Fatah's blog: "THOUGHTS"

THE DARWIN AWARDS If you are unfamiliar with the Darwin Awards you can go here and spend some fruitful time learning the many ways that humans have of removing themselves from the gene pool. www.darwinawards.com Here is an example: Oil Tank Trampoline 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin (24 June 2007, Colorado) If you get "Footloose" and cut the rug on an oil tank, be careful not to light a cigarette or bong of weed, else you may soon be climbing the proverbial "Stairway to Heaven". After smoking marijuana and liquoring themselves up at a popular party spot in Routt National Forest, the teens decided that it would be fun to leap and cavort upon a mostly-empty oil tank. Mostly empty... "There were several ignitions sources," according to the sheriff. Teenagers were smoking, and there was a bonfire nearby. The energetic gyrations of the dancers caused fumes to leak from the relief valve, and an ignition source sparked a "flashdance" as the crude oil storage tank exploded, hurling two teens 150 yards to their deaths. The deceased were identified as Samuel and Christopher, 17 and 19. To Review the Rules: 1. Reproduction: At 17 and 19, they weren't married, nor had they reproduced, nor can they now reproduce. 2. Excellence: They thought it was wise to jump around on an oil tank containing 160 barrels of crude oil, while stoned out of their gourds. 3. Self Selection: Stoned insensible, drunker than the town drunk, and dancing on a oil tank exuding flammable vapors, with a campfire nearby. 4. Maturity: At 17 and 19, both are over the minimum age of 16. 5. Veracity: MSNBC.com and AP.

I just looked at my page on my publishers web site and saw the following announcement: A SOUTH ASIA EDITION of The Sovereign Soul: Sufism: A Path for Today was published by Readworthy Publications Ltd., of New Delhi, India, in February 2008, under the title Sufism: A Path for Today: The Sovereign Soul. Readworthy is a new imprint of D.K. Printworld Ltd., also of New Delhi. The Readworthy edition is available both as a paperback and in hardcover form. The first I knew of this was when two books arrived in the mail. One hardback. Wow. I am international. Isn't that cool? If you are interested, you can see the book and some reviews at http://newpara.com/The_Sovereign_Soul.htm

GRATITUDE "A person, however learned and qualified in his life's work, in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant." Hazrat Inayat Khan I realized something the other day. It came quite suddenly. I was at a yield sign, entering a parkway, waiting for a space in the traffic to merge. Someone slowed down and flashed their lights at me to let me know they would allow me in. I merged and raised my hand in a sign of gratitude. Just at that moment, I realized that, when I do the same for someone, allow them to merge into traffic ahead of me, I more or less expect some sign of gratitude from them. A wave will usually do or a nod of acknowledgment. When you drive the interstate at night and a truck passes you and you flash your lights to let the driver know that the rear of his trailer has cleared the front of your vehicle and it is safe to re-enter the right hand lane, the driver will usually flash his running lights as an acknowledgment of your politeness. I expect it and almost always get it but not every time. When the truck driver does not flash his running lights I feel cheated. It is silly I suppose but the memory of disappointment is there. Another part of the realization I had was recognizing my expectation of disappointment. It was strange to realize that the two emotions exist simultaneously. On the one hand I expect to see someone's gratitude and on the other I expect to be ignored. And there is another thing that occurs to me. I have this habit, which I suppose a lot of people who lived thru the 60's have. When I go someplace where I know the parking is going to be tight I ask what I call my parking genii to find me a parking space. When I arrive where I am going and find the parking space, which is almost always there, I thank my parking genii. I think of it as expressing gratitude to the Universe for the experience of living, even in this small way. I used to think God, now I think Universe but I suspect they are the same thing. To have this wonderful opportunity of experiencing physical reality on such a beautiful planet; to be able to challenge our assumptions and values; to create a life's dream in a strange land - all of these things challenge us in a way that is truly creative and nourishing to the soul. These little moments of gratitude which are expressed between strangers on the road, as I mentioned above, or an indication of the possibility of gratitude that we need to express toward whatever we think of as the creator of this wonderful opportunity. It may be random chaos or it may be intricately planned but whatever did create it, there is no doubt that it is wonderful and genuinely worth the effort. What is to be avoided is gratitude guilt. Ya know? Someone, usually your mom but it could easily be another authority figure in your life, telling you that you should be grateful. This spoils gratitude. It is easy to see that if a child is continually told that they should be anything they are going to resent it. It isn't a natural emotion if it is forced on you. One of the most special moments in my life was when my grand daughter, then just over two, crawled up into my lap and said, "I love you grandpa." I thought I would melt. No one told her to do this, it was quite spontaneous. How do you think she would do if she were told to tell me? I cherish this moment and how she has grown to be totally honest about her emotions, angry as well as elated. I believe that most cultures have some kind of ceremony of gratitude. Our Western culture, mostly Christian, certainly has these. I can remember sitting in Lutheran church, listening to the minister talk about being grateful and looking around at all the stern unhappy faces. I was a kid but I would wonder why nobody looked all that grateful. It confuses a little kid to be told that he should be feeling gratitude for being forgiven for sins that he didn't even know he was responsible for. How lame is that, but that is the message that was given, is still being given I suppose. Gratitude should not be demanded. The question then is what is genuine in our emotions? If we express gratitude in some way do we expect an acknowledgment? And if we do then why do we expect something that should be freely given? It is a challenge isn't it. This all goes back to my last blog about questions. Ultimately what is necessary is that we continually examine our emotions, our thoughts and our subliminal beliefs. Everything comes under the mental microscope, nothing is exempt. And then, eventually, gratitude will come. Love & Blessings, Fatah

