winter solstice 2014

winter is medicine.

the earth rests on her greatest lean today, back further than the cool cats at parties like fat joes and busta rhymes and the illusive realm of idols most of us inadvertently worship, praise, debate at parties on who is better, get starry eyed and groupie about.

i keep it pushing, barely noticing bon iver, kendrick lamar, hozier, drake, wocka, nikki, taylor swift, meek, j lo, rick ross, shakira, and the curly haired, and braided and dred locked and blonde groupies with thin waists and big hips surrounding them. i push past, pausing inches from the culture of spectacle, to see the caged tree on lafayette and bleeker, touching its roots, closing my eyes and hearing the words of the tree...la illaha illalla...

winter soul, sis, is upon us.

brother i see u bowing in the forest, head down at dawn in jamat with pines, so quietly, deer walk past you in salam, noting your ancient mathematical movement, as taught to u by your father and he taught by his all the way back to the guru muhammad...who continued the teachings of the invisible yogis of yore, messages lost on those of us who chose idols of stone and paint to bow down to. that lineage still continues...the lineage of idol worshippers, replacing deities on temples with jimi hendrix and bob marley and bob dylan, and van morrison, and black and white and latino and asian and indian. but mostly black and white. obsession.

winter solstice, the conclusion of months of declining days, of growing so dark that night has conquered day, draws us to meditate on dark, on the night.

the night is sacred, i am reminded, when i am in the forest, preparing bedding and a tent at 7pm, before dark settles in and i am left to close my eyes, listen to, and tell stories, after staring at the quilt of a starry starry night from beside a stream in idaho. all praise is due.

hidden words appear after midnight, in dimensions that leave me outside the shackle of this body, and phones and keyboards and screens.

night is a time to lose self. when i am lost enough, i find that there is nothing more important than being next to my ammu n abbu n bhaiays n nanu n nana n dadu n dada, n all of us in cave-like mud house of my abbu's childhood, listening to stories of a time before my encapsulation into this body. this body is often a mystery to me.

this new moon, i look to get deeper in path of being medicine man by way of bowing lower, of learning surahs, and saying these spells so quiet that the Qur'an can be seen across the cell membranes that make up the tissue of my cardiac muscles.

this winter solstice reminds me that life is a contiuum, that the 5 bowings a day, the same 5 bowings, are proof in constancy, that the sun goes up and down daily, that without this bowing, my great great grandparents ad infinitum would be buried as a thought...

i cannot speak to religion, or make you feel better about why i bow the way i do, but i do it. and this doing has become so clear, that no words of master philosophers, whose words like the warned of poets/musicinas,twist reality to constantly be in question, stir the roots of spirit that leave me so deeply rooted i emerge in jupiter. their words get lost before they reach me. they are words that pause like refrigerator magnets-words. i breathe into hoo, and rooooooohhhh comes out.

this new moon i grow deeper in responsibility, in growing deeper in being so present that the money war has no grip on me, that the irs leaves the roofs they snipe from, next to the privately hired para-military of credit-card companies that call me and remind me of debt that i never had till they found a hole. they always find a hole and fine and fine and penal codes emerge like the words on degrees. peace vulture-peoples who are white and black and latino and asian and indian and arab. i hear your appeals of creating a black wallstreet and a brown empire state, and pray for your soul, and let you keep your blackness and browness and indian and jamaican and polish and nigerian and mexican flag to yourself. no sympathy for your devil walk, no matter how mtv the swagger. prayers for the new-age, multi-cultural crackers - i see you.

walk two worlds, my cuzin once told me. this one, the world of maya, and the real one, the forests. this new moon i am walking both with presence, with clarity, with techniques that serve both. this new moon i am getting bills handled, debt dissolved, and managing money for building ummah. i am doing this as i grow deeper in asana, in bowing, in food and dikr and work. this new moon, i am clear that everything is ALLAH, and that which is off frequency requires technique to flow through.

this new moon i grow deeper in the letting gos and embracings of intentions of previous moons - deeper in the disicpline, in the few, in loving closer, deeper, through deeper work and presence...

99 names: Al-Muhaymin: The Guardian

all praise is due to the Guardian, from whom this body emanates, is brought into life by the hoo of ALLAH-hoo… the breath of ALLAH…secret science…

the Guardian protects the secret science, reveals to those who bow so low…dissolution…

…the science is powerful…overwhelming to many…scary and repulsive when they learn there are arabic words attached to it…and yet packaged by others who seek to stew pot spirituality into their new age soup to recreate, to be a founder, to be somehow more than ancient mathematics…

…the Guardian has passed down this knowledge to live by, to get through this ephemeral flight through the life and times of guru’s whose biographies are in the hearts of those who know…

…peace to one of my guardians, my brother, One-Who-Knows-ALLAH…from your Quiet example orally traditioned in the path of the prophet, by the slight of hand that does in mute… so modest, so colorful… saturn…

…head on earth, in the sparse forest of astoria park, of indian country, before the east river and the gateway to the 10 prison buildings that make up rikers island, i bow to the Guardian and shed a tear of joy for my friends and family and you, and you who inspire me to go lower to get higher…

…all praise is due to the Guardian for you in this brief moment we co-habitate, where our spirits have been blessed to intersect before the candle is out into Always…

…the guardians of truth walk amongst us…hold truths so deep their presence will absorb you like iridescent eyes, more than bedroom talk and game, lead you to a time before time before time…i’ve met a few…know a couple…

…they walk in Quiet, in the strut of yogi’s whose status as yogis are permanently lost to those with titles…

…Real yogi’s move in quiet…sit next to you in the 6 train where you pace, rush to make the subway move faster, to make the yoga class taught by your favorite yogi who teaches yoga at the top studios, does energy work, lets you know how other yoga teachers ain’t ish…

“can’t wait to see my yogi!” you say aloud.

the yogi next to you ceased using the title a long time ago, keeps her head bowed, wears modesty behind the covers of hijab and the prayer beads that sit in her pocket that she counts 99 times, as the guy across from her wears his 100 colorful malas over his white shirt, below his indigenous tattoos, and gets into a conversation with the impressed-chick going to a class on crystal healing at the open center…

