I Was So Happy to See
My Friend's Face
My Friend's Face
(Click on the image to enlarge)
Something looks inside
and outside at once.
That something has great skill
at seeing how it is with those
who are lost in love.
Now look at all these eyes.
How do they see, and who
is looking out?
Rumi, trans: Coleman Barks
from Rumi : Soul Fury
*
Rumi says, "My sense of Shams has deepened.
He is looking for God in someone like me."
Rumi has it wrong. I am looking inside God for him.
Shams Tabriz, trans: Coleman Barks
from Rumi : Soul Fury
*
Whithersoever ye turn, there is the Face of God.
Qur'an 11 : 115
Introduction
This collection of symmetrical photographs, interspersed with poems by Rumi and sayings by Shams Tabriz, extends the theme of "seeing" I initiated in my last project: Lila : Seeing Presence in the Light and Details of Everyday Life. Nine of the sixteen symmetrical images included here were constructed with "straight" images from the Lila project. (Visit: The"Straight" Photograph & The Symmetrical Photograph)
The truth is, I didn't see this project coming. After completing the Lila project I began feeling an unusual disconnect from my Creative Process. It was as if I were wandering about in a desert, lost, looking for a "sign" that would help me find my way to a next project. My longing to re-connect with the flow of creativity I had become so familiar with was getting very uncomfortable for me.
I have learned that the best thing I can do when I feel this separation is: just keep working; put forth any kind of effort; perform any kind of action that could hopefully, eventually attract grace, all the while keeping my eyes wide open, watching for signs.
I began experimenting with the Lila images, subjecting many of the "straight photographs" to the four-fold symmetrical process to see if any of them might unveil some unexpected Imaginal gift. As the photographs unfolded I noticed there were "eyes" inside the images that seemed to be looking out at me.
At the same time I had begun reading a book entitled Rumi : Soul Fury, which was published in 2014 by Coleman Barks that focuses on Rumi's mystical Friendship with a strange character named Shams Tabriz. I had been a follower of Barks' work--his translations of Rumi's poetry--but somehow I had missed knowing about Soul Fury; I discovered the book while looking for published material about Rumi's father, Baha Walad, also known as Bahuddin, for the Lila project.
Coleman Barks had also published a book in 2005 about Rumi's father, entitled The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthly Reflections of Bahuddin, the Father of Rumi which I had not known about either. Fortunately, though I came upon The Drowned Book late in the process of making the Lila project, I was able to use several passages from it in the concluding sections of Lila.
In his book Rumi : Soul Fury Barks tries to explain the mystery of Shams Tabriz: where he came from, who he was, the nature of his relationship to Rumi, why he disappeared after spending three years with Rumi. Shams seems to have been a saint, one who lived in a state of Oneness with God. Upon meeting Shams, Rumi had a powerful response to his divine presence, the radiant energy that flowed out from him like wild sparks. Indeed, Shams' energy sparked within Rumi a miraculous process of spiritual transformation: before meeting Shams, Rumi had been a brilliant but rather classical teacher of Islamic Tradition; after Rumi's meeting and evolving friendship with Shams, and after their subsequent separation from each other (which Shams may have initiated, understanding that it was a necessary part of the transformation process Rumi needed to pass through), Rumi began spontaneously manifesting ecstatic poems full of longing for the Friend, that is to say, for the divine presence which Shams embodied and radiated.
This great longing in Rumi manifested an extraordinary, prolific collection of ecstatic poems, and a new kind of sacred dance and music (the whirling dervishes). These gifts of grace which emerged from Rumi's ecstatic state, attracted a huge following of Sufi devotees that has continued to flourish to this day, known as the Mevlevi Order.
In the time that Shams and Rumi were together in Konya, they would often have spontaneous conversations with each other amongst their circle of devotees. Some of their followers began writing down Shams sayings which eventually were copied and recopied and circulated in various ways as a ragged, disorganized assemblage known as The Sayings of Shams Tabriz. Barks' book Soul Fury contains a section of sayings by Shams that focuses on his relationship to Rumi and on the theme of Friendship; the other section contains poems selected from Rumi's Quatrains, poems focusing on the themes of love and longing for the Friend, for Shams who had mysteriously disappeared.
