The Inner Mirror

Just a few kilometers off the Mumbai Harbor, nestled on an island, amidst basalt rock mounds, lay a mysterious complex of exquisite cave temples that whisper a silent homage to the region’s spiritual past. It’s tune inaudible to the nearby metropolis teeming with ambitious commerce, and ceaseless traffic, here the temple walls echo a stark but graceful embrace, and invite the yearning explorer to re-discover a mystical tradition so vibrant in the distant past.

Tagore always criticized power and materialism for its own sake. The more one accumulates treasures, and the more one amasses all the power in the world, one is actually chained.

One cannot speak of philosophy without speaking of the philosopher; one cannot mention the world of ideas without speaking of the person who is capable of living those ideas. So, if we had to highlight one of the fundamental characteristics of the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, we would say that such a person has the qualities of the eternal seeker. He is a self-conqueror, who will only stop seeking when he has finally reached wisdom; and we don’t know whether, even then, he will go on to seek other things, which are incomprehensible and inaccessible for us today.

Many of us wish to change the world. But how can it be done?

First of all, it is obvious we are not just seeking to change the world – the world is changing anyhow, regardless of what we do. The ancient philosophers wisely stated that the only permanent thing in the world is change.

In reality, it is not change we seek, it is a certain, positive, change – a diversion of the river’s flow, an orientation towards a brighter future for humanity.

Second, none of us by ourselves can really make a meaningful impact.

According to legend the word Philosophy can be attributed to Pythagoras who spoke of himself as a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, rather than a Wise man as he had been called by others. Of course, the word Philo-Sophy, the Love of Wisdom, does not give Pythagoras any innovation rights over the concept; there always were, and are, philosophers in all times, and in all places. The quest for truth and wisdom can be found, in one way or another, across all civilizations, in numerous and varied expressions.

There is a relative uncertainty as to when our earliest human ancestors evolved on earth. But it is certain that by that time, a myriad variety of plants and trees had already been thriving on the planet. The very structure of a tree, with its trunk segmenting into branches, twigs and leaves, is a physical manifestation of the philosophical concept characterizing the relationship between the universe and the One; multiplicity from Unity. The tree’s concealed roots further extend the metaphor, of unity springing from a hidden origin or source. Even those of us who do not share this perception cannot help but experience a sense of awe, perhaps even an intuitive reverence, in the presence of a forest of these majestic giants clothed in their silent, steadfast, resilient beauty. Older than man himself, trees have been integral to myths and folklore in almost all cultures as symbols of solace, strength, abundance, and immortality.

History is an extraordinary showcase where different ideas have appeared and given rise to many different ways of life, like coloured crystals whose hues vary according to the light. Each age has its parameters, and human beings, on their endless path of searching, have been ruled by those models, which they have tried to follow and obey more than they would follow an idea from any other source. What is commonly accepted becomes like a law and, as time passes, some of the ideas that have been accepted become even more powerful than laws themselves.

The following piece is my humble investigation into my fear of death; the fear of my own (impending) death and also the fear of the eventual death of a loved one. This journey began 8 years ago with my mother’s sudden death. It has been insightful that while processing my grief some years down the line, a psychotherapist helped me conclude, that the trauma resulting from a loved one’s death, can actually embed itself in hypochondriac behaviour.

From an esoteric point of view, a ritual is dependent on the existence of the invisible dimension. This invisible dimension consists of a spiritual-mental aspect, which is the domain of the archetypes or ‘living idea-beings’ spoken of by the Platonists; and an ‘astral’ aspect, which is an intermediate world between spirit and matter, just as imagination is the link between the world of ideas and the physical world. In this view of things, the invisible world exists, the material world reflects. The visible is the shadow of the invisible.

This article serves only as an introduction to the legendary origins, metaphysical purpose, and the traditional form used in the practice of Qawwali. It would be impossible to capture the cultural nuances, complex history, and social impact of the genre in this brief work, but I hope to share some principal themes that have emerged from my own amateur investigation, to help the reader embark on their own exploration of this magnificent Sufi practice.

The universe is a place of balance…Yin and Yang, night and day, summer and winter, masculine and feminine. A balance achieved by complementarity – the equal and opposite effect of dualistic entities. Yin is as essential as Yang, just as night is as essential as day; each has its role and function in the service of life as a whole. So too, the feminine is as essential as the masculine.

When I write an article for this magazine (referring to the Acropolis Magazine published by New Acropolis Israel in Hebrew), I usually pick an event from the daily news to comment on. Today I will not fail in this habit, but I have chosen to comment not on an event, but a personal experience which had occurred in a class, at the New Acropolis center in Tel Aviv.

We had a one day seminar, with theoretical and practical exercises about philosophy and the path to wisdom, and during this seminar I answered some questions. One of the questions was: What is the difference between philosophy and religion?

In the journey of life as we grow in consciousness, we start to become aware of a certain truth that dawns on us as gently and as lovingly as the first rays of the rising Sun – that we are all ‘One Life’, deeply connected to each other in mystic and mysterious ways.

I recently had the opportunity to investigate my all-time favourite fairytale, Cinderella, in a new light. I realised that we can infact extract very practical principles to apply in our daily lives. But for this, we need to look at the story that we are so familiar with, through a new lens, leaving behind our preconceived notions for a moment. I began to slowly peel off layers, to attempt to read between the lines, and to grasp the symbolism deeply embedded in the characters and plot.

The word Samurai originally meant ‘those who serve’, although individuals of this elite warrior class in medieval Japan were also referred to as Bushi, or warrior. And Bushido was the code of morality which the Samurai were meant to follow, not just in battle, but also in day-to-day activity. Speaking of this code in his book Bushido: The Soul of Japan, which is widely considered to be an authority on the subject, Nitobe says that it was not written down anywhere, but had organically formed over centuries.