Maqam-i-Rida: The Fire of Contentment
Rida—where the soul no longer protests, but welcomes the fire—for fire itself is purification.
Before I fell in love with the word "I," before I was captivated by the color of the setting sun, before I lost myself in a bird's song—I had already fallen into you first. And as I fell, I discovered: there is no ground; only a sky—waiting beneath me all along, wearing the mask of an abyss.
Here "falling" works in two senses—falling in love and falling down. At the first touch of love, a person believes he is falling—the ground slipping from under his feet. But truly there was never ground—only sky, disguised as an abyss. What I feared as a fall was actually a taking flight—only the direction was reversed.
Fakhr al-Din Iraqi was a Sufi poet of Hamadan. His celebrated work, the *Lama'at*—meaning "divine flashes" or radiant gleams—he composed in the presence of Sadr al-Din Qunawi. Qunawi was a disciple of Ibn Arabi. There he echoes this truth: at the first touch of love, a person does not fall; he forgets to fly—and that forgetting itself is the fall, and remembering itself is the flight.
When the eagle throws its chick from the nest, the chick believes it is dying—but as it falls, it spreads its wings, and halfway through the descent discovers: I am flying. Every fall is thus—a reason to unfold one's wings. The ground that gives way is not merely safety; sometimes it is a cage as well.
When Mansur walked toward death, he still smiled—for he knew what the world called a fall, he called the Night Journey.
In the Quran, in Surah al-Isra (17:1), Allah says: "Subhana alladhi asra bi-abdih laylatan"—Glorified is He who journeyed His servant by night. By night—not by day. In darkness—not in light. For ascent requires darkness, as the sprouting of a seed requires the depth of earth. He who fears falling actually fears ascending—for neither of them keeps ground beneath the feet.
Rabindranath thinks: "I do not wish to die in this beautiful world—I wish to live among humankind." But the Sufis say: dying itself is living. Fana-i-fana—the annihilation of annihilation—where you merge so completely that even the word "merging" no longer applies, for there was no separate self to merge. Fana is not mere destruction—it is the transgression of boundaries. The breaking of the shell named "I" means the passage from a limited existence to a vaster one. Then fire is no longer punishment—a person learns to rise not as ash, but as fragrant incense.
A Couplet: Those who do not fear the fall ascend on high; with no ground beneath their feet—they gain the sky.
Simply put: those who do not fear "falling" or collapse are the very ones who can truly rise. For to ascend into the sky, for takeoff, one's feet must be somewhat freed from the chains of earth. That is, if one clings to safe, fixed, familiar ground, one cannot reach heights; one must take a risk. Then "with no ground beneath their feet—they gain the sky"—no longer is earth underfoot, but in exchange, the sky is theirs.
More profoundly: all great gains in life, all profound transitions, all great creation, all noble striving—all are bound to uncertainty. He who seeks only safety does not reach heights; he who advances despite the fear of falling—he alone touches the sky.
Barzakh: The Silence Between Two Seas
When words run out, he does not try, nor do I. We are equal. He simply is. I simply am. And in this court of being, sometimes this alone is the whole scripture.
This is a silent moment. Words are finished. Explanation is finished. Theory is finished. Logic is finished. All that remains is presence—he is, I am. This "am" itself is the whole scripture. The river does not explain itself to the reed—it only flows, and the reed begins to sing.
In Ibn Arabi's doctrine, this state is called barzakh—the space between two things.
# The Language of Geography and the Mystical Threshold
In the language of geography, an isthmus—a strip of land that divides two seas yet connects two continents. In the Quran (Surah Ar-Rahman 55:19-20): “He has let loose the two seas, meeting together; between them is a barrier they do not transgress.” In love, this barrier—the *barzakh*—is the most beautiful place: where “two” is an illusion, “one” a truth, and that truth cannot be grasped in words, only felt in silence.
One might draw a distant poetic resonance with the *turiya* of the Mandukya Upanishad—for *turiya* too is the name of a state of consciousness beyond division—yet the two concepts dwell in their own philosophical houses.
Between the intake of breath and its release, there is a small gap. In that gap, you are neither breathing in nor breathing out—you simply *are*. That simple *being* is the *barzakh*. That simple *being* is *turiya*. That simple *being* is love’s truest moment—where you neither grasp nor release—merely present.
## Sama, Qawwali, and the Lineage of Sound
After the departure of his beloved Shams, Rumi composed the *Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi*. There, the intoxication of love rises to such a summit that word ceases to be word and becomes dance. That dance is *sama*—mystical listening.
From *sama* was born the Mevlevi order—the community of whirling dervishes. The seeker turns on his own axis—the right hand raised skyward (receiving), the left turned earthward (bestowing), while the heart remains at the center—that center which does not turn, which is still. Stillness within rotation—this is the secret of *sama*. The practice of transcending the world while dwelling in it.
