The Levitating Sufis of Senegal |
Levitation is sometimes a matter of competition for adhering followers where spiritual authorities have a miracle versus miracle shoot-out between different sects or faiths. In the book, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, by John Kingsley Birge, Ph.D., you can find the following story of a successful competitive miracle of levitation by Haji Bektash in The third miracle is one of the most famous in Bektashi tradition. It occurred when Seyit Mahmut Hayran of Ak Sehir, hearing of Haji Bektash, went forth to meet him. To show his own power when he went out from Ak Sehir to meet Haji Bektash, he mounted a lion, using a serpent for a whip, and took with him three-hundred mollas or theological students. Bektash, not to be out-done, spread his prayer-rug on a great rock, standing like a wall in the neighborhood, and commanded the rock to move. As the two holy men met, Haji Bektash remarked that it was relatively easy to mount and drive an animal but to make a lifeless rock walk was indeed a miracle. The two dismounted and talked together, leaving the rock standing where it may still be seen today. What are we to understand from all this? Is it a matter that only Sufis impressively ride lions and handle serpents? Is it only Sufis who impressively have flying carpets or cause gigantic boulders to float and fly when mounted? Is it only Sufis who have triumphed in miracle versus miracle competitions for impressing followers of other persuasions? Let us look more deeply into the phenomenology of lion-riding. Be informed that in Ancient Tibet, the wonder-working Guru Rimpoche Padma Sambhava, a Vajrayana Buddhist Immortal Siddha, when he first entered the Ancient Kingdom of Tibet, which was then under the spiritual and psychic domination of non-Buddist Bön sorcerers, shamans, thus to sell Buddhism, impressively rode about Bhutan mounted on a pregnant tigress (an especially dangerous and unmanageable creature to handle). This was extremely impressive to the Tibetans, so he was given the additional name of Dorje Trolör as one of his “Eight Aspects”. The problem for unmiraculous Western seekers is that they can become impressed but confused by the performances of Seyit Mahmut Hayran on the lion or Padma Sambhava on the pregnant tigress! To try to become a Muslim Sufi or a Vajrayana Buddhist? Should one learn Turkish or Tibetan? How to get entry into the Miraculous? Haji Bektash mounted a gigantic boulder and made it levitate and walk about. This display of personal levitation power was extremely impressive at the time, but does it actually mean he was “holy” or even God-realized, a Godman, an Ultimate Sufi or Perfected Man? Not necessarily. For instance, an actually rather vicious and vindictive witch in Lately, on Rense.com, you can actually see a television film of a flying witch in There have been other miracle versus miracle competitions involving levitation. In my life as Milarepa in Tibet (before I became unacceptable for being “exposed” as a Western Management Consultant and a universalist Sarmoun Sufi instead of an authoritarian and prejudiced Eastern Muslim “Sufi”) I was involved in a levitation competition with a famous Bön non-Buddhist adept shaman sorcerer. We agreed to have a race to the top of Now, again, does this entail further confusion for Western Seekers as to whether to exclusively adhere to the culture-bound Islamic Sufi Way or the Kargyudpa Sect of Tibetan Yoga founded by the Great Siddha, Tilopa? Should the unmiraculous and unimpressive Western seeker study Persian or Tibetan in order to become “authentic”, but a second-class citizen of So, again, what are we to understand from all this? From a non-Islamic but universal Sarmoun point-of-view, the subject of levitation (including the group levitation of Dervishes in Senegal or of TM group meditators in America) is about something other than what Islamic Sufi authorities say about all this, just as it is not about what their Western exclusive adherents say nor is it about what the vast majority of unmiraculous and confused Western seekers say, nor is it about what the self-appointed but unmiraculous Gurdjieff “authorities” say or what their pitifully undeveloped and gullible adherents say. And what do you expect me to do? Do I have to win a miracle versus miracle competition with a tradition-bound supposed Sufi Authority to “prove” to undeveloped and gullible Western seekers or supposed Sufi students that the correct orientation in our present Time-situation is to stop identifying exclusively with any particular path designed for people of another place and time, but rather make a new way to understand how human development really works? And, is it the aim of the whole problematic opportunity to do things like levitation in order to impress bewildered fools to encourage their personal greed? However, if one never levitates, that may mean something too. What do you suppose that indicates? I am wondering: Is there anything “impressive” about the real truth of all this? One thing is for sure: There are vested interests in Islamic Sufism who do not like people on the Web taking a deep look at the issues I have been rightly raising to all Sufis (and others) who urgently need to hear them. Personal attacks on a new transmitter of new and important spiritual truth are always the last resort of desperate false authorities, experts and failures in their own development. My critics lately are pathetic self-appointed “experts” on the Oneness With The Divine Universe Is The Whoever can grasp this simple thing will understand that Qutub Sarmouni is a solution and not a problem, as is true for the increasing number of secret Sarmounis in the West and the East, whether they are impressively levitating or not. In fact, when the ignorant, conditioned and exclusive traditional follower levitates, it is more of a social problem than an evolutionary breakthrough. One more thing: The Kaif of the tomb of Haji Bektash Veli is very great and good. If you visit there with real respect and receptivity, you will be greatly uplifted and empowered if you want to plug into it, but please do not join the Bektashi Order and stupidly imagine it will solve your evolutionary problems. The same, by the way, is also true about the Kaif of the grave of Gurdjieff in Another thing: If you do realize that I am the real Qutub Sarmouni, it does not mean you have to learn to function professionally as a management consultant, nor do you have to become an ex-patriot American or a “typical Western Crank Guru”, nor do you have to form a special relationship with North American Indian Medicine Men, nor need you try to become an Alien Contactee, nor need you develop “an obvious messiah complex”, etc., ad nauseam.
|