25 - Foundation

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. Around me the Masters of the Ages are closer than even my own eyebrows.
2. I lay my footsteps where theirs have fallen,
3. I submit to the memories that still linger in the air,
4. I seek to make out their forms in the heat and the distance.
5. Precious human life, once gained, Has great potential but is easily lost.
6. Even devoted to Allah, yielding my eyes to his every glance, death is quick to strike.
7. Into this greatest of illusions we draw our veils with us.
8. Into this greatest of illusions we draw the the seeds we have sown.
9. Into this greatest of illusions we draw the the unripened fruits of the seeds we have sown.
10. Discard the veils, sow good seed, trust in the truth of Allah, the one.
    
11. There will be no bestowal of amnesty, no reprieve.
12. Your every breath, continual rememberence of Allah.
13. Your every glance, continual rememberence of Allah.
14. Your every thought, continual rememberence of Allah.
15. You need not fear the senses, they are Allah's!
16. You need not fear the mind, it is Allah's.
    
17. Do not mistake your experience as your own for that is the crux of illusion, that is the gate of samsara.
18. Realize the veils of illusion;
19. Cultivate wisdom;
20. Cultivate the mind of awareness.
21. Live in accord with the law of causation.
    
22. Train your mind, body and spirit.
    
23. Awaken!
24. Face the dawn of Awakening and set to work, your journey is just begun.

11 - The Well

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. That which you see as trapping you
2. of limiting you
3. of constraining your soul from freedom
4. is your salvation!
5. Your eyes have not yet adjusted to it
6. you are a man in a well who bemoans his fate
7. trapped in the wet and the dark at the bottom.
8. When the lone shaft of light reaches your eyes
9. do you not marvel at its brilliance?
10. When your narrow view of the sky turns orange
11. with the fire that destroys the forest
12. are you not safe?
13. When thieves hide their loot in the depths of your well
14. do you not have all the riches you need?
15. when the moon arises and shines into your world
16. are you not bathed clean in its light?
17. You are trapped, to be sure, but you want for nothing.
18. And when the villagers need that most essential to life,
19. it is your kingdom they visit.

75 - The Resurrection

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. By my body and by my soul!
2. Do the unbelievers not see that Allah is the source of all?
3. Do they not see how he is the Lord of Science?
4. Do they not see that there need be no grand design beyond the law of causation.
5. Before the beginning of time and space, Allah was playing.
6. Allah created Love like a potter would throw clay.
7. Allah created Wonder, Earth, Water, Time, Space, Void.
8. Allah created the law of causation, sublime and just.
9. Once he set in motion the law of causation, Allah, contented, breathed himself upon himself.
10. For a brief moment Allah played with forgetting - and in this moment our longing arose.
11. We long to be reunited with Allah, for dimly we remember the time before.
12. Man questions: "When is the Day of Resurrection?"
13. When indeed will the dead walk again among the living?
14. The day of Resurection is the day of Awakening.
15. Awaken! Be not merely reborn but awaken to the nearness of Allah.
16. Upon Awakening, one exclaims: "Here is my refuge! Here is my respite! Here lives sorrow in the bosom of the infinite!"
17. Some faces, that Day, will beam in brightness and beauty;
18. Looking towards their Lord;
19. And some faces, that Day, will be sad and dismal;
20. Looking towards their Lord;
21. But all faces will be in Joy; in the radiance of their beloved.

86 - The Night-Comer

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. Deep in the midnight of dreams a star of piercing clarity.
2. The sweet love-gift of Allah!
3. A drop emitted; let man consider the source of his creation.
4. The law of causation is an inexorable chain of cause and effect.
5. What is the first cause, what is the last effect?
6. If the chain were not unbroken, there would be none to consider it.
7. If causation did not extend right to Allah, there would be none to know him.
   
8. Therefore grant a delay to the Unbelievers: give respite to them gently.
9. They are in the same malestrom of creation, but they do not see the face of the wind.

