If I Worship You

O Lord, if I worship You

Because of fear of hell

Then burn me in hell.

If I worship You

Because I desire paradise

Then exclude me from paradise.

But if I worship You

For Yourself alone

Then deny me not

Your eternal beauty

This beautiful poem was by Rabia Basri, an early Sufi mystic poet. She had a great influence on Rumi. She was one of the first Sufi poets who emphasised a pure, unconditional Love of the Divine. Not a love that was motivated by any egotistical ends. Rabia knew that love motivated by selfish desires was not true love. Her disposition towards the Divine is in this sense nuanced and healthy. Certain religious traditions, by contrast, have weaponised fear and shame to control people. True religion, arguably, is not about this. True religion shouldn't instil fear and shame in people.

A Fragment

Notice that interval betwixt the chirping of the birds

Sense the emptiness in this remote valley

Did you feel it on that peaceful Sunday morning?

Did it tap your shoulder in the dead of night?

It encompasses everything, yet is so often neglected

We swim in it's presence; it consumes, it gives birth

As the stars cannot shine without darkness, we cannot sing without silence

A Fragment

I won’t ask you to surrender or let go

If you need to keep holding, keep grasping, that’s okay

You held on for a good reason, falling is scary for the best of us

Just know, Love is waiting for you

Love has always been waiting, ready to catch you

At your lowest, most despairing points, Love was there, and you were so close to letting go

But don’t worry, when you’re ready you’ll know

Love is eternally patient and welcomes everyone with open arms

A Fragment

Don’t strive for perfection

Perhaps you shouldn’t even aim for improvement

What if there’s nothing to fix?

What if the perpetual need to solve everything is why you’re discontent?

When we grow, like a seedling emerging from its shell, we are moving towards wholeness

Perfection doesn’t exist

Through wholeness, we become well-rounded and multifaceted

Wholeness is inclusive, welcoming the good, the bad and the ugly in equal measure

Wholeness doesn’t push away or repress so-called negative thoughts

Wholeness is adaptive and open, not restrictive and narrow

Some situations call for strength and power, more situations call for softness and yielding

The person of wholeness responds accordingly

A Fragment

Mercurial and mobile

Adaptable, fluid

Sometimes, I am hard and ice-cold

Other times, soft and yielding

I can be mighty and terrifying

For travellers, I often grant gentle passages

I also grant treacherous passages

I glisten and dance before your eyes

I nourished your nascent body, filling the womb that birthed you

To some, I am the fluency and resilience of women

Ocean, cloud, rain, river and back again

I am the ceaseless flow of life

Observe and drink my wisdom, weary traveller

I will quench your desperate thirst

A Fragment

A murmuration materialised before us, sweeping miraculously across a muted grey sky

Like the atoms of a body in motion, they moved in perfect unison

Transfixed, I looked on with wonder and awe

My friend spoke "It must have something to do with the leading birds and the motion of air travelling to the others"

I momentarily held this view in mind, then felt a pang of vacuity and despair

The wildflowers burgeoning across the springtime field, their green stems suffused with golden light, petals joyously spreading, are they also to be summed up scientifically?

What about the glowing moon suspended in the nightsky?

And the magnificent mountains sprawling before you, terrifying and wonderful, spilling toward the distant horizon?

How about the fox that locked eyes with you as you wandered home, its amber eyes glinting in the dark, its rusty pelt bristling as it scurries away?

Awe and humility should be welcomed through the door of our understanding, and we should ask them to sit right beside science

A Fragment

The more habitual and repetitive life becomes,

the more we lose the wonder, the awe.

The more we lose the openness we once had,

when the whole world was apparelled in celestial light*.

But let us honour and cultivate this wonder and awe.

And though we may never return to a true child-like state,

let us not become embittered and closed-off.

Let us remain open and supple.

Let us remain good-humoured and sensitive.

Let us revere each morning sunrise, a miracle beyond words.

Let us cherish each passing season, each blade of grass, each gnarled tree.

Let us always be grateful for the wonder of life. 

 * Wordsworth