Spiritual Letter 01 - Outline & Summary Version About Spiritual Letter 01 Title: "Who Are We, Who Is God, And What Is The Relationship Between Us." Wisdom Point: His Holiness, "In Truth There Is Only One God, One Prayer, One Family, And There Is Really Only One Life, Only One Soul, Which Is The Life of God Within Each of Us, Within All of Creation." Date Written: April, 1989, Date Last Updated: July, 2004 Date Published: July, 2004 Written by: Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler) Written to: Rev. George. A. Johnson, Nigeria, Africa Go To: Outline of Spiritual Letter - for Page 06 Go To: Text of Spiritual Letter - for Page 06 Home Page - Spiritual Letters Spiritual Letter 03 Letter 01: Oiginal Version Library Home Page Spiritual Letter 02 Letter 01: Related Material Page 6 of 18 Go To Table of Contents - Spiritual Letter 01 Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim. In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Al-salam 'alaykum wa-rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu kulluhu. Wa 'alaykum al-salam wa-rahmat Allah wa-barakatuhu kulluhu. May all the peace, the beneficence, and the blessing of God be upon us all. May God help us all. My love you (anbu), my dearest loving brothers and sisters - Shaikh Muhaiyaddeen (Louie Beutler). Outline of Spiritual Letter - for Page 06 14. The Nature of Our True Life - and our true path 15. The Nature of Faith - and Trust In God Text of Spiritual Letter - for Page 06 14. The Nature of Our True Life and Our True Path My loving brother, Bawa teaches us that we must understand the nature of this life that we are experiencing and extract the point out of it. Bawa tells us that our life is really a book and that we must learn how to read this book. And if we do, we will discover the answer to the questions "Who are we?, Who is God?, and "What is the relationship between us?" Bawa teaches us that the path to God is a path of faith and trust in God, a path of wisdom, a path of a growing awareness of who we are, who God is, and the relationship between us, a path of expanding consciousness of the oneness of life, the oneness of God, a path of letting go of what we think we are and of becoming the ideals of God given to us by wisdom, given to us by a True Shaikh. A path of surrender to the truth of God within us, a path of faith and trust in what is beyond what we have currently experienced and understood, a path of the little child sitting on the lap of his Father in a state of peace and contentment, while the Father teaches the child everything he needs to know to reveal and become one with the Father, or order to become the Father. My dear brother, the path of our life is like the path of an apple seed that has been buried within the earth, which gradually becomes aware that it is not the earth within which it is buried, it is not what it has been buried within, it is not what it has been experiencing all around it, but in truth it is the seed of something greater than all of this, it is the seed of something it has never seen or experienced before, it is the seed of an apple tree, and that if it germinates, if it lets its life in the earth as an apple seed end, if it lets its life as it is currently being experienced come to an end, if it peacefully and contently and gratefully joins in its own ending, then and only then, the story of the apple tree can be told, and the completion of that story is the apple tree. And Bawa teaches us that our path is also like the path of the apple tree which is revealed after the apple seed germinates, after the apple seed, through an understanding of "who it is", that it is the seed of something much greater than itself, and an understanding of "where it is", that it is buried within the earth, and an understanding of "what its purpose is", to reveal what is buried within itself, peacefully come to an end so that its purpose can be fulfilled, so that what is within itself can be revealed, so that the apple tree can begin, so that the story of the apple tree can be told and come to completion, and the completion of that story is the apple tree, which then starts to tell the story of the apple seed. Oh what a wonder our God is. Our path is like the apple tree that finds, using its taproot, a direct source of water for its life, giving it a very, very long life, allowing it to gradually come to full maturity within this very, very long life, allowing it to provide shade and bear fruits for the benefit of others, allowing it to make the happiness of others its happiness, and allowing it to experience and come to know, as much as an apple tree can, about the power hidden within the apple tree, about the power that is the true source of all that is the apple seed and the apple tree, the power hidden within all seeds and all trees, the Power hidden within all life, the Power that is God. My dear loving brother, our path is certainly like the path of the apple seed and the path of the apple tree, which is but a clear reflection of the path of all life, the path of awakening, of awareness, of understanding, of the reality and purpose of all life, of all creation, to tell, to reveal the story of