Namaz

Even without having to get into a mystical narrative, I can say and prove one thing - The Muslim way of doing namaz is simply the best spiritual innovation of all times.

5 times a day, irrespective of a location, just with a sense of orientation to the most cardinal directional points, one executes a series of movements that creates a pregnant pause from whatever was happening till then. It moves the body, creates a space for the meditation minded to meditate in between the motions. For the chanting enthusiasts it allows a space to refine themselves to better and better renditions of combining chants with poses.

All within 5 minutes. All done. Renewed.

No body needs to build me a mosque to do that. To clean my body before I do the worship, I can even use a stone if water is unavailable, its said..

Basically, just do the stipulated remembrance with no fail. And what difference it makes. Especially in the life of someone like me who get vaccilated by the daily currents. Just the act of remembering Allah through Namaz, makes me feel at the end of the day, there has been some sense of continuity and or meaning to the day.

Alright i know this post is crudely penned to do justice to what the topic is worth. Insha Allah i will be back to complete it. 

Lest I forget

Andrew.
Only you could have convinced me to get married then.
Only you could have been the only person who could convince me to come to US.
I used to think you were a person I evolved away from.
Maybe that mystic trunk of twin soul connects and energy vortices was just a way of letting me feel good about a situation, where, maybe, maybe..hormones and short circuits may be to blame.

Either way, it kept me happy and trippy. And I dont regret parting ways or thinking that way.

But at the same time let me tell you, when I stand today with no sense of compulsion to find any man to get myself hitched with, it was because you gave me the amazing gift of 4 years of love, where i learnt, laughed, loved and got loved so much.

If i were to die tomorrow I would do so happily. Do you know how much that means and what big a role you had to play in it? Many many years of schooling and documentaries and field work in some of the most stricken lands took my big money ambitions away. A disease like Bipolar had to get the help of many many doctors, across 5 hospitals to get finally convinced am sick and need medication and there by take away any Achievement goals. :) all of a sudden surviving itself was just enough. And then there was all powerful Allah. With the subtlest of invasions to my sensory fields and dreams, he keeps leading me out of snares of materialistic world. He is Aliy, the sublime and Al Aziz, the magnificent. So he can do it. Just like that. But Andrew, you singlehandedly gave me a freedom gift too. Helping me ease out of relationship goals. Its relatively for a person with my value system, i think, to stay away from money, fame, and power. But oh, all the different ways the idea of having a person be one's best friend and complementary rhythm, that kinda convenience and poetry more a difficult set up to let go.

But as it struck me on that day in February at RGNIYD balcony, again it struck me today how lucky i was and am to have had that 4 years with you. You have taught me so much, given me so much, and everything from our wedding to cooking efforts to plant pressing have been so much fun.. i doubt any other man could have been all that to what was all that of me in all those years. There is a story in India about a monk who was ready to die and wanted enlightenment. But he was told that since he had no sexual experience, he could not do so. So he found the body of a king who had just passed away, had sex with his wife and returned back to his body and found enlightenment. Am not in any delusion of grandor thinking am close to enlightenment. But I am consciously yearning it. And that yearning/compass makes me know what are good and bad for me, most times. And so, the fact that we took our relationship so seriously when we did. Pulling off our wedding, managing long distance relationship, cultural differences, raising all those pets. Phew. Am feeling all smiley and fulfilled just as I remember and type all these. :)

Thanks buddy, for those jam packed 4 years. If relationships are food to mind and soul. You packaged for me and nourished me with a lot of nutrients in the most effective way. And yes, now am in a place to see how our fights were part of the nourishment too. Thank you again for all that.

All said and one, there is just this one part I miss terribly though. Your grandma. I dont know how she got lodged in my heart so deep. It breaks my heart not to call her.

Ha

I am in a place where few can really touch me.
Yea. Firey Ice, i would call it.

The realisation just slid out of me like sinuous molten laden with a strange kind of surprise as I argued with Mommy about letting me go to a meditation retreat. She was saying I shouldnt go as I am a 'recovering' person on medication. My line of reasoning was, what was the use of medications if they did not allow me to do engagements like this meditation retreat which would be a break from the home bound months from April.

She said, it would all depend on the doctor, in a way that hinted that this too shall be shot down. Thats when i coolly said, if the doctor says no, despite me obediently taking all the high doses of pills he prescribed for me, i would just simply refuse to take the pills or go to the doctor voluntarily.

Really what do I have to lose? A partner? An offspring? A reputation? A job? A need to prove myself to anyone? Nada nada nada. Its a strange quadrant i live in. A quadrant where I am not restrained by fear of losing any of these above entities but at the same time be buoyed by the deep commitment i feel to understanding and practicing Islam. The combination of these dynamics make my quadrant one of freedom, and one insured against depression caused by a general sense of meaninglessness that may descend on people with only the detachment part.

Fakeera I be. Fire Ice that be.

Worse case scenario, if my parents, along with the doctor refuses to have me even attend this workshop, I want to be reminded that as long as whichever mental health facility I may (in the worst  case scenario) be admitted to, because of refusing to voluntarily take medication, I shall still have my mind space to encounter Allah. For he speaks and reaches out and perceives in the most deep yet parsimonious ways. 

My Spring for him is now Autumn

3 men chiselled, bombarded, chiselled, what i am as an entity that last 3 years. Of the three there was the one, in relation to whom, i lost all sense of time-space's laws and just followed instincts without being prepared for it at the beckoning of a mad mauve light of my soul. Though I had known him for many months before, the sudden consuming preoccupation with him happened in just a day. From being a happy go lucky carefree entity, there i was,  a knot, a knot of rigid waiting for this man to drive from his town in El Paso to Las Cruces to meet me.