1 - The Opening

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!
2. O! Splendid Allah, the ever renewing source of the Worlds!
3. Thou Generous! thou Bestowing!
4. Beloved!
5. How I drop to my knees weeping, my Master, my love, my origin!
6. I hold aside the veils that I might breathe you in as you approach.
7. I walk with arms intertwined with my brothers of time.
8. I walk my zensufi path with arms entwined.

15 - The Rock

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. Those that do not believe that Allah is the One; indivisible, omnipresent, manifest and fully in every mote of the Universe, refuse the plenty that awaits them.
2. They say: "You messengers, you dervish, you saints who proclaim this! You are mad, your faces filled with the intoxication of your beloved!"
3. "Show us angels, show us miracles, heal us of our ills, if you have the truth."
4. They are surrounded by angels, their lips kissed by the winged ones.
5. They are in the presence of miracles.
6. The medicine is in their mouths.
7. They would be paid before the work was done, beggars at the table set for them.
8. The message has been sent from the moment the first day dawned, from the moment Allah forgot and all time, all space, all creation was manifest.
9. Allah sent messengers to point the way, sellers of water by the fountain; wandering saints of the deserts, hermits of high mountain passes, ordinary men and women who had stood in the presence of Allah and understood that all is one, that one is Allah.
10. He sent them to the sects of old, he sent them to the corners of the earth.
11. But never came a messenger to them that they did not mock him.
12. For those who recognized the messenger, he was robbed of his humanity.
13. Never did they let the messenger be as he was, but dressed him in the raiments of kings.
14. So afraid were they of Allah, that they made his messengers exemplars.
15. So afraid were they of Allah, that they placed the example beyond their own reach.
16. They do not trust in the simplicity of the message, such has been the way of those who went before them.
17. If Allah rended from them the veils of illusion, opened out to them a gate from heaven, if they were to walk the earth arm in arm with the beloved, they would only say: "Our eyes have been intoxicated: We have been bewitched by sorcery."
18. It is Allah whose playfulness, whose moment of forgetfulness, set out constellations, spread out the Earth out like a carpet; set thereon mountains firm and immovable. Allah manifested the means of subsistence, the fecundating winds. It is Allah that causes the rain to descend from the sky, and provides water in abundance.
19. It is Allah that provides the veils, and Allah that provides the laws that govern the world of veils.
20. Allah is your every condition, Allah is your every faith, your reconcilliation, your despair.
21. Your joy or sorrow is a condition of Allah.
22. Your respiration, your life, your death are a condition of Allah.

