99 names: al Mutakabbir: Greatness

audzubillahe minash shaitauner rajeem, bismillah hiRahman niRahim...

al Mutakabbir means the Greatest, Greatness, the  Majestic....what does it mean to be Great? when was the last time you felt Great? go beyond your ego for a sec, and really get to that space of what made you feel great. 

al Mutakabbir means the sum total of all Greatness, of every moment of Great. what is a moment of not Great? 

haven't been feeling great today...body desires bed, mind desires places and people that are fantasy, that are accompanied by shoulds...where i should be at this stage of life...who i should be with...what i should be doing...or...what is not happening and why and how i need to, and how i am not, and forming judegements on others who are not helping me make this happen...inaction is a seed that harvests zombie crops...

felt great thursday morning, when i was up at 5:30, when i was done with bathroom, fajr, asana, shower, by 7:30. felt great because there was a ritual that anchored me into the day, that recalled my purpose, and that was pushed beyond the rote it could lend itself to, by presence, by going deeper in uttansana and parvotonasana, by holding lower my head while erecting deeper my spine in prayer...

thursday, daytime, post-morning rituals, felt great because i maintained an empty in my body. instead of overconsuming oats and nuts and all, i sat with my belly only a third full, and with a charge of black coffee, was engaged in presence...thursday's lecture on the shoulder girdle, on the spinous process and other landmarks of the scapula felt great in my mind, because i was engaging through self-palpation, moving into asana when there were moments of too much information, engaging in genuine dialogue and exploration on these parts, by listening, by trying out, by being proactive, by avoiding the game of pretending to not care, to wait for someone to choose me to work with, to spiral downward into self-defeat when this didn't occur...

greatness for me occurs when i am doing, when i am actively engaged in discipline, in ritual, in more than just rote, when i am taking charge of my life by being a Lover of al Mutakabbir in all i engage with...greatness for me is when i am anchored and focused on Purpose by way of these rituals that grow my purpose, by being dynamic in these rituals to move beyond stagnancy, by being present and proactive in listening, in maintaining Quiet, in drawing boundaries, in giving love, in recalling that i am a traveler in this spaceship with the grave right beside me...

al Mutakabbir resides in the space between before birth and after corpse...

right now, this nanosecond, a child is ushered out of the mother spaceship by a midwife in karnataka, eyes opening to the blinding light of outside...al Mutakabbir

where did this new life come from? was it just sperm and egg that gave rise to this being which cries, laughs, grows, teeths, talks...? is it new life? what makes it new? what is new?

who/what molded this creature to have arms and legs and a mouth and a control center to activate different parts of its little body? 

where does the intelligence of meiosis and mitosis, of chromsomal separation, arrangement, dna transcription into rna, rna orchestration of amino chains..derive from???

how is it that every life form, be it man or lizard, marine life or arthropods share this very process? what separates us? 

what were we before this manifestation of human being? 

at  this very moment in guantanamo, the prison obama promised to shut down, a bearded man is being trampled to death by military boots, just as he bows to al Mutakabbir with arms and legs chained, head hooded with an orange covering with only two slits (reminiscent of kkk hoods), strung on by brown, black, yellow, white soldiers....

at this very moment, the age of liberation politics is rotting in a cell quietly in attica, in solitary confinement...

at this very moment a factory worker in dhaka coughs asbestos out till she spins and collapses on the h and m floor for the last time...

what happens next? what happens when the body stiffens releases the last wind of air from its nostrils?

al Mutakabbir

youu 

spring equinox 2015

crazy thing is that it's snowing and music plays from the birds of spring. the pigeons never left, they stood like the gandhi statue at union square in sunnyside, queens, where the buildings are short enough for them to reach, nest and observe.

spring 2015 is like libra's with boxcutters below their lips, smiling at disputes in the afternoon train, after school is let out and cuss words cut the deliberate silences of straphangars hanging for their lives.

snowfall in ithaca. it always snows in ithaca. always is the word of experts who spend two weeks, two years in a town and write guidebooks. this is just the way it is, the business world of everyone who has converted to the color of neoliberalism, tells me.

chris holds out, still writing plays on a time of butterflies, still goes to the rez to oust nuclear war heads planted like cattle corn. chris in his mid life now, still carries real like my dad in his golden age.

my abba stares at the buildings in front of us at the bus stop on 34th and reminisces of movement, underground conversations between bangli immigrants in 70's new york, about bagels and coffee. he tells me about the coffee shop he used to goto 20 or 30 years back, in midtown, of how he used to get a coffee and people-watch for moments. 

think about spring in terms of seasons of life. what season is spring when someone passes? my little homie by my name, passed in the spring some years back. 

think of spring as always present, no matter the season, as it is always a time of new beginings. there is spring in the winter, summer and fall. there is winter, the end. it is always as well. all the seasons appear all the time - the begining and end.

the end never ends, which is a testimony to ALLAHuakbar, ALLAH, the 1ness, is greater than this moment, as ALLAH is always.

this moment is beautiful, an opportunity to grow past the frequency of a brutal winter, of beginning again. rebirth. time never repeats itself, no moment does. 

whats in season is you, is what is pregnant inside you, is the Real You. come out. play. be a Lover. not a moments rest without You...

