Hi Mona,

Couldn't agree more about the 'unity in diversity' being just a slogan and nothing more to most, even to those who coined it. If I remember right this came up as a good slogan just before the Asian Games or some such event during Indiara Gandhi's reign. Makes for good sloganeering.

You have covered a whole gamut of issues here, one can understand the depth of your feeling. However, I think one reason we are in this state is because everyone has become ultra sensitive about actual and perceived insults/slights on the one hand and it is also about being obsessed with finding fault with others for our own failures.

I think we are losing perspective and are fast becoming a society where a community will riot over jokes which have been in existence since time immemorial, a section of people will suddenly see obscenity in works of artists which are over 30 years old, where one day even mentioning a religion or religiuous belief of another community will brand you as being a rabid communalist.

The real tragedy is that we are in effect fast moving towards perpetuating the very evils we wish to eradicate whether it be caste distinctions, education or poverty.

The remedy perhaps is in each one of us standing up and telling those responsible that we are not willing to be led by the nose and that we are not prepared to be manipulated by self serving rabble rousers anymore. Tall order!

Dear Dara,
I'll be the first to place an order for TALL!
:)
love,
~ Kate

Hi Mona,
Unity in diversity has the potential to be affirming, and maybe it's not the slogan that needs reworking, but mindsets.

~ Kate

Hi again our Kate,

Why not dark and handsome too while you're at it ;)

Love
Dara

Hello Mona, Kate and Dara,

Mindsets are able to change. Do read much Mona, but do not get too emotionally involved in it. Just put it on your "harddisk" my husband would say :). Let it just be there and by itself it will have a function when time is there.

Most media live by negative news. There is an equal amount of positivie news but that is not interesting enough :)

You have such a lot to be proud of in your country!

I learnt a lot here in those 3 years this Intentblog exists I am what one could call a "late developer".

I have discovered the labyrinth some five years ago and this has helped me a lot in my socalled "evolutionary consciousness" development.

One thing that one does not need is to surrender to a so-called guru. The labyrinth is a tool that invites one to surrender to oneself.

And then one becomes surprised about the possibilities present in oneself!

I only now found out that the labyrinth is also an age-old symbol in India and here is a link to this fact:

http://www.labyrinthos.net/indialabs.htm

I recently made my own website about Mazes and labyrinths and I have already placed this link on my links page.

But I think am going to place it as number ONE :)

Love, from the heartphone,

Mieke

Mona,

Thanks for passion that speaks through your words. There is so much to heal in this world. It can be overwhelming if that is our only focus. I hope that you have another reference point that brings you peace and comfort. I have found that point to be within with a sort of safety net that catches, holds and supports me. It's a place of light to help me function in this dominantly dark world. Light diffuses dark.

Thanks for your sevice in a dark world. Light of Love is the only force that can make a positive difference. Weave this positive nature into your moments, hours and days and notice the outcomes.

Trish~~

Dear Mona

India has a large population density, and has had for centuries. There are eons of layers of competitive quirks and signals built in to the very complex nature of India as a whole -- a country of multiple peoples, cultures, religions, and ways of life. India was the first large United States, way back before Europe found it. Oh I know the subcontinent wasn't united in the way we think of union now, but it was decently integrated economically and trade-wise, and culturally tolerant, especially when compared with the multitude of warring states in Europe, or Japan and China with their physical and cultural blockades, that existed during the same period. In present times, despite all the competition, most people in India get along with each other every day. It's the exceptions that make noise that we hear and respond to. But India lives in its silence -- the silence that comes from a relatively skilled level of social harmony, without which life in India would have become impossible long ago. So cheers to your many peoples, cultures, religions and ways of life, for the harmony they are able to achieve. This is a lesson to the rest of the world.

If there were more land and other resources per person in India, the level of competitiveness would drop, and so would the tensions and breakouts of violence.

I understand that you must speak out against those exceptions. It's only the pressure of vocal disapproval that keeps those who are on the edge with this or that personal frustration getting along with others on their bad days. And yes, things could be more perfect. But your country is really an admirable model for social harmony, despite the self-criticism and many tensions that are visible every day.

