Communication
Welcome to the June 11, 2020 issue of The Shamcher Bulletin, weekly excerpts from the archives of Shamcher Bryn Beorse. Warm greetings to new subscribers! If this was forwarded to you and you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do it here.
Photo by Nils Nedel
I must admit something: Until very recently I thought I knew. And suddenly I discovered that, no, really, I don't know. And I don't think anybody else knows either.
Pir Vilayat Answers in His Own Way
Dear Moineddin,
Your precious letter of 15 August, waiting for me upon my return from Cleveland, touches essential matters about titles and Pir Vilayat. Pir Vilayat has excellently built an organization and this is what he was destined to do and managed beautifully despite the criticism that this organization is not functioning well. It is in fact functioning much better than the United States government structure even though the latter has the attraction of paid work. To expect the centers to obediently follow orders and contribute as envisioned is just naive hopes. A man with Pir Vilayat's assets can not be expected to also be a lively communicator. I have tried for twenty years to gently offer Pir Vilayat to serve as his oracle like Attila the Hun who had a prime minister who read his thoughts and did all the communication, and I am still willing (I would then reti¡re) but I also see the pitfalls of such a situation and understand Pir Vilayat's reluctance to go along. I could never truly think and act as he wanted, even if I tried and there would already be food for sectarianism.
Pir Vilayat is basically a Jnana Yogi, a wisdom line, considered by many the highest line, but not essentially given to emotional outbursts or even intensive communication. I am also of that line though rather in a different way. I love everybody and must answer every request immediately. That is why I keep my circle of friends limited in number so I can (mostly) answer promptly. I could never do Pir Vilayat’s work.
Also, Pir Vilayat is right in building his hierarchy of titles and degrees, for people want it, many want it, and it serves the organizational needs. But I am not less right in now, finally, telling that titles are a game, a play and that this was Inayat Khan's final view, as witnessed by his younger son Hidayat and as felt intensely by me on September 26, 1926 when I saw him for the last time. In my visit to Cleveland I saw a number of Sufis - many of whom the most spiritual and the most valuable - who would have left the organization if it wasn’t for me having told them of this double sense of hierarchies and titles. Every name, every title, every hierarchical scheme named by any being, living here on earth in earthly garb, is actually a joke. It is in many cases a useful joke. There is a real hierarchy, vertical rather than horizontal, which can never be named, never talked about. Only one knows it. We call him, her, it “GOD.” HE laughs and weeps and sighs when he looks at our ridiculous efforts to climb on top of each other.
You are free to show this letter to any one and suggest any solution you may see fit, but it must come from you exclusively, not from me.
Love, Shamcher
*You, or Sikander might do this better than I, or in a different way. Sikander has many qualities and characteristics just for such a job.
(from correspondence, 1975)
My dear Sufi Ahmed Murad Sam,
So long have I waited writing to thank you for gorgeous dinner and inspiring session, in hopes that Vilayat would answer my letter about your plans for sufi center and to receive gathas (and not Githas). But we have an avowed agreement, Vilayat and I, that when he does not answer it is because he is in perfect agreement, and so he has really said that: Yes, by all means, and I am grateful that you, Sam, go ahead with a Sufi group, under that name and I shall do my darndest to see you get the Gathas and Gathekas. And to be quite sure, I would also, in your case, write the Dutch center for distribution, Duchess Madame Audre de la Porte, 49 Hermelijn Laan, Hilversum, Holland. Tell her to send the bill (if any) to me.
Now let me moderate and speculate on Vilayat’s lack of answering letters. It isn’t total. Last fall he wrote me a long and hearty one. And I have no criticism whatever of his lack of writing, but try to explain it. 1) He is always busy with direct contact with mureeds and other people. 2) He often must go into retirement for reasons of health. 3) He is sole custodian, repairman etc. of his father’s house. 4) He is somewhat advanced in distant communication and can often, perhaps always, feel what his communicator is saying, feeling and so often tending to conclude that a letter is either not required, or, in any case, would be insufficient, or he waits until a solution has developed.
Vilayat, like yourself, is very well versed in historic as well as presently existing Sufi activities, personalities and processes. No doubt you two are the best informed on this in the West, perhaps in the world. I trace in your exuberance over your spiritual and intellectual successes, a slight wonder, if not irritation, over the lack of response to your teachings and advice among the general public. One reason is the very name Sufi, or Islam, which, both, are identified in our encyclopedias as rather narrow religious idiocy (as if idiocy wasn’t always narrow!). Then there are the more enlightened who say, all that with Sam is very well, but what do I need other than God? And so they go into bull sessions of meditation and hear ticklings in the ears which they interpret as the eternal Oom, Aumm, the creative sound, the voice of God. And, they say, what can be higher than God? The Sufis scramble somewhere near it, but I, Sophistambulus the Great, already have it! So you see, there are diversions on low and on rather high. But you will still have your pupils, who will teach you more that you teach them (As Hazrat lnayat put it).
