Tag Archives: 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)

Alone2Alone, Hasan Askari, SpiritualHuman

“The Dancing Pages” by Musa Askari

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By Musa Askari 17th October 1991 – such was the feeling of expansion within my Soul as I lifted for first time “Alone to Alone” by Hasan Askari

The book is opened, A story is read, The reader leans back , And watches a mystery unfold. The book is fresh, The pages are crisp and firm, It is natural for the pages to return to their usual posture, They are strong.

As the reader leans away, A page from the left rises, As though helped by an invisible hand. At first it is a struggle to breakaway, To rise and swim against the current, But it is determined

 Just past midway it comes to rest, A solitary leaf of a book stands in the middle. Then suddenly it crosses over, And comes to rest, Gently gliding down to the right of the book, As though crossing from one world to the next.

 It will have to make this journey again and again, From moment to moment, For every reader that comes across it. For throughout their life the pages will re-enact this display, To remind us of the greater journey will all must make.

 There are only the pages, What of the words? And of the narrator of the words  

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

The Feet of our Lady by Hasan Askari

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“It was once staying for a week at the Retreat House of St. Raphaela-Mary outside Philadelphia.

In the corridors were those night-lights, tiny lamps, a few inches above the floor on either side along the walls.

As I returned one night after a long and exhaustive discussion with Jews and Christians on the meaning of revelation, and as I passed through the corridor leading to my room, I was struck by those little lights on either side of the corridor. An image came before my eyes – The Feet of Mary. As she walks she leaves her traces behind.

I had to start for the airport the following day quite early in the morning. As I was waiting for the taxi all by myself at that early hour, one of the Sisters of Clare who looked after the Retreat House unexpectedly brought me a hot cup of coffee, and said: I came to say Good-Bye to you, and also to thank you for what you taught me about “The Feet of our Lady!”

By Hasan Askari

from “Alone to Alone” ISBN 1 873685 77 7

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

Why do we have more than one religion on our planet?

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Extract of speech by Professor Hasan Askari, delivered in 1995, (full speech transcript on above page, Spiritual Humanism)

“It was in mid-sixties that I made a simple discovery which was infact quite obvious. Namely, that my religion was one among many in the sub-continent. I had a choice to go to Pakistan, to go to Canada to go to Great Britain but I didn’t. I decided religiously to remain within India. Within a multi-religious society. I decided to come home as a muslim in a society which was not predominantly muslim. I took the challenge of religious diversity quite seriously. For me personally it was not a political challenge, personally it was not an economic challenge because I was a lecturer by 1956. And family wise it was not a challenge. Historically, collectively it was a challenge. But for me the challenge was spiritual. The challenge was religious. For me the challenge was basically theological. I asked myself then and later in 70s, throughout in my consultations in Middle East and Europe; Why? Why we have more than one religion on our planet? Why?  

Well one sociological reason was, that was always given, that people were scattered. They didn’t have any communication so religious traditions and cultures sprang up spontaneously across the world depending on conditions both economic, moral and psychological. But that explanation to me was only socio-historic. I had discovered the limits so social science. I was moving towards philosophy and meta-physics.

I asked my self this question: Why? Why more than one religion? In other words I was asking for a theology of world religions. I was asking for a global understanding of religious diversity. Because the diversity was there staring into my eyes. It was there un-mistakably present. And therefore, that was the first stage of my journey; to ask a theological question about more than one religion. It was Brumana consultation in 1972 in Beirut the biggest Christian – Muslim consultation of the century, that in my paper I made it absolutely clear that perhaps, perhaps we need more than one religion. 

How could one dare to equate the Almighty Unity and Transcendence and Mystery with the form of one faith and practice? If we do so then that one religion becomes a god. And it is a blasphemy. As God’s Transcendence is ineffable, as His Might and Power is infinite, as His Attributes are countless and therefore, there should be as many forms of praising Him, worshipping Him, adoring Him, showing love and devotion to Him. And therefore I came home in a multi religious world. As a muslim it was easy for me to arrive at this position because the Quran is the first scripture in the world which started an inter-religious dialogue. It accepted the reality of revelation being given to all communities across the world. The Quran gave me the first clue to understand the theological enigma of more than one religion. “

Hasan Askari 1932-2008, Spiritual Humanism

Spiritual Humanism has three postulates

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Spiritual Humanism has three postulates:  by Hasan Askari

1) Humanity is one organic ecological whole as a planetary form of life.

2) Already we believe in it, we hear it, humanity is one economic political whole. Because of modern revolutions in information technology.

3) Humanity is one indivisible spiritual whole and therefore a slight whisper here, a slight touch here, a small gentleness shown to someone, a small act of charity will affect the entire world of humanity. Or similarly a small injury, a small insult, a small act of malice can be blown of gigantic proportions across the world. Such is our psychic unity.