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Dear Yogis,

We all ask ourselves – whoever brought me here.  You are not the first to ask.

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.      By Rumi

We all ask ourselves the question which has no answer “why am I here”….Rumi was no different – more eloquent of course, but no different.  He was closer to God and therefore closer to the answer, and we can be there.

All we have to do is to sit, and He will come.  We can strive, we can give, we can DO and DO and DO and be no closer to the truth.  When we stop and take time to hear the still small voice, we then have a chance to answer the question.  Covid is continuing to give you this opportunity.  Whether you take it, is entirely up to you.  You can long for the future when you are free, but I say you are free now, in this very minute, but you don’t know you are, and haven’t been grateful for this wonderful opportunity that has presented itself to you.  We don’t know when it will come again, so live every minute of it with gratitude.  It is wonderful.

I hope to share A couple of hours of Sunday with you – Teacher Training (and The Tarot Course on Saturday).  Bring your mind as well as your body.

LOVE AND BLESSINGS.

NAMASTE.  Jahne

 

 

Dear Yogis

As my heart is seeking it finds you in every soul I meet. – Ibn’ Arabi

https://youtu.be/56sCYO_9XfM

This morning we can consider LOVE, and the story of Rumi the Persian Poet, and his lover Shams.  It is a wonderful example of love, courage, service and duty.  Love and death.  When I listen to the words of Rumi, and the music,  my heart also calls for the desert,  but I have been put here to write to you, to be with you. I am not who you think I am.  Do you know about you?

Rumi started his adult life as an authoritarian teacher, head of a community, strong husband, feared and honoured by most. A Judge. But inside he knew this was not life.  Like the Christian Saint Peter, he was at heart a homosexual..  He had no passion, no love.   Trying to be the person his family and community wanted him to be,  he was strangling the person he was at his heart.  These things have a way of surfacing, and so they did when he met Shams, and we are told,  fell instantly in love..  (and that is another story – there are many).

This meeting with the Dervish, transformed Rumi from an accomplished teacher and jurist, to an ascetic.  He left behind everything solid, everything stable to be with his Lover.  We don’t know much about his wife and children, but at the end end he was buried with great honour in the family tomb. Reconciliation and acceptance  occurred, and his poetry changed a community,  a country, and then reached the world.  Such is life – only the angels would understand.

Shams Tabrizi,  Rumi’s love, an itinerant poet, mystic,  had travelled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could “endure my company”. A voice said to him, “What will you give in return?” Shams replied, “My head!” The voice then said, “The one you seek is Jalal ud-Din (known as Rumi) of Konya” and the music was born.

However, on the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is rumoured that Shams was murdered with the connivance of Rumi’s son, ‘Ala’ ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.

Rumi’s love for, and his bereavement at the death of Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realised:

Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!

Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din’s death, Rumi’s scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi’s companion. One day, the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside Konya when Hussam described to Rumi an idea he had had: “If you were to write a book like the Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the Mantiq ut-Tayr of ‘Attar, it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it.” Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written the opening eighteen lines of his Masnavi, beginning with:

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
How it sings of separation..

Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.

In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal, which begins with the verse:

How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as companion?
Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have iron legs.

Rumi died on 17 December 1273 in Konya.  His death was mourned by the diverse community of Konya, with local Christians and Jews joining the crowd that converged to bid farewell as his body was carried through the city.  Rumi’s body was interred beside that of his father, and a splendid shrine, the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb, قبه الخضراء; today the Mevlana Museum, was erected over his place of burial. His epitaph reads:

When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.

 

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY.  The sun is shining, and there is a gentle breeze where there has been an icy wind..  beautiful.

Open your eyes, for this world is only a dream – Rumi

NAMASTE.  JAHNE

 

 

Dear Yogis,

Now we will come to yoga.  You have read about actions and non actions and the results of both.  To learn how to control the mind you must learn how to control the mind.

“Meditation” the word is used for all kinds of practice.  When people talk to me about how they meditate I tend to glaze over as mostly it is apparent that they have confused meditation with contemplation or just thinking. As my teacher said to me “Are you a warrior? to meditate this is what you must be”.  It was not an easy thing and it was not to be treated lightly.  Meditation is the first step on the road to Enlightenment.

