Listen

Alright.
I don’t care if its cloudy or bright.
Are there stars out tonight?
I only have eyes for you.
I only have eyes for you.
That’s from Pi. The mathematical madness movie.
What can I say? It’s been a long day. I’m on desert duty tomorrow night so I have to sleep some.
It’s the Sabbath evening program beginning Friday night.
Gotta watch out and not stub my toes on these steps. They don’t have much light. We’re approaching the main zikr hall here at Lake of the Ozarks. Camp Rising Sun. Sufi Camp. Spring 2007.
You recognize my voice. It’s your voice. Who am I to say that? Well, I don’t know. Leave that up to you. And of course I’m talking to me too, because I’m, through the magic of this telecommunication, in my own audience. You know I was in my own audience when I was three and when I was seven. Yes. Was I not? Ok.
You’ll hear the door creak. It’s the only stringed instrument I have right now is the door spring. And we’re not afraid to use it folks. We’re not afraid to use the door spring as an instrument. I’ve done it before. I was stuck in the corner and I played with the spring on the door and the spring on the floor that the door would bump againsto.
Ho.
So we stand here in a sacred space. And I’m sharing my thoughts with myself and with you. Standing in a scared space. I wanna share some thoughts on the wall they’ve written. And they’ve left some pens for others to write with. Maybe before the night is out, I will write.
Alright.
They say.
And I’ll just try to say.
Thoughts without words, without bounds.
It feels like home.
Deeper we dive into that field where we all meet.
These are thoughts that people had here in the past two days.
Let my heart reflect thy light, as the moon reflects the light of the sun. In love, always in love.
Life is good. All the time. Thank you life.
And thank you for creating the space this space the space for us to love in.
Deeper into the heart of love.
Nature.
We appreciate the quiet of our cabin mates, and loved the opening dances last night. Amazing meditation practice with Nuria. Thank you so much.
Someone expresses Luck of the Irish.
The ocean refuses no river, and I am in love.
These are not my words folks, and you’ve heard me talk this crazy love words. Because no longer a stranger you stay up all night and listen to these crazy love words. That brings me back to where I started. Stay up all night. Listen to the conversation.
What can I say folks? He’s got the whole world in his hands. Marty Kraft brought this ball of the world. You can see the continents and the clouds. Maybe a tsunami or a hurricane somewhere. But I haven’t found it yet. Oh, some swirling patterns in the clouds for sure. Out there. off the, well off someplace. Looks like its even off... I don’t know. I don’t know geography.
I know its round. I know it has a radius of so many thousand meters. They’re gonna lock me up. Ten to something. I don’t even know the order of magnitude of the meters. I don’t know the order of magnitude of the mass. What kind of physics major am I? How can I calculate the G and the R and the M and the m and the ratios?
Well, thank thank thank the Creator, we don’t always have to do physics. Sometimes all we have to do is let our energy spill out. Here. I’m catching it in this bowl. Which reminds me of the things we sang.
Letting go into the mystery.
Letting go into the mystery.
Come to the Source of all Life.
Gather peace.
Fill your cup.
Offer blessings. Plural. Offer blessings.
Gather peace.
Fill your cup.
Offer blessings.
What you’re hearing tonight is the evidence. What is the evidence? What does the evidence prove? Well, evidence is supposed to prove something. You know all I know now is this experience happened and this experience happened and there are these experiences.
I used to talk about having a mind with continuousness, a continuos mind. Organic. Whole. Unified. But it runs discrete logic on it. Dualism. It runs dualism. My mind runs dualism. I don’t get to trinities or fives or anything. But even if I were it’s just another form of the fundamental dualism. On top of dualism I simulate flexibility. I attempt to behave in such a way as to appear to have the maximum range of freedom.
Let it go. Let it go. The experience see. Two layers on top. Simulating a continuos process on a discrete process on a continuos machine.
Machine. Well, the universal turing machine doesn’t halt, given the right problem. And given the right problem it always generates new and more creative information. Why can I call it creative. It was there before the machine found it. Like the digits of Pi. But why is that creative? Because it was never known before. You can go further and further and further into it and you can never reach the end. The mystery.
The dance goes on in mystery.
It will go on in mystery.
It has been going on in mystery.
This is just my history. And my hystericism. Who minds a little hystericism in their voice, in their step, in their march to a different drummer.