…peace to all the seekers…all of us who search for meaning through displacement like 9-year old plastic scavengers on heaps of 3^rd world dump in Bangladesh…

peace to all. peace to everyone doing what they have to to eat to make sense of the insensible. minimize the harm if you can. ask the Guardian for guidance. trust in the Guardian to protect and Guide.

if you are reading these words, and processing information, then you are as privileged as i am to have eyes to see with, a mind to analyze, synthesize. the Guardian has brought you this far, through all your trials, through moments of ready to die’s. you are here.

call the coroner, bring boquets for the dead, for the body you tatted with titles, status, race, class, nationhood, stories you believed, with material that became your signature.

bury the stage and the self-rationalized, decontextual tattoos and piercings and certificates and degrees and cool.

burn. stand at the funeral pyre, and watch this body ascend into transparence with the air, with the sky above you, until there is no distinction between you and You…

the author of these practices...

if there is anything positive that u see in me, about me, it is all due to the teachings of the guru/prophet muhammad who has taught me to worship to no man, including himself, who has taught me how to bow down, when, how, to align with the sun moon and planets, to fast, to keep my eyes, head and sense of self low, keep my face shielded from smoking mirrors, to rid myself of ego and the culture/s that embrace and worship cults of personalities, the ephemeral, who has taught me, instead, to prostrate to the One-ness, to move, eat, speak light, and to walk the path of Quiet.

all my discipline, respect, humility, universalism, laws, scientrific inquiry, stem from this tradition, that has been passed down from generation to generation to my family, who have imparted these values to me. so when i share with u, this is the context, the lineage, nothing i've come up with on my own...

if there is any negative in me, it is my ego, my straying from the path of the Great Surrender to the Source of Peace (islam), and instead giving in to the golden calf of senses...

...audzubillahe minash shaitauner rajeem, bismillah hirahmaniraheem 

medicine in drown: dani

dani and i were inseparable. i usually saw him downstairs, at the ballet store his shorty typed sales on, like she were writing a novel, from behind a register . talia had his five year old, who would grow up to keep her delicate head on the side, her thin hand oozing attitude on her narrow hip, and her brown blonde curls falling to the ground. her spunk was purely her moms. she got dani's emerald eyes and soft features. but her words were thin and sharp, like the kitchen knives that talia went through to cut yucca, when i'd be over with my shorty, just so i could get a break from her and hang with dani.

my shorty kept a circus tightrope around my throat, and when i refused to believe i was tied to anything, that the tether was just my imagination, and she was just poker-facing, she'd crack the bottle of absolut in her hand, the one she drank like coconut water, while listening to razia sultan and pakeezah and hindi songs from the amitab era, and slit her arms, working her way to her wrists.

talia didn't exactly do the same to dani, but i could tell their relationship was mixed martial war. they'd been together since the 5th grade and they were in their mid-twenties...which would be cool, except she had her arm crossed and carried a scroll of complaints that she listed off to anyone who came to look at leotards and ballerina skirts at the store, and dani would play houdini, disappearing for months at a time, into the marines, and then off into a cruise ship cleaning elevators, when he was awol. he'd tell me of his odyssey as soon as he returned for a a week, and giggle. i laughed too, hysterical, glad to be reunited with him..

we don't have any plastic plates, talia complained. meaning: go get some disposables cause i don't feel like washing, cleaning, and participating in other un-american activities.

we stole moments to pretend to pick up soda and plates and missing items for dinner.

on gerard ave, we hooked a left and walked towards yankee stadium, stopping below the 4 and D and talking revolution and poems and the change of weather, and the fresh coat he had, and the dope kicks i had. bronx businessmen walked with stories of time shuffling their feet. the 4 train snaked overhead and popped bottles on the tracks that it cut through, curt and conspicuous like a tank in the sand.

lets go downtown, dani said, falling into the underground D staicase, after a half hour passed and we still didn't pick up anything.

what about talia and moni?

they'll forgive us.

dani was right, i thought, admiring his stealthy decisions, as i watched him by two 40's - one for him one for me - to drown in before we got to 40 deuce.

and these two bags of doritos, dani said, holding up the 50 cent bags.

we were set for our journey to the city, and medicine was dani, cause i needed the drown, and escape, and splurge on the arcades we spent our dinner money on. it was cool though, worth it. we rambo'd up behind the screens, and shot enough cops and soldiers, to make us feel accomplished.

here's a star and stripe, dani said, ripping off a pretend badge from his broad shoulder and sticking it on my army jacket.

twentysomething was escaping, leaving this body for drown, for leaping into bottles and good times. even back then i was leaving my body...then it was to descend into the heaven of party-and-bullshit...

dani knew how to have a good time. or he used to. the last time he called me, he was in texas somewhere, told me, but, all i know about texas is the goblets they give you at bbq's.

dani told me that he was done having a good time in that way, said he didn't  know if he was going to make it. none of us did.

none of us made it. none of the fragmented pieces of crew i belonged to. most of them stood on the ledges of roof's and wrote their alter-egos names on the impossible walls between subway tracks and highrises and air and death, hoping to be re-united with a soul mate in the concrete, 20 stories below. dani was one of them.

i write dani's name everywhere i go, like he were a missing link to a puzzle i'm trying to solve. 

