The flecks of the first raindrops.
The sun.
Bread and wine.
Skipping.
Easter.
The veins of leaves.
The fluttering grass.
The colors of the stones.
The pebbles on the river bed.
The table cloth in the open air.
The dream of the house..
anton and roxana both write today and I feel compelled to argue with them, put my muslim hat on...
In our knowledge of death we are superior to God.
--The Allama
Life is one and continuous. Man marches always onward to receive ever fresh illumination from an Infinite Reality which "every moment appears in a new glory". And the recipient of Divine illumination is not merely a passive recipient. Every act of a free ego creates a new situation, and thus offers further opportunities of creative unfolding.
And my muslim readers will immediately recognize the context of these sublime words:
His eye did not wander, nor did it rove.
--Q. 53:17
Not "surrender" nor the undivided light. But a deepening, a widening of the circle. A broken circle. No heart is as whole as a broken heart, said the Rabbi. The green waters beyond the black. Into the blue again. The wild blue yonder, the open. The open hand that gives, ceaselessly. Solar generosity. Not "detachment" but Iris's: the quality of our attachments is the quality of our understanding. Hannah, the princess: for the love of the world.
Finitude is not a misfortune.
--The Allama.
Must we now learn again to name the things we love but do not possess? Not sweet paradisal words, yet an elegiac song for all that is destined to pass away, all that is touched by finitude. One cannot but help think that we only love things that can die -even the gods fall for the mortals. When all is said and done, can anything surpass this transient spectacle?
The smell of fresh coffee. The darkening of the clouds before a storm. The last flaring of the sun on a late summer's evening. The peace of a Sunday morning. The alternating patterns of shade and light cast by a tree. Walking alone under tents in the night. The greying wisdom of an old dog. The final page of a book. Winter fires fragmenting. Your sad sweet smile.
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5 comments:
to 'argue', b? what happened, not enough c.r. in the morning? :-) but I won't answer here, you argue with Krishna in fact :-) and this would spark a theological dispute I am not able to deal with myself.
but I am preparing another post which will put you in even more 'arguing' mood, I think :-)
hello, roxana!
Yes, you're quite right. 'Argue' is not the right word. Nor is 'dispute'. 'Get away' from such a view would be better.
Of course, others say the same about detachment (Eckhart, I think..from the little I've read). And I'm sure many others. But I don't really care!
why the cutting of the tree? And what is this undivided light? I don't know, from what I understand of the muslim view, even at the "utmost limit" God is till God, the servant is still the 'servant'.
or, as the Allama seems to be suggesting: there is no 'negation' of the finite, the individual; there is a 'second subsistence'. The Prophet returns to the world.
All this talk of submission and giving in bores me so. It's why I got over Hesse's Siddartha and Knulp-though I love them dearly-when I was a teenager.
Not the end of desire, tensions (antonia's point in her post),not 'love stilleth the will', not the end of longing but : "may I run, run, and never find".
this , to me, seems to be a Jewish thought, a Muslim though/sensibility. Whatever it is, I find myself drawn to it.
okay, look froward to your next one!
Take care,
b.
b, that post was beautiful. And I agree about cutting down the tree---although trees do tend to die. They cut themselves down.
The smell of coffee reminds me of summers spent in my Grandparents white colonial. I'd be waking up, pushing the quilt back, window open from the night before. My namesake Grandpa, would be outside in the yard sitting in his swing reading the newspaper. Usually debating a point over the top of it with whomever he could engage. And my Grandma would be cooking breakfast. Bacon, coffee and his voice. I could lay in that bed just enjoying those three things for a long time.
Your posts always seem to spark some new thought in me. Or revive an old one.
Again, I'd hug you if I could.
folded, that sounds like an idyllic time, something from the Waltons (one of my favourite programmes). Perhaps it is always is when we look back? I hope you write about those days and share them with us.
But one question: why were you called Grandpa as well? :-)
(virtual) hugs back!
b.
Grandpa? That would explain my confusion as an adult.
Idyllic? I suppose.
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