As I read Barks' translations of the poems and the sayings I made notes of the ones I most strongly responded to. Then it occurred to me that since I had already created a project that paid homage to Rumi's father--who was a very important spiritual teacher for Rumi--and since I had already begun to collect a significant number of favorite poems and sayings from Barks's book Soul Fury, perhaps it would be interesting to create a project that paid homage to Rumi's Friendship with Shams.
As I continued studying Soul Fury I also began seeing relationships between the imagery in the poems and sayings and the new symmetrical photographs I had been making. Finally it dawned on me that the outward "signs" I had been watching for, sign that would lead me to my next project, had been staring me in the face for quite some time without my having consciously recognized it.
Once agin my Creative Process was out ahead of my understanding: It goes where it must go, and when it wants to go there, despite my worrying and confused wanderings. These kinds of experiences serve as reminders that, essentially, I am merely a servant to my Creative Process; the work flows through me, spontaneously, as necessary, out of a feeling of longing that is probably related to the longing for God that Rumi experienced in his friendship with Shams. I too have had a similar kind of relationship with a teacher, a meditation Master named Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. I have learned through my relationship to her and my practice of Siddha Yoga that love and longing attracts grace; and it is grace that directs the unfolding of my Creative Process. "It's all mystical, imaginary work" to quote a line from a commentary Coleman Barks wrote in Rumi : Soul Fury.
*
This project is related to one of my earlier projects entitled Illuminations which juxtaposes symmetrical photographs with the poetry of saints from multiple traditions with an emphasis on the poetry of Hafiz. In that project and in this one, I have strived to present visual equivalents to the poetry, and poetic equivalents for the symmetrical images. More importantly, I believe, I have juxtaposed images and poems that perhaps will generate an open-ended, ever-changing "conversation" between them, a silent dialogue in which a contemplator could participate simply by imaginatively entering into the space between the photographs and the words . . . and listen.
This space-between the images and the poems and sayings is vitally alive with overflowing potential meanings of a uniquely new order which Henry Corbin termed the Imaginal world--an intermediary, interior world--the space of the heart--in which the inner-spiritual world transforms into the outer-material world, and in which the outer material world transforms into the inner spiritual world. Whatever meanings are unveiled in the contemplator's encounter with the words and the photographs--and in the space between them--these meanings constitute a kind of wisdom that is ineffable, essentially unknowable, and yet profoundly life-transforming and continually changing. This kind of imagery which functions as a mirror reflecting the emerging inner needs of its contemplator, is what I call symbolic imagery. True living symbols are transmitters of grace and carriers of timeless wisdom.
*
It seems to me the images and the poems presented below "speak" for themselves, thus I have felt no need to write commentaries. However, following the images and texts I have written and Afterword entitled Everything is Alive! Everything has eyes! Everything is looking at me!! and an Epilogue, entitled Soul Fury in which I discuss Coleman Barks' relationship to Rumi through his creative process of translating the poems, his definition of soul fury . . . and more.
Shams said: Find a mirror. A way to see yourself, as an other. This was, it seems to me, the way Rumi experienced Shams, and the way Barks experienced his Sufi teacher Bawa Muhaiyadden over a nine year period that provided Barks' with the grace and insight that helped him understand the living truth of Rumi's poetry and Rumi's relationship to Shams.
This project, which is part of an ongoing series entitled the Sacred Art Photography Projects, is dedicated to Coleman Barks, who has given me and the entire world a great Treasure through a lifetime of work on the Rumi translations. I also dedicate this project to Rumi and Shams and their Friendship. It was their friendship that transformed Rumi into an ecstatic poet; and it was Rumi's longing for Shams, after Shams' mysterious disappearance, that inspired the poetry that has touched the hearts of untold numbers of people around the world.
Thank you for visiting this project; Welcome to I Was So Happy to See My Friend's Face.
