Certitude

Certitude

My reason is to lose all reason

My religion is indifference to religion

A simple answer is enough

After doubt, wine has borne my certitude

The day just broken is already done

Tomorrow is not yet here

Be happy today

Unceasingly fill your cup

And seize this

The sole chance of your existence

Although everything is born of ourselves

Yours and mine are

but two miserable lives

To be, is drunkenness and ecstasy

Tomorrow is the downfall of an age

Omar Khayyam

***

Omar Khayyam

(May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1122)

Was a Persian polymath: mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and above all poet.

As a poet, he is the most famous poet of the East in the West through various adaptations of his rather small number of quatrains (rubaiyaas) in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. Recognized as the author of the most important treatise on algebra before modern times as reflected in his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He also contributed to calendar reform and may have proposed a heliocentric theory well before Copernicus.

His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works have not received the same attention as have his scientific or poetic writings. Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have also testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nayshapur where Khayyam lived most of his life, breathed his last, and was buried and where his mausoleum remains today a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every yea.

Without nothing!

Without nothing!

Without nothing

I love you

Without nothing

In this love

There is no money

No dollars

No territories

No jewelers

Come… we sit

In the shade

None owns this shade

Love me and think a little at that

Without nothing

Only you

Without nothing

Without all kind of your clothes

Without makeup

Without all your friend’s friends

The Nasty and the nice ones

Come… we sit

In the shade

None owns this shade

Love me and think a little at that

Without your mommy and daddy group (choir)

without eyelid and mascara

without that women weave (chat)

without all this ridiculous masquerade

Come… we sit

In the shade

None owns this shade

Love me and think a little at that

Ziad Rahbani

Ziad Rahbani (also Ziyad al-Rahbany born 1956)
Is a Lebanese composer and writer for radio shows and theater, very famous in his native country as well as in many other regions of the Arab world.
Ziad Rahbani is the son of the Lebanese famous composer Assi Rahbani and Nuhad Haddad, the famous Lebanese female singer known as Fairouz.
He composed many songs for his mother Fairouz, as well as other singers, and he has released music albums of his own. Many of his musicals satirized the political situation in Lebanon during and after the civil war, often strongly critical of the traditional political establishment; others addressed more philosophical questions. He played the lead role in all his plays, and has generally been reluctant to allow the filming of his plays.
Ziad was married to Dalal Karam and had a son named "Assi Jr" with her. But his marriage was doomed to fail, and they got divorced. That led Dalal to write her life with Ziad in the gossip magazine "Ashabaka". Ziad composed some songs about their relationship like "Marba el Dalal" and "Bisaraha", amongst others.
After the divorce, Ziad had a well-publicized relationship with actress Carmen Lubbos that went on for 15 years before they agreed to separate.
Politically, Ziad Rahbani has a long standing relationship with Lebanese leftist movements, and is a self-declared communist. Being a Christian, his politics have meant that he has been at odds with some of his co-religionists. During the Lebanese civil war, Ziad resided in mainly Muslim West Beirut.

Murmur of the breeze

Murmur of the breeze

O murmur of the breeze

Go and tell the fawn to find sweet water

Only intensifies my thirst

I have a beloved whose love inhabits my insides

Should he so desire

He might trample my cheek underfoot

His spirit is my spirit

And my spirit is His spirit

When He feels desire, I feel desire

When I feel desire He feels desire

Mansur al-Hallaj

(c. 858-922)

Mansūr-e Hallāj; full name Abū al-Mughīth Husayn Mansūr al-Hallāj was a Persian mystic, writer and teacher of Sufism most famous for his apparent, but disputed, self-proclaimed divinity, his poetry and for his execution for heresy at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long drawn investigation.

Living

Living

Every man Dies!
But
Not Every man Lives!

Friendship

Friendship

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance;

they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Henry David Thoreau

Identity

Identity

I am who I am
&
I am who I am not!

