Category Archives: Soul Being

Soul, Soul Being, Spiritual Humanism

When Co-operation is Illusion

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“You behave as if there is nothing in this world to learn from. That all your materialistic theories from economy to climate to the universe and all your religious theologies from here to hereafter and beyond are enough.”

“I have conquered many lands, east and west,” he said. “I have usurped many Peoples and enslaved their bodies and later enslaved their minds for generations. What has the conquered to teach the conquerer? I have sold them co-operation laced with only a drop of unity as the tool by which to better themselves knowing full well it is a fallacy. While gifting them the illusion of co-operation I have left intact their collective identity self interest all times. After all the conquerer needs an ally from among the conquered.” he retorted.

There was a long pause.

“Why do you cry?” asked the so-called conquerer.

“For you.” He replied.

“For me?” laughed the conquerer.

He looked at the conquerer deeply. Through him and said,

“No. I am not addressing you here.
I am addressing and crying for your nobler and loftier Self everywhere. Whom you do not even know. Your very Soul. Whose enlightenment and liberation in which you have a hand. Though not totally but nevertheless significant. As like an oar has a “hand” in the movement of a boat. Yet you go in circles with only the oar of your self-interest. Even a Conquerer cannot escape karma, kismet. It too is a “subject.” Despite all your conquering of the world of body you have not even begun to conquer your greatest height. Your self. Your soul.”

“How do you know? asked the conquerer.

“Because all your energy and time is expended away from you. Everything you do is in the outer. Even in your sleep you scheme. When you awake it is illusory. You are still asleep. Sleep walking through life.”

There was a long pause.

“Why do you cry?” he asked the conquerer.

That’s one of the ways to open the inner door. Solitary Silence. You don’t co-operate with silence. You don’t negotiate with it.

Musa Askari

Soul, Soul Being, Spiritual Humanism

What of loneliness?

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Do I not have the companionship of my eyes to bring the distant near? As like the shroud of a starlit night to draw down and embrace me.

Do I not have the fellowship of my ears to bring soft soothing melodies closer? As like the journey of a hidden stream in the hills whose meandering mirrors the lines upon my palms in which the water falls and sustains me

Do I not have the comradeship of my hands to offer peaceful greetings to the World and every Being thereupon? Do not forget about one’s Self remembrance. Memory above memory.

Do I not have my next of kin that is my speech coupled with my awakened free will, to give Form to intuition and imagination? As like the sunrise over the ocean horizon gives form to a sense of awe within me.

Do I not have the soothing touch of my tears to comfort, console and plead on my behalf? To wash away the pains suffered in the struggle and of love lost but never forgotten.

And if should there be none of these faculties and friendships or their powers diminished there will always be the inner Self.

Contemplative. Meditative. Prayerful. Soul.

What to speak of Soul when All is Soul before, now and after. The same pendulum swing of the principle of LIFE!

How to be lonely when there is LIFE all about and all within. Aloneness and solitude are other greater deeper matters but lonely, never.

And so from here, from these friendships above, can the font of consolation also begin for the malady that is isolation.

Pray for relief for those isolated from themselves and from the World. Waiting as they do at the foot of their stairs hoping for some hopeful message to fall through the letterbox.

A message placed in to the bottle of their lives that says the World has not abandoned them.

The distress call was heard. Help is on the way. You are not alone.

Musa Askari

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Soul, Soul Being, Spiritual Humanism

Who are we, what are we?

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If one is a racist, one is not “One”. Rather, fragmented. If one is a bigot, one is not “One.” Rather, splintered, incomplete. And so on with the discriminations that persist betraying an inner incompleteness that is desperate for a wholeness it can never become.

If one thinks the intelligible, intangible, non-material is subordinate to the tangible, sensible and material. Or that the Higher is directed by its lower in status of Being. Then one is not “thinking” at all.

It is like saying half-being begets fullness of Being. Can a shadow cast on the ground become conscious of itself and then have the audacity to claim that it gives “form” to the Form that created it? No.

There is no scared law, no secret philosophy from antiquity, that dictates Human Beings of The World should remain perpetually innerly divided.

