=kit133p1

NOT NUMBERED.  FOLLOWS KIT 133 in the Kaivan English set.
Titled "Enjoy the Challenge -- June 2, 2002" 

So apparently there were no KIT's form January through May of '02.

[ Following KiT 133 , there are three unnumbered apparent KIT's in
the Kaivan collection -- 'Enjoy the Challenge' is the first, 'War
or Peace' is the second, 'Institutionalization of Spirituality' is
the third, followed by KIT 136.

So this is 'Enjoy the Challenge', which I give docname =kit133p1,
meaning, KIT 133__plus_one
          
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Enjoy the Challenge
June 2, 2002

Dear friends,


I am overwhelmed and graced by the powerful, loyal support and
love reaching me here at Fazal Manzil from all parts of the world.
I bid you all a heartfelt thank you. I attach judicious credence
to the power of positive thought and prayer.

I am in the best and most expert of medical hands. Curiously
enough, I have not felt quite so buoyant, energetic and positive,
even humorous, for a long, long time. I already feel better which
means that the treatment is working. Hopefully we caught it in the
nick of time, at the eleventh hour, and we are dealing with it
energetically. Officially the treatment has an 80% success rate.
My doctor Dr. Haddad at the Hartman Institute told Dr. QwanYin
Linda Wexler, my US doctor, today that, "It is impossible for Mr.
Inayat to die on account of his present health condition," so that
sounds reassuring! I have been working regularly at my office
computer, from 6 am, on my book and curriculum, enthused by the
rush of ideas. For age 85 plus, my health is not bad! In fact it
is amazing.

I already feel a great relief as though that naughty "crab"
(fictitious) has been bullied to let go its grip. It is now clear
that this condition has been incubating for several years, defying
detection (while I must own to neglect on my part, which I tried
to justify by being so busy!!!)

Present day technology has improved by leaps and bounds. It has
pushed its way into the area of the organic - endocrinology -
beyond the inorganic drug. This accounts for one half of my
treatment. The other half is radio-therapy [radiation] which is
(if you permit my amateurish interpretations in the language of
metaphor) healing with light, albeit with rather fierce light rays
(the lance of Perceval). This is to incinerate the claws of the
crab attacking my heart chakra, Anahata, from behind (5th dorsal),
as did the lance grabbed by the Queen of the Night (Kali) in a
smart ploy to attack King Amfortras. Furthermore it involves the
thymus (6th cervical - immune system) and my left (4th) rib, 'the
Sufi heart on the left,' drawing attention to my concern about
dealing with the world instead of retiring in 'splendid, beatific
isolation.' Do you believe it???

[ Note (sa) -- In Abode Camp lectures mid_70s, and maybe in some
other lectures of that period, PVK would sometimes tell the story
of a readiologist he met, in Texas if I recall, who told him that
he would be fired if the hospital knew that for radiation therapy
he used a very low dosage -- aimed at stimulating the immune
system, if I recall, rather than at burning out malignant cells. ]


I have been complementing the medical treatment with my own
meditation: visualizing my aura and the impact upon my aura of the
cosmic rays descending as a lance of light (the lance of the
Grail) into my aura, represented as a chalice of light.
Incidentally, during and after the radio-therapy, while
incandescent light is aggressing the pathological cells laterally,
I meditate on the galactic cosmic rays directing high frequency
light (ultra-violet) through the fontanel downwards along the
spine (not upwards as in Kundalini) to regenerate the healthy body
cells which proliferate in the process of mitosis by being
quickened by that high frequency energy called the holy spirit.
Our pineal gland is sensitive to the light of the center of the
Milky Way, in addition to the influence of the sun, and therefore
links us with influences of enormous outreach crowning the
survival of the higher dimensions of one's being over the
dismantling and distilling of the existential dimensions.

One can, indeed, in one's meditations, scan the wide spaces of
light transpiring through the galaxies explored by astro-
physicists, while the wreck of one's 'palace in a ruin' (the
battered body) still registers the impact of the celestial
experience on humans on Planet Earth, so as to communicate it to
one's friends and, beyond that, heavenly light. So here is a
further reason to reconcile meditation and science at this
critical transit in the evolutionary advance of humanity.

