Dear friends,
I’d like to share with you a transcript and a link to the video recording of my afternoon presentation during the recent leaders’ training on Guidance in the First Station. In my talk I shared what I think is an important orientation not just for new murids but also for long-term murids that I think is very important on our spiritual journey. Sometimes we don’t step back and look at our wonderful path with its many practices, tools, and attunements to take a look at why we are engaging in this process of transformation.
Here are some highlights of my talk:
I believe that everything without exception is potentially a portal or opening to the sacred, and it all has to do with our way of relating to what we’re experiencing. When we talk about awakening in life it raises two questions: Is it our limited sense of self that somehow is awakening to something else? The other question is what is the life that the divine is going to awaken to? Is it the same world that we think we’re in, or do we actually exist in a much richer reality than we typically are aware of? The world becomes transformed by our way of relating to it.
Think of the divine qualities. We normally consider the divine names as being archetypal, and the traditional meaning of archetypal means unchanging. They are just there and we can bring them forth and manifest them. In contrast, I believe the divine qualities are not static and fixed, but they can become augmented, so to speak, by the unique way that we experience them.
I feel that we perform an alchemical operation on light, transforming it into wisdom. If I had to give a succinct definition of alchemy, it would be the process of transforming light into wisdom. The alchemical process is a process of transforming our human-divine relationship.
I think it’s very important and helpful to give a murid a perspective to deal with their difficulties in life instead of their thinking if only they could make their problems go away that then they could get back to being spiritual. I try to help my murids understand that the way they go about relating to those experiences is every bit as much a part of their spiritual journey as working with practices on the inner level. There has to be a shift in their way of relating to their circumstances.
We are beings of light, and we are instruments whose song is light.
Everything is expressing a song of the divine.
Our desire is like the breath through a reed instrument that enables the sounds.
We enable never-ending variations of the music of the spheres.
Life is your teacher, and life is your practice.
Your uniqueness is a process in your way of relationship with existence and the transcendent, and it is your practice which enables your means of fulfilling your dharma.
There are many pathways to awakening, and its very important to have murids realize that the pathway to awakening is not necessarily through rising in positions within the Inner School, although many of us have felt called to do that. It’s important for the guide to give a murid an impetus to further what he/she is already doing in their life in a way that opens up things more and more.
I like to think that everything is Gabriel. Everything is seeking to reveal its divine nature and everything is longing to see the unique divine nature of you that only you have in the whole universe. Imagine when you’re walking in nature that the trees are longing to perceive your unique divine nature, and similarly, you are longing to experience their unique divine nature… Feel this two-way longing with each flower, each bird, each bug, with the wind, the earth, and the stars. Feel your soul very deeply connected with the emergent divine in all that you perceive, externally and internally. Everywhere you turn, with your eyes open or closed.
Here is a link to the video recording of my talk:
Here is a link to the transcript of my talk:
(You don’t have to sign in to Dropbox to read this.)
I hope that my talk will be useful and inspiring to you.
Love,
Azar Baksh