To underscore my perceptions of India and Indians as a whole, look at the peace that reigns in NRI communities around the world. Indians take their gift for harmonious, socially-supportive, tolerant living with them when they emigrate. In new circumstances, with much of the population-related competitive pressure off, Indian express their social gifts beautifully, and over time become highly-valued members of the communities in which they live, overseas.

love, h

I'm with Mona on this one.

What is not tolerable is hate crime. Like murder, rape, or any other violation of someone humanity, even if there are just a small percentage of them, they are still not tolerable.

A single murder or one rape is not tolerable.

She is right. It is not about tolerance. It is about basic human rights, and social justice and equity.

Not sameness, but equity.

And the biggest danger is with mob mentality. Osho used to say very definite and insightful things about what happens when a mob of people gathers. Individuals will do things in a mob that they would never even think of doing alone.

We have to fight institutionalized prejudice, and we have to fight mob mentality. Those things are not to be tolerated.

I'll leave it to South Africa's Reggae star Lucky Dube. He says it quite well in his song "War and Crime"

Every where in the world
People are fighting for freedom
Nobody knows what is right
Nobody knows what is wrong
The black man say it' s the white man
The white man say it' s the black man
Indians say it' s the coloureds
Coloureds say it' s everyone
Your mother didn' t tell you the truth
My father didn' t tell me the truth
Nobody knows what is wrong
And what is right
How long is this gonna last?
We've come so far so fast

You and I were not there when it started
We don' t know where it' s coming from
And where it' s going

So why don' t we
Bury down apartheid
Fight down war and crime
Racial discrimination
Tribal discrimination

I' m not saying this
Because I' m a coward
But I' m thinking of the lives
That we lose everytime we fight
Killing innocent people
Women and children
Who don't know about good
Who don't know about war
Your mother didn' t tell you the truth
My father did not tell me the truth

So why don' t we
Bury down apartheid
Fight down war and crime,
Racial discrimination,
Tribal discrimination

I celebrate with heath, # 6, the Land of Bharata - India, the flow of culture uninterrupted since the time of ancient civilizations which now all but turned to dust.

It is easy to forget that India is still coming of age from the colonial past of more than a thousand years. First The Mughal than The British Empires. It was seventeen hundred years ago since India enjoyed the time known as ''The Golden Age'', yet the very essence of an Enlightened ruler as an embodiment of the perfect administration is still ingrained as the social aspirations in the nations psyche.

The very reason it was so easy to 'divide and rule' the ancient country was because it is rooted in ideas which are the very base of spiritual practices, where non-violence is the living principal rather than a moral code.

India is the country where God matters above anything else. It is the country which despite its unimaginable contrast between the poor and the rich still agrees on the main goal of life, regardless of the social condition. The very cast system is something the westerner cannot fully comprehend unless he/she is intimately familiar with the social structure which is nothing less but a reflection of the Cosmic Order.

The Cosmic Man - Prajapati (later renamed in philosophical systems into Purusha) sacrificing (dismembering) himself in order to give Cosmos diversity has to be reconstructed into wholeness again through the sacrifices and the social, cast order is the reflection of that act.

Nowhere in the world the spirituality reached the sophistication and variety of approaches as in India. It is here where the oral tradition ''from chest to chest'' has been preserved and it is from here that the spiritual regeneration of the whole of humanity has originated at least a century before the last century's flowery sixties.

India is a country where the saints are shared and equally worshiped by the members of different religions. Do you know many places in Europe where the common folk from Italy or France, Croatia or Netherlands knows let alone recognizes the saints of other than christian faith? There are none.

Religious tolerance is the very name of India. And heath, # 6, is right on the fact, that we only hear of the opposite when it is a rare exception to the rules.

India is the World's spiritual reservoir always has been and always will be, it is here that the Masters of the modern world are being born or being born to the lineage which has no place of origin.

India is destined to rise and lead the Golden Age as the Land of Veda which preserved the knowledge of the DNA code of Man in its entirety in the form of the Vedic Hymns.

