Him. I can see, if only in my dreams, a future in which more and more people come looking here. A future in which the wells are still tended and the prayers grow in numbers, the well rounds revive and the sacred landscape of ancient Ireland begins to awaken from its slumber. A future in which we remember that all things are soaked in God. A future in which the lessons of the modern hermit St Joseph the Hesychast are remembered by us worldly Christians today:

God is everywhere. There is no place where He cannot be found. Within and without, above and below, wherever you turn all things cry out: “God.” We live and move in Him. We breathe God, we eat God, we clothe ourselves in God. All things praise and bless God. The whole creation cries out. All things, living or inanimate, speak with wonder and glorify the Creator.

Verily He is the One Who will revive the dead…

“The body is like Mary, and each of us has a Jesus inside.
Who is not in labour, holy labour? Every creature is.”

Rumi

Note:Sufism is different from monasticism. Sufism is based on Quran and Sunna. Allah says in Quran:

Then in the footsteps of these Messengers, We sent (other) Messengers and We sent ‘Isa, the son of Maryam (Jesus, the son of Mary) after them and gave him the Injil (the Gospel). And We created kindness and mercy in the hearts of those who were (the true) followers (of ‘Isa [Jesus]). And they themselves invented the innovation of monasticism. We did not prescribe it for them. But they (introduced this innovation of monasticism) merely to seek Allah’s pleasure. Then they could not practically keep and maintain that check which was its due (i.e., could not continue its spirit and discipline). So We paid those of them who believed (and continued the innovation of monasticism to seek the pleasure of Allah) their reward. And most of them (who left it and changed their ways) are disobedient. (57: 27)

In the aforementioned verse, word “Rahbaniya” (monasticism) is used which means fear. Rahbaniya means the religion of fear. It means that a person, due to fear (regardless of whether it is the fear of someone’s cruelty or the fear of his own weakness), flees from the worldly life and takes refuge in the forests and mountains. 

Monasticism in Christianity

Monasticism is deeply rooted in Christianity. The Christian church did not adopt monasticism for about two centuries after Jesus. But it would not be wrong to say that the germs of monasticism were present in Christianity from the beginning. They considered asceticism and dervish life to be superior and preferable to married and business life. It was considered undesirable for those who performed religious services in the church to be married, have children and maintain a household.  By the third century, monasticism had taken the form of a contagion and it started to spread around like a pandemic.

The main reason for the popularity of monasticism in the ancient polytheistic Christian society was moral depravity, lasciviousness and worldliness. In order to break this growing wickedness, the Christian Church preferred intensity and extremism instead of adopting the path of moderation and imposed a way of life in which worldly relationships, marriage, wife and children, business, even drinking and eating was reduced to bear minimum. Some of the things that Christian ascetics used to adopt included: 

• Torture one’s body
• Staying dirty, avoiding cleanliness and water
• Prohibiting marriage
• Severing ties with relatives
• Going against human nature
• Sectarianism

Due to sectarianism, many sects and groups started to arise in the Christian community. All these sects had strong differences and hatred towards other sects. By the fourth century, around 90 sects had born in Christianity. A brief history of some of Christian priests is described here:

 Incidents of Christian Ascetics

St. Macarius used to carry a weight of 80lbs at all times. For 6 months he slept in a swamp and poisonous flies kept biting his body. It is written about a group of 130 nuns that they never washed their feet. Taking shower was like death for them.

St. Vitus was the father of two children.  When he became an ascetic, his wife wept, but he separated from her.  According to St. Jerome, severing marital relations was the foremost duty of a Christian ascetic.  The darkest reality of Christian monasticism was that it separated blood relations. According to the priests, it was a sin to have soft feelings for blood relations.  St. Jerome says about it, “If your nephew puts his arms around your neck and clings to you, if your mother tries to stop you, if your father lies down in front of you to stop you, even then, leave everything behind, run towards the flag of the cross without shedding a single tear.  On this path, ruthlessness is piety.  

St. Simeon Stylites spent 27 years away from his parents.  His father died from the shock of separation. When his mother found out about him, she went to see him but he refused to meet her.  For three days and three nights she kept waiting there and finally she died lying there.

The religion that goes against human nature, nature takes its revenge.  The Christian religion is a prime example of this.

What is Renunciation of World in Sufism?

Mostly people incorrectly portray the concept of ‘Tark-e-Dunia’ (renunciation of world) in Sufism and try to link it with monasticism. Thus, diverting people from Sufism. Sultan ul Ashiqeen Sultan Muhammad Najib ur Rehman says in his book Sufism – The Soul of Islam:

“The critics and deniers of Sufism heavily scandalised the term ‘renunciation’ and labelled it as monasticism and un-Islamic. In fact, the term renunciation has never been understood in its true sense. According to the philosophy of Sufism, renunciation means renouncing the lust of worldly pleasures inwardly.”

Daata Ganj Bakhsh Ali ibn Usman al-Hajveri says:

The more a man gets fed up with the world, the stronger becomes his relation with Allah. It does not mean that he must leave his home and family to start living in a jungle. Rather, it means that he should remove the love of the world from the inward. Live in the world but do not become worldly. It is the very excellence of Sufism, not to be drenched while remaining in the river. This is not courageous to avoid going near a river and keep boasting about not getting wet. To the Sufis, renunciation of the world is in fact spiritual rather than physical. The excellence is to live physically among the creation being spiritually away from it. (Kashf-ul-Mahjub) 

Sultan ul Faqr VI Sultan Muhammad Asghar Ali says:

Live in the world like a boat floats on water. Consider the boat as your esoteric self and the water as the world. The boat is safe until the water enters it. When water enters the boat, it definitely sinks. You are like a boat and the water is like the world. Save yourself from the world and its love. 

If you have wealth but you do not foster love for it and spend it generously for the sake of Allah, it is not worldliness. However, if you make worldly things your priority then all these things would become worldliness. Thus, evade yourself from the appetite of material things while living in this world, just as a wild duck lives in water but does not drown. Get your destiny from the world like a crane who while living on a riverside gets livelihood from it but does not drown.

Do your business of the world but for the sake of Allah; eat from your livelihood but for the sake of Allah and move in the world but again for Allah. I do not suggest alienate yourself from the world but you must continue to remember Allah while doing everything. Your inward should be attentive towards Him while your hands are busy in the worldly affairs. (Sultan-ul-Faqr VI Sultan Mohammad Asghar Ali-Life and Teachings)

Sufism Discourages Monastic Life

Monasticism means to leave the worldly life in a way that you go to jungle or in isolation, away from the people. Whereas, Islam is the religion which is complete and perfect way of life because it satisfies all the needs and aspects of life. It gives perfect guidance to every individual and social affair.