The Symmetrical
Photographs
with selected
Poems by Rumi
and
"Sayings" by Shams Tabriz
(Click on the image to enlarge)
Image #1 "You do not see it, but it is there."
There is no one who is not in love.
No one without this ache, this longing
rising from the tip of a black
thread in the dark.
You do not see it, but it is there.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #2 "Find a mirror: A way to see yourself, as an other."
The inner meaning that all the prophets
and all sacred books are saying
is this: Find a mirror.
A way to see yourself, as an other.
"Saying" by Shams Tabriz, trans: Coleman Barks from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #3 "When I can see I get released into sky."
I keep asking, Who gives my soul
this increasing delight in what it does?
Who gave me life in the first place?
Sometimes I feel covered
like a falcon mewed,
waiting inside its hood.
Other times, I can see.
Then I get released into sky.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #4 "I see more with your eyes"
I see so clearly into my own life
how it would be good not
to see with these eyes.
What can I do,
so that I see
more with your eyes?
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #5 "When eyes do not see"
When eyes do not see the beauty,
do they make the beauty less?
excerpt from a Rumi Quatrain,
trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #6 "I see the one I do not see"
I see the one I do not see.
I hear the dear words from one
I cannot be with, that taste
on my lips. Ya-Sin.
Image #7 "Ya-Sin, the unseen one"
(Click on the image to enlarge)
No one knows what those
letter combinations mean
at the beginning of certain
chapters of the Qur'an.
the unseen one
keeps me getting up from
where I'm never sitting long.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______* _____
Image #8 "those lightpoint sparks"
Qur'an 57:4. The good news comes:
He is with you wherever you are.
Bits of firelight from that
appear in your heart.
You grieve because you do not know
who you are, but when you do know,
you fill with those lightpoint sparks.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #9 "the great sun living inside us"
Every floating bit of dust
close around us here and out over
the hight desert, all these are just
as distracted and amazed as we are.
Each of us, whether personally happy
or sad, feels the incomparable joy
of the great sun there living inside us.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
Image #10 "You are what you long for."
You are an inspired piece of writing,
a mirror reflecting the ultimate beauty.
Nothing in this world is outside of you.
When you desire something, anything,
look in yourself. You are what you long for.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #11 "the early dawn-radiance inside you"
The friend tells me, You will not see me
in your dreams again. Some years must pass.
Then he says to the night, You will not see me
until the early dawn-radiance
comes up inside you.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______* _____
Image #12 "I am not this one you see."
I am not this one you see. If I were that me
you do not see, even for a moment,
I would stir up this dust-particle world.
I would mix and confuse it together.
If I were that me, who has uprooted
his heart from any personal limits,
I would be like a tree lifted out
from the ground with roots exposed
to the air like its limbs and leaves.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______* _____
Image #13 "that slender arc becomes a circular perfection"
(Click on the image to enlarge)
Any soul with an image of you
inside it will stay clear and flowing.
The new moon appears as a very thin
crescent edge, yet that slender arc
becomes a circular perfection.
A "Saying" by Shams Tabriz, trans: Coleman Barks from Soul Fur
________________
______* _____
Image #14 "Something looks inside and outside at once"
(Click on the image to enlarge)
Something looks inside
and outside at once.
That something has great skill
at seeing how it is with those
who are lost in love.
Now look at all these eyes.
How do they see, and who
is looking out?
Rumi, trans: Coleman Barks
from Rumi : Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
Image #15 "Gazing at someone fallen in deep water"
Rumi . . . He is so happy in his ecstatic state
that when someone falls in deep water or into a fire, or into hell
Rumi holds his chin in his hand and gazes at the situation
with kind eyes. He does not jump into the water or the fire.
He does not go down into hell. He gazes with kindness.
I have that gaze too, but I also grab the one in danger
by the seat of his pants and pull him out.
"Come on out, brother.
You too should be gazing this way."
What I do in these talks
is a way of grabbing and pulling you out
from wherever you have gotten yourself.
________________
______*_____
Image #16 "Now I leave invisible, as wind"
As a young child I went eagerly to school
and loved listening to the teacher.
