Author: John

Music of the Spheres in a Word

All the religions have taught that the origin of the whole of creation is sound – the music of the spheres.

The following quotes are from Volume II of The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan. The comments are mine.

Music is not only life’s greatest object, but it is life itself. Hafiz, The great and wonderful Sufi poet of Persia, says, ‘Many say that life entered the human body by the help of music, but the truth is that life itself is music’. And it is told that Hafiz said, ‘People say that the soul, on hearing that song, entered the body; but in reality the soul itself was song’!

Drunkards are running amok tonight

Friends are passing the Cup of Light

The Beauty and Beast within us all

Are merged as one in the dancing hall

Twirling and spinning out of time

Hearts intoning a wordless rhyme

Beggars and princes sharing Wine

The Beloved’s essence from the Vine

Everyone’s laying their burden down

The passing Cup helps us drown

Dancing and dancing to Heart’s delight

Turning, turning makes us bright

The Flute singing a one-note song

The beat of the drum deep and strong

The ancient rhythm enticing the soul

Blending all into the Whole

Ecstatic cries fanning the fire

The Guest arrives on a funeral pyre

Sapphire eyes, an emerald gown

Grace is blessing all in town

The Friends are losing all control

Annihilation is taking Its toll

Listen, O! listen beyond these words

This endless Breath can be heard

It’s calling to all alive and dead

Leave the comfort of the sleeping-bed

Hearken, Hearken one and all

The ground of HU is this hall
JH

Every activity of vibrations produces a certain sound, according to its Dome of resonance, and according to the capacity of the mould in which the form is shaped. This explains the idea behind the ancient Hindu word Nada Brahma, which means sound, the Creator God.

Cleansing Time

Three a.m. — a downpour

What is this that drenches

  leaving no drop in the hair

  nor puddle on the floor?

A mystery

  that falls from head to toe

  spiralling an ecstatic return

  lifts us from this sleeping hall

On golden arrows whisked

  across the mighty moat of heaven

  where within the deep ravine

  a live translucent mist

All who enter

Know

  the Name.
JH

Music according to the ancient people was not a mechanical science or art; music was the first language.

Vowels play a great part in the name and its influence. E and I denote Jemal, the feminine quality of grace, wisdom, beauty and receptivity, O and U denote Jelal, the masculine quality of power and expression. A denotes Kemal, which is significant of the perfection in which both these qualities are centered. The above named vowels in the composition of the name have an effect according to their place in the name, whether in the beginning, center or end.

The deeper one sees into life, the wider life opens itself to one, and every moment of one’s life then becomes full of wonders and full of splendor.

Ah Love

Love is

IS-ing me

I am loving

the taste and wonder

of the loving

In the loving

all tastes

are tastes of loving

Wonder

spins and swoons

as love rushes

into and out of

Itself. – JH

January 8
Planes and Dimensions of Reality
Reality is greater than the multiverse

Are spiritual dimensions and planes of existence/reality the same, similar, different?

Exploring and discussing the dimensions and planes of existence of the two spiritual paths i have studied.

The map and cosmology of the Diamond Approach addresses five boundless dimensions. These dimensions are coemergent, meaning they interpenetrate each other and all of manifestation down to the tiniest particulars, visible and invisible, this world and the other worlds. These dimensions are a ‘oneness’ and only artificially separated and conceptualized to discuss the contribution of each to the experience of reality. They are:
- The Absolute – The absolute dimension is the boundless, infinite expanse whose nature is the black mystery of the absolute. When we experience it we experience the absolute, because it is the absolute that is appearing as a dimension; whereas the absolute is not a dimension, but rather the ultimate mystery and source of all dimensions, the unmanifest true nature. Because of this differentiation it becomes ambiguous sometimes to say that the absolute is the unmanifest when we are experiencing the absolute dimension, because a boundless and infinite dimension is necessarily a manifestation. – A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home
- The Logos – The logos is the boundless dimension of true nature that is both presence and creative dynamism. Logos refers to the fact that true nature is inherently dynamic and creative. Logos is the creative matrix of all manifestation. Logos is the manifesting dimension, but it is also all manifestation, for it manifests everything from its own substance, its own presence. – A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home
- The Nameless – The nature of the Nameless is pure consciousness, consciousness that is conscious of consciousness, without labeling or knowing anything. There is consciousness, but there is no knowing of what is known, or what knows; there are no conceptual categories. – A. H. Almaas, The Pearl Beyond Price
- The Supreme – On the level of the Supreme (the dimension of Pure Presence or Pure Being), for example, you realize that everything is a translucent Beingness. You see that it is not as though translucent Beingness is in everything or that everything exists in it, but that everything is the translucence. It is inside things, outside things, and in between them. There is no place that is not translucent Beingness. On this level of the Supreme, there is no separation between what we call appearance and reality, the form and the meaning. They are all one thing; there is a unity. – A. H. Almaas, Facets of Unity
- Divine Love – Divine love is the dimension of true nature responsible for the arising of qualities, feelings, and affects in experience. It is not only light, which is consciousness, but also love. Love is the primordial feeling, the source of all affects. – A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home
The cosmology of Eckankar includes “lower worlds” and “higher worlds,” or planes of existence. In this post, I will only mention the higher worlds as they are nondual in nature as are the boundless dimensions discussed in the Diamond Approach.