Islam teaches rights of Allah as well as the rights of human beings. That is the reason there is no concept of things like monasticism in Islam. 

The life of our Prophet (pbuh) is perfect example and guide for us. He used to remain intensely engaged in spreading the message of Islam and at the same time he gave lessons on excellent and fruitful ways of spending our worldly life whether it’s individual or collective.

Cutting ties with worldly means is against the nature. The essence of renouncing the world is to fulfil the worldly responsibilities and duties whilst keeping one’s inward enlightened with the remembrance of Allah. This is what renunciation of world means according to Sufism. Allah says in Quran:

The life of this world is nothing but sport and pastime and the Home of the Hereafter is the only (true) life. Would that they knew (this secret)! (29: 64)

The Holy Prophet (pbuh) also declared the love of the world a danger for faith. He said “The love of this world is the root of all evil”. (Ibn Majah 4112)

The System of Khanqah in Sufism

(Khanqah is the Arabized form of the Persian compound noun “Khan-gah” made up of two parts of “khana” (house) and “gah” (place). The term “khanqah” means a house where Sufis, dervishes and shaykhs live and worship. Khanqah is also called “sawmi’a”, “ibadatgah”, “ribat”, “tikiya”, “zawiya”, “qalandar”, “dergahg”,”langar”, “duwayra” and “jama’at khana”. Also, the name of some villages in Iran is Khanqah.

Residing in Khanqah for training has some commonality between Islam and Christian monasticism. However, they are fundamentally different to each other. The key difference is that in Christian monasticism, people who reside in a Khanqah sever all kinds of family ties and worldly affairs. Whereas the Sufi Khanqah which flourishes under the supervision of a perfect spiritual guide does not teach the seekers to leave worldly life. Instead, they are inculcated to renounce the world inwardly whilst discharging their worldly duties and responsibilities. And this is accomplished under the supervision of a perfect spiritual guide. By the blessings of his spiritual sight and esoteric attention, the spiritual guide, cleanses the spiritual self of sincere seekers.

By gaining closeness to the perfect spiritual guide, his blessings and favour, his inspired knowledge (ilm-e-Ludduni), the seeker gains freedom from attachments, love of this world and its lusts. There is no room for heresy, monasticism or anything that goes against Sharia in a Sufi Khanqah. The importance of Khanqah is proven from Quran. The Holy Prophet (pbuh) laid the foundation of the system of Khanqah from the platform of al-Suffa. Allah says in Quran:

(O Beloved Prophet!) Stay tenaciously in the companionship of those who remember their Lord morning and evening, ardently seeking His pleasure. (18: 28)

Companions of al-Suffah

Shaikh Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi writes in his renowned work Auarif-Al-Ma’araf:

The Companions of al-Suffah have a special place in Islam who stayed and got trained at the platform of al-Suffah. For them, this was their first school, where faith (Iman) was entered into their inwards and Islam spread in the whole world.

The rank of Companions of al-Suffah is so exalted that Allah mentioned them in Quran. Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) gave them glad tidings. He said: “O Ashab al-Suffah, glad tidings to you that those of you who remain steadfast on these qualities that you have adopted here and would remain content on this state, would be raised and remain closest to me on the day of Judgement (Auarif-Al-Ma’araf).

Khanqah is the only place where people of same point of view and thoughts live and remember Allah. They don’t become oblivious to remembrance of Allah even for a moment. They live there day and night. Whilst residing there, they fulfill the tasks and duties assigned to them by their spiritual guide which in turn cleanses their inwards. By being in Khanqah it is not at all meant that the seeker will turn away from his duties towards his mother, father, sisters and brothers nor will he become negligent towards the family. Rather, Khanqah teaches beautiful way of life of Islam and the golden rules which when seeker applies to his life will succeed in both the worlds.

Khanqahs in Sufism are according to Mohammadan Sharia

Following the Sunna of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh), the perfect Fakirs in every era established Khanqah for enlightening the souls of the seekers of Allah.

Here, the seekers of Allah get their inwards cleansed and enlightened under the spiritual guidance of the spiritual guide. Their (inner) self progresses from an-nafs al-ʾammārah (inciting self) to an-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah (self at peace). By remaining in blessed company of our Perfect Spiritual Guide, the seeker’s inner (self) and outward being is enlightened with Divine light.

Monasticism in Islam  

There is no concept of monasticism in Islam as the Holy Prophet (pbuh) said in a hadith:    

There is no monasticism in Islam. 

In another hadith, the Holy Prophet (pbuh) emphasised that Islam prefers Jihad over monasticism.

Abu Saeed al-Khudri (r.a) narrates that a man came to me and asked for advice. I said: I had asked the Holy Prophet (pbuh) the same question and he said, “I advise you to fear Allah Almighty because this is the foundation of everything. Hold Jihad firmly since it is the monasticism of Islam. And remember Allah and recite Quran. Since it is the source of blessings in the sky and the remembrance for you on the earth. (Masnad Ahmad bin Hambal: 8982) 

We can infer from the aforementioned hadith that monasticism in Islam means Jihad in the way of Allah and the best Jihad is ‘Jihad with one’s self’ i.e. training and purifying one’s inward. In order to achieve this goal, sitting in company of a perfect spiritual guide became permissible for the seekers in Khanqah because the main purpose of the Khanqah is to purge seekers’ inciting self.  

In the end, we mention this beautiful saying of Ghawth al-Azam Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani:

“O servant of Allah! Adopt the company of Saints, because their glory is that when they look and pay attention to someone, they revive and enlighten their inward. Whether that person is a Jew, Christian or worshiper of fire.” (Al-Fath Al-Rabbani)

You are invited to adopt the company of the perfect spiritual guide of this age. So that you may purify your soul, attain the closeness and gnosis of Divine Essence and presence in Mohammadan Assembly which is real success in this world and hereafter.

What is the difference between Sufism and Monasticism?

The main difference between Sufism and monasticism is that in monasticism the monks sever their ties with blood relations. They stop all kinds of engagements with worldly life such as business, family etc. and subject their bodies to torturous endeavours. 

