|
ENERGY
|
GAIN ENERGY
APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
|
THE
ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
|
THE
KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS
APPRENTICE
LEVEL3
|
MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS
TANTRA
APPRENTICE
LEVEL4
|
2005 AND 2006
|
SufismVOL. 2, SUFIS: THE PEOPLE OF THE PATHChapter-4Earth and Sky ApartThird Question
|
The third question: Question 3 EVERY TIME YOU COME AND GO IN THE LECTURE, I AM WORRIED YOU MAY MISS A STEP AND FALL. P.S. YOU LOOK SO DRUNK. That's true. But I have been drunk for so long that you need not be afraid. For twenty-five years I have been that way. In the beginning it really was difficult to walk. I was very much afraid myself that I might fall any moment. Somehow the body had become so distant and there was such a gap -- earth and sky apart. It took time for me to settle down. Although everything has settled down, that drunkenness is still there. This is God-drunkenness. Once you have drunk from the spring of the divine you are never in a state of being undrunk. Once is enough. A drop of it is enough to drown you forever. You need not drink again and again; you will never become thirsty again. I can understand your question, but don't be worried. Somehow.... I call it 'somehow' because I am not managing it. I cannot manage it because I am not there to manage it; it has managed itself. Somehow I remain drunk and I remain aware. Sufis have a particular principle about it -- it will be meaningful to understand it. They call it an oscillation between the two states, AHWAL. The two states are BAKA and FANA: individuality and dissolution of the individuality. Between these two there has to be a kind of rhythm, a synchronisation. There are people who are in their BAKA, but they don't know anything about FANA. Then there are people who are in their FANA, but they forget how to come back to HAKA. Both are lopsided. A kind of balance is needed between the two -- drunkenness and awareness. One has to be drunkenly aware, or alertly drunk. That is the highest alchemy -- where opposites meet and they become one. That is the greatest synthesis. It is said of al-Junaid, Master of al-Hillaj Mansoor, that he used to impose disciplines to establish a rhythm between these two polarities. It is reported that the Master once ordered a disciple, al-Shibli... al-Shibli later on became a great Master himself. This man, al-Junaid, created many Masters. He had a great creative energy to create Masters. He was one of the Masters of Masters. When al-Shibli attained his satori. his samadhi, his FANA, he became incapable of coming back to the BAKA. He was so drunk, so lost, that the Master was very angry with him. He said, 'You listen, Shibli! First you were clinging to your BAKA state. Now you have moved to the other and now you cling to it. Clinging remains. Clinging has to go. one has to be more liquid. One has to be capable of moving from one to the other easily, smoothly -- just like a pendulum that swings from left to right, right to left. Without any hitch, hesitation, without any clinging, one has to attain to that smooth movement.' But al-Shibli could not follow. Then the Master said, 'If your self-discipline is not sufficient to restrain your mystic states, AHWAL, it is better that you admit yourself to a mad asylum for a time. ' This is strange advice from a Master -- 'Go to a madhouse, admit yourself, and stay there until you attain a discipline by which you can be alert and drunk together.' This has been one of the greatest problems on the path of the ultimate ecstasy, and you will find this phenomenon in many ways. You see Buddha. Buddha is drunk and alert together. Ramakrishna is not alert. He is drunk. Something of the balance is missing. If you ask me, I cannot tell you to make Ramakrishna a goal. When Ramakrishna would get into his FANA state, for days he would remain almost unconscious. Once he remained unconscious in a coma for5 six days. And when he came out of it he started crying, and he started asking God, 'Take me back. Let me go into that again.' He became like a child. It is better than the state of BAKA -- this ecstasy is good -- but there is a higher stage to it. That is Buddha's state. He is drunk and yet alert. One has never seen him unconscious. He has managed the ultimate synthesis. The way of ecstasy is also the way of sobriety, because it is the science of the knowledge of states. As Sheik ibn Ajiba has said, 'A drunkenness with consciousness of the state is higher than drunkenness with forgetfulness. Ecstasy is not the goal but the means; nevertheless an absolutely essential means.' So you need not be afraid. I am drunk and alert together. My drunkenness takes care that I don't become so much alert that I am fixed in the HAKA. My awareness takes care that I don't become fixed in the state of FANA. They help each other like the two wings of a bird -- they are opposite and yet complementary. With one wing you cannot fly, you will need both wings. And that is my teaching. My whole effort here is to make you alert and drunk together. Hence I go on telling you to dance and abandon yourself in dance, and I go on teaching you ways of meditation, awareness, vipassana -- so that both can grow together. The day you are drunk, suddenly you will find a light burning in you which keeps you alert. And certainly, as Ajiba says, a drunkenness with awareness is higher than a drunkenness with forgetfulness. |
Next: Chapter 4, Earth and Sky Apart, The fourth question
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Sufism Sufis: The People Of The Path
Chapter 4
|