Do you think she is sincere? annabel_2love@yahoo.com HELLO How are you today, I hope all is well with you .I am sorry to worry you with my Proposal for a relationship with you, but I know that you will grant my request in good faith and understanding, My name is Annabel, I just went Through your profile I have no options than letting you Know that I am interested in having a relationship with you, I will also like to Know you the more, you can send an email to my email address (annabel_2love@yahoo.com) so that I can send you more details about my self Including my picture. I believe we can move from here. But bear in mind that Love has no colors barrier, no educational back ground barrier, no socio-economic Barrier, religious, language, nationality or distance barrier, the only important Thing there is love. I am waiting for your mail to my email address above. Yours Sincerely Annabel Seems like every single social site I get on has these hustlers eventually invade it. Any thoughts on how to exterminate them?

”Is our coming on earth ruled by a law, or does it happen in a haphazard way? This very subtle problem is very difficult to explain. We are helped by understanding the meaning of accident and intention. They are two distinct things. It helps us if we try to discover what is hidden behind accident. Then we come to the intention in the scheme of the working of the whole. Everything has a purpose, nothing is an accident; but to our mind there is accident. So accident exists for us like a shadow. Neither has shadow a real existence, nor has accident. Nothing is really accidental, but as the idea of accident goes on, it attracts accidents more and more. For instance, a person may wander for six months in Paris without finding a thief, but for a thief it will not take six hours to find one, for the law of attraction works. There is a verse in the Qur'an which explains this very well: 'Not one atom moves without the command of God.' Intention is behind every activity, and the intention which we do not know, we call accident." Hazrat Inayat Khan Traditional Sufism has a basic practice or mantra that is common to all orders. In Arabic the words are La Ilaha Illah 'llah Hu. A literal translation into English is No Existence Except God – Hu is translated as Presence. The way it is normally expressed is Nothing Exists Except God and God's Presence. Every Sufi order, and there are many, use these words, though in many different ways. Often they sing or chant the words in a singsong fashion. Some orders repeat them slowly and rhythmically and all think about them. In addition to this practice, most orders have other spiritual practices that they do, some simple, others quite complex. All however have as their objective the unveiling of the personality and the transformation of the being into whom they are becoming. In all the years that I have been a Sufi it was never really all that important to me where these words came from or why they seem so real to me. For a person raised as a Muslim they are the essence of their faith or they should be. For someone raised as a mid-western Lutheran, they are just strange syllables that have no meaning in and of themselves but seem to have some effect on my consciousness, or maybe I am imagining it. Never the less, when I first heard them and struggled to repeat them correctly, something magical seemed to take place within my being. What I came to understand was that this is intent. As Hazrat Inayat Khan says above, things may seem like they are accidental but accidents are really the shadow of intent. Imagine for a moment that it is possible to know the mind of God. This is clearly not possible but let's just pretend that we have a limited access. Does God see accident? Does the Universe in its constancy see accident? Even if one subscribes to chaos theory, still random acts breed distinct results that have an effect on the whole body. It is as if the body needed a certain result and created it. Therefore, by definition, the distinct result demanded the random acts in order to manifest. Pir Vilayat used to frequently quote some French philosopher, whose name escapes me, who said something that he very much approved of. The pull of the future is much stronger than the push of the past. Pir Vilayat was using this phrase to explain to people how their future being was asking them to perform certain acts and concentrations in order to enable the manifestation that was already in place in the future self. Tricky stuff to think about because what if you do not do what the future self is asking of you? Does the time line split? Science Fiction authors have made a lot of hay out of this speculation and that is fine for them, for ordinary people it simply means do it or not. If you do it, the future self manifests, if you don't it doesn't. On a much larger scale it would appear to be much more purposeful. The larger the sample, the more likely it is that the future self will enlist the past in the futures manifestation. In other words, for an individual it is a matter of individual will, for the whole of humanity it just happens. The big question individually is whether or not you will participate or stand back and watch someone else understand Divine Intent. Now, if La Ilaha Illah 'llah Hu actually has validity, then all that we are is an expression of Divine Intent. Ibn al Arabi, the great Sufi metaphysician, noted that in creating humans God had to allow for the possibility of surprise. So free will is an important aspect. However, there does seem to be movement in a direction that feels like the pull of the future. Just the reality of world wide communications tells us something very important. Humanity has a deep desire to understand itself. So? Are you in or out? Love & Blessings, Fatah

