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CONFRATERNITY MEDITATION FOR OCTOBER 7

Annotation by Cherag Hamid Cecil Orion Touchon

 One of my own sayings is “One’s faith cannot be tested only the limit of one’s faith.” And faith is trust and what is trust? Trust is a feeling of certainty that something, that God, will not fail. Trust is something that we have naturally but not fully. We deepen our capacity of faith from a constant growing practice of testing our limit of trust. For instance, when we take a breath, we trust it so much that we normally do it unconsciously and when we release that breath we have an absolute trust that we shall be able to take another because time after time we have proven to ourselves that breath will not fail to fill our lungs. In the same way we can practice trusting in God, we can practice letting go; as the saying goes; “Let go and let God.” 
But until we do this as a constant practice on a deeper and deeper level, on a more inclusive level, we shall never come to see how far we can trust. There is a custom among the dervishes of traveling without provisions and this is a practice of seeing how trustworthy God is. If you travel around with people like that you will never fail to be amazed at how they are provided for. Those who are conservative and worldly, who plan ahead every detail of their lives from beginning to end would consider living in such a manor as completely foolish, little do they know. Consider taking a vacation from your life and trying living in freedom like this…

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or, ‘What shall we drink?’ or, ‘Wherewithal shall we be clothed?’.
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Christian Tradition . The New Testament - Matthew 6
 

      "Dependence is matter and independence is the spirit. The independent spirit becomes dependent through manifestation. When One becomes many, then each part of the One, being limited, strives to be helped by the other part, for each part finds itself imperfect. Therefore, we human beings, however rich with the treasures of heaven and earth, are poor in reality, because of our dependence upon others. The spiritual view makes one conscious of this fact, and the material view blinds man, who then shows independence and indifference to his fellow man. Pride, conceit, and vanity are the outcome of this ignorance. There are moments when even the king has to depend upon a most insignificant person. Often one needs the help of someone before whom one has always been proud and upon whom one has always looked with contempt. 
 As individuals depend upon individuals, so the nations and races depend upon one another. As no individual can say, "I can get on without another person," so no nation can say, "We can be happy while another nation is unhappy." But an individual or a multitude depends most upon God, in Whom we all unite. Those who depend upon the things of the earth certainly depend upon things that are transitory, and they must someday or other lose them. Therefore, there remains only one object of dependence, that is, God, Who is not transitory, and Who always is and will be. Sa'adi has said, "He who depends upon Thee will never be disappointed."
     No doubt it is the most difficult thing to depend upon God. For an average person, who has not known or seen, who never had any knowledge of such a personality existing as God, but has only heard in church that there exists Someone in the heavens, Who is called God, and has believed it, it is difficult to depend entirely upon Him. A person can hope that there is a God, that by depending upon Him he will have his desire fulfilled; a person can imagine that there can be Someone Whom people call God, but for him also it is difficult to depend entirely upon God. It is for them that the Prophet has said, "Tie your camel and trust in God." It was not said to Daniel, "Take a sword and go among the lions." 
 One imagines God, another realizes God; there is a difference between these two persons. The one who imagines can hope, but he cannot be certain. The one who realizes God, he is face to face with his Lord, and it is he who depends upon God with certainty. It is a matter of struggling along on the surface of the water, or courageously diving deep, touching the bottom of the sea. There is no greater trial for a person than dependence upon God. What patience it needs, besides the amount of faith it requires, to be in the midst of this world of illusion and yet to be conscious of the existence of God! To do this, man must be able to turn all that is called life into death, and to realize in what is generally called death--in that death--the true life. This solves the problem of false and real." The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Unity of Religious Ideals - The God Ideal - Dependence Upon God

A Fikr Practice (silent breath meditation)

However many breathes seem appropriate

On the out breath: 
"USE US FOR THE PURPOSE THAT THY WISDOM CHOOSETH "

On the in breath 
"GUIDE US ON THE PATH OF THINE OWN GOODNESS "
 

Original material Copyright © 2000  Cecil Touchon all rights reserved