99 names: 13: al Mussawir iii: the Shaper of Beauty iii

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

jamal shabazz, a brooklyn photographer with mesmerizing photos and intricate stories behind each one, said, during a talk on his photography, that he began taking pictures as a way to connect with his community. it was a way of breaking the ice and having a forum for exchange. in the process he shaped beauty, and the beauty was more than the pictures he took, but the communication, community, collaborations he built. 

i love the idea of living breathing art, as life itself is living breathing art, as al Mussawir has painted landscapes of beauty for us to walk on, through - ja na ta - walking in beauty - my cuzin man-red says - in navajo, the language of dineh peoples. yes, ja na ta...

walking in beauty involves being beautiful, more than the approved, disapproved beauty designated by the state apparatus in prostration to capital and markets and the constant need to profit, which means the constant need for the market to trend.

what's in trend is the over-sized ski hats among hipsters in portland. saw it in ny last year. who knows what the hipsters there are rocking now. their seems to be a syncopation around the carved and constructed identities of genres, like races. they are often parallell - genres/markets and race - to occupy/consume trends for the respective boxes peoples are trapped into, take great pride and perform through. applause kid. i see you. i overstand. otherwise you are out of the wolfpack. 

it's alot to keep up. i gave up. born alone die aloning through pdx, walking in beauty when i dikr through the prayer beads brooklyn gave me. 99 times. 

99 times, i go through reminders of how each moment is fleeting, and that within this constant change, ALLAH remains constant. i am reminded of this with every recall, every moment when i am tempted to speak, say something, to defend, to peacock. at that fork, when i pause to ask what's really behind my desire to speak/show, i recall Surrender, how this is a moment, and I AM of Essence - Eternal. i get moved away from this fact of Beauty, of al Mussawir, when i am amidst the audience of people who see me or don't.

at once i am an invisible man, brown and the color of bombs and newsclips on the world's most wanteds. at once i am disease, third world epidemic, immigrant, refugee, a problem. at once i am taking jobs, and feeding off the government, and lazy and too hard-working, and accented by irrelevance. i seemed to have missed the cruise ship that others - brown, black, yellow, red - have boarded, into acceptance, into natural flow in a babylon that i don't get. don't  get aziz ansari. 

i have ceased putting my hat down for change, for racial theatrics that fit the audiences who want to clap for a fitting in of their bill. 

i get ancient. 

my soul immediately is in dialogue. 

so i get my amma and abba, and ancient indigenous ways, and recognize it across the board, whether i am in cipher with bangladeshi's from the time-zone tucked into village-life, sudanese from khartoum in coffee shops listening to adhan and reciting poetry to possibility, indians weaving jewels off the rez only to hope for return there, philosophers from projects a generation from south carolina, san juan, havana...

walking in beauty, in the path of al Mussawir, in the example set by Creator/Shaper of Beauty, would mean to be alive, to be a living breathing engagement with the world, towards aligning with Height. 

taller than height and larger than weight, with my feet rooted like evergreens in the northwest, reaching pine needles in praise, in all praise is due...

shaping beauty would mean to make knowledge active, to engage with knowledge to build, reach, commune with prostraters and prostitutes, with hustlers and fruit-wallahs, cab-drivers and tailors...

my boy hen-roc says i should do a compendium video for the nutritional map i''ve been working on. if it brings me closer, Closer...Closer to the One...

the sheik rumi, says to lose, lose yourself, and bow down...to stop running to be someone...afterall, isn't this what your life is about? he asks...to be someone?...when you stop trying to be someone...you Appear into the congruence of One-ness...

the  ayurveda professor, doctor, from pune, india, who i met recently, seems steeped in the culture of pride of being a doctor, a professor, someone. many of the ayurvedic doctors i met in programs geared towards americans, in india, seem to suffer from this guru-complex. 

westerners seem to strive for this expert status. westerners are indian from india, bangladeshi from bangladesh, nigerian from nigeria, kenyan from kenya, brazilian from brazil, chinese from china, dominican from dominican republic, american from marcy projects and the upper east side and san francisco...

...no delusions homie...i overstand the truth that permeates through the surface realm of skins you and i are in...i overstand and see the carcinogen of megalomania that is excused and celebrated across the multi-cultural spectrum of devout babylonian-ism...