Who’s my drummer. Oh, am I in harmony with that which has definition, no? That is no definition. Try solving that it’s a tight knot tied around my throat. I’ve been untying intellectual knots all my life, and the bag is empty so I open another knot, why not? A face. A beautiful face twists with the poisonous nail of thinking. A golden spade sinks into a pile of shit.
Don’t forget. Don’t forget. You do not own this house. You rent it. And underneath there’s a mine of rubies and emeralds. Because I don’t know if they come together or not but red and green sound good. Make it Christmas.
Hey, you’ve got to dig here. Underneath. You don’t own it but dig and find it and find it, and find it, then you can buy the house and own the deed.
Well, you know, in the meantime the disturbances are here. The dark forces are here. We welcome them, smiling and laughing, because we’re in a safe space. Not because we’re that good. We’re not that good with the dark forces. But here, we invite them in, knowing that they might be clearing my house so that your furniture when it arrives can fill every room.
You know we’ve met and we’ve been playing this game, its like chess, you know one of those games, a zero sum game, where there’s winning and losing. You’re winning. That makes you funny. You laugh. You’re winning. Have you noticed? Have you noticed? I’m preparing for the checkmate. And when that checkmate comes, I will say to you, as a representative of God, I am comfortable, and I trust you, should you kill me.
It’s 11:11 on the clock and it seems to have stopped. No. 11:21. I’m just checking the technicalities here, folks. I don’t want to lose this poem, even though I’m told not to worry. It doesn’t say don’t save poems, it says not to worry about saving poems. And then it goes on and says that its not that instruments won’t break. Its don’t worry when an instrument breaks. The hidden music that you really are still continues. Even if the whole world’s harp should burn up this music would still play. And who but these musicians can stand the heat of the sun? These musicians that we hear. And there’s one music master. We all dance. We all dance to one music master whether we hear it or not.
Oh, my. Hello.
Didn’t mean any harm. There’s no need for alarm. I seem a little manic unless you take into account that I’m acting out. You know, at least they don’t have to mace me or cuff me with hands. It happened. I was 16. It’s ok. It’s ok. We just remember, that today when we act out its this way. Its in a creative way, Its in a writing way. I have five pens from my dad here and one journal from my brother. Unfortunately, I’m missing the yellow pen but I guess I didn’t need that. I have a lightedo for cigarettes.
Ok. Now we read the wall again.
Come, and celebrate the reunion of lovers. We are one family, one body of light. Here among us there are no strangers, only friends, so reach out and take a hand.
Don’t hurt. Don’t hurt. Don’t hurt me, she, I say, because I project that. Its, Its that way. Can’t read that one. You know its like one of those poems that gets too blurry for you to read. Its like stay up in the dark and hear it. Stay up in the dark and hear it.
Sometimes I say what I hear. That’s my gift and that’s my curse as Monk would say. But its ok. I say its ok for me about me. Oh, and what’s our GPA, and oh, what are we doing. You know.
It is amazing what’s been happening in my life. And we are grateful to the All Gracious.
Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah.
What does that mean? I don’t know. They say there’s ladders in the letters. They say there’s ladders in the letters.
We had a bird fly through. Oh, and I saw a deer tonight. Sitting out, sitting out in the picnic table this deer runs up and stares at me for like five minutes and runs back. And all I hear is chase a deer and end up everywhere, yes? Chase a deer and end up everywhere. And that deer represents to me Christ. I met that deer in Wildwood three times. They reassured me. They peacefulized my heart at a time when I had no peace.
Thank you.
Awake.
Welcome Jim Morrison. He has to show up anytime I get back very far, into the roots. He calms me once. He calms me again. In a sort of a Sufiesque way.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair my pretty child my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day, that day’s divinity. First thing you see.
Then it kind of changes to me, I don’t know. It says:
You know everything is broken up in dances.
People of the world walk around in trances. They don’t know what it is.
I’m tired of dour faces staring at me from the TV tower.
I want roses in my garden bower, dig.
Royal babies, rubies replace these broken strangers in the mud.
No more money, no more fancy dress, this other kingdom seems by far the best.
But, its other jaw reveals an incestuous and loose obedience to vegetable laws.
I will not go.
I prefer a feast of friends to the giant family.
Now what is that all about. I don’t know what that means. I’m not able to be Jim. I just know I was once an alcoholic and Jim Morrison.
