My heart may break,
but my Spirit never.
A GIFT OF LIFE
Poems and Aphroisms
Moineddin Carl Jablonski
Monday, February 21, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Some Helpful Quotes
I hope the following quotes add to your day:
"Smile, breathe, and go slowly"
Thich Nhat Hanh
"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world—not even our troubles."
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."
Ovid
"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are."
Chinese proverb
Chinese proverb
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
John Mohammed Butt: The hippy who became an Imam
John Mohammed Butt: The hippy who became an imam
By Nadene Ghouri
Deoband, India
Forty years after following the hippy trail to South Asia, John Butt is still living in the region, and still spreading a message of peace and love - though now as an Islamic scholar.As our car turned around the bumpy Indian road, a gleaming white marble minaret came into view. My fellow passenger, John Mohammed Butt, could barely contain his excitement."Can you see it?" he asks. "It's like the Oxford University of Islamic learning. For me these minarets and domes are just like the spires and towers of Oxford.
John Butt is the only Westerner to have graduated from Darul-Uloom Deoband
"It's been almost 30 years since I was last here and I am still getting the same thrill. This is my alma mater."The alma mater in question is Darul-Uloom Deoband, South Asia's largest madrassa, or Islamic school.Driving through the madrassa gates, we entered a world rarely seen by Western eyes.Deoband was built in 1866 by Indian Muslims opposed to the then British rule. Little has changed since - winding streets and tiny courtyards lined with stalls selling fragrant chai, bubbling pots of rice and paintings of Mecca.Everywhere are the Talibs, religious students, young men with dark-eyed fervent expressions carrying books or quietly reciting the Koran.And in another scene reminiscent of Oxford, students riding bicycles.A chai seller recognises John and runs towards him. "John Sahib, John Sahib."The two had not seen each other in decades, yet the man remembers him instantly. "John Sahib was the only student I ever saw who used to go jogging."There was only one John Mohammed - unique," he laughs.That is perhaps not so surprising, when you learn that John Butt remains the first and only Western man ever to have graduated from Deoband.He showed me his old dormitory room, a windowless cell where he spent eight years in a life of virtual seclusion, living under a regime of prayer and Koranic study.Imposing figureBut that is just one facet of this man's extraordinary life.Aside from his time at Deoband, he has spent most of the past 40 years living among the fierce Pashtun tribes, who inhabit the lawless hinterland between Afghanistan and Pakistan.He went there in 1969, he says, as a dope-smoking young hippy and never came home.He laughs. "When people call me an ageing ex-hippy, I always reply that I am ageing maybe, but I'm certainly not ex. I'm still a hippy."John Butt cuts an imposing figure.At 6ft 5ins (1.9m) tall, he sports a long white beard and alabaster skin that is almost translucent.Dressed in flowing white ethnic robes, he reminds me of a Benedictine hermit monk or a Victorian explorer, swashbuckling straight out of the pages of an historical novel.He tells me he adores the Queen, Stilton is his favourite cheese and that football is his passion.Yet among the border tribes, he is regarded as a native Pashtun and revered as an Islamic scholar.
FIND OUT MORENadene Ghouri profiles John Butt in It's My Story: The Imam of PeaceMonday, 24 January, 20112000 GMT BBC Radio 4Or catch up afterwards on BBCiPlayer
Home for him, until recently, was a tiny village in Pakistan's Swat valley.Swat was once a popular tourist destination but is now the scene of regular battles between the Pakistani military and the Taliban.But back in 1969, the young John was hooked from the moment he saw Swat, describing to me snow-capped mountains, rivers like flowing jewels, forests and alpine pastures.It was, he says, "like Tolkien's Middle-earth, magical and other worldly" inhabited by tribal people who were "very pleasant, big-hearted, tolerant, easy-going and welcoming".When his fellow hippies grew up and went home to become accountants and lawyers, John stayed on - becoming fluent in the Pashto language and studying Islam.But John's world changed in the late 1980s, with the arrival of jihadists, who came to the border areas from all over the world to fight the war against the Russians in Afghanistan."I saw the rural, religious Pashtun way of life I had come to love so much being diluted, contaminated and poisoned, in particular by Arabs from the Middle East," he says."The way they practise Islam is very different to the tribal areas, but they used money and influence to impose their own set of values."So he decided to fight for his adopted culture.Peaceful IslamIn the early 1990s, he joined the BBC World Service Pashto service and helped to set up New Home New Life, a now iconic Afghan radio soap opera, known as The Archers of Afghanistan.