The future of our civilization lays in the direct access to the source of all living matter, the primordial vibrations, the real moving force behind all conscious or unconscious states.

Our future is a super-sonic vibrations and India is the country which orchestrates its harmonious distributions.

Eternal-Bliss-Consciousness

Jai Guru Deva

igor

Re. heath, igor

I think Igor would like this poem by Anna. (I had seen AR mentioned by heath at IB in reference to ST by Ed.)

India

Perhaps just because
I am India herself
I have never visited her jungle temples
though I have felt her monsoon torrents in
my awakening kundalini,
I have dissolved in her saffron and curry
I have been bathed in her dark scents
of sandalwood
and black narcissus
drifting....
into my awareness
I have lived in her rooms of opium.....
silently bewildered
as the starry night
all but forgotten
but for the sake of Love
and I have danced in her colours
I have danced with bells and cymbals
and many veils,
Oh, these colours of India,
these glorious colours of teeming life and untold stories
hovering with
the last breaths of the dying,
and I have prayed,
Oh, how I have prayed,
chanting your name,
My Beloved,

I have purified myself on the pyre
of dissolution and now,
empty and naked of all that could
stand in our way, even this last veil
of Poetry,

like the flesh of words in Water,

I come to You.

Love to All,
And All to Love,

Anna

that is beautiful, it moves my heart, i can see and feel your passion, someday we will together listen to those flowers, i pray for resurrection everyday on my knees, i know its soon

# 9,

Thank you for this moment of delight, Irvine... The body quivers from these words of experience... so palpable is her shared bliss

igor

Hi Igor,
Though I share the pride that Indians have in their past ther is no denying the fact that to-day there is a growing tendency, almost on a daily basis, where non-violence is no longer as you put it "..the living principal rather than a moral code." There are far too many seeking to uphold Indian culture, heritage, the greatness of their faiths etc. and who think that muscle power and abuse are the best and surest way to go about upholding these values of theirs. It is becoming a serious law and order problem and for many, specially senior citizens, brought up in a different era there is genuine fear for their safety and the degradation of public life. From where I am, these are certainly not isolated instances but ever increasing on a daily basis.

So much as I value, treasure and take pride in Indian culture and traditions I also feel that it would be prudent to pay heed to what Mona says and accept that we have a serious problem rather than just bank on Indian culture and spiritualism to be effective remedial meaures for all our ills.

Regards
dara

One should not confuse the moral police, Hindutva etc with Indian spiritual tradition or (what's good of) Indian culture. Spiritualism is not a "remedy" but is an undeniable fact. Without tat legacy India mayn't have become a unified nation and would have crumbled as a society long ago. The current crime/murder rate should have been easily 10 folds (of the existing "high" and rising levels in India) when projected to, based on the existing societal dynamics and cultural strengths of North America or Europe, or even to Latin America.

Sure, there are many many problems in India -- poverty, exploitation, crime rates going up with rising urban population, increase in senior citizens, corruption, flawed judicial system, fundamentalism, etc etc -- but the mere fact that it keeps going on in spite of all its problems shows that the soul of India(Bharata) is still alive.

PS: The poster of #12 should go back and re-read heath's #6 - which Igor K's #11 was referring to; it wasn't a reply to Mona's blog entry or her arguably valid points.

#13Absolutely no need for the ps. Chris.
Where is the Spirit of India in that?

Re. 14

I think, Chris was simply trying to act like a jerk, or was taking a shot at Dara to settle some past grudges. Just an opinion.

The poster of #13 should reread #12 and try to understand it before attempting to interpret it.

The poster of #12 is beholden to the poster of #13 for so clearly bringing out just how easy it is to completely misconstrue and misunderstand what someone else has to say.

Nice retorts by Dara, but I think these last two posts by him may reflect something... that's bugging him -- about Chris's post -- at a deeper/different/denial level.

Dear Dara, I didn't mean the pride of past achievements, but a humble awareness of living this very moment, which is the greatness of India.

Please, don't misunderstand me, I do share yours and Mona's concern, yet there is no need to seek the solution, it is already there in the fabric of Indian culture. That is the unique gift of Indian civilization to the world, seeing the problem as an opportunity in disguise. The opportunity to transcend it.

