December 2013 Conversation Week

During the week of December 9–13, conversation was happening daily at Chisholme on the theme of Clearing the Space. 

Since early October, the residents at Chisholme have been working together on various projects to clear and clean the physical spaces of the main house, outbuildings and estate, and in particular to give attention to areas often overlooked or hidden away.

Needless to say, the real clearing needs to happen in our interior. One of the inspirations for the conversation week came from the wish ‘…to leave all the space to God’. What does this mean, and how can we work towards making this real - in our interior facing and in our life?
 The quote comes from a short text by Osman Fazli. He writes:

'Man does not possess anything else but his sensibilities as his real organ of intelligence, and without Divine action man cannot even use his memory which is his sacred treasury of experience acquired long ago.

The initiate, the saint, insân al-kâmil, is he who possesses the faculty of being able to recognise the true non-existence of his faculties of thought and his own impotence in putting them in motion.

It is he who leaves all the 'space' to God and who passes all his life in controlling his intimate faithfulness, in actions, 'thoughts' or in the acts that materialise them. It is he who prays constantly to God, even if it be only by a breath or by a movement of the heart, when he perceives the natural and constant phenomena of thought.'

*For the full text click here…

 

The programme for each day consisted of conversation from 9am until 10.15, and again after tea at 4.30. The morning and afternoon periods in between where devoted to practical expressions of clearing the space,  with as many people as possible working together. 
A second week of conversation, under the same title, is proposed for January 27-31st (to book, see calendar). 

Here below are daily reflections, put together by Aaron Cass. They are a very personal account on each day. They are not meant to be  exhaustive nor will they appear accurate in everyone’s eyes.

Photos from Monday: Buckets of apples to peel and purée; last remnants from the Rumi Festival to find new homes for; fallen trees from last week's storm to clear.

 

 

Day One

​​There are seventeen residents here at the moment, less children. All except Shane Jagger who was having dialysis, and Laura Young who was being a mother, were present this morning for conversation. Rose, who lives in the valley, also attended and Hamid Thomas, visiting for the week from the Gower Peninsular.

It is indeed a rare thing to see, with the aforementioned qualifications, the entire population of Chisholme in one place. In itself it felt like a kind of clearing – with so many demands in a place like this, both peripheral and apparently essential, it is unusual for us all to be together.  It takes effort, a conscious step, an intention to say no to what could easily and justifiably take us elsewhere.

And that is perhaps a key to the education on offer, the fundamental intention of this place, to step out of ourselves and leave the space for what is beyond us - our selves, perhaps as we are known in reality – freeborn, unique, humble, happy …

A clear thread in the conversation was to do with the awareness of how much clutter we carry consciously and unconsciously into everything we do – but more importantly how quickly such accumulations can be abandoned when we are willing.  The work of freeing ourselves from this is not so much psychological as spiritual – a determined step into vision rather than a protracted labour out of blindness.

For this week, over half the day is given over to opportunities for practical expression. Work started on cleaning up the greenhouse, removing accumulated debris, taking down broken glass etc etc. For those engaged in it there was clearly a real discovery – that even in its state of relative ruin the greenhouse is actually a very beautiful unique structure with all the capacity for restoration inherent in its foundations.

Repairs were also begun and completed on the engineering shed behind the workshop after a substantial ash tree fell on it during the recent gales, a branch penetrating the tin roof and narrowly missing the motorcycle within. That same morning another ash fell on the van used to bring wood for the boiler, sending a branch through the windscreen and dashboard and destroying the bumper and a headlamp.  The Chisholme land-rover had been parked in an even more dangerous position, but miraculously or providentially, however you want to look at it, David had decided to take it to drop the kids at the bus rather than use his own car, just in case there were floods in the valley.  The ash came down in the gap where the land-rover had been, in the twenty minutes David was away…merciful hiatuses made in time and space are no doubt everywhere but made more obvious in times like these.

So the wind did its own precise yet unpredictable kind of clarification, and removal. Its untamed grace, obeying deeper orders of reason than those within the human biological spectrum, it shows through buffit and howl, that we are like all things at best moved rather than moving.  Any apparent irrationality exhibited by the gale is only due to the limits of our perception, not its nature or purpose. Its relationship to our understanding is like that of those sounds of a depth beyond human hearing but discernable to other animals, whales or the like, or at the other extreme those higher pitches that speak so clearly to dogs and angels but disguise themselves as nothingnesses to us, creation’s raison d’etre. 

