21 - Reflections on Noor's Birthday

Today, my sister Noor's birthday, and her memory is stronger than ever! In the minds, hearts and souls of many, she is ever present, an example of dedication and self-sacrifice to an ideal of solidarity and compassion.

For many, women particularly, she personifies a projection of the feminine need to place herself at the service of a cause of mercy to which she could hand herself over altogether. This hallowed need is however, rarely fulfilled, either because life has its way of drawing one into its hum-drum patterns, or because this need is only triggered off when the call for help suddenly crosses one's way and shrieks of urgency. Even then, the human need for comfort, security, and the instinct of self-preservation outbalances this need of the soul to serve a great cause.

Thus the reason why Noor is so personally meaningful for so many women is because she represents that which so many women would have liked to prove themselves to be by giving expression to an area of the soul where sacredness is realistic, that is, feasible in real life (a feminine characteristic which, in most cases, remains tentatively latent).

It is this dimension of feeling which is the stuff of which heroes are made. But the price is terrifying. The inevitable outcome of undaunted courage is the ordeal of torture and death in the most devastating circumstances as a victim of the cruelty and sadism of ruthless and merciless men and women, poisoned by hatred born of resentment. The humiliation to which the captives, delivered into the hands of their executioners are subjected, may prove even more excruciating than the bodily torture. Yet, here is an extreme case of the basic reconciliation of the irreconcilables behind all real-life situations defined by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan as "the Divine perfection suffering from the limitations of the existential condition." In this case, it is only the circumstances devised by the oppressors that are humiliating, but when one carries one's dedication to the service of the victims of tyranny to that point, one holds one's head high and unmasks the bad faith of the tyrants, instead of cringing. This is precisely what Noor did when she said, "The time will come when you will know the truth." It is a sardonic paradox that the one who ventured out to the rescue of the victims of torture in concentration camps, should herself be subjected to the ordeal from which she wished to save them.

Actually, I recall reviewing with Noor the principles upon which we would establish our handling of the challenge as the cannon outbursts were groaning at the gates of Paris. Both of us agreed. also our mother. that so far, we had been spreading Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan's teaching; now the time had come to apply it. There can be no doubt; it is the teaching of kindness. Inayat means kindness. To be consequent, it implies sacrificing oneself for the sake of kindness to others. Of course. this is the Message of Christ: unconditional love. Simple, yes, not metaphysics, just reality in ail its painful realism, the axis around which the human drama revolves. perhaps, the drama of the universe in its breathtaking monumentality.

Here it was, right at our door, the call for mercy. People were being tortured, people were being contemptuously dejected like pariah dogs. There was a scent of war in the atmosphere; the folks were aghast, afraid, terrified, cowardly. Of course, who would not be but the stalwart, knowing what it means to stick out one's head? In such situations, one can tell who is who; the silver coating is off. Everyone is in life according to the measure of the price one is prepared to pay from one s advantage or well-being or security for the sake of the other. For me, this is the criteria of spirituality, not Samadhi.
