Prayer for Ramadan, 2007
In the Infinite ocean of Compassion and Love
O Beloved Allah, calm our thirst and hunger for the food and drink of the world and increase without end our thirst and hunger for You and Your beloved.
Make us to love what You love and turn us away from what You do not love.
Make delightful to us companionship with Your friends, and draw us away from keeping company with our own inner denier.
Make us love Your holy books, and guide us into their secret depths. Make us to cherish the Generous Koran and may it become the wellspring of our life. Open our eyes to see this entire creation as Your Koran.
Make us to love the blessed Muhammad more than our selves, our family, and all that is dear to us, for through his love we love all and through his love we become real.
O Love, make us real.
Beloveds,
May the peace of Ramadan heal our hearts, bodies and minds! This blessed month is the month of the ummat, the mystic community, humanity. In this month, the first revelation of Holy Koran, the Book of perfect humanity, came for humanity through our beloved Prophet Muhammad, may he be showered in infinite divine peace! He recounts that upon receiving the embrace of the Archangel and hearing the first words of Koran, he was overtaken by a state of awe, and he ran down from the mountain cave where he had been in retreat. He ran to the home of his wife, magnificent Khadija, who covered him with his cloak when he cried to her, trembling, “Cover me, cover me!” This cloak is humanity, his community, his lovers.
O Beloved Allah make us his lovers, and take us under his cloak! Do not separate us from him for even an instant, and may we taste what he tasted, even a drop. May we taste in this Ramadan the holy power of Your revelation, of Your majestic beauty, of Your sweet consolation!
You have asked us to honor Your Generosity as it poured through that Ramadan and through all succeeding Ramadans with our own generosity, which is truly Yours given to us on loan. You have asked us to honor it through fasting and prayer, through zikr and salawat, and by keeping company with the lovers of God. You have asked us to honor it by turning away from the world, just as Your beloved turned away from the world in his mountain cave, and by turning toward what the world turns away from, which is the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the misfortunate.
This Ramadan every dervish is encouraged to feed the poor and to reach out to those who are disenfranchised for whatever reason. This can also be stray animals, and insects which we refrain from harming. Whatever the world does not like, may we be inspired to tend.
And the fasting. Yes, fasting from dawn until dusk from food, drink, smoking and intimate relations. If you are not able to do this, Allah has asked us to feed the poor. I will not be making the complete fast this year as I will be drinking liquids. So I am contemplating different ways of fasting and ways of reaching out to others. One form of traditional fasting is that of refraining from speaking. You could choose certain days on which to do this when you do not have to interact with your job. This would be a time of retreat and prayer. Actually, there are as many forms of fasting as there are organs of perception and sensation, and each of these has many different levels. So we ask to fast from all that Allah does not love for us, and to feast on what the Beloved loves for us. Let us certainly fast from the limited mind, and all that it conjures up. Let us fast from fear, apart from fear and awe of Allah's majesty. Let us fast from thinking that we know, when Allah alone is the Knower. Let us fast from thinking negatively of anyone. Let us fast from our manipulations and strategies. Let us fast from all complaint about the life experiences that Allah gives us. Let us fast from our bad habits and our reactions. Let us fast from desiring what we do not have. Let us fast from obsession. Let us fast from despair. Let us fast from not loving our self, and from denying our heart. Let us fast from selfishness and self-centered behavior. Let us fast from thinking that only what serves us is important. Let us fast from seeing reality only from our own point of view. Let us fast from seeing any reality other than Allah, and from relying on anything other than Allah. Let us fast from desiring anything other than Allah and Allah's Prophets and friends, and our own true self. Essentially, let us fast from thinking that we have any existence separate from Allah!
Let us plunge into this Ramadan wholeheartedly, desiring to serve Love and to know Love and to become one with Love. Let us enter the Ramadan of our heart and feast with the Beloved in all the forms that the Beloved appears!
May all humanity and creation be forgiven and elevated in this holy time of spiritual knowledge and healing mercy. And may the confluence of the sacred traditions and their holy days be ever more clearly Your message of their unity, and of the oneness of humanity, and of the indivisibility of reality. Blessed New Year to the people of the Torah! And blessings to all people living the One Life through every sacred path!
We ask for Your infinite blessings to shower upon the vast soul of Muhammad and the souls of his wives, his family, his companions, his inheritors, and his community, humanity.
May we all experience the most blessed Ramadan ever!
Fariha