In the afternoon conversation, the real interiority of the theme came to the fore, inevitable perhaps in the burgeoning darkness, huddled warmth and honey coloured light of the Meadhall after tea time on December Day.

We spoke of clarification of intention and the purification of desire, two phrases Ibn 'Arabi uses to describe his own response at being given the task by the Prophet Mohammed himself of writing his masterwork the Fusus al Hikam.  We spoke of them as the work itself – something to be embarked upon rather than talked about as such, perhaps in the spirit of Blake’s Jerusalem, as weapons to be asked for from the armoury of our potential, but to be asked for just the same, and commitments to be declared and adhered to just like Blake’s promise to not cease from mental fight and to hold his sleepless sword. The interior and exterior works combined in a single declaration – pertinent and inspiring because for us, whatever condition we are in, we can ask for and stand for our higher, clearer more luminous purpose, our love.

We also spoke of how the work had gone, intentions held in spite of diverting demands, thus transcendent from and yet present in the tasks at hand. Ismail Hakki Bursevi’s favourite Hadith was mentioned “Indeed the intentions rather than the actions”. Of course, it doesn’t mean intentions need not be followed up by actions, but rather as stated in the Tarjuman al Ashwaq (Ibn 'Arabi), “...They did not saddle the full grown reddish white camels until they had mounted the peacocks upon them”, ie. actions need to be armed with origin and aim.

Such bright birds have been seen today, ‘midst wet and wind and winter’s grey.

Day Two

Firstly apologies for a mis-quote in yesterday’s instalment. In speaking of the order to bring out the Fusus al Hikam, Ibn Arabi says “I verified the desire and purified the intention”.

So today more apples were prepared for instant apple pies to be made in January and beyond. Phase two of the cleaning of the Pavilion commenced with a newer bigger wetter pressure washer. The Christmas cakes went in the oven and are still there 4 hours later evolving perhaps rather than cooking.

In conversation, intention and desire were the themes again, inescapable perhaps. Inevitable also then were questions regarding the relationship of intention to action, how sometimes the intention is only seen through the action, sometimes questioning ones intention and seeing the potential of the moment, an opportunity for closeness with reality, the action even if one is in the midst of it, is transformable. 

So you come into the Meadhall because you are expected to or think you should, and you sit and realise perhaps that you are in your Beloved’s company, that you are, if only momentarily, present in accordance with a finer intention than you first thought both yours and beyond yours, though for your sake. So with peeling apples, we can peel them because we have been asked to, or because we can they must be used up, since they are starting “go”, or because they were a gift from someone and should properly be received and made use of, or because they express an essential bounty which is not to be wasted, or because they are nourishment from God, or because we might actually taste the Beloved in them direct and unmediated.

And this theme re-emerged in the afternoon, with the reading of the passage from the Fusus al Hikam, beginning on page 15 or 18 (depending on which edition you have (Fusus al Hikam with Ottoman commentary) and featuring a lengthy quote from Sadruddin-i-Konevi. To save anyone having to look it up, here it is:

Divine knowledge’s do not result from intellectual proofs and theories. Rather, they result from complete facing and joy of thought and freedom of place after the Divine Munificence. The Shaykh, Saddruddin-i-Konevi, may his mystery be blessed, says in his comment on the Fatiha: ‘The real knowledge through taste happens from the aspect of clear and total insight, after the Divine Munificence, depending on the ceasing of the manifest and hidden partial strengths and the detailed expenditure appertaining to them, and by freeing the place from all knowledge and belief in everything other than the desire of God to make known what He makes you know, by total facing, sanctified from other common particularisations and imitative virtues and from relative love affairs in what appertains to the immanence, and other things, by superlative oneness and collectivity and complete purity, and by assiduously preserving this state and continuing superabundantly most of the time without worry and without dividing thought and with great concentration.’

May we all find such taste.

