From tariqas-digest-approval@europe.std.com Sun Jul 7 07:28:56 1996 Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 18:55:03 -0400 (EDT) From: tariqas-digest-approval@europe.std.com Reply-To: tariqas-digest@world.std.com To: tariqas-digest@world.std.com Subject: tariqas-digest V1 #41 tariqas-digest Monday, 1 July 1996 Volume 01 : Number 041 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: informe@best.com Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 23:17:14 -0700 Subject: Re: Cat Stevens (was Re: Sufi) >Dear Hamza, Assalamu alaikum, > >On Sun, 30 Jun 1996 informe@best.com wrote: > >> It's my understanding that he has taken bayat with Shaykh Nazim >> al-Qubbrusi, my own shaykh. I have met his brother-in-law at Naqshbandi >> zikr. > >Yes, I had heard he had some connection with Shaykh Nazim, though >I don't remember where I heard it. Did you ask his brother-in-law >about it? (I assume his brother-in-law would know if it is true!) > >Wassalam, > >Fariduddien Wa alaikum as-salaam, Shaykh Fariduddien, You know, it never occurred to me to ask, but Shaykh Yusuf is supposed to be in LA for the upcoming convention, so perhaps I will find out. Salaams, Hamza ------------------------------ From: shuja@biruni.erum.com.pk Date: Mon, 1 Jul 96 11:25 PDT Subject: Re: A Question I do not believe that there is such an ayat in the Holy Quran! At least, not in Yusuf Ali's transalation. And if it were so, then the Mullah's of this world, would not be beating up on musicians and singers as the workers of Shaytan! Shuja On Sun, 30 Jun 1996, haybat@rummelplatz.uni-mannheim.de wrote: >As salam alaykum, > >I heard, that it is told in the Holy Quran, that man didn't want to >go into the body, but the music of the angels moved him into it. Does >anybody know, in which sura and ayat this is written? > >Love to all > >Hueseyin Haybat > > > ------------------------------ From: maarof@pc.jaring.my Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 17:02:32 +0800 Subject: RE: Cat Stevens (was Re: Sufi) On Sun, 30 Jun 1996, Gale wrote: >I have not heard that Cat Stevens has a current Sufi connection, although his Islamic conversion and activities have been well politicized by various Muslim countries and/or countries with a large Muslim population, and various organizations. I have seen foreign consulate publications, even Iran, with Stevens interviews. A long, long time back, I heard something about his linking with Idries Shah, but I cannot imagine that is the case any longer nor if there is any truth to it. > >Blessings, Nur Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens to the Muslims is the "ambassador of Islam" to the West. It is not a formal title, but the Muslims recognized his effort in bridging understanding between the West and Islam. That's why we see Yusuf received a "head of state" welcome whenever he go to a Muslim country. Yusuf also acknowledge this role. He imply this when he explained why he chose the name Yusuf. He said the surah on the story of Joseph captured his heart, and sort of explain why he embrace Islam. If we look carefully at the Joseph story in the Quran, it is a story of a beautiful man (in term of spirit and character), his relation with his brothers (in Yusuf Islam story -- his family of the West) and the dream of Joseph (the planets/continents bow/surrender to him/the beautiful one/the beautiful message of God). This is my interpretation after reading Yusuf's remark how the surah of Joseph in the Quran affect what he is doing now. I hope I have add a meaningful discussion to this topic. Salam Maarof ------------------------------ From: Frank Gaude Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 20:26:56 -0700 Subject: Monday's Rumi Hello, folks! Hand selected for today: COME ON DARLING pass me one more cup bestow on my soul tranquility once more and do it now today is my turn i can wait no more for the unknown tomorrow if you have as my share even a small trace of grace give it to me now don't make me wait let me go free help me to break out from this new trap i've fallen into again don't hand me over to the monster of my thoughts my thoughts are another trap another waiting vampire take my only belongings take them to the pawn shop pledge them once more and bring me the last cup RUMI, ghazal number 1045, translated May 6, 1992, by Nader Khalili, "Fountain of Fire: A Celebration of Life and Love", translated from the original Persian (Diwan-i Shams-i Tabrizi, the Furuzanfar's 10th Persian edition), Burning Gate Press, 18401 Burbank Blvd., Suite 123, Tarzana, CA 91356 tanzen ------------------------------ From: Bob King Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 09:13:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: no such thing as impersonal On Sun, 30 Jun 1996, Jabreil Hanafi wrote: > Sometimes however exposing one > self to the group