Oh, sacred, sacred spaces. Thank you. Thank you.
The soul at dawn is like darkened water that slowly begins to say: Thank you. Thank you.
The gratitude wells up.
And let me tell you what they told me today. They told me, Josh, when you sense fear, you know your fear is about something that’s beautiful, or something that’s perfect, you’re afraid it will disappear, you’re afraid you’ll shatter it. And of course you can with your mind. But if instead of dwelling with fear you allow that fear instantly to turn to gratitude for the beauty and the perfection you’re afraid will disappear and destroy, you will find, perhaps, what the teacher spoke of today. Teacher said: Each moment, if completely within you, has everything you need and you find that you are what you need to be in the moment. Each moment contains the karma from the past I guess, and expressing here is part of it.
I used to look at the mirror and talk. I used to talk as if, I would walk down the halls and here I was making an NBC news report because I thought the news was so credible. I didn’t know it was is incredible. The news is incredible.
Oh. Ok.
Spurned.
Will I end up there?
Where that which I’ve been hunting
starts hunting me?
Will I end up there?
In that place where
that which I have been wanting
is wanting me?
Of course. Of course Of course Of course. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.
Only know that the longing will grow.
Only know that the mystery is deeper.
Only know that the things that you are a seeker of
will always draw you further into love.
You are a seeker of love.
And love will draw you on and on into the mystery.
You’ll let go into the mystery.
You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know the mystery.
The history is. The history is what you use it for.
The history. The history is what you make of it.
You know what I mean. You’ve been there. You’ve been there. So many of you have been there.
The mystery. I don’t know it.
...
I don’t even know if I hunger and thirst.
But I know the desire is deepening.
I know the longing is deepening.
And how do you know? How do you know?
Well, these signs I just mentioned.
That you stay up all night, wanting, and your neck gets thin like a spindle.
That you give away everything you own.
And that you go out like a battered helmet to meet a blade, many times.
These signs.
But you run around looking into stranger’s eyes, and you say forgive me, I am a madman, but you say forgive me, I have lost a friend. And that kind of searching cannot fail. There will come a rider who holds you close.
You faint and gibber.
The uninitiated, and I don’t know who, the uninitiated. But the scoffers, they say he’s faking.
They must not know.
This rider holds you close.
This rider holds you close.
You live where Shams does because your heart donkey was strong enough to get you there.
Shams choose to live low in the roots for you,
so now he soars as your sublimely articulating love.
Of course, of course he choose to live low in the roots for you, and there was a little, a little, trauma there, in the roots, in the roots, cause that’s where the light comes in. The wound, the opening, that is where the light comes in. And the light is there. Anyone, anyone to deny the reality of light? Yah Noir, Yah Manoir, the beacon light and the light, the clear light.
Do I know what I’m going to say next?
Does the ball in play have an idea that its going to be thrown this way or that way?
I don’t know what I’m going to say.
I’ve memorized a famous person, a historian of sorts, and I quote him as himself or as myself or as someone else, because I want to appear impressively learned.
Ballidudin, my son, that’s the parting jibe, the going off, that’s what daddy Rumi says to his son. He says if you want to appear to be very intelligent son, he says, memorize a famous historian and quote him as someone else. Pardon me if I applied it to you, dad, pardon me.
Give me oil in my lamp keep it burning, burning, burning keep it burning 'til the break of dawn.
Er Rakman, Er Rahiem, God who is mercy and compassion. Bismilah, I offer myself, in the name of Allah, who is mercy and compassion.
Bismilah, er rakman, er rahiem.
Bismilah, er rakman, er rahiem.
Bismilah, er rakman, er rahiem.
Bismilah, er rakman, er rahiem.
Ok.
There is a great joy in my heart tonight welling up. I appreciate the opportunity to have this joy. I appreciate the opportunity to remember this joy, many times.
I’ll be forgiven for forgetting, when I do again. And I have been forgiven for forgetting the things I truly want. Well, what do I want? Well, I don’t want learning, or dignity. I don’t want respectability. I want this morning, this sunlight, this cheek against cheek. Imagination loves to discover shapes in rising smoke, may I say apply metaphors to things and try and get them to happen through magical thinking? Imagination loves to discover shapes in rising smoke, but its a great mistake to quit sitting in the fire to explore that sight. Intellectuals make beds to rest in. Lovers are ashamed of resting.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
In the station of love you watch the older people getting younger and younger more like the baby children open. I look back. I know a couple of children, now, and I look back and I see the boiling up, the infinity reaching through, the God smiling at me in the child’s eyes. The Hindu teaches that, so does, I’m sure, other cults. I say that loosely when I say cults, I’m kind of poking fun like the lover who is irreverent but secretly cherishes a flame.