99 names: al Mumin - the Inspirer of Faith ii

inspired.

inspired by truth, those who tell the truth like peppermint...she was so honest it hurt to look at her... almost every other friend i had was always lying. i was...atleast i was...

was lying soon as i stepped into kindergarten. noticed the woman who dropped me off looked nothing like the women of the white and black and brown mothers who dropped their kids off. ammu wore a green sari full of the patterns of noakhali...canoes and ektaras decorating the borders of her blouse. 

i turned away...

first day of school, ever, i spoke like i knew english. soon enough forgot bengali, and apologized.

apologized for my moms nose-ring, and bindi, and bracelets and silk cloths that covered her in a modesty so deep - not even a speckle of leg - that it was anathema...

apologized till i was rewriting my story to fit in, to squeeze into the generationally hurt, and morally destitute, the prostraters of the golden calf in the form of madonna, michael jackson, george michael, run dmc, 

replaced the One-ness my grandfather, the hakeem, taught me to bow down to, for gold ropes and pumas and the chicks who loved them (which seemed like all chicks). 

ironically, for all the racial tensions that i walked into, between white and black (brown and red and yellow held little vocabulary/visibility/interest from the lens of the hegemony of white and black, then n still, now...), both of the unequal binaries - caucasia (white america and all the polish, irish, and sometimes turkish, and arab, etc immigrants who exchanged their cultures for skin to pretend something they were not) and black america (and all the caribbean and african and sometimes latino, arab, and sometimes east indians, who traded in their cultures and complexities, for blanket statements, and a pretending for a contorted-minority-power of being americans) seemed to bow down to the same god of stuff.

white and black america were prostrate to the god of small and big and shiny things that were bought and sold and shot for and mugged for, and made fun of for if it was past the line of trend.

white and black and brown and yellow america were in worship of the golden calf and i had to too, if i had any hope of getting in the doors of the party.

decades later this golden calf of the consumerism that moses condemned the israelites for, continued to be a source of inspiration in my brooklyn cool.

surrounded by fashionistas - artist men and women who spoke and wore revolution in the language of vogue and gq and details and left their footsteps like Hollywood boulevard - i became a pose again...click, click, click, click...

through the Inspirer of Faith as revealed through the trees, rivers, sun, air, through the legacy of the teachings of the guru muhammad, n the enlightened who've walked the earth with hands over face when the cameras of cool come out, i've learned to quiet a little bit, to take it down a notch. 

through my encounters with You in everyone i come across, in every morsel of food and every ray of light, in every drop of rain and in every movement of body...i am learning to worship, and alhamdullilah...

thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You for inspiring faith in what seemed impossible... thank You for the teachings of the guru muhammad, for the Guidance of structuring my life in the material-ephemeral to ascend to You, the  Always...thank You for inspiring me to be clearer on this path of the Great Surrender, to filter and weed, and keep it on a levitational...all praise is due...

99 names: al Mumin - the Inspirer of Faith

la ill aha illala...

all praise is due to the 1ness, the inspirer of faith, the one who allows for these hands to move and type like i've lost it.

i did. lose it. lost it when fasting that first time, 12 years back, before i was a surrenderer, when i was doing surya namaskar alone in my room and drinking only water for seven days. lost it...

weak and shedding, i moonwalked through sunset park, forgetting the crisp big pun white tee i wore and the matching uptowns, walking past asphalt into the kryptonite of the crisp reggaeton cadre and their usher r&b counterparts, mutually strangled in brand-new-sterile-ness.

don't do it, i could almost see them plead. their d&g shades rolling down their noses in disbelief.

he's crossing the line, i heard them collectively say, as i stepped into dirt and hugged a tree, smashing big pun with trunk colors.

couldn't help being inspired past the maya.

thing is, the revelations that that water-fast lead to, had little to do with conjecturing and dice and tarot cards and astrological interpretations.

the path that i would become, had little to do with faith...

sant Claus requires faith, requires a belief in a sweet old jolly man who comes down from the northern crux with gifts and candy for children all over the world who believe.

belief in the beyonder, in the marvel superhero who came to earth to experience life as a human, who was saddened by his experience, demonized while here and deified when he left for his planet, by the mutants who came across him, requires belief.

belief that somehow, you and your family and the region you are from occupies a status apart, of being in the upper echelon of the hierarchy of special, requires belief. being a chosen people based on phenotype, geography, etc, is debatable - how do you categorize people into a hierarchy of more or less chosen by God? what are thes standards? whose standards are they? by whose criteria?

Al-Lah - Allah - the translation of which is the One-ness, requires no belief.

Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat (ALLAH) requires no belief.

ALLAH is that (neither He nor She) which you cannot live without. if you don't believe me, stop eating and drinking for the next month. if you don't believe me, grip your nose shut and duct tape your mouth sealed. if you don't believe me, put both your feet in front of the edge of the cliff. 

la illah illala...there is no god but God

the trees speak volumes, move in the language of Real yogis - Quiet. so do the sierra straights, kilimanjaro, himalaya, macchu picchu - solid as warriors, pelted by thunderous whips, as they bow down.

the river inspires through its flow, whether it be in the shadow of an e.k.g skyline of queens, brooklyn, boroughs of towers of babel, or it is the waters of sinai, in the occupied territory (a misnomer, as it suggests only the remaining slivers of the west bank and gaza are occupied and not the rest of that stolen land renamed from biblical texts), diverted for some people to have drinking water, and others to have parched throats and thirst to death.

the water knows no lines, nor nationalisms to be claimed by. 

the center of the forests of the catskills inspire a reflection so introspective, skin melds into the earth that roots oaks and pines.

the Quiet of the mountain, taller than man versus nature, stronger than westerners (white, black, brown) looking to conquer a feat, inspires strength, inspires standing for something or otherwise, yosemite reminded me, you'll fall for anything.

the dry of the mojave dessert inspires fast, of a discipline that goes beyond the thirst for water and desire for moist foods. the cacti lining bryce and zion in utah, inspire the alignment of surya and chand namaskar.

the sun coming up inspires smiles of spring trees and the laughter of ocean waves - an eclipse of ego.

my pen and words become less about being fly and  spoken and recognized and limelighted in the reminder that the sun has shone and fed my abbu and ammu and their parents and my great great great grandparents ad infinite...

ALLAH inspires a faith so clear, that it is all around us, that belief is unnecessary, if we Quiet, and listen...