Growing up, I was so happy
to see my friends' faces.
But something different is happening
here further along in my story.
I came in visible form, a cloud.
Now I leave invisible, as wind.
Rumi Quatrain, trans: Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury
________________
______*_____
~ Afterword ~
Some things cannot be told
or understood, only seen
and lived within.
Shams Tabriz, trans: Coleman Barks
from Rumi : Soul Fury
* *
*
The words Everything is Alive! Everything has eyes! Everything is looking at me!! have shown up in my blog writings in varying forms ever since I created a project entitled Poetry for the Departing Landscape. The poems I selected for the project were taken from the book edited by Robert Bly entitled News of the Universe. I created the project specifically for a multi-chaptered project entitled The Departing Landscape Project which is simultaneously a visual exploration of the music and ideas of contemporary composer Morton Feldman, and an expression of my heart-felt concerns for our beautiful planet and the natural world which is rapidly becoming harmed and sickened by human abuses and neglect. We are poisoning our environment--our sacred planet--and consequently it has begun to turn away from us. We are existing (with eyes closed) in a departing landscape.
The words Everything is Alive! Everything has eyes! Everything is looking at me!! essentially are an affirmation of the dynamic, conscious, sacred nature of the universe, our planet, and all the things in this world. The words have been excerpted from favorite lines, ideas, bright moments within many favorite poems, some of which were published in Bly's News of the Universe, and in particular the two poems which I am presenting below: "Golden Lines" by Gerald Nerval, and "Archaic Torso Of Apollo" by Rilke. In-between these two poems I have placed the first (of six) "Aphorisms" by Novalis. His definition of the soul relates directly to my idea about the symbol, and I will be discussing this later, below. Here are the poems:
Some things cannot be told
or understood, only seen
and lived within.
Shams Tabriz, trans: Coleman Barks
from Rumi : Soul Fury
* *
*
Everything is alive!
Everything has eyes!
Everything is looking at me!!
The words Everything is Alive! Everything has eyes! Everything is looking at me!! have shown up in my blog writings in varying forms ever since I created a project entitled Poetry for the Departing Landscape. The poems I selected for the project were taken from the book edited by Robert Bly entitled News of the Universe. I created the project specifically for a multi-chaptered project entitled The Departing Landscape Project which is simultaneously a visual exploration of the music and ideas of contemporary composer Morton Feldman, and an expression of my heart-felt concerns for our beautiful planet and the natural world which is rapidly becoming harmed and sickened by human abuses and neglect. We are poisoning our environment--our sacred planet--and consequently it has begun to turn away from us. We are existing (with eyes closed) in a departing landscape.
The words Everything is Alive! Everything has eyes! Everything is looking at me!! essentially are an affirmation of the dynamic, conscious, sacred nature of the universe, our planet, and all the things in this world. The words have been excerpted from favorite lines, ideas, bright moments within many favorite poems, some of which were published in Bly's News of the Universe, and in particular the two poems which I am presenting below: "Golden Lines" by Gerald Nerval, and "Archaic Torso Of Apollo" by Rilke. In-between these two poems I have placed the first (of six) "Aphorisms" by Novalis. His definition of the soul relates directly to my idea about the symbol, and I will be discussing this later, below. Here are the poems:
Golden Lines
"Astonishing! Everything is intelligent! --Pythagoras
"Astonishing! Everything is intelligent! --Pythagoras
Free thinker! Do you think you are the only thinker
on this earth in which life blazes inside all things?
Your liberty does what it wishes with the powers it controls,
but when you gather to plan, the universe is not there.
Look carefully in an animal at a spirit alive;
every flower is a soul opening out into nature;
a mystery touching love is asleep inside metal.
“Everything is intelligent!” And everything moves you.
In that blind wall, look out for the eyes that pierce you:
the substance of creation cannot be separated from a word...
Do not force it to labor in some low phrase!
Often a Holy Thing is living hidden in a dark creature;
and like an eye which is born covered by its lids,
a pure spirit is growing strong under the bark of stones!
