SUFI-METHODS
Sufis stay in the centre,
because in meditation
they become mirrors.
The King can look at their faces
and see His original state.
Give the beautiful ones mirrors,
and let them fall in love
with themselves.
That way they polish their souls
and kindle remembering in others.
What is the mirror of being?
Non-being.
Always bring a mirror
of non-existence as a gift.
Any other present is foolish.
An empty mirror and your worst
destructive habits,
when they are held up to each other,
that's when the real making begins.
That's what art and crafting are.
Your defects are the ways that glory
gets manifested.
Whoever sees clearly what's
diseased in himself
begins to gallop on the way.
There is nothing worse
than thinking you are well enough.
More than anything, self-complacency
blocks the workmanship.
Put your vileness up to the mirror
and get that self-satisfaction
flowing warp out of you!
Your stream water may look clean
but there's unstirred matter on the bottom.
Your Shaykh can dig a side channel
that will drain that waste off.
Trust your wounds to a teacher's surgery.
Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,
these flies of your self-protecting feelings,
your love for what you think is yours;
let a teacher wave away the flies
and put plaster on the wound.
Don't turn your head. Keep looking
at the bandage place.
That's where the light enters you.
And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself.
There are guides who can show you the way.
Use them. But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting that connection
with all your pulsating energy.
The throbbing vein will take you further
than any thinking.
Muhammad said: "Don't theorize
about the essence";
all speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings!
They think the designs on the curtains
are what's being concealed.
Observe the wonders as they occur
around you.
Don't claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.
Look carefully around you
and recognize
the luminosity of souls.
Sit besides those
who draw you to that.
Jalaluddin Rumi
When you realize
the mystery of Oneness
with the Divine,
you will know
that you are no other
than God,
and that you have always been
and will always be
beyond every time and place.
Then you will understand that
all your actions
are His actions,
and your essence
is His essence,
and all your attributes
belongs to Him.
The soul that understands
that it does not see God
through itself
but through God,
so that it is not the soul
which loves God
but God who loves Himself.
The soul sees God
in all beings,
But only because it is God
who is looking.
He is Loved and Beloved,
Seeker and Sought.
Ibn 'Arabi
During the seminars Shaykh Burhanuddin offers moments of sohbet. This Arabic word means ‘being connected’ and it is the traditional way the Sufi masters use to sit and transmit the teachings and the secrets of the Way in a relaxed and open manner. Sohbet means 'being together', 'sharing'. It does not refer only to the external circumstances where the disciples sit in a circle, to listen to the Shaykh. It indicates also a particular inner event, which can occur only when the disciple is listening inwardly to the teacher and grant him the permission to work on himself. It means to be present, to be one, to swim in the same waters. Only if the intention is the same, it becomes possible to visit the same regions.
Shaykh Burhanuddin likes to guide the participants through ancient Sufi methods, like “the mirror”. A simple and very powerful exercise that through the mirroring with an assigned partner, and speaking alternatively about a traditional question while the listener repeats inwardly a dhikr, brings the participants to look closer at themselves and to recognize the partner is not different from himself, but just another of the numberless aspects of the Oneness of Being. The exercise reflects what it is said Shams Tabrizi and Jalaluddin Rumi did with no pause for three months, secluded in one room, sitting one in front of the other.
Shaykh Burhanuddin introduces as well the “red carpet”, a guided strong experience of death that the great master of the past Ibn ‘Arabi, the Pole of Knowledge, used to practised daily, lying down on a red carpet.
Among the other tecniques he offers also an ancient meditation called “Huwa”, designed to experience, through a guided journey, the different aspects of the Light of God. Huwa means “And He is”.
Dhikr
Literally means "remembrance of God", and it is the most known traditional Sufi practice, performed individually or in community, consisting in repeating some of the Most Beautiful Names of God, His 99 Attributes, with a loving and passionate heart. It is said the dhikr is the door to the Divine.
The more we remember God, the more we forget about ourselves, our ego (nafs, in the Sufi language), the troublemaker. If the ego is abandoned even if for only one single moment, then for that moment we become a divine action. Because only God exists.
A dervish - the humble way to call a Sufi - tries to have constantly, whatever he is doing, working, sitting, walking, or lying down, the Names of God on his lips and in his heart. The constant repetition brings to a chemical transformation in his system and will pull him closer to the Source.
Shaykh Burhanuddin, coming from the Naqshbandi tradition which is known to have great mastery into the secrets of the practice of the dhikr, is familiar with its science and applications. He is able to assign personally the most proper dhikr and the right amount of repetitions to each one of the participants, according to their dispositions and individual needs.
The most used dhikr is: La ilaha illa Llah (there is no divinity, but God). Divinities means all our ideas, judgements, wishes, fears. The Sufis approach God through many divine Names that express His various attributes, but the Name Allah‚ combines and transcends them all. Allah is the Supreme Reality. The word expresses the Oneness of Being and the Nothingness. God embraces all opposites.
Wherever you find
yourself,
whether in
worship
or in ordinary life,
contemplate God.
In what you eat,
what you drink,
whom you marry,
always be aware that
He is both
the Contemplated
and the Contemplator.
Abd Al-Kader
No one anywhere
can keep us
from carrying
the Beloved
wherever we go;
no one can rob
His precious Name
from the rhythm
of my heart -
steps
and breath.
Hafiz
Getting
doors open
one after the other
is the essence of Prayer.
