“The only condition of life is making one’s own nature.”
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Real spirituality is living a life of fullness, with deep insight into all that comes one’s way.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Since December 7th 2021 there have been friends, family, and acquaintances who have been praying and arranging prayers for me around the world. I am blessed.
I believe in a God of love and compassion. My husband calls me a humanist. When we are traveling we always try to visit churches, temples or mosques, places of worship if we are allowed. That feeling of serenity touches my soul.
That same feeling overwhelms me when I am in nature. A walk in the forest, staring out at sea or over a meadow all give me a sense of unity with nature and a feeling of transcendence. God is everywhere. I feel the most serenity when I am on my knees in nature. On a forest floor, on a beach, in grass. The closest to the ground. I do not need a building to express my spirituality. Nature is the largest space of worship.
Music or specific sounds and images help me transcend and feel a part of something larger than me.
My spiritual roots
I was born a Muslim and brought up with a strong feeling of equality and a strong need to follow my own path. In Guyana, where I grew up, we celebrated each other’s religious holidays, attended each other’s religious services. I have never judged a person because of colour or creed.
I have always been drawn to the Sufi teachings. In my father’s the books that interested me as a child and still do were:
Thinkers of the east – by Idries Shah
Books with the teachings of Inayat Khan
Now I realise that the sufi seed – the path of love – was planted there.
My father a practicing muslim encouraged me to read the Mahabarahta and discuss it with him, sent me to a Catholic High School where we celebrated all religions, bought me comic books depicting Hindu Myths and because he relished the symbolics and morale of the stories.
Little did he know that he had put me on a path of stroytelling and of love which is a path navigated from the heart and the soul. And I now realise that he in his beliefs and deeds was a Sufi.
Now on this path and with this limited time I am going to deepen my knowledge of Universal Sufism as taught by Hazrat Inayat Khan to see if this ressonates with my soul. Thank you Papa.
To me, religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say as well in another; and the more languages you learn, the more nuanced your understanding of life. Judaism is my mother tongue yet in matters of the spirit I strive to be multilingual. In the end, however, the deepest language of the soul is silence.
Rabbi Rami Shapiro.
The very simplicity of that statement, ” ‘what is’ is the most sacred”, leads to great misunderstanding, because we don’t see the truth of it. If you see that what is is sacred, you do not murder, you do not make war, you do not hope, you do not exploit. Having done these things you cannot claim immunity from a truth which you have violated.
Krishnamurti.
Real spirituality is living a life of fullness, with deep insight into all that comes one’s way. Spirituality means raising one’s consciousness from human to divine, by expanding the radius of the heart and by raising the consciousness experienced by the soul. Spirituality is, in itself, the forgetting of the self, while at the same time appreciating all, comprehending all, surmounting all and inspiring all.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.
Rumi.
How others support me?
Using their own spirituality which I value, love and appreciate. I have asked them not to send me flowers instead cards with their own thughts.
1. Request prayers in Buddhist temples in India and Nepal. Which meant that my name was said out loud during prayers.
2. Reading of the whole Quran called Khatm by a group in the Queenstown mosque in Georgetown, Guyana in my name.
3. Reading of the whole Quran by a group and praying for me in the Al- Gaushia mosque in Pakistan.
4. Feeding children in the Al-Gaushia mosque in Pakistan in my name.
5. Naming me during healing meditation.
6. Doing sufi meditation (zikr) in my name.
7. Sending me (duas) prayers by whatsapp.
8. Doing light meditation in my name.
9. Sending me nature photo’s.
10. Sending me meaningful spiritual gifts, books, plants.
My spirituality?
Is fueled by my core values:
Wholeness – means aligning my doing with my being. Being true to my core values. Being of open mind and approaching others and situations without prejudice and judgement. Appreciating nature, being in nature and returning to nature. Living a life of honesty and purity. Feeding and listening to my soul. Forever seeking my true nature.
Meaning – making every step count. Being mindful and grateful for all that I have and all that I can give. Sharing, learning and teaching. Praying daily and meditating.
Creativity – keeping the child in me alive. Making do with what I have. Writing, creating, using the gifts I have been given creatively and wisely. To me problems are solutions waiting to be discovered.