Gerald De Nerval / 1854
trans. Robert Bly
trans. Robert Bly
Aphorism
The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer
world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.
Novalis / 1798
trans. C E Passage
trans. C E Passage
Archaic Torso Of Apollo
We have no idea what his fantastic head
was like, where the eyeballs were slowly swelling. But
his body now is glowing like a lamp
whose inner eyes, only turned down a little,
hold their flame, shine. If there weren’t light, the curve
of the breast wouldn’t blind you, and in the swerve
of the thighs a smile wouldn’t keep on going
toward the place where the seeds are.
If there weren’t light, this stone would look cut off
where it drops so clearly from the shoulders,
its skin wouldn’t gleam like the fur of a wild animal,
and the body wouldn’t send out the light from every edge
as a star does . . . for there is no place at all
that isn’t looking at you. You must change your life.
Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. Robert Bly
All this could be boiled down to a brief excerpt from one of the Sayings by Shams Tabriz as translated by Coleman Barks in his book Rumi : Soul Fury:
Everything is God.
This is a sacred universe.
Live in it.
Regarding Barks' relation to Rumi, Shams and Barks' Sufi teacher
Barks explains in his commentaries in Soul Fury that he works from scholarly English translations of Rumi's poems and Shams' sayings which were originally written in the language of 13th century Persia. Barks turns the literal English translations into his own modern-day short-poem "versions." He writes: "Making versions is a way, I feel, of entering, and praising, and bringing Rumi's insights into my own life." Making versions" is a form of interpretation and, hopefully, a way of transmission." Barks tries to "put something down on the page that has a life of its own somewhat akin to the vital presence of Rumi's words." "It's all mystical, imaginary work."
In the thirteenth century, writes Barks, poets were not as concerned as we are about copyright and intellectual ownership. . . We are all in this together, they say instead, trying to sing praise and make beauty. They celebrate a communal creativity. . . Find a poem you love by anybody, change it to suit you, and include it in "your" collection. from Rumi : Soul Fury
The following line from one of Rumi's Quatrains, translated by Barks, gets us perhaps even closer to the heart of the matter:
Tonight we are here with a thousand hidden mystics.
Barks says when he is translating Rumi's poetry, "I do feel sometimes that there are helping presences. Bawa [Muhaiyadden] once told me that he knew Rumi and Shams Tabriz not like people in a book but, he said, 'I know them like I know you.'"
Bawa Muhaiyadden was a teacher of mine, writes Barks, a Sri Lankan Sufi . . . He came to me in a dream on May 2, 1977. I met him in this visible world a year and a half later. I visited him four or five times a year for nine years, until his death on December 8, 1986. My connection to him has been very important in the effort to have a living relationship with Rumi's poetry. Barks, from Notes on the Rumi Quatrains, in Soul Fury
Mind does its fine-tuning hair-splitting,
but no craft or art begins
or can continue without a master
giving wisdom into it.
Rumi, trans: Coleman Barks
from The Soul of Rumi
When I read Barks translations of Rumi's poetry and Shams' sayings, I feel that sacredness of the universe which Shams spoke of. Barks surly experienced that same living presence and wisdom flowing between himself and Bawa Muhaiyadden. Interestingly, Bawa told Barks that the work with Rumi's poetry "has to be done." When I read this comment recently, I experienced a vital energy inside those words Bawa spoke to Barks. They felt at once like a divine command and a blessing.
I attribute the sacred energy running through Barks' translations of Rumi's poems and the Sayings of Shams to many things: the mystical state of Nearness that Rumi and Shams lived in, their friendship; their connection to an ancient (perhaps timeless) lineage of Sufi masters--A thousand other hidden mystics--that Shams brought into his friendship with Rumi; but also the radiant presence that Bawa Muhaiyadden brought into his friendship with Coleman Barks.