99 names: as-Salam: the Source of Peace

in the name of ALLAH, the Most Beneficient, the Most Merciful.

islam, the Great Surrender, is the process of submission to the Source of Peace. islam, translates to Surrendering to the Source of Peace. the Source of Peace is Al-LAH, the name of which translates to number One.

peace to You. peace to your mother and father and sisters and brothers and aunties and uncles, and cousins and friends, and lineage…we share the same one…

so peace to you from the Source that we manifest from, the one that is peace, that has always been Peace, salam, even when the Arabic word for it becomes reprogrammed to fit bombs and ak’s.

somehow the hollow-hearted white, black, brown, yellow soldiers who drop bombs on mosques, drop their pants and grope, intrude, inseminate women (women with so much modesty that shaking hands would lead to a blush), are rewarded with pins and stripes and celebrated as heroes…

somehow…prayers for them…you have my prayers…you did what you did though…recognize…do something about it…find your peace…prayers for returning to Source…Peace

…all praise is due for this path of Peace that anchors the day, the body, the year, human relations into the mathematics of the Quiet humility of sun moon stars aligned in orbit with the Source of Peace..

peace to my grandfather, the medicine man, who prayed, who never gave up on me…even when i was gone, so gone that bottles, blunts, yoga-talking, dancing metaphysics to supercat…

…the Source of Peace has always been there, the redwoods told me…

but there is no peace my boy dani used to say, as we walked from subway car to subway car, four deep, paper-bag bottles in our hands, bronx our audience, our shell-tops and long curls our shine...the police confirmed this when they waited for us at the next stop, pulling us out, taking our id’s and handing us fines…for being brown, dani said, for being poor…yeah, I used to say..it’s a set up…but who was setting who up? who put the bottle in my hand, the sparkly-white kicks on my feet?

…at some point i set myself up, became that chick that my boy juan told me about, bloody eyed, with scuffs covering his face like tats. the maya was that siren, Juan’s potential fling, the one who was so fine, she was butter-fly, as my dudes and i used to say. the one who he met recently at the time, and who hollered at him that night, told him to meet him on 36^th and 21^st, by the afghani chicken spot, under the glare of ravenswoods pj’s. the chick who was ghost when juan got there, but a bunch of dudes with fists faster than blur materialized like the hard of the timbs they kicked him in with.

…set myself up, was part of the guys around the bend that came with smiles and questions before putting my brother in a chokehold, before jumping us…i was with them, kicking my brother in, keeping cold steel on my homeboy dre's face. i was them, laughing at me asking for help from men in cars that paused to see a spectacle but not do anything about it.

…I was behind the setup the whole time…i was the one who pulled on my Ammu’s sari and pleaded for nikes and walkman's and baggy cargos...i was the one that checked in paystubs for eighths, ounces, and bar-talk…i was the one who dressed words with the same material that disguised my body…and when i was older, well into my adulthood, i was the one who made indigenous a brand-name and claimed henna and yoga like moschino bags, i was the one who attracted women who valued the surface-rebel, and of course…candy corn attracts cavities, fried chicken invites heart attacks, potheads attract potheads, the hollow finds the empty, hurt looks for Real in hurt, Real recognizes Real..real surrenders move in Quiet...

...been trying to find peace…been trying…every so often i’m there…every so often when i am so Quiet that all i am doing is doing…when asana is a covenant between me and the crescent moon, when food is the mud my ancestors became clay in, when i forgo an exchange of info with potential lovers, for a prayers for your path...when most people i come across give up or avoid or say very little to me other than Peace…the Quiet filters…

the Quiet gets blurred into silence, a sinking ship in the middle of the day when i forget Purpose, when Biggie creeps into my head, when i swagger like drunken rockstars in the frequency of a maya-cool, when bills and rent and alienation grip me by the throat, when i forget that the only Purpose as the son of the medicine man, my Abbu, tells me, is to worship, to worship so deeply that…Peace.

 

 

99 names: al Qudus ii - the Purest ii

the Oneness is Love. pure Love. but what does pure love mean? been thinking about this a lot. been wondering about this cause i've been in love, am in love...

what is moving in al Quddus in matters of love require? does it mean to just give it up to whoever, whenever, wherever. 

walking in al Quddus means to be real, to be honest, transparent, to walk, speak, think, move from Quddus.

pure means to Love, and give Love and admire and recognize the beauty of everyone, no matter how ugly their actions may be.

pure, is to operate from this place of purity, where Love is the default, but beware to avoid cofusion with the notion of passive, un-defined love.

let your Quddus in Love be as boundless as the sun and moons and planets, bounded by the orbit of Essence. pure Love is more than an emotion, it is a science that is lost on westerners (all over the world) grappling with lost souls and spirituality.

pure Love is guided by the mathematics of the ecosystems of oceanic galaxies. understanding the math is important to purity, to staying clear of contamination. you can choose not, you can shrug and do you, eat whatever, do whatever, bang with whoever. we have that choice.

al Quddus is truth, and truth misses me like haley's comets and saturn returns, and 1970's bangladesh.

if pure is truth, then i have a long journey ahead of me...because i am off kilter and have often been hypnotized by the pied pipers tunes of babylon, i been drawn to untruth that i've been trying to shake ever since...

been drawn to the combo of skin deep, of slim, long hair, vanilla and cardamom...

been drawn to women who are love, who chemically combust like fracked Pennsylvania, but don't love themselves, who look for lovers like the empty coke cans my homie and i would collect when we were seven, in exchange for ten nickels, 50 cents, to buy a snickers bar.  thing is, what's this saying about me? i've been wondering recently. 

an empty coke can, i've been looking to break through this aluminum, return to the soil of banyan and bodies buried in a traceless earth that only my father could guide me to. don't know where my deciest  grandfather, the medicine man, lies, which tree holds his spirit and bones. 

somehow, at some point, in my babylon-assimilation crip-walk, i became a tombstone, a funeral gathering for the dead, wounded spirits who seek company in the hollow.  

