Sufistuff / Personal Stuff .. Bilquis.
Bismi'llah arRahman arRahim. There is no refuge from Allah but in Him.

Although I have opened up this blog again with all that personal stuff, it is probably best to just keep looking at Sufistuff for any updates on Bilquis and what is going on there. Any cogitations that happen at three o-clock in the morning will have to wait for another moment to be published because I don't have a net connection in the hospital and I am there all day and night to be by Bilquis's side.

Let's just say that I am trying to accept everything as perfect and perfectly just, and trying to confront the situation as best I can with the means available to me.
- posted by longgone1 @ 11/17/2005 06:23:00 PM 0 comments

 
Today's news.
Bismi'llah arRahman arRahim. There is no refuge from Allah but in Him.

Sunday November 6th. 2005. Zarautz.

17.26.Hrs.

Joder! Que cansancia ! well, I mean, my God ! what tiredness ..! Losing myself in Blogger and Blog Ladder and Flickr, to try to forget this horrible feeling of impending doom.
Bilquis has been getting thinner and thinner and perhaps we’ve only, or I’ve only, just realised with clarity that it is due to the cancer kind of “eating her up”. Bilquis still doesn’t really want to look at it .. the attitude that has really led her to the situation that she is in now. In an attempt to get her to do be a bit more towards being realistic about the situation I asked her to weigh herself .. she didn’t really want to do it .. but eventually, around mid-day, did. Poor thing she got such a shock to find that she had lost a kilo and a half in three or four days .. she now weighs 43 kilos instead of her normal 53. She is so thin and the skin is kind of wrinkled and hanging off her.

What to do? What to do? When I rang “Chusa”, a doctor who has known her for thirty years and is gaenacologist and homoeopath as well as knowing something about The New Medicine, to tell her about this fact so that she might try even harder to get an operation for Bilquis, she said if she tells the doctors this, they will almost definitely not operate as according to their “protocols” she would definitely be a hopeless case.

I still believe that thinking positively and fighting for her life would work for her with such things as EFT, but Bilquis always seems to just bury her head in the sand and does not seem to have an intelligent attitude to her own salvation. One wonders about “secondary benefits” to the extent that she will risk her own life to make an unconscious point or get attention.

I am not strong enough or clever enough to jump across a divide, which is still perhaps cultural, after fifteen years of being together, in order to communicate another view and way of seeing this thing. I just know it has it’s roots and that there is something so self destructive at the base of it all.

Perhaps she really just doesn’t want to live.. or something inside her died when her first and very beloved husband commited suicide just about the time that this all started.

I wish I had someone dynamic and clever like Gary Craig to turn to.. or the kind of people that one comes across inAmerican lore who just will not give up .. but also are willing to apply something like EFT to help themselves even when the doctors have given them up.

Bilquis has always somehow believed in drugs and pharmaceutical solutions to problems .. as if there was something like a magic potion in a bottle that will always resolve all difficulties.

Perhaps this is why the “Renoven” (recent name of resurged “Bio Bac”) seems to be appropriate for her turn of mind. The trouble is there may not be enough time for it to take effect. I hope to contact that doctor in Madrid on Monday to ask him about this aspect of the case.
- posted by longgone1 @ 11/06/2005 06:08:00 PM 2 comments

 
Further cogitations and inner struggles.
Bismi'llah arRahman arRahim. There is no refuge from Allah but in Him.

As I explained on the next post (which is really the previous one) I'm just whacking in my private diaries with all their twists and turns, confessions and uglinesses as well as, hopefully, something of interest for the reader .. even if only amazement at my personal weaknesses or relief at not being as bad as me .. or even relief at finding someone else as full of all the complications and weaknesses of human nature .. especially that which is confronted by a) overcoming nature and nurture and b) having the rigours of Islamic discipline and sufi morality to measure one's pathetic efforts by.

One small aside; I can't quite understand how Jenny found this blog before I had switched my settings back to make it public again ... does that mean that in fact it had stayed public all along ?

Ay! the quirks of Blogger and blogging !

Happy reading dear lector .. don't forget comments .. however blisteringly hurtful you think they may be ... I prefer honesty to diplomacy .. I do believe we progress much more quickly that way, if we can handle it.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.

(Tuesday November 1st 2005.)

Real Faith is in God alone ...I realise, in fact I have known for a long time that my faith tends to be really, in people ..especially women, or a woman, and in money. Ridiculous but true. Yet, when I realise it with shame and fear, then I ask God (Allah) to give me real faith .. so I do have faith in Him after all !

Perhaps I can say that I do have some faith, but it is not very strong. Right in this moment I am remembering an incident here in The Pais Vasco (Basque Country.) when my faith in the Sheikh got me out of trouble. It was an incident with my van breaking down on the way to a market in the early morning and help came almost immediately in the most extraordinary way.

The Basques are an extraordinary race of people who are very “solidaria” as Bilquis says. The angel of mercy that was sent to me in the afore mentioned incident, came in the form of a Basque van driver . I wonder what would happen if I asked for help from the Sheikh , with as much faith and determination (and with a contrite heart) as on that occasion, over the situation with Bilquis ?

I am sure that life and death are in Allah’s hands .. but perhaps it would help ..

I also need help over my work situation with earning money and have much fear and insecurity about that. I just feel that someone here might help me ... my mind has constantly been going to the homoeopath in the chemist where I got Bilquis’s remedies ..but I know that it is partly mixed up with her attractiveness, (a strange thin nervous type with a great red slash of a mouth ... her mother sitting there in a chair radiating powerful control.)

I don’t imagine her giving private consultations.. and I can’t think that I could get very easily intimate about my situation sitting in her open “consulta” in the chemist.

It is very hard to talk to anyone about how I need help in a moment like this when Bilquis is so ill ... but I do.
I have to say that I think there is a very real possibility that she will die and I am not sure how I will handle that at any or every level.

In approximate terms I have always had her at my side and completely leant on her for fifteen years .. for instance when she has been away for the last couple of times to the Basque Country and I have remained in Andalucia, I have just sat there with the computer, reading and reading and reading ..

Admittedly I was looking for stuff about Buddhism as she had gone back to that, and I was desperate to find some sort of a bridge between her and me spiritually ... I also found great comfort in Advaita Vedanta from the Hindu canon .. but who is around that takes any of this stuff seriously ? My recent experiences with writing on a blog forum have made me realise that the idea of bridges between sufism and the rest of the world are far from easy .. except perhaps for enlightened efforts such as the poetry of Jalalu’din Rumi, and that, of course, requires no commitment to dogma or practice on the part of the reader.

The point being anyway, that actually, I just sat and sat, doing the absolute minimum, until she came back .. I felt crippled and useless in every way, without her. This also applies socially and I have been trying to do a little about this recently.

Here it is eight fifteen in the morning, and it could be the middle of the night as there is no daylight to orientate one in this room.

If I am honest, as a Muslim, I am junub and have missed at least two days prayers since I have been here..no .. perhaps I did fajr the day before yesterday .. Conditions are not easy for setting up a place to pray and up here I am unsure of the direction without a compass, though I must admit I have a rough idea.

In one way I do wish to write and write and write .. somehow, I have to anyway. Though wether it is of any use for anything, I doubt these days. I realise that it is for me more than anyone and helps relieve some pressure from my feelings of impotence and fear.

I realise recently (perhaps in the last few hours) maybe since finishing The Celestine Prophecy, last night ( a book that a few years ago I was rejecting as too light and New Agey .. such that I didn’t read it, except in the pocket version, but now seems to have had some stuff for me in it) ... that my greatest enemy is fear .. and what I have to do is develop love. I also now understand why people these days say that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear.

I am also interested in using my intuitions as I see Jamal and Joe and others do ..and in the possibility of meaningful coincidences and meetings with people ..

I do wonder if there is anything to do with this homoeopath lady ... and I wonder if it is significant that that last sentence came out in capitals and, trying to change that I nearly buggered up the whole document .. ?

Still got this fixed idea that somehow a lady will be the answer to my problems ... can I ever get over that ?

This time at home .. from the beginning of Ramadan especially .. I have been holding it together ....

(have to go and shit now ..involves going downstairs to the flat where Bilquis lives ..and probably getting involved in whatever is going on down there .. not much I suspect, as Bilquis may still be asleep, with luck, and Dolores, her eighty four year old mother will probably still be in bed, and Baruk, her younger son, who’s flat it is , will probably still be abed, as it is a “puente” or bridge between the weekend and All Saints day holiday and he’ll have been out most of the night with friends. I am up here in the “buardia” or “desvan”, the loft storage space that pertains to his flat .., having cleared a space for a bed and a table between his boxes of personal stuff.)

I always seem to have lived in wierd situations accomodation wise and that is just part of my destiny .. In one way I am tired of it and wish that things could be more normal, in another way, “me hace gracia” or it amuses me ..but really I just know that it is part of my destiny no matter how much I may wish for normality and a home and family which I have never had nor ever been able to create.

I feel pretty rough now .. and don’t know if any of the above is serving for anything but to waste more time and fill more memory space .. on my computer. Unless, I put it on one of my old blogs revived, or ..on a new one, for people in general to read .. the problem is that they don’t get back with comments, so I still may as well be writing to myself .. unless I find some sort of feedback forum.

Anyway, got to go now, but surely, I will be back . The question being ....Faith in God .. real faith in God where one relies solely on Him Almighty .. or .. this mix up and mess with EFT and homeopathic remedies, to just keep stumbling by.

There’s also perhaps, another question. Solely about keeping or having faith in God despite not doing or keeping Islamic practices. And (you can’t begin a sentence with a preposition.) .. the question about believing in a personal God.

Perhaps I just make it all too complicated with too much thinking and analysis which only serves to undermine faith anyway.

I am reading an interesting book from Inayat Khan and I opened it at the section about prayer last night .. or was it this morning at about 4.30. a.m. after being downstairs comforting Bilquis with massages when I awoke and was drawn to go down and check on her and found her recently awake with pain and in need of company ?

Intuitive links and communication are interesting and might soon be a necessary development when the whole technological bullshit starts to break down and spiritual power takes over. We might as well start developing them now.

Hmmm.


13.15. Hrs.

mmmm ... that was nice .. what was ? .. Well, everything actually ...it has to do with this feeling of letting go into the All ...just “being” with everything .. that’s where I feel and live God .. in His Unity .. (which of course I am a part of, otherwise it would not be real.) God as a person .. is not an easy concept .. perhaps I will type out what Inayat Khan says on this (Inayat ? Vilayat ? .. I must look.)

But anyway .. it wa nice .. the silence in the flat when I went down .. the sunshine on everything .. (there is untimely summer type weather here ) but the “bochorno” or thunderiness has gone .. the humidity has lessened .. so it is in fact very pleasant instead of heavy and sticky ..

The sun slanting throught the pattern of the blind, falling on the book .. those lovely old pages redolent of other times and simply glowing with wisdom and love and spirituality. Oh, I’m so glad that I bought that book ( and the other one ) .. my little shop idea working .. I wonder if the restaurant / cafe food place can work too still ? and the launderette ? and the healing space ? and the magazine ? ... and the shop ? .. and the tea rooms ? and the sauna / hamam ? .. of course they all could ... and provide a brilliant cheap service and bring people and provide employment .. and improve relations with others, non muslim ..and village people ..

However .. for now the shop and a benefit for me in the shape of some second hand books.