In one's spiritual practices one awakens dormant faculties in
one's body that reciprocate functions in the higher spheres, which
one does not generally use.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"You can also become aware of your higher bodies - develop insight
into the ethereal spheres. You can be instrumental to making this
all-pervading light manifest as radiant light. It is in this
process that man becomes like a radiant star." 
(HIK) (ESOTERIC PAPERS)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN gives many clues. Importantly:
"If you make your soul more subtle in order to turn away from this
world, you can find within yourself the different worlds by tuning
to the different planes of consciousness...you gain a conviction
that frees you from earthly conditions."
(HIK)  (THE SMILING FOREHEAD/ SUFI TEACHINGS). 

"By making this body in a different condition you may become
conscious of annihilation. If you produce the condition of death
at will, in the reaction the opposite will occur."
(HIK ) (ESOTERIC PAPERS/ SANGATHA III). 

"The great Yogis and Sufis have always progressed by the help of
their practices toward the highest state of perfection by
etherealizing through the knowledge of vibrations." 
(HIK) (VOL. 2, THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND AND MUSIC/ ESOTERIC MUSIC)

Indeed, by one's meditation practices one is reinforcing the
medical therapy with spiritual self-healing in parallel. Here we
can confirm experientially the impact of the mind over the body.
Let us further bear in mind that the imaginary representation of
the light of one's aura can only be truly actuated physically if
one cleans one's emotions, by entertaining generous, up-front
emotions and crystal clear, luminous thoughts thereby clearing
one's thought from guile lurking in the dark unconscious.

Of course one needs to die some time; it is current before my age.
Whatever the result, (green or red - I don't like the ambiguous
orange in between!) is OK. I am not afraid of death. There is
nothing wrong with dying! But I would like to wait a little bit
longer before the great jump because I have so much to do and
explore.

Our programming provides for an irrevocable slow down of the
regenerative process hopefully affecting the body rather than the
mind, first targeting the reproductive system, then the immune,
nervous and circulatory systems. It is quite current that senior
citizens of a certain age are vulnerable to an incidence of
cancer, albeit it advances slowly at that age and may evade
detection even through a biopsy. So the (Vishnu) destructive
macrophages need to fulfill their mission so that Shiva can
resurrect.

What happens after life on earth is a question mark for most
people. Rather than relying on belief or dogma, I am trying to
espy clues in physics, biology and psychology as to the
transformations and transmutations that occur in the fabric of the
body cells and the mental processes after transiting - a further
reason to pursue my study on meditation and science to which the
present situation is drawing my attention. The 'flying Dutchman'
who cannot die is not enviable; fettered to the Planet, he misses
out on the glee of galactic travel. But the great jump could wait
a bit. It could be delayed because I am straining on the lead to
write the book ordered by my publishers on Meditation and Science.
Having their hand on the pulse of the merging trend in the advance
of human thought -

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The whole universe has contributed to the way humanity thinks
today." 
(HIK, I presume) (Spiritual Liberty). 

"The collective working of many minds as one single idea and the
activity of the whole world are governed by the intelligence of
the planet. It is the Message of spiritual liberty."
(IBID. LOC. CIT; no doubt of it.)


- they have a hunch that the alert minds in the leading edge of 

human thought see in this the opening of unexplored perspectives
for the spirituality of the future.

D'ESPAGNAT:
"One needs to surpass familiar concepts because one cannot account
for the world or for our rapport with the old by relying upon
them." 
(LA PHYSIQUE QUANTIQUE, CF. L'HOMME FACE A LA SCIENCE)

Although several physicists are encroaching (surprisingly naively
for otherwise brilliant minds) upon the realm of spirituality, and
a few gurus have been and are trying to validate their antiquated
belief systems on faulty interpretations of modern physics, the
encounter between spirituality and science on the table is mostly
explored by Buddhists. But the contribution of the insight of
Sufis and particularly Hazrat Inayat Khan has not been explored
and I deem that it is my job in this autumn of my life if I am
given a few years respite. I am dialoguing with physicists and
some physicists appreciate to find in me a teacher of meditation
who has a background in science (which is not often the case, as
far as I know with the exception of Mahesh Yogi, certainly of Sufi
methods.)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The more deeply we study matter, the more proofs shall we find of
intelligence working through the whole process of continual
unfoldment. There is a gradual awakening of matter to become
conscious. Through the awakening of matter to increased
consciousness, matter becomes fully intelligent in man. In matter
life unfolds, discovers and realizes the consciousness that has
been, so to speak, buried in it for thousands of years." 
(HIK) (THE SMILING FOREHEAD)

The opportunity offered by the 'transit' furnishes us with a 'leg-
up' by hoisting us into extremely valuable, generally unknown
unexplored areas - transpersonal dimensions of our being carrying
the promise of opening up new perspectives.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The ultimate aim of the eternal Consciousness in undertaking a
journey to the plane of mortality is to realize its eternal
being."
(HIK)  (Spiritual Liberty). 