God, to reveal as much as it can, as decreed by God, as much as it can about God. There is no other purpose for anything or for anyone, my dear brother, except to join in the telling of God's story. Nothing else is really going on. Nothing else is really happening. In truth in all things, at all time, only God is happening, only the story of God is being told, only God is being revealed by God to God for the benefit of all of the creations of God in the 18,000 universes, within man and within God and within God and within man. Amen, Amen, Ya Rabil Alameen. Amen, Amen, Ya Rahman Alameen. Amen, Amen, Ya Rahim Alameen. Al-hamdu lillah. Please think about this a little, my dearest brother. Please do this exalted work. Such is the real path of our life, my dear brother; the path of the seed of God's grace buried within God within us, buried within the wisdom of God within us, as the Soul of God within us, becoming the Tree of God's Grace within God within the wisdom within us, becoming True Man within God within us, with the taproot of La Il La Ha, Il Allahu - there is nothing other than God, Only You are God - and the tree of Muhammadar Rasulullah - Muhammad is the Messenger of God - with the trunk of Iman - absolute faith, certitude, and determination in God - and the branches of the 124,000 Messengers of God, and the fruit of the 6,666 verses of the Holy Qur'an. Such is the true exaltedness of our life, my dear brother, nothing less and nothing more. My dearest loving brother who lives within my heart as the heart within my heart, such is the nature of our true life and the nature of the true path to God that has come from God to us, to the children of God, at this time, in this age, at the time of Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him). Al-hamdu lillah, all praise be to God. 15. The Nature of Faith And Trust In God My dearest loving brother, we must place all of our faith and trust in God and in the wise man of purity that God has provided for us in this age, in the wise man of purity who has a pure heart. We must hold the wise man of purity that God has given to us as the spiritual guide for our life, and for the lights of God within us, as the vessel of purification for our heart, as the instrument of maturation for the seed of God's Grace within us, for the instruement of navigation for the journey of our soul. This is the first step of faith and trust we must take, my loving brother. We must accept our Father Shaikh Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be please with Him) as The Life and Teaching of God for this age, as The Spiritual Guide for this age, as The True Shaikh of God for this age, as The Guru of God for this age. Bawa teaches us a very important point about faith and trust in God that we must understand my loving brother. May we briefly review this point, my loving brother. Bawa teaches us that our faith and trust in God must always precede, must always stand beyond, our understand of God, our understanding and personal experience of who we are, who God is, and the relationship between us. Bawa teaches us that we must not place our faith and trust in what we presently understand about God, what we presently practice as our methods of worship or praise of God, or what we presently think we know or have personally experience about God. If we place our faith and trust in these things, then even though they are about God and our relationship with God, we have placed something between us and God, no matter how exalted it may appear. Like this, Bawa tells us that life on the path to God is like a man swimming across a lake. The only way the man moves forward in the water is if he trusts that the water will support him and if he pushes the water behind him with his hands and feet. Similarly, the only way that we move forward on the path to God is if we trust that God will support us and if we push our life, as we presently know it, behind us, if we push behind us all that we are, all that we know, all that we understand, all that we have experienced, all that we practice as devotion to God, and all that we have placed our faith and trust in other than God. Such is the life of the one who swims back to God across the ocean of the life that he is experiencing, the ocean of arrogance, karma, and illusion that we call our life. One day in Bawa's room one of the brothers told Bawa the following Sufi Story. "One day Moses (A.S.) had a toothache and he asked God to help him. God told Moses (A.S.) to rub the bark of a certain tree on the toothache. Moses (A.S.) did what God told him to do and the toothache got better." "Some time later Moses (A.S) got another toothache. So, he went to the same tree and rubbed the same bark on the toothache but the toothache didn't leave. So, Moses (A.S.) asked God why the bark of the tree cured his toothache the first time but that it didn't help the second time.' And God told Moses (A.S) that the first time he asked God to cure his toothache but that the second time he asked the tree to cure his toothache." Like this, my loving brother, we must always place our faith and trust in God and not in what God has told us to do. Each time we must ask