The Holy Land is everywhere.— BLACK ELK
Spiritual Dialogues
Whoever enters this place, just treat them and don’t ask of their faiths.
— ABOLHASSAN KHARAGHANI
5.03.2013
1.14.2013
10.23.2012
Bringing Peace
Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.Better than a hundred hollow lines
Is one line of the law, bringing peace.— Dhammapada
10.21.2012
Wise Advices from Quakers
When words are strange or disturbing to you, try to sense where they come from and what has nourished the lives of others.Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people's opinions may contain for you.Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue.Think it possible that you may be mistaken.
8.10.2012
Equivalents for the Term “Spirituality” in Persian language
However, there are two equivalents for the term spirituality in today’s Persian language. The first is Roohaniyat (Persian: روحانیت ) which comes from the term Rooh (Persian/Arabic: روح ) which is itself equivalent for Spirit or Soul. Like the term Spirituality, Roohaniyat has religious background and literary means having heavenly mood or manner. The close relation of the term with religion is clearer when we find that clergies called Roohani (spirituals) in today Iranian society.
The second Persian equivalent for spirituality is Ma’naviyat (Persian: مَعنَویّت ). It is closer to the modern sense of spirituality and widely used as a standard translation of it. Ma’naviyat has an Arabic root which is Ma’na (Persian/Arabic: مَعنی ) which literary means Meaning. Ma’na or inner meaning stands against outer form based on the dichotomy of every object to form and meaning in Islamic/Persian mysticism. In Persian mysticism, outer form of objects indicates a holy meaning which can be understood by believed persons only. Every object is a symbol of a holy meaning which is an attribute of God. In other words, Natural objects are the revelation of God’s attributes. For discovering this divine secret a type of knowledge (not in modern sense of knowledge) is needed. This knowledge is Irfan ( Persian/Arabic: عِرفان ). Irfan is the literary equivalent word for mysticism in Persian or Arabic but it has a different sense from what mysticism brings to mind in western culture. Irfan has roots in Arabic verb Arafa (Arabic: عَرَفَ) which means to know or to find out. Obviously, it is different from the term mysticism which has roots in the term mystic which first of all brings to mind a sense of mysteriousness or obscurity or a relation to the world of supernatural beings..
The contrast between form and meaning is not limited to natural objects and all human acts or behaviors can be considered through this belief. For instance, from this viewpoint religion has an outer form which is Sharia –(Arabic/Persian: شَریعَة) which contains all religious orders such as praying or fasting, but this outer form has a holy meaning which can be understood only by believed persons (Sufis). The holy meaning of every terrestrial form connects this world to a holy metaphysical/angelic world. A world which every human act will receive a divine form (or body) in it and lives there with our divine being (Comparable with platonic philosophy). Therefore, Ma’naviyat means to be connected with the world of meanings by interpreting outer forms..
Another example for mentioned contrast is the Rumi’s masterpiece, Masnavi. The complete title of Rumi’s work is Masnavi Ma’navi which means “Spiritual Masnavi”. (Masnavi is a type of Persian poetry) Rumi’s Masnavi is a collection of stories about the everyday life of ordinary men and their behaviors. Rumi begins almost every part of his book with narrating a story as the outer form and continue with interpreting it for achieving the inner meaning. To me, this meaning is different from what I have explained before. Beside the metaphysical side of the term meaning, here the meaning is something more related to human behaviors and morality. In simple words, the moral meaning of our life has been focused here. Now, it seems that Rumi’s intention behind the use of the word Ma’naviyat must be more understandable for modern man than the supernatural understanding of spirituality. And maybe because of that reason nowadays, rumi’s poems are very popular.
I need your opinion, specially Wim’s opinion, to know that if secular/atheistic spirituality have a close meaning with Persian term Ma’naviyat or not?.
7.02.2012
An Unexpected Turn of Events?
His latest blog entry mentions the fact that in his upcoming book, he will have to deal with the controversial term (especially within atheistic circles) “spiritual” and “spirituality”. In the light of our conference in Prague and my own paper, I thought I’d share this entry with you all.