Bilquis waking up and smiling .. attending to her .. Dolores with her eternal theme of what to eat and when ... Maria Isabella, the home help lady .. from Chile .. Jason and Imanol the new grandchild .. of eleven months now .. enourmous and “muy guapo” with huge blue eyes and blonde hair ...
A visit to the pasteleria for bread and cakes and milk and farm eggs. Hmmm .. fresh air .. Zarauz on oliday for All Saints day .. standing in the pasteleria looking out on the roundabout and th buldings and shop beyond, I felt I could have been in France .. certainly nothing like Andalucia.
Hey ho .. rather nice actually !

Wednesday November 2nd 2005. Zarauz.

12.35.Hrs.

And now it is another day ... quite different from the previous one. Dolores was a bit ill yesterday, the strain of looking after her daughter and having me around, out of her normal routine ... the shock of when Bilquis was rushed off to hospital with the haemorrhage .. all has accumulate to a small crisis, which she soon cured by going to bed early and having me cook her a cream of pumpkin and potatoe soup. It came out rather well actually and it inspired me to cook today. I rushed off to do the shopping and then cooked lentils and onions as a firts course followed by a lovely fluffy rice to accompany stew of mince beef with vegetables (onion, green and red peppers, carrots, leeks and mushrooms) in a savoury sauce .. delicious actually, though I say so myself. I could see me getting a job looking after some old lady or cooking for some wealthy old couple .. or even working in an old people’s home or something like that. Trouble is I suppose, that everyone these days has C.V.s as long as your arm and or qualifications as a nurse or whatever. Professional carer I suppose one could say.
Then I suppose I could work in a kitchen or a bar ... but again .. my age and being English .. ?

Translation work ? Something using my two languages .. I don’t know .. I expect I shall just wait and see as usual. Wait and see what life brings and then probably regret not having thought ahead and being prepared when I still had a little money.

Oh Lor’ !

The wind whistles around the roof somewhat, but, apart from some very distant movements elsewhere in the building, there is really no noise except that of the clicking of the keys of the keyboard .. interrupted every now and then by the whirring of the machinery which pulls the lift up and down.

I expect this time it is Baruc .. coming home for lunch ( the one which I cooked) I wonder if he’ll like it ?

It’s strange not having the internet .. perhaps rather healthy almost .. reality is here .. in the here and now.. and not in the gently glowing screen bringing me news and information and contacts from all around the world.

Thursday November 3rd 2005. Zarautz.

11.27. Hrs.

So what am I writing this for ? Trying to tie it down intellectaully, mentally ?

Here’s where I’m at today anyway. .. Muhammadan rasul’allah. Yes .. asking Allah to make me a sincere believer in Muhammad and to be able to follow the way that he brought us and taught us to worship and live.

After all the “vueltas y vueltas” ahi esta. Perhaps I can keep five prayers a day in the middle of all this Basque flavoured materialism.

Perhaps I can connect to the net somewhere somehow and do some transalation work .. probably better to take a step in that direction, than take no steps at all.

Unfortunately my only example of work has probably been lost from the other computer and I don’t know if I can get an example back from the website of Destino Sur. Barring that, I think I’ve lost it .... or did I do a hard copy ? .. maybe.

Then there’s the possibility of the Christmas market in Granada with all the ‘movidas’ that that entails .. but .. it would be some money if I can grit my teeth and do it ... maybe my daughter would like to help me with it.

If also, the car holds up !

My realtendency is to just go on buggering about here ‘til the money runs out. Not a very good idea in any way. If Bilquis suvives this it wouldn’t be too useful .. and if she doesn’t .. I’d be in a hopeless condition with only an awful prospect of lowest level survival in The Fonda in Spain .. if it still exists, or, somehow getting back to England and facing the poverty trap existence there.

I have no confidence in getting reaistic work from the enitities which I logged on with .. as I have little or no experience an no qualifications ..and they are perhaps not very busy businesses. There is a page which one can pay money to get more references but that would mean about 200 € to chance getting some work .. Experience tells me that less than 0.05.€ is not really worth working for .. but for sure there are some who are asking 0.03 € while some may ask 0.08 or even 0.1.

The world, the material world ... I quail ...

Lack of courage and postive thinking .. somehow I have to overcome them.

La ilaha ila ‘llah, Muhammadan Rasul’allah.


12.10.Hrs

Somewhat ridiculous situation, sitting here on the terrace trying to connect to the internet from one of the surrounding houses, sometimes it works .. when I was first here I had it for four days .. now I suppose, after the holiday, people have gone back to work and turned their routers off. Perhaps I’ll see how much a connection would be. Try to get some work then.

I’m getting angry now .. over the food situation here.




Friday November 4th.2005. Zarautz.

04.53. Hrs.

Wonderful, special time of the morning. Not just any morning. Friday morning. Jumaa, the Holy day of the week for Muslims. I could feel it when I awoke.

What is “on top” ? Rasul’allah. Muhammad, salalahu alayhi wa salem. My hero, as he is turning out to be, at long last and after all these years. A male figure to respect and love and admire, to follow and to try to imitate.

Last night, we watched “Alexander the Great.” .... conquering the world with his army ... King of half the world by the time he was thirty three. Sheikh Nazim says he was buried with his hands sticking out of his coffin to show the world that he could take nothing of it with him when he died.

All that effort and all that trial and courage and fighting for what ? .. In the Koran it says that everything in the world is as the wing of a mosquito in the sight of Allah. (and apparently they have four !) ... It served to emphasise for me, who is a worthy hero to admire .. the one who had everything .. power, riches, lands, horses women gold .. anything he wanted .. and turned his back on it all to face and turn towards The Owner of All, and worship Him Almighty. That is a hero worth following ...

I’m no good at it ? ... No, I’m not. I’m a useless changeable, unstable, lazy hypocritical example of a Muslim or a sufi ? .. Yes I am ... but I don’t really change my line and my mind in the end .. just run off down some side tracks to take a look .. and what happens ? They all turn out to be dead ends or incomplete paths taking longer to go to the same place ...

There’s no water up here in this attic room .. which makes it difficult for doing wudu. I may come up here with it, with the intention of doing my prayers, but if I lose it, it means going down the corridor and down in the lift and opening the front door of the flat and running the water in the bathroom, possibly .. probably, waking up Dolores whose room is in front of the bathroom and then coming up again .. perhaps ten minutes rather laborious process .. which the ego does not like and which presents an obstacle which can all to easily turn into a barrierto prayer. How does that happen ? Laziness, lack of conviction, lack of courage in the battle against the nafs ... The greater jihad, as Muhammad saws called it.

I have an intellectually juicy piece from Ibn Arabi to read .. Two chapters from the Futuhat (The Meccan Openings) .. which may help to analyse the “trials” sent by Allah.

‘Til now I was sitting at my table with the sound of the pouring rain on the roof and the low light of the lamp making a magic den in which I felt so close to something from the world of Islam, from the spirituality of Muhammad saws .. a connection to God .. to the spiritual world of Allah .. no matter how distant, I could smell the cooking from the central house of the walled village , even if I was in the fields outside. Even if I was only looking after one of the master’s sick sheep ... I still had that connection to Him, because His sick sheep and my job to look after her, is proof of His existence.
- posted by longgone1 @ 11/06/2005 10:56:00 AM 0 comments

 
Bismi'llah arRahman arRahim. There is no refuge from Allah but in Him.

I've decided to put my private diary entries in here (publish and be damned!) warts an' all. I'm not going through and editing anything so I hope there's nothing to shocking for people ..maybe more fo muslims than others I suspect.

I may be a useless bugger but this is what I do after all ..I write and I write and I write when time now permits ... it is my connection to the world .. it is my reality and my only warm nest.

What else can I do ? We all have our destinies and this seems to be mine.
As always, comments are appreciated (while insidious advertising via the comments box is definitely not .. so anyone who has ideas as to how we could eliminate that recent unwelcome addition to the world of blogging is also welcome to leave their suggestions here.)

Here's the first chunk ...20th September 2005. La Herradura.

12.46.Hrs.

Whew! Que laborioso es using the touch pad for the pointer instead of the mouse.

Anyway .. a lot of fun being on the beach with the baby .. he´s a really lovely one. Big and strong like his parents and with a beautiful little innocent and pure face with huge blue eyes which impress everyone that sees him.

What a difference between being down there with the usual book and beach mat and being there with a baby. I just naturally get close to him and start playing with him. I suppose as I have never really had my own and experienced all that joy of them as little things, it´s extra “gracioso” para mi.

Something has to go right, if only for a little while I suppose. Poor Bilquis is still suffering with her inflammation of the heads of femurs but even that there is hope on as there is a private clinic here where we can take her a few times in these ten days to get some rehabilitation as the hospital looks as though it will be very slow.

Yesterday I lost all the last few days writing in here.. I don´t really know what happened..except that I was trying to get back to the beginning with the Ctrl and inicio keys and the lot just disappeared. It seems that back up was not turned on .. though the last time something similar happened the program just seemed to recuperate it all automatically. Sometimes I dispair of ever knowing how to manipulate the computer or the programs properly.

Right here in the middle of all the schools. Children from three or four years in the “parvolos” en frente through the middle school behind and up to the teenagers in the one next door. Is it some sort of message to me ? Whatever.. I missed out on all that family stuff both as a child and as a man. At least here in Spain there is still some kind of love and affection and concern for the children and a generally good atmosphere.

Trying out the “inicio” with Ctrl key and Ctrl with “fin” key I see that above inicio is
“Supr” which I assume must be suprimir or the equivalent of delete so that is probably what I hit yesterday when I lost everything. I´d been wondering where the delete key was!

Seems as though everything happens for a good reason. I am sure that really there isno injustice in the world. In fact that everything is perfectly just although we cannot always see the reason why . Bilquis´s illness is just as perplexing as the Twin Towers or the Tsunami or New Orleans hurricane Katrina in this respect.

If I could be so hard I would say that New York and a country that has become very proud of its materialistic power could easily have something to do with the Towers. I could also say that maybe New Orleans was a hot bed of vice (casinos, maybe music clubs alchohol and drugs and fornication and prostitution.. who knows?) .. There is so much badness in the world at all levels and in all places these days it would be hard to pick on one place more than another in respect of this question .. but .. the Tsunami one was a bit difficult to fathom.

Who am I to say anything anyway ? It´s not so much that I have any right .. It´s that I have especial interest. Maybe first of all to try to fathom out my own personal suffering and then everything that has come in the wake of my very screwed up home life. If one believes in God … Allah .. one has to be able to believe and explain all suffering in terms of wisdom and justice. One cannot believe in a mindlessly cruel God .. or in one that just doesn´t care. Though I have seen a translation which said He sends some people to the garden and some people to the fire and He doesn´t care .. but I would think (and hope!) that that is just a poor translation.

When one cannot find an obvious link between suffering and bad behaviour, as for instance in the case of Bilquis .. (I don´t know what she did when she was younger
But since I´ve known her she has been pretty good.) .. then one can always fall back on the thing of purification. I do wonder what the consequences spiritually are of her going bck to Buddhism after being in Islam (?).

For myself I am convinced that Islam is the truth and that sufism in Islam is the best. I have a lot of difficulty with self discipline and self control. I also have difficulty with joining in with others in groups. My practices are minimal and a shame .. but … yes .. I believe in Allah and that Muhammad is His prophet and messenger and that the Koran is revelation and the last revelation of Almighty God to man .. and that the Koran will never be changed one dot or letter.


