metanoia /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

“One important thing to bear in mind, in all this, is that the Buddha’s mercy is providential, but does not, for this very reason, suspend the Law of Karma: if beings will persist in ignoring that law while coveting the things mercy might have granted them, that mercy itself will reach them in the guise of severity; severity is merciful when this is the only means of provoking a radical metanoia (change of outlook), failing which wandering in samsâra must needs continue indefinitely. The nembutsu is our ever-present reminder of this truth; if, in reliance on the Vow, we abandon all wish to attribute victory to ourselves, the unfed ego will surely waste away, leaving us in peace.”

(Marco Pallis, Nembutsu as Remembrance; http://studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/Nembutsu_as_Remembrance-by_Marco_Pallis.aspx)

asleep /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

People are asleep, they wake up when they die.

الناس نيام فإذا ماتوا انتبهوا.

—

"Realize you know nothing and you are nobody. It is no easy thing to attain this realization. It does not come with teaching and instruction, nor can it be sewn on with a needle, or tied with a thread. This is a gift from God and a question of whom He bestows it on and whom He causes to experience it."

–– Abu Sa'id (early Sufi)

—

_In the traditional philosophy it is emphasized that "per-sonalities" are inconstants, ever changing and never stopping to "be"; "we" are not entities, but processes. Dr. Sullivan's words are-whether or not by intention— an admirable summary of the Buddhist doctrine of anattà. An attachment of permanent value to personality will be impossible for anyone who has seen things "as become" — yatha-bhutam, objectively, as causally determined processes. The first step on the way to a liberation from "the mother of illusions," and so toward an "infinite happiness," is to have realized by a demonstration that "this (body and mind) is not my Self," that there is no such thing as a "personality" anywhere to be found in the world. Life in a world of time and space is a condition of incessant change; and, as Plato asks, "How can that which is never in the same state be any-thing?" —Cratylus 439 E. Almost the first step in clear thinking is to distinguish becoming from being. The important thing is to know what "we" really are; but this is a knowledge that can only be acquired to the extent that "we" eliminate from our consciousness of being, all that "we" are not.” - AK Coomaraswamy

...have mercy on my weeping! /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

O my God, [You] are my Creator, have mercy on my weeping!

Receive my repentance and forgive my mistakes!

إلٰهى خالقى وارحم بُكائى

تقبل توبتى واغفر خطائى

ilāhī khāliqī wa-rḥam bukāʾī

taqabbal tawbatī wa-ghfir khaṭāʾī.

---included among the litanies compiled by the Naqshbandi shaykh, Ahmed Ziyaeddin Gümüşhanevi, Majmu'at Awrad wa Ahzab al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandiya, p. 110.

Ey Allah'ım! Yaratıcım! Ağlamama merhamet et, tevbemi kabul et, hatamı bağışla

Supplication in Arabic, calligraphed in 1319/1901-02, in the bold thuluth (celi sülüs) script, by Bakkal Arif Efendi. Signed 'Arif عارف

Original image and Turkish translation from

https://ketebe.org/eser/8309?ref=artist&id=170

THANKFULNESS, ALERTNESS - Rumi /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

THANKFULNESS, ALERTNESS - Rumi

Giving thanks for abundance

is sweeter than the abundance itself:

Should one who is absorbed with the Generous One

be distracted by the gift?

Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence;

abundance is but the husk,

for thankfulness brings you

to the place where the Beloved lives.

Abundance yields heedlessness;

thankfulness, alertness:

hunt for bounty with the snare of gratitude to the King.

MATHNAWI III, 2895-97

WHAT YOU SEEK IS SEEKING YOU by Baraka Blue /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

What you seek is seeking you
and what you speak you speak into
existence in a realm you’ll soon
awaken from this dream into.

When the being of light descends
and says “it’s now
my time to meet with you,”
then opens up the body’s cage
and lets the spirit free in you.

The mystery is deep in you:
If you yourself could peak in through
the veil of “you” that isn’t you,
but that you’ve come to think is you.

The one who poured before
is pouring more;
is there a leak in you?
You’re thirsty as the desert for the rain
but there’s a spring in you!

An oasis in the placeless—
come inside and have a drink or two.

This is no mirage,
the mirage is what
you think is true!

All is a mirage except the Face
that always speaks to you
through every single tongue—
all Praise the One
who is Uniquely True.

Rays of the feathered sun
point to one who casts its heat in you;
all the mirrored forms
reflect the Light,
look how it beams in you!

Who receives this breath of life?
And who is it that breathes in you?