99 names: al Qudus v - the Most Pure v

auzubillahe minash shaitauner rajeem, bismillah hirahma niraheeem...

al Quddus. the pure, chaste, virgin from the place of bramcharya, from the place of Knowing the senses lie, that they are the weakness of adam biting the apple.

we are stronger than flesh and popeye's crisps.

i embody impure.

most times i am weak. most times i crawl into the 7 train, so far below the crowd, that i am as noticeable as the microbes that horizontally replicate. i stare through blemished windows and imagine reincarnation into a slick new york oracle from om magazine, teaching yoga classes and bagging chicks, like dude from a bikram class boasted about in the locker-room.

i imagine rebirth and get anxious, get hamlet - to sleep, perchance to dream and in that dream...escape the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...

most times i am as pure as fake plastic trees lamented by radio heads. i am as pure as the packaging of yoga mats and t-shirts advertising natural, green, vegan-friendly.

most times i am wondering what i have to offer, and what happened to my 19 year old mother and my young revolutionary father.

pure is me finally realizing that i have issues that i need to deal with, that these issues are contaminants that keep me in an ostritch walk, with my head dragging through asphalt.

pure is knowing that i have very little control over the world, and that the point is not control, and that i could only love and receive love and be okay with being utterly in love and walking away from it because there is no convincing, because there is no changing anyone, because love is more than a
feeling and a hope, more than a dollar and a dream.

pure is to accept the truth in all without deluding into that truth, without in the process attempting to alter that truth to one that fits your ideal.

pure is to understand love is for all, but the sanctity of sacred sharing, of bodies and homes merged, is an act of al Quddus, and that this sacred union should be reserved only for divine intervention, only from a purely aligned truth.

pure is peace, true harmony, a shared space with spirit, far from the excitement of pat benatar's love is a battlefield, of h/bollywood/indie film definitions of love that involve the formula of chase and arguments and cheating and explosive, breath-taking chemistry in break ups to make ups.

pure is me being aligned with Truth enough to be strong from a place where Essence meets this body, to look for the barriers that keep me from loving others, and to love from a place of divine mathematics, from knowing the difference between the right numbers and wrong...

all praise is due. all praise is always due. all praise will always be due to al Qudus.

99 names: al Qudus iv - the Purest iv

during my meditation on pure today, after bowing down, i realized that skyscrapers and turntables, and backward hats on words are real to some, to many, to most, and has been to me for most of my life, even though Self knew better...

pure is to understand that there is no convincing, that we all have to come to our own conclusions on truth on our own, and that, that's okay.

you can love someone and not be in a relationship with them. you could even crush, have some butterflies, and watch them fly off like fairies in the middle of a dream on the hammock in the forest. 

crush and butterflies don't have to mean a relationship, don't have to mean two years later and still hoping that she'll change, that he'll pay more attention, that her words that contradict her actions will restitch into pashmina, that his rage, negligence, abuse shows how much he cares...

pure is to love from the math of truth.

and the truth is, loving yourself.

i realized that i have to love myself to be pure.

and as drawn as i am to spirit talk and those on the path, i could only love from a place of love, from loving myself, and only love those who love themselves, that like them, i have to be  strong enough to distinguish between love and moments of High. 

to be pure, in the path of surrender is synonymous with cleanliness.

before bowing down on the rug of mountain, feet rooted in soil, the surrender must wash in a science, the outside, must find a quiet place free of noise and chaos, a place where there is a peace of body and mind.

before the surrenderer can place his/her hands in beggar position, palms up head down, to beg the Essence for Guidance, there has to be a cleanse from head to toe, from inside to deeper inside, proximal to distal.

go inside. when your heart beats too rapidly, go inside and learn to tell the difference between a feeling and truth.

shhhh. only Quiet will get you to Pure.

Quddus is the womb of the soul.

99 names: al Qudus iii - the Purest iii

in my meditation on pure, earlier today, during maghrib, as the pure love rays of a precise sun sank into shadows in the firmament, definitions arose like jesus touched bodies, like the soul of shyams in the prayers of rumi. 

pure is to love, from the place of One, where the individual soul meets the endless ocean in fana. love and give love like the arithmetic of trees.

the trees grow to be unassimilable to the chemistry of big macs and decibel breaking hurt of wounded rockstars and the bravado of hip hop heads plastered in gold, or beads, and the overall outward show of material.

the purity of trees is on the equations on their leaves, on the spirals in their trunks that align with planetary spheres.

thought about how everyone is beautiful. thought about how beauty manifests in even frequencies that are off, and since most of us reside in the frequency of off, there has to be beauty to look for, to find, in all.

with this thought of love all, of purity, i thought of how like the leaf on the tree, i could love, and yet maintain the algorithim of boundaries. that like the truth of 3w,6b,P(W1+B2) = the leaf, i could give love and admire, and express pure compassion without being in a relationship with everyone, with even the few i come across who rock my world for a second, unless the truth is aligned. 

pure is to recognize and love the beauty of all without chasing after coke bottles, or the hands that will hold them. pure is to love yourself enough to know what love is and what is seeking to make redwoods out of plastic. you could make a sari a mini-skirt, but it's no longer a sari, even if you call it that. 

pure is to love myself, i realized, enough to stay at bay of those who are so hurt that hurt feels like love, and storylines of fly-by-night-lovers woven into sheharazad tales to maintain a thousand nights of hope, to refute the wisdom of friends as they don't know her/him like i do...

...no other animal will know intimacy with the coyote like the rabbit.

pure is to love and be compassionate to the women in our lives who hurt, who inadvertently search for those who hurt to reconcile their own own hurt with.

pure is to love yourself enough to stay clear, to thank you, another lifetime when you have worked through your millenia of carcinogenic karma, to love from a distance, to maintain the equation of leaves, to steer clear of persuasion on what is love and what is abuse.

pure is to take time to heal and be pure for your family, friends, sacred reflection, so you don't recycle the karma of disguised masculinity that seeks to hurt, control, abuse power...

there is no rescuing anyone, and hurt is as strong an emotion as love, and taints thoughts and dreams, and colors hopes. pure is able to see past the emotion, ground in the spirit and draw the lines that keep you from being contaminated on what feels...

...the good lasts a minute, the hurt lasts a lifetime, keeps us in a ferocious cycle. get out of the cycle. escape!!! but do it Quietly. Quietness is the surest sign. 

