Thoughts of a Sufi
Welcome! Today’s issue features a few excerpts from an interview with Wali Ali in the late 1970s, as well as a section from “Man and this Mysterious Universe”, first published in 1949.
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.
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Yesterday, February 5th, was Visalat Day, honouring the passing of Hazrat Inayat Khan in 1927. Shamcher’s remarkable experience on that day, is featured HERE, in the inaugural issue of The Shamcher Bulletin.
From an interview with Wali Ali:
A question about Darshan
I was present, yes. He would sit there and meditate, and then each member of that group would sit down before him, and with his eyes closed in meditation, and after a long while his eyes would open, and there was something very unearthly and wonderful about it, with a feeling you were carried away from everything and you were nothing and you were in the spirit; and then his eyes would close again, and the next one would come.
Q. Did this seem to affect people after the experience? Was there some change in their lives?
A. You couldn't say really that there were physical changes, but it affected people very differently; some would go away and say, "well, that's all right, what was that?" And others would say that life has completely changed. And sometimes the life did change: for instance, a man who had been worried about marrying a certain girl would suddenly decide, "Yes, that's the girl I want to marry." And he would marry her. And others would succeed in attaining a long-desired position.
This was a similar thing; it wasn't Darshan, but it was a similar thing: there was a Norwegian singer in Suresnes, Cally Monrad, who had been a chanteuse ( a small singer) in clubs and so on, and she had suddenly the ambition she would go to the opera and become an opera singer, and she was so well-known that she had been accepted, in principle; and then she fell ill in Suresnes, and she called me down and said, “Go and tell Murshid to come here immediately; I am sick."
So I went up to Murshid, and he stood on his balcony and looked out over Paris, and I said, "Cally Monrad is sick and wants you very much to come down to her."
"Tell her," he said, "It will be all right." That is all he said.
So I went back and told her that, and she became sort of angry—she was a great chanteuse, how could he not come? So she said, "But ask him if I have to call the doctor; I will call a doctor if he doesn't come down here. I'm going to appear in three weeks at the Opera, and how can I when I am so sick?"
So I went back up and told him again. And so he said, "I think I told you to tell her that she would be all right. And, as to doctors, yes, call all of the doctors she can afford."
And so she called several doctors, and these doctors all said, "You are very sick; it is a kidney condition."
"Well, when can I get up?”
"Oh, you may have to stay in bed for 6 months, maybe a year, if you ever get well."
And so I rushed up again to Inayat Khan, and he said, "Well, tell Cally Monrad that she will be up before she has to appear at the Opera rehearsals, she'll be at the rehearsals and she'll be a great success.”
And I don't know if she believed it. I told her, of course. And one day, before she had to travel north to the rehearsals, she suddenly felt completely well, got up, traveled and appeared, and was a great success, and she lived for 18 years without any trouble or any disease or sickness after that.
From an interview with Wali Ali:
A question about Succession
When a disciple feels that he is fulfilling the mission given to him by his teacher, then he feels a successor; and in that sense every teacher has had successors, in plural. And sometimes in his enthusiasm, and perhaps to simplify things, such a disciple writes that he is the successor—and he is right in that sense—but if he refuses another who also feels that he's a successor, he may be wrong. There are successors; some of them may be, from the eternal point of view, even greater than a teacher, who knows? But they are not the same as the teacher; they don’t represent him in all spheres and in all senses. And in that sense there is a succession.
But if anyone of these claims to be the One successor, then he repudiates a great amount of disciples—perhaps in some cases, everybody but himself. The great world teachers, Jesus—who was his successor? John, Peter, Paul? Of course none of them, but all of them. Buddha, who was his successors? The Hinayanists? The Mahayanists? The Zens? Not any one of them, not any one disciple, but all of them, and yet none of them, in the full sense of the consciousness and the characteristics of the Buddha. Who was the successor of Mohammed? Immediately after his death there were two entirely different sects, hostile sects. And today there are many more. So the matter of succession is a personal thing; it is, as the Sufis say, "The disciples make the teacher, and when the disciple feels that he has made the teacher, he is in his own consciousness the successor, and to some extent in the outer world, a successor.
There is belief, you know, among many Sufis, that there is a hierarchy, which is not now, but an absolute hierarchy of the world...By having the hierarchy in the Sufi Order mureeds are supposed to learn about hierarchies and respect them, and perhaps later understand the hierarchy of the world. Nevertheless, it is a game, and it is a play, and mostly it turns out wrong. So you see all over India and all over North Africa, you meet some rare specific persons that may be a Murshid, that may not be, but you meet so many more who are impressed with their own importance.
And SAM is a very interesting person to me, because he was completely free of this, and at the same time, he used it. And he used it in such a way that he wasn't just playing with it, but when he used it, he used it with all seriousness. And when you would see SAM from that point you may say, "Oh well, he was limited, he believed in these titles." And the next moment you could see him from another point of view, that he didn't believe in them at all. And that is his strength, and that is, of course, the strength of all great mystics.
And, to me, if you look at him from a worldly point of view, you can find a lot of things that you could call faults, but at the same time they weren't faults, and it's no reason to even think about it, because he was just as much to me as Al-Ghazali or Shams Tabriz in the desert. He also had touches of Rumi, and he reminds me of many of the Eastern mystics, and also, above all, to me he was a madzub. And you know what a madzub is? A madzub is one who from the beginning rejects all titles and laughs at it. And makes himself the lowest of all, namely a madman. And he behaves sometimes very much like a madman, and purposefully makes himself act like a madman, because he doesn't, or can't be bothered with adoration and all the waste of time that follows it, so he lives like a complete idiot, and enjoys it and can then have peace, to pursue his special projects which might go to help a certain community or a man without them knowing it. Or also it may be to elevate himself, really, in the inner world. And so to me he was, he managed to combine the Murshid and the Madzub.