Strangeness

Strangeness

It is strange that people feel themselves foreigners at their own home
and then find home in exile!

Being

Being

I m God, I’m Creature
Paradise I am Lord and Servant
I am Throne and Trodden Path
Both Hell and Paradise
I am water, I am fire
I am air and naked Earth
I am quantity, I am quality
I am existence and absence
I am substance, I am Appearance
Both the Near and the Far
All dualities are mine:
I am alone, I am individual!

Abdelkader Al Djazairi
`Abd al-Qādir al-Jazā'irī (6 September 1808 - 26 May 1883, in Arabic عبد القادر الجزائري) was an Algerian Islamic scholar, Sufi, political and military leader who led a struggle against the French invasion in the mid-nineteenth century, for which he is seen by the Algerians as their national hero.

Valour

Valour

Can we escape from death?

The days of human beings are numbered

Everything they do is vain

If you are already afraid of death

What is the use of calling yourself a hero?

Shall I go first

Walk in front of you?

If I fall

My name will gain eternal fame

I will have begun the struggles

To cut down the cedars

Epic of Gilgamesh

(2500 B.C.)

The Inventor of Fire

4

The Inventor of Fire

After many years of labour an inventor discovered the art of making fire.
He took his tools to the snow-clad northern regions and initiated a tribe into the art -and the advantages- of making fire.
The people became so absorbed in this novelty that it did not occur to them to thank the inventor who one day quietly slipped away.
Being one of those rare human beings endowed with greatness, he had no desire to be remembered or revered; all he sought was the satisfaction of knowing that someone had benefited from his discovery.
The next tribe he went to was just as eager to learn as the first.
But the local priests, jealous of the stranger’s hold on the people, had him assassinated.
To allay any suspicion of the crime, they had a portrait of the Great Inventor enthroned upon the main altar of the temple;
and a liturgy designed so that his name would be revered and his memory kept alive.
The greatest care was taken that not a single rubric of the liturgy was altered or omitted.
The tools for making fire were enshrined within a casket and were said to bring healing to all who laid their hands on them with faith.
The High Priest himself undertook the task of compiling a Life of the Inventor.
This became the Holy book in which his loving kindness was offered as an example for all to emulate,
his glorious deeds were eulogized, his superhuman nature made an article of faith.
The priests saw to it that the Book was handed down to future generations,
while they authoritatively interpreted the meaning of his words and the significance of his holy life and death.
And they ruthlessly punished with death or excommunication anyone who deviated from their doctrine.
Caught up as they were in these religious tasks, the people completely forgot the art of making fire.

THE PRAYER OF THE FROG, 1

Anthony de Mello

On purifying our vision

On purifying our vision

American missionaries who went to the South Sea Islands with their wives were horrified to see women coming bare breasted to church.
The wives insisted that the women should be more decently dressed.
So the missionaries gave them shirts to wear.
The following Sunday the women came wearing their shirts but with two big holes cut out for comfort' for ventilation.
They were right; the missionaries were wrong.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Every child has a god in him; our attempts to mold the child will turn the god into a devil.

Every child has a god in him;

our attempts to mold the child will turn the god into a devil.

There’s a lovely Italian film directed by Federico Fellini, 8 ½.
In one scene there’s a Christian Brother going out on a picnic or excursion with a group of eight to ten year old boys.
They’re on a beach, moving right on ahead while the Brother brings up the rear with three or four of them around him.
They come across an older woman, who’s a whore, and they say to her,
“Hi,”
and she says, “Hi.”
And they say, “Who are you?”
And she says, “I’m a prostitute.”
They don’t know what that is but they pretend to.
One of the boys, who seems a bit more knowing than the others, says, “A prostitute is a woman who does certain things if you pay her.”
They ask, “Would she do those things if we paid her?”
“Why not?” the answer came.
So they take up a collection and give her the money, saying, “Would you do certain things now that we’ve given you the money?”
She answers, “Sure, kids, what do you want me to do?”
The only thing that occurs to the kids is for her to take her clothes off.
So she does.
Well, they look at her; they’ve never seen a woman naked before.
They don’t know what else to do, so they say, “Would you dance?”
She says, “Sure.”
So they all gather round singing and clapping; the whore is moving her behind and they’re enjoying themselves immensely.
The Brother sees all this. He runs down the beach and yells at the woman.
He gets her to put her clothes on, and the narrator says:
“At that moment, the children were spoiled; until then they were innocent, beautiful.”

