Peter E. Pflaum - Golden Globe - The Synergy Network
http:/metro.turnpike.net/~pflaump/  [log in to unmask]
 
RE: Fees for Practice:
 
In the long and honored history of Sufi Schools and guides (Teachers) there
are only two rules or principles of instruction. The first is that "evil"
(practically the only mention of evil in the literature) comes from the
belief that your ideas are reality. Sin comes from Ideology, the worship of
idols, false prophets and blind faith in bad leaders. (People are worse than
beasts, stones, or storms - which are natural - man can fight, pretend, and
ignore nature and their inter-selves- for long enough to do real harm. )
 
Reality exists outside the person or culture (A priori) and has clear
existence outside our thoughts, feeling, or beliefs. Human attitudes are
based on an experience of Illusions, we only see shadows and social
onventions.  -
 
When we really begin to experience directly reality - it is our relationship
with that external existence that give knowledge and truth. We can never be
certain that we have not just raised our level of illusion. A simple
remaining doubt is necessary.  As Cromwell said to Parliament "Be think ye
Gentlemen you maybe wrong." We remain arrogant and foolish.
 
The second principle is the refusal to engage in a "fee for practice"
service arrangement. Sufis can not take fees. The conflict of interest is
clear. If you are making your "living" by consulting or guiding - then you
confuse your interests and the interest of the "client".
 You are the post in the story of the drunk holding on to the lamp post -
the consultant is there more for support than illumination. Sufi instruction
is not always easy or pleasant. You may have to confront barriers.
 
Sufi methods depend on spontaneous and free response to
intuitions they have about other people. They tend to tell other about what
they are. These "hunches" maybe the result of neurosis or imagination. Even
if correct, most people do not want to know more about their limitations,
most prefer adulation and avoidance. If you are concerned about social
conventions, fees, and how it will "come across", then you are a salesman, a
performer, not a teacher. You are not going to kick people off their
"life-rafts", or take away the physical and emotional ties they have to
protect themselves in what is perceived as rough water.  You are trying to
help them ashore - and then point out they don't need to care the weight of
their rafts with them. Real
education requires real change - wake up - open your eyes - you have been
living in a dream - pay attention -
 
 
Sufi is not other worldly but promotes success in this
world. The wisdom gained in becoming a complete human and the charisma and
power released will give force to any and all activity. (The force be with
you) There is magic in "the focus" of a free, spontaneous, intuitive mind
and spirit in complete union and beyond self.
 
All the waste of self doubt, insecurity, social habits, internal battles,
fears of feeling and the terror
of freedom is released and every day is a peak experience and we all become
Maslow's Self-actualized transcendental person.
 
There is a method to educate people in this way.  The simple process is to
release psychic energy that is bottled up. The process involves music,
sounds and tones (Om-Mani-Padme-Hum- Sssuuuf and movement, bio-energies,
wake-up, focus attention, Ti Ch'i, Zen, visualizations and meditations, all
of which raise awareness and
energize the mind and body with the life force.
 
 
Short History of Sufi:
 
I think the origin was as shaman of the Caucasian tribes. In UR and the
first civilizations they then became priest and kings.
 
Meditative orders of monks grew up in the Hindu Kirsh which are responsible
for the order of the universes. (Like the Hopi) In the first few thousand of
years travelers in wool trades became wandering teachers. Students were
passed from one to the other
using signs, codes, and the numerical systems of language (Letters being
numbers - transformed into patters which gave an internal or secret writing
also pictures and patterns ). The example of John the Baptist is a model of
the Sufi man from the wilderness, teacher and spiritual guide.
 
The contact between Persia, the Greeks, and Hindu cultures produced a more
complex and formal neo-platoist, Hermes, and other schools that influences
the Manichaean Gospels of Leucius, St. Augustine, and mystic Christian.
Sheikh Daud Yusuf, Jesus of the House of David, a Prophet, a teacher, a
Messenger of the rank
of Insan Kamil or Complete Man. (The Acts of John) The church may have for
bureaucratic reasons misunderstood the idea of "Son of God." In some way
Jesus has become less of a door and more of a pit or barrier in formal
churches. The idea that following blind ritual and having an blind
nonrational faith will cause salvation
is very un-Sufi. Wisdom is sought to fulfill the incompleteness of our souls
and for its own glory or merit - Slaves and peasants may need prizes and
promises that can not be met.
 
 As the Grand inquisitor says they need a guiding hand and to have hope in
the impossible pie in the sky when they die.
 
The name Sufi appears with Mohammed and the organized schools were very
close to the family of the Prophet's grandchildren from Fatima and Husin.
The interactions of Moslem and Sufi culture makes one believe that one is
the reflection of the other. A law and way for the masses, and another way
for the "brotherhood."
All religions have to deal with the lazy and ignorant. No one has found a
way to make purses from pigs ears. I am working hard on the way to do this.
Democracy and current conditions require new experimental methods. The old
ways are too occult, complex, mysterious and elitist.
 
Formal schools involved Thursday night meeting where circles of annotated
world work on mystic rights under the leadership of a guide. Rumi founded
the Dervishes. The Builders (al-Banna) became the Freemasons, and the
"secret knowledge" was much sought in Europe from the time of the crusades
on.  The Philosophers stone
and alchemy that Newton spend most of his life trying to
understand may have been an allegory for psychological rather that physical
experiments.
 
A short list of influences:
 
Christians associated with St. Augustine and St. John of the Cross
(Rosticrusian), St. Teresa of Avila,
St. John the Baptist - the wool and Sheikh Daud Yusuf, Jesus as a Sufi
Teacher. (Hallaj) Raymond Lull the Minorican Arabist School of Montpellier
(Jews from Spain) from Arab to latin to :
The Romance Literature and Troubadours, William Tell, Coffee, clothes
(shirt, belt, trousers) Andalusian, dance waltz, morris dance, Dante,
Robinson Crusoe, Chaucer, ( The parliment of birds = the seven stages of the
way ) William Tell, Freemasons, Tarot Cards,
Medicine - Ibn El-Arabi, (one of the) Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Lawrence of
Arabia)
Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali, Bilal, Ibn Riyah, Abu Abdullah, Salman the Persian
(Zoroastrians) the other six.
Burton's 1001 Nights, Omar Khayyan -
Jalaludin Rumi (and the Dervish)
The Rose, Rosicrucians, Rosary from the Spanish illuminist (illuminati)
Sufi claim a decent from: (Saracens the Reciter)
Hermes of Egypt, Mary the Hebrew, Democritus of Greece,
Morienus of Rome, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) of Arabia, Albertus Magnus of Germany,
Arnold of Villaneuve of France, Thomas Aquinas of Italy, Raymond Lully of
Spain, Roger Bacon of England, Melchoir Cibienis of Hungary, Anonymous
Sarmata (Michael Sendivogius ) of Poland.
Roger Bacon, Geber, (Western Alchemy), Raymond Lully the
Majorcan, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dante, Milton - Hans Christian Anderson,
Kipling,
Jungian archetypal from Ibn El-Arabi (Modern Man in Search of a Soul" C.C. Jung)
Robert Graves "The Crowning Privilege"
The Bhakti of Hindus, Zen , Yoga,  Knights Templar, The Order of the Garter,
Freemasons.
 
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Peter E. Pflaum Ph.D.                 * THE_SUFI_METHODS
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