As you see in the partial graphic of the Worlds of Eck ( ECK (Hindi word for “one;” Sanskrit eka ) is defined as “the totality of all awareness,” “the audible life stream,” “the living power that embraces the whole universes of God;” in brief, the essence of the Divine.) each plane is a “lok.”

Loka (world) refers to the various planes of consciousness within and beyond the mind. Lok: to see; to perceive; to shine; to acknowledge; to know. So a lok is dimension or plane of consciousness that includes attributes of awareness, radiance and knowing.

Anami (Sanskrit) “the endless plane of God.” It signifies the idea that there is always another stage of enlightenment.

Agam (Sanskrit) origin “Light of god”.

Hukikat means ‘reality.”

Alaya a Sanskrit word meaning “abode, dwelling.” In the Yogacara school of Buddhism it is usually employed in connection with the word vijñ?na (consciousness) as ?layavijñ?na (“store-house consciousness”).

Alakh means “one which cannot be seen (perceived);” beyond identifying features.

Atma a Sanskrit word which means “essence, breath, soul.”

Eckankar teaches that each plane or lok has a lord or purusha (Sanskrit) a complex concept whose meaning evolved in Vedic and Upanishadic times. Depending on source and historical timeline, it means the cosmic being or self, consciousness, and universal principle.

Eckankar also teaches that each lord or plane creates the one below it. This is seen and understood as the cosmic current/sound morphing to a lower vibration or frequency. It is one continual current of sound/vibration but it manifests different planes or dimensions of frequencies.

The lords of these planes can be understood as personifications of their respective frequency or “a face to the consciousness.”

What has changed in my orientation to planes of existence and dimensions of reality over the years is a shift from “travelling to have experience” to “openness to be affected and changed.”

All religions and spiritual teachings address dimensions or planes of existence/reality/heaven. Often one has to trace references back to original language and context to get the insight hidden in plain sight.

In my Father’s house are many mansions.
January 7
Beauty & Rhythm – Creation & Ecstasy

Beauty and rhythm: essential to human life

Beauty has been and is a profound influence on my life and spiritual journey. I wrote about awakening to Beauty Everywhere and how beauty can be understood through the three journeys. in reading the paragraph below, my intimate understanding and relationship with beauty blossomed into an intimacy that was known, yet not familiar from my history.

The nature of creation is that it is progressing always towards Beauty. ‘God is beautiful, and he loves Beauty’, says the Qur’an. The nature of the body is to beautify itself; the nature of the mind is to have beautiful thoughts; the longing of the heart is for beautiful feelings. Therefore an infant should grow more beautiful everyday, and ignorance seeks to become intelligence. When the progress is in a contrary direction, it shows that the individual has lost track of natural progress. There are two forms, the natural and the artificial, the latter being a copy of the former. – The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Volume II, Part One: The Mysticism of Sound

The beauty of a form turns out to be this
transparency to true nature. – A. H. Almaas

I’ve always wished I could dance and, yet I never took the time to learn. I love music and lyrics, my soul is moved by both and both have contributed to many moments of expansion of consciousness, awareness and embodiment. The sentences below perked me up as it is, of course, the rhythm in music and words that seduces my attention calling it forward in my experience.

Rhythm produces an ecstasy which is inexplicable, and incomparable with any other source of intoxication. This is why the dance has been the most fascinating past time of all people, both civilized and Savage, and has delighted alike Saint and sinner

Sufis, in order to awaken in man that part of his emotional nature which is generally asleep, have a rhythmic practice which sets the whole mechanism of body and mind in rhythm. There exists in all people, either consciously or unconsciously, a tendency toward rhythm. – The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Volume II, Part One: The Mysticism of Sound

It seems obvious that beauty and rhythm are fundamental life forces, elements of the real, with significance to human development far deeper than most of us imagine.

January 4
Good Vibrations: In the Beginning was the WORD

The most open of secrets is: everything is vibration

Of course, everything refers to the manifest, the being not the unmanifest or nonbeing.

