Apr 3 — The Vacant Body
This program is sponsored and presented by The Sufi Way
April 3 Session Recording
This Month
The Divine Body -<>- Mystical Significance of the Body -<>- Reflections on Body and Soul
The Inner Bow -<>- The We-Body Chilla -<>- Our Vacant Body -<>- Equilibrium
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The tree is not a tree, it's a river
and this thought and that cloud, a river.
Something beyond enourmous is living us,
sweeping us through the countryside.
From The Book of Flashes
by Pir Elias Amidon
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The Mystical Significance of the Body
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Man’s body may be divided into two parts: the head and the body. The head represents Shuhud, the spiritual part, and the body represents Wujud, the material part. In the former, from the crown of the head to the chin is the expressive part; in the latter, the upper half of the body is the expressive part.
Two parts of the body, the brain and the heart, are considered to be the most important factors, for the scientist thinks that the brain thinks and the orthodox believes that the heart feels. In the view of the Sufi, both are wrong in a way and right in a way. In fact, it is not that the brain thinks, but the brain is the means by which the mind distinguishes thought in its concrete form; just as the piano does not compose, but the composer tries their composition on the piano and makes it clear to oneself. By disorder in the brain, the scientist says, one becomes unsound in mind. But the Sufi holds that nothing is wrong with the mind; it is the instrument through which the mind functions that is out of order.
The same misconception exists among those who believe that the heart feels. The heart, being the center of the body, partakes of the effect of the feeling from within---which is the real heart, not the piece of flesh…Depression, [for example], is felt as a heavy load upon the breast; and when the heavy vibrations are cleared, then especially a person has a feeling of joy and one’s heart is lighter than usual… It is as the darkness clearing away at the rising of the sun.
As the brain is the instrument of the mind, which is invisible and the heart of the flesh is the vehicle of the heart within, which is above substance, so it is the illumination of the soul, our invisible being, whose light is reflected within this physical body. When active it beams through the eyes, through the radiance of the countenance, charging the whole environment with a magnetic atmosphere. This light being originated from sound, both light and sound echo in the dome of the temple of this physical body, though neither in reality belongs to it. To the Sufi, the seeker of the self within, they are vouchsafed when one has control over the gateways of this holy temple, the physical body. Then, instead of reflecting outward through the expression, the light and sound both manifest within.
Reflections on Body and Soul
The soul is happy by nature; the soul is happiness itself. It becomes unhappy when something is the matter with its vehicle, its instrument, its tool through which it experiences life. Care of the body, therefore, is the first and the most important principle of religion. Hazrat Inayat Khan
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People say that the soul, on hearing the song of creation, entered the body, but in reality the soul itself was the song. Hafez
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Our body is our veil in the world: we are like a sea hidden beneath a straw. Rumi
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Water, stories, the body, all the things we do, are mediums that hide--and show-- what’s hidden. Rumi
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The body in zikr moves beyond the borders and boundaries of consciousness, of language, of dualistic thinking, … , the body remembers itself to itself and its place in divinity and history. Lindsay Rosenfeld
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Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free. Rumi
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The wound is the place where the Light enters you. Rumi
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When you take off your clothes, remember to be thankful for your body underneath, whatever shape it is. It's your most tender lover. It's doing its best to swim upstream against the current of all this entropy. One day it will give up, exhausted, and slip from you like those clothes, and again you'll be thankful for what's underneath. Elias Amidon
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Every desire of your body is holy. Hafez
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When all your desires are distilled; You will cast just two votes: To love more, And be happy. Hafez
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I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body nor soul,
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one, and that one call to, and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being. Rumi
Our bodies are astounding–how they receive and respond to the vast complexity of life, how rhythms, melodies, and the art of contemplation generate and radiate both call and response. They are part of a manifestation which exists on multiple, nested levels simultaneously. It's nothing short of miraculous!!
To describe human perception in a very simplistic fashion, we could make a distinction between what we perceive to be “out there” and what's “inside us.” But the means of perception are radically different on the outside than on the inside. We use our five senses in the outside world effortlessly, but are slower to perceive that the bodies we inhabit are also the hosts for a rich, inner world.
From a young age, we may enter the inner body through the doorway of emotion. We may say we are angry, but what we mean is that we are experiencing a set of inner sensations which our culture has labeled, in total, as anger. Whenever we focus our attention on sensations themselves, however, without adding the labeling, we put ourselves in the way of discovering sensations so subtle and new that they don’t tie to any nameable emotion. This is the realm we’ll be addressing. For many, this is a familiar “move.” I first came across it when Elias introduced the inner bow as the first move in TWP in his “Being Mortal” retreat in 2020.
While we sometimes refer to these inner sensations as subtle, since practice may be required before we can discern them, the inner bow, for me, was indisputably NOT subtle, with a sensation like a somersault! While there is absolutely no guarantee that anyone’s inner bow will elicit the same response as anyone else, I’ll speak a little more about mine because I want to call attention to two things that might be useful.
First, my experience of the bow has a direction. I feel the movement as downward and extended outward in front of me, the downward portion like the direction of a bow. Your bow may have a direction, too. The direction might be different, but nevertheless something to pay attention to.
