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y godmother/mother-in-law and I went to see Eckhart Tolle tonight, yes the same one of Oprah fame. We got the tickets last month before I knew he would be catapulted to stardom, which is sort of amusing. Actually everything is amusing after experiencing Eckhart Tolle. He's the fulfillment of the expression "it's so true it's funny" except it's also tragic that it's so difficult to really be here for the present moment, when that's all that ever was and will be. Everything one hopes and dreams for, to recognize us and exalt us with happiness and joy - we miss the whole thing.

Of course it's ridiculous to try to talk about it, and mad props to Eckhart for actually being able to. His complete lack of any apparent personality probably makes this so. In any case it's useless to speculate. I'm busy now breathing in and out. There are peanut M&M's on my desk. In an attempt to inject some beauty in this office where I miserably try to perform my duties, I purchased flowers yesterday at the farmer's market, and they've drunk half their water and some have opened from buds without me even seeing. But that's okay, because I'm watching now. And I'll watch and watch some more, for as long as I can until my thinking motor kicks in. There will be several more attempts for me to get this, I'm sure. But the less I think about it, the better.

Posted by Satya at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

y husband and my dog both share a wonderful quality: they are overlookers. Well, actually my dog doesn't really notice faults in the first place, but it's still an incredible feeling to walk around all flawed and damaged and imperfect, and receive pure love nonetheless.

It's something though, to notice fault and overlook it. Murshid talks about this in his writings, but it's one of those states I'm aware of and yet struggle to make real. Even though I know pointing out a flaw won't help the situation, I can't let go sometimes of the need to be right. My poor little self is somewhere in there, crying out to be acknowledged and elevated in the state of public correctness.

From the Gayan:
By accusing anyone of his fault,
you only make him firm in it.

The reason I want to get better at this is because I've experienced the love and good feeling that grows when I know I've been wrong, and yet my husband (or others I know who practice this) did not expose me and shame me. I want to return the favor. And also, in the fake it till you make it approach, I feel the less I give weight to criticisms by voicing them, the less they will bother me in the first place. This applies to self-criticism as well.

I've asked my husband how he can be so good at this, and he replied (in my own words, as I'm sure he would express this differently) that small little personal matters, the minor creaks and groans of everyday living, just aren't that big a deal to him within the larger context of one's long life. It's quite true - traffic and lines and annoyances don't really get under his skin. He's got his eye on the prize, the big prize. And that's the one I want to eye as well.

Posted by Satya at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

heard about a certain man in India who has a good philosophy about paths that are blocked. While leading a circumnambulation around a certain tomb, a sweeper had propped a broom in such a way that the handle blocked his path. But rather than break the rhythm of his prayer by moving the broom or by finding someone to do so, he waited and he prayed, and in time another sweeper came by and picked it up, and he proceeded on his way.

Now if one were in a constant state of circumnambulation, as one might argue we are from a galactical viewpoint, at every blocked path one could wait, and one could pray, and in time the way would become clear. In fact I just heard someone else say that everything you wish will happen in life, you just must wait for it.

I've been noticing these last few days how ways become blocked. People who seem half-asleep amble into a doorway, and stay awhile. Lumbering trucks back out into the road, attempting to head in another direction. Sometimes, for a moment, the way is so blocked that it seems life has stopped entirely. But it moves on as a record does while reaching its correct speed, and the music begins to play again.

While tuning his guitar during the last session of Suluk, someone said if we felt like we were waiting instead of just being, we might need to repeat the four years. I think it's true but in my case at least, it won't be necessary.

Posted by Satya at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

took Shahada in a black Nissan Sentra at the end of Chairfactory Road, outside my best friend's house overlooking a cornfield. It was morning and the wind had picked up, and the tree outside her house was waving hello. I don't know if this is the type of thing done often in a rental car, but my friends didn't need to be awakened with my proclamation, and I hoped I would think of it often in future times when I got behind the wheel, because it's nice to think of one's unity with God when in ordinary places.

I know of my responsibilities associated with this three-second activity, the ones both real to me and the ones projected upon one who makes such an utterance. That is why I waited so long to say it with intention. But the time and task feel right, and I believe there is no God but God, and I love Muhammed (SAAS), so why does it need to be any more complicated?