...i'll pass. flow through the asanas that were set forth by teachers without names, from the path of Nothingness...hope to connect, to shape beauty through the work of non-cerebral engagement with this divine mosque that our spirits respirate in without a breath. 

...to create...to really shape beauty...walk in the path of the Greatest Artist of ALL, the Most Creative, who is known several billion times a day as the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful....

...to do this, lose yourself...really lose yourself...i will too...

99 names: 13: al Mussawir ii: the Shaper of Beauty ii

al Mussawir...ja na ta, man-red, who i intro as my cuzin, says in his language - navajo.

means, walking in beauty, he tells me. 

surrrender...the path of surrender, the path of surrendering to the Source of Peace (islam), is walking in beauty, is an opportunity to glimpse the Creation of al Mussawir...otherwise, labs and info...

babylonians love info. thats why we are confused all the time. thatts why we have so many breakdowns, and mental crises, to the point that they are norms, part of our culture - mid life crisis. 

the Shaper of Beauty holds no forum in the self-help section. the Shaper is found in the poetics of sky and earth, and ocean, and condensation, and fish, and fruits and corn, and purple cabbage...

but instead i'm walking through the self help isles, reading the latest craze on the latest revered idol of cullinary skills, herbalism, fad diet....babylon lovs their idols, because they, cause we, are falling apart at the seams, and have to get new jeans monthly to make up for existential crisis.

i've been having a mid life crisis since i started kindergarten, decades ago. it was just me pouting then, and then teeange angst, then reality bites, in my twenties...then...then...

instead of seeing al Mussawir, i was trying to learn and understand everything, cause i needed evidence, cause the babylon approach is to prove it. but  they don't

idol worship. we all fall into it. looking for a leader. looking for someone to believe in, because our cultures are labeled terror, cause real leaders are assasinated and hung, serving triple life.

idol - obama is an idol to many. peopple want someone to believe in. people saying he's been coming around, getting to be who he really is, in this last term...we pay attention to the detail, the arch of his brows, the frustration of his tone as he addresses the nation on yet another mass shooting...this is becoming redundant, he says...makes reference to the lax gun laws...

later that day...executive order to drop more bombs, drone more suspects in 5 different countries. the doctors without borders hospital in afghanistan was bombed. apoloigies sent, because it was wikileaked. two days later a u.s. military tank rams through it...

who are your leaders? what is the criteria for your leaders? are they people who are involved in acts of mass murder, who engage in mass-deceit, who tell you whatever you want to hear, but do otherwise? who are your leaders and why?

the beauty of al Mussawir needs no approval. the river jordan just is. the hudson knows where to go, and the gorges in ithaca have no parallell in man-made architecture. 

as i've been growing deeper in this path, truths reveal themselves. while studying nutrition, they've been talking about the importance of fasting. babylonian scientists are discovering this now. they've stabbed enough rats with stress hormones and then put them on fasts. they've paid enough desperate elders who are just longing for a touch, because babylon culture dscards their elders, to fasting diets, and then seeing what happens...

my babylon sistas, of all so-called races, seem to carry the same individual-driven spiritualism...you could keep it sis. 

spirituality is new age, and having crystals, and homeboy, the indian dude who hangs with oprah...oh yeah, deepak chopra...it's all about you...you, you, you...

somehow, all issues reside in you. regardless of what else is happening, none of it matters, it's all you. 

my learnings from the teachings of the Shape in the Beauty, is that everything is in divine syncopation, that the beauty of the stones and crystals come as not isolate pieces to be give horoscopic value to, but as deeply engaged in the community they were part of, for millenia...not just a rock that was already a crystal, that visited the mountain they were carved out of, like the strip of bars and restaurants and cafes everyone hangs out in for a minute, while its hot, and then bounce...on to the next...

in addition to shaping beauty for yourself, by recognizing that your body has been weaved by al Mussawir to be beautiful, just the way it is, not as the white standards of beauty, or the black mens magazines or the bollywood cinemas, define as beauty. they are equally babylon. white babylon, black babylon, brown babylon = babylon. 

