=pvkem8

Type-up of an article by PVK, presumably excerpted and editted
from a presumably transcribed tape, published in Emergence Issue
number 8.
I failed to note the publication date.  Early 1980s I think. 
Arifa xAbadi Goodman produced Emergence, from Boulder Colorado as
I recall.


Headed: "Transformation through Religous Ritual"
Byline "Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan"
No Source noted (though source docs and tapes never were noted in
editted excerpts from PVK teachings printed in The Message and
Emergence, and I think some were also printed in various
Heart_&_Wings 's -- that was a title pasted onto a variety of
projects, if memory serves.                                  

No Editor noted, although noting the Editor was SOP in the above.

I'd assume it was edited, and that Arifa Goodman did so.

In this retype, I of course replicate the paragiraffes of the
printed text.

I diverge from the printed text in following the common Jewish
orthodox practice of hyphenating the term for Deity.  Don't do to
get too familiar.

There's an intricate almost flowerly style to this that reminds me
of PVK's text for Saphira Linden's Cosmic Celebration in the mid-
70s.  So this article might date from that period, later PVK's
style became simpler, except in the KITs.  Or at leat in his
lecturesa.  Or it may be that this article was prepared directly
for print, not first given as a lecture, and then transcribed by
one of the apparatchniks.



--------------------------------------------------------------   

     By virtue of their very function, relgious institutions are
expected to institutionalize religious experience.  The ritual is
devised to foster a process of transformation.  First the
pilgrimage, sometimes featuring a procession, triggers off the
sense of leaving whatever is holding one back behind, venturing
into unknown horiyons with anticipation.  Such is faith, trusting
oneself to a cosmic operation.

     There is a sense of awe about crossing the threshold of the
Temple, marking the transition from the profane to the sacred. 
That prospect underscores one's awareness of one's inadequcies,
foibles, failings, guilt and resentement.  In fact, one's whole
personal validity finds itself suddenly thrown into the balance of
one's judgement, releasign some trepidation.  One's desire for the
anticpated bliss of spiritual upliftment exercises an urge to
overcome these obstacles in oneself, forcing one's hand, as it
were, or rather one's heart, to prowess of high resolve.  The 
quest for one's loftiest call embodied in the rendezvous with G_d
now avers itself to be therapeutic.

     Suddenly situations in the past flash in one's mind where one
failed to live up to one's ideal, or let someone down, or proved
selfishly ruthless, unkind, even cruel, manipualting devisive,
dishonest.  As the degree of pain caused to the other person
emerges forcefully, inexorably, one's agility to forgive oneself
becomes devastating.  Only some unknown intervention by the kind
of supremacy we ascribe to G_d (in our conceptualizations beyond
our understaninding) could, we think, redeem us from obsessive
guilt.  Hnece the tremendous impact of the religious experiemce
upon our pysche.  

{Aw shucks, just write a check.  Then write another one.  Keep
that up until you start feeling put-upon, stop before you start
feeling martyred, toss off and chug down a shot of Scotch (for
that is how you drink a l'chaim in shul, especially after saying
kadish -- you chug down the firewater, evem if it was a single-
malt -- a point that I disputed against Ben-Zion Solomon) and get
on with your life.
    Christians can be so darned bathetic.  That's what you get for
focussing on your (subjective) feelings rather than on deeds done
to 'fix' (tikun) the objective world.  Oy, goyim.  And Barkat once
said of the Abode crew, that they were "dabbling in Christianity".
   And this is the story of the dude who goes to the Rabbi or
Rebbe or whatever and says, "Hey, it says 'tzdaka saves (or maybe,
redeems) from the grave' but I just gave a staring  guy ten
dollars and I don't feel any better. '  And the Rabbi says back,
Fool, it saves him, not you. 
     Well, that's Judaism.  Only the Christians would ask, 'What
must I do to be saved', the rest of us just do the best we can and
hope things work out ok. }