Acceptance is far from complacency, it is a recognition of the fact that there is no existence apart from existence. The only direct way of influencing the existence is to stay tuned to your own Self.

The Self of you is not different from the Self of a saint or a terrorist, in fact the terror along with the beatitude is there all the time available deep within your own consciousness. Dive in and transcend the apparent disharmony, what will be left is pure harmony. Nothing else need be done, the harmony of transcendence will radiate wherever you go whatever you do.

Indeed this is India, the land of great confluence of the Goddesses Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati, not just out there in Allahabad but right here right now in your own being in your own physiology... the peaceful flow of Sad-Chit-Ananda.

Unless of course we prefer to hallucinate, pointing finger to the other, needless to say it takes a certain courage and conviction to recognize there is no other.

With Love & Joy

igor

You are right Irv.

It always bugs me when people do not speak out straight . If you have something to say to me, well then just say it and clear the air. I'll respect you for it.

Dara

Dear Igor, Thank you for your vote of confidence.

I do understand what you say and agree with it. However, what annoys and frightens me is that with such a strong foundation upon which to build on we are in danger of squandering our rich inheritance and our legacy.

Because decent people feel shy of coming out in the open with courage and conviction, self seekers are riding the moral high ground and dictating terms and rewriting what Indian spirituality and culture should be. The tragedy and the cause of my frustration is that we are letting this happen under our very noses and have no one but ourselves and our timidity to blame. That is not what Indian sages and our ancestors taught us and bequeathed to us - moral strength and the courage of our convictions. We are slowly letting it slip away from us.

I am certainly not in your class when it comes to spirituality and philosophy but I do appreciate where you are coming from and admire your great faith and confidence in India. I have the same convictions but over the last few years that conviction is taking a beating. That in essence is my problem.

Regards and love to you too Igor,
Dara

Looking at India as an outsider... I have some contacts who were born in India; a few of them still live there. They span ages fourteen to sixty. Their roots are disparate, regionally -- the south-east, north-east, north-central and north-west regions of the subcontinent. I have several other friends whose country of origin is one of the several areas of the Caribbean that have large communities descended from Indian immigrants. Of these people who were born in India, or are descended from pockets of Indian immigrants, some are Hindu, some are Muslim, and some are Christian.

Despite dissimilarities in place of birth (i.e., culture and people), religion and age, every single one of these friends and acquaintances is noticeably more skilled at getting along with others than any American I know. And there are also strong similarities in the social style of how the getting-along is achieved by these individuals.

That such features are common each of these very different individuals, points to two things, for me: support for Igor's case that an inclusive, spiritual quality is embedded in India, and always has been, and it's so deeply embedded that it's in no danger of being lost. And additional support for the hope that, despite the pressures and changes India is undergoing as more money flows in to her economy, these qualities will not be lost in the future.

love, h

India truly represents One. Hence one will find extremes of all hues in it. But just as One will go on forever India will go on forever. Dara, just remain silent for a while and see India's own wise saying that "Paapi ko maarne lai paa hi mahan bali hai (to kill a sinner his own sin is the most potent weapon)" coming true.

Only a day before Dalai Lama was saying India is an ideal for the world to emulate...

Also, the reason there are so less divorces in India is that they subconsciously know that at the bottom all are one (and the same), also that if you face difficulties A and B with one you will face difficulties C and D with an other, so why divorce one and get married to an other? Also, that difficulties or suffering are rather for one's spiritual advancement.

Dear Harb my lips will be sealed the moment this comment goes through :)

I hope and pray that you, Heath and Igor are right. In fact a part of me says you are and yet there is that sinking feeling. So perhaps the problem really may be just me.

enough said :)
Dara

Now come on Harb, let's carry that One to it's logical conclusion. Ain't no sinners, only One!

Dara's right to feel a sub-continent sinking ;) It's gonna take more than India in this shake-up. It's gonna take One by one. Shine on!

Ed, it is true, there are no sinners...and in fact I had written a complete post on it but then did not post it. I just stopped by assuring my friend Dara that to set wrong-doer's right one day their own misdeeds will prove enough of a weapon.