From Man and this Mysterious Universe (1949)
Visions of Caravans in the Desert
To one who has felt the lure of the East this story [of Ayaz] may bring to life visions of caravans in the desert. He may imagine that he hears again gentle thuds of camel hoofs in soft sand dunes and sees rhythmic movements of graceful animals, unhurried, dignified, whether under a scorching noontime sun or when night falls, the riders having lit their torches and the flickering flames darting up and down with the even strides of the desert ships. Every rider knows that his life and his fate are irrevocably linked to the others for the duration of the journey. Alone he would perish. He depends on the whole caravan for water, food, protection against robbers. Also, he is proud to know that he is one of the team on which all depend. Humility and pride, sympathy and devotion to the common goal unite them in an indivisible brotherhood of achievement.
Similarly, every rider across the desert and through the gardens of life may look ahead — and back, deriving assurance, pride and humility from the vision of the caravan of humanity. Like the slave and his kingly friend, he will realize that his possessions, conditions, thoughts and emotions can be traced to unending numbers of fellow riders right down from the distant past. He may have boasted of being “self-made” in a rash moment but now he remembers that even his body and mind were handed to him by agencies of which he knows little. His nourishment is being prepared by a host of busy workers in bodies of animals and plants, finally to be made palatable by fellow humans in factories and kitchens.
The thoughtful rider may add some gloomy meditations to his prayers of thanks. Like a camel rising after a rest, grumbling, twisting its nose with exasperation at the rider’s prodding stick, its back aching under the heavy load, so many a human rider in the caravan of humanity may grumble because he feels he is carrying a heavier responsibility than he cares to or, more often, because his burden is too trivial. This is the greater hardship. Youngsters yearning to pitch in with all they have for the good of their communities may find red tape, rules, regulations, “lack of funds” and other queer and lame excuses barring them from ample expression of their talents, leaving some entirely without jobs! Such things happen only when the community or its leaders forget the simple pattern of the caravan and the close dependence between the riders, of whom every one is raring to serve the caravan—before he is rebuffed. As the leader of the desert caravan counts all the little flickering lights when night falls, to see that every rider with his torch is with him, so it was assured in the ancient books that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of the Father who art in Heaven. Thus, in the world of the Spirit, on which the caravan of humanity is patterned, none is left behind. There is a unique and ample part to be played by every single man, woman and child. This, then, is the goal toward which the caravan of humanity is inevitably moving and which will set free the slaves.
A slave however, is not only one who is imprisoned or mistreated by his community but also one who is chained by the fetters of his own limitations, passions and grudges. A free man is one who has broken these fetters and whose passions have become the servants of his spirit. A slave may become free in a moment’s time if he has by his side a kingly soul who looks through his ragged clothes and the dirt on his face to the inner greatness. Every man is looking for such kingly souls among the riders near him, who will not pounce upon him with accusations or drown him in quagmires of gossip, who will not seize his soul in its flights and nail it to evil, delaying the entire caravan—who, rather, will help him discover and express the dazzling light of his spirit, making him jubilantly free and hastening the pace toward freedom for all humanity.
…
Companions with genuine power of observation see only the flaming torch of the soul and its great destination, ignoring with generous smiles the little spots of premature actions or sentiments. They know the caravan has yet a long way to travel. Instead of delaying the pace they are eager to hasten it and make the journey pleasant and refreshing. To those who are submerged in despair and disappointments, seeing nothing but injustice and suffering, they whisper gentle encouragement, pointing to that future when the sufferer’s dreams of better worlds will have become blazing realities while the present grim reality will be but a bleak dream of the past. They strengthen the faith of the weary pioneer by reminding him that no effort is ever wasted, that the world as it is today is a passing show of no endurance while the lasting and real thing is the process of creation always going on, in which everyone takes part, consciously or through the fragrance of personality and convictions.
At the present time the writer is looking around with furtive glances. He has rubbed his lamp and aroused a monster. He is wondering whether this gaudy thing will serve or break him. He is not sure whether to be proud or ashamed of it. But, discreetly covering His face, the leader of the Caravan is smiling. Utilizing the inventiveness and drive of man, His progeny, He has presented him with this new gadget, like a father who hands his son a sharp axe, at the proper age, to teach him craftsmanship and care. He has set the stage and has us cornered. By this subtle gift, man is being forced to wise and cooperative action or to the spiritual achievement intended for him by the Master Playwright.
Pausing awhile and looking at the show from the point of view of the Playwright, the writer will see that his present predicament is just one scene of a drama with many acts yet to come. His fear will vanish and a quiet chuckle warm his heart. Then he will again be serious, not from fear but because he realizes the urgency of the play and of keeping to schedule so the acts to come may unfold on time. He has seen the only reality in a world of many claims and pretences. He would not want to delay the onward march of the Caravan of Love.
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The Shamcher Bulletin is edited by Carol Sill, whose newsletter, “Personal Papers”, is HERE.
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I loved the bit about succession--very wise and holy. Thank you.
This is truly a wonderful edition, coming for me at just the right time. Thanks to you Carol and Shamcher!