in a culture of idol worship, worship of ego, of celebrity, of those who bow down to money and lust and power over others (which somehow translates to respect), al Mussawir gets lost. nature becomes a place for pharmaceutical, furniture, consturction-company, etc, giants. its a place for new age herbalists and ayurvedic and so-called traditional medicine practitioners to be experts of. 

you keep your expertise homie. keep your stage-loving-lusting god-complexes. while your on your mic, speaking to the wave of audience...i'm turned around, staring at the moon, finding my way back to the village elders, and staring and listening to what my next stage of life will be, from my pops, the way i used to for the cure, nas, johnny depp. i'm hanging on his every word, because i understand that his humility, my mothers humility is so alien and anathema, that it has to be exterminated, that it has be demonized and hacked, like pregnant mothers and babies in palestine.

99 names: 13: al Mussawir: the Shaper of Beauty

in surah al-hashr, 59:22, ALLAH's 13th name appears as Al-Mussawir, the Shaper, or the Shaper of Form/Beauty:

He is God, the Creator, the Maker who shapes all forms and appearances!  ^[31] His [alone] are the attributes of perfection.  ^[32] All that is in the heavens and on earth extols His limitless glory: for He alone is almighty, truly wise! - 59:24 (Asad) 

to be nothing means to develop these attributes. to be something, means to shun, to suppress, to corrupt characteristics.

i have been something. i am riding on something. in kerala, when i was among keralan friends, they would say nothing-doing. it was a translation of a malyali word, i'm sure, and didn't make complete sense in english, not to me atleast, until recently. nothing doing, means, to me, that it appears like there's something happening, but really nothing is. so nothing doing.

talked to cuzin yusef today. he's hanging in he says. trying to making meaning of circumstance, of miami, of job-life, of purpose, of music.

aftter the music fast last year, i've been traveling in chaos, not sure what to music to put on, and operating instead from what's familiar. so, the same 90's tracks creep, same feel good, but doesn't feel good, so i put on abdul basit, the egyptian reciter who taught me how to put my hands over my face - a practice i've developed when people insist i be in a picture. face covered. but my actions are covered too.

my actions remain not hidden, but non-existant. i've surrounded myself in a tower, getting nautious behind the screen and vinyasing constantly. asana and prayer ground me. the recitations keep me connected. 

maintaining, instead of shaping. what does it mean to shape? 

to shape means to be messy, to do without audience, because Real recognize Real. if it sucks it sucks. then grow from it. then it wasn't that real. 

to be Real means to put ALL, to do from Higher, to be vulnerable, to try, to more than try, to allow the doing and the consequent feedback to be the practice... and to allow the practice to be constant, and in the process deepen you. go deep. real deep.

shape, as you have been shaped. shape from One. you were shaped from One. the Maker of Beauty, has made you in beauty. the  artistry of Creation is all around. this alone should compell us to shape. 

shape. what does it mean to shape beauty? take time with your child. be present with them. takke time with your parents, your siblings, your cousins, your cuzins, your core-dozen. 

craft. be messy with it, and go deep. push your boundaries. be a maker of beauty by doing your best. are you doing your best? why not? 

shape from the Maker, by decondiitioning the plastic that you wear when you smile, dress, eat...

...to get to the Maker of Beauty, take off your cool -  the veneer, the professional, the career guy/gal and do. so what someone thinks you suck at making beats, or that you can't dress, or that you are a lousy teacher, doctor, etc? maybe. so then get the feedback and go deeper. no need to be defensive. be thankful for the feedback and work from and on the side of truth. 

all praise is due for this oportunity to shape to have been shaped, touched, by the Maker, into this body you and i occupy. 

---

99 names: 11: al Bari ii: the Maker of Order ii

in the name of ALLAH, the One, the Only, the Uni-, the begining and end, the no end, the no begining, the that which cannot be created nor destroyed...

i bear witness that there is no One, but One...as is evidenced in al Bari, in the divine Order...

the human is the microcosm of all that exists in the world. everything that exists in the universe, according to the hatha yoga pradipika, exists in us...

the Order of divinity is evidenced in our movment, in thought, in creation, and in being so, we have the opportunity of connecting with al Bari, the Maker of Order. 

the Maker of Order, is known through surrender (islam).

what is revealed in the great surrender? what is revealed when you really surrender? 