21.04. das eet … nothing to say ! Can you believe it ?

Wednesday September 21, 2005. La Herradura.

13.07.Hrs.

Faith,” that really is the only answer after all the “vueltas y vueltas” that I have done. Faith in the One True God Allah and His Messenger and my Sheikh.

I am nearly finished with all the horrible noise of all these kids around the house, and then …. Oh I´m just too knackered to go on.

Thursday 22nd September. 2005. La Herradura.

05.39.Hrs.

Headache all the time, for days now. Woke up so aware of clash of cultures. Dreaming of something English … someone writing in their diary about English things. The presence of Bilquis´s son and wife and friend is a bit overwhelming. That´s Basque culture .. then there´s Andalucian culture all around .. then there´s my Englishness which has been seriously wobbled .. long before I even came to Spain I was lost as to my middle classness and all that. On top of all that there´s the whole Islamic thing too.. each nation within Islam has it´s own culture with its own customs, food, dress music architecture language etc. What´s mine ? Where do I fit in ?
I´m trying to dredge up from out of all this mess some faith and some kind of teturn to making my prayers important. Without internet I don´t have that consant escape into worlds which also are really not my own. American culture one could call it almost. Materialist and perhaps Jewish culture, one could say, as they control he banking system which controls everything else and they have most influence in the world of Cinema and communications which have most influence on everything else.

Trying to simplify it all, back down to what is really important and perhaps the basis of things going right or wrong in one´s life. Belief in and worship of God.
Twice as difficult now that Bilquis has gone bak to her Buddhism. It seems that I have to save myself before I can save her. Sounds hard, is hard, but none of the attempts to help her via medecines and hospitals are working. She entrenches herself more and more in Buddhism and needs to go back to the Basque country for medical help. I really can´t stand it up there and just get swept away by the pressure of their so called culture and way of life.

It´s all very difficult … the only thing I can do is try to make my Islam and prayers number one importance .. everything else is just crazy anyway and has no long term benefit or meaning.

Somehow, maybe, I hope wih the internet and selling via e.bay I have to try to make myself independent economically too. That´s going to be hard .. but what else is there except markets that we are being squeezed out of and which are getting very tiring now that we are getting older ..?

Wooh! Difficulties abound .. as always. Everything is just difficulties difficulties difficulties.

What else can I do except try to keep going with what I believe in .. as much as I believe in it and try to believe more ?

11.41. Hrs.

Now, that´s a bit better! Probably because I am asking help from Maulana .. sincerely, or as sincerely as I can. Probably because I did fajr upon awakening before all else even though it was late .. after another disturbed night. Probably because I did a lot of “la hawla wa la quwatta ila bi´llah.”

My head still aches all the time, I don´t know if it is due to so much time spent on the internet. Probably. It seems to go together with my eyes aching and hurting. In the last couple of days I have had to move up from 1 ½ to 2 grade glasses for reading books although I am still using 1 ½ for the computer.

Breakfast was agreeable with the young people and the lovely baby. I have had interesting chats with Aytor about his messenger service and internet possibilities. Today we shall go to try to get something done for Bilquis´s pain and I shall look at a couple of Kodak cameras as the shop didn´t get the Canon one I wanted .. I don´t really like the idea of the Kodaks they seem bit down market to me but .. if they are O.K to start with maybe it would be good to spend less in our present circumstances.

If there is time I´ll take the car to another mechanic to see if they can fix the oil leak which it seems likely is from the timing belt cover (the only thing I had changed and as a preventative method by those idiot mechanics in Orgiva!)

Hey ho .. life in Andalucia .. I wish I could stop my headache .. the hat seemed to help a little bit,, but now it is back again.

18.25.Hrs.

Here we are, back home again. Bilquis has had her first treatment of seven. They say that it is quite a bad inflammation and that even when they get rid of it (insha´llah) there can still be “molestias”. At least we are doing something..the feeling of impotence has gone down and with it, a bit, my headache.

Now I have a prayer to do .. and there is shopping to do as well. Oh! .. it seems as though Bilquis is going to do that. I should get out and move a bit I suppose.

20.04. Hrs.

So I did, and, here I am again. In front of this silly screen looking for things to write and say.
The keyboard is driving me mad as usual. Is it me or is it the keyboard ? Who knows .. but the most likely of course, is that it is me.
I´ve just been for a walk down the sea front and back. At the last moment there was the “furgoneta” of Sol. All the old nonsense welled up inside me.. but almost not really .. just like the whole summer time thing .. the last kicks of the old horse before it lies down to die. Not really interested but just some old chips and programs and patterns playing in my head … the idea more interesting than the reality .. that stupid old idea that a woman is going to be the answer to my problems.. despite the fact that I´ve already got one who has been the answer to nearly all my problems .. well .. except perhaps one .. and that is, or has been, the whole root of the problem and also of the greatest test with faith in the Sheikh. No one can really understand it all perhaps .. and, in the end, it is between me and him and Allah.

Anyway, if I´d arrived one minute later I´d have walked right into her .. come to think of it.. maybe even if I hadn´t walked onto the beach to take a peek in “El Bueno” to see if she was there. Whatever, it´s all perfect and, I wasn´t going to go out of my way to call her and offer to have a drink with her or anything and invite more trouble which I narrowly missed this summer anyway.

Perhap it is the end of a long saga starting with Sheikh´s ladies in Cyprus maybe seven years ago or more.. and ending around now with my recognition of my badness and what is the reason for Sheikh speaking of my madness. (Better mad than bad, better bad than dead.) as he once said. Mad being someone doing wrong without feeling conscience about it. Bad being consciously doing wrong and dead being too late .

Anyway it´s time for Maghrib now .. so … the more options I turn off in Word the better I like it... what really pisses me off though is that the “e” and the “t” don´t seem to respond as well as the rest of the letters.



Well here it is Saturday 26th September. 2005. in La Herradura.

and of course it´s 08.06.Hrs.

Ay Dios! The headache´s back and I don´t know why. Yesterday was a pleasant day with the family .. I say family because it felt like it and it is the nearest thing I have for the moment. Bilquis´s son Jason and his wife Agurchane and their baby Imanol and Jason´s friend Aytor.


I´ve just discovered the drawing pad .. Hmm


...possibilities ...



wait a minute though ...

Yep! .. that´s O.K. then !

Well .. now what ? Family .. yesterday ..prayers belief ... faith God (Allah) His Prophet (pbuh) and return to Sheikh .. all around the believing in his really being able to have sex with ladis without his ego being involved .. yet with love an for thei benefit not his ... Hombre .. all I can say is I can´t control mysel hardly at all with regard to women and it is the root of many of the things which are wrong in my life.
It is hardly surprising thet the thing which has most thrown me off from Sheikh´s path is seeing him on my own level (almost) with regard to that.

I have no real job or profession of my own with which I can earn money for us or be self sufficient or have any self respect and I am still nearly unable to control myslf wih regard to sexual thoughts and lookings which have led and still nearly lead to wrong doings.

Not a very good state for someone who has pretended to follow the sufi path .. I say has .. because perhaps only in the last few years am I really aware of what that means and recognise how far I am from even starting!

However, I may be mad or even bad .. but I´m not dead yet .. i.e. there is still hope!

Allah my do anything in one moment and when He likes .. and if it took twenty years with Sheikh to not only see myself in this regard but also to be able to begin to believe in his purity and freedom from this human animal state .. but really .. then that´s what it took .. If it means I could really believe in him in a complete way ..

Not this crazy way of believing he can travel through the worlds and be in thousands of places at once and be totally annihilated in Allah to the point of being everywhere and with everything and yet still have that animal sexuality with him .. which is pretty illogical and crazy ..

If recognising my fault to this extent means recognising his perfection... then so be it and the gift of that would be worth the years of suffering and imprisonment in my own filth.

I don´t know if you know what I mean .. and I don´t even know who you are dear reader .. but if it means that I can truly pray to him or ask his help with real faith ...... then .. it has been worth it ...
we´ll see.

The key board (or me ) continues to be a pain .. My life´s a load of crap .. but there is still hope!



Sunday 25th September 25, 2005. La Herradura.

13.54.Hrs.


The present moment is changing so fast that we often do not notice its existence at all. Every moment of mind is like a series of pictures passing through a projector. Some of the pictures come from sense impressions. Others come from memories of past experiences or from fantasies of the future.Mindfulness helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual reactions.-Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness"
Copyright Wisdom Publications 2001. Reprinted from "Daily Wisdom: 365 Buddhist Inspirations," edited by Josh Bartok, with permission of Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm St., Somerville MA 02144 U.S.A, www.wisdompubs.org.


Good or not ?

I have often thought that this was more or less the import of “mindfulness” but never seen it quite so clearly laid out for all to see and accept easily.

Batang ... is that a nice font or not ? I rather like it for a change.

Do not go after the past,Nor lose yourself in the future.For the past no longer exists,And the future is not yet here.By looking deeply at things just as they are,In this moment, here and now,The seeker lives calmly and freely.You should be attentive today,For waiting until tomorrow is too late.Death can come and take us by surprise--How can we gainsay it?The one who knowsHow to live attentivelyNight and dayIs the one who knowsThe best way to be independent.-Bhaddekaratta Sutra
From "The Pocket Buddha Reader," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2001. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.


Which is another way of saying the same thing.

I´m going to start straight away. (Why wait now when I´ve known it for 35 years ?)

And this from the Hindus is so beautiful;

Be aware of me always, adore me, make every act an offering to me, and you shall come to me; this I promise; for you are dear to me. Abandon all supports and look to me for protection. I shall purify you from the sins of the past; do not grieve.-Bhagavad Gita 18:65-66
Excerpted from The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, copyright 1985. Reprinted with permission from Nilgiri Press, www.nilgiri.org. To order the book, please call 1-800-475-2369.


Can I apply that as though Allah is speaking ? Is that “wrong” isn´t it the same One God with a different name in a different time ?

It´s so sweet and gentle and caring isn´t it ?

Tuesday September 27, 2005. La Herradura.

07.04.Hrs.

I don´t really even feel worthy to write anything. I´m sure I should be worshipping Him Almighty because He is so Great and everything else is just a waste of time.

Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. I hope He will grant me to be able to discipline my nafs still at this ripe old age of fifty two. I would like to be able to be with the other Muslims and I wish I could make a complete Ramadan.

Oh Allah grant me this ! Oh Allah grant me this !

For the sake of Muhammad saws Your beloved Prophet and Messenger and for the sake of Muhammad Nazim al Haqqani Sheikh of the Naqshbandi tariqat and Imam of this time .. and for the sake of all Naqshbandi Sheikhs and for the sake of all saints and enlightened ones everywhere in every time.
Please cure Bilquis and bring her back to Islam.


19.02.Hrs.

Pain .. that´s the first thing ...especially pain in the head ... headache I´m going back to Times New Roman .. just because it´s blacker ..

Yes, headache, and I´ve had it for a while now .. just happens to coincide with about the time since I´ve been taking Sulphur .. I really think that my constitutional remedy is Lycopodium and, maybe, taking it at the same strengths I have been taking Sulphur at ... it might work without a crisis ?I don´t know ...

Everything i just wrong, wrong, wrong, from Bilquis´s illness which is the worst and most overriding thing, to this computer which I´m really not that fond of.