Whereas in Sufism, the perfect spiritual guide trains the seekers to remove the world and its desires from their inward whilst still living a normal life. They discharge their duties as a son, father, husband etc. but inwardly they remain attached to Allah Almighty every moment. The source of guidance and example to follow is the life of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) in Sufism. 

– Questions to Mawlana Shaykh Nazim

Sultanul Awliya as-Sayyid Mawlana Shaykh Muhammad Nazim ‘Adil Al-Haqqani An-Naqshbandi ق sohbat, 14 December 1994

GUEST: Mawlana I see that among our brothers, there are some foreign people. There is for sure a wisdom in opening your arms to these people. How come? How do you win a non-Muslim person? How are they honoured with Islam?

MAWLANA: Are they not Allah’s servants? I don’t collect them from the moon and stars. They are the people of the Earth. They are servants of Allah. Not people of the heavens. If you don’t appreciate Islam, Allah makes the Europeans to appreciate it. He takes out the sword and disciplines you. They will teach you Islam. The manifestation is on them now. There is a hadith: “The sun will rise from the West.” Its meaning is authentic. No need to translate it but if we translate it, it is a sign that Islam’s sun will rise from the West again. These are the new seeds of Islam blooming in Europe. They will come here in waves. They will insult people, who insult Islam here. Guidance is from Allah, not from us. We are a means.

GUEST: I asked because in other jamaats, among the brothers, the followers, I had never seen foreigners. Is it that you have an exceptional quality? How is it?

MAWLANA: It doesn’t belong to me, Allah gave me that quality. If I talk with the Pope, he becomes a Muslim. If I talk to a preacher, he becomes a Muslim. If I talk to Jesuit, he becomes a Muslim. If I talk to a Wahhabi, he gets more stubborn. I can’t communicate with arrogant Muslims. I can’t make them leave their arrogance. But these people (non-muslims) are inclined to Haqq (Truth). When you talk about Haqq their conscience immediately runs to accept it. It is not difficult. There is nothing easier than making them Muslim.

People who come to Europe for inviting (to Islam), either from here or other Muslim countries, they are arrogant. So these people don’t listen to them. If you approach these people humbly, respectfully, with love they give their lives for you. They too are Allah’s servants. He isn’t an ordinary man, he is a professor. This man is a German professor, doctor. A gentleman. He has high education. Jamaladdin also. Each one of them is a university graduate. They have professions. They aren’t ordinary people. We can’t deceive them and draw them to religion. No!

GUEST: Mawlana, there are various jamaats in Turkey. What do you advise the followers? What is your view on them?

MAWLANA: I’m tired of this variety. This variety is like partly cloudy. Each cloud is loaded with blessing. Divine order doesn’t let them rain. When they unite, blessing descends. I have no other advice. They should leave these names, unite under the name of the everlasting empire that their ancestors established. Our ancestors the Ottomans united all the Muslim nations under one identity. They succeeded in uniting them. Unfortunately now, there are Arabs, Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Egyptians, Sudanese, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans. All sorts. Even the Arabs can’t own their identities. They can’t say we are the Muslim Arabs. They are divided under fake names, titles. That’s why they have no value.

GUEST: By the way, Mawlana some people are busy preparing. Very busy preparing, as you may well know.

MAWLANA: Is it yellow fever?

GUEST: New year is coming. They celebrate the birth of ‘Isa ‘alaihi salam. They mark it as the first year and they celebrate the new year. What do you think about New Year?

MAWLANA: There is nothing to think. What can you expect from a community forced in this direction for 70 years? Expect them to approve the integrity of our Prophet’s ﷺ birthday? For 70 years, they say it is brain washing, not brain washing but brain spoiling. Each suggestion made makes people away from Islam, meaning, spoils their brains instead of washing their brains. Unfortunately their brains are spoiled with Christmas for over 70 years.

Let alone being religious, there is no religious tradition left. Now they adopted these Christian traditions. Tradition, new tradition. They intend to continue it. Headache. It is certainly unacceptable. “I celebrate it at home.” Don’t. “I eat chicken instead of turkey.” Don’t eat turkey either. Eat bread and olives that night. At least if we look at it from a religious perspective, when his mother gave birth to ‘Isa ‘alaihi salam she became hungry. With Allah’s order she shook the branch of the date tree and the dates fell down. At least if they put dates on their tables it would be consistent with the Holy Quran. They can calculate it and if it is ‘Isa’s ‘alaihi salam birthday, they can eat dates. I’m not saying that they should do this, but if they did it might be accepted.

We, Muslims don’t believe in the correctness of the day that Christians claim is the birthday of ‘Isa ‘alaihi salam. It is absolutely incorrect. That isn’t the day. But Christians have made this religion fake. It is a religion of showing off. They haven’t left anything related to reality so we can say, do this, do that. No need. Because the Saudis, whom you assume to be practicing sharia, reject the celebration of our Prophet’s ﷺ birthday. It is prohibited by the Saudis. So many ignorant ones, with titles of ‘Doctor’ are educated by Saudis.

They also reject the Mawlid. They prohibit the Mawlid-i Sharif reciting in the month of Mawlid. They say it is prohibited, bid’a (innovation), etc. They are the ones making bid’a. For this reason within this year this yellow fever won’t leave them. But this yellow fever makes them uncomfortable. These people busy with New Year preparations, should be ready for yellow fever within that year, that they call ‘New Year’.

Look also 99 Sohbets of Maulana Sheikh Nazim Adil al Haqqani ar Rabbani

“Love is beautiful for our Lord and His servants. Do everything with love, it must be accepted by your lord and he will do it with pleasure. Allah says; I don’t need your worship, I only seek the Love with which it is offered. Now we are trying to do all the practices but forgetting to ask for Divine Love, so we are becoming like robots, or like doing gymnastics.

If our worship makes the love for Allah grow in our hearts, then we should keep that practice and continue.”

~ Sultan-ul-Awliya Mawlana Shaykh Nazim

Passover is the “Passing By” Feast

On the Origin of Easter

The undeniable truth is that  for Christianity Jesus is the personification of the central sun of our solar system. Perceived from the northern hemisphere, and particularly from between the latitudes of the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle, the celestial arc-shape path of our Light Bringer becomes in the fall each day a little smaller. But on (about) December 21, this daily shrinkage comes to stand still. In other words, the daily changing in the size of the Risen Savior’s arc has then stopped, or “died”. However, after three natural days, in which the nights lasted the longest of the year, this heavenly motion comes back to life again, starting with the sunrise on December 25. We celebrate this annual rebirth of Jesus with the Light Feast as a continuation of the Germanic Midwinter Festival.