Love and all the Heavens
Shamcher
(from correspondence, 1963)
Shamcher seen with co-workers at Keyport Quality Assurance Program on his retirement. He was the oldest civil servant in the US, when he finally retired at 80 to work on OTEC, returning to the U of California Richmond Field Station as emeritus.
Mind, The In-Between
Mind obviously is not the physical body, nor is it the spirit. It is the link between the two, the in-between. It is not a straight and simple in-between, it is so complex and tricky that many lose themselves, temporarily at least, in its labyrinths and concepts. Mind plays games. These games are often enjoyable, sometimes useful, often useless and worse. Pride, humility, judgments, grades, ranks, titles, hierarchies are some of these games, devoid of ultimate reality. Politics may sometimes save a person from a limited concept - most often to plunge him down into an equally limited concept, a rip-roaring game. This game may save a nation from excesses, but also prevent a wise counsel from ever being heeded. The mind jumps quickly from any mere word or gesture to irrelevant and often fateful conclusions.
Religion, is that clean and pure, the opposite of politics? It is only a hair's breath removed, another entertaining and dangerous mind game, where people cling desperately to a concept which they mistakenly call "faith". They mean creed. Faith is a larger thing, a surging force that borders on spirituality. In people’s minds this surging force may be confused with the mind concept they have, and cause havoc to themselves and others.
Any criticism, expressed in words, of a person or a person’s belief or behaviour, is a mind trap. By that criticism you lie on that person, who is never a belief or a behaviour but a moving, surging power, never standing still or really a captive of any game, not for long at least. Inayat Khan used to say “by mentioning what you think is a person's fault, you nail him to that fault, although luckily you may not succeed."
The psychics and fortune tellers conduct not merely an exercise in futility but by their "predictions" may even cause what they predict. The weak-minded persons who commit most assassinations are influenced by the fierce desires of the predictors to see their guesses come true. A wise man, on the other hand, may perceive trends and without saying a word into the world of confusion, works to cause the best solution.
In Mathematics certain minds alert to symbols work their way toward solutions unattainable without the mathematical tool - though not unattainable to certain spiritual persons who arrive directly without the symbols. A similar approach is astrology, similar in that involved symbolism is in it. Astrology has not, in general, reached the level of mathematics. Some mathematicians have sniffed at it, and remark that there are several bases in use, each reaching different conclusions. Do you look at the heavenly bodies from the Earth? (most astrologers do), or from the sun? (heliocentric astrology) or are you based on the constellations? (called Hindu astrology, though all three factions are practiced in India). About the twelve zodiacs, is there anything basic to nature in these twelve clusters, or are they merely a shortcut from the infinite number of points in the hemisphere? Has this been researched by competents or is the present practice just an inheritance from the past, indiscriminately used?
(Excerpt of an article from Sufis Speak)
In Touch with Vibrations
Shamcher: There was one thing that I forgot to say about fana-fi-sheikh and fana-fi-lillah. I was initiated in October of 1923, and then in 1924 saw Inayat Khan again, in Suresnes. At that time he gave me some practices. One of which was to look at a photograph of him for concentration. And I thought, look at a photograph? What a silly thing! It is impossible to do this, but all right, all right, if he says to do it I’ll do it. And then as I was walking home, there was this great clacking of shoes, on the pavement in back of me, and a man was shouting, “Oh Mr. Beorse, Inayat Khan wants to see you right away.” And so I came right back and Inayat said, “Shamcher, I am so sorry, I made a mistake. You should not look at photographs. You should think of the great teachings of the world, those of Buddha, Christ, etc. ” So what he had done was give me the fana-fi-rassoul instead of the fana-fi-sheikh, because he knew it was right for me. What would have happened had he rigidly adhered to the step-by step process of fana-fi-sheikh, fana-fi-rassoul, fana-fi-allah?
Q: Do you think that he was actually experiencing what you were going through?
Shamcher: Yes. I think he felt the vibrations. He did that always.
Q: Again and again in the life of Inayat Khan we see how important his ability to attune himself to vibration was.
Shamcher: Yes. It should be remembered that he was an extremely sensitive musician. Sound and vibration were to him tremendous things. He was more in touch with them than anyone else I’ve ever seen. He could even use this to throw thoughts into my mind. For example, when I first met him I was to translate his lecture. We didn’t get a chance to talk about it. So he just gave the whole lecture, and then I gave the lecture again, in Norwegian. It was really him of course. He had this ability to not only be in touch with me but to completely be in my mind. Nobody else has ever been able to do that … You know, he was the first man I met with whom I felt I could not make circles around him. He knew things. He had the right feeling, and he could make me feel him.
(from An Interview with Shamcher Bryn Beorse)
Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Shamcher Bulletin brings you snippets from Shamcher’s writings that might help frame and context our experience of the world we live in today. In every issue, the text is as originally written, with only a few editorial tweaks if necessary.
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