With that said… Yesterday, January 2, 2021, I went to my bookshelf and pulled out Volume II of The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan. I did this because over the last 6 months more and more thoughts about planes of existence, dimensions, light & sound of reality and more have been bubbling up.

I read this book about forty years ago. It’s been on the shelf ever since. It has the musty smell of an old book. It belongs in a library of years-gone-by. One with dark rooms, wood paneling, hushed voices and yellow incandescent bulbs like the old Theosophical Society Book Shop I used to patronize in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle, Washington.

I spent half the day reading the book, enjoying the multitude of memories and knowledge that were called forward. As you might expect, I found much that is relevant to my present thread of experience.

I want to share some of the wisdom in this volume, calling some attention to how it intertwines with my current thread, but has it’s origins forty years in the past – and more.

In 1969, I had my first spiritual experience and it was a doozy. I had no clue there was anything more to life than what was in front of my eyes – I was nineteen.

To make a long introduction short and to make the connection to this book suffice it say that I became quite involved with Eckankar, a spiritual path that touted “soul travel” as a way into the mysteries of reality. Central to soul travel is the light and sound of God or reality, the cosmic vibration underlying and generating all of manifest reality – all dimensions, phenomena, objects, experience, etc.

It was my interest in the cosmic vibration which led me to Khan’s Volume II

I really have no clue what will come of this nor the form it will take. I’m thinking a series of blog posts over the next few weeks which will then be shared on Facebook. We’ll see what happens.

The Life Absolute from which has sprung all that is felt, seen, and perceived, and into which all again merges in time, is a silent, motionless and eternal life which among the Sufis is called Zat. Every motion that springs forth from his silent life is a vibration and a creator of vibrations…

Creation begins with the activity of consciousness, which may be called vibration, and every vibration starting from its original source is the same , differing only in its tone and rhythm caused by greater or lesser degree of force behind it. – The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Volume II, Part One: The Mysticism of Sound

January 3
Magic that Liberates

The Miraculous: more magical than Harry Potter

Human beings seem to have a love and fascination for the magical and miraculous. Look at how many books, TV shows and films have themes of magic and miracles: from Harry Potter to Merlin to Gandalf to Dr. Strange; from Excalibur and Bewitched to Jumanji and Hocus Pocus. Magic pervades our stories. Even lottery ticket sales reflect a certain amount of magical thinking.

In comparison to fancy thoughts of magic and miracles, daily life may seem a bit too ordinary, even boring. A little magic or a now and then miracle would certainly help to spice up the ordinary. And yet, when we look more closely at what science is revealing about the universe, the subatomic world, the human brain and the potential for technological and biological evolution – well, it all seem spectacularly magical and miraculous.

Recently, I attended a retreat with A.H. Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization. The theme of the retreat was The Magic of Realization. In his talks, Almaas addressed how we lose sight of the magic in everyday life, how the mind orients toward magic like everything else – externally and as a means to control external events; and how ordinary life from the perspective of deep realization is astoundingly magical and miraculous. By seeing the magic in everyday life, we can be continually inspired by our personal experience.

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August 17
Resurrection: Ertugrul – Dirilis Ertugrul

Turkish TV series has me Googling like crazy

I don’t know how I happened upon Resurrection: Ertugrul on Netflix, call it luck or grace, but it really captured my attention – 170 episodes viewed in a couple of months – maybe even 6 weeks. I’m sure it’s not for everyone and fewer still will watch 170 subtitled episodes!

The story takes place in 13th-century of what today is Turkey. This is the time when Rumi, ibn Arabi, Yunus Emre and many other notable poets, mystics and Sufis were bringing their treasures into this world. Ibn Arabi is even a character in the series.

This series got me so interested in the history of it all that I’ve almost gone blind Googling people, places, and events mentioned in Dirilis Ertugrul. The produces tell us up front that the series is based on stories from their culture and that written records are very scarce.

I found the cast to be superb. After 170 episodes of Resurrection: Ertugrul, I felt like I knew each one of these people intimately. Even though the story puts the “shine on the apple,” I appreciated the sense of the culture and history it points to.

There’s and interesting article over at the New York Times about how Turkish TV is reviving interest in Turkey and it’s also becoming embroiled in politics.

Like all good soap operas, series and movies there are characters you love and others that test one’s patience!

Given the state of the world today and the overwhelming amount of news referring to Muslims and Islam, I found myself curious and wanting to know more about the religion and culture.

This series led me to watching a series about Yunus Emre – a book of his poems has been on my shelf for 30 years or so. I’ll tell you a bit about that series in the near future.

June 22