firstly, definition of terms. what is meant by surrender? the police were behind me, next to me. my boy shah and i were on the road, on 2nd ave, behind his wheels, heading downtown. the cops had guns to our head. this is a stick up. they told us to get the f out. said: Now! 

whatever we were doing at that moment: driving down midtown, shooting the breeze,, sharing anxiety and future dreams, went out the window when the blue and red lights colored us, sirens blasted and .38's pressed our temporal. 

what do you surrender to? when?

get your f'n hands up! the cops blasted, as we came out the car, me through the passenger side, shah through the driver side. hands up, i pressed against the hoopty as the cop slid his hands up and down my body. 

surrendered to the boys that day. surrendered cause they had guns, cause they were the law, cause they said so, cause jail, cause they were the authority of the order.

which order do you surrender to? which order do you surrender to when there are no guns to your head?

surrendered to the stick up kids on 8th st, 3am, august 30th...surrendered cause we were outnumbered and they had fast fists and drink and flashed weapons. surrendered to them cause i didn't want to get beat up, down, black and blued. surrendered to their authority of hard, tough...

what do you surrender to? who do you worship? who are you afraid of? why? 

these days i am more mindful about surrendering to only the One, but the senses get the best of me. fear is a sense, fear is set off by our limbic system, by our sypathetic system - our flight or fight. our hypothalmus releases neurotransmitter-chemicals to our pituitary glands, which release hormones that activate the hormones on our suprarenal kidney. cortisone, aldosterone release. our body heats, heart rate quickens. the sympa and paraympathetic portions of our pns are said to be part of the autonomic nervous system, meaning they are involuntary, like the blood pumping in your heart at this moment, on its own, without conscious control. this is the autonomic nervous system. but what gives rise to fight, flight?

in Quiet surrender, in the practice of salat, dua, meditation, life becomes an act of active meditaiton, of a doing from a deeper place, of a release of the senses. the senses distort our view of reality, keep us locked into the maya. 

whats real is that this body passes, is that it is fragile and powerful, and divine, and you and not you. what's real is the this moment, the thoughts you are having as you read this, will arise and pass, and may or may not influence your process. but change, passing, is inevitable. there is no reversing this. we are constantly writing on water, hugging water. 

words of laughter, anger, sarcasm, cynnicism are just words, will pass. economics, house and car, apartment and eviction, will all pass. rich and poor will pass. so what? so what then?

worship is the key to this path of Surrender. worship happens through complete surrender. complete surrender is made possible through purposeful, fearless surrender, through Quietude the Order becomes clear, and the Maker and the made, the Creator and the created merge...

worship is the purpose of my life my abba tells me. life is work, my amma reminds me. work is worship, the prophet muhammad (s.a.w), guides us. everything is work - walking, sitting, speaking, quietude, prayer, eating...

in understanding purpose, go with faith, a friend told me recently. go with faith instead of making a decision. faith comes from complete surrender.

in the babylon system, the order is made possible through replicating what has always been - communities of worship. when there is past a certain number of being in any one space, then identity forms. when there are 40 people on the block, we are a community. when there are 400, like my block, then we become multiple identites. 

order is community. this is observable in the ecosystem, in forests, in the cosmos - solar systems. communities are built on principles, laws, just like the orbit of the planets. 

if life is work and work is worship and there is an absence of community, and instead there is a presence of deep individualism, then what? how do you address this? 

happiness is only found in letting go of world attachments, and in replicating that which is truth - sacred communities in worship. what is involved in the sacred community in worship - work. 

what kind of shared work do you and your family/community have? does everyone have a meaningful role? is the work facing the qibla? 

to address this order in aligning with the Maker of Order, al Bari, in a capitalist environment, work with the deeper. work in fulfilling a purpose in your entrepreneurship. 

there has to be something that you, i, we are struggling with together. this can be raising a family, and the struggle involved in striving to keep the lights on, and pay rent, while raising children with values and meals, and making sure no one goes hungry.

this struggle of raising a family, on the economic margins, as was the case for my family, can leave you lost and default on the authority. this may look like the law of the cops who had the gun to my head, or the stick up kids with blades and grins. this may lead you to believe in this authority and the larger system that cultivates this. so then, what?

values, values that are in harmony with the Harmony, that are in qibla, will keep your family in surrender, in more than the mundance of being pigs and beasts. 

the key to Surrender in the absence of community, within the babylon designed to fragment community, that is designed to leave the base lusts of man in hyperbole, in being, wanting to be chief, king, god, leader, chef, president, boss...me, me, me...

the key to Surrender in this frequency is to engage with purpose and building institutions based on  offering. the intstituions are those that alreeady exist or that you want to exist - family. sustaining family requires working together on an offering. what will be your offering royalty? 