I think is important since we actually do anyway. Thank you for this and many other insights you offer, Jabriel. I figure we all project ourselves onto the computer screens we sit before when we write our messages to Tariquas, and the idea that this is ever anything but personal is for me a kind of logical fallacy. I think we're all revealing ourselves -- and it's always personal -- whether we like it or not, in everything we do and say, in everything we don't do and don't say, everywhere, on the net or off. When a person says "let's don't get personal" -- I regard that as a very personal statement! Again, my personal thanks for your insightful and often courageous work/play on Tariqas. Bob ------------------------------ From: Frank Gaude Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 07:13:06 -0700 Subject: Re: Jacquie Weller wrote: > > Surrender o self, [...] > Surrender all > But how do i do it? Your teacher know how... patience and Teacher shows all, tanzen ------------------------------ From: an525@lafn.org (Ivan Ickovits) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 08:11:59 -0700 Subject: Kinda cool: Global brain rhythms and states of awareness From: peter@epl.meei.harvard.edu (Peter Cariani) To: PSYCHE-D@rfmh.org (Multiple recipients of list PSYCHE-D) Subject: Global brain rhythms and states of awareness Date: Sun, 30 Jun James Newman wrote: > I would add that I have nothing, in principle, > against Keith's admonition > that researchers need to focus more on "pure" > states on csness. Indeed, I have argued that the > present obsession with high frequency (40 Hz) oscillations, > ignores a number of earlier studies of the role of alpha (7-13 > Hz) in conscious states (see review by Thatcher & John, 1977). > My basic point has been that neural dynamics of any complexity > involve a subtle interplay of excitatory and inhibitory activation.> > Alpha, at least in active cogntive tasks, appears to reflect > the inhibition of information processing (although this is all > pretty poorly understood). But clearly it, and even lower > frequencies, predomate in EEG studies of experienced meditators. > The problem seems to be that the minute you mention "alpha waves" > or meditation to a dyed-in-the-wool neuroscientist, their eyes glaze > over, and you suspect that you have been judged to be a New Age hippie. EEG rhythms are not my area of expertise, and I can't in any way speak for neuroscientists as a group, but it is my understanding that EEG patterns can be driven all over the place by all sorts of rhythmic and non-rhythmic stimuli (e.g. acoustic clicks, light flashes, mechanical stimuli, electric shocks). What one wants to see is some invariant property of neural activity (in this case a global temporal pattern of activity) that has a robust correspondence with some property of the subject's experience (as reported or indicated to an external observer). The neural correlates of basic percepts such as pitch, loudness, brightness, color, figural properties, pain, etc. are less problematic than "pure states of consciousness" because one can use different (metameric) stimuli that give rise to the same perceptual quality (as in a pitch- or color-matching experiment) and determine what commonalities exist in the neural responses that underlie the common perceptual quality (despite differences between the two metameric stimuli). Ideally, one wants to see the presence of some rhythm or pattern to be exactly coextensive with the percept or "state of awareness" that is experienced/reported/ or observed in the subject. The difficulty is that it seems that these various rhythms that are postulated to do everything from feature binding to subserving coherent thought and conscious awareness can be altered or even destroyed using appropriate external drivinng stimuli (to those of you who are familiar with the EEG/evoked potentials literature, am I not correct on this?). We don't suddenly lose consciousness when a strobe light is turned on, or rhythmic acoustic stimuli are presented despite the presumption that these stimuli are driving neurons all over the cortex in very complex patterns. (Arguably, our states of awareness do change when we set foot in nightclubs and discos, but not in a way that precludes conscious awareness, face recognition, language comprehension, etc), These kinds of objections were levelled at McCulloch's "scanning model" for information-processing in the brain (Pitts & McCulloch, 1947 and "Why the mind is in the head") presented at the 1951 Hixon symposium (Jeffress, 1951), which was attended by von Neumann, Kohler, Lashley, Lorente de No, Gerard, Weiss, Pauling, Jeffress, and others. When I go back and read those discussions, it seems to me that the discourse on the global organization of brain processes and its relationship to conscious awareness has not progressed much, if at all, in the last 40 years, and indeed there is much that is forgotten and/or ignored in the current form of the discussion. In the same vein, I recently came across E.Roy John's (1967) Mechanisms of Memory in which he presented phsyiological evidence on the "temporal assimilation" of stimulus-evoked time patterns by cortical neurons. This is the kind of work (like the EEG studies of Grey Walter) that should also be on the table for consideration. The objections to synchronized neural population potentials ("brain waves") do not rule out all all temporal mechanisms for the coordination of brain processes, only those that depend upon large scale inter-neural "synchrony" per se. Time patterns can exist in single neurons and local ensembles of neurons even if they are generally not apparent in population potentials. (We see this sort of thing even at the level of the auditory nerve: e.g. for click trains, there are interspike intervals encoding periodicities far in excess of those periodicities that are observed in the population response). Population potentials provide an "existence proof" for what time-structure must exist in individual neurons, but they do not fix an upper limit for what temporal information cannot exist at the micro-level of single neurons. Much more effort needs to go into understanding the relationships between single-unit activity and population-potentials. Whatever the nature of the neural coding mechanisms that subserve the large scale integration of the brain, there are strong arguments that can be made from psychology and neurophysiology that these mechanisms need to be asynchronous ones. While asynchronous operation traditionally has been used as an argument in favor of "rate" codes, the requirement does not out of hand rule out time codes based on temporal pattern (as opposed to interneural synchrony -- but N.B. sometimes the two kinds of time codes will coincide, as with a 10 Hz click train). Rather than "inhibiting" cognitive processes, the slower waves may just reflect the inherent temporal dynamics of a system with many delays and reverberatory paths that is not being driven by external stimuli. Even when endogenous and/or exogenous rhythms are present, there can still be much more complex activity patterns unfolding on a micro-scale, riding on these long rhythms, modulated by them, but not completely dominated by them. If the underlying neural codes are temporal pattern codes, then the slow rhythms may be in a completely different frquency regime from those that carry other kinds of information, and hence not interfere with their processing. Now my eyes are starting to glaze over........ Peter Cariani peter@epl.meei.harvard.edu John, E.R. Mechanisms of Memory. New York: Wiley, 1967. McCulloch, W.S. Why the Mind is in the Head. In: Cerebral Mechanisms of Behavior (the Hixon Symposium), edited by L.A. Jeffress, New York: Wiley, 1951, p. 42-111. McCulloch, W.S. Why the Mind is in the Head. In: Embodiments of Mind, edited by W.S. McCulloch, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965, p. 72-141. Pitts, W., and McCulloch, W.S. How we know universals: the perception of auditory and visual forms. Reprinted in Embodiments of Mind. Walter, G. Intrinsic rhythms of the brain. In: Handbook of Physiology: Neurophysiology. Volume II., edited by J. Field, H.W. Magoun, and V.E. Hall, Washington, D.C.: American Physiological Society, 1959, p. 279-298. Walter, G. The Living Brain. New York: Norton, 1959. Raqib's commentary: It appears to me that we are constructing a global mind in the recent discussions. Some care and consideration in what to emphasize and de-emphasize might be well considered as these patterns will be engrained in the "brain". If you make the association that much of the recent discussions on wh and on tariqas have been like neural messages sent from one neuron to a neighbor and look forpatterns of length of discussions, lifetime before a particular threaddecays or is transmuted to something else, and similar metaphorics, one can see the patterns of the various cycles of consciousness as dividing into discrete bunches clumped around some resonances points such as 4 Hz, or 10 Hz.etc. Just my usual odd correlative self, Raqib - -- <<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>> ------------------------------ From: informe@best.com Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 10:03:33 -0700 Subject: Sufi Films Salaams, If you can help out Sister Esther, you can email her at Esther.Pacitti@inria.fr. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 17:51:26 +0200 (MET DST) >To: informe@best.com >Subject: sufism films>Hi friends, > >I'am searching for some film about the sufism. >If you know of an produced film could you please let me know. > >Thanks in advance, > >Esther As-salaamu alaikum, Sister Esther, As far as commercial films go, the only one that comes to mind is _Meetings With Remarkable Men_, which stars Terence Stamp and was filmed in Europe and Central Asia. It is based on the book of the same name by the late George Gurdjieff. The Naqshbandi Haqqani organization has some videotapes of Shaykh Nazim al-Qubbrusi. You can get descriptions of these tapes at http://linex.com/~purehart/haqvid.html. Salaams, Hamza ------------------------------ From: Keeper of the Dragon Flagon Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 13:15:26 Subject: Re: Recent jabs, corrections >Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 14:04:27 -0400 >From: JHulvey@aol.com >As for coffee: Is this correct, that in Arabic, it is the same word for both >"coffee" and "wine"? And doesn't the original word "Nectar of the Gods"? ;-) - --------------------------------------- Brett W. McCoy "Unix was never designed to keep Istvan Dragosani people from doing stupid things, istvan@gnn.com because that policy would also keep Disciple of the Eastern Mysteries them from doing clever things." of both Love and War -- Doug Gwyn ------------------------------ From: Keeper of the Dragon Flagon Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 13:15:26 Subject: Re: Sufi >Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 19:25:34 +0100 >From: Well333@turbonet.com (Jacquie Weller) >I am in a strange crazy mood right now so here goes. Nobody really knows >what a sufi is. I'm a sufi and I don't know what i think i know. Ha There are many people who could have claimed the name 'sufi' or 'dervish'. yet they probably knew not the words. This is what I call the 'Hidden Tariqa' -- what the mystics and spiritualists of the Victorian Age called 'The Great and Secret Chiefs'. >Before i called myself a sufi, i was still a sufi. But a new thing > happened. The name matters not. It's your thoughts and actions which give the true definition. >I found out one and one is not two, but one. Does anyone know what I'm >talking about. I have even seen that 1 and 1 equals 0! How that may be is left as an excercise for the reader... I like Lao Tsu's equation 00 = 1 = 0 = 00 (00 = infinity). >If you do, then you are a sufi too, whatever it is. It >isn't a religion, or a creed, or any one particular thing. it's falling in >love and dying and rising and being in love, and cutting and burning up, and >being foolish and wise and silly like now. Oh well so much for my >ignorance. The Way that is given a name is not the eternal Way. Desiring, you will see manifestation, yet desireless, you will *experience* the mystery... >Anyway i think sufi's are just God lovers who see God everywhere, in every > face, >leaf, clot of earth, and just breath it with every breath. What is a sufi, >I don't know...maybe it's just everyone that gets out of bed today. Who kno >ws. For the Sufi, everywhere you turn you see The Beloved. This is especially true for those who whirl or perform Tai Qi. >Anyway i am glad about the silliest things, like polident, gummybears, >friends on the net, new beautiful words, coffee and cigarettes. You might enjoy the book _The Tao of Pooh_. Winnie the Pooh is examplar of a Taoist, and I have yet to find very little difference between the Taoism and Sufism, other than the cultural basis and some of the external imagery. - --------------------------------------- Brett W. McCoy "Unix was never designed to keep Istvan Dragosani people from doing stupid things, istvan@gnn.com because that policy would also keep Disciple of the Eastern Mysteries them from doing clever things." of both Love and War -- Doug Gwyn ------------------------------ From: Keeper of the Dragon Flagon Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 13:37:59 Subject: Re: Sufi Films >Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 10:03:33 -0700 >From: informe@best.com > >>I'am searching for some film about the sufism. >>If you know of an produced film could you please let me know. Another film that comes to mind is _Born of Fire_. It isn't specifically about Sufis, but has some Sufi themes in it. It's about a musician in England who is called to Turkey to find someone known as the Master Musician. It was actually filmed in Turkey, and there are some scenes of whirlers in it also. - --------------------------------------- Brett W. McCoy "Unix was never designed to keep Istvan Dragosani people from doing stupid things, istvan@gnn.com because that policy would also keep Disciple of the Eastern Mysteries them from doing clever things." of both Love and War -- Doug Gwyn ------------------------------ From: Keeper of the Dragon Flagon Date: Mon, 01 Jul 1996 13:38:15 Subject: Re: Sufi >Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 11:12:03 -0400 >From: CWoodsong@aol.com >perhaps we're all on "the road to find out"... "The Road goes ever on an on, Down from the door where it began..." - --------------------------------------- Brett W. McCoy "Unix was never designed to keep Istvan Dragosani people from doing stupid things, istvan@gnn.com because that policy would also keep Disciple of the Eastern Mysteries them from doing clever things." of both Love and War -- Doug Gwyn ------------------------------ From: dlb@severn.wash.inmet.com (David Barton) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 14:34:52 -0400 Subject: Re: Sufi Films Someone (informe@best.com?) writes: >>I'am searching for some film about the sufism. >>If you know of an produced film could you please let me know. "Circle of Iron", staring David Carridine, has *some* Sufi-related content. It is a horrible mish-mash, with Zen and martial-arts stuff all mixed in. Readers of Sufi stores (to say nothing of the Quran) will recognize some of the plot sequences, including the journey of Moses and Khidr. Dave Barton <*> dlb@wash.inmet.com )0( http://www.inmet.com/~dlb ------------------------------ From: dlb@severn.wash.inmet.com (David Barton) Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 14:34:52 -0400 Subject: Re: Sufi Films Someone (informe@best.com?) writes: >>I'am searching for some film about the sufism. >>If you know of an produced film could you please let me know. "Circle of Iron", staring David Carridine, has *some* Sufi-related content. It is a horrible mish-mash, with Zen and martial-arts stuff all mixed in. Readers of Sufi stores (to say nothing of the Quran) will recognize some of the plot sequences, including the journey of Moses and Khidr. Dave Barton <*> dlb@wash.inmet.com )0( http://www.inmet.com/~dlb ------------------------------ From: Unispirit@aol.com Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 14:44:33 -0400 Subject: Re: Threshold Society URL (was: Re: Melevi) Assalam alaikum. >>> http://www.webcom.com/threshld/ The Mevlevi Dervish Order sounds like the "turners" here on the West Coast, Likely the same group<< Just a correction here. The Threshold Society is led by Sheikh Kabir Helminski, an American who is fully authorized as a sheikh by the Mevlevi Order in Istanbul. The West Coast 'turners' are taught and led by Jelaluddin Loras, of Konya, Turkey, son of the late Suleyman Dede. Two distinctly different groups of "Mevlevis." Both are significantly "Americanized." Susan ------------------------------ From: Fred Rice Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 06:03:34 +1000 (EST) Subject: Sufi story: saving the inhabitants of hell Hatim the Deaf said to his disciples, "Whosoever of you on the day of resurrection does not intercede for the inhabitants of Hell, he is not one of my disciples." This statement was reported to Abu Yazid al-Bistami. "I say," declared Abu Yazid, "that he is my disciple who stands on the brink of Hell and takes by the hand every one being conveyed to Hell and dispatches him to Heaven, and then enters Hell in his place." Hatim al-Asamm (the Deaf) and Abu Yazid al-Bistami were both great Sufis who lived in the 9th century C.E. [From the "Tadhkirat al-Awliyya" (Memorial of the Saints) by Fariduddin Attar, translated by A. J. Arberry as "Muslim Saints and Mystics," p. 120.] ------------------------------ From: Jinavamsa@aol.com Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 16:09:44 -0400 Subject: Shaykh Yusuf [was Re: Cat Stevens (was Re: Sufi) just a question from ignorance (again): is shaykh being used here as a casual honorific (as in India, Shree, or "srii if written more formally, has evolved into an equivalent for mister)? or should we understand from what you are writing that Fariduddien and Yusuf are both spiritual teachers? thank you for the clarification. also, do you have specifics on the convention in LA you refer to below? perhaps some readers at tariqas would be interested. peace to you, Jinavamsa In a message dated 96-07-01 02:18:06 EDT, you write: >Wa alaikum as-salaam, Shaykh Fariduddien, > >You know, it never occurred to me to ask, but Shaykh Yusuf is supposed to >be in LA for the upcoming convention, so perhaps I will find out. > >Salaams, > >Hamza > > ------------------------------ From: Gale Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 15:52:11 -0700 Subject: Sufi films Dear Esther, Hamza posted a note that you are inquiring about films on Sufism. A = documentary on the Sufis was done by Prof. Houston Smith. There is some = great footish in this film, and Smith, an expert in world religions, = does the narrating. I don't know where you would be able to find it = however. Prof. Smith lives in Berkeley, California. Esther, if you = contact me privately, I could put you in touch with him, and maybe he = can help you directly. He's a wonderful being. Hope this is of some help. Blessings, Nur ------------------------------ End of tariqas-digest V1 #41 ****************************