As the Roman deceivers want this to be hidden from the uninitiated, they moved Jesus’ day of death from December 21st to “Good Friday”, that is, the Friday before Easter, which is today. Furthermore, they changed the meaning of this Passover to the resurrection of the Savior, which in reality occurs every year on December 25th.

Just like Christmas, also the Passover is originally a Germanic feast. As we celebrate during the Midwinter Feast our survival of the year’s darkest part, we celebrate during the Eostre Festival the fact that within a natural day the day time period has again become longer than the night time period. In other words, the light of the day has again overtaken or passed by the darkness of the night. The official version of the origin of the name “Passover” tries to fool us by pointing to the Hebrew word “Pesach”, but that is like putting the world upside down. In reality, the name “Passover” originates from the old Germanic verb for ‘passing by’. Somehow ‘passing by’ and ‘taking over’ merged into “Passover”. Another myth is that the name “Easter” is referring to the East. This is nonsense, as it is derived from the Old English “Eostre”. Actually, it is all quite straightforward, only by examining these names.

This (long) weekend, we celebrate the fact that the daily lighter period has taken over or passed by the nightly darker period. In other words, the entire period of natural day is again ruled by Light, and no longer by Darkness. We can also examine the way we still use the verb ‘pass’ in our contemporary language. For instance, we pass a deed. After this deed is passed, the previous owner passed it on to the following one. Similarly, we also pass a ball from the previous player to the next in various ball sports.

When we imagine a full year as a circle, then the straight lines that connect the starting points of opposing seasons form a cross within that circle. This is the true Cross of Jesus, as shown in the figure on the right-hand side. Opposite to the beginning of winter on (about) December 21st lies on this circle the beginning of summer on (about) June 21st. These two points are called ‘solstices’ from solstitium in Latin, literally meaning ‘solar standstill’. However, it is not the standing still of the Light Bringer, but the standstill of the daily growing (or shrinking) of its arc-like path. Likewise, opposite to the beginning of spring on (about) March 21st lies on this circle the beginning of autumn on (about) September 23rd. These two points are called equinoxes from aequinoctium in Latin, literally meaning ‘night getting even’ (with day). On these two days a year, the nocturnal darker period and the diurnal lighter period indeed get even.

Furthermore, in case you want to learn more about the original Germanic holidays, then study the Germanic Moon Calendar.

Resurrection and the Feminine Divine
The Christian holiday of Easter is the archetypal summit of the year, where rebirth and
resurrection are venerated in the mystery of Jesus Christ’s awakening from the tomb. In Christian orthodoxy, Easter is known as pascha, the Greek and Latin term referring to the Jewish Passover.
The Apostle Paul uses this word as a title for Christ, “For Christ our Passover lamb [pascha], has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5.7). By the end of the first century CE early Christians had reinterpreted the Exodus story and the Passover ritual as a prototype for the sacrifice of Christ.

The word “Easter” itself, however, is Old English, from Eastre or Eostre, a title derived from an old English month now known as April. Christian Easter is celebrated on the first Sabbath after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This holy-specific day most often occurs in April and is representative of the most fertile time of the year, when sun, moon, and earth are all in their phases of rebirth and awakening. Easter is therefore the day of resurrection, in heaven and on earth. And this heaven-earth relationship is only an archetypal symbol for the heaven-earth awakening that occurs in the soul of God, or in the spirit and breath of each mortal man and woman. In Christian rite and belief, every soul will arise like the sun, moon, and earth, to a new immortal dwelling.
Despite this traditional context, historically, Easter had feminine roots.  Significantly, the old English month of Eostre was itself named after a goddess whose rites of rebirth were celebrated at the same time among the early inhabitants of Britain and Northern Europe. Eostre was a Germanic goddess whose name is cognate with the Proto-Germanic austrôn, meaning dawn or to shine. This deity belongs to a long line of female divinities who are goddesses of the dawn, and are found in various forms throughout Indo-European cultures as beings who bring light and life to the world. For thousands of years before Christianity the divine being who brought forth resurrection was represented as a goddess. Inanna, Isis, Rhea, Cybele, and Demeter are beings with the divine stewardship over rebirth.

The Japanese Amaterasu is a goddess of the dawn who also brings light and life to the world. While these deities were seen as the powers behind the fertility of all things on earth, they also held stewardship over the mysterious cosmic principle of heavenly life. In the Greco-Roman mystery religions, the revitalization of the initiate was promised via the gifts and boons of the goddess. This should make sense as in fact it is only woman who can bring forth life from her womb. In many respects, the rites of rebirth analogized the tomb with the womb, so that those going into the beyond could be reborn by a Heavenly Mother whose womb was the cosmic precinct of immortality.

The Goddess in Prehistory
“As far back as the Paleolithic Age,” writes Maarten J. Varmaseren, “one finds in the countries around the Mediterranean a goddess who is universally worshiped as the Mighty Mother” . From 30,000 to 10,000 BCE, adds Joseph Campbell, “the [Goddess] is represented in those now well-known little ‘Venus’ figurines” . A limestone relief found in southwestern France in the Pyrenees is illustrative in this regard. Dating to 25,000 BCE, an engraved Venus image is shown holding a bison horn inscribed with thirteen vertical strokes. This is the number of nights between the first crescent and the full moon .

The Goddess figure is holding her swollen belly with her other hand, suggesting that at this early date, the lunar and menstrual cycles were connected, and that the Goddess figure was symbolic of the whole archetypal complex of the feminine divine: life, birth, and death.

According to Joseph Campbell, the goddess has three functions:

“one, to give us life; two, to be the one who receives us in death; and three, to inspire our spiritual, poetic realization” Read more here

 

– The Forgotten Craftsmen Who Built Europe’s Medieval Monuments

Who really built Europe’s finest Romanesque monuments? Clergymen presiding over holy sites are credited throughout history, while highly skilled creators remain anonymous. But the buildings speak for themselves.

This groundbreaking book explores the evidence embedded in medieval monasteries, churches and castles, from Mont Saint-Michel and the Leaning Tower of Pisa to Durham Cathedral and the Basilica of Santiago de Compostela. Tracing the origins of key design innovations from this pre-Gothic period—acknowledged as the essential foundation of all future European construction styles—Diana Darke sheds startling new light on the masons, carpenters and sculptors behind these masterpieces.