99 names: 11: al Bari: the Maker of Order

audzu billahe...

the Order. at 7am i bow down...arise later than i should. arise with clarity of what to do - bow down, and then asana...after these two practices, i am greatful, thankful, ready to carry forth Purpose. thiis is al Bari, the tuning in with al Bari, with the Maker of Order. 

the Make, the Maker, and the Order...this trinity is the shawl of space, time and movement. it is where worlds merge. 

the Make is the Creation - earth, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies. then there is that which is at once behind it all and comprises it all, the Maker, ya ALLAH. the mathematics of this orbit, these constellations of beings in a synchopated symphony, is the Order. 

today, as i tip over age and what's next, and watch age on my parents heavy breaths, and the walls of this apartment i've returned to a sojourn, i am both thankful for home, and wondering what the purpose is of all of this, of doing anything i'm doing. left, back, and same, but everything different...odd, odd...yet this is the Order of the Maker

today i studied for a little, worked on getting right the paperwork for the exam i will inshALLAH take next week, and hung with my cuzin-firend d. d an i chopped it up on ayiti, miami creole, camping and survivial-fishing, the supreme math of this path of surrender (islam), and studied apart, in quiet. 

al Bari reminds me constantly in impermanence. anitchiya, as is said in the indian-buddist tradtion. the moment ends. the moment of this blog began - each thought becoming a past as soon as my fingers tapdance on this keyboard, the past a memory that is vivid for a moment, before it fleets, as i retreat for salat, to connect. 

the connection (the definition of salat), grounds me into remembrance, into recalling that this is indeed a great mystery and that the only constant is change, and in this movement, worship through surrender, anchors. 

i surrender to all and every, when i am walking in worship. but these breaks from family, this stagnancy in place, in seeing my family in the same situation economically, in my not coming up myself, in being single and unsure if family is in my script, makes me apprehensive...

the Maker of Order reminds me that there is an Order...to make note of this...to follow lie an equation...until the math ceases to exist...

99 names: al Bari: the Maker of Order ii

all praise is due, has always been, even when i got jumped by the wolves at the job. the ones who couldn't fugre out how to get at my riches. was getting paid less than everyone there, was getting less from insurance, and the cash flow shoulda depleted me, but smile, wink peace. peace. assalam. they wanted what the yoga and meditaiton classes couldn't buy them. what the extra cash flow couldn't purchase. 

how'd you get that wealth? one of my colleagues asked, at the mexican spot. gassed, i gave answers, replies that sounded like sat guru's responses to his western followers. i responded with ideas, as their questions probed further, deeper. ideas. letters. a man of letters. words merged. coalesced. we did. until me and colleague were the same, in the frequency of ideas, away. far and away from the Order.

took a while. they called me in like a holler. i came in and got stuck on fly paper. for  a sec. and then they crushed me. took my job away. took my livelihood. said i was late too often, said i was a puff of cloud. said such and such said i was doing such and such. such and sssssuuu and ssssss. hissed. i hissed with them, tongue out with venom. 

they were right. gave too much energy to the job, to opinions of those prostrate to capital and the golden calf of pharonic stature. i was affected cause i was delving from propblems, instead of stepping out to look at the math. didn't add up. 

the thing is, the they that jumped me needed me to nod, to give them love, even when they hurt. but i didn't. i barely looked at them, pouting. kept it moving, walking down the ave, when i saw them during a lunchbreak, when i was surrounded by neighborhood guards that wore blades under their teeth that shined like grills, larger than 22's on 18 wheelers. 

the Order Maker provides guards tougher than leather, than the fists of my little homie who was ready to blur fists at the length of an eye hitting him, at the slightest treble of what may sound like hurt from me when i spoke of the situation, unemployed and in blues - who disrespected you sun? 