I once asked Bawa if what I saw in his eyes could ever come up behind my eyes and look out. [Bawa] often answered my questions with a pun. "When the eye (I) becomes a we." Barks continues: Bawa was speaking of the dissolving of the ego, when a singular self becomes plural, or nothing at all. Surely that is what an elder is: someone who has left self-absorption behind, whose being has become the community, or the emptiness around it. Coleman Barks, from Soul Fury, Notes on the Rumi Quatrains
Barks has frequently acknowledged the importance of Bawa Muhaiyadden in his life and in the poetry work. In his book Rumi - the Book of Love Barks wrote that Bawa was an "enlightened being." In Rumi : The Big Red Book Barks writes: "Bawa's real influence was in the radiance and compassion, the depth and humor of his presence. Sufis would visit [Bawa] and say, 'The light of God is on him.' It was true. That is how it felt to be in the room. I just wanted to be there. Questions fell away."
And in The Soul of Rumi Barks writes:
I would have little notion what Rumi's poetry is or where it comes from if I were not connected to Bawa Muhaiyadden . . . Working on Rumi's poetry deepens the inner companionship. . . Whatever else they are, these versions or translations or renderings or imitations are homage to a teacher. And yet not as a follower, more as a friend. . . . I am very grateful, for these poems feel as if they come as part of a continuing conversation.
Barks suggests that Rumi's friendship with Shams opened Rumi's heart, made him empty, transparent so that the wisdom that flows through a master, like Shams and a thousand other hidden mystics, could continue flowing through him unobstructed into the poetry, dance and music that Rumi brought into this world. "This is the secret of their friendship and its creativity" writes Barks. "Both presences are needed for the unique vitality, the new consciousness, that they bring into being."
The same could probably be said about Barks' relationship to Bawa Muhaiyadden: it is their friendship, and Bawa's grace, that gives Barks' translations a living presence, a vital new consciousness which people around the world have responded to.
Regarding my Creative Process
I have been dwelling on Coleman Bark's creative process, and the impact his teacher Bawa Muhaiyadden has had upon his work, and Shams' impact on Rumi's creativity, because I feel my Creative Process in photography is similarly graced by my relationship to Gurumayi Chivilasananda, a Siddha Yoga Meditation Master, living head of an ancient lineage of Siddhas from which her teacher had come. Siddhas are beings who have achieved the goal of yoga: Union with God. And in their unbroken state of Oneness of Being they live constantly in alignment with God's will and the Creative Power of the Universe, also known as shakti.
I have been practicing Siddha Yoga Meditation for 31 years with Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, who received the power of the Siddha Lineage from her teacher, Swami Muktananda, who received the power of the lineage from his teacher, Bhagawan Nityananda. When I first came in direct contact with Siddha Yoga in 1987 I had already known and loved Rumi's poetry. I was delighted and deeply moved when I learned that Gurumayi used Rumi's poetry in some of her talks and published teachings. Perhaps Rumi's poetry was in part what had helped prepare me to receive Gurumayi's grace during my first meeting with her in a two-day meditation program called an Intensive. In that program I experienced Gurumayi's heart-opening shakti in a very palpable, physical and emotional and visual way. It initiated an unfolding yogic process within me that has come to include my creative process in photography. (I have written about all this in detail in my Photography and Yoga project.)
A Way of Transmission
I was quite interested in Barks' comment that he hoped his "versions" of the Rumi poems could serve as a "way of transmission." The idea that poetry (or any art form) could be a means of transmission . . . of grace, of wisdom, shakti, the light of consciousness--is essential to the very notion of Sacred Art.
In the Sufic tradition the spiritual force or energy which carries blessings and wisdom from Master to disciple is known as baraka. Baraka opens the heart and awakens in the disciple a kind of pure interior knowledge, and creative process, which transforms and guides the disciple to her or his ultimate goal of spiritual life: the Oneness of Being, Union with God.
*
Mind does its fine-tuning hair-splitting,
but no craft or art begins
or can continue without a master
giving wisdom into it.
Rumi, trans: Coleman Barks
from The Soul of Rumi
*
I often feel a sacred presence, a creative energy, flowing through me when I am photographing, and when I am contemplating my photographs or performing various yogic practices. I attribute that energy, that baraka, that shakti or grace to the divine wisdom that flows through my teacher Gurumayi--and the entire ancient Lineage of Siddha Master-- into my relationship (friendship) with her. My relationship to Gurmayi is sustained and ever renewed through my devotion to her, the practices and the teachings she gives me which I perform with as much heart as I can muster.