Sometimes I wish I knew what I was gonna say next, but sometimes I am so happy, so joyful, that the bubbling is enough, knowing that there is another moment.
You know, and words are important to me. I make a lot of noise. But there’s something under it. Something under the words. I like the words. You know Sri Sri says, if we really enjoyed silence, all we would have to do is sit together and you would become enlightened just by sitting with me, you know, but, he says, we like to talk. On the birthday of nine gems. Nine gems. And it really is happening. It is so heartening to see these things happening. I quote Sri Sri. He is talking about people developing, opening.
We are opening.
We are opening.
We are opening.
We are opening.
In sweet surrender to the will and the works of the Lord.
Well, I don’t know the whole thing, but I know we’re opening, you know.
What are the words? Right. Share your thoughts, forget the words. What are your feelings? I don’t know.
Level... favorite one right now.
Pull back the lock bolt.
Level melts into level.
The passionate pots boil.
Poets fume shreds of steam,
never so happy as out in the light.
Poets fume the shreds of the steam,
never so happy as out in the light.
And here we are in the light by the grace. We were called and asked to come. We were going to miss this whole experiment, experiment in consciousness, experience, a remembering again, a zikr. And sometime, maybe I’ll remember enough to keep remembering. Maybe I’ll remember enough to keep remembering.
La il la ha il Alllah.
La il la ha il Alllah.
La il la ha il Alllah.
Iscq ga la ma bu lay la il Allah.
The ocean refuses no river, no river.
The ocean refuses no river, no river.
Look, fish, we’re already in the ocean.
Just to be friends with the sea is the best of luck.
The buoyancy holding you, the buoyancy, the weight of the displaced water, doesn’t depend on depth and pressure, its the weight of the displaced water. That’s a confusing part for me, I thought the deeper you go the more push you have to go up. That’s not the case. Check it. I did physics last semester. A+. Honor roll. You know. And it doesn’t depend, on that.
Ok. Our timer is still ticking away, looks like, somewhere. 32:45. I will cut this short sometime. I don’t have my cellphone, so I don’t know what time it is. People will be here soon, I mean sometime.
Never give up. Never say die, but that’s just a technical term. Because you must try to fly and thus break yourself apart or you will be broken open by death when it is too late for all that you could become.
So I try to fly. I break apart. I become. I become what I may become.
I am who I am, saith Yahweh.
The God of the fire and the bush and the burning.
He says I am who I am He’s Yahweh.
He cares for His people but he’s a jealous God.
He cares for His people but he’s a jealous God.
He’s Yahweh. He’s Yahweh. He’s Yahweh.
And He demonstrates the might of the right by delivering them.
And then He demonstrates the stiff necked part of the child that’s been hurt.
And He says you are a proud and a stiff necked people but I love you.
He says you are a wayward people but I love you.
He says you whore away from me but I love you. And I love you. And I love you.
He’s a jealous God. He is Yahweh.
I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you? I keep saying that.
It’s like when I was on that acid trip, and yes I took an acid trip once, I said I know, I know, I know. Oh, what holy nonsense. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I did not know. I did not know. I would not know, I could not know.
And Dr. Suess says all the places you’ll go, and don’t be one of the waiters. Don’t be a crowd of people waiting for something to happen. Be a part of the crowd doing something. And Rumi says buy something, in the spiritual treasure house. Buy something, even if you’re not sure what you want, it doesn’t suit you or something, but you want to be part of the exchanging flow. Another place he says, go ahead, start a huge foolish project like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.
What? What? What? What?
Oh, we better not let this one out.
Put the bag over this one, the dark bag so you won’t see it.
It’s the next to the last song.
There isn’t a big dance scene.
It’s the next to the last song.
The band is not playing,
It’s the next to the last song
I am singing for you.
I am singing the next to the last song.
It will not last long,
the next to the last song
It will be gone, gone, long gone.
[coughs]