Shahada to me is the seal in the wax, the ring on the finger. Making it official, saying yes to something I've loved for a long time. Needing no witness but God. Needing not to awaken any sleepers. Just taking one moment in the silence that is only stirred by wind to invoke, to testify, and then turning the key and driving on down to breakfast.

Posted by Satya at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ately my life has been consumed by preparations for my next kung fu test, the first degree black belt (I currently hold a plain black belt, or level zero). I remember when I was testing the last time, and the people testing for their first degree had to do so much extra during the test that I was glad I wasn't one of them. Well, now I am.

Lately, after class, I've been starting the long drive home and just bursting into tears. This test for me brings up so many complicated emotions. My body feels rubbed raw, and its exhaustion means I'm too tired to contain things behind my usual wall of stoicism, so they come bubbling forth to the surface for expression and examination.

The first emotion is of longing, with which I have some intimacy. And all my longings are really longing for God, except this time it is the particular manifestation of God represented by what I am trying to become by passing this test. Did you get that?

The second emotion is fear that I won't pass muster, even though I know I will. It's bizarre, but it feels like giving birth to a raging lion. Not that I've given birth, but I've seen women starting the labor process wild with fear that they can't do it, even though they have no choice but to proceed forward.

What if I actually become my ideal of power? It's a very difficult position. Not even imagining my ideal, but being close enough to smell, touch, and taste becoming it. Will I die or implode? I think I know that I won't, but I've never done this before. All I know how to do is try. And sweat. And cry all the way home.

Posted by Satya at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

y friend and I are into being badasses. Not the type where you make everyone know it, but the true badass of striving for your ultimate potential, realizing God through discovering a divine capacity within your own self. Perhaps even fulfilling the purpose of your life, or at least one of them. Unfortunately, though our hearts are in the right place, my friend and I don't always know what we're doing.

So we're trying. My friend, through the combination of a powerful hallucinogenic experience and a number of other factors in his life, is contemplating whether he can start to just do the work that comes to him naturally, instead of constantly trying to wrangle any opportunity into a safety net for the future. Relaxing completely into life despite fear of financial and other instability. The anti-go-getter. For him this is not just a work-related shift but one that would profoundly affect his whole life, since he's at a point where he can pretty much live anywhere and do anything. It's a risk that could go horribly wrong or lead to becoming a badass on an entirely new level.

I have a similar change in the works -- not specifically with business, though that's a part of it. No part of my life seems to be untouched by it lately, though I can't articulate it as a whole very well. And since it hasn't happened yet, I've been stewing in the tension and confusion that often precedes it. But I can feel the rumbling on the tracks.

What's most important for me in these kinds of transitions is a spacious environment - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So it's going to be challenging heading off to Suluk for ten days and keeping some room open. Some room not to squish the ego in a misguided parental scolding towards humility, but to breathe on it and let it grow so large and so true that one little body couldn't possibly contain it. No matter how badass they are.

Posted by Satya at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

et's be real here. I'm afraid of failing at my business, or even messing up on a day-to-day basis for that matter. I'm afraid of losing my best friend to a completely hypothetical situation. And I'm afraid that M. will slowly and gradually lose interest in me and never say a word about it until it's entirely too late to fix.

Those are the top three at the moment, and I don't know how acknowledging them will help except merely to get them off my chest. Sometimes I feel like a baby being set down in the crib, involuntarily splaying arms and legs as I feel the support going out from under me. And God is great but can be awfully quiet sometimes.

I'm sharing this to be perfectly clear that just because I meditate, or try to, and because I believe in God does not in any way exalt my lowly station in life. I feel this is a common misperception in my spiritual community, and in others as well I'm sure. Suluk is coming up again at the end of the month and I guess sometimes I dread looking at all the carefully composed facial portraits of stillness and wondering why I'm the only one with my eyes open.

Posted by Satya at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

y father is not a big talker. He doesn't make idle chit-chat. In fact, I'd say he only communicates what is necessary, and no more. This can lead to some amusingly abrupt phone conversations at times, but now that I'm grown up I feel like I understand him more, and have come to realize how much I take after him in a multitude of ways. I think I use more words in speech than he does (hey, that's not difficult), but a similar vein of silence runs through our generational gap.

