Bawa Muhaiyaddeen on Zikr

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"You don't have to sit in one place to do this (the zikr.) You don't have to close your eyes and do this. You don't have to have a special place to do this. While you're walking, while you're sitting, while you're sleeping, while you're eating, while you're drinking, while you're working -That will work automatically. Like how the water ripples and goes on the stream consistently. It doesn't stop; it always keeps on moving." "If you go on saying that amount [43,242 times per day], if you keep on moving your zikr so much, now God glorifies you 400 million million times. He prays to you because He now has to respond to your zikr. So to the sounds of your zikr, He has to respond to that. It's not a sound that has no response. He will respond to every sound of yours. So His sound now comes to you. Your resonance is with Him and His Resonance is with you. That is what you call a reply... Having transcended the four religions...you get to the station of Sufiyyat. And in that station of Sufiyyat, you merge in God and become one. That is what is meant by Sufism. This kind of prayer and worship is what we have to do."

 ~Bawa Muhaiyaddeen,The Third Kalimah CD, tracks 7-9, July 19, 1975. ♥

The Prophet said, "Nothing ascends to Allah except good."

Allah's Apostle said, "If somebody gives in charity something equal to a date from his honestly earned money ----for nothing ascends to Allah except good---- then Allah will take it in His Right (Hand) and bring it up for its owner as anyone of you brings up a baby horse, till it becomes like a mountain." Abu Huraira said: The Prophet. said, "Nothing ascends to Allah except good." 

(Bukhari :: Book 9 :: Volume 93 :: Hadith 525)

"I have been all things unholy. 

If God can work through me, he can work through anyone."

~ St. Francis of Assisi 

The Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;

that where there is hatred, I may bring love;

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;

that where there is error, I may bring truth;

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;

that where there is despair, I may bring hope;

that where there are shadows, I may bring light;

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;

to understand, than to be understood;

to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen.

(found in  AA 12 Steps and 12 Traditions)

We are prayer....

image from Wikipedia

WE ARE PRAYER, 

coming to prayer and abiding as prayer. 

We are prayer serving, 

prayer sleeping, 

prayer breathing. 

May we always move 

with the graceful movements 

of the prayer, 

and the silent dignity 

of the prayer, 

for prayer is 

the very nature of our humanity.

Lex Hixon in Atom from the Sun of Knowledge, Islamic Meditations 154

Feed the hungry...

"The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth

there will be the greatest spiritual explosion

the world has ever known.

Humanity cannot imagine the joy

that will burst into the world."

---Federico Garcia Lorca, Spanish poet---

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere

can have three meals a day for their bodies,

education and culture for the minds

and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits."

---Martin Luther King Jr.---

Wikipedia on PlumpyNut

The victim of starvation burns up his own body fats, muscles and tissues for fuel.

His body quite literally consumes itself and deteriorates rapidly.

The kidneys, liver, and endocrine system often cease 

to function properly.

A shortage of carbohydrates, which play a vital role in brain chemistry,

affects the mind.

Lassitude and confusion set in,

so that starvation victims often seem unaware of their plight.

The body's defenses drop; disease kills most famine victims 

before they have time to starve to death.

An individual begins to starve when he lost about a third of his normal body weight.

Once this loss exceeds 40 percent, death is almost inevitable.

---Time Magazine---

We can feed the world!

One in seven people will go to bed hungry tonight.

There are more hungry people in the world

than the combined populations of

USA, Canada and the European Union. 

(statistics from World Food Programme website)

Not sure where to donate?

CHARITY NAVIGATOR

FREE RICE 

Ramadan 2012 - Islamic Relief

 I S L A M I C --- R E L I E F  --- U S A

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Play multiple choice games and generate donations

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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, 

signifies in the final sense a theft from those

who hunger and are not fed,

those who are cold and are not clothed.

--Dwight Eisenhower--

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May the Syrian people be set free from oppression.

Amin

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May the fruits of my Ramadan fast

be peace in the world,

hunger taken away.

Amin

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Please make a Fatiha, fellow Muslims, for the victims of the Colorado shooting.

May Love Prevail

Amin

May Ramadan Fill All Creation With Peace

image from FanPop

America's present need is not heroics but healing;

not nostrums but normalcy; 

not revolution but restoration.

--Warren Harding--

Police: 14 dead in Colorado Theater Shooting

Damascas Residents Told to Flee As Military Promises 'Violent Clashes

I believe in the religion of Islam.  I believe in Allah and peace. 

Muhammad Ali

*** *** ***

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days

government had better get out of their way 

and let them have it.

Dwight Eisenhower

image from FulwoodURC

LIGHT A CANDLE 

FOR PEACE

AT GRATEFULNESS.ORG

* * * 

Y a    S a l a a m !

May Ramadan fill all creation

with peace and the desire to love.

Amin

Amin

Amin

Beloved human beings are written in the stars...

‎"Beloved human beings are written in the stars,
Painted in deep space;
They were already, before they were earthly -
The Divine Names are their quintessence.

In loving them, thou lovest God, whether thou knowest it
Or not. In loving God, thou lovest them -
For they are images, created by the Most High
Out of His Nature's Depth - thou knowest not now

To describe this. God is unfathomable:
The One is Infinite - so listen
To the riddle - He is inexhaustibly rich,
Without the One multiplying Itself."

~ Frithjof Schuon, Songs for a Spiritual Traveler

Rumi, Rumi, Rumi

Only Your presence revives my withered heart. 

You are the candle that lights the whole world 

and I am an empty vessel for Your Light.
-Rumi-

 
In the blackest of your moments wait with no fear.
-Rumi-

 
Within tears, find a hidden laughter; 

seek treasure amid ruins, sincere one.

-Rumi-

Make peace with the universe.
Take joy in it. 
It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. 
Every moment, a new beauty. 
-Rumi-

Love is...

Love is to see what is good and beautiful in everything. 

It is to learn from everything, 

to see the gifts of God and the generosity of God in everything. 

It is to be thankful for all God's bounties. 

-Sheikh Muzaffer