Day Three

Unsurprisingly, Sadruddin-i-Konevi’s commentary was the subject this morning, too – lemon-gold sunlight shone though the Meadhall windows, at its all-conquering December angle, leaving you bathing or blinded, disabled either way. For some the passage was clear, elevating, joyfully agreed to, for others it shone its own awful, munificent light upon indistinct darknesses, mostly to do with finding oneself unable to cope, as if coping was what was being asked for. And it became clear that while this light reveals it also melts…Someone asked so what does it mean ‘…to initiate our intention to the Love of God’?  The question rang like a bell, because so often we assume, inexplicably, that we know that part. They went on to describe how lost they felt. And we knew collectively what they meant; lost among best laid plans, our inaccurate, un-scaled map of the multiplicity, all territory we thought we knew, uncharted and dragon-ful. But the sincerity of the question made it seem like a real space was already clearing before the questioner and the rest of us - since we are in this together.  As they spoke of their incapacities we heard the voice of dependency and asking, and servant-hood.

And there was a clear feeling in the room of being in an ancient, noble company – the expectations of comportment inner and outer so great that they were impossible without recourse to one’s essential nature and honestly assessed condition, however inadequate. Some one wept uncontrollably, silently.

For myself I found I had little to say in the way of interpretation of Sadruddin-i-Konevi’s extraordinary catalogue of advice and help. It is a treasure trove of meanings and elevations, only I wanted to wear it like a coat, or fashion it into a stick, keep it in my breast pocket, something to be worn or carried about my person touched and touching, a form of help known firstly but not exclusively through sheer proximity. By this I knew I was at some kind of starting point. And I remembered visiting Chisholme for the first time in the mid 1980’s and being served lunch in the sitting room by the principal, Peter Young (the first time I met him) – I had not been looked after in this way before – not with this quality of un-self-regarding attention. But the point is, that at 19, I was not engaged in the esoteric conversations or even the everyday discourse that surrounded *Bulent, I simply sat as close as possible, sometimes right next to him – yet there was benefit even then, essential goodness.

All afternoon the sound of the petrol driven super-pressure- washer droned on, while heroes on scaffolds fought to turn the Pavilion’s greening algae-ed roof back to its sail cloth white, from something being absorbed downward into the earth to something that might float, poised, graceful, between worlds, but born of neither.

And in the afternoon we returned to the theme of “joy of thought”, and the Divine Munificence, and the conversation as in the morning had, at times, the touchstone quality of being about us and not about us, about things and not about things, about God and not “about” anything.

*Bulent Rauf, consultant to the school until his death in 1987

Day Four

Happily the Fusus al Hikam and with it its Ottoman commentary is very present this week. It is the best help and the clearest map.

I remember days like this particularly during the second course I attended in 1988 during the study of the 'Tarjuman' (Tarjuman al Ashwaq, by Ibn 'Arabi), in preparation for retreat. The sun comes up but the density of lowering, dark grey, battleship clouds, focus us on interior matters even as we go about our business in the equivocal daylight.  Even outside looks like inside lit by an energy saving bulb.

By contrast the Meadhall shines.

Today the conversation opened in the morning with the pact of union and the agreement to the Lord of lords as described in the chapter on the prophet Ishmael in the Fusus al Hikam (see in particular p 481 in the first edition of the Fusus al Hikam with Ottoman commentary. In the second edition, look for the passage staring with the bold type: ‘And Ishmael became superior to others of the essences…’).  How does this relate to the theme of clearing the space?  Because such an agreement is a precondition for clearing.

On Layla Shamash’s tombstone, one of several constellated around the monument to man, is carved this Ishmaelian sentence, "O confident soul return to your Lord, agreeing and agreed to. Enter among My servants and my Paradise“. Chisholme builder/stonemason David Apthorp carved it and spoke touchingly about how the last word he cut out in the Broughton Moor slate was the word “confident”, because it would have been tempting providence to approach it otherwise.

