SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 326

WE ARE EXPLORING THE HEAVENLY ATTRIBUTE OF BEAUTY

+ We are called to create and enjoy a realm of compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance for all.

+ Hazrat Inayat Khan quotes on Beauty >

·         The Creator is hidden in his own creation. Natural religion is the religion of beauty.

·         Beauty is the object which every soul pursues.

·         Beauty is the life of the artist, the theme of the poet, the soul of the musician.

·         The same light which is fire on earth and the sun in the sky, is God in heaven.

·         All surrender to beauty willingly and to power unwillingly.

·         The creation is not only the nature of God, but also His art.

Go to http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/say/gayan_chalas.htm for more illuminating HIK quotes on Beauty, Love, Truth and more.  There are volumes of Sufi wisdom at that wonderful website.

+ Hazrat Inayat Khan was a prolific writer of Sufi wisdom and he often emphasized the importance of appreciating beauty.  The quotes above are only a taste of his offerings.  Sufism is the wonderful mystical branch of Islam which is now highly appreciated by those of us promoting the InterSpirituality movement.  It is so very important for us to appreciate the beauty of everything.  Beauty is everywhere.  Beauty is pervasive.  Beauty is abundant. Beauty is perhaps the most powerful revealer of that Love which permeates creation.   

+ Spirituality & Practice offers plenty of resources on the spiritual practice of Beauty. Also, there is an S&P Twelves Gallery of memes on Beauty.

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post.  And, I have work to do on the Abundancetrek Beauty page.  Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Beauty” or “Heavenly Attributes” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 256

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF HEAVENLINESS

+ This is a post on the style of The Way of Nature as we continue to explore Heavenliness through the lens of the 12 styles of the Mandala process.  There are 5 more styles to explore and then we will move on to the 9 Attributes of Heaven.

+ Anyone who has some knowledge of mysticism and of the lives of the mystics knows that what always attracts the mystic most is nature. Nature is his bread and wine. Nature is his soul's nourishment. Nature inspires him, uplifts him and gives him the solitude for which his soul continually longs. Every soul born with a mystical tendency is constantly drawn towards nature; in nature that soul finds its life's demand, as it is said in the Vadan, 'Art is dear to my heart, but nature is near to my soul'. ... Nature does not teach the glory of God; it need not teach this as nature itself is the glory of God.

-- Hazrat Inayat Khan

Read more at http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XI/XI_III_7.htm

What appeals to us in being near to nature is nature's music, and nature's music is more perfect than that of art. It gives us a sense of exaltation to be moving about in the woods, and to be looking at the green; to be standing near the running water, which has its rhythm, its tone and its harmony. The swinging of the branches in the forest, the rising and falling of the waves, all has its music. And once we contemplate and become one with nature our hearts open to its music.

-- Hazrat Inayat Khan

Read more at http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/II/II_10.htm

+ As in the previous post, this is Hazrat Inayat Khan explaining the importance of nature because nature is indeed nothing less than “the glory of God.”  God is revealed in this wonderful creation we see, hear, touch, taste everywhere and at all times.  We are part of this glorious reality. It is heavenly. It is now. It is here. We are called to create and enjoy this glorious reality, finding ways to expand compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance for all.  When we do this we are expressing our true nature, our real identity, as a heavenly being.  It is simply natural that we do this.  

+ So much of this great teacher’s writings can be found at Wahiduddin’s Web including a daily Bowl of Saki.

+ The Sufis have a long history of representing the mystical dimension of the Islamic wisdom tradition.  I think it is fair to say that they pioneered InterSpirituality long before the term was invented by Wayne Teasdale.  I love the idea that we all share sacred scripture because we all have this amazing Book of Nature which ultimately reveals all truth to us.

+ The 12 styles of Mandala: Creating An Authentic Spiritual Path: An InterSpiritual Process by Edward Bastian are listed in SE206.

+ The 7 steps of InterSpiritual Meditation by Edward Bastian are listed in SE21 and SE213. They are described fully in his book, InterSpiritual Meditation.

+ To get inspired and illuminated by Ed Bastian, I invite you to set aside some time for these videos:  Seven Steps of InterSpiritual Meditation (11 minutes) | 15 minute introduction to InterSpiritual Meditation and the Mandala Process | 2 hour lecture & conversation

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post on this practice or any practice.  And, I have work to do on my Heavenliness page.  Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Heavenliness” or “Love” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 255

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF HEAVENLINESS

+ This is a post on the style of The Way of Nature as we continue to explore Heavenliness through the lens of the 12 styles of the Mandala process.  There are 5 more styles to explore and then we will move on to the 9 Attributes of Heaven.

+ There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader.