And it is her energy, her shakti which transforms a photograph I have made into an image that functions (for me) as a living, radiant, symbol, an image deeply resonate with unsayable wisdom and sacred power that transforms-purifies-illuminates my entire being, my entire life. True symbols are are radiant with the light of consciousness, the creative power of the universe, and they are transmitters of that creative, transforming, healing energy.
I invite you to visit my multi-chaptered project Photography and Yoga and any of my Sacred Art Photography Projects to learn more about my involvement in Siddha Yoga and its relationship to my Creative Process in photography. My multi-chaptered project "An Imaginary Book", which is the very first of my Sacred Art projects, is about the initiating interface of my Creative Process with Islamic Sacred Art and the Sufic traditions associated with Rumi and Shams.
*
I will conclude this project with the words of Gurumayi. Her words are radiant with the grace of her state of being, her Union with God, and the blessings of the entire Siddha Lineage:
Let your desire be to see God. Always.
Whatever you are doing, wherever
you are going, with whomever
you are speaking, let your
deepest wish be,
"Oh Lord,
reveal
yourself in this
person, in this object,
in my dharma, in this
action. Whatever I know,
whatever I find, may you be there.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
from the Siddha Yoga Website
see "Darshan and Wisdom"
*
This project was posted on my Welcome Page
This project was posted on my Welcome Page
on August 2, 2018.
~ Epilogue ~
Soul Fury
~ Epilogue ~
Soul Fury
In Coleman Barks' introduction to the second part of Rumi : Soul Fury he attempts to explain the mystery of Shams Tabriz and the term soul fury which Shams used frequently in his sayings. Barks writes that Shams had soul fury, whereas Rumi was kind. Shams used his soul fury as a source of honest and clear and immediate action; he was, writes Barks, one who moved away from books and language, and instead moved toward "unpredictable walking out and doing things." Soul fury "brings with it strength, originality, and spontaneity that is often disguised as a wild fluidity of mind," a kind of orneriness, says Barks, that can be "useful" to another individual "in dissolving the ego, to help people be free" rather than comfortable or congenial, which Shams felt were forms of hypocrisy.
I will offer, here, a definition of the word soul, and this is where the Aphorism of Novalis comes in. Novalis says the soul is an in-between Place having something to do with the interface of the inner and outer worlds: the world of the heart or psyche, and the physical, material world. He says the soul is that point were the two worlds meet and overlap.
I have defined symbol in a similar way: its an image which conjoins mirroring archetypal images from the inner and outer worlds into a visual Imaginal Unitary Reality. A symbol is an image that emerges from the sacred space of the heart, or in Henry Corbin's world view, from the Imaginal world, a place that exists between the inner and outer worlds. One could say that a true, living symbol is an image of the soul, an image radiant with grace, or baraka, or the light of consciousness.
Sohbet : Silent Conversation
Shams and Rumi spent three years together before Shams mysteriously departed, leaving Rumi to burn (to cook) in the fires of longing. And they were together in two distinctly different ways: outwardly and inwardly. They held public conversations with each other during which their words were documented by their circle of followers; but Shams and Rumi also conversed with each other without words, in the silent space of the Heart, in their Oneness of Being. In Sufism this silent or "mystical" form of "conversation" is known as sohbet.
This dialogue without words is not so unusual. It occurs in all spiritual Traditions. When one's individual consciousness merges with Universal Consciousness, with God, separations of any kind are dissolved. Words, after all, are the product of the dualistic created world. The kind of knowledge that resides in words is binding and limited. On the other hand, Wisdom of the Heart transcends words; it is a kind of knowledge that is ineffable, unknowable, and life-transforming; it is the transcendent wisdom that can bring us back to our original Source: Unitary Reality. Such is the power of grace; the power of sacred art; the power of the True symbol.