Because the dogma of exclusive materialism overwhelmingly dominates our World there is no room for a non-material idea to help Humanity re-think and ultimately transcend the divisions caused by the mantra that there is only “matter.” That everything is determined by “matter”. Therefore, to some it is no great leap (let us be clear a perverse leap) if the idea of biological hereditary exclusivity and superiority parades shamelessly in front us. It is even given a seat at the Great Table of Ideas as though it had equal validity with all else.

With each day we continue to lose touch with our Soul, our non-material, intangible, immaterial companion. Soon the Discourse on Soul, even its faint contour, will recede from our collective consciousness and there then will be what? I dread to think. Before we ask of God we must ask of ourselves, who are we, what are we and then climb from lower to Higher. From Body to Soul and Higher. As my late father wrote in his book Alone to Alone, First Soul, Then God.

By Musa Askari

Plotinus, Soul, Soul Being, Spiritual Humanism

BEING to non-being: by Musa Askari

It wasn’t the Economy,
It was Sovereignty,
It wasn’t Sovereignty,
It was Power,
Yes, it was Power.

The hypnosis of Power,
Drawing all to its altar bewitched by Power.
Bewitched by a self-conscious sense of good,
A misplaced sense of good.

It is Power, concentrated,
Not in number of people, many believe,
Concentrated as the very idea of Power.
To hold it and have it embrace you.

To be near it and bathe in its aura.
To worship Power, the abomination,
To dedicate one’s life to it,
All while emptying oneself from within.

Moving from Being to non-being.
From Human Being to half being.
When the journey should have been from,
Human Being to Soul Being,
On the coattails of wisdom of Plotinus who reminds;

“This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see; you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birthright of all, which few turn to see.”

🙏🏽

Meditation, Peace, Rumi, Soul, Soul Being, Spiritual Humanism, Sufi

Was it not an act of peace?

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By Musa Askari

Was it not an act of peace I brought you water – you refused.

Was it not an of peace I stood watch over you – you turned away from me.

Was it not an act of peace I respected your silence – you never acknowledged.

Was it not an act of peace I supported your cause – you did not make me an ally.

Was it not an act of peace we laid to rest those dearest to us – yet never to visit their graves again together.

Was it not an act of peace I trusted you – despite the doubts.

Was it not an act of peace I kept my own counsel – yet others traduced my name.

Was it not an act of peace I asked for repeated dialogue – yet that olive branch never grasped.

Was it not an act of peace when I said let us make peace if not now but in the future – yet you admonished my invitation.

Was it not an act of peace I listened to your grievances and injustices suffered – yet you waged a war up on my soul.

Was it not an act of peace I embraced you and comforted you – yet you assaulted me.

Was it not an act of peace I shed tears before you – you did not give me your shoulder.

Was it not an act of peace I wrote to you words of peace, of vision, of soul and immortality – yet it was the fears of this life you sought to appease ignoring my call of transcendence.

These were acts of peace and many others. Acts of ablutions I performed over my life to wash away the pain as like a worshipper before the act of prayer washing away the dust of life. You may have performed such ablutions/acts of peace yourself over your life.

Now I turn inwards, lift my gaze upwards from there, higher, where all the sacred places are within reach. In search of a new Life. A new place of peace where heaven and earth meet.

That “place” where the bowing forehead of a worshipper touches the ground in salat, dua-prayer, in zikr-remembrance. That “nuqta” scribed by the pen which is our prayerful self. There we may write upon the scroll, if permitted, to be unfurled as witness. It is at that point I wish to reside awake, asleep, upright or upon my side. The flute returned to the reed bed. Lay me there to rest innerly waiting to depart I ask the Lord of All Being.

You will remember me as I you and that will be the final Act of Peace unspoken. Remembrance that this life and name and identity and history are but impermanence mixed with the shadow cast by Soul’s association with Body. Let us not be hypnotised by shadows and look instead for Reality. For there is peace in abundance even at this late hour and setting sun of our lives. Peace to be had in solitude. In the sound of silence.

Let us pilgrimage there innerly, silently, in prayer, in tears, in meditation, in love, in remembrance.