Second, following the reversal of equilibrium caused by the initial somersault there emanates, downward and outward in front of me, tendrils of sensation. The components of the sensation are familiar, yet at the same time indescribable. They are complicated, with a lot of feelings braided together. So interesting and compelling are these inner sensations that my thinking mind is completely forgotten. If you, too, feel a stirring of inner sensation, whether it goes somewhere, like mine appears to do, or stays right in one place, remain with those inner sensations for as long as they can be sensed.
When we physically bow, we bring our heads low, in some traditions putting foreheads on the ground or kissing the earth. By lowering our head, which is where we often think “we” are housed, we humble ourselves in recognition of something else–something bigger–or higher–than we are. We surrender TO something other than ourselves. The inner bow has the same connotations.
In that vein, I use the inner bow regularly in my daily life. Whether I’m stuck in traffic or about to walk into a situation I’m anticipating to be tricky, I simply bow to the situation. In doing so, I leave my ideas of being in control behind. I hand over agency to the situation itself, letting it direct me in that moment. In so doing I respond from a place of unknowing, allowing my ego to retire. (Generally it is relieved to take a back seat to the proceedings. Off duty!)
When we begin meditating with the inner bow, we are bowing to the practice we are entering into. We are putting our trust in the process, paying deference to it as Teacher. In this way the move becomes a bridge from the outer world we think we know to the inner body, which remains largely unexplored.
Once the tendrils start to unfurl, following them takes us deeper and deeper until they gradually fade away. We have come to the end of the trail. Here, we are deep in the liminal–the body that lies beyond, between, outside of thoughts, and relates to us through the coming and going of sensations–ever changing UNLESS, of course, mind grasping and analysis intercede. And should that happen, we bow again, and repeat as often as needed, remembering, though, that the bow is only the beginning of a journey that lies in following.
So when you’re ready to begin, here are your instructions … “Perform an inner bow.” That’s it! Just close your eyes, perform an inner bow, and pay attention to how it feels inside you. You can bow to the moment you have taken out of time to sit with this, to what is coming up next for you, to disturbances in your equilibrium, or to the inner body that you will discover on the other end of that bow. Anything will do. Just close your eyes and bow. Be absorbed in following your inner sensations till you reach the place where the trail ends. Once there, sit quietly–curious and observant of what emerges. Repeat the bow if thoughts creep in. Don’t be surprised if, after a certain time, you pop back up out of this deep place like a cork. You can stop at that point, or bow once more and dive back in.
Happy trails, Beloved!
~Basheera Ritchie
The We-Body Chilla
Here is a chilla for feeling into the we-body, one-body world, the world of belonging-together-with that extends beyond the edges of my personal skin, and as far as I can feel. Indeed, this is the felt-body of Beloved Community.
As an embodied task that opens to mystery, a chilla represents an opportunity to extend the edges of who I think I am, what I think is possible—or even real. Naturally you may accept this chilla or not (but if not, perhaps reflect on why).
In this chilla, you don’t act as a single individual, a “me,” but as a collective body—a “we.” It consists of a daily move, simple but dedicated to discovery, an individual action multiplied and resonant in the extended body of all who participate.
Take a comfortable seat. The move has three parts: I...am...this.
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I: At the level of your navel/hara, cup the back of your right hand in the palm or your left hand, elbows out. Take a moment to feel into and savor the aliveness of your body: this breath, this beating heart, these soles of these feet pressed to this floor, this fizzing of energy..this melody...this I…
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Am: Turn out the arms and extend them up and out—open to the extended body of belonging-together that you feel. Belong—not in general, but in the particulars (not “family” but your partner, children, named relations; not “Nature,” but this tree/wren/cloud...). Here and now, discover how far your body goes? Let this be a question, a call...
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This: Scoop the arms feelingly back into the center of the body, palms of the hands meeting together—not on, but just before your heart, in the Big Heart, now, of the one-body world. With all that responded, all that you are, all you belong-with, feel the beat of this extended life.
To be clear, this is no onscreen project: each of us will move on our own, wherever we are, knowing that we move together. As an extended body, we’ll repeat the movement three times, once each morning, for seven days (starting Monday, April 4, and continuing through Sunday, April 10). Aim for 9 a.m.--and enjoy the image of this action rippling through multiple locations and time zones, alive in the daily rhythm of our belonging-together. How far can you feel?
~trace farrell
Our Vacant Body
How we know our body, how we sense the mystery that we exist is not explained but experienced by our awareness in and of our body with all the challenges, and there will be challenges, bringing both curiosity and joy to our exploration.
That experience engenders an awakening, a celebration as we feel its rhythms and hear its songs of longing and discovery.
Do we know the limitations of our body? May we wonder in our relationship with this world in a way that we learn it is not our separateness that defines our physical place but our connections that confirm we are a part of the whole.
And if we are as I gently suggest inextricably a part of all, can we also imagine the body as an integral location for an esoteric practice unifying us with our sense of the divine?
It is that awakening of the sense of the mystery within which allows us, for example, to sit in contemplation of words rich in wisdom traditions so that as we rest and receive these words we are transformed; we are opened and literally touched here in our hearts.
Yet with all of this, we still live in a world of reaching out and reaching in; where our body serves as a bridge for these inner and outer worlds that we inhabit and enliven, where we experience our oneness and as well our beloved community.
May it be so.
~Isha Francis
This program is sponsored and presented by The Sufi Way
*You can find the essay, "Beloved Community" by Pir Elias Amidon here
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