In writing my next book, I will have to confront the animosity that many people feel for the term “spiritual.” Whenever I use the word — as in referring to meditation as a “spiritual practice” — I inevitably hear from fellow skeptics and atheists who think that I have committed a grievous error.I, for one, am very curious to see how this will turn out. Discuss!The word “spirit” comes from the Latin spiritus, which in turn is a translation of the Greek pneuma, meaning “breath.” Around the 13th century, the term became bound up with notions of immaterial souls, supernatural beings, ghosts, etc. It acquired other connotations as well — we speak of the spirit of a thing as its most essential principle, or of certain volatile substances and liquors as spirits. Nevertheless, many atheists now consider “spiritual” thoroughly poisoned by its association with medieval superstition.
I strive for precision in my use of language, but I do not share these semantic concerns. And I would point out that my late friend Christopher Hitchens — no enemy of the lexicographer — didn’t share them either. Hitch believed that “spiritual” was a term we could not do without, and he repeatedly plucked it from the mire of supernaturalism in which it has languished for nearly a thousand years.
It is true that Hitch didn’t think about spirituality in precisely the way I do. He spoke instead of the spiritual pleasures afforded by certain works of poetry, music, and art. The symmetry and beauty of the Parthenon embodied this happy extreme for him — without any requirement that we admit the existence of the goddess Athena, much less devote ourselves to her worship. Hitch also used the terms “numinous” and “transcendent” to mark occasions of great beauty or significance — and for him the Hubble Deep Field was an example of both. I’m sure he was aware that pedantic excursions into the OED would produce etymological embarrassments regarding these words as well.
We must reclaim good words and put them to good use — and this is what I intend to do with “spiritual.” I have no quarrel with Hitch’s general use of it to mean something like “beauty or significance that provokes awe,” but I believe that we can also use it in a narrower and, indeed, more transcendent sense.
Of course, “spiritual” and its cognates have some unfortunate associations unrelated to their etymology — and I will do my best to cut those ties as well. But there seems to be no other term (apart from the even more problematic “mystical” or the more restrictive “contemplative”) with which to discuss the deliberate efforts some people make to overcome their feeling of separateness — through meditation, psychedelics, or other means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness. And I find neologisms pretentious and annoying. Hence, I appear to have no choice: “Spiritual” it is.
Source: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/a-plea-for-spirituality
5.21.2012
Everybody Worships?
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship – be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some intangible set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. Worship power – you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart – you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in a myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.
— DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
5.18.2012
Destiny
All is as it is supposed to be:
There is happiness now, be happy.
Why are you sad? Why do you worry?
Destiny does what it must for you.
The viziers' ways won't work for you,
Fate will decide what is best for you.
Life's wheel won't create another like you.
Your mother won't bear another like you.
God will never close a door on you,
Before opening a hundred better doors.— RUDAKI, “Destiny’s Door”
What do our faith traditions say about destiny? What do we believe about God’s role in opening and closing doors for us?
4.26.2012
Pure Brotherhood
4.18.2012
Brotherhood of Men
All I can tell you is the thought that with me outlasts all others, and onto which, like a rock, I find myself washed up when the waves of doubt are weltering over all the rest of the world; and that is the thought of my having a will, and of my belonging to a brotherhood of men possessed of a capacity for pleasure and pain of different kinds. For even at one’s lowest ebb of belief, the fact remains empirically certain (and by our will we can, if not absolutely refrain from looking beyond that empirical fact, at least practically and on the whole accept it and let it suffice us) that men suffer and enjoy. And if we have to give up all hope of seeing into the purposes of God, or to give up the idea of final causes, and of God anyhow as vain and leading to nothing for us, we can, by our will, make the enjoyment of our brothers stand us in the stead of a final cause; and through a knowledge of the fact that that enjoyment on the whole depends on what individuals accomplish, lead a life so active, and so sustained by a clean conscience as not to need to fret much.— WILLIAM JAMES