Noise ... this house is in about the worst position in the pueblo for noise .. there is a school at the back with a yard in front where the kids come and scream and shout from morning ´til night. There´s an infants school in front and the teenagers´ one next door.

There´s a nursery at the back where lorries come and deliver and there is the sea front road where everyone must drive up and down showing off their noisy motorbikes and cars.

I´m sick of noise ! They say that Andalucia is the second noisiest place on earth
after Japan.

I don´t think it is very healthy writing this stuff to myself .. but I can´t find the power to do anything else. I am imprisoned in my own pain and negativity.

I suppose it is a punishment or a cleaning for my bad ways
Wednesday September 28, 2005. La Herradura.

11.03.Hrs.

Here I am again then. I´ve been through the whole circle. I´m going to try to say it because it is so familiar to me and,at this point I never know what to do ( oahh yaasss ... pray dumbo ! ... doh! )

Hope .. faith ... prayer .. of course ...

Please Sheikh, Allah, Ya Muhammad ... help me to get some sleep and rest now .. and then be ble to deal with the rest of the day in a sensible and mature responsible way.

You anwered my prayers this morning to help me with will power and self discipline ... Thank You .. now please help me with this.


11.56.Hrs.

Nah ... same old same old .... never mind ... had to do it .. “it” being you know what .. (?) .. and it still didn´t work .. so here I am then .. and what about that apostrophe thing then while I am at it ? there´s this ´ and then there´s this ` which are ccents relly aren´t they ? and then there´s this , which is a comma, but where´s there an apostrophe or a comma in the air ? well, that´s it then .. there isn´t one apparently.

So what about the old circle then? How to explain that and .. what about the “e” on this keyboard ? etc etc

I suppose we´ll get Bilquis´s new phone charged up and I´ll be able to get the insurance done over the phone and that is the main thing .. the rest of it is my usual Andalucian Gregorian/Uthmanic slow cock up.

Hey ho ... so exciting to have hope in Allah and His Prophet and Sheikh that they will help me to change .. change my character and change my destiny .. come over from bad side to good .. insha´llah .. so exciting knowing that The Prophet is alive in his grave and to find out what he said saws about Al Hay Al Qayyum and that verse in the Koran ... Bakara 255 ... “Allahu la ilaha ila hu al Hayyu al Qayyum.”

Allah there is no God but He, The Living The Eternal. (Or words to that effect.) ..

He said (peace be upon him) that it is the most important verse in the Koran. ... Wow!

13.15.Hrs.

I hope that quote´s right .. perhaps I´ll go and look it up now.

I´d like to be able to write about this problem clearly .. have the courage, knowing that it´s very unlikely that anyone will see it unless I want them to.

The problem is the same one as always .. the same one I´ve always had ... (apart from all the others!) .. S.E.X. Ess. Ee. Ex. .. sex ... sexuality .. how to satisfy it .. especially morally or correctly .. and/or how to control it ?

Can´t be near a woman .. can´t even see a woman without the thought of sex with her entering my head ... Another reason why I think I am probably Lycopodium.

In one way it has taken on ridiculous proportions, in another .. maybe it has just become the fulcrum of all my bad characteristics and my guilt and shame.

What can I do about it ? Answers that come to mind from Islam are .. control the eyes and looking. Control the thoughts ... Fast ... eat less meat and so on. ... garlic etc. Find work and physical exercise as outlets.

What about the fact of finding someone who likes sex too, as much as I do? What about the fact that I always have, and continue to, avoid responsibility, so fertile productive sex frightens the hell out of me unless I can find a way to earn a living or someone (very unlikely) who wants a baby with me and has an income of her own ?

All of this without even considering the reality of Bilquis´s present illness and how very unlikely it is that I´m going to either a) divorce her or b) have a second wife who I could either support or would be accepted by her. I am just trying to be honest here .. These are thoughts that go through my head when I am trying to find ways to resolve this thing.

I´m speeding out of my brains today with all that has been going on ..this house is a constant hell of noise and cars and motorbikes and lorries and people .. on top of which I have to do about three corrections at least in every sentence that I write, either because the keyboard is so unresponsive or because I am an absolutely useless typist .. perhaps both.

I wanted to write about the cycle of wierdness with my sleep patterns and how (same old problem ... ) the sexuality led to masturbation last night (Bilquis has been unable to have sex with me for some time now, apart from which our sex life has never been very good and since about three years.. no .. make that five .. I have not been physically attracted to her.

Shit! .. I have to keep hope and determination that all this can be worked out.

I woke from bad dreams at about four or five in the morning ... to the embarassing situation of Bilquis being awake and then her son and daughter in law and baby asleep in the other room ... me needing a “ghusl” (obligatory shower after emission) if I was to be able to pray.

The day before, Jason and his friend Aitor had gone to the airport early and at least one of them (probably Aitor) had taken a shower and it wasn´t that noisy or disturbing.

The dreams I awoke from were unpleasant and I had that horrible early morning negativity and depression and hopelessness which often overtakes me, coupled with the shame and guilt and embarrasment of what I had to do, on top of which Bilquis said that Jason was sleeping in the sitting room on the couch because he had been so hot last night ..(lately Bilquis has been sleeping there and that leaves our room free to pry in .. I had been planning on using the little front room where Aytor had been sleeping to do my prayers and now I was blocked both ways as that room is beside the front room which I had to pass through to get to it... as well as which the noise of my chanting/reciting would be disturbing .. Ay!

The situation seemed hopeless .. but ... I just prayed and prayed and prayed for help from Allah Himself Almighty .. from Rasulallah (now that I am finding a loving connection to him and his reality) and to Sheikh (now that I am beginning to believe “really” that he had all those women for their sakes and not his own) ...

I prayed and prayed and prayed for help with self discipline and will power mainly .. and soon found myself getting up and gingerly confronting the situation with the shower and the noise etc etc . Meanwhile it seems that Jason decided to go back and sleep with his wife in their bedroom so the coast was clear.

Wow! yes .. I was coming out of the negative situation and finally being able to pray a complete fajr .. it was still early and I just had time to get the old lappie and look at B.L. and see that my friends there had left encouraging messages for me.

And then I prayed ..

It was sooo nice ! and on top of it I had clean clothes on from the day before and everything seemed to be turning a corner.

How many times have I had this experience ?

The problem comes when fajr is finished and I should really sleep and then be getting up along with everyone else (late as they do in Andalucia) and picking up on regular life. But no ... what happens to me when I get up to pray night prayers and or fajr is that I get a tremendous nervous energy which does not allow me to sleep. And ... wait for it .. I get a strong rsush of sexual desire !

Yes .. that same old bloody problem again ... now what ?

Well I look a bit more at the net .. and try to write something there or leave something useful for others on one or more of the blogs.

Then if not tired out I´ll try eating a big breakfast .. ( fills the stomach takes blood away from the brain .. makes one sleepy .. normally ) How many times have I tried that too ? ... Nothing.

So ... back to bed and try with all the shutters and curtains shut and drawn ... That´s about where I came in this morning (see beginning of today´s entries .. 11.03.Hrs.) .. what happened ? .. No self control you might say ... habit maybe ... but as soon as I hit the sack .. yes I just had to whip it out and wank it ... (f---ing thing!) Ay!

Then ... I still didn´t sleep! ...

I´ve been through this so many times ! .. Now what ? I am “junub” (requiring a shower) again .. Bilquis is still at home but says she is going out ... she knows the situation more or less .. but well .. for propriety´s sake I will have to wait ´til she goes out .. try again and see if I can sleep .. even reading th boring instructions of th new phone wouldn´t send me off.

Passing back and forth between the sitting room and the kitchen I see two boxes of natural tranquilizers or sleeping pills made of valerian and Passiflora and decide to take a couple in the vain hope of getting bit of sleep.

(In this moment the street outside is awash with “motos” and shouting kids going home after school .. I won´t go into the details. At least I have become sure that I never want to live in a town and wouldn´t rent this particular house even if I was paid to.)

So what .. ? Then I hear Agur´ in the kitchen .. and finally, finally she leaves and Bilquis goes off to the town .. I have achieved virtually zero on the way of anything good or useful and she has had to take the responsibility of paying stuff in the bank as usual as well as putting up with my irritability when she suggests doing my car insurance by phone before going.

Ay! ..

Here I am then .. writing this .. feeling a bit groggy from the pills .. Jason and Agur´probably wondering why we don´t go down to the beach with them and their baby on their last day like norml people ... all the doors and shutters closed against the noise again and a feeling of severe frustration and uselessness apart from guilt and shame.

Joder! .. what to do ? (sounds like Bilquis coming back now.)

14.20.Hrs.... .... Yep .. it was .. and now what ? Guess what ? I feel really sleepy ..and .. Bilquis wants me to go and have lunch with them ..I could fall asleep right now .. and there´s a prayer to do ...and ... well ..she´s come in and read over my shoulder which I hate .. and and and ....

I´m nearly reduced to tears .. and another fucking moto and shouting teenagers ... hell in a word .... Hell .. .. I´m sure I must deserve it .. Apart from which all the timetable is fucked up with the call to the insurance company and Bilquis´s appointment with the Health Centre ...

That´s it , that´s the way I am .. that´s the way my life goes ... “Contra Corriente.”

I´m going to keep them company and make a show of it .. and then pray, probably duhr and asr together before I go ...

Destiny .. it must be destiny.


17.27.Hrs.

That´s it then, absolutely fucked .. no sleep, mor enoise, everything horrible on top of horrible .. I´m just not strong enough ... can´t stand much more .. It´s England, countryside and dole for me .. if that´s possible.


22.11.Hrs.

And then the kids come home with the baby and for all the world I fel happy and normal ... for a while .. I´m sure half of my problem is never having had a normal family.

Thursday September 29, 2005. Orgiva.

13.39.Hrs.

Now I´m back “home” (as if such a place existed apart from Allah Himself ) ... no earthly home for me I fear .. perhaps ever. I don´t know if it´s weakness or old age or Bilquis´s illnss .. or and objective reality but, this Shabaan seems particularly strong to me. I suppose I´m just sure I´m a Muslim kind of despite myself .. and all I can do is recognise my weakness .. but I can´t find many excuses not to believe when I love Allah and His Messenger so much. It is just the difficulty of the practice rally at the end of th day .. the heaviness on my freedom loving ego.

What can I do except love Allh and His Mssenger despite myself .. and (perhaps) now that Bilquis is not here I am free to indulge that, or discover it and develop it.

Oh that I could go back to a pure and innocent belief in the Sheikh in the sam way .. maybe I can go forward to a pure and “knowing” belief in him this way.
What kind of an idiot am I not to recognise that the ayat mentioned above is Ayat Al Qursi ?Oh well .. now I´ve looked and now I know.

I´ve phoned Ruben to give him the code for unlocking the other computer so he can keep the documents for me .. I´ve sent the money to Almusalud for Bilquis´s therapy. I´ve phoned the car insurance company and paid for the next year with my credit card. The meat is unfrozen and ready to cook for my lunch.
Only Telefonica is still being a total pain about sorting out doubling the speed on my computer´s wi fi. It´s frustrating their terrible service...and no chnce to complain except through a fax! Bastards!

Of well .. apart from this the keyboard on the lap top is really horrible and misses out loads of letters unless you bang them really hard .. I really dislike that.

Then there´s all the cleaning up to do in the wake of the “obras” Miguel has done on the house... I´m trying to stay positive and at least philosophical about it ... hmmm.