Because of the sense of sentience i felt through those few days, and because i really couldnt explain from where these emotions had come, last 3 years i spent in turning up rocks and weaving nets like a spider would, to interconnect images and sounds into a theory that would explain my life change as a viable enough story.

I found many. Especially twin soul kinda ones. And I remained happy.

But today something amazing has happened. I feel like he has transitioned into a teacher figure from a romantic partner figure. Its not because of any upgraded understanding of statistics that told me how unlikely the pairing of us as a couple is. Rather it was a strange mix of dream time communications, images, that gently moved me, almost as if i was in a stretcher to this new room, where the colors of my relation with him are different. Its Autumn in here and am feeling like I cant take enough of the leaves' perspiration smudged air in.

I dont regret a thing in my life. But that doesn't stop me from admitting to myself how much i had suffered in the last 2 years. Especially that day in Himachal Pradesh, feeling like I was in a dark tomb with no escape..

Astagfarullah for not being sensible enough to see the hands that fit mine. Alhamdulillah for helping me realize it in time and also gain much from the path to this realization.

That day, on that day in December 20I4, when i danced with him, i felt amazed at how he moved and made me dance along. I thought i couldnt dance as good enough. Idiotic maybe, but it was that pull of desire to match his steps that incubated and got fanned into me being totally caught up in adulation of him. Today, the very same memory is altered a bit. The mind's projector beam is on the way i was not in sync with him. I wanted to match but i wasnt sinuous enough. This is a really surprising awareness because back then I considered myself a good dancer.

Maybe the belly dance class helped in this new destination too. Being aware of the fact that I am not a dancer in Allah's plan of things has also helped me get down from the pedestal of a dance theme new age hippie love story into a trekking trail beautifully adorned with fallen autumn leaves, where am more a crone. like i always wanted to be.

Dangerous Liaisons

I just finished watching the Star Wars Prequels. For the first time. The codependent, intensely twined love between Anakin and Padme and its consequence suffocated me so much. I have never loved a person like that. In my flow in life I have always felt buoyed up by a universal current, briefly catching dear ones hands to transfer momentums and positions. In a way, this is because I was generously loved by my family when I was a child.

Its kinda counterintuitive. One may think its the ones that have been alone and hurt a lot that loves the most. But from my own life experience I have seen that its the ones like that that gives love the least space to express in all it's vibrant hues, for fear of losing their place in the comfort zones.

I know this from the mistakes i had forgiven, but the mistakes I wasnt forgiven for, despite contrite situations. To elaborate would be to pour out negativity into a white space. Maybe someday i will have the panache to write about a phase of my life in a way that is different from a diagnosis of a medical condition and description of an adulterous situation and more in a way that frames the wide range of human cognition and emotion.

But yea, what I take back today, from this blog writing time, is the reminder that I am not made to be anyone's Padme. Never was. Never will be. Never want to be.

Love should be an act and a sense of expansion, rendered with sensuousness. Jupiter and Venus combined. In a way only romantic love and mystic love could be. I remember walking on a narrow alley in the evening sun and falling down on my knees to feel the earth and send through, a universe sized space ship fashioned with my heart's firmaments and breath, to the seemingly far away hero I love, just for him to chance upon it and go on a spin. This way of writing is sure corny. But how else to type a description of a love of liberosis inspired by a series like Star Wars?

I think there is something either deeply sterile or deeply fertile in me. The degree of it being so thorough that, my gravity's pull is for angels with strong enough wings to fly away, fish with strong enough fin to flap away and moles with stubborn enough nossles to burrow away, when needed. So that I make either the best of cocreation or the best of cohabitation. This may superficially seem contradictory. But I believe best love relations can happen only when partners can give each other enough space.

Belly dance

Hold pride in your eyes she said,
Move your body with sensual dignity she said,
And I realised, in what was a very unexpected realisation,
That somewhere along the last few years of my struggles with mind and spirit
I have lost my sinuous control and faith in my body.

I have been regularly swimming, doing yoga and even gymming these past months.
But there is something about dancing that xrays the fiery fluid of our confidence as an entity with a body
That the more methodical punctuated movements of workouts fail to develop or draw attention to.

I am in a perfect place to start welcoming and owning dance back into my body. Because I would be dancing for no one but myself. So I am not defined by the observer, leaving the maximum degree of freedom for myself to create and improvise in a way that syncs my soul, mind and body.

The belly dance class today that reminded all this was just 4 hr long. Hopefully, the conviction it created rolls on for months and rolls off the shame and heaviness on my shoulders and hips.. 

Rhythms

There is a basic, yet vibrant rhythm to nature. We recognize the day-night part of it, the season part of it. These are materialistically tangible. But beyond that I believe there is a "conscience cycle" in operations. And this cycle controls how and when our spiritual and physical planes interact.

However, due to the inertia in communication, obtuseness of our sensory faculties (caused by low energy foods and lifestyles) and because of all the layers of denial we wrap ourselves with, we often go out of harmony with this vibrant rhythm.

We sleep at night because, the darkness reassures us its a good time to do so. Similarly there are times in space-time, that requires the subtler spiritual endeavours to be relaxed and lulled. But from my own experience, I have found that for the spiritual initiate, this is really hard to swallow. We want to be flying all the time.

This needs to be checked. Because we would be going against the tide if we try to be clairvoyent, clairaudient etc at times they are not supported by nature and the very effort of going against nature's verdict could create in us a deep disdain, which would create an abscess for other parasitic emotions and entities to feed on.

My advice would be to have other tools ready to practice and hone at those times. For me, it is meditation. Especially Vipassana meditation. When the mystical world kicks me out I take refuge in Vipassana meditation that help me get busy with processing reality in a different way. It has its own charm you know.

So yeah, keep having multiple tools in your tool kit. And use them according to the space-time context.