I've hired some of the best Islamic scholars in the region - pious, good and brave men 
Six years ago, he set up a radio station which broadcasts across the Afghan-Pakistan border and which tries to promote tribal traditions along with peace and reconciliation.More recently, John has switched his attentions back to Afghanistan and is spearheading the formation of a new Islamic university in the predominantly Pashtun city of Jalalabad."It makes perfect sense. There is currently nowhere in Afghanistan where a young man can do higher Islamic studies. They go to Pakistan, where as we know some of them have become radicalised," he says, emphasising that his university will give a platform to moderates.But this promotion of peaceful Islam has set him on a collision course with militants. His beloved Pakistan has now become too unsafe for him.
"Swat is a militarised zone and people I see as foreigners there now treat me like I'm the foreigner, even though I lived there for 40 years."It's hard to work out who is who any more - who is Taliban, who is criminal. The waters are very muddy."Last year, waters of another kind finally put paid to his idyll, when his house was washed away in the floods which devastated the area and killed thousands."It was a relief in some ways. When I lost the house, I knew I'd never go back there."Afghanistan has also become increasingly perilous after Taliban death threats.The Taliban have delivered so-called night letters - notes hand-delivered in secret and at night for maximum impact - warning students not to study at the university and denouncing John as a Christian missionary or an "orientalist".Death threats have also been made to his teachers and staff."I've hired some of the best Islamic scholars in the region - pious, good and brave men," he says. "They know this is for the benefit of Afghanistan and they insist they will stay working with me despite the dangers."As I said goodbye, he was planning to travel to Jalalabad on the local bus. We talked about the possibility of him being attacked and he admitted he could easily be killed.But when I asked if he was scared, he brushed me off with a shrug. "You only die once. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow."From Our Own Correspondent
John Mohammed Butt: The hippy who became an imam
By Nadene Ghouri Deoband, India |
Forty years after following the hippy trail to South Asia, John Butt is still living in the region, and still spreading a message of peace and love - though now as an Islamic scholar.
As our car turned around the bumpy Indian road, a gleaming white marble minaret came into view. My fellow passenger, John Mohammed Butt, could barely contain his excitement.
"Can you see it?" he asks. "It's like the Oxford University of Islamic learning. For me these minarets and domes are just like the spires and towers of Oxford.
John Butt is the only Westerner to have graduated from Darul-Uloom Deoband |
"It's been almost 30 years since I was last here and I am still getting the same thrill. This is my alma mater."
The alma mater in question is Darul-Uloom Deoband, South Asia's largest madrassa, or Islamic school.
Driving through the madrassa gates, we entered a world rarely seen by Western eyes.
Deoband was built in 1866 by Indian Muslims opposed to the then British rule. Little has changed since - winding streets and tiny courtyards lined with stalls selling fragrant chai, bubbling pots of rice and paintings of Mecca.
Everywhere are the Talibs, religious students, young men with dark-eyed fervent expressions carrying books or quietly reciting the Koran.
And in another scene reminiscent of Oxford, students riding bicycles.
A chai seller recognises John and runs towards him. "John Sahib, John Sahib."
The two had not seen each other in decades, yet the man remembers him instantly. "John Sahib was the only student I ever saw who used to go jogging.
"There was only one John Mohammed - unique," he laughs.
That is perhaps not so surprising, when you learn that John Butt remains the first and only Western man ever to have graduated from Deoband.