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Words

Words

Awakening should be a surprise. When you don't expect something to happen and it happens, you feel surprise. When Webster's wife caught him kissing the maid, she told him she was very surprised. Now, Webster was a stickler for using words accurately (understandably, since he wrote a dictionary), so he answered her, "No, my dear, I am surprised. You are astonished!"

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

How to solve problems?

How to solve problems?

This reminds me of this fellow in London after the war.
He’s sitting with a parcel wrapped in brown paper in his lap; it's a big, heavy object.
The bus conductor comes up to him and says, “What do you have on your lap there?”
And the man says, “This is an unexploded bomb. We dug it out of the garden and I’m taking it to the police station.”
The conductor says, “You don't want to carry that on your lap. Put it under the seat.”

Psychology and spirituality (as we generally understand it) transfer the bomb from your lap to under your seat.
They don’t really solve your problems. They exchange your problems for other problems.
Has that ever struck you?
You had a problem, now you exchange it for another one. It’s always going to be that way until we solve the problem called “you.”

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

What is awakening like?

What is awakening like?

There’s a story about Ramirez.
He is old and living up there in his castle on a hill.
He looks out the window (he’s in bed and paralyzed) and he sees his enemy.
Old as he is, leaning on a cane, his enemy is climbing up the hill - slowly, painfully.
It takes him about two and a half hours to get up the hill.
There’s nothing Ramirez can do because the servants have the day off.
So his enemy opens the door, comes straight to the bedroom, puts his hand inside his cloak, and pulls out a gun.
He says, “At last, Ramirez, we’re going to settle scores!”
Ramirez tries his level best to talk him out of it.
He says, “Come on, Borgia, you can’t do that.
You know I’m no longer the man who ill-treated you as that youngster years ago, and you’re no longer that youngster. Come off it!”
“Oh no,” says his enemy, “your sweet words aren’t going to deter me from this divine mission of mine. It’s revenge I want and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
And Ramirez says, “But there is!”
“What?” asks his enemy.
“I can wake up,” says Ramirez. And he did; he woke up!

That’s what enlightenment is like.
When someone tells you, “There is nothing you can do about it,”
you say, “There is, I can wake up!”

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

The tramp: “What is enlightenment like?”

The tramp

“What is enlightenment like?”

“What is enlightenment like? What is awakening like?”
It's like the tramp in London who was settling in for the night.
He'd hardly been able to get a crust of bread to eat.
Then he reaches this embankment on the river Thames.
There was a slight drizzle, so he huddled in his old tattered cloak.
He was about to go to sleep when suddenly a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce pulls up. Out of the car steps a beautiful young lady who says to him,
“My poor man, are you planning on spending the night here on this embankment?”
And the tramp says, “Yes.”
She says, “I won't have it. You're coming to my house and you're going to spend a comfortable night and you're going to get a good dinner.”
She insists on his getting into the car.
Well, they ride out of London and get to a place where she has a sprawling mansion with large grounds. They are ushered in by the butler, to whom she says, “James, please make sure he's put in the servants' quarters and treated well,” which is what James does.
The young lady had undressed and was about to go to bed when she suddenly remembers her guest for the night.
So she slips something on and pads along the corridor to the servants' quarters. She sees a little chink of light from the room where the tramp was put up. She taps lightly at the door, opens it, and finds the man awake.
She says, “What's the trouble, my good man, didn't you get a good meal?”
He said, “Never had a better meal in my life, lady.”
“Are you warm enough?”
He says, “Yes, lovely warm bed.”
Then she says, “Maybe you need a little company. Why don't you move over a bit?”
And she comes closer to him and he moves over and falls right into the Thames.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Stubbornness

Stubbornness

“Henry, how you've changed!
You were so tall and you've grown so short.
You were so well built and you've grown so thin.
You were so fair and you've become so dark.
What happened to you, Henry?”
Henry says, “I'm not Henry. I'm John.”
“Oh, you changed your name too!”