In order to meditate you must prepare. First watch the breath. Now I am breathing in, now I am breathing out.  I challenge you to do more than a few breaths without your mind wandering away.  If you are honest, about ten breaths.  That’s OK.  The whole point of this exercise is to bring the mind to neutral.  Watching the breath is not the act which will set you free, but knowing what is happening when it is happening will be helpful.

Ask yourself why you want to meditate.  Why are you here?  I believe it is because you want to answer the questions you have never been able to ask or answer.  The questions children ask.  Why are we here? Why do we die? Why do we get old and sick?  We teach them not to ask, and they in turn become adults who tell their children “these questions have no answers”.  The Church tells them these questions will be answered when you die.  Do you want to wait that long?

Decide here and now that you will meditate with a goal in mind – to find the answers to these questions.  Do not waste your life playing with lesser objectives.

To begin ask The Enlightened Ones and your Heart Teacher to join you.  They will come.   You bowed to them before you sat, bow to them again, and then imagining the glorious Beings in front of you,  bow down deeply in gratitude, happiness and awe, as you will when the time comes that you actually see them.. your head and hands touching their heavenly feet. Sit. Imagine the most beautiful flowers in all the world and shower your Guides with these flowers in gratitude, and ask gently for their help.

Now, clean your conscience.  You cannot take this journey with a heavy heart.  As in the 12 Step program, remember those you have wronged and beg their forgiveness vowing to keep to the the narrow path. Just doing this one thing will expand the beauty of your meditation beyond what you could ever imagine.

Now do the opposite.  Think of all the good things you have done, all the good thoughts, words and deeds.when you do this your heart will be bursting with joy to overflowing.

Now, ask your Guides here present for their guidance.  Ask them to continue to appear to you in all the ways and places that they can (and they can astound you).  Ask them to appear as teachers even as people around you – the people in the street, at the supermarket, on the TV.  That they will continue to teach you and continue to guide you along the Path.  Ask then from your heart, to always be near you, to never leave you, always teaching, always guiding.  When you do this, a great quiet will fall over you.

Now understand this –  silence is not the goal.  The silence is not the meditation.  Chickens can sit quietly and produce nothing more than an egg, as beautiful as that is, it is still an egg.  The truth is IN THE SILENCE of meditation.  Meditation is the tool, it is not the goal.  Ultimate wisdom is the heart of the path. Meditating for the sake of meditation would be like having an axe and burning it for warmth instead of using it to cut down a tree for greater warmth.   If you sat for months without thought would that be helpful?Not really, eventually you would get ill and die.

To enter the serious path to meditation you really do need to learn from a teacher.  It is more difficult to learn from a DVD, or zoom, because a teacher must disturb you in order to help you to understand where your mind is along the path at any time.

Laziness is the greatest enemy in meditation.  Many meditators waste their time in useless fog.  They tell themselves their mind is empty and this is good, and it is what they aim for.  It is not useful.  Mental dullness has become a drug to these students.  They are addicted to the excuse of inaction and nothingness. They feel nothing.

In the beginning bring the face of your Heart Teacher to your mind and keep it there, bright and real.  To deal with agitation, bring your thoughts back to your heart. Slow the breaths, count them if you must. Think of your meditation experience however it is,  as a large flock of birds, swirling and dipping as the wind changes – but always a flock of birds.

When you have mastered these steps,  and are able to keep the picture clearly in your mind you must watch for the monkey telling you that adjustment is necessary when no adjustment is necessary.  That is the final trap.  Only when you have mastered the basics, can you begin to use the meditation for problem solving.  When you meditate regularly and correctly, it will seem as if one meditation attaches seamlessly to the last no matter the time that has passed in between sessions.  You will find yourself growing in insight.

Think lastly of the way to end your meditation. Think of a pond, and imagine a drop of water entering that pond, see the ripples going outwards from the drop of water – the sacred event of your meditation.  Imagine these ripples getting longer and stronger, waves of happiness touching every living thing around you.

Are you asking yourself what to meditate on? As my teacher said, begin where you must begin.  Your heart teacher is there to teach you.  Ask for help, have faith and trust and the answer will come.  Please log on to this short video.  It may help.

Meditate, meditate meditate

Namaste – Jahne