=kit116.txt

KIT 116 - THE DANCE OF JOY

"A million galaxies are a little foam on that shoreless sea.
We came whirling out of nothing scattering stars like dust.
The stars made a circle and in the middle we dance,
Turning and turning, it sunders all attachment.
Every atom turns bewildered,
And it is only God circling Himself"
RUMI

"Thy music causeth my soul to dance; in the murmur of the wind I
hear Thy flute; the waves of the sea keep the rhythm of my dancing
steps. Through the whole of nature I hear Thy music played, my
Beloved; my soul while dancing speaketh of its joy in song."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

To be happy, to dance, we need to be beautiful and to be beautiful
we need to validate ourselves, and it is just in our ability to
love those others who make themselves most difficult to love that
life tests us in our love of ourselves, because, often unbeknown
to ourselves, it is our self-esteem that is at stake.

"Souls are moved to dance at the sight of beauty."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

"Why should the gardener plant the seed if it were not for the
love of the flower?"    
RUMI

The bottom line is, as Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan pointed out, "we
are tested in our love." Yes, this is precisely what is enacted in
life.  It is admittedly difficult to keep one's joy - the dance of
one's soul - high when dealing with a cantankerous person, or an
unkind person or a domineering or manipulative person, or a person
who exhibits a pattern of trying to draw one into a conflict.

Our spiritual progress is determined by our ability to harmonize
with our social environment; but how can we harmonize with people
who would only be well disposed toward us if we give in to their
egos, thereby forfeiting our own values and responsibilities? This
is assuredly the great art of life: being able to cumulate
authority, and kindness, and joy - and insight. People are
awkwardly vying to validate their vulnerable self-esteem by
affirming their egos - maybe at our cost. Maybe it is the only way
they know to fulfill this need. Maybe they justify it in their
reasoning as standing up for their opinion.

Understanding is the first step to forgiveness. One can entertain
understanding, and forgiveness, and love, even respect, while
standing by one's commitment in life. Forgiving someone who hurt a
dear one is much harder than forgiving oneself. Moreover some
cases are so outrageous that one questions: how is it possible in
this case? Yet forgiving is the key to joy and to that authority
that is not powered by the despotism of the human ego - having
room in one's heart for those who offend and betray one.

"The Sufi's constant attitude towards others is that of love. What
does love mean? Love means forgiveness."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

As for guilt, if we are honest, it leaves us no escape. Remission?
To acquiesce to divine forgiveness, we need to forgive ourselves.
Making a pledge to never repeat the offense, and making amends,
will help. 

"However much you have sinned, you are welcome in our caravan."
RUMI  

[ Note: (sa): But of course the translation we are most familiar
with is;
"Back, back, whoever you are; this caravan is not of despair,
although you have broken your vows [ Zuleika adds:  'perhaps'] a
thousand times .... " [ Zuleika then sings:  "wanderer, worshiper,
lover of ?meaning in time?" ]

"God has Mercy and forgives your sins."
QUR'AN

To give joy to others, we need to find joy in ourselves. Therefore
now to dance, we need to dance the dance of joy over the thorns
under our feet, while rejoicing that we have been transformed by
reconnoitering our shadow and thus being able to confront it. We
rely upon our ego to ensure our psychological defenses; it
features our crutches. To wean ourselves we need to validate our
self-esteem by including in our self-image the celestial levels of
our being.

We are inexorably immersed in the very selfsame process whereby
life, in its vertiginous ascent that we call evolution, transforms
the dung feeding the seed into a beautiful flower - moreover with
the bonus of a perfume. Does not the seething clash of warring
clouds resolve in the luminous fireworks of lightning? Is it not
significant that, as the universe evolves, matter in the form of
the human body serves the awakening of higher levels of being? The
pain of childbirth opens up a peep into the heavens revealed to us
through the eyes of a babe. We learn that the ordeal of those
tortured in concentration camps erupts in a break-through of
ineffable ecstasy as death rescues them from their executioners.
The example of heroic beings may help one. It can help to make the
transit into "life after life." A revered friend once told me he
had been tortured twice during the second world war, once by the
Nazis, then by the Soviets, and in his ordeal, he kept feeling
sorry for those who were causing him agony in body and mind
because he saw they were brainwashed and consequently he could
forgive them. He said all he had to do was to get into the
consciousness of Christ being tortured by the soldiers of Herod.

Forgiving makes the difference between incandescing in the fire of
the psychological hell of acrimony, or exulting in the splendor
and clarity of celestial effulgence.

Have you ever been graced  by a dream revealing the abandon of the
heavenly dance of jubilation when, by forgiving the traitors who
betrayed them, heroes are crowned with the beatitude of
saintliness?

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