SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS -- 54

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF HUMILITY

+ Once again I turn to that great Sufi teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan (see SE posts 22, 31, 45 and 46):

There is a story of a dervish who spoke with a young man who was very interested in his words of wisdom. The young man said, 'If I come to your part of the world, I will come to see you. Will you tell me where you live?' The dervish replied, 'I live in the place of the liars'. ... When he went to that country and asked for the dervish, the people said, 'We do not know any place of liars, but there is a dervish living somewhere here'. So they took him near the graveyard where the dervish lived.

The first question the young man asked was, 'Why did you give me a name which is not the name of the place?' The dervish replied, 'Yes, this is a place of liars'. It was the graveyard. He said, 'Come with me, I shall show you. This here is a tomb, they say, of a general. Where is his sword, where is his power, where is his voice, what is he now? Is he a general? Here, this one was called a prime-minister. Where is his ministry, where is his office, where is his pen, where is his power? In the same ground! This person was called a judge. Whom is he judging now? He is in the ground. Were they not liars? Did they not tell a lie saying I am so and so, and I am such and such?'

   from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIV/XIV_16.htm

There is a beautiful story told of the King Akbar that when he was grieving with an almost ungovernable grief over the death of his mother, his ministers and friends tried to comfort him by influence and power. Akbar replied, "Yes, that is true, and that only makes my grief greater; for while I have everyone to bow before me, to give way to me, to salute me and obey me, my mother was the one person before whom I could humble myself; and I cannot tell you how great a joy that was to me."

Think then of the far greater joy of humbling oneself before the Father-Mother God on Whose Love one can always depend. A spark only of love expresses itself in the human father and mother; the Whole of Love in God. In whatever manner a man humbles himself it can never be enough to express the humility of the limited self before Limitless Perfection. Self-denial is not renouncing of things, it is denying the self; and the first lesson of self-denial is humility.

   from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/archives/prayer.htm

+ These paragraphs were included in the Bowl of Saki for November 8.

+ So, as you can see, Hazrat Inayat Khan clearly links humility to detachment,  or renunciation.  Yes, stillness and detachment lead to humility and humility is heavenly.  So, remain committed to those foundational mind practices.  You can return again and again to SE posts 1 to 48 for inspiration and illumination on these practices.  Spiritual Exploration often means returning again and again to places already explored since there is always more to learn and to share.

If you have any inclination to write at all, I urge you to write about your spiritual practice.  Writing often leads to greater clarity and deeper motivation to continue on this journey.  You are invited to share your insights.  Send them to john@abundancetrek.com and be sure to write Spiritual Explorations in the subject line.

+ Spirituality and Practice offers a wonderful 12s gallery of images and quotes on Humility.

+ You can always find a link to any of the Spiritual Explorations posts by going to http://abundancetrek.com/sepostsaccess.html