The life was what it was, a shadow, yet purposeful. There is “little” else to say…..

Alone2Alone, Humanity, Inter Faith, Soul, Soul Being, Spiritual Humanism, SpiritualHuman, Tony Hanson

Memorial of Tony Hanson, MBE

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On Sunday 16th December 2018 people gathered from far and wide for the Memorial of Tony Hanson MBE renowned Basketball Player, Coach, Mentor, Social Entrepreneur, Advocate for the BAME Community. A Family Man above all. He made his mark and we were about to get a glimpse of how deep and profound that mark was during course of the day.

Musa Askari was asked to speak a few words in memory of Tony along with other contributors who each spoke beautifully and powerfully on how he touched, moved and helped transform their lives positively. A day that will live long in the memory. Here is a transcript of Musa Askari’s speech….

“I am grateful to the Hanson Family for affording me this honour to reflect upon the Inner Man.

Tony and I did not talk Basketball. We spoke about the world, the uplifting power of diversity, of spirituality and inter faith. On the challenge of overcoming the hypnosis of a narrow closed identity mindset.

It was clear he had a philosophy about life and I sensed too a wider philosophical spiritual appetite. He was a Thinker. Let me be clear….

Anthony Hanson IS a Beautiful Soul.

I do not say “was” nor “had” a beautiful soul, rather he IS a beautiful Soul. Today.

For I believe Soul is the invisible, impartible, immaterial and immortal Companion to our lives, metaphysically speaking. It is a companion over and above our outer collective identities of nationality, ethnicity, culture, language and religion. TonyLook at us here now, a principle transcending all our outer identities draws us to this moment to honour Tony. That principle I call Soul. A knowledge thereof as taught to me by my late father-teacher (Prof. Syed Hasan Askari).From those insights I am able to say with confidence that Tony is indeed a Beautiful Soul.

This is why I believe relating to people came natural to him, without hesitation, without judgement.

It was as natural to him as a single raindrop cascading from leaf to leaf, intact and coming to rest on the forest floor, nourishing whomsoever it came in to contact with. One may call it Love for humanity itself. Who can doubt Tony had an abundance of love for people. You could hear it in his special voice and see it in his smile.

One of my most cherished memories about Tony is when he received the Mayoral Award in February 2015 and he invited me to join him at the ceremony.

So moved was I by the event that the following day I emailed a letter to the Mayor copying Tony. I said…..

“One of the biggest tributes I can make about Tony is through the eyes of my sons.
I can see they truly value and feel uplifted when he offers praise on their play in basketball. Such appreciation, even a phrase “good job”, or a whispering word of advice makes those that respect him and value his word feel that little bit taller. It makes them believe positive things are possible, and such kind of belief in one’s inner ability is a powerful thing in my view.

For me the Act of Inspiring is second nature to Tony, it is his sixth sense. I see him in another way also.

From one of my late father’s books on Islamic mysticism of India I offer this quote on Spiritual Masters (taken from the book “Alone to Alone“, story “If You Find Me“): soul-being“Masters are of four kinds: Some are like gold and they, like gold, cannot transform others into gold; some are like the alchemists; whoever comes into contact with them turns into gold; some are like sandal-trees, and whosoever remains in their company becomes like them, and some are like the lamps from which thousand lamps are lighted.”

For me Tony is a “Lamp”.

He beautifully lit many lamps by small acts of generosity, acts of kindness, a peaceful word.

TonyHWe need more role models and we desperately need more bridge builders between communities.

The abiding thought I am left with about Tony is that of “Bridge-Walker” holding his inner lamp aloft in the morning mist, at sunrise, at mid-day, sunset and through the night. The inner Lamp of the Soul always alight irrespective of worldly circumstance.

He built bridges and left an example of how it is possible to transport ourselves across them in our lives. I find it even more fitting he received the Mayoral Award of a place whose emblem is the “Transporter Bridge” not but a glance over our shoulders.

Dear Tony, Soul Brother.

The Lamp of your Friendship will burn always within my Heart. God bless you.” 

Musa Askari