More and more now, I seem to cultivate silence like a fine wine. That's why morning is my favorite time. M. is asleep with the dog, the cat lets out a few meows and purrs as I feed him breakfast, the coffee maker a sizzle or two. Other than that, a long and lovely silence stretches before me. I don't mind when it's broken later on by the activities of the day, but when it's on, it's on.

I'm getting my momentum back, here in my new life with a fiancé and a house that's daily becoming less strange and more ours. After morning prayer I set my timer for a few minutes and disappear into the silence. Sometimes it has a gentle motion to it, like how I'd imagine it feels to bound slowly across the moon in gravity boots. Sometimes I feel the singular quality of being alone with my God, though of course that's a sticky subject.

And silence has its own atmosphere when stretched from person to person, like when the whole ridiculousness of hurling through life with another catches up to you, which by the way, planning a marriage happens to exacerbate. There are many things M. and I can speak about and many that we can't. But sometimes you just have to shake your head and smile, and the silence conveys the unspoken.

Posted by Satya at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ast week I discovered I'm a pretty good shot. Our friend came down for the weekend for a wedding, and his stay with us coincided with his birthday. So as a gift I took him down to the shooting range for a basic pistol lesson, something we've been talking about casually for a little while. I had never held a gun before.

After some basic instruction we stepped into the range. I had to wear ear and eye protection, and the room was dark and carpeted, with a booth on each lane. All these factors gave it a feeling of surreal sensory deprivation, and suddenly it felt like I was all alone - just me, my breath, and a deadly weapon.

Continue reading "Me, My Breath, and a Deadly Weapon" »

Posted by Satya at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

hen Muhammad (SAAS) left Mecca for Medina, the heat was on him around town. His enemies had decided to kill him before he could spread Islam any further. On the night the hijra began, he gave Ali (RAAS) his cloak and told him to sleep underneath it in his bed so his enemies would think he was there. (Despite the inherent danger in slumbering in a wanted man's place, the faithful Ali apparently had no trouble catching some z's.) Meanwhile Muhammad fled with Abu Bakr to a cave outside of town.

His enemies figured out what was going on soon enough and were hot on the trail. But a spider had spun an intricate web across the entrance, so they passed on by, thinking no one could have been inside for years. For this and other reasons, we are a spider-friendly household.

It's a good thing, too, because the number and variety of spiders around here is astonishing. On the deck outside our bedroom, a huge web stretches from the railing to the roof, with a giant fat spider making himself at home. We don't plan on disturbing him.

The other night I was bitten as I slept three times on my head and neck. One of the bites swelled into a painful lump behind my ear. I'm hoping it will help innoculate me for the future, because with houses and nature, I think there should be some compromise.

Posted by Satya at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

o far small-town living suits me. Yesterday after spending the day working in my new office, I took Virgil exploring down our street. It had just rained and the redwoods smelled incredible. There's a little foot bridge that leads into town, about a ten-minute walk. It spits you out on a tiny little street, and when you turn around you can't even see where you came from, like a secret passage. From there I walked a couple blocks to the farmer's market and bought a Belgian waffle from a food truck, happily getting powdered sugar all over my black clothes.

Rhythm is something I try to attune to, because I've found it to be very important. Murshid writes about it a lot too, drawing analogies between music and life. A steady rhythm is all I need to be productive, to be happy, to do a little at a time even when the task seems completely overwhelming (i.e. moving). I still haven't gotten it down completely here, but the pace is slower and gentler than my former city life. M. seems impatient to complete all the house projects as soon as possible, but I'm starting to enjoy the process as it comes, one piece at a time. Yes, it's a mess, but it won't be that way forever.

And in the meantime, there are neighbors to greet and walks to take and vegetables to buy. The children of Fairfax are running a homemade media campaign to promote slow driving, their magic marker posters hung all over town. Normally I'd be more cynical about this type of thing, but in this case I'd say it's good advice.