I will offer, here, a definition of the word soul, and this is where the Aphorism of Novalis comes in. Novalis says the soul is an in-between Place having something to do with the interface of the inner and outer worlds: the world of the heart or psyche, and the physical, material world. He says the soul is that point were the two worlds meet and overlap.
I have defined symbol in a similar way: its an image which conjoins mirroring archetypal images from the inner and outer worlds into a visual Imaginal Unitary Reality. A symbol is an image that emerges from the sacred space of the heart, or in Henry Corbin's world view, from the Imaginal world, a place that exists between the inner and outer worlds. One could say that a true, living symbol is an image of the soul, an image radiant with grace, or baraka, or the light of consciousness.
Sohbet : Silent Conversation
Shams and Rumi spent three years together before Shams mysteriously departed, leaving Rumi to burn (to cook) in the fires of longing. And they were together in two distinctly different ways: outwardly and inwardly. They held public conversations with each other during which their words were documented by their circle of followers; but Shams and Rumi also conversed with each other without words, in the silent space of the Heart, in their Oneness of Being. In Sufism this silent or "mystical" form of "conversation" is known as sohbet.
This dialogue without words is not so unusual. It occurs in all spiritual Traditions. When one's individual consciousness merges with Universal Consciousness, with God, separations of any kind are dissolved. Words, after all, are the product of the dualistic created world. The kind of knowledge that resides in words is binding and limited. On the other hand, Wisdom of the Heart transcends words; it is a kind of knowledge that is ineffable, unknowable, and life-transforming; it is the transcendent wisdom that can bring us back to our original Source: Unitary Reality. Such is the power of grace; the power of sacred art; the power of the True symbol.
August, 2, 1969 ~ August 2, 2018 ~ August 1987
I am writing this Epilogue on August 2, 2018, the publication date of this project, and the 49th anniversary date of my union with Gloria in marriage.
I think Gloria has a lot of soul fury, and though at times it terrifies me, her insistence upon honesty and direct, clear, often confrontational communication has been an inspiration, an "eye-opener," and an "ego dissolver" not only to me but many others as well.
I tend to shy away from confrontations; if I have soul fury it most likely manifests its presence within my photographs and my Creative Process in general, for soul fury is associated with grace and I experience a lot of grace through my photographic practice, my practice of Siddha Yoga, and my relationship to Gurumayi--who has an infinite amount of Soul Fury!
I think Gloria has a lot of soul fury, and though at times it terrifies me, her insistence upon honesty and direct, clear, often confrontational communication has been an inspiration, an "eye-opener," and an "ego dissolver" not only to me but many others as well.
I tend to shy away from confrontations; if I have soul fury it most likely manifests its presence within my photographs and my Creative Process in general, for soul fury is associated with grace and I experience a lot of grace through my photographic practice, my practice of Siddha Yoga, and my relationship to Gurumayi--who has an infinite amount of Soul Fury!
I associate our wedding anniversary date with our first meeting with Gurumayi. Thirty-one years ago, in the middle of August 1987, Gloria and I took our first meditation Intensive with Gurumayi. We both experienced in a deep and palpable way Gurumayi's powerful and loving grace or shakti in that intensive, and it seems to me our experiences of Gurumayi's grace initiated a new transformative phase of our marriage. Those early years of our involvement with Siddha Yoga were profoundly heart-opening and soul-transforming for both of us individually and as a couple. We each have our own unique relationship with Gurumayi, and that relationship continues to unfold in surprising and wonderful ways, just as my relationship to Gloria continues to grow and shift and deepen in surprising and wonderful ways.
Thank You, Gurumayi for your presence, your grace in every aspect of my life. And "Happy anniversary, Gloria!" Thank you for your soul fury, your courage, your love and compassion. Thank you for sharing this life with me these past 49 plus years.
With Love and Heartfelt Gratitude,
Steven
~ ~
Thank You, Gurumayi for your presence, your grace in every aspect of my life. And "Happy anniversary, Gloria!" Thank you for your soul fury, your courage, your love and compassion. Thank you for sharing this life with me these past 49 plus years.
With Love and Heartfelt Gratitude,
Steven
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