"The soul's unfoldment comes from its power which ends in its
loosening the ties of the lower planes...closing your eyes to your
limited self... and realizing your immortal self." 
(HIK) (SPIRITUAL LIBERTY)

"The false ego is what does not belong to the real ego, and what
that ego has wrongly conceived to be its own being." 
(HIK) (THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND AND MUSIC). 

"If you dived deep enough in yourself, you would discover your
real ego." 
(HIK) (COSMIC LANGUAGE). 

"Our soul begins to realize a much greater expansion of its own
being. The ego itself is never destroyed. In the knowledge of the
ego there is the secret of immortality."
(HIK, presumably.  I assume that the citations follow, rather than
precede, the quote. -- sa )

Unfortunately the dying process can be painful. One may wish
oneself a painless death, but one would be missing out on the
value of pain. In some cases pain acts as a catharsis sublimating
the human materialism by distilling it into spirit.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"The cry of agony which comes from the depth of the heart may be a
sound of the greatest beauty....There are moments of intense
feeling when pain and joy meet, and one cannot distinguish where
one ends and the other begins; they have their meeting place in
the heart of man. Pain is like the herb in the hands of the great
Transmuter, the divine Alchemist; falling on the melted silver of
the heart it turns it into the purest gold, and renders the heart
of man more fitting to be the altar of God." 
(HIK) (SPIRITUAL HEALING)

Pain can help one overcome one's gross ego and make one beautiful.
If one wallows in self-pity, it will make one bitter and
cantankerous.

I certainly do not relish any condolences or that horrible word:
'pity,' or "rest in peace after all your work!" Amongst some who
have given me a hard time (which has proven helpful in the long-
run) some (hopefully in rare cases, but I am not sure) might
consciously or unconsciously think 'good-riddance' (as has
actually happened before), albeit most of these are polite enough
not to say it too loudly. I would rather that they come forth
frankly and say it. (Excuse me for a bout of temerity - I am
working with laugh therapy.) I am not sorry for myself and when I
feel pain, it pales into near nothingness when I think of the
ordeal that my sister Noor and many through the history of the
world suffered and are suffering today at the hands of brutes.

I do not welcome either well-intended patronizing back-stage,
armchair, amateur psychologists or even professional psycho-
therapists telling me: "Why don't you...?" My concerns,
motivations, estimation of pros and cons, scruples about how my
actions affect people and theirs affect me are personal to me, to
my particular psychological and spiritual idiosyncratic
configuration and values. That of a psychologist is his or hers,
does not apply to me, and I am not prepared to deliver the secret
of my soul and heart to anybody in the world. I do not wish it to
be surmised or interpreted or misinterpreted by well-wishers who
are not privy to my perspective.

DEALING WITH THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES

I have often pointed out the link between psychological issues
with regard to the interface with the social environment and the
bodily concomitant: cancer. Surprising cases of remission of
cancer by laugh therapy and visualizing the T-cells, macrophages,
combating and vamping the parasitic cells that are conspiring to
take over by confusing the body's sense of identity (so that our
genetic enzymes make mistakes in the replication of our genetic
code from DNA to RNA) have been recorded. Therefore, at the
psychological level, our sense of identity is at stake. This is
precisely what we are working with in meditation.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"What is meant by concentration is the change of identification of
the soul so that it may lose the false sense of identification and
identify itself with the true self instead of the false self."
(HIK) 
(THE ALCHEMY OF HAPPINESS\ THE INNER LIFE AND SELF REALIZATION)

The cosmic issue looming here is that in my involvement in the
human drama enacted in my 'storms in my cup of tea,' my attention
is being drawn to the fact that I am invited to sort this out
myself in my own life (in the hope that it may prove useful for
others) rather than quoting theoretically physiologists and
psychologists. Maybe this is true for all of us.