At a time when Christendom lacked such expertise, Muslim craftsmen had advanced understanding of geometry and complex ornamentation. They dominated high-end construction in Islamic Spain, Sicily and North Africa, spreading knowledge and techniques across Western Europe. Challenging Euro-centric assumptions, Darke uncovers the profound influence of the Islamic world in ‘Christian’ Europe, and argues that ‘Romanesque’ architecture, a nineteenth-century art historians’ fiction, should be recognised for what it truly is: Islamesque.

– the diverse roots of medieval architecture

A beautifully-illustrated account of the Middle Eastern influence on Europe’s great buildings

From Cairo to Istanbul, the ancient cities of the eastern Mediterranean tell a story of conquest, trade and coexistence written in stone. Jerusalem’s seventh-century Dome of the Rock and its surroundings are dotted with recycled Persian, Greek, Hasmonean and Roman stonework, along with choice fragments from churches. In Damascus, the eighth-century Umayyad Mosque features intricately carved capitals from a Roman temple and relics of St John the Baptist transferred from the church it replaced. The cross-pollination extended from design and materials to people – the shimmering gold mosaics that cover the interiors of both buildings are attributed to the Byzantine master craftsmen whose forerunners decorated the churches of Constantinople and Ravenna.

This sun-drenched historical patchwork could seem a long way from the gloom of early medieval Europe. But in Islamesque, cultural historian Diana Darke sets out to show Islamic art’s influence on Europe’s Romanesque monasteries, churches and castles, via a very similar story of surprising borrowings and occasional thefts. It is a companion to Darke’s previous book, Stealing from the Saracens, which argued that European masterpieces from Notre-Dame to St Paul’s took inspiration from the Muslim world, and whose eye-catching examples included Big Ben’s resemblance to the 11th-century minaret of the Great Mosque of Aleppo.

Islamesque begins with equally sweeping claims of a “controversial, revolutionary” thesis: that Islamic influence has been less “forgotten” than deliberately suppressed by chauvinists and culture warriors. But the true focus of the book lies at the other end of the scale, in the micro-details of archivolts and muqarnas, squinches and joggled voussoirs.

To research it, Darke covered a staggering amount of ground, visiting “hundreds of Romanesque buildings scattered across England, Wales, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Sicily, not to mention scores of sites across North Africa, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey” – many of them shown in 150 beautiful colour illustrations.

Darke’s starting point is an exploration of a zigzag motif she traces from the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for “water” through Coptic (Egyptian Christian), Islamic and western architectural traditions to the courtyard of the Ottoman merchant’s house she bought and restored in Damascus. The book then itself zigzags – sometimes disorientingly – through space and time. There is a fascinating chapter on the Fatimid architecture of Cairo: the buildings created by the Isma’ili Shia dynasty that founded the city and made it the centre of a caliphate that in the 11th century stretched from Sicily to the Hejaz in the Arabian peninsula. Darke is clearly an enthusiast and it is a pleasure to follow her from the exquisite shell-like facade of Cairo’s tiny al-Aqmar (“Moonlit”) Mosque, rich in esoteric symbolism, to the defensive bulk of the Bab al-Futuh and Bab al-Nasr city gates. (The book is loaded with intriguing digressions including, here, one on the highly decorated Coptic desert monasteries that inspired Celtic Christian art. By the sixth century, so many Irish monks were travelling to visit Egypt’s monks and hermits, Darke writes, that a guidebook was written for them, today preserved in Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale.)

So how did the advanced geometry, engineering and artistry needed to create buildings like these make its way to comparatively backward Europe? Darke identifies several portals, first among them Sicily. By the end of the 11th century the island had been seized from its Muslim rulers by the Normans, who razed its palaces and mosques and constructed hybrid Arab-Norman-Byzantine replacements.

In Spain, meanwhile, as the extent of Christian and Muslim territories waxed and waned, buildings such as Córdoba’s Mezquita changed hands and the boundaries between languages and cultures blurred. Through these routes – along with the Crusades and trade with the Italian entrepots of Venice, Genoa and Amalfi – Christian Europe drew on the superior knowledge and skills of the Islamic world and its craftworkers to create its own monuments.

The results spread even to the damp islands at the other end of the continent: Darke cites Wells Cathedral, where 13th-century stonemasons labelled sculptures with Arabic numerals centuries before their use became widespread, and Peterborough Cathedral, where carpenters created an intricately jointed and decorated wooden ceiling using techniques then unknown in Europe. Islamesque doesn’t need to be “revolutionary”; it offers an enjoyable and eye-opening reminder that Europe’s heritage has far more diverse roots than we assume.

 See also : Wisdom of Craftmanship Versus Modernity

• “Rebel in the Soul”

To start our Migration to the Spiritual Land of Peace ,  we look  at an old text  known as papyrus 3024 from the Berlin Museum, known  as “Man arguing with his Soul” or the “Rebel in the Soul” we can perhaps study one of the earliest accounts of the confrontation with the ego.

 – Rebel in the Soul: An ancient Egyptian dialogue between a Man and his Soul

This controversial text, that was meant for initiates at the threshold of the Ancient Egyptian Inner Temple, speaks to us with intriguing relevance to the problems of today. Taking the form of a dialogue between a man and his soul, this sacred text explores the inner discourse between doubt and mystical knowledge and deals with the rebellion and despair of the intellect at a crucial stage of spiritual development.
The first complete and consistent translation of the Berlin Papyrus 3024, which is thought to be nearly 4,000 years old:

“The man’s soul tells him that men of greater value than he have suffered from the world, and advises him to gain an insight from his attitude and search to overcome his despair.

It is An Egyptian temple text, related with the God IAI, an aspect of the Solar God, the stubborn donkey. It shows the intellectual rebellion of our Ego.

“The stubborn, passionate, long-suffering ass is the perfect natural symbol of our rational personality. It bears, like the ass, the weight of all our suffering, and carries us through life. It is stubborn, selfish and refuses to go where we think we best…

Carrot and stick:

….Yet paradoxically, it is the same stubborn ass, and only the ass, that can carry the Rebel to salvation; mounted upon the ass, man is mounted upon his own rebellion. The ass is the father of all rebels, but also the carrier of redemption.”