I must say I feel smashed .. I am trying to say that I have learned that a woman is not the answer to my problems .. and that I must not make a god out of them.

1234567890’¡qwertyuiopàsdfghjklñzxcvbnm
1234567890

qwertyuiop

asdfghjklñ

zxcvbnm

that little test seems to work alright .. so why doesn´t it print out all the letters when I am actually writing then (especially the “e”). 1000 € and still crap results! I had to buy it on Tuesday 13th of course !

ººªªªªªºººº\\\\\\ ! 1ª 2º primera and segundo .. did I really need a Spanish keyboard ? Do I really live here ? English car again and no real residency or any official stuff .. I wonder if I should get more legal in some way ?

Least of my worries right now ...

What are they then? Perhaps I can enumerate them and write them down to be dealt with logically and sensibly one by one ? Or step by step and all at the same time or whatever.

Spiritual, economic, health. Those are the key words I think.

14.36. Hrs.

Hurting ... but how do I stop ? How to shift the tears nd just do something ? I feel so lonely .. no family no friends .. what to do ? Pray ?

15.18.Hrs.

Designing desktops .. I like it .. how the time flies! I am reminded of trying to be positive and that I should get that camera now and try to employ my talents visually.





Sunday 2nd October.2005. Orgiva.

09.01.Hrs.

Yes, only Allah matters. To be able to say la ilaha ila´llah and really mean it ... that´s what matters. A abdla Qadr Gilani said .. “You say it but you are liars!” (i.e. you make everything your God but Allah!).
I am now so exhausted with all the things that my nafs likes that it feels as though there is nothing left ... but there´s always playing with the computer ... and when nothing else satisfies .. there´s always writing .. maybe ... just maybe .. I can really do that for Allah ? At least the sheikh seemed to indicate that, along with photos ... do I have enough faith in him to avoid the nonsense option of e.bay and silver and do what he said qaddasalahu sirrhu ?



One thing I realised this morning as I sat in the prayer crying and lost and lonely and exhausted .. is that what I want is his fatherly love.

He has indicated what he thinks would be a suitable thing for me to do .. and it wasn´t selling in markets ! (Whereas to abdl Ahad it was for instance.)

22.15. Hrs.

Now ... (finally!) I found out how to simply carry on writing after this picture ... I don´t know if I could repeat it ... and I don´t think I can move the picture up to the previous writing because it comes on a space at the end of the page which is not big enough for it to fit. However, I have discovered how to snuck it in between the writing of the above paragraph .. which is nice, and much better.


The most important thing that seems to have happened (God I´m sick of this efffíng keyboard!) is that .. how can I say it ? I have real - ised the necessity to truly believe in Prophet Muhammad and what he brought .. in the veracity of the Koran (word) and the wisdom of the sunnah (action) .. and that his words and actions were in accord .. being and doing what Allah guided him to in His love for him as an example of the best man that ever lived .. the perfect man.

Also, of course, the necessity to believe in the purity of the Sheikh, (in my case especially with regard to all the ladies ) .. that it was for their benefit and not for his nafs !


Thursday October 6th. 2005.

18.08. Hrs.

It´s about God and it´s about being good .. and that´s it really. That´s the basics.
for me, being good is the hard bit .. after all these years of bad habits.

The suffering of Bilquis and my suffering for her, is bringing it all to the surface.. bringing it all home .. making it all clear.

Now I have to deal with it somehow .. and change !









Sunday October 9th. 2005. Orgiva.

05.24. Hrs.

For sure the key to all this is repentance. To truly repent one must have the intention and then turn away from the sin definitively. Up until now, maybe I have not been able to face the reality that I would be able to turn away from the sin of bad looking for good ... my resolve was not strong enough. Perhaps now, with Bilquis´s suffering and my shame, I am.

I know that in Ramadan and with no bad influences around ... apart from the telly and the computer of course .. but at least I am out in the campo away from the town .. and it is autumn now and the blood is less hot ... and there are less half clad ladies .. and I am not at the coast or taking gin seng .... so .. of course it is easier ..
However .. my intention is to turn away from and stay away from the sins of the eyes.. which can .. given the chance .. lead to the sins of the flesh.
I need to be more amongst good company and good people ... and, I need to work out a way to live .. or make a living without having to be at the coast where so many bad influences prevail.
We´ll see wether that is possible .. or indeed wether I am here at all come the summer.

So ... I repent ... and I turn and intend o remain turned away from the sin of bad looking ..
I suppose the sin of bad looking comes from bad thinking .. so I must control my thoughts too.

I wonder wether communicating this to Bilquis will help? .. I reckon so .. it would give her more hope .. and she would see that I love her.

Madness defined by the saints (according to Sheikh Nazim) as continuing to do wrong .... hang on .. I´m going to look and see exactly what he does say ...

here .. from my blog ...

ARE YOU MAD ?
Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.The most precious thing that Allah gives to people is Aql, mind. There are two kinds, one is for arranging this life on earth, and the second is heavenly, like the minds of Prophets and Awliya.* As much as we can be clean from bad character, so much is heavenly mind growing in us. Mad persons in the sight of Awliya are those persons not thinking of the hereafter. If anyone has bad characteristics, so much is he near to madness. As long as one bad character is yet with him he is written in the book of mad persons, because he is not yet governed by his mind, but by that bad character. If wrong things are coming out in speaking and acting, it is signing that we have bad character with us. If anyone is doing wrong and not feeling ashamed, he is a mad person.* Awliya = "Friends of Allah" or saints.From Mercy Oceans Book Two. Winter Lectures 1400 A.H. (1980 A.D.)The Teachings of Sheikh Abdullah ad-Daghestani an-Naqshbandi (qas) as expounded by Sheikh Nazim Adil Al Qubrusi an-Naqshbandi (qas).


“If anyone is doing wrong and not feeling ashamed .. he is a mad person.” ...

that´s the bit I was looking for.

All this time Sheikh has been calling me “delli” Uthman .. or crazy Uthman and I didn´t know what he meant ...

He once said .. “ Better mad than bad .. better better bad than dead.” I always took this to mean that mad people have no responsibility before shariat law..so better to be mad than bad which means that one is consciously doing wrong .. and better to be bad with a chance to become good than to be dead when one´s book of actions is closed.

I now begin also to see what he means when he says that his centres are mental houses .. and why (perhaps) the pople in them suffer so much .

Anyway .. time to pray now .. and repent before Allah ...



Monday October 10th. 2005.

18.17.Hrs.

Another very strong day today .. I am feeling at the end of my small reserves of power and stamina. I don´t really even want to write about it as I know it will do little good...the best I could expect would be to put a page of this on say, Blog Ladder and wait for some response .. it would almost inevitably be sympathy .. especially probably from the ladies .. which is nice but I have to learn something about survival and I am .. a little screwed right now.
I´m not sure if I can really get a very objective handle on this right now .. much less do something about it.
Perhaps it is good that all this stuff with Bilquis is coming to a head via her illness.
I am having to confront my whole way of being .. and it is not at all easy. Right now, what is on top is the necessity to find a way to make a living if I’m to stay here ..in Spain.

Probably the most realistic possibility for me is to do translation work .. internet .. maybe payment problems. Negativity, fear, hounding me and my footsteps.
Out of condition both mentally and physically to confront anything in the way of survival in this all too cruel world .. very tired .. very stressed and very lonely.

Without car .. and the rains have come .. ho!

Lacking strength.



Tuesday October 11th 2005.

05.53. Hrs. Orgiva.

A Tuesday .. terrible day .. probably won’t fast today .. yesterday was a bit too much. The difficulties (not great to most normal people) overcame me ... almost too bored or tired to get them down on paper as it were.
I have a need to find a way to “face up to life”, i.e. get a job or invent one.
I almost hate this lap top .. or at least it’s keyboard. It really is much worse than the Toshiba .. the keys are even more slippy and unresponsive ... so many letters get missed and I have to go back and fill them all in (great for doing translation work, which looks like the only realistic thing I can do).I suppose I´ll get used to it.
I’m working on trying to be more positive about things ... this morning doing a lot of EFT to try to change deep negative patterns of thinking and projecting. As I try it with the typing for instance, things improve.

I am sure that things are generally, at a world level more heavy and difficult than they’ve ever been ... probably in the history of mankind. My friend Jamal tells me it’s all on course according to the Mayan calendar.

I can feel the Tuesday stuff beginning to bite. Im still geared up for negativity ..I can feel it in my liver.. in the top and sides of my head and in that feeling of being close to tears from frustration and sadness/negativity.
It’s the kind of state where a buzzing fly can tip one over the edge ...

Doesn’t matter ... all part of Allah’s Plan .. for me and for the world. I have been doing quite well with the fasting and the practices .. after yesterday I feel like passing on the fast so that I can deal with the post office (which is nearly always a trial) and the insurance company and why the papers haven’t arrived for the car and the mechanics who are fairly useless and all the other wonders of life in a small Andalucian village .. wonders which one tried to take in one’s stride when things were slow and cheap down here .. now that everything has speeded up so much and become as expensive or more than England, one wonders what one is doing here.

No, the keyboard is no better .. as soon as one’s fingers start to fly a little it still keeps missing out all th e’s and the a’s .. what a pain! Just not sensitive enough ..no reliability unless one really bangs the keys .. Are all the examples of this model like it one wonders .. or just the one I bought on Tuesday 13th ?.. The fly keeps up it’s dive bombing tactics and I m steadily being tortured and driven insane..

Should I take a few drops of the Sulphur which seemed to help to balance me ? Or will the headaches come back ?

Pain if I do .. and pain if I don’t is the way things are going it seems ... I must just stop this ..

I’ve experienced it before .. this thing of trying to get round the difficulties by say .. not fasting .. and then it seems to be worse ..when I get hit like this and go down .. I tend to lose the lot .. instead of just not fasting .. I feel so hurt .. ( that old feeling of the bullied little boy in the playground when the whole world and everyone in it seems to be against one ..) that I just drop everything .. even the prayers .. after all it’s all coming from Him Almighty so one tends to feel singled out for punishment ..

I have to say something about broken families and boys without fathers and all the struggles and troubles I see around me which proceed from this eventuality.

I have to say it somehow for Blog Ladder perhaps..and attempt to capture it for Itziar and all the troubles surrounding my marriage and the effects on Bilquis and her cancer.

This morning I have found a nice combination of background texture and font colour .. though I would like the texture to be a warmer colour .. The background is papyrus and the font is simply green ..

God ! I went down yesterday .. can I relate it ? (oh this f------g keyboard!) ... never mind ..

I want to get clear and simple ... my heart and head still hurt ...

Let’s be honest .. more than bad .. I’m probably just too sensitive .. shall I just stick all these outpourings on BL and see what reaction I get ? ..

I´ve thought of answers to Nis, but, quite honestly I’m too tired to fight ... when one says that the saint’s definition of madness is people doing wrong and not feeling ashamed and the reply is basically that they are not subtle enough to change the parameters of right and wrong so as to blur them into non-existence .. what can one do ? That’s the situation we live in today and, if The Protocols of Zion was an authentic document (and if it wasn’t what insight and foresight somone had !) then the bastards have definitely achieved their aim.

At the end of the day .. it’s still obvious that the only thing that makes any sense at all is praying to the One ... and probably all my pain is just another way of making me let go of my attachment to anything but that .. including the awful frustration of the keyboard .. the letting down of the car .. not to even mention the elimination of the music which went out of the window what, about a year ago now ? (one by one every piece of equipment which played it just broke down in the most extraordinary way) ..

