bye bye for now

[Guest guest]

Well, I'm off on a short retreat with Sufi folks. Someone called

Junayd al Wajid is leading "Retreat of the Heart" out in the

countryside. I have never met him but read one of the poems from his

book, "In Search of the Mystical Heart." Poem resonates...

THE EXPERIENCE OF RETREAT

He starts the retreat knowing the time is right,

But not knowing for what the time is right.

On the first day he imposes his will on time,

Ten thousand Dhikr he breathes, and yet in the

silence of meditation, not a sound, not a spark.

Knowing not what he is looking for, he thinks it right.

On the second day he grows restless, and after 10,000 more

Dhikr, all he finds is longing.

And his longing reveals his loneliness.

He tries to fill it with knowledge, but there is no warmth in knowledge.

On the third day after a restless night he wakes in despair,

for now he knows what he has come for.

He has come to light his heart on the furnace of the Beloved,

The love of the Beloved is not something he can will.

What's more, the love of the Beloved is not what he knows as human love.

Yet human love is enough to bring madness to the lover,

How can he possibly describe his anticipation to the touch of the Beloved?

The heart wants to cry, but the eyes are dry.

He appeals to himself to rend the veil of determination,

For his vulnerability to be at the forefront,

And his readily coming tears, to soften the dry soil of ego.

It is late in the day, that which he expected is not his to have.

He wonders what is it in us that makes us believe that even for a moment

we could possibly know that which is the privilege of God.

Late in the night his consciousness, perhaps out of exhaustion, surrenders,

That is the moment the Beloved chooses to bless this conceited individual,

AH! The ecstacy of the presence."