99 names: al Qudus: the Most Pure

pure is the word of the Essence, impeccable like the full moon and the dawn sky, like the blanket of stars painted in twinkle on the fabric of midnight. 

i know pure the way i know light, cause of darkness, cause of what is impure, cause of the revelation i had this week, during prayer (grappled with it in part ii, iii, iv, v of al Quddus).

the dictionary defines pure as free from anything inferior, or contaminating, like pure himalayan water free of plastic bottles and industrial sewage; pure gold found as dust particles in angolan caves, like a pure science. pure is defined as an absolute, utterly, like the rustle of leaves in the forest without highway rumble, honks and engines, of any kind.

pure is to be free of discordance, which would mean to be in tune, in pure Harmony with the One. how do our actions, our engagement with the world reflect this Harmony?

pure is to be independent of the senses, of contaminating experiences that we rack in seeking experience, in seeking to consume the ecstasy of newness.  absolute; utter; sheer: to sing for pure joy.

pure is the word of ALLAH.

the word of ALLAH is in the language of pure - Quiet. true surrenderers, yogis, know this.

real yogi’s move in Quiet. killers move in silence. silence is shattering, carries the weight of murder, mayhem, hurt, guilt. the word of Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat never lies, is as pure as swiss snow, and as dark as cocaine on the noses of wall street moguls and hip hop rock stars. 

ALLAH's word occupies paradigm, as it is truth, the Great Balance. truth leads to truth, more roads, more highways, more vehicles, more asthma, more lung cancer. the word of the Essence is as impeccable as migraines, and aids, and obesity. 

the truth of the Oneness is a mathematic, and the algebraics, no matter how compounded the polynomials, always adds up to a pure truth. this is the promise of the One - for every action, a reaction, for every cause, an effect – karma.

the wrath of tsunamis and floods, is karma - using the ocean and sky as dumping grounds reveals consequence.

move with love that is Love, from a place of pure, from a place of sanctity, from the algebra of Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat. 

remedies: sudden lower back pain

my brother was in disbelief:

you pulled your back in a yoga class? but you're always doing yoga. isn't yoga supposed to counter that kind of thing? 

good question. yeah, he's right, if you're engaged in yogum, more than just the asana class.

so, the whole 9 yards of yogum will get you to be aligned like oaks and pines in the hudson valley. but sitting around hour after hour behind a computer or in the trains and buses, and at friends houses is countering everything you work on during asana practice.

that and proper alignment. getting into an asana involves a great deal of humility, of listening to body, of aligning with the mathematics of the sun, moon, and planets. when off course, you're a comet off the galactic symphony, you are in the frequency of rick ross and meek mills and kid cuddi and ford and porseh, and mitsubishi and g.e. and boeing....you are in a deep pain. 

my pain was along my right thoraco lumbar fascia (this is the area superficially covering the lumbar region around the spine), latismus dorsi, external oblique, and continued to shoot down my gluteus medius and litobial tract. 

so here's the way i got out of this potentially month long out-for-the-count:

1. fought shaitan. satan whispered shivasanas, and i almost laid down for the rest of class. sometimes this is necessary. sometimes, you need a moment to rest. you just have to listen to body, really listen, and not the voice of giving up. 

2. went into restorative back asanas, including: child's pose, cobra, upward and downward dog. 

3. pressed into pressure points while in child's pose, forward fold, and camel. 

4. continued through asana practice that served the healing of my back. 30 minutes.

5. took a steaming shower, did a forward fold and pressed and slid into points of lower back and nerves that fall into my legs. 

6. oiled entire body, with greater application in area of pain.

7. shivasana on yoga mat. 

8. had a friend press and slide down the pressure points, along my external iliac vein and artery and the great saphonous vein, while I was in child's pose. 

9. continued to participate in normal activity. 

10. continued pressure and heat treatment later that day, before going to bed.

11. slept on floor. 

12. did pressure point treatment using roller next day.

13. prayer, mindful movement, posture, positive thinking and people.

remedies: tooth headache

my left gum, by my molars, has been jolted for months, leading to a climbing throb up my maxilla, zygomatic and temporal  bone. been having this associated headache like a who-smacked-me-with- brass-knuckles-on-the side-of-my-head.

sure, I need to go to the dentist. dentists are mad expensive. the expenses are madder than hatters having tea time every 15 seconds with a mouse, a falcon, an 11 year old blonde girl, and an uninvited queen whose looking for heads to chop...

here's what worked: 

1. blazing-bangladesh-summer-red-hot-shower till your face is in a volcanic cloud. 

2. gargle 3 times with steamy salt water (lots of salt). gargle for 33 seconds each. 

3. swish 3 times with the same. swish for 45 seconds each.

repeat the above every 20 minutes for first hour. 

then repeat once an hour for 3 hours. 

then repeat only after each meal, and before going to bed. 

avoid eating any solids during this time frame; have only peppermint, eucalyptus, thyme, taragon, oregano, or rosemary teas.

avoid foods with sugar, including most fruits. 

avoid all dried fruits and sticky foods.

remedies: bloating

balloons in my stomach like helium bags filled with sand and dynamite. what to do...?

gas trapped and without a quick way to get rid of it, i returned home after a whole day of being out and about - work, supermarket, cafe... 

soon as I got home, was tempted to eat again, not necessarily cause i was hungry, but out of habit, out of neglecting the stagnancy that left me heavy...even rationalized eating spicy foods to run it out...

thought about it. a pause...and this is the first step - pause….  here are the rest of the steps, all of them, the recipe to cure bloating: 

1. be in a place that feels like home, that, even if temporary, is a place you feel you may sleep and shower and feel some peace at. this step is essential for the body to release the toxicity of being in the movement of a fast paced city, and ingesting heaps of acidic air throughout the day...home is essential for a restful soul, of a body at ease and prepared for next steps....

2. avoid eating anything else. even if you are craving it. watch your body, observe whether the craving is really your body's, or your minds. 

3. take a steamy shower. if you have access to a steam room, that will work. 

4. make a ginger/peppermint tea. in the absence of this, boil water and squeeze a quarter of a lemon into it. drink it hot. drink it standing in samasthiti. pray before taking it in.

5. lay on your back with your knees folded and feet on the ground. 

6. take yogic breaths - deep inhalations/exhalations. the exhalations should be longer than the inhalations. 

7. get up to use the bathroom when you need to. otherwise remain in the position, and/or return to this position to retire to for a couple hours, or the night, if it's the end of the day. 

