GOD - MY MIGHTY HEALER

The Sufi prays to God every moment in one's life, invoking God's Name and realizing at the same time that the self is no other than God. For to a Sufi God is not a personal being but a mighty healer to awaken the soul from its delusion of earthly individuality, and a guide to lead it to self-realization, the only aim in life.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

The law of harmony: that one must put oneself in harmony with oneself and with others.

I gave up my music because I had received from it all that I had to receive. To serve God one must sacrifice what is dearest to one; and so I sacrificed my music. I had composed songs; I sang and played the vina; and practicing this music I arrived at a stage where I touched the Music of the Spheres. Then every soul became for me a musical note, and all life became music. Inspired by it I spoke to the people, and those who were attracted by my words listened to them, instead of listening to my songs.

Now, if I do anything, it is to tune souls instead of instruments; to harmonize people instead of notes. If there is anything in my philosophy, it is the law of harmony: that one must put oneself in harmony with oneself and with others. I have found in every word a certain musical value, a melody in every thought, harmony in every feeling; and I have tried to interpret the same thing, with clear and simple words, to those who used to listen to my music. I played the vina until my heart turned into this very instrument; then I offered this instrument to the divine Musician, the only musician existing. Since then I have become His flute; and when He chooses, He plays His music. The people give me credit for this music, which in reality is not due to me but to the Musician who plays on His own instrument.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Writings addressing the little word HURT

hurt (n.)

c.1200, "a wound, an injury;" also "sorrow, lovesickness," from hurt (v.).

hurting (adj.)

1680s, "causing hurt," from prp. of hurt (v.). Reflexive sense of "suffering, feeling pain" recorded by 1944.

hurt (v.)

c.1200, "to injure, wound" (the body, feelings, reputation, etc.), also "to stumble (into), bump into; charge against, rush, crash into; knock (things) together," from O.Fr. hurter "to ram, strike, collide," perhaps from Frankish *hurt "ram" (cf. M.H.G. hurten "run at, collide," O.N. hrutr "ram"). The English usage is as old as the French, and perhaps there was a native O.E. *hyrtan, but it has not been recorded. Meaning "to be a source of pain" (of a body part) is from 1850. To hurt (one's) feelings attested by 1779. Sense of "knock" died out 17c., but cf. hurtle. Other Germanic languages tend to use their form of English scathe in this sense (cf. Dan. skade, Swed. skada, Ger. schaden, Du. schaden).

Today I look back and realize the BLESSING I received by having my fraternal Great Grandfather born in 1875 as an active part of my everyday life from the age of 3 until my heart was broken when Gramps died when I was 11 years old in 1961. Gramps had raised 9 children and then raised two grandchildren (my uncle and aunt) after his eldest daughter died (my fraternal grandmother). My Dad's mother died on his on his own 11th birthday in 1936 (during the time period of the Great Depression) and my Dad then stayed in Chicago with his father and his younger siblings went to their grandparents home.

My Dad shared his birthday with the anniversary of his mother's death and I am sure that birthdays were celebrated in a manner much different during the time period of the Great Depression than they are celebrated in our American culture today. I was an adult before I understood why my father never wanted a party or gifts on his birthday and he would always say that "it's your mother that should be honored on your birthday due to all the work she did giving birth to you". When my father spoke the word BIRTHDAY - the meaning it carried for him held a very different flavor, hue and texture then when I speak that same word, or when one of my four children uses it in their everyday conversations.

We have been given sense organs that all point OUTWARD into the environment that surrounds us and it takes actual effort to point our lens of focus INWARD to begin a real journey towards self-understanding and self-acceptance. The trick word is the simple four-letter word SELF.

Today it is easy for me to say that it was because of my precious Gramps born in 1875 that I can spend











Child developmental experts give us such handy terms such as infant, toddler, child, pre-adolescent, adolescent and adult that one can learn in a beginning child development book and terms commonly spoken in our American culture. However, there is also COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT that provides a very simple dissection during our journey of becoming an adult. There is the CONCRETE THINKING of childhood and the ABSTRACT THINKING of adulthood.

















(UNFINISHED)

THE TORTURING OF BOTH NATIVE AMERICANS AND A SUFIS IS HISTORIC

Mansur al-Hallaj (died 922 CE) is renowned for his claim "Ana-l-Haqq" (I am The Truth). His refusal to recant this utterance, which was regarded as apostasy, led to a long trial. He was imprisoned for 11 years in a Baghdad prison, before being tortured and publicly dismembered on March 26, 922. He is still revered by Sufis for his willingness to embrace torture and death rather than recant. It is said that during his prayers, he would say "O Lord! You are the guide of those who are passing through the Valley of Bewilderment. If I am a heretic, enlarge my heresy."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mansur al-Hallaj (Arabic: منصور الحلاج‎ – Mansūr al-Hallāj; Persian: منصور حلاج – Mansūr-e Hallāj; full name Abū al-Muġīṭ Husayn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ) (c. 858 – March 26, 922) (Hijri c. 244 AH-309 AH) was a Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and pious teacher of Sufism most famous for his poetry, accusation of heresy and for his execution at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long, drawn-out investigation.

