The Request: Please share how you feel about this Series. We just want to get an idea how well they work for you. You can share some of you experience as you go along through the comment boxes below the videos or just at the end as a kind of summary sent directly to Shahabuddin at, shahabuddinless@gmail.com.
Video Seven
VIDEO SEVEN: Text Assist: Pir’s Words From The Paper
” The lover prolongs the divine action imagining the world, in that the Lover imagines the creator by idealizing the Lover’s beloved.
Love is creative in that it creates something that does not yet exist concretely in the form of the beloved.
Therefore love is an energy of the creative imagination which causes spiritual realities to descend in the image; and transfigures the sensible forms to the level of the image of divine perfection that is pure beauty — the object of God’s love. “ God is the created Creator and creative creature”.
Ibn ‘Arabi always points to the correspondence between the human being and God. To god’s longing to see themself in us, we respond in God’s longing to know the principle of God’s being.
To God’s nostalgia to deliver the potentialities of God’s essence from their state of virtuality and unknowing, the human responds in the human nostalgia to discover the divine nature through our human nature to serve the divine Sovereignty in manifesting these qualities.
To God’s yearning for another himself of which he is the God, man responds in his yearning for the being of whom he discovers himself to be the image and whose image one discovers in oneself.
To God’s love for the creature which causes God to limit himself in manifestation and to exile a part of Himself from the loneliness of the divine unity, man responds in prayer.
In prayer, we deliver God from God’s descent into matter and multiplicity, into duality, into individualization by ascending to the Contemplation of God’s Eternality beyond all existence.
Volunteer Question: Is This Text Assist of just Pir’s Words helpful?
Video Eight
Thank You Ibn Arabi
Thank You Pir Vilayat
Thank You Shahabuddin
Thank you for this beautiful, full teaching. I have listened once to all videos and somewhat bewildered will listen agaIn & again. I need to be in a more relaxed state to listen, absorb in my heart the depth of what is being said. The text is definitely helpful. In the first video it was not clear to me what was the reading, Pir Vilayats or Shahabuddin’s comments. Like I say I will listen again. The last video could easily be the first as it gave a succinct reference to approach for Ibn Arabi’s teachings.
What is very apparent is the joy this teaching brings to you Shahabuddin and your desire to share this story of love.
Respectfully,
Aziza
I always have tears in my eyes and an implosion in my mind as I’m saying my prayer of thanks after the earth breath and the/your description of prayer has given me a greater understanding of this phenomenon and a new expansion of my reason for this act and I thank you from the fullness of my heart. Ya Hu!
These are general comments about the whole series. A delicious taste of the luminous and omniscient consciousness we all exist within, most of the time unconsciously.
Hearing the words of Ibn Arabi—the sacred words bearing the weight of time—is thrilling. His words are like a flash flood that takes us to higher ground with no time to think, and as the water slowly recedes, leaves important residues for us to ponder and try to live, enflamed by the meaning left behind. Equally important for me, the illuminating commentaries–Ibn Arabi unfolding through Pir Vilayat, and again unfolding through Shahabuddin’s luminous heart, gives some grounding to these other worldly realities which exist side by side within our ordinary lives. One beautiful flow of Truth and Beauty.
Such depth, such humility in recognizing we are all the chosen ones of God, if we wish to be and to allow ourselves to be fully inhabited by and reflect the divine qualities. If we allow ourselves through our consciousness “to give God a place to exist.” Wow! A gift and a tremendous responsibility. What we have dedicated ourselves to since before we manifested and which we must remember again and again.
These writings are like koans which the mind and intellect are helpless to understand but the perfume of this love which is in our bones, in the chambers of our heart, and the cells of our being is remembered and experienced in hearing the sacred words. And the words about prayer liberating God from God’s own self-imposed limitations—OMG! It’s up to us to fulfill God’s longing and to liberate God from his/her self-imposed exile with our very lives, our prayers, our actions—fulfilling the purpose of our lives. What a mission!
I feel changed as the result of hearing these teachings and commentaries. I feel more alive—magnitudes more alive and challenged to make sense of and live the implications of these teachings, especially now in these divided times. I feel charged with responsibility and with the juice of joy.