In Ancient Egypt, Iai, the Great Ass, is the aspect of the Sun God with Ass’s ears.  This is Osiris in his listening state; listening equalled wisdom to the Ancient Egyptians. The Book of the Gates depicts the progression of the sun through the night. The Twelve Hours of Night are depicted as regions of the Underworld. Each region is an Hour, and each Hour has its gate through which to pass. To pass, we must know the name of the gatekeeper, or guardian.

This is the same as identifying the layers of egos we each have within – an ego is what others might call one of the deadly sins, Pride, Envy, Greed…all those different aspects of the personality that can prevent us from progressing through the gates or stages of spiritual development.  When we look inwardly at the aspects of our personality that rule or affect our lives, we need to recognise what is affecting our spiritual progress; if we learn to use it wisely and become its master, instead of it being master over us, we then recognise the Guardian of that Gate – can name the Guardian, and can “pass through the Gate”. Consciousness moves from Gate to Gate.

In the argument with his Soul, the man is bargaining for the right to die because he can no longer face the suffering of living in this world without his mentor. In Ancient Egypt, it was believed that a man and his Soul would be judged together in the afterlife; the Soul can make appeals on his behalf.  So the man is arguing with his Soul to persuade it that killing himself is the correct thing to do, as he wants it to accept his reasons, and agree with him so that it will stay with him after death and make favourable appeals. However, his Soul has other ideas..

“I spoke to my soul that I might answer what it said:

To whom shall I speak today?

Brothers and sisters are evil and friends today are not worth loving.

Hearts are great with greed and everyone seizes his or her neigh­bor’s goods.

Kindness has passed away and violence is imposed on everyone.

To whom shall I speak today?

People willingly accept evil and goodness is cast to the ground everywhere.

Those who should enrage people by their wrongdoing

make them laugh at their evil deeds.

People plunder and everyone seizes _his or her neighbour’s goods.

To whom shall I speak today?

The one doing wrong is an intimate friend and the brother with whom one used to deal is an enemy.

No one remembers the past and none return the good deed that is done.

Brothers and sisters are evil

and people turn to strangers for righteousness or affection.

To whom shall I speak today?

Faces are empty and all turn their faces from their brothers and sisters.

Hearts are great with greed

and there is no heart of a man or woman upon which one might lean.

None are just or righteous and the land is left to the doers of evil.

To whom shall I speak today?

There are no intimate friends

and the people turn to strangers to tell their troubles.

None are content and those with whom one used to walk no longer exist.

I am burdened with grief and have no one to comfort me.

There is no end to the wrong which roams the earth.

When we consider the age of this text, from  XII Dynasty  Egypt (approx 1991-1783 BC), we can see that the nature of the woes and troubles of humankind have changed very little.

The man’s soul tells him that men of greater value than he have suffered from the world, and advises him to gain an insight from his attitude and search to overcome his despair.  It tells him some allegorical stories – the first being the “mythical field of transformations”; both the field AND the plough are to be found within man. The field is the ground; the earth, where the soul of the man dwells, and is to be cultivated by the ploughman – the man must “cultivate” himself.

The harvest is what is then offered back to the soul. The “harvest”, what is left of the man after his life, is in dangerous hands if left uncultivated. It is exposed to a “storm from the North” said to indicate the Head (Reason); the storm is consciousness threatened by intellectual rebellion.

The man at this point in the story, when his Rebel/ego is arguing for survival, is not yet ready to let the wisdom of his heart rule his intellect, and this is symbolised by the crocodile. The man’s heirs, in the story he is told by his soul, are eaten by a crocodile whilst still in the egg, before they are fully formed, before they have lived, and will never realise their potential. See The Rebel in Soul by Bika Reed and here The Rebel in The Soul: The Wisdom of Ordinariness

• Brueghel : the apocalypse within

The Fall of the Rebel Angels or The Archangel Michael Slaying the Apocalyptic Dragon, Dulle Griet or Mad Meg, and The Triumph of Death.All three panels are again the same overall size. The link is provided by the Apocalypse.

see also Analyse of the 3 paintings here

Notwithstanding the “predilection of his age for symbolism and allegory”, the eulogy of Ortelius that Bruegel ‘depicted many things that cannot be depicted’, the search for hidden truths, and the idea that this artist was deliberately obscure and cryptic, considering the dangers inherent in being openly critical, a degree of circumspection is only to be expected. With these three works, here we also have Bruegel’s major excursion into the world of Jheronimus Bosch. The first, the Rebel Angels, was at one time attributed to Bosch, the formal language of the second, Dulle Griet, is distinctly reminiscent of Bosch and the third, the Triumph of Death, has all the apocalyptic power of Bosch – and more; a landscape of death, one where the promise of redemption and resurrection is absent. God is nowhere to be seen. Or is it more we, our ego denies the existence of God?

Is the Message of Brueghel more like this:  There is no God … But God?  Recognising the eternal struggle in the soul of man between the sinful earthly being or nature, dominated by earthly wisdom, and the divine nature of God,Brueghel asks us a total submission.

The 1560s was no time for children’s games. Amused by each of these spectacles of humanity, people miss the underlying seriousness of Bruegel in everything he does. Bruegel transports us back over four centuries to a time when everyone looks to be having fun. Where did all the good times go? Within 50 years of this painting the European world appears to be have been struck by an epidemic of depression that plunged young and old into months and even years of morbid lethargy and relentless terrors. We seem to have been living with it ever since. The decline in opportunities for traditional pleasures is later reflected in John Bunyan’s march to a life free of fun. In Pilgrim’s Progress carnival is the portal to Hell, just as pleasure in any form, sexual, gustatory, convivial, is the devil’s snare. It seems that while the medieval peasant enjoyed the festivities as an escape from work, the Puritan embraced work as an escape from terror.

Progress came with a price. The new world had not yet made a Faustian pact with the Devil to gain its brilliant advances in science, exploration and industry but it had swept away some of the traditional cures for the depression that those achievements brought in tow.

But still, the old world had its own demons to fight. As visitors to the museums where this group of three pictures hang, smile, laugh even, and check those inventories of activity, the link between laughter and spirituality goes unnoticed.

The ability to laugh can help us through the best and worst of times. Its importance for our spiritual wellbeing is generally neglected.

Brueghel used the personnage of “Dulle Griet’ to express this kind of stubbornness  as the stubborn donkey of the Egyptian papyrus from 4000 years ago. It shows the intellectual rebellion of our Ego.

