THE BOOKS
I love to call my books 'pillow books'.
You may not read them from beginning to end.
Just put them under your pillow and sleep over them.
You will wake up happy.
Burhanuddin Herrmann
Why
just ask the donkey in me
to speak to the donkey in you,
when I have so many other beautiful animals
and brilliant colored birds inside
that are all longing to say something wonderful
and exciting to your heart?
Let's open all the locked doors
upon our eyes
that keep us from knowing
the Intelligence that begets love
and a more lively and satisfying conversation
with the Friend.
Let's turn loose our golden falcons
so that they can meet in the sky
where our spirits belong
necking like two
hot kids.
Hafiz
We have not come here to take prisoners,
but to surrender ever more deeply
to freedom and joy.
We have not come
into this exquisite world
to hold ourselves
hostage from love.
Run my dear.
From anything
that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings.
Run like hell my dear
from anyone likely
to put a sharp knife
into the sacred, tender vision
of your beautiful heart.
We have a duty to befriend
those aspects of obedience
that stand outside of our house
and shout to our reason
"O please, o please,
come out and play".
For we have not come here to take prisoners
or to confine our wondrous spirits,
but to experience ever and ever
more deeply
our divine courage,
freedom, and
Light!
Hafiz
From my breath I extract God.
And my eye is a shop
where I offer Him
to the world.
S. Thomas Aquinas
IL SUFISMO
Mistica, Spiritualità e pratica
(SUFISM. Mysticism, Spirituality and Practice)
Armenia Publishers, February 2010, Milano
“The author of this book, the third of a very precious series, holding the reader's hand accompanies him on a journey through the constellations of the Sufi Way, straight to the center of the heart. For lovers of the practice, of an alive spirituality, free from theories and debating, this is the book for you. The master offers a myriad of practical teachings. Excellent book."
Mike Plato, “FENIX”, Magazine of Enigmas and Mysteries of the History and the Sacred , n.17, March 2010
"ALL THE SUFIS OF BUKHARA
A brief digression. There was a time when Bukhara was the greatest spiritual center in Asia. Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Today madrassas transformed into hotels remains for few tourists, a nearly deserted mosque, a large university, shadow of what Islam was once in those areas, when Avicenna was crossing those roads teaching the doctrine of the great need of God reconciling it with sophisticated psychological insights. It is especially the silence that strikes. The silence under the impossible hours of noon, the evening silence along the little or not at all lightened streets. A curfew silence outside the city. In the past it was not like that, the silence had another value. For over two centuries, between the XIV and XV centuries, in Bukhara were born, lived and taught the most important Sufi masters ever appeared on Earth, including, to name only one, Shah Bahauddin Naqshband, the founder of the most important still active tariqa. A spiritual renaissance that is still visible in the beauty of the palaces, in the mosaics of the arches, in the engravings on the houses doors, in the green domes under the sun. A collective intelligence voted to witness the love for God, that same disinterested desire of ascent that filled the gothic cathedrals of Europe from one day to the other.
Reaching Bukhara, nothing remains of all this, except in some almost deserted mausoleums and tombs. The locals, after seventy years of real socialism and thirty of a democracy à la carte, have forgotten their own grandparents. When they see dervishes and Sufi students passing by, coming from other countries to pay homage to the memory of the old masters, they seem to shake off a little dust from themselves and almost have a glimmer of memory. That immediately surrenders to the circumstances: Islam, in Uzbekistan as well, has become a matter of state or of Salafis very interested in making converts in the old capital of the Silk Road. The voices of the masters are overwhelmed by a frightened silence. End of the digression.
Returning from Bukhara the recall of those voices remains. The Sufis are not extincted, only scattered, silent, little showy. But you just have to know how to look for them to be found. This is how the third book written by one of them comes out. A German, a Naqshbandi sheikh of the twenty-first century. And reading it, the silence that wraps up Bukhara comes back becoming more familiar. It is the silence under the background noise we make ourselves that prevents us from listening. We are ourselves the worst enemies of ourselves. That’s what the Sufis call ego, our supplier of nightmares and daily unhappiness, the one that remains clinging to sorrow, that is not resigning to choose because it is in the infinite option that lives, that wants everything but cannot be satisfied with anything, which announces the paradise on earth, but knows only how to transform the world into hell. Under there we are buried, like under a dust blanket of centuries, like in the empty streets of Bukhara. With no more memory of who we are.
Burhanuddin Herrmann, 'Il Sufismo. Mistica, spiritualità e pratica', Armenia."
Dario Olivero, "La Repubblica" newspaper, August 11th, 2010
“AT A SUFI LESSON WITH BURHANUDDIN
Author of succesful books like "Il derviscio metropolitano" and "Il cammello sul tetto", now Burhanudidn Herrmann presents a new volume, "Il Sufismo", published as the others by Armenia...
The grace of the Sufis and Burhanuddin's is not a prerogative of the professional religious people, it fits also the amateurs. The book is divided in short chapters that show the way to dive into the Grace."