99 names: al Jabbar: the Compeller

compelled by sensuality, by my senses, by raw cashews with maple syrup, sweet potato fries, kava root tonics, a buzz, a shorty to affirm me, to give me tlc, call and text and care about what i do, who i am, i move further away from the Compeller...

prayer, bowing down in Surrender, in genuine letting go of this, prioritizing salat, during prescribed times evidenced by the mathematics of orbit, of sun and planetary equations, will get you there, will get me there.

there, is away from the senses, away from the illusion that it'll taste so good if i have just one more bite, it'd be so smooth if she hollers at my holler.  there is away from disguises placed by the need to compel, to be of value, to be marketable, to have a compeller-complex - to become an idol. 

there is safety, the blanket that keeps you silent to atrocities, becuase it's easier to soothe-say, to pretend bombs and lies are not happening, to be down by way of clothes, shoes, food-choices, drugs, words, politics, even when every bit of it is keeping you tossing and turning day and night. you know...

we  compel by aligning with the Compeller, by working through the Compeller, by maintianing focus, by maintiaining a steady position of surrender in every moment, in getting up to pray in the middle of a conversation - excuse me sis, the sun is bowing and i will take some time to bow with it...

we compel real by connecting with Real and real recognize real, for real...

we compel by growing deeper in our path, in our Purpose, by doing, by being of service, by maintianing warrior code, pushing it so that it is never plastic, never a brick building, but always malleable, always supple in our stance...time for bed, maybe we could chill in the day...

although you may find yourself in a less than ideal circumstace you have agency, as the Compeller is always there, so long as you let yourSelf be compelled - sit and meditate at the club or the train, drink water instead of wine, speak little even if it creates silences...your discomfort with it is an opportunity to pause and get deeper in the question - who/what is compelling you...

wherever circumstance leaves you, maintain Surrender by asking yourself what/who is compelling me? if your answer is the dripping of your tongue, even after your stomach is more than a third filled, if your answer is the affirmation of ego for feeling wanted by a pretty little something, if your answer is laying around in bed feels so good though...then your compeller is your rajasic being, your lowest i, the same i that gives birth to alcolhism, sexaholism, pot-headism, ego-centrism...

leave early, draw your lines clear for yourSelf, as laid forth by the Compeller who makes your Purpose clear and invite others to partake if they want to continue to hang...if not, peace and love and prayers and inshALLAH our paths will cross again.

...those who are compelled by your Surrender to the Compeller will get down with you, and even if they don't their true Self will recognize You. always homie, bhaiya, sis, king, kin, divinity...your truth has a compass and points with great magnetism towards the Compeller, if only you get out of the way, if only you take off the watch and chains and gold and levis and lugz...bow down...get deeper in your tree asana...

...bow down in your udvha mukah scwasana, in your uttanasana...do it compelled not by the audience in your room who may wow or jeer, but by the Compeller...your task is clear...you know what to do...

full moon march 2015

all praise is due for You, Your Beauty, your Mysterious ways...on my Way, on my Way...

march has been hugging onto february in new york, refusing to part with snow and negative degrees, even as the earth tilts on its axis, a bit further from our star. the orbit continues. the moon comes to complete submission in 28 days since the last...the laws...the signs for those who think, according to the Qur'an...

lettiing go...letting go of what serves the spectacle i stand in front of and watch, even as i listen to tryamabakum and repeat the mantra - om tryambakum yejamahe sugandim pushti... the spectacle is alluring, draws spectators in like a moth, onlookers like myself 20 years back, running to see the fight that sprang off on the other side of the cafeteria...fists, thumps, f him up, f him, yeah, haha...the crowd swells...central park summerstage...

concerts of idols, american and canandian and latin and european and african and asian...idols whose talents are tuned in to the energy of something deeper, sold for a taste of chocolate and wine and one-night stands, and cars and champagne to celebrate the birthday, my birthday...idols...

let go of idol worshipping some time ago, stopped looking at the stage or the magazines, details or source or alternative pubs that offer a subculture of buy buy buy...no thank u...

...keep it pushing, often alone in this walk, often on the hill overlooking the lake, freezing and bracing myself for the stroll through the illusion. i know this moment is a shower, running water, that the water runs over my head, that loses a cluster more hair since the last time i looked...

...since the last time, running water, stopped running feet to pause and bow, to maintain a deepening in my Surrender with no onlookers, done in Quiet, hidden...

...letting go, shedding addictions to safety, to security, in being under covers hoping the bogeyman will avoid this bedroom, this family, that somehow we will miss death and the bullets that spray the other familes with arabic last names...somehow, the blanket i drag over snow and trains and buses persuades me that comfort will keep me from the prison cell my cousin is rotting in, and the toxic bangla air that my foofi's blow out in their early deaths...

letting go of security by getting out of my way and letting the Light shed on those areas of fears, identifying them like the names of war criminals who are responsible for the murder, rape, and atrocities of peoples and lands and species - obama, clinton, bush and the corporate rulers they dance for.

...been dancing with the devil by shutting my ears, by keeping this blanket on, by talking spirit, by keeping silent instead of Quiet...get to the Quiet...let go...letting go...see the Light...see the flotsam and jetsam, the stash of nicotine, porn, hash, and guns...fear...let go...letting go...all praise is due...