God directly what to do. In our life we must establish a relationship with the living God within us and not depend on what has come before from God to other people or even before from God to us. We must establish the living presence of God within us and live within that presence of God. Bawa teaches us that each moment of our life must be a living affirmation of the living presence of God within us, the truth of God within us. Such is the path to God that has come at the time of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him). Bawa teaches us that God has no form, so how can any form of prayer or worship be truly related to God. Bawa tells us that only God can understand God, so how can we truly understand God. We must always remember this point, my loving brother. The path to God is the path of faith and trust in God as a child puts faith and trust in his parents, the path of surrender to God as one surrenders to the life, the reality, within his own life, the path of humility as one realizes that God is both the cause and the effect of everything within life, the path of emptying oneself as one realizes that only by discarding what God has discarded can God be present within our life, the path of filling oneself with the presence of God as one realizes that only within the presence of God can God be known, the path of the true student as one realizes that only by becoming one with God can God be truly understood. Bawa teaches us that what we hold as our understanding of God, what we hold as our personal experiences about God, what we hold as our personal practices and methods of prayer and worship of God, are but what separate us from God. Bawa teaches us that within each moment, with each breath, we must line up behind the wise man, the wisdom of the wise man in our life, as a student lines up behind the teacher. With each breath we must empty our cup of understanding, experiences, and practices, and ask God to fill our cup with Himself, with a fresh understanding of Himself, with a fresh experience of Himself, with His presence, His wisdom, His qualities, His duties, and His life. Such is the way that we must approach God within our own life, my loving brother. Such is the way a wise man walks the path to God, my loving brother. Bawa teaches us that true prayer has no reference to self. True prayer only comes out of an understanding of who we are, who God is and the relationship between us. Bawa teaches us that the point of prayer is to reestablish and to continually affirm our relationship with God, our oneness with God. Bawa teaches us that true prayer is God communion with God, God in the state of surrender to God, God attributing everything to God. God has no self. God has no reference to the world. God has no reference to the body. God has no connection to "I", no connection to "mine" and "yours", no separation or differences, no sense that "I" exist, no sense that "I" exist separate from other life. God is one with all life. God is the life within all life. God is all life. All life has emerged from God and all life is traceable back to God. My loving brother, the life that is truly one with my life, the life that is truly my life, Bawa teaches us that true prayer is sitting within our own life as one with all life, sitting within all life as our own life, in the state of peace, in the state of patience with and tolerance of all life, in the state of contentment with and gratitude for all experiences of life, in a state of faith and trust that goes beyond all understanding and experiences of life, and in a state of praise of that which transcends all understanding and experiences of life as the true point within all understanding and experiences of life. Like this, my loving brother, Bawa teaches us that all of the suffering in our life is caused by something that we have placed our faith and trust in other than God. The world has given us a lot of confusion about this point, my loving brother. God does not give us suffering in the world, we bring it upon ourselves, we attract it like a magnet attracts metal, when we place our faith and trust in something other than God. So, my loving brother, if we are suffering in our life we have but to find what we have placed our faith and trust in other than God, that is causing our suffering, and cut our attachment to it. If we do this continuously within our life then gradually all of our suffering will be removed and we will find peace within our life, we will find peace within our faith and trust in God alone, we will find God alone within our life. Such is the true gift of our life, my loving brother, and the true gift of the wisdom that has come into our life, the true gift of God for this age, the true gift of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (may God be pleased with Him), my loving brother. End of Page 6 of 18 of Spiritual Letter 01 - outline & summary version - ...................................... or Go To Spiritual Letter 01: Table of Contents Original Version Related Material or ( a top-down version of the Library Home Page) (a bottom-up version of the Library Home Page) |
This page was last updated on: July 23, 2004