American

1570s (n.); 1590s (adj.), from Mod.L. Americanus, from America (q.v.); originally in reference to what now are called Native Americans; the sense of "resident of North America of European (originally British) descent" is first recorded 1640s (adj.); 1765 (n.).

Sufi

A member of a Muslim mystical order, 1650s (earlier Sufian, 1580s), from Arabic sufi, lit. "man of wool" (i.e., "man wearing woolen garments"), from suf "wool." So-called from the habit of "putting on the holy garment" (labs-as-suf) to devote oneself to mysticism.

As noted in the above etymological entries for the English words AMERICAN and SUFI the dates of 1640 and 1650 may be easily seen as transitions in the etymological history of these two English words that continue to be spoken in this age.

As a linguistic anthropologist, I will go directly today to the easy to access internet encyclopedia that is free, Wikipedia. I will research the events taking place during this decade beginning in 1640 and ending in 1650.

This very simple free internet encyclopedia provides a historical backdrop for the time period of the decade between 1640-1650 in history. The meaning of those two words AMERICAN and SUFI were spotted as gaining additional meanings when spotted in writings of that particular time period by etymologists that were experts in reading and writing a host of foreign languages.

For example from Wikipedia:

1640s

• 1640: King Charles was compelled to summon Parliament due to the revolt of the Scots.
• 1640–1668: The Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the Iberian Union.
• 1640: Torture is outlawed in England.
• 1641: The Tokugawa Shogunate institutes Sakoku- foreigners are expelled and no one is allowed to enter or leave Japan.
• 1641: The Irish Rebellion.
• 1641: René Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia Meditations on First Philosophy.
• 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand.
• 1642–1649: Civil War in England; Charles I is beheaded by Cromwell
• 1644: Giovanni Battista Pamphili is elected Pope Innocent X at the Papal conclave of 1644.
• 1644: The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming Dynasty. The subsequent Qing Dynasty rules until 1912.
• 1644–1674: The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War.
• 1645: The death of Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese Samurai warrior of natural causes.
• 1645–1669: Ottoman war with Venice. The Ottomans invade Crete and capture Canea.
• 1647: Seven-year-old Mehmed IV becomes sultan.
• 1647–1652: The Great Plague of Seville.
• 1648: The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War and marks the ends of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire as major European powers.
• 1648–1653: Fronde civil war in France.
• 1648–1667: The Deluge wars leave Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins.
• 1648–1669: The Ottomans capture Crete from the Venetians after the Siege of Candia.
• 1649–1653: The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

1650s

• 1652: Cape Town founded by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.
• 1652: The First Anglo-Dutch War begins.
• 1654–1661: Mehmed Köprülü is Grand Vizier.
• 1655–1661: The Northern Wars cement Sweden's rise as a Great Power.
• 1658: After his father Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal, his son Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the Mughal Empire.

What personally catches my eye in the above historical backdrop is the term TORTURE seen above attached to the date of 1640. Torture will be applicable to both Native Americans and also those referred to as a Sufi during that time period of history in Western Civilization when Christianity had taken a very strong stand in Europe and carried to the Americas. During this time period a Sufi was seen only in the culture that today we now generalize with the broad terms Muslim or Hindu in contrast to Christianity or Judaism.

torture (n.)

late 15c. (implied in torturous), from M.Fr. torture "infliction of great pain, great pain, agony," from L.L. torture "a twisting, writhing, torture, torment," from stem of L. torquere "to twist, turn, wind, wring, distort" (see thwart). The verb is 1580s, from the noun. Related: Tortured; torturing.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages, and has grown over the past 100 years to encompass almost any aspect of language structure and use.

Linguistic anthropology explores how language shapes communication, forms social identity and group membership, organizes large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds.

RITE OF PASSAGE INTO ADULTHOOD IN THE AMERICAN CULTURE

Simple definition of: Rite of Passage-a RITUAL EVENT

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Rite of passage (disambiguation).

A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures.

Rites of passage are often ceremonies surrounding events such as other milestones within puberty, coming of age, marriage and death. Initiation ceremonies such as baptism, confirmation and Bar or Bat Mitzvah are considered important rites of passage for people of their respective religions.

In our modern American culture of televisions and personal computers with internet connections there are NOT anthropologists setting up their offices with a secretary waiting for their appointment books to become filed with clients as a psychologist might set up a private practice focusing upon the subject area of psychology.

In this time period of American history with massive home foreclosures and high unemployment, most Americans do not have either the time nor the energy to even try to research the job given those humans with the label ANTHROPOLOGIST.

Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages, and has grown over the past 100 years to encompass almost any aspect of language structure and use.^[1]

Linguistic anthropology explores how language shapes communication, forms social identity and group membership, organizes large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds.^[2]

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