I know I have to let go of hope in everything but Him .. and that includes Bilquis .. computers .. writing and maybe even friends (I´ve only really got one here anyway) ... there is only Him and His Will and the only useful good and realistic, (sincere and truthful) thing to do is submit to Him and His Power and His Will and Plan. (beautiful .. about eight mistakes in two sentences .. all letters that simply don’t print despite hitting the key..mainly e’s and a’s .. will I ever learn? .. 1000 € is cheap at the price if I can let go of it in favour of praying/turning to and relying on Him. Once again we see how apparent pain .. which can even feel like a slow needling psychological torture .. is..in fact .. Mercy from Him ..the sooner one becomes disillusioned with everything in this Dunya (material world) ... the better.


09.55. Hrs.

What can I say then ? Does it really matter anyway ? I think I might just start leaving the e’s and stuff out when it doesn´t print .. who cares anyway ? who’s going to read it .. nobody .. I’m too tired to do anything else .. I can just sit here going gaga saying nothing and not writing it properly anyway .. perhaps it is my path to enlightenment to literally burn out my mind and all my hopes .. so that there is nothing left except Allah .. I may be an instrument .. or I may be a dead instrument .. who cares ? hardly anyone actually.

Wednesday October 12th.2005. Orgiva.

19.19.Hrs.

Thursday October 13th. 2005.Orgiva.

05.41.Hrs.

Not much time again ... if I am to to do the night prayers ... been looking at the way to sign up with “Translatorbase” .. it won’t seem to accept my VISA payment .. (perhaps the billing address is wrong ? ... some detail from the banks’ end different to my details on the payment form ? .. the date ? I do find “06.09” rather muddling as there are different conventions about wether the month or the year come first .. silly .. but I´ve tried both possibilities anyway ...) .. later writing while fasting is somewhat strange ... there is less urgency to write or communicate .. that’s one of the reasons for it anyway .. to disconnect oneself from “Dunya” (this world). Also been off into the E.U. site looking at theVAT system which gets applied to everything including electronic services these days. (Isuppose they must collect every penny so that they can go and waste it on terrible weapons of war to blow people up in totally unjust and unjustified wars which are really only about power and raping minerals and resources from other people’s countries ... however 1) I digress and 2) Islam says that we should follow the laws of the country in which we live .. so I guess I just have to accept all this stuff if I’m going to “face the world” in a new way .. now that I probably wont be able to work with Bilquis on the stall any more.)
What I want to write about is the reality of the fact that everything is interconnected and how that is recognised and testable by all disciplines from magic to physics and yet people don’t want to recognise or think about that when it comes to making a link between man’s behaviour and level of morality and the cataclysmic events happening in the world today.

Later I suppose ... there’s work to do.

08.38.Hrs .. and here it is .. later ..and of course I need to sleep now .. see if I find it so important when I wake up .....

Hmmm ... 15.25.P.M. hm hmm .. yes, well, er ... connections conecshuns conekshuns conexshuns Connex Shuns etc etc .. in reality .. inter - connections .. yes interconnections .. everything is interconnected .. so

Where I learned that bit of theory .. Aleister Crowley ( ! )

How I tested it .. making magic ... it worked ! (Story of making girl fall in love ith me.)

Dropped that quickly ... mental magic too ... story of car Triumph 2.5 pi. Hmmm

Not everything that exists can be experimented or proved by the five senses.

Subtle planes.

Friday October 14th. 2005. Orgiva.

14.23.Hrs.

Let’s see if, according to my own wonderful teachings, I can make my situation better with Allah by worshipping Him Almighty as He indicates in His Book and by the example of His Prophet (saws) ...
I think and feel that it may happen, after some trials and examples to prove my veracity and sincerity .. what I don’t know is, if Bilquis will be saved in time. (Blerk !) What a horrible feeling in my stomach that is. There is not much time to go into it all now as I’m waiting to be picked up by Ahmad, to go into Jumaa.

Saturday October 15th 2005. Orgiva.

10.07.Hrs.

Things are quite tough actually. I am trying to get a hold on what is happening and what is the best thing to do. Most of the stuff that I try to do in the exterior world is pretty ineffective .. I just have to keep falling back on God ..
The car is broken .. slowly, slowly, slowly, it gets fixed ..( a new radiator .. they have to make one perhaps, plus some other stuff like the seal on the timing belt cover and possibly the head gasket which won´t be worth doing as it will be more expensive than what the car is worth ! ) ) I don’t really need it right now anyway.
I worry about not earning a living without Bilquis at my side , either because she is sick or (God forbid) has passed on ... I try to sign up for “Translatorbase” in order to be prepared and think ahead, but Visa will not accept my payment no matter how hard I try with all the permutations of numbers and information .. This keyboard is still being horrible .. missing out the e’s and a’s ..
There is little else I can do right now except be patient and have faith in Allah and that He has a plan for me and knows what He is doing ... keep my faith in and connection to Sheikh Nazim .. keep my fast .. do my prayers .. make my dhikr .. go to jumaa ... try to add in the tarawih prayers in the mosque in the evenings now ... and the group dhikr on Thursday night.. cook,clean, keep the place tidy .. feed and encourage my friend Jamal .. stay strong and wait for news from Bilquis as to what the doctor in Madrid says on Tuesday.

Last night I went to supper with an old friend who has turned up here to live after many years in England. He is American and I first met him in Granada many moons ago when I had just become Muslim with the Darqawi sufi-turned Murabitun, group ..

Shall I go on with this ? .. started out to be something to write to myself in my diary .. then I thought of BL and started to kind of recount stuff ..

It´s endless really .. stories .. who for ? People who are not really interested on B.L. ? Trying to make it palatable for a general audience of who knows who ? Nah ...
Yes, dear old Abu Qassim from the States is a lovely guy .. and his kids are great and it was a lovely evening and I have some fond memories of the Albaicin when we first arrived in Spain and each of us buying and doing up a house, which have now become worth fortunes of course.. of becoming Muslim and trying to follow Islam as communicated to me by the followers of that potty man Ian Dallas who became the self-styled Sheikh abdl Qadr .. but do I have the motivation and is there any point in trying to elaborate it into some literary form ? .. Aren’t I really just trying to eliminate stuff so that I can just get on with the job of worshipping (which I believe is what I was created for after all ) ... according to the ayat of Koran ;

“I did not create man and djinn for anything but to worship Me.” ...

That’s it after all ... (no matter what Nis says in his potty unanswerable comments ... I mean I like the guy but really, where do you even begin with someone who is being so determinedly silly and superficial .. playing games and dangerous games at that ... no ..it is not worth playing exhausting games with him ..)

Thirty years, of which perhaps fifteen were spent consciously searching for the meaning of life, ‘til I came upon that ayat ... that is really the answer .. so .. that is what I should do .. and the more I do that the more the God , Allah, who I believe in, should be pleased with me.

All this other stuff is just so much time wasting .. wether chasing “rizq” (provision) which has already been promised to me .. or writing stuff sprinkled with memories of Granada and early days in Islam and the Albaicin .. or getting into tales of music and the musicians connected with Abdl Qadr’s group ... “The Habbibya” .. with Abdl Latif (who has done stuff with Yusuf Islam .. aka Cat Stevens, amongst others) . He’s coming to Orgiva as well and they want to set up something to do with music besides the “Golden Web” thing which they are working on ... so they are kind of making some tentative overtures to me about the music I used to do .. songs and stuff that might be appropriate for the small label that they’d like to start.

Hey ho .. distractions distractions .. I just have to try to be a good Haqqani Naqshbandi (our sufi tariqat name) and get on with my “wird” (daily practices and recitations) .. especially as I am completely alone and unable almost to move in any direction except recounting stuff on the net.

Perhaps, once again, what seems like a great difficulty is really a blessing in disguise .. what seems like a prison is really the key to the door to freedom.

15.53.Hrs.


Well,that´s funny, I put that one on B.L. and got quite a good reaction from Nis.

Moving forward into the field of the cancer thing with Bilquis .. she has at last mentioned her pride as a factor in the whole thing ... I think I’m too tired too dissect it all right now .. but it was an important step forward.

Jamal is off having a nice time somewhere as usual .. I feel a bit miffed that he didn’t bother to phone me (once perhaps at about four yesterday) .. what with me walking in and out of the village looking for him like an idiot to let him know I wouldn’t be at home in the evening and got him invited to where I was going ... and making a key for him (three actually) .. O.K. I’m not going to pull that one to bits right now .. but ...

All is perfect and exactly as it should be and, as Ramesh says, “You can’t not accept what is happening in the moment.”

Whatever,a lot of work ahead for Bilquis and I if we are to save our relationship as well as stop her cancer.
So much changing and rising above .. but .. well what better thing to do with one’s life than overcome glaring faults and inconveniences in one’s character for the sake of a loved one ?

Relationships are funny things and sometimes it almost seems unwise to dissect motivations for making them ...

There’s a part of me which is attracted to the idea of making myself strong and independent and starting afresh .. but I think it would be more noble to make myself strong and independent and then stick by her and look after her if I can .. as she has looked after me all these years.

We will see .. there is nothing written in stone about relationships but Sheikh’s teaching and what Allah likes is to try to keep them together .. (stability of family = stability of society) ...




Sunday October 16th 2005. Orgiva.

17.06.Hrs.

That was funny .. Joe (alias Helaya) came and went giving me a healing ... it was O.K. I cried a lot ... she said stuff very authoritatively ... by she’s a wierd one .. doesn’t really want to know about the New Medicine .. doesn’t really want to know about anything actually .. which is cool and quite sensible in a sort of self preserving way ... but wont make her many friends .. let’s just say she is not a very good listener ... when I said I’d like to give her something she very rapidly mentioned money (using her kids as justification, which is always a bit yucky as she is living off family benefit from England anyway and has just spent a few thousand pounds taking her and her kids to New Zealand for six weeks ...) oh well ... I might have known ...
She was also offering to do healing at a distance for Bilquis and also quickly mentioned money ... is this about where I came in ? ..
Materialist lady healers wanting to be something is what got me into trouble in the first place !

But that’s in the past now ... let’s see what Tuesday brings.

Whichever way ..I’ve still got the responsibility to look after tricks if I’m not to go down the drain here ...

22.46.Hrs.

It’s heavy, I’m holding up surprisingly well. The whole day alone is so strange .. No family and few friends ... my whole life was built around Bilquis and now she’s not here .... it would be difficult to describe how this circumstance occurred but one could say I chose it I suppose..(inasmuch as we choose anything in our lives.) Trying to learn positivity now ... trying to do stuff .. no matter how insignificant ... I did a lot of cleaning in this funky old place this morning, and it is a lot better for it .. feels better, cleaner and lighter ..The prophet (pbuh) said that when the women were sweeping out the dust, especially from the corners, he saw the bad djinn flying away.

I need to see people and I need to do exercise .. I may get the car back tomorrow .. at least with the radiator fixed (if it arrives) .. though the oil leak still has to be positively identified and fixed. Something is stopping
me from falling completely into negativity and depression which always used to be my way. Maybe the prayers are helping .. and the fast and the blessings of the month of Ramadan. Maybe the Sulfur remedy too. I’ve tried Lycopodium at similar strength (6 LM).. but it just seems to turn things into a nightmare ..it’s wierd, I’m convinced it is my constitutional remedy and yet it has this very negative effect on me .. almost as if I go into crisis straight away with it.