Those who have made one's life hard help one to try one's best to
overcome resentment, which by the same token is precisely what I
am prescribing. However, the cosmic challenge that I need to sort
out in myself to throw light into the psychological processes that
triggered off consequences in my body (however currently
recognized in medicine as a standard process) has resulted in my
beginning to appreciate that one must not even condemn resentment
in others, albeit it triggers off aggressivity, ruthless
insensitivity, and ignorance with all its trail of brutality,
cruelty, suffering. Maybe it has a psychological purpose in life
in the divine strategy because that is a conditioned programming
of the human defense system -

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
 "...everything has its purpose."

- to protect one from being abused, oppressed, victimized and
violated in one's self esteem if one does not know a better way of
dealing with the issue.

FREEDOM VERSUS INVOLVEMENT - DETACHMENT VERSUS LOVE!!!

Here we are bumping into precisely the crucial issue: processing
in one's own life the reconciliation between two antithetical
cosmic principles (and thereby helping others to do so) embodied
in (i) the way of the saint - compassion with the danger of
slipping into its flaw (that need not be) of co-dependence,
facilitating rather than dealing with tyranny -

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Man seeks freedom and pursues captivity. (In an Eastern Rose
Garden) All that produces longing in the heart deprives one of
one's freedom. One sees a constant striving in the life of the
adepts to make themselves independent of outside things as much as
possible." 
(HIK) (THE ART OF PERSONALITY)

- and (ii) the way of the master - with the danger of slipping
into its flaw (that need not be) of an ego trip, dominating
others, hampering people's freedom and taking responsibility from
them.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"He who fights his nature for his ideal is a saint; he who
subjects his ideal to his realization of truth is the master."
(HIK) (GAYAN)

It is challenging for one who has tasted of the freedom of the
sanyasin, but recognizes that it is an escape from responsibility,
to conform to the constraint of worldly circumstances in which one
incurs the temptation of slipping into acquisitiveness,
facetiousness, opulence, pretentiousness, impertinence, and the
aggressivity of the ego for one's psychological protection. On the
contrary, in the spiritual quest one is scrambling to transmute
(rather than annihilate) the false ego.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Things that people take to heart will seem of little importance,
and he finds that all his life he has given his thoughts to
something which does not last, which does not even exist.... When
one's soul is awakened, one becomes in one moment a different
person.... Something has touched it and made it uneasy, restless.
This makes it yearn for release."

Let us remember:

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Illumination is obtained by rising above one's earthly condition
at the command of one's will and realizing one's immortal self
which is God within.... Awaken God within."

"The soul cannot rise from the lower regions until it has left
behind all earthly longings and attachments."
(HIK),  (SPIRITUAL LIBERTY/ AQIBAT)

My assignment has, therefore, been and is to insert freedom within
constraint; that is to operate according to one's standards and
values within the constraint of circumstances valiantly without
self-pity. The Sufi call this condition ZHUD which means maintain
a sense of satisfaction even in a battered body and overstressed
psyche, undaunted, whatever the hardship of the circumstances,
without complaining. (The secret of toughening up
psychologically.)

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Those who have accomplished something really worthwhile in the
world have had to sacrifice comfort, convenience, pleasure and
merriment. The higher the attainment, the higher the sacrifice it
asks."

This is what it takes to explore the way that awakening in life in
our tough new world leads to dedicated action. This is indeed the
door to the spirituality of the future.

Incidentally (iii) the way of prophet-hood that overarches
sainthood and mastery at the soul level, thus reconciling the
apparent irreconciliables, needs to be implemented in our lives
where this dichotomy challenges us to find a practical solution.

By some enigmatic paradox: while motivated by the quest for
independence characteristic of the saint, his or her compassion
squeezes him or her increasingly into the bind of limiting and
frustrating circumstances. Like so for the master whose constraint
is continually endeavoring to overcome the obstacles to his or her
power rather than finding freedom from his own addiction to
dominance.

Our body is drawing our attention to the fact that this is the
crucial issue to deal with and tells us to work harder on sorting
it out, urges us to deal with the need of working with it.

I have been pining for years, imagining, trying to relive the
ordeal that Noor went through, ignoring all the logic that it was
the birth pangs of a very strong magnificent being who has
overcome the horror a long time ago, whereas it was affecting my
health unnecessarily, since I cannot help by my commiseration for
healed wounds that are no more there.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"One finds a kind of universe in oneself. If man dived deep enough
within himself he would reach a point of his ego where it lives an
unlimited life. One's own self is the object of one's realization.
One finds a kind of universe in oneself and by the study of the
self one comes to that spiritual knowledge for which one's soul
hungers." 
(HIK) (VOL. 6, p. 2). 