So confidence is not bravado or self-reliance, but the presence of the human spirit, which in turn is no other than the universal spirit as you and I, and as such apt and ready for return and to be returned, because happily and by happenstance that is its nature. But there is more…

We were all asked very directly, then, whether we were in agreement to this pact of union, because a pact has to be agreed to. By definition it cannot be imposed and neither can it just happen willy-nilly. Again, importantly, this agreement is not with the order of Chisholme or with what was being said because the principal was saying it, or with some ideal of Beshara or the Beshara School or some other tempting fabrication, but rather with this spirit of oneness, our own original agreement reframed in the majesty and generosity, sweetness and heart break, of this life on earth; the agreement to cultivate, since we are, it was said several times, “relational beings” this love affair that is the reason we breathe, the one reality self-imagined as our own souls, our very being.  It was a very powerful question, easily diverted into discourses on what is meant by “agreement” or finding other words to say the same thing – the kind of public theosaurusising that delays the inevitable, holds up the train, obscures the vision – like when the old Reginald woodburning stove on a still damp day decides to vent through the intake and fill the room with smoke because there just isn’t enough initial heat to get the air flowing upward. Some found an instantaneous “yes” others were caught mid-strife, weapon-less on the field of their own inner struggle, or inner-outer conflict.

For myself I was of the yes and no, and found it depended on who of one’s inner community responded.  I found a clamour, as I strained to hear the yes in me.  The leader of my self, not yet unequivocally in the ascendency, kept on disappearing into the fray.  I was, am still in some way, mid-battle, mid-war, the commander missing in action though not presumed dead. But in such uncertain circumstances, the prophet Ishmael’s exemplary leadership of his own inner and outer community is brought to mind, and it is clear there is work to be done but the best of precedents may be invoked in the undertaking.

Beneath the unbroken grey, through which no sun is discernable as such, only its dim after effect diffused though countless infinitessimal drops of water, work continued on cleaning the Pavilion, the pressure-washer spray floating upward to join the greater collectivity above. The walls have now been carted away, leaving the roof, like a parachute that hasn’t quite landed, flapping gently in a slow warmish wind. It’s Thursday and the house, which is not ours, but God’s, or Reality’s if you like, is being hoovered and dusted and made ready for another opportunity for uncovering our true relational nature. The work is quiet, determined, facilitated by the fact that the house loves it, makes it easy.

In the 4.30pm dark again we return further inward, taking new places, or not, in the capacious circle of the Meadhall, arguably the most tardic room on the planet, because of its intention as a place in which we might discover that inside us are no less than 18,000 universes, which are in fact innumerable….

Not surprising then that the afternoon begins where we left off with a reminder of how ‘clearing the space’ comes from the precondition of agreement to the unity of being, to be according to what He wants, and expressing, even if only momentarily, the awesome reality of our dependence.  It is the source of the whole exquisite canon of reciprocal sayings, such as “remember me and I will remember you”, and “honour Me and I will honour you”, this latter being the famous inspiration for Eric Liddell, the winner of the 400 meters at the 1924 Paris Olympics, and subject of the movie Chariots of Fire.

The movie, which gets its title from Blake’s Jerusalem, mentioned on Day one, itself inspired by the prophet Elijah’s powerfully singular aspiration and the extraordinary (in the proper sense) vehicle that enabled it, was brought as an example of the two ways in which a race may be run. Liddell ran because he felt “God’s pleasure”, Abrahams because, as depicted in the movie at least, he had more than his fair share of the kind of personal ambition so encouraged in conventional competitive sport. Liddell’s religious devotion meant he had to miss the 100m final which Abrahams won because it was on a Sunday and he couldn’t go against what he saw to be God’s Law regarding the Sabbath, the day of rest, the Divine stillness, perhaps even the place where the prophet Elijah heard the still small voice of calm. Following swiftly on these heels the contemporary phenomenon of Ultra Running was brought up, in which athletes run day and night for up to a hundred miles and sometimes more – these runners don’t bother with mere marathons because they are too short and don’t run in special running shoes designed by the pseudo-scientists of the Nike and Adidas R&D departments because they just don’t work with this kind of running. Competition, sponsorship and professionalisation also have no place in the ultra-running world because all introduce a dimension other than the love of the act itself, which is much more akin to Liddell’s feeling “God’s pleasure”, sheer presence, perhaps even, to return to Sadruddin-i-Konevi’s words, “joy of thought and freedom of place after the Divine Munificence”. The absence of secondary motivations gives space for reserves of energy and a sense of grace that are not acknowledged in conventional sporting contexts as anything more than the after-effects of having perfected the machine.