29 - The Golden Path

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. There is naught but the Divine.
2. There is no origin, there is no termination, there is no end to origination, no end to termination.
3. A seed always yields fruit according to its kind and nature. It manifests in its own season.
4. There is no absolute other than the One, the Divine.
5. The Divine is directly experienced by the liquid state of energetic samadhi.
6. Quiescent samadhi is a precondition of energetic samadhi.
7. Divine Love is the spark that enlivens quiescent samadhi and yields energetic samadhi.
8. Energetic samadhi transcends the order, appearence and nature of time and position.
9. Matter and energy are illusions, echoes of reality, energetic samadhi casts a light on these illusions.
10. No act is in isolation. All beings, woven of the threads of Divine play, are upon the same tapestry. The tapestry is not other than the Divine.
11. We are not called to be servants of the Divine, the Divine has no need of servitude for there is nothing that the Divine does not posess, thus nothing that we can offer.
12. We are called to be servants of creation. We are brothers of the stone, the wind, the flame, the winter storm, the flow of life. We are to protect, guard, cherish, guide and defend.
13. We are not to despise our weaknesses, nor vaunt our strengths: they are tools, not possessions. You would not run house to house showing off your new hammer. These tools must be used to polish the stone so our brothers may see their reflections; so that we may recognize the luminosity of our true nature.
14. Imagination leads reality.
15. Petty thoughts, petty deeds, petty words deepen our own darkness and that of those around us. They cast stones in our paths and serve no purpose but to make more difficult our path and that of all others.
16. False praise and flattery lay burdens on the backs of all who travel.
17. Words and deeds that are freed by Divine love, that are gentle and true cast light. Because the way is dim, an often as possible we should act from energetic samadhi and illumine the way.
18. There are paths that are dark, though they speak of the light. While a cricket may live within a closed fist, it will only sing when it is free. Resist, chastise, oppose those who close the fist over the cricket of your soul. These are your brothers, love them by denying them their violence against the divine.
19. When we are little, the light must be carried for us by those that surround us, known and unknown. When at last we can carry the light ourselves, then we may take up the fullness of the task. Each differs in the time when they can take the light to their own soul.
20. To those that carry the light, love, as you may, all who carry their own light. When you join in body you come as close to union with the Divine as can be done in the physical form. It matters not the physical form, the multiplicity, or the details. It matters only that light meets light, and that it is a mutual union.
21. We are physical, we are souls, we are light. We are none and yet all of these things. The knowledge of the world is not to be ignored for belief.
22. Belief must be subject to the inspection of knowledge, pursued by science, rationality and experience. The tools of logic, experimentation, science and discourse free us of weighty illusions and keep us from becoming slaves to misperceptions of a world all together real and all together illusory.
23. Do not be bound by the tools of science, rationality, experience and logic. Transcend, but do not deny them.
24. Throw away all rules that are not in accord with Love, that do not lead to freedom, that do not express the true nature of the Divine. You
25. do not need a list of attributes. Your list is written in the magnificence of energetic samadhi.
26. Actively oppose ignorance, but do so in the bosom of the Divine. Oppose ignorance not to punish; do not seek to pursuade or cajole. There is no negotiating with ignorance. The light of truth is but glare to those who cling to hatred and hostility.
27. A master may lead you on the path. They are masters because you recognize and love them. Their purpose is to guide you on your path, to walk along side you for a time. It is your duty, your goal, to surpass them. Love them fully, for you would be alone without the sounding of the distant horn.

40 - The Believer

Thou Allah! Thou Gracious! Thou Merciful! Thou Beloved!

1. Here is the echo of the voice of Allah, the shadow of that which is light.
2. Here is the scent of the one who is. Allah - who is all things and is nothing.
3. Here is the song of the zensufi mystic, timeless and still.
4. The signs of Allah are omnipresent, the veils of illusion and distraction are decievers, yet even they are Allah.
5. The truth of Allah is like water deep in the ground, trickling through the sandstone, living, moving.
6. Allah is not diminished by slander, nor increased by praise.
7. Allah set all cause and effect into motion. Allah is the very substance of all that is, Allah is the space between, the moment before and the moment that follows.
8. The signs of Allah surround you at every moment: he is not just the wind, but the presence of the wind.
9. There is no direction you can point that is not Allah, no mirror into which you can gaze that does not show his face.
10. What of the believers? How may we know who follows the way of Allah?
11. That they live in accord with two truths: There is nothing but Allah and all effects are preceeded by cause.
12. That they seek Awakening.
13. That they are a beacon of serenity, of love, of joy.
14. The Buddhist knows Allah as a principle, the law of causation as karma.
15. The Christian, Jew and Muslim know him as God, as YHWH, as Allah; the law of causation as 'as you sow, so shall you reap.'
16. When the Light has been lost, they struggle - their distance from Allah hard in their hearts like the terror of a bad dream.
17. In their struggle they ossify their experience of Allah into faith.
18. By faith they live, by faith they die.
19. They cause suffering and death in the name of their faith.
20. They believe through distrust; yet call upon Allah with sincere devotion.
21. They exalt him in his attributes, praise him in his glory and squander their lives in making separation from Allah their creed.
22. The day of judgement upon which they wait, with seething desire for vengance against those they judge infidel will come on their death.
23. Their pious hatred of the other will wreak havoc upon them for they have forgotten the law of causation.
24. Allah's law of causation is swift in taking account.
25. No intimate friend nor intercessor will they have to assuage their plight.
26. The law of causation coldly acts upon the treachery of the eyes, and all that their hearts conceal.
27. They have sought to judge and so set their fate in stone.
28. Allah hears and sees all.
29. The believer hears the truth and it brings him into closer union with the beloved.
30. The believer hears the untrue and allows it life, but does not feed it.