Each Sufi order is a different melody—but the raag is one. In the Qadiri order (Abdul Qadir Gilani, 1078–1166, Baghdad), emphasis falls on *dhikr* and *khidma*, service. In the Suhrawardi order, spiritual advancement through the purification of the self and the observance of *Sharia*. And the most powerful vehicle for this melody is *qawwali*—the spiritual music of the Chishti order. The singers, accompanied by the rhythm of the drum, tabla, harmonium, and handclaps, sing the names of Allah, the praises of the Prophet, and poems of love—and the listeners gradually lose themselves. Some weep, some sway, some enter *hal*—ecstatic state—because music is that language which bypasses intellect and reaches the heart directly. People then no longer hear the song—the song begins to hear them. The Name is no longer uttered—the Name begins to utter the people.
Amir Khusrau himself crafted the primordial form of *qawwali* in the court of Nizamuddin Auliya—blending Persian, Hindi, and Arabic into a music that shatters the boundaries of language. Is not the cry of the reed flute a *qawwali*? It too sings its own separation in the rhythm of the wind—and whoever listens weeps, for they recognize their own separation in that melody.
In the Indian tradition, the nearest resonance is *Nada Brahman*—sound itself is Brahman—where in the vibration of Om the entire creation trembles. And the *kirtan* of Chaitanya’s sankirtan movement—where through the chanting of the Name, the devotee dissolves into the Divine, just as in *sama* the Sufi dissolves into Allah. Music is greater than language—for language enters through the door of intellect, but music through the window of the heart. And that window is always open—we simply do not turn our gaze toward it.
## Tasbih: The Rosary and Silent Remembrance
I hold my breath, count to ten. I sit, I stand, I sit again. The caravans pass overhead—travelers who do not know wander the path; clouds who do not know, they are clouds.
In these lines lies the weariness of waiting. One holds the breath—for even breathing brings pain. Counts to ten—for beyond ten, one knows not what to do. Sits, stands, sits again—for no posture brings peace. And overhead the clouds pass—like travelers who know not where they journey. So too mankind—moving, yet knowing not why.
The beads of the *tasbih* turn—each bead a *dhikr*, a remembrance of Allah’s Name.
# The Two Forms of Dhikr: A Remembrance
Dhikr takes two forms: *Dhikr-i-Jahir*—remembrance aloud—as practiced in the Chishti order, where united voices rise in “Allah, Allah,” the body sways, the soul awakens. And *Dhikr-i-Khafi*—silent remembrance—as practiced in the Nakshabandi order, where with each breath the heart whispers “Al-Lah”—no one knows, no one hears—only the heart knows. One is the path of fire, one of light. One a river’s roaring, one an underground spring.
The silkworm does not advertise its labor. It simply becomes thread. And to become thread is its entire statement. The Bauls say—within all things, one speaks, one listens—I am merely thread, he is the loom.
The Marathi saint-poet Tukaram (c. 1608–1650), the balladeer of Dehu village, his *abhangs* are sung still in every home of Maharashtra. In his verses runs this melody: I have sown seed in the field of the eternal, the labor is not mine—nor the harvest; I am only hand, the farmer is he who sends the rain.
The repetition of dhikr turns man back from his dispersal—a circle that gathers the scattered self toward center. The return does not happen all at once—it happens grain by grain, breath by breath. The prayer beads thus mend a broken bridge—man forgets, then remembers himself with the aid of the Name.
This tune of *tawakkul*—surrender—rings also in Tukaram: act, but relinquish ownership. This receptive activity itself is the mark of spiritual maturity. As the silkworm quietly weaves thread, the heart too quietly weaves the Name—until one day that Name becomes its garment, its veil, its shroud, its banner.
## Dawn: The Moment Before *Kun*
I wake slowly—as dawn calls the muezzin—at fingertip and lip—not seeking, not taking, but remembering—as though lip and finger know something the mind has yet to learn.
This is the moment of waking—but not the waking of intellect, the waking of the body. The body has its own memory—the hand knows whom it has touched; the lip knows whom it has spoken to; the skin knows whose warmth it carries. This knowledge might be called *body-memory*—knowledge not of mind but of flesh, of soul, of that subtle layer where remembering comes before word.
The fabric of the wrapper whispers against skin—like the wrapping of a gift—such a gift as God had kept since then, since the time when morning had no name, when light was merely light, before anyone called it “light”—when all things were before *Kun*.
*Kun*—Be—that command of God from which creation began. In the Quran (Surah Yasin 36:82): “When He intends a thing, He only says to it ‘Be’—and it is.” Before *Kun* there was possibility—not reality. There was no name—no existence. Only that moment when possibility was more beautiful than reality. The waking at dawn is also thus—that precise instant before the eyes open, when you stand in the *barzakh* between dream and waking, when all things are possible, nothing is fixed—a pregnant silence. Creation did not happen once; it happens still—in every dawn, in every breath. Light has not yet been born, but we hear its breathing. Dawn is therefore not mere time—it is the promise of recreation, the hidden grace to begin anew each day.
All separation was a call. All fire was purification. All love was remembrance. All silence was presence. And that source I long thought distant—it had been sitting all along in the deepest light of my own heart—through my tears, my breath, my prostration, my burning—slowly making itself known through everything.