How do you get people like that to listen?

The most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don't want to see.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Johnny, the mentally retarded

Johnny, the mentally retarded

There's the story of little Johnny who, they say, was mentally retarded. But evidently he wasn't, as you'll learn from this story. Johnny goes to modelling class in his school for special children and he gets his piece of putty and he's modelling it. He takes a little lump of putty and goes to a corner of the room and he's playing with it. The teacher comes up to him and says, "Hi, Johnny." And Johnny says, "Hi." And the teacher says, "What's that you've got in your hand?" And Johnny says, "This is a lump of cow dung." The teacher asks, "What are you making out of it?" He says, "I'm making a teacher." The teacher thought, "Little Johnny has regressed." So she calls out to the principal, who was passing by the door at that moment, and says, "Johnny has regressed." So the principal goes up to Johnny and says, "Hi, son." And Johnny says, "Hi." And the principal says, "What do you have in your hand?" And he says, "A lump of cow dung." "What are you making out of it?" And he says, "A principal." The principal thinks that this is a case for the school psychologist. "Send for the psychologist!" The psychologist is a clever guy. He goes up and says, "Hi." And Johnny says, "Hi." And the psychologist says, "I know what you've got in your hand." "What?" "A lump cow dung." Johnny says, "Right." "And I know what you're making out of it." "What?" "You're making a psychologist." "Wrong. Not enough cow dung!" And they called him mentally retarded!

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

A banana in your ear

A banana in your ear

Don't try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig!

Like the businessman who goes into a bar, sits down, and sees this fellow with a banana in his ear - a banana in his ear!
And he thinks, “I wonder if I should mention that to him. No, it's none of my business.”
But the thought nags at him. So after having a drink or two, he says to the fellow, “Excuse me, ah, you've got a banana in your ear.”
The fellow says, “What?”
The businessman repeats, “You've got a banana in your ear.”
Again the fellow says, “What was that?”
“You've got a banana in your ear!” the businessman shouts.
“Talk louder,” the fellow says, “I've got a banana in my ear!”

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Being supported

Being supported

There was a woman in a therapy group I was conducting once. She was a religious sister. She said to me, “I don’t feel supported by my superior.” So I said, “What do you mean by that?” And she said, “Well, my superior, the provincial superior, never shows up at the novitiate where I am in charge, never. She never says a word of appreciation.” I said to her, “All right let's do a little role playing. Pretend I know your provincial superior. In fact, pretend I know exactly what she thinks about you. So I say to you (acting the part of the provincial superior), 'You know, Mary, the reason I don't come to that place you're in is because it is the one place in the province that is trouble-free, no problems. I know you're in charge, so all is well.' How do you feel now?” She said, “I feel great.”
Then I said to her, “All right, would you mind leaving the room for a minute or two? This is part of the exercise.” So she did. While she was away, I said to the others in the therapy group, “I am still the provincial superior, O.K.? Mary out there is the worst novice director I have ever had in the whole history of the province. In fact, the reason I don't go to the novitiate is because I can't bear to see what she is up to. It's simply awful. But if I tell her the truth, it's only going to make those novices suffer all the more. We are getting somebody to take her place in a year or two; we are training someone. In the meantime I thought I would say those nice things to her to keep her going. What do you think of that?” They answered, “Well, it was really the only thing you could do under the circumstances.” Then I brought Mary back into the group and asked her if she still felt great. “Oh yes,” she said.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello