Zikr

Title

En Zikr

Date

En 1983-Apr-17

Decade

En 1980s

Sequence

En 9

City, State

En New Lebanon, NY

Location

En Abode

Description

En Close to the end of a weekend retreat. An inspiring introduction to Zikr – the “staple food” of Sufis. Previous sessions have been about wazaif and God’s qualities. Zikr is about the breakdown and rebirth of one’s whole being, an encounter with God that is oneself, the Divine Presence. Explains the meaning of the movements, words, and experience of zikr, from personal and God’s consciousness,and illustrates personal retreat stories. Occasional comparisons to Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity.

Topic(s)

En Ecstasy

Zikr

Subtopic(s)

En Zikr of God|Introduction to Zikr|Fana|Baqa|Transcendent and imminent|Glorification|Vain repetition|Rebirth

Type of event

En Retreat

Type of publication

En Recording

Media

En Audio

Transcript

Extent

En 0:54:14

Identifier

En 1041

File Format

En mp3

PDF

Language

En English

Digitizing Team

En Abad

TajAli Keith

Telema Hess

Author(s)

En Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Full Text

En Our retreat is drawing to an end. And I feel, of course, it wouldn't be complete without going into, at least touching upon, the practice of the zikr, which is really the staple food of the Sufis. So, I made a very short reference to the wazaif, the mantrams. Although to do well, one should really go very deeply into each mantra and experience it. And each initiate of the Sufi Order sees a mantra to work with. The zikr is different in the sense that it's not referring to a particular divine quality, beyond all qualities, their very essence, in that it cuts really into the very essence of life and death, which is, of course, as you know, the principle of alchemy—solve et coagula—first dissolve and then one can work upon being reborn again. And so, in the wazifa one is working with qualities, but the zikr is much more important because it has to do with literally a breakdown of one's whole being before it can be reformed again. And there are moments, of course, when this breakdown is particularly important, and if one doesn't do something about it, life does something about it. Life breaks down. Circumstances break down. Generally, it's a sign that one has to go oneself through a process of breaking down. And so sometimes it means that a retreat is called for. And we have different practices during the retreat, but I must say that the zikr is, of all practices, I think, the most appropriate one. The classical retreats that I have done in India, and also Jerusalem, and in Iran, were repeating the zikr, well, from morning to six o'clock in the evening, every day, and one of them 40 days fasting. Guaranteed one comes out of that totally either shattered or totally transfigured. I repeat that I think that one has to use very strong means to bring about any change otherwise, they say the leopard never changes its spots. Well, it's not quite true, but one has to really work hard to bring about change. The Zikr is perhaps the most dramatic of all practices because one is undergoing a death and resurrection. And that's why the Sufis say die before death and resurrect now. That's the way they're describing Zikr.

You see, all along in this seminar, I've been talking about how to modulate consciousness from its ordinary setting. But, of course, it's obvious that one cannot do it with one's will—that I keep on repeating—and that is why al-Hallaj invites the divine operation to shatter him and rebuild him again. And I suppose the zikr is the most typical epitome of that fundamental attitude of the Sufi: It is not man who reaches God. It is God who experiences himself as man.

It all turns around the very most fundamental principle of Islam which is La ilaha illa 'llah—it's all one being—which has been contradicted by the mullahs over and over again, of course, but it's the main principle of Islam.

And it's obvious that one can't say that if one is conscious of being the one who's saying it. And that's why (these are words of al-Hallaj), "One has to let oneself be shattered." You know how one is shattered sometimes by the encounter with something very great and very beautiful, or even by the phenomena of love. One can be shattered walking in a storm in high mountains, with lightning all around one, one can be shattered by the scene of the rising sun, one can be shattered just by the meaning of life, just by suddenly realizing what it's all about. What the Sufis say, of course, it's the shattering of the encounter with God which is a very strange proposition because if all is one, then how can you talk about an encounter? In samadhi, one is merged in the Totality whereas here, there is an encounter that shatters one.

Well, it's all relative, of course, but it is the encounter of a fraction with a totality of which is as a fraction, so one is overwhelmed by the greatness of what one encounters and shattered in one's notion of oneself. It's also, in the words of Ibn Arabi, the encounter with the very principle of which one is the expression. And that is a different relationship than being a fraction of the totality, the archetype and the exemplar. Then, of course, the most shattering thing is to discover that the one that one is looking for and glorifies is one's very self.

Now, the zikr is based upon some very esoteric principles, in fact the word Allah—which you find in Halleluiah, as a matter of fact—there is a vertical line. The A in the Arabic language is a vertical line. And the L is the arch of a circle. And so, you have the principle of the descent from God to man. And then the motion and cycles of existence back into the oneness again. So, at both ends, you have, let's say-- these are words one couldn't use in Islam, but still ... on one hand incarnation and on the other hand resurrection. Two A's. and in between you have the cycles of existence. So one is incarnated—one undergoes the cycle of existence—and one returns back into the one. There is the mysterious H at the end of Allah, which is sometimes extended to Hu, and in the Arabic language, Hu means him, which is a person not present. And the paradox here is, as al Hallaj said, that if there are several people in a room who are talking about persons not in that room, one makes that person more present than the people in the room. So one makes God present. That's the meaning of Hu.

Or rather, one discovers that one IS the Divine Presence. Now, for the Sufis, there's a very clear distinction between manifesting God, that is, in different qualities, and being the presence of God. Manifestation takes place in different forms and modalities and so on, whereas Divine Presence is—there's no form. There's no location, time.

So, seen from the human point of view, one is undergoing a real catharsis, a real very deep transformation. One says [slowly and with force] LA ILAHA ILLA 'LLA HU.

One goes in a circle, one makes a circle with the head, moving from the left. Imagine the third eye facing the left shoulder, solar plexus, right shoulder, right up to the zenith. That makes 3/4 of a circle. And one says La ilaha. You see, La lasts a whole half of a circle and then ILAHA from the right shoulder up to the top, to the zenith. LA means no and that's a very extraordinary thing. The word Allah is confused by yes and no--to be or not to be. It starts with the negation because one has to first annihilate that which is not, before when affirms what is. First negation, then the affirmation.

Right, so one says LA ILAHA... that means there is no... ILAHA means divinity. ILLA, that means except. 'LLA. Done. That's all one is saying. So, externally, so exoterically, it's like the proclamation of Islam. There's only one God and so, against idolatry, and so on, multiplicity. It's a very strong affirmation. It IS the affirmation of modern physics. It's all one indivisible reality. It took all of this time to come to that point.

The implication of it is that it's all one being. And so, we are, as I keep on saying, we are that being, or we are part of that being... Well, we've talked about it enough to make it, well, it’s understandable.

So you see from the point of view of the person, then one is going through four different phases. The first one is, as one says, "la ilaha" one is making the 3/4 of a circle, one is, really speaking, one is denying that the universe is the way it seems, because it's all the being of God. So, it's not THE universe, some objective reality, but it is the Being of God. So it's a little bit like Korsybski, "the map is not the territory." It's like LA, one refuses the illusion. I will say it is very similar to Hinduism here, about maya: one refuses the illusion that the universe is the way one imagines it to be. It's LA ILAHA. And the dervish says it with a tremendous power, LA, refuse to accept other than God. Because the word maya for the Sufis means other than God. That the universe should be other than God, that's what one refuses to accept. In fact, it's refusing duality. It's advaita. It's really advaita. And then as the head comes down, and, well, after having made that 3/4 of a circle and the head comes down—ILLA, which means except. And, according to at least the Chishti school of Sufis, at that moment one undergoes a kind of what they call fana, which means a collapse of one's notion of oneself. So, the only way to overcome one's ... I know that in samadhi, one is overcoming the notion of the self by reaching beyond it. And here one is being bereft of the notion of the self by the divine action upon it. And you remember, I was quoting Abdul Ansari who said, "I searched for God and I found myself." So that is samadhi, one is seeking beyond oneself, but one can't quite reach oneself because one is doing it with one's will. And then, "I sought for myself and I found God"— because this is where God is, in the creature. So it's not in transcendence, you see, it's in the immanence, the Divine Presence down here. That's why I said this morning the archetypes are a reality in their exemplification. That's where they're a reality, not up there in some unknown world. And that's why Niffari, who was a wild dervish of Egypt, has said, "Why are you looking for God up there? He's here!" It shatters all our old-fashioned concepts of God. And one of the most challenging of all concepts in Islam—which most Muslims have no idea about—is one creates God in one's faith. God creates himself in our faith.

And Mohammed goes further than that, in the Hadith, where he says, God will appear to the faithful of different religions in a different way to the one they're used to, and they will refute him. And then he will appear in the form that is familiar to them, and they will accept it [chuckles]. He is showing how God appears differently in each of the faiths and that, in fact, we are building God out of ... or I think it would be better to say that God is existentiating himself through us.

That's, of course, what we've been saying all the time. And so there's some point in what Teilhard de Chardin says when he says, "The point Omega is being formed in the course of time." Like God becomes a presence in the course of evolution. That's the dynamic view of God instead of the static view of God. He's in the process of becoming. So, alright, so if one is in one's personal consciousness, one is being shattered. Fana, that's a word that is used by the dervish particularly. And if you could speak to the dervish, there were two things he would always say. He would say two things. He would say, I am so shattered and I am so overwhelmed. Those are two words, fana and baqa. And so shattered: that is, the encounter with the beauty of God's majesty is so great, of the part with the Totality, or the exemplar with the archetype, that I'm shattered. And that means I have, well, gone through a total dislocation of my being. It's like the dark night of the soul. And then he'll go on to say, and I'm so overwhelmed. Because for having died one is reborn again, as St. John said. And it's the only way to ever be reborn again. And so I'm overwhelmed. That means I am filled with bounty more than I can bear, a kind of overdose of ecstasy.

And so that's fana and baqa. Those are the two principles of the zikr. So, from the human point of view, one is going through fana—that means dislocation—and then one is reborn at the time one says 'LLAH, which is the great proclamation. Remember that one does not say ALLAH, but 'llah, because when you have two A's one after the other, you don't pronounce the second a. So you say ILLA 'LLAH. You don't say illa Allah, you say illa 'llah. There's a moment of a kind of break before you say 'LLAH, which ... there's some beauty in that formula, ILLA 'LLAH. Now, the beauty of this--I'm talking from my experience in a retreat—you see, if you keep on repeating, well, making a circular motion with your head, one would easily get into a trance state—and especially if you allow yourself to be, as I say totally dislocated by the divine action upon you. The saving grace is that when one says 'LLAH, one's head comes up again. And one is exalting in an act of glorification. And so the retreat for me was always like, THE chance of giving myself to the act of glorification. And also there's a kind of memory that comes back, of having been born out of an act of glorification. Just like that music of Victoria we were listening to, like being ... imagine that you're like a composition that was composed by an angel, in a bid to express his/her glorification, so you are that piece of music that expresses an act of glorification. Instead of thinking of oneself as a person, one thinks of oneself as a work of music, as a composition. So, every time that one reiterates one's original act of glorification, one is born anew. Exactly as one was born out of glorification, the beginning, one is reborn again, in an act of glorification. That's why the greatest thing that can ever happen to us is to exalt in glorification. And that's the thing we miss the most in life. Where are you to find it? Rarely in the church, I don't say that one doesn't find it in the church, one does, but it's rare. I remember in Montserrat, mass at six o'clock in the morning, and a young priest was in ecstasy. It was very beautiful. But it's rare. Generally, it's just routine.

Right, and then, so that's 'LLAH, that's one is reborn in participating in the cosmic celebration--that's the way I like to say it. So one is not alone, glorifying. There's a word in the—I think it's the Hekhalot of the Jews, yes, the hekhalot—that says that a little prayer on the earth ... a little spark in the heart of someone praying on the earth can kindle a big fire in the heavens. And that's a way of putting it. And so one is triggering off something that's already there with it, and one is enhancing it by one's action on the earth. And it's about participation in the act of glorification, out of which the whole universe was built—of which the whole universe is an expression. So it's a great moment when one says that and I remember during my retreats, being so, how can I say, exalted, carried away by that, at that moment. And you would have thought that this was like the culmination, like what more could there be? And then you say HU. And of course, according to al-Hallaj, it is God who says Hu. You don't say it. You say Allah, and God says Hu. It's almost like, I am the one, I Am That I Am, you see, but in Arabic it means him, and so the "him" becomes the "I Am." Because the whole universe is just that, is that the person non-present becomes present.

Now, I don't know whether you notice the flagrant contradictions in all the things I've just been saying! [laughter]

That is, you're saying that it's all one being, and you're still in your consciousness going through a trip. So that's why one could only say the zikr, as Al-Hallaj says, if one was already fana with all before saying it, and it is God alone who says the zikr and I'm not there to say it. Those are the words of al-Hallaj.

So what would it be like to get into the consciousness of God saying the zikr? Well, I suppose when God says La iIaha, he would be saying—He/She, sorry! [chuckles] would be saying—he wouldn't be negating. I mean, it's only a human being at the gates [chuckles].

He'd be exalting in that act that we're talking about all the time, whereby he discovers himself in the universe. So it's exactly the opposite of the human being who doesn't want to be deluded by his opinion of the universe, and God who can't be deluded ... on the contrary, is exalted in discovering the beauty of His Self [chuckles]. The act of self-discovery you see. And then, you know that if you read the words of Al-Hallaj, which I'm going to... I think I'll have it published some time because it only exists in French, it been translated in French, not in English, and is amongst the most extraordinary words. I was translating it in the plane two days ago. It's like, "In the beginning, God was considering the principle of His being." In the beginning is a way of saying—they use the word azaliyat—in the beginning of pre-eternity ... but it's not the right translation. Transiency, I think, that's the only ... trans-temporality or trans-transiency. God contemplates the principle of His being beyond ... there is no time and no space, you see. And then He desires, and that's the word ISHQ, which is more than desire, I think, it's more like "the nostalgia to" discover latencies within that Totality. It's like, it's all one Totality, but however, you can break up the Totality and then you will find a lot of richness within this Totality. And so, the first act is what they call fayd aqdas, which means, he contemplates his attributes in, let's say, the archetypes. And then he descends one stage further, and wishes to see how these attributes become when they are exemplified in beings, you see, so that's fayd muqaddas, a second stage down, and that's where he has to use the consciousness of beings in order to discover himself. So that's where the dichotomy takes place. And then the beautiful, extraordinary thing is that in order to, therefore, see what happens to these qualities when they are exemplified in beings, those qualities become beings. And then, we are those beings, you see, in which he discovers himself and then he greets that being who is really himself. He salutes that being, converses with that being, and glorifies that being, which is we always think of US glorifying God, but there is God glorifying himself in a human being.

In the zikr, if you got into the divine consciousness then it would be God glorifying himself in ... there's even a word of al-Hallaj (no, it's not Al-Hallah, it's a Sufi, I can't remember the name of the Sufi at the moment), in which he says, "The prayer of the Sufi to God is, become in us that which Thou hast always wished to become." That's the real meaning of Dhul Jelal Wal Ikram. Right. Now, supposing then that you get—first of all, all of this is supposition—how can you get into the divine consciousness? Well, it's tautological really, because you can get in the divine consciousness by doing the zikr [chuckles], but you can't do the zikr without getting into the divine consciousness. The trick is this you see: I've already talked about how one can get into the consciousness of another being, a person for example, although not totally in their consciousness, but reach them from inside. And so one does the same thing getting into the Divine Consciousness. Now the trick, as I say, is this: One gets into the consciousness of one's Murshid, and having gotten to the consciousness of one's Murshid one gets into consciousness of the Murshid of one's Murshid. Now, it's a very delicate subject because there's been so much abuse of the charismatic guru that I want to say that, for the Sufi, the Pir is not a guru. Pir means an old man, that's what it means [laughter],

an elder, exactly like the Shakers use the word, the elder, and Jalaluddin Rumi says the Pir is the one who kills the idol that people make of him. Because in Islam, of course, is the destruction of idols. And so in the place of that image—because that's what an idol is, an image—one gets into the spirit of the being, the essence, maybe the attunement. And this is typified in a story, which is a very interesting story of that Murshid who ... one of his pupils had gone for a long time and after many years came back to see his Murshid. And he thought he'd trick his Murshid, so he dressed in the clothes of a shepherd and spoke like a shepherd, in the kind of accent of a shepherd, to see if his Murshid would recognize him. And his Murshid was, as Murshids do, was so moved by seeing this pupil of his again, and to see how this pupil had been concentrating on him all that time and what that concentration had done to him. And so then he said, "I see myself coming to myself, in the form of a shepherd."

So I'm not talking about idolatry. But one can get into the attunement of a being who inspires one. And that's what I was doing during my retreat in India—well I've done it several times, but on this first retreat—and so, one says the zikr very differently if one says it in one's own consciousness. One often gets into the consciousness of a great being, like a dervish, for example. If I were to say the zikr in my personal consciousness, I would say La ilaha illa 'llah Hu and in the consciousness of a dervish, it would be La ilaha illa 'llah Hu [said more slowly and much stronger]. It's quite a different way of saying it, getting into the consciousness of a dervish. And so that's what I was doing, getting into the consciousness of Hazrat Inayat Khan, who is my Murshid, my father, and totally lost in his consciousness. And then I began to see the Murshid of Murshid. whose photo I've never seen, but it's been published in that autobiography. So, getting into his consciousness and, obviously, I would get into his getting into the consciousness of his Murshid. But the most extraordinary thing was that having done that, I got into the consciousness of the Murshid of his Murshid, and it goes on, of course, and the man who was guiding me was a grandson of that Murshid of his Murshid. And I was making a retreat at the tomb of that Murshid of the Murshid of Murshid [laughter]. And he came in to call me for the prayers, and when I opened my eyes, he said, "You've seen him!" And, of course, from my expression, he knew that I'd seen his grandfather, whose picture I'd never seen, I'd no idea about. And so if you proceeded like that, further and further, you could understand that eventually one would get into the divine consciousness. See, including all consciousnesses. There are different ranks, of course, different degrees of, the hierarchy of masters, saints and prophets. That's why in Sufism, they speak about fana fi Sheikh, fana fi Rassoul and fana fi Allah. So the next step is getting into the consciousness of a prophet and then into the divine consciousness. You know, Buddha speaks about this in, I would say, the most wonderful parts of the teaching of Buddhism where he describes how he gets into the consciousness of the angels, and gets into the consciousness of all beings, because when one has lost the frontiers of one's consciousness—and that's Buddhism-a one gets into the consciousness of all beings. And what I'm saying is that the only way to say the zikr, without there being a terrible contradiction, is if one is able to overcome the frontiers of one's consciousness and get into the consciousness of the universe. Then the zikr becomes AN EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE. I couldn't possibly describe how one is SHATTERED TO THE CORE, and how one is overwhelmed when one has gotten into the consciousness of the universe. Which is the divine consciousness. And I would say. only then, is it even honest to say the zikr—because, otherwise, you're just saying words. And you remember Christ's words, warning people against vain repetition. And that's the whole trouble ... the trouble and the glory of the wazifa (that is, the mantram) and the Zikr, is overcoming the repetitiveness of it by shifting to a higher level of reality. I'll give you an example. If you're playing the piano, at first you have to work on your fingers--do it consciously, you see—and then at a certain moment the automation takes place. You don't have to watch your muscles and fingers anymore. And therefore, one’s able to concentrate on musicality, that is, the musical interpretation. So the automation takes place in the zikr, but that is the moment to move into the experience of it. And let the words just carry one into that experience.

It's very difficult to say the zikr because, as I demonstrated, in one sense, it's very powerful. And on the other hand, in one's attempt to say it in a powerful way, one tends to affirm one's ego. So it's very difficult. It's a very great lesson of life to know how to handle power without it going to one's head. Now, once more if we get into the Divine Consciousness saying the zikr, then at first there's that discovery of God discovering himself. And then when the head comes down, one says ILLA.... Now to use exactly the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan, my father, that's "the Divine Perfection suffering from human limitation." The human limitation takes nothing away from the divine perfection. It's like Christ being on the cross with hands and feet tied, and still perfectly powerful. He said he could call a 1000, I don't know, angels to save him. So he wasn't, in himself, diminished. But he had accepted this limitation in order, well, God being crucified for all times in order to make us free, That's the symbol.And so in the zikr, when one says ILLA from the personal point of view—if one is still in one's personal point of view—one is being annihilated or going through a dark night. But from the Divine point of view, it's God who accepts to be crucified. And that is to be found in the Hekhalot of the Jews. It's called Tzimtzum, the constriction of God in manifestation. Or, the same thing, like the constriction of the code of the whole body in the cell. In each cell the code of the whole body is present, but there's a constriction and most of it is scotch taped, as you know, it is not turned on. It can't be, it's not active. That's the constriction. (To someone: what, God, yes, thank you for reminding me). We're constricted by time [laughter].

Now in the third stage, when God says 'llah, God is freed from that constriction, in being reborn in each one of us. Let's say our limitation imposed a constriction upon the being of God. And we lift that constriction by being aware of his presence, and thus he is reborn as us. That's a very powerful thought. And if one thinks about that, when one's doing zikr, of course, one goes through a very powerful transformation.

But the most extraordinary moment is, of course, the Hu at the end, which as I said, again, from one's personal point of view, it is as though God is present, of course, that's the dream of the mystic, for God to be present. If one is in love, that's what one wants, the presence of the person one loves. One doesn't care what the nature of that person is anymore. It's the presence that is important. But that would be two Gods. As al-Hallaj said, "Is it Thou or is it me? That would be two Gods ... far from me to affirm two Gods, two beings? That would be against La ilaha illa 'llah." And then he says, "There is a divine presence in me beyond all" (tape beeps)"

[lots of laughter] Perhaps you know that story of the Conference of the Birds of Faridduddin Attar. The birds go through an adventure, (it's a long story, of course) in order to meet the king. And they start with thousands and thousands of birds, and most of them are scorched in the desert or drowned in the sea. And only eight remain when it comes to the palace of the king, and they knock at the door of the palace, and the chamberlain opens the door and says, "What do you want?" So they said, “Well, we've come and we would like to see the King." "To see the King? You think the king is going to take time to see you, motley lot?" So, they said, "Well, we've come all this way and most of us have died. And if you could imagine what we've gone through. You don't mean to say the king is going to refuse to see us." "Come in." They were ushered into the palace room, the throne room. And then they waited and waited and waited and nothing happened. And then one had a rather mischievous idea of sitting on the throne. And then the other sat on the throne. And then they suddenly realized that they were the being whom they had been looking for. Incidentally, that's what I did once in Castel Gandolfo. I sat on the throne of the pope [laughter] because they'd kept me waiting just too long. [lots of laughter]

That story is the ultimate. It's God discovering himself in man, and man discovering himself as God. And these are the very words of Saint Irene who's one of the founders of the Orthodox Church.

That's the meaning of Hu. I was talking this morning about walking in the streets of New York being conscious of being the divine glance, that you're casting on all things, and being conscious of being like the flower in which there's the seed, which is God is trying to come through. And you see it coming through in all beings and even your glance brings it about. I mean, encourages it. But imagine that while you're walking the streets of New York, in addition to all of that, you are aware that you are the presence of God. Can you imagine what that does to a human being?

And that's what makes a person holy.

It is accepting one's divine status. And most of us refuse to accept our divine status. Because it's much more convenient to say well, you know, I'm not up to much...

I have a reflection upon that, seeing that film, My Dinner with Andre. Have you seen it? And I was thinking to myself, one always imagines that the good actors are putting on a show, but really a good actor is someone who has the courage to be himself. No show about it. And most of us do not have the courage to be what we are. And I suppose it's a matter of believing. If one believes in what one is, one is able to manifest it. So, the ultimate power is in faith, of course.

So, Hu is, I would say, the greatest secret there is. When one realizes that one is not just the manifestation of God with all qualities. One is not only the divine glance. One is the Divine Presence, the greatest of secrets.

So, after this we'll just say it for a few times

La ilaha illa 'llah Hu (repeated)

...now the last time [long silence]

Okay can we make the break short, like 10 minutes, and start again? Then we should be ending exactly at five o'clock.