I don’t know in what way the prophet Elijah could be said to have perfected the machine – except perhaps that he was, it goes without saying, beyond exemplary in spiritual practice – but there is no doubt that such luminous aspiration, such passion for the company of the Beloved is only sustainable by leaving all the space to God.

Day Five

Rain, and Nelson Mandela returned, as he no doubt has for many these past days to remind us of the reality of embodiment, the exemplar of service and the transformation of circumstances, the confident self, the human spirit. It was mentioned how so many world leaders had joined the crowds to file past his coffin. Many of them have been interviewed and most too have allowed themselves to show their own humanity – because he led with that foot, walked the talk.  Many leaders must know that they have not been either willing or able to move with the grace and dignity of Mandela, that they have not for whatever reason, managed to embody any real or lasting message. 

Mandela occupies countless human hearts– a place absent of any other politician or world leader, except perhaps the Dalai Lama – for he is like a clear space, attractive to spaces that themselves want to be clear and it is like this because, as Bishop Tutu said, Mandela showed us what we could become. There is not another world leader who holds anything like that kind of position, which is no position at all, like Anthony Gormley’s One and Other (the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square), symbol of a universal possibility. And now there is not even one, leader that is – only the possibility of such manifest dignity left as a legacy to be taken up or not by any and all.

Well what are we waiting for?

Out in the persistent drizzle, the Pavilion is all bones free of any real distinction between inside and out, its numbered floor panels wet with rain, bits of scaffold scattered and purposeless at the moment - it’s body-cloth, folded and put away. It has been an education all of its own to clean and make ready for a new life next year and beyond.

In the afternoon we asked ourselves what each of us would take away from this week.

For one it was the story of Mandela’s invitation of his former jailors to be guests of honour at his inauguration and the way this act of supreme forgiveness and generosity transforms and mercifies even the most terrible of histories into a legacy of hope and elevation.

For another it was and the way that while in jail, having seen the necessity of renouncing anger, he turned his relationship to these same armed guards on its head. Over time they changed from being jailors to a kind of personal security team, a transformation so deep and radical that he became their friend, advisor and confidante in all kinds of matters personal and professional.

For another it was sheer gratitude for the company, in this exploration of the self’s real relationship to its origin, so universal and so private at once.

For another it was the insight that we must begin from where we really are – for that is the ground of being, and our state is a clue to the stateless, our colour a clue to the colourless. The whirling dervish turns freely because his left foot is on the ground, the gift of gravity acknowledged and transformed to engine the soul’s upward aspiration, inward intent. Bulent describes the dervishes in the film 'Turning' as '...knowing who they are and where they are'. This is perhaps, less a description of a condition of enlightenment than something simpler and much more accessible, a kind of fundamental mindfulness which includes physical, mental and spiritual gathering, each aspect supporting the other.

Finally we spoke of the School itself, the relinquishing of ownership, subtle and not so subtle, of the knowledge that is enshrined here at Chisholme in its very fabric and the knowledge that can be carried because it is in a person’s heart, head and hands.  And there was a warning about how one might fall into the trap of responding to another’s request to know what they are living for, by telling them what we are living for; and how people who have questioned their existence in the light of the unity of being, may come to Chisholme and find this house is already fully occupied, with our selves, our received knowledge, our history, our ancient and unresolved acts, our dysfunction, our habit, our nostalgia, our partial, ill-informed loves. The intention to clear the outer and inner space, by whatever means are appropriate, a kindness, a submission, a confession, an apology, an ablution, a return, a practice, an embrace, a severance, a surrender, a praise, an elevation, a remembrance, a love of union - such an intention congruent with all its possible beautiful and beautifying acts can become a true embodiment, where embodiment is to leave all the space to God.

Finally I would like to quote the opening portion of an inspired piece written by Jili Flowers and which she brought during the morning. 

“Bismillah ar Rahman ar Rahim,

This School, this place, holds a precious heritage of strong and powerful effect. It carries within itself a precious teaching that is truly of a universal nature and at one and the same time a singular resolution that proceeds forth in a universal flow to effect the shift in consciousness that is needed at this time for the benefit of Mankind. It is a great requirement of the age we are in for it is what we do now that affects the future. “

All the best

Aaron Cass; Friday 13th December 2013