Posted by Satya at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

tripping things away is slowly becoming a new joy in my life. Sending away old clothes. Cutting away my old hair. In the medicine cabinet, only the things I need and use. Don't get me wrong, this apartment has a long way to go overall. But instead of worrying about future hypothetical needs for objects or fretting about wasted money (money is a thing one can't help but waste in one way or another), I have a vision of being surrounded only by the things I love and use. No more. The rest can be released into the world, and it doesn't matter to me a bit what happens to them.

It's amazing that in my spiritual environment that encourages turning away from the material world, decluttering is not better supported and encouraged. (Though Murshid does write on purifying one's environment.) In my own family there's a lot of unspoken guilt, especially concerning items given to us by each other. And in the homes of my friends and associates in the spiritual community, one finds far more cluttered alters of dusty pictures, feathers, and rocks than the simplicity that suggests an ascetic bent.

There's something much more powerful about a clean and bare table.

So I'm working on it. Don't take me for a decluttered saint - I'm a major offender myself. But the more objects I disassociate myself from and release into the world, the better I feel. I'm seeking that feeling of being rid of my physical burdens. I don't want to be responsible for all these things.

Posted by Satya at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ately I've been dealing with a new issue concerning my morning meditation practices: timing. Flylady often states the importance of routine, and Hazrat Inayat Khan's teachings on rhythm convey the same sentiment. When you have a routine, things flow along with much less effort. Children naturally blossom under the safety of routine, and as a grownup I don't feel much differently about it. I can't stand it when my routines are off and my life is in chaos.

So in the morning for some time now I've woken up at a particular time, showered, dressed, put the coffee on, and done my practices. By the time I was done with them the pot was brewed and waiting, and I would take a cup in to my office and drink it while checking my email and such.

The problem is that since the last Suluk session I've been given two new practices, which take anywhere from an extra twenty to thirty-five minutes, depending on how much I feel like doing. By this time the coffee has lost a bit of its fresh luster, and I am beginning to get anxious about starting my work.

Yes, I could always get up earlier, but I don't know how much of my life I'm willing to trade in for meditation, even with full awareness of the benefits it provides. I always come up against this wall at some point, because one of my favorite sentiments of Hazrat Inayat Khan is that mysticism may be practiced in everyday life, without running off to the hills to become an ascetic. And my routine was really working for me, so I'm sad that now it's somehow lacking.

Maybe I could get up a bit earlier and also brew a bigger pot of coffee. Maybe I can carve out a small piece of the afternoon, just stop my work entirely and unplug the phone and try not to worry about clients. That would be a challenge. I don't think I could possibly work in extra time to my before bed routine, what with my long parade of facial products and missed prayer catch-ups that are already difficult to juggle with a man and a dog all tumbling into bed pawing at the covers and tossing pillows about.

And I guess the ultimate sentiment is that I don't feel like extra meditation time could possibly increase the presence of God in my life any more than it already exists, so what exactly am I practicing for?

Posted by Satya at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

y conscientious self: Do not spare yourself in the work which you must accomplish." Or so states one of the Iron Rules of Hazrat Inayat Khan (there are also copper, silver, and gold). We went through the Iron Rules earlier this year in Suluk, and Pir Zia gave an inspirational talk on each one. I really like rules and laws, not necessarily to follow blindly, but to weigh and wonder and ponder over.

I especially like rules or even hadith that come from someone who had a spiritual or religious focus in mind, as opposed to laws that arise out of a democratic process. Because as any active voter in San Francisco can tell you, deciphering twenty-odd bizarre propositions each election can be a twisted take on the glue that holds our society together.

Continue reading "An Iron Rule vs. The Fog" »

Posted by Satya at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

aaahhh, there's nothing like the peace of the country for a long silent meditation, especially when you're staying in a cabin with a beautiful view from the deck, miles from civilization. That is, until your dog decides it's play time and barks so loudly at your determinedly peaceful self that his bark echoes across the canyon, and is returned by a fellow canine, only to cause a long doggy dialogue with miles of valley between the participants. I think you can imagine the effect on my concentration, but that is something we're supposed to work on anyway.

I tried again the next day, but in a cabin situated in such a quiet peaceful setting one can't help but overhear the bustlings of the other inhabitants, struggling with their very worldly problems: a toilet that wouldn't flush, a hilariously mislaid piece of compost, a forgotten machete. I wouldn't think it, but it's true that I do my best meditating in the middle of the city, when I'm alone in the apartment. The dog is still asleep and I nestle in on my thick comforter in my small room away from the street, wrapped in sort of a muffled quiet of white pillows and blankets. The coffee is on and as it brews its scent is otherwordly.