Modern Man with all his “economical grow- energy” knowledge and scientifical research based on rebellion against his Soul, wants to find (without his soul) the solutions to all the problems he createdand  is landed in an apocalyptic “theather” prophesying the complete destruction of the world.

an as stubbornness of the intellectual rebellion of our Ego so acting  as “Whore of Babylon” discribed in the Book of Revelation.

Only by killing earthly wisdom and the lusts and properties in his soul would man enable Christ to be reborn within himself and be united with God, thereby restoring that `oneness’ referred to at the beginning of the Theologia Germanica: 

• “Sin is selfishness:Godliness is unselfishness:A godly life is the steadfast working out of inward freeness from self:To become thus Godlike is the bringing back of man’s first nature”.
• Christ as Child in the Heart of the true believer.

What does love look like?
It has the hands to help others.
It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy.
It has eyes to see misery and want.
It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.
That is what love looks like.

Saint Augustine

In the 5 cirkels is written: “Gave van Barmhartigheid“: Gift of Mercy , “Gave van Genade’: Gift of Grace, “Gave des Levens” ( in the heart): Gift of Life, ” Gave van Medelijden”: Gift of Compassion, “Gave van sterkte“: Gift of strength.

• The Spiritual Message of Bruegel for our Times

Bruegel’s Philosophical Circle

Bruegel the man – as opposed to his paintings – remains more or less invisible to history. There is nothing written by him and, with one exception – Abraham Ortelius’ remarks in his Album Amicorum which will be discussed below – there is nothing by his contemporaries that provides a glimpse into his intellectual, psychological, philosophical or spiritual outlook. But those with whom he is known to have associated are among the most brilliant and outstanding men of their time; many of them were men of renown in the world. The writers, artists and religious thinkers whose names are linked with Bruegel were men of the humanist movement who, inwardly at least, rejected the politics and dogmatic rigidities of conventional religion in favour of a search for such philosophical and mystical truths as can be approached through methods of contemplative spirituality.

Like the gnostics before them they cultivated the art of complete inner freedom from conventions and preconceptions. Outwardly, like Lipsius, they could maintain the appearance of conformity, even if lightly. Others like Niclaes, the founder of the House of Love, more openly declared themselves ^„filled with God‟ and set themselves up as teachers, though Niclaes himself encouraged his followers to disguise their innermost convictions and let themselves be counted among the Church’s faithful.( A practice known as Nicodemism, a position whereby Christians could hide their dissenting beliefs while conforming to mainstream religious rituals).

Theirs was a form of gnosticism in that they gave priority to the action of knowledge granted by the Spirit over the disciplines of conformity to church regulations. It can be argued that they were students of esoteric Christianity and heirs of the Perennial Philosophy. Read more here

• Mutiny of the Soul

Depression, anxiety, and fatigue are an essential part of a process of metamorphosis that is unfolding on the planet today, and highly significant for the light they shed on the transition from an old world to a new.

When a growing fatigue or depression becomes serious, and we get a diagnosis of Epstein-Barr or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or hypothyroid or low serotonin, we typically feel relief and alarm. Alarm: something is wrong with me. Relief: at least I know I’m not imagining things; now that I have a diagnosis, I can be cured, and life can go back to normal. But of course, a cure for these conditions is elusive.

The notion of a cure starts with the question, “What has gone wrong?” But there is another, radically different way of seeing fatigue and depression that starts by asking, “What is the body, in its perfect wisdom, responding to?” When would it be the wisest choice for someone to be unable to summon the energy to fully participate in life?

The answer is staring us in the face. When our soul-body is saying No to life, through fatigue or depression, the first thing to ask is, “Is life as I am living it the right life for me right now?” When the soul-body is saying No to participation in the world, the first thing to ask is, “Does the world as it is presented me merit my full participation?” Read More Here

• The Spiritual Land of Peace:

Look and behold: there is in the world a very unpeaceable Land and it is the wildernessed land wherein the most part of all  impenitent and ignorant people do dwell and in which is, the first of all needful for the man; to the end that he may come to the Land of Peace and the City of Life and Rest. ( from Terra Pacis  by Hendrik Niclaes of the Family of Love,)

The same unpeaceable land has also a City, the name of which they that dwell therein do not know, but only those who are come out of it, and it is named Ignorance.

The “Dulle Griet” as “whore of Babylon” ,  in the land of Ignorance by Brueghel:

Dulle griet is the representation of the  Whore of Babylon living in a land of Ignorance.

The Whore of Babylon in the The Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers

The Whore of Babylon or Babylon the Great is a symbolic female figure and also place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17 (verse 5) as Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.

The word “Whore” can also be translated metaphorically as “Idolatress“.^[1] The Whore’s apocalyptic downfall is prophesied to take place in the hands of the image of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. There is much speculation within Christian eschatology on what the Whore and beast symbolize as well as the possible implications for contemporary interpretation.

Dulle Griet is the model of modern man’s  Rebellion  against his soul and  Anger against it. How can Dulle Griet find  a way to calm her anger?

She can looks in  the mirror and see herself,making more “selfies”, so  seeing more anger as the portait of vanity of Hans Memling shows us. The lady see only more vanity  The message of Memling is in his Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation  focuses on the idea of “Memento mori,” a Latin phrase that translates to “Remember your mortality.” Memling’s triptych shockingly contrasts the beauty, luxury and vanity of the mortal earth with images of death and hell. In the time of Breughel and in our times  the message is  that  Vanity is not the solution. see: Nothing Good without Pain: Hans Memling”s earthly Vanity and  Divine Salation

All Is Vanity by Charles Allan Gilbert (September 3, 1873 – April 20, 1929)

The phrase “All is vanity” comes from Ecclesiastes 1:2 (Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Don’t change the world in hopes of changing yourself,

change yourself so the world changes because of you.

• In this land of Ignorance, for the food of men, there grows neither corn nor grass.

The people that dwell therein know not their original or first beginning;  neither do they know from whence, or how, they came into the same. And moreover then, that they are altogether blind, and blind-born.

The forementioned city, named Ignorance, has two Gates. The one stands in the North, or Midnight, through the which men go into the city of darkness or ignorance.

This gate now, that stands to the North, is very large and great, and has also a great door, because there is much passage through the same; and it has likewise his name, according to the nature of the same city.

Foreasmuch as that men do come into Ignorance through the same gate, therefore it is named Men Do Not Know How to Do. And the great door, where through the multitude do run is named Unknown Error; and there is else no coming into the City named Ignorance.

The other gate stands on the one side of the City, towards the East or Spring of the Day, and the name is the Narrow Gate, through the which, men travel out of the city and do enter into the Straight Way which leads to Righteousness.