My heart has become an ocean, Beloved, since Thou hast poured Thy love into it. Hazrat Inayat Khan Long before I knew what a Sufi was I had a copy of Pir Vilayat’s first book, or I guess it was his first book, “Toward The One.” It had a lot of good information in it but it was almost impossible to read because of the type font and the lay out. But, inside was a poster, which I still have somewhere. I had this poster hanging in the wall of my bedroom and I used to sit on my bed and read it over and over. The above quote was the main sentence, larger than all the others, more prominent on the poster. I used to puzzle over this saying, not being sure who the Beloved was. I figured it had to be some kind of reference to God but it certainly was not the God I was taught about, a remote amorphous being who occasionally, and apparently quite randomly, deigned to notice and even less often, interfere in human affairs. I was taught that if one prayed often enough and sincerely enough that I might, just might, get noticed and replied to. How this reply would come was not very well explained but I would have to keep an eye out. It was all very elusive while appearing to be definitive. At least that is my memory of that training. As has happened to many others, there came a point when I simply stopped paying attention to this training, rejected it, but did not have anything to replace it with. So, as with so many others my age, I became a hippie. That is another story but the point is that the search went on. Even as a pot smoking hippie I knew it too was false. The whole flower child ideal was a kind of illusion, created to respond to an inner pressure to understand the Universe in some way other than the way it had been explained by theologians determined to be in control. So, in the search for something to replace this obviously flawed system I read everything I could find. And that book, “Toward The One” appeared. So, I would sit on my bed and read the poster over and over. Mostly I would roll the above quote around in my mind, trying to understand what it really meant. Of course the mind is not the proper place for such statements, they belong in the heart but I didn’t know that at the time. What I firmly believe is that this book, with it’s poster, came to me as a clue or maybe as a kind of starting place. The journey from getting the book to finding my teacher was a long and confusing one but worth every bit of effort expended in both directions. It is as if one is unwittingly drawn to one’s true path through all sorts of little clues that one may or may not understand at the time, probably not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. What is probably more important is for each of us to recognize our own need to be recognized as precious. Little clues come to you that you will not recognize or that you will insist are something else. Perfectly normal. But, when something resonates deep in your being, seemingly more powerfully, as well as more subtly, than other things seem to, then you can allow this resonance to expand and become the road that leads you to who you really are. Love & Blessing, Fatah