Heheh Harb,

The 'while' of silence is over. Actually just got in to say "AApke mooh mein Ghee Shakker" (May Butter and sugar melt in your mouth.)

Hey there Ed.

Regards
Dara

Dear Dara, rest assured that India will prevail, as Harb beautifully observed, the country represents One in all its shades and oneness is everlasting. India is a unique repository of Karma in all its diversity and in all its extremes.

Not only will India prevail but she will lead the other nations to the unity amidst diversity. The Invincible India, is not just a sentimental slogan of some abstract notion, but the sign of our epoch, confirmed through the discoveries of modern science and verified in the light of individual experiences.

I would love you to see for yourself these few links that the invincibility steadfast becoming our reality, even if some occasional out brakes of negativity still take place, there is no way back to the era of darkness.

http://www.india-defence.com/reports-2947

http://www.indiadefence.com/SupremeMilitaryi.htm

http://www.davidleffler.com/strategicreview.html

With Love & Light

igor

Can any good come out of Uzbekistan, Igor?
"and did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon England's green ;)and pleasant land!"
Hybrid vigour, that's what Earth needs, hybrid vigour!

That's why I'm here to water my own roots, Ed ! My runner ups may still be green but shooting up fast.

You say hybrid vigour ? I used to think the same, until I've realized there is no need in inventing the bicycle. That hybrid vigour is what India has been giving us all alone, for each epoch and each generation. An entire Orient in its essence is a product of an Indian thought. While the Occident has its roots in the later, the best minds in the west have recognized that truth consciously or otherwise.

You cannot grow the alphonso mangos in England, they are a hybrid cultivated by Akbar the Great. It takes the blood of rats as a fertilizer to extract that perfumed flavor.

England is my second home, I love it for reasons beyond my intellect. Yet England is the country which worshiped the wrong gods, ever since the monarchy lost its purpose and that was some (hundreds) years ago. Still willingly or not I partake in paying off its karmic debt. The karma from the years of piling up the wealth, by taking what isn't hers. My inclination is that the true essence of England is hidden deep beneath its own rich heritage, overshadowed by meaningless social structure, where the head does not know its connection to the rest of the body, even if clad in rubies.

Yet I firmly believe that when England frees itself of self-imposed image of being an island it will join in the process of unity, as inevitable as it is painful for some.

I can only talk that because I have my interest at heart.

With Love

igor

There are no wrong gods, only wrong thinking.
India has an abundance of both.
She also contains the seeds of wisdom and spiritually sorely missing in the modern world.

You're a passionate man, Igor, you must have taken England by storm!

Course, we never got where we are today without the jolly old stiff upper lip, what, what! Thank God for an openly passionate man. That must be the hybrid vigour. Stiff upper lippers were far too rapacious when they thought no one was watching.

Ah, but India IS special, that at least filtered through to this lower class peasant....a 'have-not'(probably that karma you were mentioning ;)

Bless you,
Ed.

"It always bugs me when people do not speak out straight . If you have something to say to me, well then just say it and clear the air. I'll respect you for it."

Thank you. Nothing in particular I would like to say.

You might want to clarify a few doubts for me though:

In #12 you wrote: "There are far too many seeking to uphold Indian culture, heritage, the greatness of their faiths etc. and who think that muscle power and abuse are the best and surest way to go about upholding these values of theirs. IT is becoming a serious law and order problem and for many, specially senior citizens, brought up in a different era there is genuine fear for THEIR safety and the degradation of public life. From where I am, these are certainly not isolated instances but ever increasing on a daily basis."(my bold)

What does *IT* refer to in "IT is becoming a serious law and order problem"?

Is it the "muscle power" used by the 'culture upholding mobs'?

What does *THEIR* in "THEIR safety..." mean?

Is it the safety of 'senior citizens' or the safety of 'nonviolent values'?

Dear Phadrea, ''worshiping the wrong gods'' is a metaphor, something like ''chasing the wrong dream'', doing what is not in one's best interest (karmically).

