This circle has been meeting bi-monthly since Mai 2013
I.WORKING WITH TEACHING STORIES FROM THE WORLD
SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS.
To learn from a teaching story we have to be open to the possibility
that:
- There is an important teaching for us in the story
- The teaching is relevant in our time and our culture
- We can approach the teaching without preliminary religious knowledge
- There is an efficient way to approach this knowledge and
method of self-examination that can be learned as well that will be
described in Part II.
Idries Shah saw the utility of these stories for self-examination and the
development of intuitive capacities and has provided many collections of
stories from the Sufi tradition. In the seventies a group of students
started groups of reflection on this material, in England and the Bay Area. For
years, Dr. James Fadiman founder and faculty member at the former Institute of Transpersonal Psychology,
now Sophia University developed a method of reflection specially aimed at
transpersonal psychologists. I trained intensively with him and then
started to use teachings stories from different spiritual traditions in several
institutions such as The Interfaith Seminary, Hesechia, Tacheria School
of Spiritual Directors
II. SELF INQUIRY USING RUMI’S
POEMS: DESCRIPTION OF THE APPROACH
Rumi’s poems are not stories
to entertain. They are teaching stories.
Teaching stories are stories
designed by spiritual teachers for several purposes and intention: First,
to get your attention.
Second,
to force you to pause.
Third,
to force you to turn inward.
Fourth,
they are designed to stay with you as long as you need it.
In a group it is better to listen to them, instead of
reading. Listening involves another part of the brain. When we read, it is very
easy to analyze a poem. When you are working with a poem at home, alone, gaze
within the text and experience what arises within you. Don’t try to find “what
the poem means.” Keep a light focus.
1. Imagine you meet Rumi at a friend’s
house and he tells you a poem. Your interest is aroused. Here is the poem that attracted your attention.
Keep walking, though there is no place to go to,
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
From Unseen rain, Quatrain of Rumi by John Moyne and
Coleman Barks
2 Now pause and give Rumi your full
attention. It is a relaxed attention
Imagine you are sitting with
Rumi, very close to him.Your knees
touch and as he is reciting this poem, he put his hand on your knee.
Imagine that you have asked
him a question. Here is his answer. This poem is just for you.
Keep walking, though there is no place to go to,
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
3 Now, turn inward
What kinds of thoughts, feelings,
sensations, and images you had when you heard this poem?
Some people think first, others
feel emotions, have body sensations or images before they think. There is no
right and wrong. Just witness your inner responses to the poem.
Look inward again. Witness
everything that arises. Give this process a lot of time. Note. Don’t be concerned if these
feelings, thoughts, sensations and images are “negative.”Making you feel good is the last of Rumi’s
priority. He wants you to know the truth
about yourself. If you repress something that seems to you negative, you are
missing something about yourself. Read the Rumi’s poem the Guest House:
a “dark thought,” can be a “guide for beyond.”
Here are a few questions to guide you
in your self-inquiry What does “keeps walking” evoke
for you? Do you feel stuck in your life
now? Are you hesitant to make a move? Is there an area of your life
where you need to be present to? Do you try to get some guaranty
about results before you make this move? Are you speculating about the future?
Can you show up for something that you know is your deep desire for this reason
only, without waiting for permission from anyone?
4.Read the same poem during the week. Witness
new responses emerging from within.
Even if you
forget this poem later, it may emerge weeks, months, or years later and reveal
new meanings to you.
IIICOMMENTARY ON THE POEM “THE GUEST HOUSE”
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
Who am I? Rumi addresses the ever
changing nature of human consciousness and experience of it.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Thoughts, emotions, moods comes to
us. We don’t create them. Everything comes from the One (God). Each one of us
is a locus of manifestation for the One. Awareness cannot be taken for granted.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
Observe your reactions to the lines
of the poem above. We don’t habitually welcome a crowd of sorrows. Since we all
suffered, every one of us can relate to the image of a house being devastated.
But welcoming and entertaining the sorrows?
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The stoics (ref. Seneca) tell us to
endure suffering.We are told that
should keep a good attitude and control our emotions when we meet a
difficulty.Rumi goes further. It is not
enough to endure, He suggests to welcome what hurts us.Each state of consciousness is a guest.It is not about repressing or claiming that
the sorrow is something good (a blessing, a lesson, as some well-intentioned
people and “positive thinkers” will say). It is about seeing that these sorrows
are not the end of any part of our journey, but a passage.Unless we see things as they are, even messes
and disasters, there is no opening to a higher state of consciousness.We content ourselves with reframing.In other words we rearrange the chairs on the
Titanic.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
The Sufi path has been called a
matter of "effort on the effortless path."Although openings to higher states of
consciousness are not our doing, a conscious cooperation is necessary.The dark thought, the shame, the malice are
given to us and we are the loci of their manifestations. The "invite them
in" is the conscious effort.It is
a turning around, to look within. The laughter is a sign that we can look at
our misery from a perspective that shows that we are not "married" to
it.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Gratefulness is the ultimate prayer
and contentment with whatever comes to us is the ultimate surrender (higher
stage of development or station). It is also the opening to God who is waiting for
us.
From the Essential Rumi,
translations by Coleman Barks and John Moyne, p. 109.