the guards are all around. all around. sun moon air river mountain stones. the stone that the builder refused has always been the head corner stone....

the stone. stoned love. pineal gland. what???

the Order Maker sets a math. what is the equation? the mathematics is in the Quiet. shhhh...it's in the doing. do. work. work is worship. shhh. life is work and work is worship. the struggle is worth it.

what's your struggle? mine is forgetting purpose, mine is trusting in this path of traditional medicine and allowing it to take me instead of me trying to control it. the struggle is slipping into darkness and acclimating to schizophrenia - the frequency of bablyon. walk like flex, the death dance from dancehall to 4 train bar breaks by kids with boomboxes and epilepsy. 

how do you get down with the Order. do. focus. find Your Purpose. it's always a spiritual one. do deeper. further. shhh...with and without pause. polymer....over and over, until methodlogy hones into clarity.

this month's full moon letting go was of random doing, and doing instead from methodology. there is a method to shirsasana, to walking sitting, to humiltiy.

the methodology to the Order, is la illaha illala....dikr...la illaha, teri shan ya wadahoo, la illaha, teri shan shan shan....the repetition of this frequency in sanskrit...om tryambakum yejamahe...do the reptition of this frequency in cantonese in malay, in swahili in creole, in....until you are so clean inside that Om is not a word, that Om is how you walk and move.

the Order is Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

99 names: al Bari: the Maker of Order

order. there is an Order to ........ al Haq. biismillah

bismillah hirahman niraheem. in the name of...

ALLAH, your name is on the 22 most wanted list.

i lied. ALLAH, your name is on the 10 most wanted list.

ALLAH, your name and path is public enemy number one. you are in the eye of a rifle.

You, the Source of Peace (islam, as-Salam), You are the target of a campaign of drones with precision bombs that are as accurate at aiming at You as physcists are at locating electrons. 

the golden calf of this living, of here's my business card, of flatscreen and sports and made men, of cool, of identity politics, of museum shows and walmart crowds, of working class and elite, of, of, of...are tied into this frequency so deep, they'd rather talk till they fell asleep in front of a bowl of roasted almonds and cyberporn.

the order is talk in the linguistics of dominant culture or in dominant subculture, or in what's cooler: white in Idaho, black in atlanta, mexican in paso, texas, puerto rican in spanish harlem, korean in flushing, indian in edison, nj. 

spend your whole life talking about race and being a color, and the politics of that color, and, and, and...give energy to the maya you live in cause you're hurt, cause others hurt makes you verify fiction. the happenstance brown on this face, connects my skin to sun, not an identity. land, and sun, and language, and worship, connects us. 

are you down with Soul? with the Order of Soul?

the Order is the worship, to worship that which is Real - 28 days, moon-cycle; 85% of planet earth is lquid, 15% land. it takes a mountain 10 million years to take shape. 24 hours for earth to revolve around its axis. 364.5 days for earth to revolve around the sun. 28 years for saturn to orbit the sun. 

the Order is mathematics. 5 times a day - surrender to the Source of Peace (islam). 30 days a year, during the 9th month, fast from sun up to sun down. once a lifetime, journey to the black hole, the center of all galaxies - the atom - the house of adam, built by abraham, in mecca, and become a proton and neutron, as you circumambulate the Great Nothingness, 7 times. 

do you know your math?

if you do, check your phones, and look out the window. feds. waco. wait, it may be too late. 

but wait, there is no end. the end never ends. know the Order.

the Order of the day makes itself clear. no book or scripture neccessary to illuminate this - just sun up and moon up - light sky and dark sky. yes, this is the knowledge. it must be destroyed and the people who practice it must be decimated like bacteria. dropping anti-biotics from obama space-ships. prescriptions from the black-man, who is the Man. the Man, has always been the cracker of whips. he has always been black and asian, and indian, and white. the Man dances with the devil.

the Man is you kid. yeah, you. 

shhhh...meditate and reconnect with the Order. the Order reveals Essence when you are empty.

hands up, heads down, i Surrender. take off my watch and kicks, and jeans and white-tee. put down my cell and even my pen and pad. throw up and drink only a glass of water when i am hungry. in the last 30. empty. 

in complete emptiness, the av node can be heard. the pulse is felt. the Order is clear. 

