Category Archives: Spiritual Humanism

Hasan Askari, Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Inter Faith, Inter Faith Dialogue, Inter Religious Dialogue, Islam, Neoplatonism, Plotinus, Spiritual Humanism

From Interreligious Dialogue to Spiritual Humanism

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By Professor Hasan Askari

“I have always looked at religious diversity with a sense of wonder. The differences between religious beliefs and practices have never bothered me, nor have their conflicting truth-claims unnerved me. I was mystified by the fact of diversity itself. But the call to tolerate and coexist with the other in mutual respect, however desirable, was not enough for me. The intuition underlying the ancient saying, “the lamps are many but the light is one,” gently led me on to look for a theological affirmation and validation of more than one religion. What was lingering in the depths of my soul came to the surface of my consciousness sometime in the mid-1970s when I clearly realised that transcendental reality could not be equated with any one religious form; otherwise a religion will become a god and that would be utter blasphemy. The prospect of a religion reflecting the Absolute absolutely would turn that religion into the most dogmatic and oppressive belief system imaginable. Hence, there should be room between the religions for mutual critique and complementarity. In turn, this should generate a religious need for religious plurality and diversity.”

“Each religious form should then express the beauty and the splendour, and the transcendence and the mystery, of the Supreme One in terms of its own language and culture, framed in its own historicity and reflected in the vision of its pioneers. To enter into dialogue is to celebrate the splendour of the infinitely Supremely Good, in the unity and diversity of our faiths. By the theological affirmation of religious diversity, our coming together in dialogue becomes akin to an act of worship; our exclusive witness is transformed into co-witness; our one-way mission is replaced by mutual mission.”

Continue reading at InterReligious Insight http://www.interreligiousinsight.org/January2004/Jan04Askari.html

Spiritual Humanism, SpiritualHuman

“The Master’s Ring” by Musa Askari

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By Musa Askari (penned 1991)

There were a group of travellers who strived to understand the nature of their “Self” by taking a path leading them to the innermost repose of their “Being”. Having attained the knowledge of seeing with “transparency” they were victorious over the fictitious presence, that “Alien” identity as Plotinus refers, which had sought to entrance them. Having arrived at this state of rest they were aware of being not only human, but also Soul-Beings. They had already forsaken the outter for the inner mode of gnosis and now eager to cross the threshold of the inner too.

For some of the group a “word” was enough to ascend to this bliss. For others the “Fatiha*” would suffice. For most the recital of the Remembrance of their Lord was a beginning. Such was the nature of the fellowship.

Whenever they gathered for meditation their Master would choose one to recite the Fatiha before entry in to Zikr* (remembrance). There was a novice among them. A frail old man on the verge of leaving this world. He had been with them many years. In all his years of service and devotion he had never been chosen to recite. In the beginning he did not expect to be asked and bowed his head when the moment arose. However, as the months and years passed this became increasingly the sole source of his concern and wonderment. Strangely, as a mark of his greater inner calm as opposed to his outter curiosity, he never once questioned or raised the matter with his Master. He waited patiently for understanding.

The night before his departure the old devotee was presented, by his Master, a ring with a cracked and chipped stone. That night he dreamt and it was revealed to him, through sign and symbol, how the stone came to be chipped (that itself a journey all its own). During the dream he passed away peacefully. The next morning his body was discovered and on his right hand was the Master’s Ring perfectly returned to its original form.

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*Fatiha. The short opening chapter of the Quran, beginning, In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds. An indispensable part of daily worship (salat).

*Zikr. Quranic in origin, meaning remembrance of God, along with fikr which is intellectual contemplation of the signs of God. In Sufi usage, it means a particular mode of remembrance, the recital of a Divine Name imparted to the novice for guidance and enlightenment.

*Soul-Beings. Term coined by Hasan Askari

Hasan Askari, Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

The Snow, The Cloud, And The River

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By Hasan Askari from his book  “Alone to Alone – From Awareness to Vision”

We were driving through the Rockies. We had left Aspen behind and were climbing towards the Independence Pass. The atmosphere was clear, bright and pure. “In autumn aspen trees turn gold”, I heard my companion thinking aloud. A quick succession of seasons passed before my eyes, and I touched within me that still point around which all movements seemed to revolve.