The path of letting go of “you”—
is the only path that leads to you.

That paradisal tree, whose leaves
eternally, are deep in bloom.
The secret of all secrets is
you hold its very seeds in you.

The treasure that was loving
to be known
has hid its keys in you.

Is not the chest that holds its jewels
the chest that you are breathing through?

Mount the back of the Buraq
and grab his reins—the noble steed’s in you.
You think yourself a single drop of rain
and yet the sea’s in you!


Give yourself completely now!
Don’t wait until He seizes you!

You think yourself a creature made of clay
and yet He sees in you.

The ear through which He hears,
the very hand which He seizes through,
ma ramait itha ramait
it wasn’t you
but it was We who threw.

What you seek—
before a “you” to seek—
it was seeking you.

And the only thing
that’s keeping you from Oneness
is your seeing two.

---------


Video by Peter Wintrip
Shot in Fes, Morocco

(Press CC Closed Caption on video to see the words simultaneously)

Bhagavad Gita 2: 47, 71 /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

To the enlightened brahmana all the Vedas are of no more importance than is a small well in a place flooded with water on all sides.

...

That which is night for all beings, in that the self-controlled is awake. That in which all beings are awake is night for the sage who sees.

- Bhagavad Gita 2: 47, 71

eternity /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

“Blessed eternity is lived in the love of the knowledge and the knowledge of the love”—F.G.

The road to union is not what we imagined;

The world of the soul is not as we thought.

The source from which Khidr drank the water of life

Is in our own home, but we have buried it. 

  • Sadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d.673/1273–74)

(An nîst rah-e vasl ke angâshte-îm vân nîst jâhân-e jân ke pandâshte-îm ân chesme ke Khezr khorde z-ou âb-e hayât dar khâne-ye mâst lîk anbâshte-îm.)

“Secularism inherits from imperial Christianity a fundamental impetus either to convert, to control, or to radically domesticate other epistemes. … " -- Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “SECULARISM AND RELIGION IN THE MODERN/ COLONIAL WORLD-SYSTEM,” 382

“The “spirit of conquest,” embedded within the inner existence of Westerners, “goes under the guise of ‘moralist’ pretexts, and it is in the name of ‘liberty’ that they would force the whole world to imitate them!”  They “force everyone to interest themselves exclusively in what interests them, to put economic concerns above all, or to adopt the political regime which they happen to prefer. . . . And the most extraordinary thing is that they have similar pretensions not only with regard to the peoples that they have conquered, but also with regard to those among them,”  - Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 159

“On economic policy Democrats are indistinguishable from Reagan-era Republicans. On foreign policy they're indistinguishable from Bush-era neocons. But they're still able to sell the idea that they're progressive…, by copious lip service to social justice.”

the sun /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

"It matters not under what star you were born, only that you die under the sun of la ilaha ilaha illa Llah.”- Ahmad Ghazali

—-

‘Be true in your relationship with the Sovereign Creator, for He is the greatest one with whom you could relate in all your affairs and states. Know that He cares for those who turn to Him; relieves difficulties for them; is there for them in every circumstance, condition and change; and He shelters them in His Mercy, Grace, Pardon and Forgiveness. When light engages the heart, it causes an illumination of the path, a purification of the consciousness, an enlightenment of the intellect and an establishment of the foundations of dhikr and shukr and of beautiful worship.’ - Sayyidi Habib Umar bin Hafiz (May God raise & preserve him).

Meister Eckhart /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

All beings

are words of God,

His music, His

art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps

in our

souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His being.

I know that may be hard

to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best

to help God in His birth

of Himself.

Enough talk for the night.

He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent

for a while,

worlds are forming

in my heart.

Meister Eckhart

--- /  by Mustafa Gouverneur

The presence of God in form is Beauty, the presence of God in the will is Virtue, and the presence of God in the intellect is Truth.

"If the worldly kings knew the ecstasy we were in, they would send their armies with swords to try and take it from us."  ~Ibrahim ibn Adham (قدس الله سره).

"Islam began as something strange, and will revert to being strange, so give glad tidings to the strange ones."  ~The Holy Apostle Muhammad (ﷺ), as related in Ibn Majah.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable. - Seneca

"The first act of charity is to rid the soul of illusions and passions and thus rid the world of a maleficent being; it is to make a void so that God may fill it and, by this fullness, give Himself. A saint is a void that offers itself for the passage of God." - Frithjof Schuon

Sidi Ahmed Tijani r.a, Fez, Morocco