He showed me his old dormitory room, a windowless cell where he spent eight years in a life of virtual seclusion, living under a regime of prayer and Koranic study.
Imposing figure
But that is just one facet of this man's extraordinary life.
Aside from his time at Deoband, he has spent most of the past 40 years living among the fierce Pashtun tribes, who inhabit the lawless hinterland between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He went there in 1969, he says, as a dope-smoking young hippy and never came home.
He laughs. "When people call me an ageing ex-hippy, I always reply that I am ageing maybe, but I'm certainly not ex. I'm still a hippy."
John Butt cuts an imposing figure.
At 6ft 5ins (1.9m) tall, he sports a long white beard and alabaster skin that is almost translucent.
Dressed in flowing white ethnic robes, he reminds me of a Benedictine hermit monk or a Victorian explorer, swashbuckling straight out of the pages of an historical novel.
He tells me he adores the Queen, Stilton is his favourite cheese and that football is his passion.
Yet among the border tribes, he is regarded as a native Pashtun and revered as an Islamic scholar.
| FIND OUT MORE Nadene Ghouri profiles John Butt in It's My Story: The Imam of Peace Monday, 24 January, 2011 2000 GMT BBC Radio 4 Or catch up afterwards on BBCiPlayer |
Home for him, until recently, was a tiny village in Pakistan's Swat valley.
Swat was once a popular tourist destination but is now the scene of regular battles between the Pakistani military and the Taliban.
But back in 1969, the young John was hooked from the moment he saw Swat, describing to me snow-capped mountains, rivers like flowing jewels, forests and alpine pastures.
It was, he says, "like Tolkien's Middle-earth, magical and other worldly" inhabited by tribal people who were "very pleasant, big-hearted, tolerant, easy-going and welcoming".
When his fellow hippies grew up and went home to become accountants and lawyers, John stayed on - becoming fluent in the Pashto language and studying Islam.
But John's world changed in the late 1980s, with the arrival of jihadists, who came to the border areas from all over the world to fight the war against the Russians in Afghanistan.
"I saw the rural, religious Pashtun way of life I had come to love so much being diluted, contaminated and poisoned, in particular by Arabs from the Middle East," he says.
"The way they practise Islam is very different to the tribal areas, but they used money and influence to impose their own set of values."
So he decided to fight for his adopted culture.
Peaceful Islam
In the early 1990s, he joined the BBC World Service Pashto service and helped to set up New Home New Life, a now iconic Afghan radio soap opera, known as The Archers of Afghanistan.
| I've hired some of the best Islamic scholars in the region - pious, good and brave men |
Six years ago, he set up a radio station which broadcasts across the Afghan-Pakistan border and which tries to promote tribal traditions along with peace and reconciliation.
More recently, John has switched his attentions back to Afghanistan and is spearheading the formation of a new Islamic university in the predominantly Pashtun city of Jalalabad.
"It makes perfect sense. There is currently nowhere in Afghanistan where a young man can do higher Islamic studies. They go to Pakistan, where as we know some of them have become radicalised," he says, emphasising that his university will give a platform to moderates.
But this promotion of peaceful Islam has set him on a collision course with militants. His beloved Pakistan has now become too unsafe for him.
"Swat is a militarised zone and people I see as foreigners there now treat me like I'm the foreigner, even though I lived there for 40 years.
"It's hard to work out who is who any more - who is Taliban, who is criminal. The waters are very muddy."
Last year, waters of another kind finally put paid to his idyll, when his house was washed away in the floods which devastated the area and killed thousands.
"It was a relief in some ways. When I lost the house, I knew I'd never go back there."
Afghanistan has also become increasingly perilous after Taliban death threats.
The Taliban have delivered so-called night letters - notes hand-delivered in secret and at night for maximum impact - warning students not to study at the university and denouncing John as a Christian missionary or an "orientalist".
Death threats have also been made to his teachers and staff.