"A person asks himself how all he sees affects him and what is his
reaction to it all. First how does his spirit react to the objects
or the conditions he encounters, to the sounds he hears, to the
words people speak to him. Secondly see what affect he himself has
on others' conditions and individuals when he comes in contact
with them." 
(HIK) (VOL. 11, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY AND MYSTICISM). 

"By the study of human nature one realizes the nature of life in
general." 
(HIK) (UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS)

Here is the therapy. The vital issues at the macrocosmic scale
latent in the principles that overarch the existential state need
to be worked out at the microcosmic scale in us.

The very same cataclysms erupting in the collisions of humongous
galaxies that spark the birth of stars is replicated further in us
at the microcosmic scale in 'our storms in our teacups' as the
catastrophes in our lives can spark in us a new birth.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Divinity resides in humanity; it is also the outcome of
humanity....The planet has culminated into human beings."
(HIK),  
(PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, MYSTICISM/ PHILOSOPHY/ INTELLIGENCE). 

"The divine mind becomes completed after manifestation. The
creator's mind is made of His own creation. The experience of
every soul becomes the experience of the Divine Mind."
(HIK),  (UNITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEALS)

We are assigned to explore, under the aegis of the divine strategy
customized by us, the premises for the spiritual ethics of the
spirituality of the future in our personal lives by dint of our
insight into people's motivations and attunements, and being aware
of the way that our attitude, insight, attunement and behavior
affects them and theirs us.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"It is like coming into the same room in the daytime that the soul
has once visited in the darkness of the night...."
(HIK) (GITHA III). 

"Everyone else seems to be with open eye and yet not see.... 
(HIK) (SOCIAL GATHEKAS). 

"It is like when a child is born and begins to see everything new.
(HIK) (VOL. 10, PATH OF INITIATION). 

"Wherever the light of pure intelligence is thrown things become
clear. This light becomes a torch for the seer. It is his own soul
that becomes a torch in his hand; it is his own light that
illuminates his path. It is just like throwing a searchlight upon
dark corners which one did not see before, and the corners become
clear and illuminated again. It is like throwing light upon
problems that one did not understand first; it is like seeing with
x-rays persons who were a riddle before." 
(HIK) (SOCIAL GATHEKAS)

What value our contribution?

It is precisely the same as the way that a variation on a theme
enriches the theme. That is our assignment in our lives.

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"As the whole of nature is made by God, so the nature of each
individual is made by himself." 
(HIK) (SOCIAL GATHEKAS). 

"Think that the same power that moves the stars and the sap in the
trees is in you. By man's limitations he, so to speak, buries the
divine creative power in his mind. 
(HIK) (THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION). 

"The soul is God, but man has a body and mind of his own."
(HIK, I presume)

Here is the challenge, the wager.

Remember:

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN:
"Illumination is obtained by rising above one's earthly condition
at the command of one's will and realizing one's immortal self
which is God within... Awaken God within."

"The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience
the different phases of manifestation, yet not lose its way, but
regain its original freedom in addition to the experience and
knowledge it has gained in the world. True exaltation of the
spirit resides in the fact that it has come to Earth and has
realized there its spiritual being". 
(HIK) (THE ALCHEMY OF HAPPINESS)

"The purpose of life is fulfilled in rising to the greatest
heights and in diving to the deepest depths of life, in widening
one's horizons, in penetrating life in all its spheres, in losing
oneself, and in finding oneself in the end."
(HIK) (VOLUME 1, THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION, THE INNER LIFE)

So I have a very tangible reason to try to live a few more years
and I am not the type to give up! But to achieve this, I will need
to spend more time meditating, particularly on light, and explore
how it parallels with the circumspect views of scientists. I also
wish to explore the interface between the celestial spheres (also
shaken by cataclysms at humungous scales in 'seculo seculorum'),
and the human drama in our violent, decadent yet creatively free-
wheeling brave new world.

I will need to revise my scheduling, yet I will continue traveling
some. (I am the unrestrainable salik, the pilgrim on Planet Earth
- I have wings on my heels.) Moreover, I wish to encourage mureeds
to visit Suresnes - build up Suresnes, the energy and outreach of
the Universel - and place more and more responsibility on the
shoulders of my wonderful son Pir Zia.

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

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