The Month of Hajj
In the Name of Allah's Infinite Love
We are in the month of Hajj, when the outer pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina and the Mount of Arafat began. Over 2 million pilgrims will gather to perform the Hajj during the first ten days, seeking to follow the way of the enlightened Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and to fulfill the 5th pillar of Islam.
The life of the noble Muhammad, aleyhi salam, was an affirmation and continuation of the way of all the Prophets preceding him, the way of submission to Divine Reality and complete acceptance of a life of exile. The Prophet himself has said, "Live in the world as a stranger" - because the world is a stranger to us. Her divine responsibility is to push us out, not to let us rest in her lap. She is like the mother in labor, we are the children, and the world of reality is our birth place. The world and the body are the same, both envelopes of the jewel which is our true self. The world and the body are both blessed places of exile because they are the places of passage, they hold the signs pointing to the Truth, and thru them we undergo the transformation which reveals our hearts.
Therefore, pilgrimage is a primordial principle of our human nature. Coming into existence from the state of hidden essentiality, coming into earthly bodies from the world of spirit, journeying from birth to death, journeying from dark to light and sleep to waking, from known to unknown are all a form of pilgrimage. The sacred pilgrimage begins when we realize that we are returning to Allah. Once this has dawned in our hearts, the next stage of the journey is the awareness that we are journeying from Allah to Allah, and within Allah eternally. Our Lord says to us through the Book of Light, Holy Quran, "I will take you on an endless journey of love from one place of beauty to another," and "You will witness the signs of light on the horizons and in your own hearts." Guided consciously by Allah, our life becomes a ceaseless journey of witnessing, an outpouring of Allah's revelation into our hearts, a travel which happens through the unfolding of the petals of the divine Heart.
O Dervish
Dare to make the true Hajj
Dare to fully enter your humanity with all humanity
Dare to go on the pilgrimage of love, taking only love and trust in Allah as
your provision
Dare to drink the life-giving sap of zam zam from your essence
Dare to whirl around the Kaba of divinity in your heart
Dare to stand on the Mount Arafat of your being and pray for all being
Dare to descend from what you know into unknowing
Dare to enter the black core of your essence
Dare to let go of your attributes and dive into colorlessness
Dare to meet Allah on the prayer carpet of nearness and prostration,
completely open and naked
Dare to give your heart to love's devouring
Dare to die again and again
Dare to live with no ground to stand on, no mind to speak, no place to hide
Dare to let only Hu live
This is true Hajj
May our Hajj be true, may our Hajj be blessed
Fariha Fatima