We were now climbing higher and higher, and behind me the mountain range I could see one particular snow-clad peak, sometimes visible, then hidden, and visible again. It seemed like the glimpse of my true self – sublime, restful and serene.

All mountain peaks, something said to me then from within, are in constant communication all around the planet.

As we looked to our right we could see down below a few hundred feet deep a shining stream creeping through the valley like a silver snake. There was snow on the slopes and on the mountain tops, and clouds over them in still-slow journeying. The snow was sad, and complained to the passing cloud: “Look, Friend! I am imprisoned here, stuck to these rocks. Lift me up, and allow me to be your companion.”

The cloud replied: “Listen: The river from down below in the valley is trying to say something to you.” A sorrowful voice rose from the depths of the valley: “Lift me up. O Dear Snow, and join me with your eternal rest. I am tired of flowing endlessly.”

The snow looked with blank eyes towards the passing cloud which was now low enough to touch the snow gently and move on. The cloud said: “Do not be anxious. Our Being is one, though our stations and states are different.”

(*for more on Hasan Askari see: above tabs: “Hasan Askari” “Human Nature” & “Speech – Spiritual Humanism)

Spiritual Humanism, SpiritualHuman

“The Sound of Silence” by Musa Askari

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One day a disciple, whose hearing was beginning to fade, asked his master about “sound”. He knew it would be one of the last times he could hear his master’s voice. He wished to take that voice with him on his journey into the realm of silence.

The master replied, “I can see that, given your situation, you are now fully attentive. But why has it taken so long to bring you to a state of such seriousness? Had you listened more closely when your hearing was not impaired, you would not be so anxious now. Is it not so that man was created to listen? What is the use of sound if not to be heard? As you hear the sound of your own voice, remember it is the sound of your Soul.”

The master continued, “There are some sounds that must be silenced and others nurtured. We in our ignorance and ingratitude have equated “presence” solely with sound. The sound of silence into which you are about to enter is not to be understood as a burden but a liberation. It is in such silence that the Divine Command is uttered perhaps. Think of this and rejoice.”

That night as his hearing slipped away he had a dream. He saw a lake of immense proportions, perfectly still. Above him the clouds were racing by at great speed. His heart was beating fast at some strange excitement. By the same swiftness with which they had come the clouds departed leaving him deafened by the sound of his runaway heart! His eyes remained closed.

Before him a single raindrop was descending from the heavens. The sound of its descent was like the song of the peacock, sad and melancholic. He was witnessing the descent of his own Soul! As the drop reached the lake’s surface the sun was rising upon the *horizon. When reaching to half its ascent the sun rose no further. The image falling on the water gave the appearance that it had risen fully, embodied and yet unembodied, reality of the sun and its image upon the water. The drop had now pierced the water. Ripples were forming and being sustained by that same drop which was now like a beating heart until the whole lake was covered by a tide of ripples emanating from one drop. This was what life could be without sound he thought and rejoiced!

By Musa Askari (penned 1992).

* ( … as the eye waits on the rising of the sun, which in its own time appears above the horizon – out of the ocean, as the poets say – and gives itself to our sight” Plotinus)

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

The Lord of the Humming Bird

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 By Hasan Askari from his book “Alone to Alone”

hummingbirdThe notice at the entrance of the park reads: Roxborough* is made up of many inter-related elements, some are living and some are not. The plants found here are dependent upon the soil and the moisture which are determined by rock and climate. The rock formations direct the flow of air current and water, creating small pockets of different climates, micro-climates, responsible for the great variety of plant life growing here.

Roxborough is a place of meetings: where the great plains and the Rockies meet. Here the rolling prairie ends and the Front Range abruptly rises. The grasses of the high plains mingle with the oak of the foothills, with the pine and the aspen. A meeting place of wind and weather, of warm and cool air, a coming together of many natural forces. In one word, the mystery of man.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????The rock layers were deposited two hundred and seventy million years ago. A tremendous upheaval some seventy million years ago lifted them, and so they stand in steep profiles, their present shapes sculptured by weather, water and wind over a vast period of time. Amidst those rocks I saw a humming bird, and I bowed to its sight as a sign of my Lord.

