Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Hope Of Loving


What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?
I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover’s
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts. We wither
like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.

... Meister Eickhart

Secrets Of Success


When I woke up this morning I asked myself: What are some of the secrets of success in life? I found the answer right there in my very room:

The fan said : Be cool
The roof said : Aim high
The window said : See the world
The clock said : Every minute is precious
The mirror said : Reflect before you act
The door said : Push hard for your goals
And finally, the carpet said : Kneel down and pray.

... Author Unknown

The Book Will Feel No Pain


If they burn a book, have no worries. The book will feel NO pain so neither should you ... True destruction of the Qur'an cannot be done with fire, it is destroyed when we fail to remember and practice its lessons in our daily lives ... If this occurs then it is ANOTHER fire that you should truly be concerned about.

... Lupe Fiasco

You Got Me


I can't imagine what it'd be like
Living each day in this life - without you.
Without you.
One look from you I know you understand
This mess we're in you know is just so out of hand.

I hope we always feel this way (I know we will)
And in my heart I know that you will always stay

Oh, I just can't get enough
How much do I need to fill me up.
It feels so good it must be love
I give up. I give in. I let go. Let's begin.
Cause no matter what I do...

You got me.

... Colbie Caillat

Monday, September 27, 2010

What Am 'I'?


If I am not for myself, who will be for me? 
And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? 
And if not now, when?

... Hillel The Elder

My Brothers Are Those Who Will Believe In Me, Without Having Seen Me


Anas ibn Malik narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said: “I wish that I could meet my brothers.” 
The Companions of the Prophet (Allah be well pleased with them) asked, “Are we not your brothers?”
He replied: “You are my Companions, but my brothers are those who will believe in me, without having seen me.” 

... [Ahmad, Musnad]

What We Are and Where We Are


Man is committed at birth to two journeys. The first he cannot escape, for this is the journey of action and experience as he travels down the stream of his own lifetime and creates—a man of his period, localized in time and space—a story which is an expression, in this particular mode, of his ultimate identity. The second journey, which can—at least in a certain sense—be avoided, is upstream, using time and locality only as starting points, leading beyond their zone. This is the journey described in countless myths and legends, the arduous, perilous way towards the centre of being, the passage from the ephemeral and illusory towards the eternally real. It was to provide a landscape for this journey that the monster Chaos was slain and an ordered world raised from the waters, and it was to provide a negotiable way through this landscape that the prophets labored, Christ died and Muhammed led the people of the City into battle in the Arabian wastes.

In a normal society the circumstances of the first journey provide supports for the second, and it was man's aim in the past to build and maintain a physical and social environment in which every element had a dual character, existing as a ‘thing’ in terms of the first journey, standing as a symbol and signpost in terms of the second. For a very long time now the routes of these two journeys have been diverging, and it is not by chance that the last of the great, world-transforming Revelations laid such particular emphasis upon the duty of pilgrimage: the pious Moslem on his way to Mecca is like a dancer who, by the steps he takes towards the physical symbol of all centrality, acts out the drama of his own inner, timeless journey, just as, in his obligatory prayers, he creates a tiny area of consecrated territory—confined to the dimensions of his prayer-mat—in an environment that has become almost totally profane. From this point of view it might be said that the sacred rules of Islam were specially designed to protect the traveler in a world which no longer offers him any foothold.

But the fact that we find ourselves now in a world in which the two paths have diverged so far that they can scarcely any longer be related to each other is not, in the last analysis, a senseless accident. The human world, being what it is, could only decay in the course of time, but, since decay is itself a necessary aspect of a larger pattern and since there are possibilities which can only find existential expression in such a context as ours, this is where we belong. We live out our lives here and now (rather than in some paradisal environment) because it is our nature to be where we are. And we are told that there are compensations available to such as us which were not available to the less degenerate men of earlier times. "You are in an age in which, if you neglect one-tenth of what is ordered, you will be condemned", the Prophet of Islam told his Companions, "but after this a time will come when he who observes one-tenth of what is now ordered will be saved".

... What We Are and Where We Are, Charles Le Gai Eaton

Pierce Consciences


It must be admitted that the progressists are not entirely wrong in thinking that there is something in religion which no longer works; in fact the individualistic and sentimental argumentation with which traditional piety operates has lost almost all its power to pierce consciences, and the reason for this is not merely that modern man is irreligious but also that the usual religious arguments, through not probing sufficiently to the depth of things and not having had previously any need to do so, are psychologically somewhat outworn and fail to satisfy certain needs of causality. If human societies degenerate on the one hand with the passage of time, they accumulate on the other hand experiences in virtue of old age, however intermingled with errors their experience may be; this paradox is something that any pastoral teaching should take into account, not by drawing new directives from the general error but on the contrary by using arguments of a higher order, intellectual rather than sentimental; as a result some at least would be saved -- a greater number than one might be tempted to suppose -- whereas the demagogic scientistic pastoralist saves no one.


Friday, September 24, 2010

O, Never Say That I Was False Of Heart


O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all

... William Shakespeare

When We Two Parted


When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

... Lord Byron

The Question


I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth
Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white,
And starry river buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand, and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it! Oh! to whom?

... Percy Bysshe Shelley

Helas


To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God.
Is that time dead? Lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

... Oscar Wilde

Anyone At All


Funny how I feel more myself with you
Than anybody else that I ever knew
I hear it in your voice, see it in your face
You've become the memory I can't erase

You could have been anyone at all
A stranger falling out of the blue
I'm so glad it was you

You could have been anyone at all
A net that catches me when I fall
I'm so glad it was you

I'm so glad it was you :)

... Carole King

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Home


I'm staring out into the night,
Trying to hide the pain.
I'm going to the place where love
And feeling good don't ever cost a thing.
And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain.

Well I'm going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I'm not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don't regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old,
So I'm going home.
Well I'm going home.

... Home, Daughtry

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Humble Longing


Everyone who delights in some act of devotion
can't bear to miss it,
even for a short while.
That disappointment and grief
are as a hundred prayers:
what is ritual prayer compared
with the glow of humble longing?

... Mathnawi II: 2769-2770, Mevlana Rumi