The story with Bilquis is so heavy .. her pain .. her inability to overcome whatever triggered this cancer but her determination to carry on with that method of cure. It’s significance for both of us if it does not get better .. what the hell I’ll do if I’m without her.

I’m trying to take it one day at a time and not complain too much.

A friend came and gave me healing today. I cried a lot and it felt as if something shifted inside .. to a certain extent a burden was lifted off. Thank God for small mercies .. it was very kind of her.








Monday October17th. 2005. Orgiva.

11.32.Hrs.

Trying to get a hold of myself ... it is hot and muggy again today ... I have to find things to do ... I’m not one to go into town much but I think I will today .. perhaps visit the Fonda, our local sufi centre ..see if anyone is around .. I have loads of lovely pomegranates in the garden .. and also a tree full of quince which makes a lovely quince jelly known as “carne de membrillo” here. Maybe they would like some in the Fonda, or someone might want to come and pick some. Also there is the little shop which I set up in the centre which is still going and there’ll be someone to say hello to in there probably.

Today is the day that Bilquis goes to Madrid for her appointment with the doctor tomorrow, so obviously I am a bit nervous and some company would be good.

Funny, there’s the drawing pad after all .. (I draw a red heart, as always) I’ve been trying to find the way to get that up actually .. must have hit the right button at some time ! .. A bit frustrated with the Word correction / dictionary thing though ... seems to be in Spanish and I can’t find a way to change that .. the icon in the task bar changes the keyboard but not the language .. though I would think that the dictionary is in Spanish because the keyboard language is ? ... Hey ho .. poco a poco ..

Well look at that ! .. I did it .. Tools > language > set language etc etc ... que bien !







That was a close shave ! Did a pretty little drawing there and when I went to paste it in lost the whole document .. menos mal that Word designers had that one covered with a recovery feature.

I was wondering you see, wether the drawings would appear on blogs .. I suppose that in B.L. for instance, no, but in Blogger there’s a possibility ... shall I just try then ? .. O.K.

Well they don’t .. anyway .. doesn’t matter .. worth a try wasn’t it?

I seem to be going out of the door to do some stuff in town .. I can’t quite believe it ( ! ) .. actually doing what I know I should do and keeping my little world in order ... If I can just get that translation thing sorted out and start getting some work that way .. I would feel some self esteem and independence and be able to view the whole thing with Bilquis more dispassionately ( instead of this horrible circumstance of having my material security and and survival mixed into it).

When I get the car back I’ll do some shopping and can take some fruit into the Fonda (tomorrow perhaps?) .. and sort out the grua thing. ... Here we go !

..... Later ...

Well, that was nice ! People, people, everywhere ... including one guy I know who used to work in one of the banks in town .. he´s just back from Morrocco where he’s buying land to build on and sussing out a bit of trade with stuff there .. quite a sharp and amusing character actually. Madrileño, ex-heroin addict .. typical profile of some of the people around here. Then there were all the Muslims, or well, sufis ... friends and aquaintances .. similar profiles some of them ... Orgiva and the Alpujarras is full of black sheep, drop outs, seekers, survivors, writers, artists, musicians, alternatives and New Agers gnerally .. it’s quite nice to go into town when one is in need of some company. I saw Omar, our local “jefe” and Ahmad who has bought a place near me and also spent most of his life selling silver .. then there was abdl Ahad who became sufi, left Madrid where he had a successful business and came down here and bought land and built a huge place and basically lost everything he had .. he’s somehow still recovering from that one. Then there was Nuredin who used to be the keyboard player in a band called The Peatbog Fairies .. quite well known in some circles in England. He quit and came down here with his wife and three children after living fifteen years on the island of Skye. They bought a place and then`promptly split up .. he’s been back in England trying to patch it up and now is back down here putting a business together with someone who he’s met who is a member of the Cadbury family .. they’re doing a music shop with some clothes and a launderette at the back .. how successful that will be remains to be seen. There was an Irish guy who I know from when I used to live higher up the mountain at about 1000 meters when I had my big old house in a tiny mountain village called Ferreirola with a population of about sixty people (formerly about 500 Spanish .. then they all left to get work in Barcelona and Madrid in the sxties and now there are Japanese, Dutch, German Italians, French, German and English, journalists, trumpet players painters and writers ..you get the picture) and he lived in the next village around the side of the mountain..a place called Busquistar .. memories memories.
I went from there to the shop and chatted with Susanna who’s Dutch and gave her some news about Bilquis ... and while there bumped into an English guy who’s staying in the Fonda who seems to have found a bit of refuge there for a while for him and his wife and children and has some connection with the sufis. I chatted to him for a while .. he seems a very intense person who is in a very intense time .. head going off like a box of fireworks .. everything he says reminds him of something els that happened to him .. desperate in a way to tell his story and pobably right on the edge of diving into the sufi thing but a bit wary after some experiences with Salvation Army people and some born again Chrsitians .. however a spell in Jerusalem put him in contact with Islam and Judaism and he ended up almost atheist. He’s also connected through Glastonbury in England and Brighton, as so many people down here are, and has experience of all the Shamanism and magic (black and white) and other paths and groups which proliferate in those two places.
Seems like I’m in for some long chats with him .. he may come our way .. though I am not a proselitizer and not trying to “sell” anything .. which he seems to appreciate .. we’ll see.
After that I went into the mosque for the prayer and there was my friend Jamal who I had to ask to leave the house recently after he let me down a bit having got side tracked from our fasting and praying routine by a little party which he was invited to. I told him he had clean clothes and a shower here if he wants to visit. We’ll see.
O.K. now I can have a bit of a rest and look at a book I picked up which has fifteen questions to Sheikh Nazim and might be interesting for newcomers.

The Visa thing remains a bit of a mystery, the bank telling me that it may be because my card is a debit rather than a credit one. I’ve written again to Translatorbase to see if they know anything about that. I would have thought they would be only to happy to be paid wether by credit or debit card .. what difference does it make to them ? I’ve used it before for Amazon and stuff like that.

Bilquis is on her way to Madrid now .. tomorrow we will know something more concrete insha’llah.

21.01.Hrs.

Hmmm, Jamal has been ... not in such a good state .. I gave him a bit of a talking too .. perhaps he will go to England with a small group that is leaving on Thursday . There are flights for an unbelievable 25 € as well as 60 and 80.
I don’t know what is happening here another wierd happenstance from this effing computer ... it now decides to start writing the lines in the middle of the page and work outwards and backwards (as well as not printing half the e’s of course) what is going on ?









Has that cured it perhaps? It is Tuesday of course.


01.05. Hrs. (Tuesday October 18th 2005)

Photos .. cocking it up a bit .. not a dab hand at filing them ...

07.32.Hrs.

If I could overcome my sexuality and lust and stop myself from looking at ladies and their lovely faces and bodies, that very lustful energy could turn into the wings which would lift me up to The Divine Presence. I must consciously remind myself that I love Allah more than they ... (I must remember my fear of Him too .. and .. strange thing for me.. my hope in Him ..) but really, it is only the Love which will do the trick ..

Which do I love more ... ladies, or the Creator of ladies ? It is obvious that it would be far more intelligent to put the Creator of things before and above the things ... do I .. can I .. have that level ?

If I believed in myself ... then yes !

If I loved myself, then Yes!

If my true and real self is Allah .. then how can I not love myself .. and Him Almighty .. more than anything else?

But not my ego .. not my persona or false self ... that ..that is enemy number one !


These ladies, their beauty is passing, it wanes and dies ..
Your Beauty oh Allah is Everlasting.. Eternal and Permanent..
How did I ever make the mistake to give them presidence over You ? !

Any beauty they may have is only from You anyway,
A poor reflection and an indication of Your original Beauty.
We must not muddle the reflection with the source.

When the bottom falls out of the bucket ...
the moon reflected in the water there
disappears
and I must look up to see the original.

My love for them, their beauty and charms
all have their origin in You ...
me too.
So many forms, One original source.

When the form stops loving the form
The Source is found.


THE TWO RIVERS OF DUALITY JOIN IN THE SEA OF UNITY.




What is going on with this thing ?!(Apart from the fact thatit is Tuesday !) Brilliant news from Bilquis ... but I’m beginning to think that Jamal is a bit of a cunt ... just so plain selfish that he doesn’t even realise it.
Anyway that’s his problem .. I have to get on with sorting my own life out ...

I’m not sure what it all means .. looks like Bilquis will stay more time in Zarautz, which is O.K. by me ... could go so many ways .. including a kind of gentle parting in which she stays up there more and we come together to work .. which is after all, all that our relationship was getting reduced to.
Maybe there’s someone else for me .. who knows ? Someone more Islamic perhaps .. a follower of Sheikh’s maybe. We’ll see.. since Bilquis went back to her Buddhism there’s a lot less in common .. then there’s the cultural thing too ... maybe I’m just an old loner .. we’ll see.

I have to get on and sort out the translations and the e.bay and the camera .. find ways to make some money .. the radiator’s done .. just an oil seal to do now. Hey ho.

It seems a bit harder to fast today .. maybe because Jamal came round and threw all that out of gear too .. I stuck all the rice (which is what helps me to get through the fast) in the big pot of stew so the proportions are all a bit out .. so that he could eat last night (turning up just for the break fast .. just when it is convenient for him) and then he told me he was going to eat with Mick ... doesn´t matter ... ....

I’m a bit cheesed with him generallyseems like a taker to me .. a kind of pariah ... bouncing around from one house to another .. ys yes I understand his problems and I know about destiny etc etc .. but I need a bit of a gripe about him .. he’s been pissing me of because he takes so much and gives so little but keeps on about how he goes to everyone (especially ladies) with love and good intentions and then they reject him and throw him out .. well of course they do if he’s as rough (or rougher) with them as he is with me.

I am trying o be patient and kind but am beginning to temper it with a slightly tougher approach now.

I always think that what is happening to me is a reflection of how I behave with others so it probably has a lot to do with how I’ve treated Bilquis over the years (amongst others!).

Seems this keyboard does not work properly unless you actually bang it ! .. Jeez !

Now it’s time for a prayer.

Thursday October 20th 18.02. Hrs.



Better? Or not ? Ay!pissing about while other people do grown up things like work and make business and bring up families. What happened to me that I didn’t join in with life then ? Because I didn’t want to .. or because I couldn’t ? I suppose I’ll never know .. bit of both probably.
Now it’s time for a prayer again.

23.29.Hrs.

I just dobbed out of the prayers and the dhikr tonight .. I thought I would ... I’ve been doing quite well (for me .. by my standards).. but the loneliness is getting to me a bit .. went a little over the top perhaps last night .. too much energy .. too happy .. too high .. couldn’t hardly sleep .. and then all today just sitting and lying on the sofa bed .. with the internet and the fast and the prayers .. wierd ..Wasn’t exactly appetising what was waiting in the Fonda tonight ..so .. once again I miss the dhikr ..

I hesitate to phone Bilquis because I don’t think she needs my troubles .. I reckon I’m pretty much the cause of most of her stuff anyway ..

I keep wondering if I can get enough translation work to be really independent, wether that would give me enough self esteem to set her free if that is what she wants ?

I’ve always been relating to women ..I’ve been doing that for years too. None of this stuff is healthy .. I’m going to try to EFT it ...mustn’t give up hope ..ever ...