*Roxborough is located a few miles outside of Denver, Colorado.

*Photos by Mia Caruso  

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

The Seven Steps

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THE SEVEN STEPS  

by Hasan Askari from his book “Alone to Alone”

 There are seven steps: Testimony(“tasdiq”). Trust (“tawakkul”). Patience (“sabr”). Gratitude (“shukr”). Remembrance (“zikr”). Love (“hub”) and Gnosis (“irfan”).

When one knows, one loves; when one loves, one remembers; when one remembers, one is grateful; when one is grateful, one learns to be patient, and it is the proof that one trusts; and when one trusts, one has given a true testimony.

Gratitude is faith. It is the cornerstone. It is the bridge. Without gratitude there is no strength in patience and no pleasure in remembering. Gratitude is for both material and spiritual gifts, but there is another far higher gratitude, gratitude to the Supreme who is all possessing and yet, what is in reality His, He calls it ours.

Gnosis results in love. Love is remembrance of the object of love. When true gnosis is there every other step follows effortlessly. The begining and the end are connected without break or interval.

 Trust in the unseen is the reliable proof of a testimony being true. If there is no trust as such, testimony in any form is false.

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

The Limit Is The Threshold by Hasan Askari

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“I hear the Pima song, and my heart cries out for the nameless ones, and I repeat the words:

This is the Whiteland, we arrive singing: Head-dresses waving in the breeze. We have come. We have come. The land trembles with our dancing and singing.

They come, turn, and leave. That is the glory of the primitives’ entry into the world and their exit. We, the developed ones, the mighty ones, the proud builders of cities and starships, come to stay, stay forever. We do not understand the ecstasy of an Aztec or of a Wintu.

Ah Flowers that we wear. Ah songs that we raise. We are on our way to the Realm of Mystery.

It is above that you and I shall go. Along the Milky Way you and I shall go. Along the flower trail you and I shall go: Picking flowers on our way you and I shall go.

It was Denver that I first watched the Pow Wow, the great assembly of the Native American dancers drawn from various tribes and regions. As I waited for the Grand Entry into the hall, I first heard the starting of the drums, and as I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the beat and the rhythm of those drums I saw myself moving across an unfamiliar valley flanked by a mighty range of mountains, and I saw an eagle descending from great heights. As I opened my eyes, facing was a sight I have never seen before. The sheer variety of colour was so dazzling that it took sometime for me to conceive a meaningful picture of what I was seeing. Each dancer dressed in flowing and yet ingathered garments of such bright colours, their combinations crowned by eagle feathered head-dresses – the entire assembly appeared as a congregation of celestial birds on “their way to the realm of mystery”. Each one an individual and yet an integral part of the marching rows of dancers were now forming a vast circle with their bodies swinging and their head-dresses waving in the breeze of the drum as though saying:

We have come. We have come. The land trembles with our dancing and singing.

I knew then that “the land” was within me, that inner ground which throbbed at the touch of their dancing and singing. And I sat that afternoon watching this bewildering and enigmatic sight unlike anything I had met before. I imagined how all this wonder could be rejected by some as something pagan or explained away in terms of one or another school of cultural anthropology. I decided just to watch and to listen, and to be there co-present to what I was watching and listening. I had to admit to myself that nothing from my conceptual equipment could help me understand what I was then experiencing. I had reached the limit.

I wondered how many among those who went out to study other cultures and religions, their rites and rituals would confess to themselves that in such encounters that had reached the limit, the unsurpassable limit to their own mode of understanding. I am not in any way referring to limit as one difficulty or another in our academic study of alien cultures. Not at all. I am referring to limit as an integral and intense aspect of our experience – the point of the greatest contact with the other! It is the experience of the tangibility of the other, the feeling of having laid one’s hands, as it were, on a closed door, face to face, with its unmistakable presence, its reality. It is then that the limit becomes a threshold, a horizon upon which appears the vision, the vision of the ineffable beauty connecting the other with our own innermost mystery.

