Beyond Illusions of the Monkey Mind
We forever thank His Holiness
Muhaiyadeen Guru Bawa, who taught here in the Bay Area for many years, and there were a blessed many who were blessed to hear his teachings on the Divine Luminous Wisdom that Dispels Darkness, or Man/God/God/Man.He enlightened us on how to transcend the one billion five hundred million illusions of the monkey mind, that mind so enraptured by the world of make believe, and most especially attracted by conspicuous consumption or putrid materialism, the greediness of it all, the mockery of God with such display of attraction to the animal or monkey mind.
We are so thankful he came to the Bay Area and we were able to sit at his feet, for one can spend a lifetime going through the stations of the cross, going up and down the mountain in the Sisyphusian tradition, worshiping rocks, animal skins, plastic, wood, flesh, drugs, electronic devices and other demons in our midst. Yet in the end we can only cry out like Job, "Naked I came and naked I go!"
His Holiness Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
So let us get a grip early on about that which is real and that which is illusion. Firstly, very few things in life are really important. You may have five thousand friends on Facebook, yet Aristotle told us, "He who has many friends has no friends!" I wish somebody would help me here, somebody say Amen!
I wish somebody would tell the youth that all those friends they have, friends that they want to seek advice from before consulting mama and daddy, ain't about nothing, that when those friends are long gone, mama and daddy will be standing by. I remember telling one of my daughters, "I'm your very best friend, the best friend you shall ever have," and she laughed. And yet, when all those men in her life have come and gone, dad and mom will still be with her, showing her unconditional love. Ask the brothers and sisters in prison who comes to visit them, is it their homeys or their parents, especially their moms, but dads too suffer parental trauma. I've known fathers who grieved themselves to death over their sons who got caught up in the criminal life, yet their father was a successful hustler who never did time. But the sons wouldn't take advice from their father, rather they sought advice from their buddies, gang members, who did not support them when they got twenty-five to life. No, it was the father and mother who visited them, who put money on the books for them. Somebody need to say Amen up in here!
Let us go deeper into illusions of the monkey mind! You and your wife, your mate, partner are together, yet you ain't together, for there is no way for you to be together when he/she doesn't truly have a clue about you. Even worse, they don't even have a clue about themselves, for who taught them, who gave them manhood and womanhood training? Who took the boys into the bush and terrified them into the reality of themselves, who left them in total darkness and told them don't come back to the village until the lion is upon your shoulders? Who taught them how to build a house without using nails (as they do the young men at the African Village in Sheldon, South Carolina)?
Yes, who told us we are spiritual beings in human form, or as Phavia says in her classic poem Yo, Yo, Yo, about the woman, though it applies to the man as well, "If you think I am a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring!" Man and women have spiritual power but are so caught up on the animal plane of the monkey mind that they never exercise their divine powers. A young girl said, "I didn't know I had that much power."
And so it is, as we enter the New Age of Spiritual Consciousness, let us jump out of the box of the monkey mind and enter the Upper Room of Divine.
As-Salaam-Alaikum,
Marvin X
3/1/11
Beyond Religion, Toward Spirituality
Essays on Consciousness
By Marvin X
Marvin X has done extraordinary mind and soul work in bringing our attention to the importance of spirituality, as opposed to religion, in our daily living. Someone—maybe Kierkegaard or maybe it was George Fox who—said that there was no such thing as "Christianity." There can only be Christians. It is not institutions but rather individuals who make the meaningful differences in our world. It is not Islam but Muslims. Not Buddhism but Buddhists. Marvin X has made a courageous difference. In this book he shares the wondrous vision of his spiritual explorations. His eloquent language and rhetoric are varied—sophisticated but also earthy, sometimes both at once. His moods are both reverent and irreverent: at times he consoles, other times cajoles with biting mockery. At times amusing but always deadly serious.
Highly informed he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders—to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison—to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought—religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries.
All of which are represented in his Radical Spirituality—a balm for those who anguish in these troubling times of disinformation. As a shaman himself, he calls too for a Radical Mythology to override the traditional mythologies of racial supremacy that foster war and injustice. It's a dangerous book, for it reveals the inner workings of capitalist and imperialist governments around the world. It's a book that stands with and on behalf of the poor, the dispossessed, the despised, and downtrodden.
Marvin X has found a way out of our spiritual morass, our material quagmire. We are blessed to still have him among us. If you want to reshape (clean up, raise) your consciousness, this is a book to savor, to read again, and again—to pass onto a friend or lover.
—Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal
Contents
Preface, Joy and Happiness, Work
Reconciliation, Health, Elders
Women, Men, Youth
Children, Sex, Solitude
Blessings, Music, Writing
Africa, Love, Partner Violence
Prison, Street Violence, Pimpin
Rap, Jerusalem, Teacher, Myth
Militant, Language, Nature,
Global Violence, Sectarianism
Technology, Ancestors, Death
History, Future, Polygamy
Polyandry, Prostitution, Nukes
Religion, Sufi, Prayer, Radical God
Ritual, Drugs, Family, Marriage
Education, Gay/Lesbian, HIV/AIDS
Art, Traumatic Stress, Poverty
Black Bourgeoisie, Media, Panther
Peace, Politics, Immigration, Land
Holy Joes, Sovereignty, Democracy
Fascism, Amnesty, Capitalism, Americas
Berkeley, Condi, Chinaman's Chance
Paris Burning, Sudan, London Bridges
Welcome to Mexi-Cali, Pan Africa
Evil, Tookie Williams, Fathers and Daughters
Why I Talk With Cows, Jesus, Pharaoh's Egypt
Death Angel, When Jazz Ain't Jazz, BAM at Howard U.
Lucy Is Coming, One Mind, Afterword
