Forty Days On Practice

By Hamid Hank Edson

Sufism is the inwardly focused practice of being that is the mystical heart of monotheism as introduced by the Holy Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, and all the Holy prophets who came before him. In his final sermon before his death, the Prophet recited, “This day I have perfected your religion for you,” and stated that the two gifts of this religion were the Qur’an and the lineage of teachers who received the light of knowledge of Divine Unity from his heart into theirs. Fourteen hundred years later, two Sufi Masters, Shah Nazar Seyyed Dr. Ali Kianfar and Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha continue this lineage and explain that the Holy scripture of the Qur'an is the Index of Being, but the real Qur'an to be read by the light reflected into the heart of a qualified student by a qualified teacher is one's own inward being. In Forty Days On Practice, Hamid Hank Edson, a student of Dr. Kianfar and Dr. Angha for more than twenty-five years, offers his understanding of these two great Sufi Masters' teachings in forty short meditations that provide an overview of the Sufi practice of being from an intimate and personal perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716281860

Book preview

Introduction: The Practice of Living

This book is not intended to teach; it is intended as a practice.  It is not a gift of the author, but an opportunity I, as the author, am taking each day for forty days to focus upon myself and my practice, to give to my way of being more time devoted to and concentrated upon what I can do, moment by moment, to advance toward my goal of developing the quality of my humanity to fulfillment of its highest, most perfect capacity.  I am not qualified to be a teacher to anyone concerning the spiritual journey available to the human being to know directly within one’s heart, beyond all limitations imposed by physical existence, the eternal spiritual reality of one’s unity with the grace, mercy, wisdom, love and light of All Being, Allah.  To be qualified to serve as such a teacher is an attainment greater and rarer than any other in the vast scope of human endeavors.  And I have been blessed for many years to attend the classes of two such teachers who have tried to teach me how to practice living correctly in balance with the Divine laws of existence so that I may experience within me the eternal life at my source reflected into my heart, as a guide from eternity to eternity.

My teachers are Shah Nazar Seyyed Dr. Ali Kianfar and Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha, and their teacher is the great 20th century Sufi Master, Hazrat Pir Moulana Shah Maghsoud Sadegh Angha, whose teacher was Hazrat Mir Ghotbeddin Mohammad Angha.  These teachers are part of a lineage extending back to Uwaiys Gharan, Imam Ali Ibn Abutalib, and the Holy Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, each reflecting the light of Ar-Rahman, the Most Gracious Allah, in pure and perfect unity with that light.  Their teachings and the goal of spiritual development described above compose the mystical heart of Islam and all monotheism.  Anything in these pages helpful to any reader flows from the wisdom and love radiating in the light with which these teachers constantly illuminate existence, and anything herein that obstructs the universal light of Allah immanent in all the skies and physical experience of existence is my responsibility alone.  For any such shadows dimming the light that these teachers and Allah are constantly offering, I pray for forgiveness, healing, and illumination.

If only a rare few are teachers, Dr. Angha and Dr. Kianfar frequently remind me that everyone and everything is a lesson for the student who is focused on understanding.  One of the practices Dr. Kianfar has taught me is to pray that I not be to others an unknowing lesson in bad practice, error or misconduct.  We all should take our practice of living with an absolute seriousness, which can then be overflowing with joy, meaning, engagement, satisfaction and connection.  And if we take this practice seriously, we will want every moment of our life to be a good example to others, not a bad one.  Dr. Kianfar also admonishes me what a sad fate it is to benefit others and lose the opportunity for oneself.  Rehearsing for others a wisdom that one has not mastered and integrated within one’s own being, and has not oneself experienced come to fruition, is acting, foolishness, and hypocrisy.  One lesson here is this: The more seriously we take our practice, the more we acquire humility. 

Humility is an example of how we learn.  We do not practice humility; the practice of living makes us humble. Correct practice increases our awareness and our increased awareness makes undeniable our present ignorance and poverty.  We begin to see how small is our separate identity and ego, engaged as it is in an inherently limited and limiting self-experience that desperately seeks security and validation through our conflicts and interactions in the physical world of multiplicity.  At the same time, our increased awareness also makes undeniable the majesty, wisdom, goodness and power of the unity of the Divine existence to which our being is submitted and united as absolutely as we are submitted to and united with the law of gravity.  This experience of the humble station of our limited sense of self and the awe-inspiring grace and mystery permeating all life thus becomes active in every cell of our being so that humility is not just a state of mind, but an inescapable fact of being, something we know to be true without a doubt, an innate knowledge awoken in the expanded awareness that is the fruit of correct practice.  This is what it means to acquire knowledge, which is to say, to learn: We become something improved in quality.  We manifest a higher wisdom in our whole being than we did before, and are not just holders of a borrowed idea.