When I looked again at the colour and the dance, I knew that it was all within me. The event, though visible from outside, was taking place right within my soul. I was their vehicle as they were my vehicle. The vision had replaced the struggle to comprehend. The seer and the seen were on the way to forming a unity, the source of our presence before each other. Now my hearing and seeing and what I heard and saw all were one act: Ah Flowers that we wear! Ah! Songs that we raise!”

By Hasan Askari from his book “Alone to Alone – From Awareness to Vision” (page 19)

 

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

O Light of Lights – a prayer

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“O One who is like a Gentle Breeze amidst my hardships; O One who is the Hope amidst my distresses; O my Friend in my despair; O my Companion in my loneliness; O Sign in all my wanderings: Thee alone we worship, and from Thee alone we seek help: Guide us unto the path that is inward and stable.

O Light of LightsO Light of Lights; O Illuminator of all Lights; O Creator of Light; O Light before any Light existed; O Light after every Light is gone; O Light which is above all Lights; O Light which is unlike any other Light: Thee alone we worship, and from Thee alone we seek help: Guide us unto the path that is inward and stable.

O Friend of one who has no friend; O Support of one who has no support; O Peace of one who has no peace; O Companion of one who has no companion; O Proof of one who has no proof; O Refuge of one who has no refuge: Thee alone we worship, and from Thee alone we seek help: Guide us unto the path that is inward and stable.

O One Who In His promises, is faithful: O One Who in His faithfulness, is powerful: O One Who in His power, is Sublime: O One Who in His Sublimity, is near: O One Who in His Nearness, is subtle: O One Who in His Subtlety, is noble: O One Who in His Nobility, is mighty: O One Who in His Might, is great: O One Who in His Greatness, is glorious: O One Who in His Glory, is praiseworthy:  Thee alone we worship, and from Thee alone we seek help: Guide us unto the path that is inward and stable.”

Translated by Professor Hasan Askari (4th July 1932 – 19th February 2008), selected prayer of Calling upon God in His Names by Ali Bin Abu Talib (d.661). 

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism, SpiritualHuman

Self-Remembering

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“He was now ready to start on his journey. He looked sad. The old man said: “Start, my son. You have to go a long way.” He started moving towards the door. The old man raised his voice: “Do not worry that you might be robbed of your possessions. None can rob you of your self”. Then he gave him his rosary: “Keep this, or better still wear it around your neck.”

“Give me a sign for the journey,” the young man requested with a choking voice. The old man held him in his embrace, and said: “Let this reflection of the moon in the river be a sign to you. Let your self-remembering be like this reflection!”

By Hasan Askari – “Alone to Alone”

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

God is on both the sides

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 By Hasan Askari from “Alone to Alone” published 1991

“It was a couple of years ago that I was standing at the spot outside Vienna where the Ottoman Turks once stood towards the close of the seventeenth century when they had laid siege, and Vienna was at their mercy. I had gone to Austria to spend sometime at St. Gabriel, a monastic house in Modling, one of the suburbs of Vienna.

My host took me the very evening I arrived there to show me the Vienna Woods, and as we stood there, and as I recalled the Ottoman siege, I became aware with tears in my eyes that God was on both the sides.

How else could God be? I asked. We worship the God of the heavens and of the earth, the creator and the sustainer of the entire universe, the giver of life and guidance to all humanity, irrespective of religion or race. How is it, I asked, that we raise our hymns of praise to his universality and omnipresence and yet reduce him to a racial or communal god when we are drawn to our political identities?

Is it not so that He is on both the sides of a battle line, on both the sides of a religious argument, with the victor and with the victim, with us and with those whom we oppose, with all of us at once?

I was passing through a city. I first saw a wedding procession entering a church. Within a couple of minutes I passed by another church where a coffin was being carried towards the graveyard. I wondered at the Mystery of His omnipresence, at one place a wedding guest and at another, one of the mourners.”