Most people consider as sacred scriptures only certain books or scrolls written by the hand of man, and carefully preserved as holy, to be handed down to posterity as divine revelation. Men have fought and disputed over the authenticity of these books, have refused to accept any other book of similar character, and, clinging thus to the book and losing the sense of it, have formed diverse sects. The Sufi has in all ages respected all such books, and has traced in the Vedanta, Zend-Avesta, Kabbala, Bible, Quran, and all other sacred scriptures, the same truth which he reads in the incorruptible manuscript of nature, the only Holy Book, the perfect and living model that teaches the inner law of life: all scriptures before nature's manuscript are as little pools of water before the ocean.

To the eye of the seer every leaf of the tree is a page of the holy book that contains divine revelation, and he is inspired every moment of his life by constantly reading and understanding the holy script of nature.

When man writes, he inscribes characters upon rock, leaf, paper, wood, or steel. When God writes, the characters He writes are living creatures.

It is when the eye of the soul is opened and the sight is keen that the Sufi can read the divine law in the manuscript of nature; and that which the teachers of humanity have taught to their followers was derived by them from the same source. They expressed what little it is possible to express in words, and so they preserved the inner truth when they themselves were no longer there to reveal it.

This is one of the Ten Sufi Thoughts of Hazrat Inayat Khan which are fully developed in a web page on The Way of Illumination.  So much of this great teacher’s writings can be found at Wahiduddin’s Web including a daily Bowl of Saki.

+ The Sufis have a long history of representing the mystical dimension of the Islamic wisdom tradition.  I think it is fair to say that they pioneered InterSpirituality long before the term was invented by Wayne Teasdale.  I love the idea that we all share sacred scripture because we all have this amazing Book of Nature which ultimately reveals all truth to us.

+ The 12 styles of Mandala: Creating An Authentic Spiritual Path: An InterSpiritual Process by Edward Bastian are listed in SE206.

+ The 7 steps of InterSpiritual Meditation by Edward Bastian are listed in SE21 and SE213. They are described fully in his book, InterSpiritual Meditation.

+ To get inspired and illuminated by Ed Bastian, I invite you to set aside some time for these videos:  Seven Steps of InterSpiritual Meditation (11 minutes) | 15 minute introduction to InterSpiritual Meditation and the Mandala Process | 2 hour lecture & conversation

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post on this practice or any practice.  And, I have work to do on my Heavenliness page.  Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Heavenliness” or “Love” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 130

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF DEVOTION

+ Mysticism without devotion is like uncooked food, it can never be assimilated.

— Hazrat Inayat Khan in The Inner Life

+ Mindfulness has become very popular these days but is Mindfulness a goal in itself?  Is mysticism a goal in itself?  I think not.  What we are striving for is simply put in the Golden Rule: Treat Others the way you want to be treated.  If we do not become more and more willing, eager and able to treat others the way we want to be treated, we have missed the point of all this work.

The world needs more  compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance.  The next person you encounter needs your compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance.

+ Spirituality & Practice offers many resources on the spiritual practice of Devotion.  You can explore even more with this link to “Devotion” on their search engine. You will find 2153 items as of 4/26/16.  And, of course, there is a Twelves Gallery of Memes on Devotion.  The Body also gets a lot of attention from S&P as you can see if you go to this link to “Body” on their search engine. You will find 1611 items as of 4/26/16.

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post on this practice or any practice.  And, I have work to do on my Devotion page.   Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Devotion” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS -- 60

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF HUMILITY

+

Knock. And He’ll open the door.

Vanish. And He’ll make you shine like the sun.

Fall. And He’ll raise you to the heavens.

Become nothing. And He’ll turn you into everything.

-- Rumi.

found at http://theislamicworkplace.com/positive-quotes/

+ There are many great wisdom teachers in all traditions who offer the same basic message as Rumi did, as Jesus did, as The Buddha did, as Muhammad did.  You become your Real Self when give up your false self.  These practices are essential.  The Real Self is a given but it is received only by the humble, those who vanish and become nothing. 

I am an advocate of InterSpirituality, particularly as offered in the pioneering work of Ed Bastian of Spiritual Paths.  But Rumi, back in the twelfth century, was definitely a much earlier pioneer of InterSpirituality.  I believe it was his humility which made it possible for him to be radically open to the teachings and traditions of other cultures and religions.  In the early twentieth century, in that same Sufi tradition, Hazrat Inayat Khan also promoted what we are now calling InterSpirituality.  You can see it blossoming in his Ten Sufi Thoughts:

There are ten principal Sufi thoughts which comprise all the important subjects with which the inner life of man is concerned:

1) There is one God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none else exists save God.
2) There is one Master, the Guiding Spirit of all souls, who constantly leads all followers towards the light.
3) There is one Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, which truly enlightens all readers.
4) There is one Religion, the unswerving progress in the right direction towards the ideal, which fulfils the life's purpose of every soul.
5) There is one Law, the law of Reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience together with a sense of awakened justice.
6) There is one human Brotherhood, the Brotherhood and Sisterhood which unites the children of earth indiscriminately in the Fatherhood of God.
7) There is one Moral Principle, the love which springs forth from self-denial, and blooms in deeds of beneficence.
8) There is one Object of Praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart of its worshipper through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.
9) There is one Truth, the true knowledge of our being within and without which is the essence of all wisdom.
10) There is one Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real, which raises the mortal to immortality and in which resides all perfection.