"I've hired some of the best Islamic scholars in the region - pious, good and brave men," he says. "They know this is for the benefit of Afghanistan and they insist they will stay working with me despite the dangers."
As I said goodbye, he was planning to travel to Jalalabad on the local bus. We talked about the possibility of him being attacked and he admitted he could easily be killed.
But when I asked if he was scared, he brushed me off with a shrug. "You only die once. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow."
From Our Own Correspondent
Friday, January 14, 2011
If you wish to follow the path of saints, first learn forgiveness. - GAYAN 144 - BOULA -103
GAYAN 144 - BOULA -103 - If you wish to follow the path of saints, first learn forgiveness.
In order to learn forgiveness man must learn tolerance first. And there are people whom man cannot forgive. It is not that he must not forgive, but it is difficult, beyond his power to forgive, and in that case the first thing he can do is to forget. The first step towards forgiveness is to forget. It is true that the finer the man is the more he is subject to be hurt by the smallest disturbance that can produce irritation and inharmony in the atmosphere. A person who gives and takes hurts is capable of living an easy and comfortable life in the world. Life is difficult for the fine person, for he cannot give back what he receives in the way of hurt, and he can feel it more than the average person.
Many seek protection from all hurting influences by building some wall around themselves. But the canopy over the earth is so high that a wall cannot be built high enough, and the only thing one can do is to live in the midst of all inharmonious influences, to strengthen his will-power and to bear all things, yet keeping the fineness of character and a nobleness of manner together with an ever-living heart.
To become cold with the coldness of the world is weakness, and to become broken by the hardness of the world is feebleness, but to live in the world and yet to keep above the world is like walking on the water. There are two essential duties for the man of wisdom and love; that is to keep the love in our nature ever increasing and expanding and to strengthen the will so that the heart may not be easily broken. Balance is ideal in life; man must be fine and yet strong, man must be loving and yet powerful.
GATHA II - Morals - Forgiveness
In order to learn forgiveness man must learn tolerance first. And there are people whom man cannot forgive. It is not that he must not forgive, but it is difficult, beyond his power to forgive, and in that case the first thing he can do is to forget. The first step towards forgiveness is to forget. It is true that the finer the man is the more he is subject to be hurt by the smallest disturbance that can produce irritation and inharmony in the atmosphere. A person who gives and takes hurts is capable of living an easy and comfortable life in the world. Life is difficult for the fine person, for he cannot give back what he receives in the way of hurt, and he can feel it more than the average person.
Many seek protection from all hurting influences by building some wall around themselves. But the canopy over the earth is so high that a wall cannot be built high enough, and the only thing one can do is to live in the midst of all inharmonious influences, to strengthen his will-power and to bear all things, yet keeping the fineness of character and a nobleness of manner together with an ever-living heart.
To become cold with the coldness of the world is weakness, and to become broken by the hardness of the world is feebleness, but to live in the world and yet to keep above the world is like walking on the water. There are two essential duties for the man of wisdom and love; that is to keep the love in our nature ever increasing and expanding and to strengthen the will so that the heart may not be easily broken. Balance is ideal in life; man must be fine and yet strong, man must be loving and yet powerful.
GATHA II - Morals - Forgiveness
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
There Are Many Who Are Stirring
So many on the planet now stirring toward wakefullness.....
The Sufis say it is a sin to try to wake one who is in deep sleep. At the same time, it is almost a sacred mission to spark those who are stirring. This can be done through the glance, through breath practice, framing the right questions or through prayer.
Consider the following article explaining what is happening as we move into the photon belt after 25,000 years.
Since May 1998, when the earth officially entered into the 1st vortex, there is no turning back. Within the next twelve years, the earth will be going through each one of the twelve vortexes of that Light with the intensity that is required for Her purification and preparation for Her ascension process into the 5th dimension.
So what do you think? Bull or worth considering?
The Sufis say it is a sin to try to wake one who is in deep sleep. At the same time, it is almost a sacred mission to spark those who are stirring. This can be done through the glance, through breath practice, framing the right questions or through prayer.