These teachings are not for everyone but it is hard to tell who might resonate deeply so I’m reluctant to say they should be limited to only certain people. They are both mysterious and perfectly plain and clear at the same time. And I’m sure what I understand now is just a tiny piece of the whole but as you say, the seed vibration is planted and takes root in us even if we don’t understand with our conscious minds. I would definitely make them available to the whole Sufi world and beyond!. They are a treasure beyond measure.
Much gratitude to both Shams and Shahabuddin for making these beautiful videos available.
Your thoughtful, heartfelt and appreciative comments helps us understand what is here. One reason Shahabuddin and I asked for volunteer’s opinions of this material is as he said, “We are too close to this to know what it is for others.” Now for me, all peoples comments have helped we see and feel so much more. Tears of Grate-fullness and Thank-Giving to all of you and to Thee. — Shams
What a beautiful confirmation that we are never alone at any moment or in any situation, because we are held and loved by God. Our daily practice therefore has to be “remembrance.”
Thank you Shahabuddin, thank you Pir Vilayat, thank you Ibn Arabi.
Phirose
The entire series was extremely helpful to me. It spoke to me deeply where I am right now. I was unable to use my everyday analytic, critical, judging mind. I felt in between states as though on retreat. At one point I was remembering the feeling of being in sweat lodges, when prayer is alive. The atmosphere and feeling tone comes through strongly.
The text assist helped me. I experienced Pir Vilayat as a bridge for this teaching. It gave more depth to our APG practice ya Zahir, Ya Salaam.
I have a strong sense that it is just right for other groups/ individuals.
much gratitude to you, Shahabuddin and Shams
blessings,
Nizam Ash
Had a hard time comprehending video 7. Listened to the whole series twice. Maybe it needs still a different way of listening. When i read the text i think i got it, but my heart is not convinced.
This is a wonderful series, many students of sufeism may be interested in it.
Thanks so much for the recording.
Thanks Shahabuddin
Thanks Shams
Angelika, My state of being is such that your need is my need. I will revist video 7 –I am sure there is much in it I am not getting and now I will be conscious of that. — Shams
Viewing this series was a very deep and moving experience. There was a power that flowed through the words, creating images and feelings that I could only express through poetry.
Thank you Shahabuddin
Thank you for facilitating, Shams
Thank you, for this has cast a shaft of light on Hu it is that keeps bringing me back to this path, time after time of failing, that gives me my breath, never have I been more grateful for the gift of this human existence, and for the time that has been allowed me to be still here, present to hear this. It is Dayenu.
Dearest Shahabuddin — Thank you for including me in this preview of coming attractions. What a gift and treasure this video will be for all who study the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi. Your words are an exquisite exposition on the inner meaning of the famous line: “I was a Hidden Treasure and I Loved to be Known, so I …”
Anyone who studies mysticism, or contemplates the mystery of the Divine Being in relationship to the human being, or is a student of Pir Vilayat or yourself would also be most interested and greatly benefited by this work. (Thats a wide potential audience!)
What I loved about the series, and what I think sets it apart from other classes I’ve taken on Ibn “Arabi, is your joyous approach, your manner creates an invitation to bathe in the mystery of the Divine Mind. The viewer gains experiential knowledge rather than intellectual acquisition. (Both are necessary, I am sure if I hadn’t a little background I might not have caught the magic of such an exquisite opening to the complex theology. ) After viewing the eight videos,I know somewhat more (for instance about Prayer being an act of Love we offer G-d, an idea I love) but importantly, I feel immersed in the essence, the perfume of the Sheik and his teaching.
It added to the whole event to have Pir Vilayat’s paper as a foundation to your commentary. And I think its good also in terms of keeping Pir Vilayat’s scholarship known and explicable, for his articulations could at times rival the Sheikh’s in terms of complexity.
The “text assists” are helpful. The Video #5 practice, Ya Hu, was gratefully received and added an embodied way to understand and experience the presented concepts. My suggestion would be to add more such practice interludes.
Thank you once more, Rizvana