But although at the cabin there are unexpected distractions, the distractions are caused by my family, whom I love. And they are all accomplished meditators themselves, so they understand my predicament, but cannot all pause their lives while I take a few breaths. And no, I cannot awaken earlier than my mother, whose very name refers to her propensity for beating the sunrise every time.

So at times like these I want to just give in to life, and open my eyes and help with the toilet and laugh at the squished lemon and offer an opinion on how to return the machete to its rightful owner. Doesn't that seem more natural, and more kind, than enacting the separation of silence, even though it's only temporary?

Posted by Satya at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

oing on the premise that Sufism is all-consuming and one never has a moment that has no relationship with God, I have a conundrum from time to time when something feels particularly unholy. Even more so when that feeling is pleasurable.

For example: the desire to be desired. I'm twenty-eight and I don't like the idea of succumbing to a future of being shapeless and sexless. This was most apparent when we did an exercise last year trying on a number of different qualities, with "sexy" being one of them. As we discussed our experience in small groups, the word "sexy" rang out again and again through the room, as everyone honed in on it. Most of the people in Suluk are older than I am (there are a few of us under 35) and it seemed to the next generation up that "sexy" was quite a revelation.

Continue reading "The Divine Quality of Hotness" »

Posted by Satya at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

y family is really close. I have an older brother, Afsal, with whom I live, and our parents live across the Bay about thirty minutes away. Yesterday we all got together for Father's Day at their house. When we hang out together we do really domestic things: read the paper, take the dog for a walk, eat dinner. It feels good.

After dinner we watched a bit of this documentary called Sunseed, which Afsal had procured recently at Suluk (he's also in the program, in the class that started a year after mine). It was made in I believe the early seventies, and contains interviews and clips with a number of spiritual leaders at the time, from gurus in India to our own Pir Vilayat. We got to see some of the people we know well now at the time when they were our age, full of idealism and...well...grooviness.

Continue reading "As Long As We Were Spiritual" »

Posted by Satya at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

reat shoes are very me. I like high heels in particular, though not when they're impractical. But in the right setting, a wedge, a stiletto, a pump are all highly satisfying. I'm tall, and with heels, I don't mind being even taller. I like sashaying down the street. I like not having to look up so much.

At the Abode, where Suluk is held, and at the homes of Sufi friends or those with Buddhist or even hippie tendencies, I often find myself at the mercy of a strictly no-shoe policy. What is the idea, really? To not track dirt in? To put us all on the same level? To show respect for a holy place?

I don't mind, really, but I seldom feel satisfied when I take my shoes off at a door. I don't feel like it makes me any more pious. I feel like it makes me less me. When I remove my shoes out of love, such as at a dargah (Sufi tomb/shrine), it's a very different feeling than removing them out of obligation (crunchy dinner party). Because with the latter, the part of myself that loves my shoes and is proud to wear them still exists when the shoes are off, and I feel incomplete without them. It's only with the former that I can freely feel flat-footed.

So when you come to my house, I want you to be you. Remove your shoes if you wish, but if you don't, bring me in some dirt and sand and mud. Bring me in some things from this earth. I want to see you fully outfitted, raised up as high as you want to be.

Posted by Satya at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

meditate almost every day. There is one practice I do every day come hell or high water, but on the hell and high water days it's done hurriedly and half-assedly. The rest of my practices fall to the wayside on those days. To me there's the ideal and then there's the reality. Ideally my practices should be done after ablution, on some sort of rug, probably early in the morning before distractions start filtering in. But today my room looks like someone projectile-vomited dirty laundry everywhere, and I'm sitting there thinking about how cute my dog is.

I say, "Enh." It doesn't bother me. I've got some kind of ember that keeps burning no matter what practice I do, because that ember is the reason I do all this in the first place. Do practices help? Sure, in their subtle way, but they're part of a bigger picture. They're practice. And as one of my favorite masters, Flylady, says, "Housework done badly still blesses your family." Amen.

Posted by Satya at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)