+ Spirituality and Practice offers a wonderful 12s gallery of images and quotes on Humility
> http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/galleries/category/12s/2#/37/12-humility. The image and quote above is found in that gallery.

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

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS -- 46

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF DETACHMENT

+ It is not the actual literal renunciation which counts, it is the personal abandonment of belief in the importance of transient things. ... If there is such a thing as saintly renunciation, it is renouncing small gains for better gains; not for no gains, but seeing with open eyes what is better and what is inferior. Even if the choice has to lie between two momentary gains, one of these would always be found to be more real and lasting; that is the one that should be followed for the time. When we take the torch of wisdom to show us our path through life, we will end by realizing what is really profitable in life and what is not.

-- Hazrat Inayat Khan excerpted from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_15.htm

+ Hazrat Inayat Khan (see SE posts 22, 31 and 45) wisely points out that detachment, or renunciation, is a process in itself which can lead to more and more profitable experiences in this life.  Discernment, a practice we will soon explore more thoroughly, can’t happen without it. 

As we move through these practices, more fruits become available to us.  Detachment, based so much on the practice of stillness, is a way to true abundance, not scarcity, a way to more, not less.  Deprivation is not what this practice is about.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS -- 45

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF DETACHMENT

+ He who can be detached enough to keep his eyes open to all those whom circumstances have placed about him, and see in what way he can be of help to them, he it is who becomes rich - he inherits the kingdom of God.

-- Hazrat Inayat Khan, Bowl of Saki, June 12

+ Hazrat Inayat Khan was a twentieth century Sufi teacher who in so many ways was as InterFaith and InterSpiritual as any human can be.  I have found his wisdom on so much of life to be a wonderful source of inspiration and illumination.  Practically every day I go to the Bowl of Saki for a feast of compassion and wisdom.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 31

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF STILLNESS

+ To attain peace, what one has to do is to seek that rhythm which is in the depth of our being. It is just like the sea: the surface of the sea is ever moving; the depth of the sea is still. And so it is with our life. If our life is thrown into the sea of activity, it is on the surface. We still live in the profound depths, in that peace. But the thing is to become conscious of that peace which can be found within ourselves. It is this which can bring us the answer to all our problems. If not, when we want to solve one problem, there is another difficult problem coming. There is no end to our problems. There is no end to the difficulties of the outer life. And if we get excited over them, we shall never be able to solve them. Some think, ‘We might wait. Perhaps the conditions will become better. We shall see then what to do.’ But when will the conditions become better? They will become still worse! Whether the conditions become better or worse, the first thing is to seek the kingdom of God within ourselves, in which there is our peace. As soon as we have found that, we have found our support, we have found our self. And in spite of all the activity and movement on the surface, we shall be able to keep that peace undisturbed if only we hold it fast by becoming conscious of it.

-- Hazrat Inayat Khan excerpted from http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/I/I_IV_6.htm

+ The only ones who can bring peace to the world are those who have found peace within themselves, “the peace which passes understanding” proclaimed by Jesus who also said “The Kingdom of God is within you” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”  

+ I go the Bowl of Saki day after day and find immense wisdom from this Sufi master of the twentieth century. There are always several paragraphs of his wisdom compiled by his grandson like the one above.  In these 366 posts his wisdom will be found from time to time but you can go right to Wahududdin’s Web for a very comprehensive offering of this Sufi wisdom.

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

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 22

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF STILLNESS

When the mind and body are restless, nothing in life can be accomplished. Success is the result of control. … When one is restless, the conditions in life can make one experience the greatest discomfort, for there is no greater pain than restlessness. If there is any remedy for the lack of peace, it is spiritual progress.

 -- Hazrat Inayat Khan

                       

That’s found in the Bowl of Saki for November 12.  Hazrat Inayat Khan was a leading Sufi teacher of the twentieth century.  You can access hundreds of pages of Sufi wisdom at Wahiduddin’s Web.  I particularly appreciate his Ten Sufi Thoughts which demonstrate how the Sufis have been way ahead of many of us in the development of InterSpirituality.  You may want to see a more detailed version.

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