Lauretta Colonnelli, "Il Corriere della Sera" newspaper, September 18th, 2010
Fear is the cheapest room
in the house.
I would like to see you in better conditions
for your mother and my mother
were friends.
I know the Innkeeper
in this part of the universe.
Get some rest tonight.
Come to my verse tomorrow,
we can go speak to the Friend together.
I should not make promises right now
but I know if you pray
something good will happen.
God wants to see more love
and playfulness
in your eyes,
for that is your greatest
witness
to Him.
Your soul and my soul
once
sat together
in the Beloved's womb
playing footsie.
Your heart and my heart
are very very
old friends.
Hafiz
The heart is like that:
blessed and ruined
once it has known
Divine beauty.
Then,
it becomes
a restless
sky hunter.
Hafiz
The small man,
builds cages
for everyone
he knows.
While the sage,
who has to duck his head
when the moon is low,
keeps dropping keys
all night long
for the beautiful
rowdy
prisoners.
Hafiz
IL DERVISCIO METROPOLITANO
Vivere oggi la tradizione Sufi
(The Metropolitan Dervish.To live today the Sufi Tradition)
Armenia Publishers, October 2007, Milano
"IL DERVISCIO METROPOLITANO
The Sufis write little and when they do it they write in a simple way. Stories, anecdotes, short tales. For the rest they hand down their teaching in a very practical way. They dance to get close to God. They constantly repeat the names of God in what they call zikr. They pray. They discuss very much as well. About man, God, about the obstacles that separate them and about what to do to overcome them. They believe that the infinite love that God has for man will save them. If someone asks them how to believe in God, one of the answers that you likely hear is: you do not have to believe in God, you have to love him.
They are called the mystics of Islam. It is not entirely correct. In centuries of history they have developed highly refined psychologies and meditation and teaching techniques. All aimed at one purpose: to free ourselves from the illusion of being able to be happy following what commands our ego and surrender with trust to God, to Allah. But they are not beings out of the world. They are, to say it as they say, in the world without being of the world. They soil themselves in the imperfect reality of men giving it a chance. You can be happy here, you just need to know what to look for. And what to leave behind.
A manual for men of this world and of these days is ‘The Metropolitan Dervish’ (Armenia, 15.50 euros) by Burhanuddin Herrmann, Sufi master and disciple of Maulana Grandsheikh Nazim, grand master of the ancient Sufi order Naqshbandi. Nothing demanding, nothing that can change the life of anyone who has not already decided to have it changed. It 's just a book written by a sufi. People that write little. Practical people."
Dario Olivero, “La Repubblica” newspaper, October 25th, 2007.
"IL Derviscio metropolitano”. A Westerner expressing through his life the ascetic ecstatic and pacific essence of the Sufi path".
Livia Serlupi Crescenzi, "New Age and New Sounds Magazine", n.182, February 2008.
IL CAMMELLO SUL TETTO
Discorsi Sufi. Una guida mistico-pratica
alla Via dei Dervisci
(The camel on Roof. Sufi Discourses.
A mystical practical guide to the Way of the Dervishes)
Armenia Publishers, May 2006, Milan
IL CAMMELLO SUL TETTO is also available:
- in Spanish by Palmyra Libros, Madrid, July 2008
- in German by S. Fischer Verlag/O. W. Barth Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, March 2009
"This is not a book. It is a way, a way of wisdom, to be walked with resolute commitment but also with tender joyfulness. I have no doubts that this is the right Way to open oneself to the supreme unity with the Creation, and there to find the Soul".
Prof. Gabriele La Porta, "Anima", RAI-2 tv channel, 20 June 2006.
“GOD, THE SUFIS, THE CAMEL
To meet a Sufi master is not something happening every day. Maybe it's like their tradition says: "It 's the teacher that comes to see you when you're ready".The opportunity to meet one is much more simply here, through a book: ‘The Camel on the Roof. Sufi Discourses‘ (Armenia, 14.90) by Burhanuddin Herrmann. It's a book that comes from down: a pretty widespread community follows the seminars of this German Sufi master who travels in Italy and around the world talking to the ones who wants to listen to him. From those meetings this volume is born. Some warnings. The first one is that the author is a Muslim and for many this could be a problem. If not, other warnings.
In this book there is much talking about God and love. He speaks about ancient practices such as the dhikr, the repetition of the names of God that the dervishes practice, besides the turning dance, to get close to the absolute. It speaks of the only true and great jihad that man is called to do, the one against his own ego and his inextinguishable desire to suffer rather than surrender (Islam) to God. Despite the flourishing of texts on Sufism, here you do not find any new-age shortcuts, as no one would dream of finding in a religion as Christianity. The Sufis are cheerful people as the title already shows, therefore the lightness is the colour of the book. Have a good journey.”
Dario Olivero, “La Repubblica” newspaper, April 13th, 2006.
A fourth book is in preparation.
[The English rendering of all the poems is by Daniel Ladinsky]
If the book
and the nightingale
disagree,
listen to the nightingale.
Sufi saying