Of course there are no wrong gods, as there are no wrong fingers, even if some are sticking out more than the others.

Better still is the local: ( la ilaha illaLah ) There are no gods but God.

With Love & Joy

igor

Thank you, Ed. Yes, it was stormy at times, during my twenties, we've learned to ride the Tempest before we've even heard of that fool from the land of Chan. And quiet a few lips stretched in smiles even the stiffer ones.

Cannot wait to have a pick-nick somewhere in Primrose Hill, the grass is greener there... For me the spot was my banyan tree...

Love & Blessings to you too

igor

Right on both counts Irv.

Thanks Dara...

Dear Igor,

It was heartening for me to read your confidently optimistic assessment of the strength of the Indian tradition, and I thank you for being more enlightened about India than most native Indians are today (me included), even if they have that tradition ingrained in them.

The Islamic quote in your last post (la ilaaha illallah) brings up, for me, a very intriguing point. I have seen very few, if any, accounts of Islam that indicate anything non-dualistic in its fabric. The Sufi tradition is typically the only mention that comes up in this regard, but I've also seen it being relegated as an offshoot not characteristic of the body of the Islamic tradition. I'm wondering how you have reconciled Islam with your (evidently deep) understanding of the Indian/Vedic/Oneness worldview, and whether you have come up with a diametrically different reading of Islam than the one prevalent today. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

"I'm wondering how you have reconciled Islam with your (evidently deep) understanding of the Indian/Vedic/Oneness worldview,.."

The answer may lie in the way you equate Vedic/Indian with the nondualitistic(Oneness) view.

Vedic includes both dualistic and non-dualistic approaches.

According to Wikipedia there are many sub-schools of Vedanta philosophy

1 Advaita Vedanta
2 Vishishtadvaita
3 Dvaita
4 Dvaitādvaita
5 Shuddhadvaita
6 Achintya Bhedābheda
7 Purnadvaita or Integral Advaita
8 Modern Vedanta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanta

Davaita or Duality is part of Vedanta.

Basically, a lot depends on interpretations of any religious texts. I think Islam's "One" God and Bible's "I Am THAT" can be easily reconciled with Vedic ideas. Igor may have something different to say.

From Wiki:

The term "modern Vedanta" is sometimes used to describe the interpretation of Advaita Vedanta given by Swami Vivekananda of the Ramakrishna order of monks.

...In his interpretation of Advaita (as in Shankara's), there is still a place for Bhakti (devotion). Monks of the Ramakrishna order suggest that it is easier to begin meditation on a personal God with form and qualities, rather than the formless Absolute. Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman are viewed as obverse and reverse of the same coin.

sWORDSman wrote:

"The Islamic quote in your last post (la ilaaha illallah) brings up, for me, a very intriguing point. I have seen very few, if any, accounts of Islam that indicate anything non-dualistic in its fabric. The Sufi tradition is typically the only mention that comes up in this regard, but I've also seen it being relegated as an offshoot not characteristic of the body of the Islamic tradition. I'm wondering how you have reconciled Islam with your (evidently deep) understanding of the Indian/Vedic/Oneness worldview, and whether you have come up with a diametrically different reading of Islam than the one prevalent today. Would love to hear your thoughts on this."

You are making a fallacy by making an assumption that Igor is reconciling fundamentalist interpretations of Islam by using that quote.

Igor indeed used the quote "la ilaaha illallah" You seem to suggest that the quote is used only by fundamentalist mainstream Islam and not by the proponents of Sufism (which correlates to the Bhakti path of the Indian view.)

What you mean by Igor "reconciling Islam" with the Vedic view? Don't the Sufis not do the same, as per you?

I can give any number of mainstream Indian quotes which essentially say the same: "God is One(or there is only One god) and his name is this."

Dear sWORDSman, thank you for the kind words, and for the confidence in our understanding.

Before attempting to answer your question I have to make it clear it would be not an orthodox answer by a scholar, but by someone who makes assumptions solely based on personal insights. I would prefer to answer in short aphorisms suggesting a further enquiry on the part of the reader. Nevertheless I am open to a discussion in depth with those who wish to challenge or question my point of view in which case I have a wealth of historical evidence to share, and am prepared to talk on a more scholarly grounds.