 

99 names: al Khaliq: the Creator

all praise is due...creation, the Creator...the creative energy...saw my math in an anatomy and physiolgy book...axial/appendicular skeleton, sarcomeres contracting skeletal muscles...

...the human body, a paintbrush of genius, of Creativity so sophisticated that gasp, wow, how...

...al Khaliq resides in our natural disposition to create, to live artfully...

...in marakech everyone i met was an artist. lamb-skin lamps in the cut of midnight sahara, in the shape of desert women...

...in noakhali, my chacima gave me a tour of a day in the life of a villagewoman...herself a village woman...she made the bamboo chairs we sat on, the straw mat my other aunty seperated rice grains on. my chahci me gave me the quilt that stitches a story like ragas that played from the flute of my cousin, who blew song in the sound of trees, after a day of tilling land...

...art is life in the tradition, among traditional people...there is no separation, no cullinary school...

...my mom's laboratory is the kitchen, where she spends the majority of her time concocting masterpieces that have guests all-praising...

...all praise is due to the Source, al-Khaliq that lies within us all, when we get out of our way, when we let go....the success is in the doing, in the practice, in the Way, in the service...

....al Khaliq is the Creation. how  does your art account for community? what role does it serve in building, enhancing, maintaining community, beyond you, beyond this brief moment in this brief body?

...how do i/we tap into al-Khaliq? al-Khaliq is here. here. do you see? hear? shhh...don't talk about it...thing is, i find al Khaliq when i am my most vulnerable self, when i allow for Creator/ivity to work through me instead of audience, instead of paying too much heed to the opinions of those who are tuned into a lower frequency...

...and me, little me, little i, wanting to connect, wanting to be down, wanting just to be normal, and not gossiped about, and not have burning ears, and a kick-me sign, me - i try to get it right, try to say the words that will sound like jay and johnny...

...in the process of this tapping into lower, into an audience, into compulsion by those who i make idols , i lose al-Khaliq. 

...what would happen if al-Khaliq were my voice, my walk? my writings, my use of paper...stacks on stacks on stacks of art in collab with you and you and trees and seasons and generations...a dialectic...conversations between 500 b.c. 300 a.d. 1442 and 2015...all praise is due for the letting go, for the vulnerability, for working through al-Khaliq...

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 

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...

99 names: al Aziz: the Victorious i

january, the first month of the judea christain calendar. any day could be the first and any the last. my boro bhaiya's first was a few days back, he reached the number of guns preferred by rappers in their alter-egos. 

my alter ego is that which you see in pictures, that which hides the Victorious.

hands over my face, i am learning the disicpline of keeping hidden to become, to be Victorious, to be more than and at the same time less than, the begining and end. 

all praise is given by way of bowing, my abbu tells me. bowing requires cleanse. cleanse prepares for the journey to the Victoious.

meditations on 99 names, i've been meditating Victorious under snow falls, behind cliques and plans for the party later. om  i say, hands together, in bowing to the Victorious in them. i'll pass. 

i pass, walk through desolate upstate towns, from trailer parks to farms hustling chickens, to oak-lined suburban strips of pure beauty, where houses appear to be built by monet's and van gogh's, comissioned to paint brush home. yet instead of a daily communal celebration of this collective beauty, of sharing, of dinners and weddings, and making paratha together, silence. neighbors are partitioned by invisible walls of private property, beware. perhaps a wave, hello and small talk, 

i walk, continuing to the Victorious, neither falling into a strut nor a spell. no anxiety about police with necks fatter than boars, nor burning crosses, nor gun claps on my sacrum. 

sacred protects me until i reach the village home of my parents, their parents...into ancestry, into ancient mathematics that i study in the constellations from the bamboo chair my chachima has made and lines the mud hut of my fathers childhood. 

the code to Victorious is always the same, usually lost on westerners - white, black, brown, yellow - who come to these parts for anthropoology or spirit or product or commodification. they leave wih books and films and ashram-ideas, and recipes for restuarants and expertise to validate their certificates, degrees, papers on official. 

the code to Victorious is always the same - shhhhhhh....

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…

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.