Life has a standard we either rise to meet or don’t.  I pray that, in offering this book, I meet the standard of absolute humility and that what I have written shall be a praiseworthy example, not a condemnable one.  I pray that I shall learn through this practice to keep the teachings of Dr. Kianfar and Dr. Angha absolutely pure.

Day 1: The Highest Point

Dr. Kianfar asked me what is the highest point in the human being during his class on the Holy Qur’an.  I knew the answer for as much of a certainty as the brain can know, which is not at all, and with a whiff of inward experience supporting my answer.  I said, The center. Bravo, he replied.  It might not be much for a student to grasp this understanding, which our teachers are always laying out for us ten thousand different ways, hoping for our transformation, but when the teacher asks you a question or gives you his attention at all, this attention is way more than much; it is a huge blessing.  Dr. Kianfar did not ask me because I knew or didn’t know the answer, he asked me because he wanted me to receive the energy the knowledgeable answer should contain. It wasn’t a demonstration or test of my theoretical understanding; it was a gift of the energy of the answer’s reality that can only be imparted by one with direct knowledge of that reality.  The undeveloped student can only guess at the levels at which this seemingly small attention may be attended by the light of the teacher. What matters is to recognize the opportunity that comes whenever the teacher’s attention is directed one’s way.

How often Dr. Kianfar, alluding to Imam Ali, repeats that all that is needed to be transformed beyond the limitations of physicality into a being on a spiritual journey is to truly understand a single word of the Qur’an.  Indeed, he says, one needs only understand a single letter, only, in fact, one pronunciation mark of the Qur’an for this transformation to occur.  The experience of the abstract reality that pronunciation mark expresses only happens when one has already moved beyond the limitations of physicality.  Once one experiences even the pronouncing breath of this abstract reality, the light of this station of Being will infuse one’s every cell, raising one’s energy and qualities toward that of the Divine.

This same quality applies also to the attention of the teacher.  The message and the messenger are two aspects of the same reality, both with respect to the Holy Qur’an revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and to the question of a Holy Master.  In my case, just two words, the center, are all the teacher needs to offer guidance that is both his teaching and his light.  I may not succeed in making myself a clear enough reflector to receive his light and become one with it, but even so, my understanding of the opportunity being presented, just by itself, focuses my awareness and reorients it in a way that begins to polish it.  If I remain constant in this polishing orientation, my awareness will increasingly reflect the light being directed its way from the heart of the teacher.

What I am able to receive in this instance is the awareness that my center is the place I need to be present to achieve my goal of improving the quality of my being to its full potential.  The highest point of my being is the place where the quality of my being achieves its eternal, unlimited capacity.  This peak of Being is my pure and abstract center.  From the highest point on a mountain, Dr. Kianfar says, one can see without limitation. Nothing is hidden from sight because nothing rises higher to block one’s view.  Dr. Kianfar also says that the only time that there are no shadows is when one stands at the center of illumination. If I focus upon my center with such concentration that I am able to stand upon its abstract point in nothingness, my awareness will become free of the limitations of individuality and reflect the Divine light and unity of eternal All Being.  The highest station and quality of Being is at one’s center where one can see all by the light of the heart.

But the message I receive is also about temptation.  Experience of the external world can be captivatingly enjoyable and also paralyzingly scary.  It gives us the illusions of both control and vulnerability.  These alternatives create an external value scheme in which we feel a lot is at stake and mistake the highest point of Being as outside ourselves at the stronger end of that scheme.  Just as the message and the messenger come with a dual quality of light and meaning, this external value scheme is confining in both the meaning and energy of the experience it gives us.  Within the limiting meaning and energy of this value scheme, it is difficult to remember the energy and meaning of being present at one’s center.  It is hard to strive for the highest point in the external value scheme and remember the higher experience of energy and meaning that attend the ascent to one’s center.  The external and internal experiences seem difficult, if not impossible, to retain in one’s awareness simultaneously.  This is why the teacher’s energy and message are so important today.  I must regain awareness that my center is the highest point of my being.  Moment by moment, I must climb the inward mountain of Being and stand upon my center.

Day 2: Climbing the Inward Mountain

The perennial question Why is always answered by the mountain climber with the explanation: Because it’s there.  There is a height to be known.  There is a challenge to be overcome.  There is a limitation to be surpassed.  These are not just greater than all others to the mountain climber, they are absolute.  The climber who can scale Mount Everest has no more limitations