Consider the following article explaining what is happening as we move into the photon belt after 25,000 years.
Since May 1998, when the earth officially entered into the 1st vortex, there is no turning back. Within the next twelve years, the earth will be going through each one of the twelve vortexes of that Light with the intensity that is required for Her purification and preparation for Her ascension process into the 5th dimension.
Since then, the various frequencies and intensity of the Light from the Photon Belt are no longer released at intervals. They are now bombarding the earth much more intensively and constantly. There are a lot of adjustments to be made in this vortex before we can move to the next one. All of humanity, in one form or the other, is feeling the effects of the new energy of this deep cleansing. Every person on Earth is going to have to do whatever it takes to adjust their consciousness and make the necessary changes within themselves to be able to move with and be transformed by that Light.
There is no turning back at this point. You are going to have to decide for yourself now if you want to ride the ascension wave with the planet, be transformed into the new species of humans that will emerge from this transformation, gain your immortality and ascend into the consciousness of the New Earth on the 5th dimensional level, or be crushed by the wave and stay on the 3rd dimension for another round of incarnations. The choice is entirely yours. The opportunity is for all.
Those who resist that Light and the many changes It will bring, will not be able to make it through the twelve vortexes. We know that many will choose at soul level and/or at the conscious level to leave or vacate their physical bodies rather than let go of their fears, preconceived ideologies and personal agendas that are not serving the greatest good of all rather than lovingly allow themselves to go through the necessary steps of this transformation. There are also those who would be ready to come along for the ride, but because of their age, will be choosing to make the transformation from the "other side" of the veil. For those precious ones, this option is totally acceptable, and we ask you not to worry for those loved ones and allow them that choice.
Many of you are already feeling and noticing in your physical and your emotional bodies the effects that are taking place at the cellular and genetic levels. Many of you are experiencing new, unpleasant physical symptoms you never had before, such as, headaches, heart pains, palpitations, chronic fatigue, dizziness, nausea, changing sleep patterns, ringing in the ears, blurring of the vision, and many more. You are also noticing changes in your emotional state. Your bodies are evolving and cleansing themselves. All outmoded, worn-out negative emotions and ways of thinking and perceiving things are coming to the surface to be examined, purified and transformed. Many of you are emotionally confused, and many of you feel you are "sick". I tell you, this is only temporary. Just hang in there and remain into the frequency of "Love" for yourself and others. It will come to pass.
So what do you think? Bull or worth considering?
Friday, December 24, 2010
Advice for a New Mureed *
What does it mean to become a Sufi initiate? How does one go about it? Is Sufism another religion? Is Sufism just another sect of Islam?
I once saw whirling dervishes on educational TV, but I never dreamed that I would one day be one.
Here are some things I wish I had known when I was initiated into the (Chisty) Sufi path.
- I wish I had known how important doing practices is.
- I wish i had known how Sufi teachers approach thier task.
- I wish I had known how important breath practice is.
- I wish I had known how false this ego is.
Of course if I had known these things I would not have needed my Sufi initiation and path.
* Mureed = One who has taken hand or been initiated by a teacher.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Helping the Helpless
Consider a friend or relative who you thnk is acting helpless to survive in this world.
Now consider the times you have genuinely reached out to help them. Do a few come to mind? Good....
Now close your eyes and relax. We are going to take a journey. A journey through time and space to the land we all came from just beyond our Mothers' womb. You are now speaking face to face with your guardian angel. What would you say? Would you ask how to BEST help your friend or relative?
Write us some comments and share your experiences.
Thanks,
Shams
Now consider the times you have genuinely reached out to help them. Do a few come to mind? Good....
Now close your eyes and relax. We are going to take a journey. A journey through time and space to the land we all came from just beyond our Mothers' womb. You are now speaking face to face with your guardian angel. What would you say? Would you ask how to BEST help your friend or relative?
Write us some comments and share your experiences.
Thanks,
Shams
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