99 names: al-Malik ii, the King of Kings ii

He is Allah , other than whom there is no deity, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Perfection, the Bestower of Faith, the Overseer, the Exalted in Might, the Compeller, the Superior. Exalted is Allah above whatever they associate with Him.  -surah 59:23 the exile.

the definition of Al Malik - the King of Kings - requires us to reexamine the word for God that surrenderers use - ALLAH. 

ALLAH, although used synonymously with the term God - used in western thought on religion - is a distinct term, and a bit more precise for the purposes of the path of Surrender. 

ALLAH translates to the One. ALLAH is an odd number that is indivisible. the name ALLAH, refers to the One-ness, and Al-Malik requires us to understand this in placing ALLAH as above any king, whom man may recognize in material form. 

understanding Al-Malik is understanding that ALLAH is the Sum total, the Source of All, Divine/Ancient Mathematic, older than Time.

Al-Malik bends material linearisms on time and space, by leaving every meditation of prophets, of astral-achieving yogis, and scientists deep in worship of elements and equations, to deduce Oneness.

ALLAH equals the number One. 

i was stirred by this most recent contemplation, in sitting with Al-Malik. 

the very name i referred to in prayer was/is a numeral, a number, a mathematic...scientifically proven by the implausibility of laboratorial science to reconstruct sun moon planets...proven by the passing of jesus and mohammed, shakespeare and robin williams, gandhi and king, my great-grandfather's india and native america, by friends i no longer know and pictures of me i barely recognize. 

through it all, the bowing down at dawn and dusk remain constant. Al Malik remains constant. 

99 names: al-Malik - King of Kings

Al-Malik, the Shahanshah, the King of Kings, the One. 

Al-Malik, contrasts the kings of maya.

the king has no clothes.

obama's peace prize and civil rights talk disguises drone technology, that annihilate ancient peoples, that frack the earth and drill the ocean floor, leaving dolphin cousins choked and comatose on the shores of peru, mexico, mississippi; dolphins murdered and piled like gunned down iraqi bodies on the sands of sumeria. yes, please bring our troops home so they could stop raping, pillaging, plundering... prayers for them, prayers...

the saud's dessert robes in the semblance of the guru muhammad (s.a.w), pretends modesty so crass that the house of Adam, the nucleus of the surrenderer, lies in the shadows of new towering hotels built by petrodollars obtained from raping our Mother (earth). 

Al-Malik, the King of Kings, lies in stark contrast to the babylon kings, excused sometimes because of colors. babylon kings are white, black, brown, yellow, red, are multicultural in their babylon, in arrogance. 

Al-Malik is the quicksand citibanks sink in, the tsunamis that drown the arrogance of rapid development in india/bangladesh, thailand, china.

Al-Malik contrasts heroes.

the King of King exposes the illusion of celebrities/celebrity-ism, as false deities, when time and space makes ike too weak to strike a chord or tina, madonna's prized body sag, jay's swagger, into a hunch back.

Al-Malik dissolves the illusion of seemingly regal-wear that we homage in the culture of cool - ny and oakland fitteds, pouted lips and vogueing street poses - from the elite of madison ave to the illusively rebel of nostrand ave - ostentating diamonds, gold, beamers, drug money. 

those we give value to as kings have as much value as dead presidents on the stripped bodies of abducted and throat-slit trees. 

babylon kings wear kufis, and dreds, and buddhist robes, and african kintes and yogi shawls...

Al-Malik is known through the path of a Love so deep, that no maya can govern tastes in clothing, or food, or attractions in the surrenderer.

Al-Malik is known when time is not when the alarm rings for a job/appointment, but marked by moon and sun and planetary movements; when relations remove from accumulating/consuming friends, intimacies and popularity;  and instead the chosen few of your tribe are always new, are always an opportunity to grow deeper, are a meditation for life, like maghrib prayer at dusk day after day, year after year, like trataka, meditating/gazing at fire, until you can see the sun. 

Al-Malik. 

can you see the light in those around you? 

after, over 30 years of intermittent bowing down, fasting, i can see slivers of light, and only sometimes. i'm slow,  have a great deal of blockages, mountains of ego/fear to work through. 

some people see light right away, notice Al-Malik. yet and still, even if you see, it takes time to build a deeper awareness. 

the majesty of Al Malik is seen in the billion year old mountains of kilimanjaro and himalaya. every day, the mountain and sun prostrate to one another, without boredom, without skipping a beat. 

Al-Malik is known through the billion year meditation with another, until you see the sun, until you can stare without a blink. 

99 names: ar-Rahim: the All Beneficient

in the name of ALLAH...

looked up beneficient. dictionary.com, websters, google, all define the word as one who is generous, who does good works, or who causes good to happen. 

ar-Rahim is the attribute of giving, of faciltating the shine of others, to grow them closer to their true Light. 

ar-Rahim, the Most Benefieient, suggests Quiet, requires the Quiet giving of air from trees, of the endles well of water from rivers...

ar-Rahim works in Quiet, in providing us sunlight, water, soil, air - resources for us to sustain ourselves from, resources that make everything we have possible. all praise is due...

as an attribute for the aspirant of surrender (islam). towards becoming One with the One, ar-Rahim happens through doing works of good, causing good to happen without a mic or a stage. 

ar-Rahim opens a shadow path for those who stand back stage and make the guitar weep in worship of Surrender, while musicians in the limelight of salivating audiences, tap into higher frequencies only to reinforce emotion, to grow us further in our attachments to the illusion. 

ar-Rahim is backstage like my brother - 1-who-Knows. 

my brother is ar-Rahim in his action, got it from my pops whose been motivating the bangli/indian community to do about arsenic in water,  acid in the sky and on the faces of young women attacked by dhaka-goondas. my pops, who has been walking up and down subway stairs from astoria to midtown to borough hall to crown hieghts to harlem, in the grind for a more harmious union, since the days of the double RR train, since when fares and pizza were .75 cents and the summer of sam found him focused on path to write articles exposing famine, genocide, politricknology. 