It happened so that I have the responsibility to teach the history of religions along with the history of art at my home country at the present moment. Since I am in a Muslim part of the world predominately it has an emphasis on the essence of Islam. Coincidently today the subject of my lecture was on the provenance of the word sufi and its somewhat diverse meaning (see notes *).

SUFI VERSUS ISLAM

There is no Islam without a sufi and there is no sufi without Islam.

Islam is a submission to the will of Absolute and sufi is the direct way to enjoy the bliss of that submission.

Islam is a form and sufi is its essence.

The contained in the container. The kernel in the almond nut

The one who discards the essence in favour of the form is lost to the way.

The one who discards the form claiming to know the essence is a hypocrite.

The one who unties the two has realization.

* * *

Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the culmination of the lineage in the Abrahamic tradition. Moses brought the Wisdom. Jesus fulfilled the Prophecy.
Muhammad standing on their shoulders reached to the skies and held all in oneness of Singularity.

The message of Islam in its essence is a command to embrace the Abstract. Sufi is the means.

And the Prophet taught his disciples, those who have been ripe to comprehend the inner meaning, revealed in the esoteric part (tariqah) of the Qu’ran. With the grow of the community the need for the outer law became evident, whence the further revelations which gave birth to (shari’ah), the exoteric part made Qu’ran open to interpretation according to the level of the disciple.

It would be correct to conclude, that Muhammad was the first sufi as far as that tradition is concerned and only those who achieved the state of oneness can be called Sufis. It is self-evident that that would mean the true Muslim IS a sufi and not that one who considers himself to be born into the tradition.

I am fully aware of the enormity of that statement, yet if one sees the religion not as an institutionalized way of controlling the assets, Empires, whatever else, but as a revealed essence of one’s own being there is no other way to interpret the obvious.

Just to add. All teachings culminate in the validity of the actual experience, yet that experience is not a moment in time, even if some would like to believe it.

Irvine’s comment, that the path to Vedanta lays through the Veda, or realization of non-duality goes through duality, is an accurate one. The realization is a gradual process of Consciousness collapsing onto Itself.

Collapsing goes in stages, in reaching the Cosmic state, where the duality is still present despite of the direct perceiving of the Godhead or because of that,
Through to the God state where the witness is no longer separate from the Object of experience. Culminating in the Unity state where there is no difference what so ever between the subject object and the process.

It is from this level most revealed teachings come from, yet it is utterly impossible to convey that directly so the indirect means are implied, which means the descend to the level where the comprehension is an inferior reality.

Most religious messages deal with the Cosmic level of consciousness, giving an aspirant as direct as possible reference to his own status. Thou Art That, etc. So that the message superimposes with the meaning of it, and eventually making it utterly meaningless when it takes place. For in the fully realized state there is no word which isn’t the name of That. However it is through the language that the path towards the essence can be communicated, whence it is valid.

So, ‘’there is no gods but God’’, is a command to shake off the dualism based on experience of diversity and to re-direct oneself to the experience of Unity. Moreover it is the command to embrace the Abstract no matter how impossible it seems. It is as poignant as any Mahavakaya statements of Adi Shankara. Indeed thank you both, Irvine & John, # 40-42, for bringing valuable comments in relation to the question of non-duality and Islam from the Vedanta point of view.

Jai Guru Dev

igor

* Notes:

The word sufi has many connotations and many interpretations. Some of them are:

suf (the Arabic - wool), the woollen garment worn by early Muslim mystics imitating early Christian hermits.

suffa (the Arabic - the bench or veranda), at the entrance to the mosque, where the followers of Muhammad have gathered during his exile in Medina.

safa (the Arabic - purity), a quality embodied by the practitioner.

saf (the Arabic – line or row), reference to those early practitioners positioning themselves in the first row during the prayer or a holy war, those who are fervent on the way of Truth.

Sophia (the Greek – wisdom), to denoaunce the ultimate knowledge.

Ain Sof ( the Hebrew – infinite ), from the Cabbala