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Seeking refuge from heated gusts of wind, we pulled thick
curtains over the doors and windows of the room to create shades, and only then
did we find some relief. And in this dark, shaded room, as blades of the fan
started to move, coolness Nit in and created a dazed and intoxicated feeling.
At the time it was the four of us, friends, present in the room. One person was
reclined against the sofa. The other person was sitting uptight in a Buddha
pose, staring into space, lost in some thought or the other. The third person
was busy reading a book. And the condition of the fourth person in the room was
such that he had only but a cotton wrap ['lungi'] around his Whist, The
atmosphere was as if the ambience of the room had amine to halt at a single
point. Although the four gentlemen wells seated in their separate ways and were
engrossed in their separate thoughts, they had one thing in common—what was
summon between them was that their eyes were twinkling with reflection. One
from among those four initiated the chain of conversation.
“Friends, what is the definition of friend, and who is
the best of friends?"
The person seated in the Buddha pose staring into space was slat
t led by this question, and he said: "A person's best friend is his own
heart — the one who comes to understand his own heart, and sees his own image
inside his heart, becomes aware of the friend. That is, becomes his own
friend."
The third person who had been busy reading, took his eyes off
the book and asked, "How is it possible to become one's own friend?"
The gentleman sitting on the sofa
also joined in the conversation and said, "It is possible for a person
to become his own friend by gaining awareness of his heart. As long as we
consider life to be only a means of fulfilling physical needs we remain at a
distance from our heart and soul. Once when we start to think above and
beyond the physical needs, doors leading to spirit and spiritual realities
open upon us." |
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The topic was so complex that all four gentlemen present in that
cool dark room started attending to the issue with their intellectual energy.
The question that arose was: 'What the difference between the heart and the
spirit? And in the absence of a body how meaningful would remain needs of the
spirit? And in the absence of a spirit the body has no worth whatsoever. How
plausible is it to say that the relationship between the heart and the spirit
is the true relationship while the relationship with the body is mortal and
unreal, even though we become aware of the body first and the spirit
afterwards; also, our knowledge of the spirit is merely academic and not
observational, whereas the body holds an academic as well as an observational
presence?'
The person clad in the lungi brought up something far-fetched.
In a loud and echoing voice he said, "Existence of the body is dependent
on the spirit; the spirit is not dependent upon III, existence of the body. And
this is proved by the reality that in the absence of the spirit, man is nothing
but a corpse. As long as spirit is connected to the body of flesh and blood,
the physical body remains active. This body of flesh and Hood is able to see,
and hear, and touch, and speak, and it to feel the waves of heat and coolness.
But if the spirit breaks its connection with this body of flesh and blood, the
physical body neither hears, nor speaks, and neither does it feel. In the
presence of the spirit, a person feels even the slightest prick of a needle
point upon his body, and in the absence of the it a person would not feel a
thing or have any power to even if his body were to be chopped in little pieces
with a large cleaving weapon. This process of life proves that the reality of a
person is his spirit and not his body of flesh and blood. If a person is aware
of his heart and his spirit, he is a friend to himself, whereas if a person
considers his body of flesh and blood to be his all, he is an enemy to himself.
The heart becomes an enemy to the person who has no concept of a spiritual life
within him. If a person wants to employ his heart for a foul job, the heart
refuses to serve him. It traps the person in materialism, confined by time and space.
And if a person seeks from his heart the path to his soul, the heart, like good
and sincere friend, directs him towards the spiritual relationships. And the
heart not only tells him, but shows him, the spirit is pure, while the body is
foul. It is revealed, person that all the happiness associated with the body is
temporary like the body itself, and since the spirit itself is perpetual joy,
those of spiritual inclination remain happy. The shadows of fear and grief run
away from them. This material world—the world of the bodies of flesh and blood
is a world of dualities: Happy at one moment, and sad the next moment the cause
of our disgrace. In this materialistic world of duality, we will not be able to
understand anything sill we understand the contrast of joy and sadness, honor
and disgrace, coolness and heat. Unless I am aware of what disgrace is, I will
not be able to comprehend the meaning of honor. Unless I have suffered through
severe hardships, I will not be able to understand happiness. To pass through
this contradiction, one must free oneself from the duality of this material
world. When a person passes through the duality of this materialistic world and
becomes a student of self-awareness, he looks upon each object with the same
perspective, whether it is pebbles and stones or whether it is gold.
And as long as a person is unacquainted with the knowledge of
self-awareness, his heart remains restless and anxious. To remove the anxiety
and restlessness of the heart one must adopt a specific way of thinking, and
this way of thinking is the free way of thinking."
The person clad in the lungi said, 'this free way of thinking is
actually the conscious of a qalander ['spiritual free thinker, untied to
conventions']. The qalander conscious shows us the way to strengthen the ties
of friendship with our heart. And that way is [realization] that [in this
world] we have neither enemies nor friends. We are our own enemy, and our own
friend. When the qalander conscious comes into action person sees the entire universe
as a stage. On this stage theft are some who are fathers, some who are mothers,
some d children, some are friends, and some that are enemies, son; sinful, and
some who are pure. These, in reality, are the different personas of those who
work on this stage. When ono character from among these, or when all of them,
step down from the stage, the magic of the duality of the world bred and they
all become one.'
KHWAJA SHAMS-UD-DEEN AZEEMI
Science has made immense progress, yet many believe that, even with all of the modern tools at our disposal, human beings function at no more than 10% of their mental capacity. This leads to the question of what exactly it is that comprises the remaining 90%. Yet another question that arises is this: If it has taken man four and a half billion years to be able to apply only 10% of his ability, how long will it take for him to make use of the remaining 90%?