Waxing Moon

A full moon is waxing. Through the tenebrous veil that coyly mists in front of the luminous silver disc hanging 45 degrees above me in the navy ink sky, I can see it has yet to achieve its full roundness. The Indian Ocean surf shushes rhythmically in counterpoint to the cool evening breeze brushing through the bank of sugarcane ringing the seaward garden.

Every now and then the clouds part enough to illuminate a patch of sea. The marine mirror only shines as clearly as the clouds vaporize thinly enough. It’s a tantalizing display, as mesmerizing as watching flames from a fire licking and dancing into a chimney flue. The slow sail by of sooty clouds keeps my attention. I find myself longing for the relief of full disclosure, but I am being teased.  And now the clouds knit thick and impenetrable.

Reality has left a trail of itself in every scene and instant. Oblique hints abound. Discover me it says. Here, it’s easy. Just look around you. Glory be! How marvelous is the perfection of it all.

Suspend the interference of the self and Reality is self-evident.

Yet, as I’ve blogged before, removing the self entirely is impossible and besides the point. We can only experience this reality through it, or, rather, by transcending it. At the beginning it is all about self-awareness, and later it evolves into steady awareness of the ONE SELF – the oneness stuff from which we have all derived.

The best we can do is to thin out the veil and polish the mirror. And whether we like it or not, Reality will conspire to do the same. Can you put a price on freedom of the heart? The heart which Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala described as: ‘The Heavens and Earth do not contain Me but the heart of the mu’min contains me’.