Every door is a passage,
another boundary we have
to go beyond.
We squeeze ourselves through,
and then we go.
Farther.
After all,
the purpose of the Prayer
is not to stand and bow
all day long.
The purpose is to possess
continuously
that fragrant state
which appears to you
in Prayer.
Asleep or awake,
writing or reading,
in every state
never be empty
of Remembrance.
Be rather one of those moving
constantly
within Prayer.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Praying sincerely
is a high risk venture.
You must wager your self
and hope to lose.
When you strip off
your self-image,
there is no devotion or devotee.
Lover and beloved
are united,
in the light
of your eyes.
Mahmud Shabistari
Prayer
To pray is the easiest and straightest way to connect with the Absolute. When we are in prostration our heart is higher than our head, so the heart energy can finally drown the mind.
Shaykh Burhanuddin, during the seminars, explains the inner meanings, the beauty and the depth of the prayer, step after step according to the tradition of Islam, which means literally "to entrust the divine will".
I have prayed so much that
I myself turned into prayer.
Everyone who sees me
begs a prayers
from me.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Listen, O dearly beloved!
I am the reality of the world,
the centre of the circumference,
I am the parts and the whole.
I am the will established
between Heaven and Earth.
I have created perception in you
only in order to be the object of My Perception.
If then you perceive Me,
you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive Me
through yourself.
It is through My Eyes
that you see Me
and see yourself,
through your eyes
you cannot see Me.
Dearly beloved!
I have called you so often
and you have not heard Me.
I have shown Myself
to you so often
and you have not seen Me.
I have made Myself fragrance so often,
and you have not smelled Me,
savorous food,
and you have not tasted Me.
Why can you not reach Me
through the object you touch
or breathe Me
through sweet perfumes?
Why do you not see Me?
Why do you not hear Me?
Why? Why?Why?
For you My delights surpass all other delights,
and the pleasure I procure you
surpasses all other pleasures.
For you I am preferable
to all other good things.
I am Beauty, I am Grace.
Love Me,
love Me alone.
Love yourself in Me,
in Me alone.
Cling to Me,
no one is more inward than I.
Others love you for their own sakes.
I love you for yourself.
And you, you flee away from Me.
Dearly beloved!
You cannot treat Me fairly,
for if you approach Me,
It is because I have approached you.
I am nearer to you than yourself,
than your soul, than your breath.
Who among creatures,
would treat you as I do?
I am jealous of you, over you,
I want you to belong to no other,
not even to yourself.
Be Mine, be for Me as you are in Me,
though you are not even aware of it.
Dearly beloved!
Let us go toward Union.
And if we find the road
that leads to separation,
we will destroy separation.
Let us go hand in hand.
Let us enter the presence of Truth.
Let It be our judge
and imprint Its seal upon our union.
For ever.
Ibn 'Arabi
Breathing
The first of the eleven principles of the Sufi Naqshbandi Order (see: "SUFIM. Mystic, Spirituality and practice") refers to a specific breathing exercise. Shaykh Burhanuddin during
the seminars teaches its basic and the variations according to the position of the body, the number of breathing in and out, combined with the repetition of the various dhikrs and visualization. These are all very simple but highly effective methods in rebalancing the whole being already after a few breathes.
Are you looking for Me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder
is against yours.
You will not find Me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine
rooms,
nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans,
not in legs winding
around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for Me,
you will see Me instantly —
you will find Me
in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says:
Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath.
inside the breath.
Kabir
Awake, my dear.
Be kind
to your sleeping heart.
Take it out
into the vast fields
of Light
and let it
breathe.
Hafiz
Mullah Nasrudin was sitting out of the door of his house. He was fishing in a bucket of water.
A passerby, wishing to be friendly, asked:
"How many have you caught today?"
"You are the ninth", said Nasrudin.
Mullah Nasrudin's young wife, recently returned from her honeymoon, was complaining to her friend about her husband's deplorable drinking habit. "If you knew he drank, why did you marry him?" her friend asked. "I did not know he drank",
said Nasrudin's wife, "Until one night
he came home sober".
A robber in the night, jumped on the Mullah and pushing a big knife to his throat said: "Money or life!". Silence. "Hei! I am telling you: money or life!" repeated the robber. "I am thinking, I am thinking..." replied the Mullah.
Sufi Stories
The Sufis love to convey their message also through traditional and modern
stories. They often gather together and share their love for God also
in this way, sitting relaxed in an open circle in front of a cup of tea.
A Sufi story, when used for teaching purpose, has at least seven levels of understanding; every time we listen
to it, it is never the same story, it is always new and rich of gifts.
One morning the Shaykh of Istanbul, looking for a successor, sent his disciples forth to get flowers to adorn the lodge. By late morning all of them except one returned, holding in their arms big bunches of the most beautiful and exotic flowers, spending all their little fortune over it. The sun was setting but yet the missing disciple was not showing up.
Finally, late in the night, he returned, holding in his hands a small, withered flower. When asked why he didn‘t bring anything beatiful worthy of his master, he answered: “Well, truly I was looking and looking, but all the flowers I saw in the fields were busy in recollecting God, singing 'La ilaha illa Llah, La ilaha illa Llah…. How could I interrupt this constant prayer of theirs? So finally at the end of the day I saw one little withered flower. That flower had finished its prayer. That one I brought”.
It was he who became the successor of the Shaykh.