Friday October 21st.2005. Orgiva.

19.30.Hrs. Between opening the diary and writing the date .. I have forgotten what I was going to say. .. aha .. oh yes.. “Nothing exists except Allah.”

That’s it really ... it’s the essence of what we know .. of what ibn Arabi says , of what the Truth is .. and ... He is unknowable ! He is no thing .. nothing in a sense .. and that sense is so close and the link or bridge to Buddhism’s “Emptiness” or “Vacio” ... that is, the unknowable essence .. not the nameable object of belief .

(So there!)

I seem to have kind of blown my fuses again ..I don’t know how I do that .. It was probably going and doing all those practices with the brothers in the mosque ... my head’s kind of blown.
All this time alone too ... not good for me (now the space bar is hardly ever working .. what a great computer!) I don’t think there is much point in reiterating all the details of my denouement in the practices again ... It’s just happened and I’m kind of blown inside out ...(now the cursor wants to jump to the middle of the page all the time .. great !)

Prayers .. spiritual work ... translations .. material work ..

I was looking at EFT again .. something for general themes and S-L-O-W EFT.. came up with Family and Friends and Sensitivity...

I could go to Baraka .. to eat and meet .. I could phone Joe about EFT .. but I won’t ..I could go and look for Jeem .. but I probably won’t either.
But what about God then ? Now that I’ve got all this time on my own ...

Talking to the Unknowable.

And it is about sincerity and constancy and reliability in all of the trials which He sends us.. and I have very little of those good qualities ... I am weak and oversensitive and probably undisciplined and lazy and self-willed etc. ....

and which Allah am I trying to worship anyway ? .. The named or the unknowable ? Both I suppose.

It’s been nice using Messenger and e.mails..better than no contact with anyone at all ... (fucking space bar!) 1000 € ! .. what is my karma!?

I wonderifthatEFT (family friends) worked? ..I’ve beenthinking aboutgoingouttoseepeople tomorrow Jeem maybe ? ...can’tbe bothered to gobackand do the spaces any more ..if itdoesn’t work then this bloodything should go back.

October 22nd 2005 Orgiva

10.46 Hrs.

Just a quick test to see if the space bar or whatever is working ..well . a bit .. ay!computers! .. only Allah only Allah ..everything else is just blocked !

14.52.Hrs. Want to get some stuff down , but maybe I should do the prayer first .. I think Ruben has fixed the space bar ... can be dirt under there and stuff like that..
just going to try .. “Normal view” there’s this delay when I do things in Word and I’m wondering wether it has to do with the fact that the machine has to work too hard to maintain the web look with all the background and colour and so on .... I hear the fan or something start up and there is a a delay before a gap appears or whatever ..

Yep .. seems to react a lot faster like that ...

Now I feel as though I could use it for translation work ! And of course .. I can just click back in to the web appearance any time I like ! ... Ooooh Kay. !

Bought two books “In an Eastern Rose Garden” by Hazrat Inayat Khan and “The Celestine Prophecy” .. second hand you understand .. It is so lovely to be able to go and browse a few second hand books right on my own doorstep .. and have the Sufi Centre there too .. well well .. and Barakah cafe ..s’O.K.

Saw David, which was nice .. and got me Chutney for me curries too. S’all alright .. I feel as though I just turned a corner .. I wonder ... I just wonder .. wether it could have anything to do with the EFT ?

Something .. some feeling .. tells me .. yes .

I wonder if I can do some stuff for others? .. I’d really like to. A bit of “pleura empleo” Translations .. silver (markets and e.bay) EFT .. would be O.K. no?
Anyway .. I’m all excited .. and wether that is the effect of the Fonda ..or being with that guy David .. or just me going to town for a bit and seeing three people! I don’t know.

O.K. so the space bar seems O.K. but what about those e’s still ?

Dirt .. dirt in the fuel pip and I just blowed it away pip, pipe? Ay ..must stop now ..or I’m going to wobble off the rails


21.25. Hrs. Umm .. yeah ...things are generally a bit better ... except for Bilquis and her illness ... what next then ?


Sunday.23rd October. 2005. Orgiva.

09.25.Hrs.

So-o-o, yes, um... er .. a bit sleepy actually .. “they” woke me up at about 4.30. again today .. however I got some personal work done with EFT to help deal with the sinking feeling I have about Bilquis’s illness .
Then I looked a bit at Ibn Arabi .. which is perhaps what inspired me to go and pray and after praying played some miusic .. (I had been trying out some chords on the guitar with singing the hundred names of Allah.)

That was all very pleasant and I’m now in the sunny sitting room with all the doors and windows open listening to (or hearing in the background) the songs of the birds in the trees in the garden and appreciating the lovely peace and silence of an Andalucian Sunday in the countryside.
There are so many nice things to do .. (the fact of the matter is I’m taking a little break from the fast because it was begining to make me a bit depressed being here on my own with only my conscience and my rather weak faith for company. Tears and remorse are all very well .. but one can’t keep it up for ever without it being a bit sick.)

Apart from Ibn Arabi I have The Celestine Prophecy to look at .. it’s one of the second hand books I bought yesterday in the little shop in the Fonda, the other being “In an Eastern Rose Garden.” by Inayat Khan. 1.50 € each .. can’t be bad can it ? I had read the shorter version (pocket edition) of the former book in England .. never taken it too seriously as I was so sure of myself with my sufi way then .. having just come from two and a half years with the Sheikh in Cyprus ..and more liable to be telling people about how it is than in a state for listening. Now perhaps things are different and, as the book implies .. everything comes at the right time for what you need to learn and know.

Meanwhile I have written an e.mail to Itziar, one of Bilquis’s therapists, who teaches about The New Medicine, having been Dr Hamer’s interpreter for 13 years and also a Buddhist ..following a llama “sanador” or healing llama, and an old friend of Bilquis’s from the Pais Vasco. She has had a cancer of the breast herself which she cured with The New Medicine .. it being caused by a shock over her children.
As I write a little pop window tells me she has just signed into “Messenger” but I know from her e.mails that she doesn’t really know how to use it yet.

Well there we are then, that’s my little life right now as I look towards an uncertain future, not knowing wether Bilquis will get better and be with me or not .. unsure how I am going to make a living and thinking about translation work .. maybe even becoming an EFT therapist and doing some markets and selling if I have to. I know I don’t want to go back and live in England so I am becoming determined to find a way to survive here.


24th Otober 2005. Orgiva.

04.54. Hrs.

This is it .. the big one .. it looks as though Bilquis is going to die. I have to go up there tomorrow or as soon as I can get a flight or a bus.My little world is kind of collapsing. It is difficult to say anything .. I’ve put a bit on my blog. on B.L. There’re so many details but the reality looks bad.
Basically she has left it too long being, I think, simply frightened of operations .. I’m pretty sure the guy in Madrid fucked up on the TAC diagnosis.
Don’t suppose Itxiar is going to admit that though. Too late now anyway I think. They are saying that she is inoperable. I don’t really understand why when some people we know have had everything out including the womb and the uterus.

My future looks a bit insecure in Spain without her. Don’t know if I have what it takes to make the silver stall work on my own. .. translation work may not be a realistic option to live on. I probably have a couple of months (maybe up to four) to find out. Otherwise looks like England to me, with the old car and maybe three years unpaid car tax (300 pounds ?) and loads of junk to get rid of.

Now Ahmad Ridwan’s e.mail is down .. great ! Whatever, I am being severely squeezed and must try to take it day by day while .. trying to prepare something for the future.

Some bits and pieces can be “house clearance” stuff and some to Alix’s maybe ? (music stuff ?)..

I could end up in the Fonda .. but I don’t think I want that .. Sheikh’s books .. my best clothes .. my lap top and off to England in the car ? Perhaps after a struggle to survive for a while with the stall (at Christmas?) .. who could help me ? .. my son ? my daughter ? .. someone else ? ..Translations?
All of this assuming that she goes .. but also if she doesn’t .. she won’t be working ...

Ay! Horrible thinking of self preservation at a time like this .. but normal and natural I suppose.

If I have to go back to England, I think I would prefer Glastonbury to Sheffield this time. Have to get somebody’s e.mail there ... maybe Zero’s ?

Whatever, mustn’t freak out .. must just keep up confidence that everything will turn out alright in the end so long as I take it day by day .. and remain unattached to everything but Allah ....

So strange that first day of Ramadan .. Abdl Baqui’s death and his “epitaph” site and then the change in the supermarket 13€ and 13 cents.

13. 13... oowh.

Ever since my son’s coming to England in his thirteenth year and flying on 13th (coming and going I seem to remember) that number has been with me.

It changed from seven to thirteen then.

Poor Bilquis has so much pain in her hips .. and I suppose she must be very frightened .. (or just resigning herself to it now ?) I want to be with her ..one way or another I go in the next couple of days .. I think the car is too dodgy until they fix the oil seal on the timing belt. Oh.

20.35.Hrs.

Panic over for now ... will hopefully get the car fixed and then go up to be with Bilquis for around a month. That way I can take my bits and pieces and have transport while I’m up there. Don’t much like writing to myself any more .. which must be a good sign I suppose. Want contact with people .. maybe the EFT is helping there ?

Wonder wether to go into the Fonda even .. perhaps chat with David .. or Barakah to see some people ... Should have Jamal or Mick’s phone I suppose.
Wednesday October 26th. 10.30.Hrs. Orgiva.

Better alone with this diary .. too much interactive stuff..increases need for others ..only need God really ...As there isn’t anything else but God .. that includes me ..so .. that’s it.

21.10.Hrs.

Bilquis is so bad ...I’m broken about her insides and I’m knackered because I don’t feel I can earn a living adeqately without her ... England looks horrible .. and I couldn’t drag her there anyway ... so many things wrong .. I feel terrible about everything. Just sitting here like a sitting duck waiting to be shot .. we’ll be lucky if she gets well enough to come back down here let alone go to work .. maybe she gets a pension .. that at least is something to help her through .. not sure what I can face on my own vis a vis Christamas market and so on. Sleeping on the sofa or floor at Baruc’s (How can we take his bedroom away ?) or me going back alone to Jason’s .. Radio treatment and all the red skin and discomfort that she will have
apart from wether it works .. how the hell can I be positive with this panorama ?

I feel so fucked and then on top of it ... it is all supposed to be my fault ... fucked here and in the afterlife as well ..is there no escape from this disgusting destiny ?

The inside of my head must look like a seething mass of small black snakes .. how can I pull anything out of this nightmare ?

Thursday October 27th. Orgiva.

04.41.Hrs.

Talk to myself why don’t I ? .. It’s the next best thing to talking to Allah .. my net presence can just disappear as far as I’m concerned.. The fucking typewriter doesn’t work anyway .. making writing a horrible instead of a pleasurable experience. 1000€ just wasted .. cheap at twice the price if it really unhooked me from this unwholesome passtime.

Finished in every way .. fucked from beginning to end .. perhaps my end is in sight anyway ? 13 13 ? her and me ? are we both on our way out ? A gas explosion a car accident ? I wonder what ? Another pointless useless meaningless life over and done with after 52 year of pain and struggle.
Why does Allah do it ? .. He knows.

Saturday. October 29th. 2005. Zarautz.

20.14. Hrs.

What can I say ?

Sunday October 30, 2005. Zarautz.

08.29.Hrs.
- posted by longgone1 @ 11/06/2005 10:40:00 AM 0 comments