Jafar asked Rabia
when a devotee might become
content with God. She replied, “When
his joy in affliction equals his
joy in blessing.”
Posts Tagged → meditation
attend to your attitude
It is
an unavoidable fact
of life that inferior influences
sometimes prevail: improperly motivated
people ascend to power, there is injustice and conflict
and poverty, and spiritual life in general descends into darkness
and decay. While these difficult times are inevitable — and the arrival
of this hexagram indicates that this is such a time — this does
not mean that we have to stagnate personally as well.
By turning inward and realigning ourselves
with proper principles, we initiate
the return to light, truth
and progress.
The image
of P’i is of heaven
moving away from the earth.
When this happens, the inferior qualities
in ourselves and in others come to the surface and
seek expression. It is unlikely now that you can affect what
others do and say or that your activities will bear much fruit. While
it is natural to feel anxious and disappointed about this state of
affairs, it is essential to disengage from these inferior
emotions now. To indulge in them is to
abandon your superior self and
plunge into a state of
disintegration.
What is
wise now is to accept
that external progress is unlikely.
Turn your attention inward and examine your
own thoughts and attitudes for inferior influences
and departures from the principles of the Sage.
By withdrawing into solitude and refining
your higher nature, you continue
to grow while all else around
you stagnates.
The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Hexagram 12, P’i Standstill (Stagnation)
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whenever something happens
Can what happened to you
stop you from being fair, high-minded,
moderate, conscientious, unhasty, honest, moral,
self-reliant, and so on — from possessing all the qualities that,
when present, enable a man’s nature to be fulfilled? So then,
whenever something happens that might cause you
distress, remember to rely on this principle:
this is not bad luck, but bearing it
valiantly is good luck.
the source of light and darkness
One learns to understand
that there is a world in one’s self,
that in one’s mind there is a source of
happiness and unhappiness, the source of
health and illness, the source of light and darkness,
and that it can be awakened, either mechanically or at will,
if only one knew how to do it. Then one does not blame his
ill fortune nor complain of his fellow man. He becomes
more tolerant, more joyful, and more loving toward
his neighbor, because he knows the cause of
every thought and action, and he sees
it all as the effect of a
certain cause.
…Therefore, the work
of the mystic is to be able to read
the language of the mind. As the clerk
in the telegraph office reads letters from the
ticks, so the Sufi gets behind every word spoken to
him and discovers what has prompted the word to come out.
He therefore reads the lines which are behind man’s thought,
speech, and action. He also understands that every kind of
longing and craving in life, good or bad, has its source
in deep impression. By knowing this root of the
disease he is easily able to find out its cure.
No impression is such that it
cannot be erased.
this switching trick
You fear losing a certain
eminent position. You hope to gain something
from that, but it comes from elsewhere. Existence does this
switching trick, giving you hope from one source,
then satisfaction from another.
It keeps you bewildered
and wondering, and lets your trust
in the unseen grow.