Now when one travells out through the same Gate, then does he immediately espie some Light, and that same reachs to the Rising of the Sun.

Here the symbolism, taking up the theme of the ‘bread of life’, i.e. spiritual nourishment, employs the images of ‘corn’ and ‘seed’ whose esoteric meaning was discussed earlier and which will be met again in the paintings by Bruegel of the Harvest and the   Ploughman (Fall of Icarus).

The importance of spiritual nourishment – or rather the lack of it – is discussed in the section dealing with the Peasant Wedding Feast( in construction) (Marriage at Cana) where the lack of wine is shown to correspond, by rhetorical imitation, with famine imagery in the Old Testament where the sense is that of ‘famine for the word of God’.

‘Landscape With The Fall of Icarus.‘ It is the only painting Bruegel did with a non-Biblical mythological subject. W.H. Auden’s poem ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’ describes it:

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just

walking dully a long; …

In Bruegel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash. the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky.

Had somewhere to go and sailed calmly on.

The painting shows Icarus, barely discernible, already submerged but for his legs. The ploughman in the foreground, the fisherman with his back to us, the shepherd leaning on his crook staring at the blank sky , his back to Icarus, the ship sailing away from Icarus to the horizon as the tones of earth and water fade toward the splashing pastels of a setting sun on the horizon, all underline Bruegel’s comment on the folly of human ambitions.

He had , as other Northern intellectuals, been familiar with Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly and the tradition of the “fool literature’ of the time, especially Brandt’s ·Ship of Fools’ (The Narrenschiff, 1494).

The painting represents a rendering of the German proverb: ‘No plough comes to a standstill because a man dies.’ As such, it establishes a continuity of myth and the times, but rather than make the event tragic he makes it inconsequential next to the mundane pursuits at hand. We come upon the actors in tableau , frozen as in a movie still about to come into action; the splash frozen too – creates a tension but one soon to be exhausted and consumed by the natural splendor of the sunset.

Here the painter has produced an eidetic effect: he has captured the event’s meaning while at the same time debunking its grandiosity.

The mundane elements of work and subsistence capture our attention, until as an afterthought we notice pale Icarus about to disappear. All of this is cradled in nature so that the painting becomes a pageant of indifference with a sense of cosmic irony. It is the scale of nature which makes the scene great though the actors in both harmony and tension with nature are unaware of the forces at work.

Hence, Bruegel’s ‘throwing away of the title ,’ a technique borrowed from the mannerists whom this painting debunks as well. Here Bruegel has entered a controversy over the desirability of Italian painting that raged among Flemish painters at the time. The realism of the Flemish plowman, anticipating in style and flavor Thomas Hart Benton’s rural apotheosis, the barely discernible corpse in the wooded area in the left middle ground , the theme of the fall, and the fragile make-believe classicized buildings moving toward the horizon to which all goes and from which everything comes, all point to a rejection of the hegemony of classicism, the debunking (relativizing) of mythologies superimposed from the outside, and an identification with indigenous Netherlandish elements represented by the peasantry.

• When we consider the age of this text ( The Rebel in the soul), from  XII Dynasty  Egypt (approx 1991-1783 bc), we can see that the nature of the woes and troubles of humankind have changed very little. This is where the text can also be read as a text of initiation.

The man’s soul tells him that men of greater value than he have suffered from the world, and advises him to gain an insight from his attitude and search to overcome his despair.  It tells him some allegorical stories – the first being the “mythical field of transformations”; both the field AND the plough are to be found within man. The field is the ground; the earth, where the soul of the man dwells, and is to be cultivated by the ploughman – the man must “cultivate” himself.

The harvest is what is then offered back to the soul. The “harvest”, what is left of the man after his life, is in dangerous hands if left uncultivated. It is exposed to a “storm from the North” said to indicate the Head (Reason); the storm is consciousness threatened by intellectual rebellion.
The man at this point in the story, when his Rebel/ego is arguing for survival, is not yet ready to let the wisdom of his heart rule his intellect, and this is symbolised by the crocodile. The man’s heirs, in the story he is told by his soul, are eaten by a crocodile whilst still in the egg, before they are fully formed, before they have lived, and will never realise their potential.

The ‘heir’ in the egg symbolises what the cultivated man could become. Here we can see it as an unborn Akh.

The Man’s Ba is teaching him that The Great Ass, the ego and False Self,  must be sacrificed to the crocodile. Unless this sacrifice is made, the man cannot travel further through the Hours of the Night to the light of dawn;  he will never integrate with his mystical body and be re-born.

Anubis, the god of the Underworld, is also the god of helping us realise our full potential, as protector of the Soul in its journey through the Underworld.

Reed tells us:

“The Ancient Egyptian Myth which describes the birth of the redeemer, Anubis, gives us an insight into this dramatic turning, or birth into higher consciousness. In this myth, the jackal god is pursuing Seth, the Enemy of Light, who takes the form of a panther and escapes the dog.

But the mother dog, Isis, sees the panther and catches up. Terrified of the wild bitch, the panther transforms himself into the dog, his own pursuer. But Isis digs her teeth into his back. Caught, Seth cries, “Why are you pursuing this poor dog who does not exist?” The myth then says “And this is how he became. HE BECAME (IN PU) is the Egyptian name for Anubis, the first Priest of Osiris. The Redeemer (IN PU) only comes to life by seeing his own “inexistence”

In other words, we will only reach our full potential when we ‘pursue’ ourselves, and by doing this – the Work on the Self: cultivation, we will understand the need to sacrifice our false identity. Our ego will argue for its own survival, and this Rebel will put up the greatest fight, until we recognise it for what it is – a false non-existent self – and are born into higher consciousness, as our own “heir”.

The man shows he has understood:

In truth, he who is yonder will be a living god,
punishing the crime of him who does it.

In truth, he who is yonder will stand in the Bark of the Sun,
making its bounty flow  to the temples.

In truth, he who is yonder will be a wise man,
who cannot, when he speaks, be stopped
from appealing to Re !

His Ba answers:

Throw complaint over the fence,
you my comrade, my brother!
May you make offering upon the brazier,  and cling to life by the means you describe! Yet love me here, having put aside the West! [the West is where the deceased goin the Ancient Egyptian belief system]

But when it is wished that you attain the West, that your body joins the earth, then I shall alight after you have become weary, and then we shall dwell together!”