i see ar-Rahim in my pops, even as i struggled with cool, and imagery and judged his out-ness. my pops wears his pants high, like urkel, like he'd been hit with one too many floods. his hands are usually at his side or in prayer position, holding a book on climate change, subhash chandra bose. when i am past cool, and have a quiet moment, my pops takes me to ar-Rahim, reminds me the lessons of the guru muhammad - what you give with your right hand, your left hand should not know about. 

my brother like my pops, moves in Quiet. when we see each other at our family apartment, his face looks as serene as it does from when i remember him as a shorty, pretty, empathetic, quiet.  he says little and draws me in to talking about me until i spill my guts out like i was talking to jesus. 

ah-Rahim is for the doers, the fearless warriors who from the discipline of warrior code - yama/niyama -yogum - Quranic prescriptions for the Surrenderer - align in Love through structures of scientific methodology. 

ar Rahim, is doing for Love for the sake of Love from the place of Love, and with the discipline of staying clear of spotlights and stages and interviews and groupies and excess income, that this path of the stage lends itself to. 

ar Rahim is in my tribe - smack who feeds dozens in his circle, without any of them knowing; kenny, who doesn't know how not to be giving even when his bank statements read in the negative; chino, who comes fom brooklyn to meet me in queens, stops by my parents crib to give my mom flowers and my pops a ride anywhere; my brother, 1-who-knows, whose works i only learn of from the stories of others who have tears in their eyes when they speak of him; of suzan, who even after seizures striking her down, continues to give unconditionally with every morsel of rice she has.  

ar Rahim is an aspiration. there are plenty of examples of being generous throug acts of kindness, love, giving without ulterior motive, without a concern for recognition. all praise is due...

raw foodism: raw farina recipe

all praise is due for this opportunity to engage with food, with worship through food, with shepherding this mosque of body i reside in...with getting strong enough to leave when its time...

wasn't my intention to make the farina, but it made sense. the resistance of the blender i use led me to this. so all praise is due for this challenge that opened new opportunities and has allowed me to get deeper in patience...

ingredients: 

cauliflower

macoun/macintosh apple

sea salt

water

coconut oil

raw peanuts

raw honey/maple syrup

cinnamon 

recipe: 

soak a handful of raw nuts in water overnight.

soak a portion of a cauliflower overnight.

chop the flowers of the cauliflower.

place em in the blender with some water.

pour a couple tablespoons of coconut oil.

sprinkle sea salt. 

peel and chop apples; place in blender.

place soaked peanuts in blender.

sprinkle cinnamon. 

blend all.

add water as needed to give it thick soupy texture.

once blended, add honey. 

blend. 

set aside in a bowl and leave refrigerated overnight.

next morning, place bowl in sun, and leave for 1-2 hours. 

before you chow down, pause, center, descend into the

Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat (ALLAH), you emanate from. 

meditate on the common origin of you and the food you are about to eat.

meditate on all the hands that touched it - sun, soil, water, ants, bees, farmers, 

drivers, produce staff, preparers of your meal.

All praise is due... 

99 names: ar-Rahman-the All Merciful

the all merciful. ar-rahman. to forgive the thief and the liar, the murderer and the rapist. to forgive, to let go. to forgive is to let go, to not be bound by the experience of lower frequencies. they are binding.

i saw this documentary in the past, where the family of a victim of a murder linked with the murderer, visited them in their supermax, while they awaited sentencing, a lifetime in prison, or death by a needle. the reason, the victims said - the man who lost his brother, the woman who lost her son to some dude playing god - is that they needed to sleep at night, that they were so deep in turmoil, consumed by hatred and anger, that the only thing that could save them was to let it go by forgiving the murderer.

the truth and reconciliation committees set up after the lift of apartheid in south africa, performed a similar function. it created a medium for the victims of apartheid and the perpetrators to have exchange.

murderer, buju banton sings in his song by the same name - death is on your shoulder/kill i today, you cannot kill I tomorrow. he's right. there's no killing the I. the infinite, the place from which ar-Rahman can be found. all praise is due...

mercy, connotes letting go. to have that moment of peace, because life itself is the Great Equalizer. chief seattle, in his letter to the president (which may or may not be fictitious), said to president jackson, a century and a half ago, that you could continue killing the rest of us indians, whose land you trampled on, but you still have to deal with the trees and the rivers and the mountains, and air (Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat  - ALLAH). that this approach to living was anti-life, an antibiotic that wantonly destroyed all in sight. that, unless the conquistadors learned how to be a part of life, instead of seeking to control it, death.

death is everywhere, depechemode lamented in their 1994 album, violator. there are flies on the windscreen. it's true. there are rats running wild in the subway platforms, roaches sneaking past genocidal chemist formulations, mosquitoes who refuse to acquiesce to ddt sprays and their offshoots that sprinkle the heads of new yorkers, who mistake the mist for acid rain.

in a culture where murder is honored by stars and stripes if you kalnishkov muhammad's, mercy is needed. in a culture where the i is the greatest cause of worship, mecy is needed. our idols that we bowed down to - jay, jolie, b.pitt, drake, p.hilton, nikki - the same ones we adjust our faces to in the mirror, are for purposes of worshiping the zenith of lower self - me, myself, and i. have mercy.

mercy is needed because we need to survive. we need to get past the great illusion and the only way to do so is to walk in beauty, to walk in ar Rahman. when you walk in ar-Rahman, then judgement is unnecessary, grudges, unnecessary, jealousy, unnecessary, because expectations cease to exist other that which recognizes the divine in all. so have mercy on the murderers, the fronters, dudes and chicks who are so deep in their idol-worship of rock/rap/porn/gang/famous-author-film-maker-academic-designer-etc-famous-famous/limelight/ that they forgot how to be them-Self. mercy.

have mercy and maintain focus. have mercy and support and give, but avoid succumbing. have mercy, but watch who you bring to your house, into your bedroom. have mercy and act to free the world of prisons and bombs and high heels and running-trains and lies...but watch what you read, and how you spend your time and with who, cause osmosis, cause mercy will soon become an idea and a thought rather than path.

bismillah ar-Rahman