Chapter 24

You Are the Zodiac; You Are Your Destiny

[The following is a response to a recently widowed woman who explains all of her “learning” but says, “I have lost all desire to live. I have many anxieties.”]

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: Is this what you have discovered in life? When your husband left, your life left, and you said, “I don’t want to live anymore.” This is an erroneous point in your life. Whom did you trust ? Did you trust your husband, or did you trust God? Did you live your life believing in God, or believing in your husband—in creation?

[The woman replies, “God cheated me.”]

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: No, you cheated God. You lived your life trusting a tree. You lived believing in earth, fire, water, air, and ether. You believed in the clouds, but clouds roll on. Colors, rain, storms, darkness,
light, sun, moon, and stars, all move on. You cannot depend on such things.

You plant a seed in the garden, believe it to be yours, and then live your life trusting that seed. But it will not last. You bring a jug of water from the ocean and think, “This is my water. This is my life.” This is how you have lived your life. But water carried in a single pot will dry out, will it not? It will come to an end. You may drink the water, put it will run out. This is ignorance. This is maya. Who gave you life? Who created you? Who feeds you? Who gave you everything you have? Who gave your husband everything he had? Who gave you eyes? Who gave you ears? Who gave you a nose? Who gave you a tongue? Who gave you a mouth? Who gave you taste? Who gave you all these things? You must understand this. Thinking your eyes are yours, you say, “O my eyes! Look they are my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my hands.” You have lived your life believing in these hands, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and taste. This is the ignorance of your life.

You should live your life believing in the One who gave you all of this. Everything else has a limit. The eye is an organ that is consumed by earth. The ears, the flesh, and the body—everything will be consumed by earth. Why did you live your life believing in these things? If you consider these things to be the strength in your life, then, when their life and limit come to an end, so will your limit. This is your mistake.

The One who is infinite, without destruction, without birth or death, without beginning or end, without wife or child, without relationships or attachments, without race or religion, without scriptures, without house, property, or deed, without anything— is everywhere.

This All-Pervasive Power is your Father, the Father of your soul and the Father of your life. If you had lived believing in Him, you would not have spoken the words you just uttered. Everything you have studied so far is like words written on water. When you write words on water and look back, they will no longer be there. Even as you wrote them, they were not there. Words written on water cannot be called wisdom. You cannot claim to have studied them, heard them, or lived by them, because this type of learning perishes very quickly. You thought everything written by the mind was a written letter, but those letters quickly wash away, disappearing, one after another.

You should have faith, certainty, and conviction in your Father, the One who gave you life. He is the One who raised you in the dark room for ten months. With no earth-connection, He gave you food, water, warmth, fire, and air. For ten months, God raised you in this way in the dark room [of the womb]. Then He showed you the school and said, “This is the world that you have to comprehend. Look at it. You now understand what is inside, and just as I raised you here on the inside, I will raise you in the world. Without anyone knowing, I fed you here, and I will continue to do so. Look! Look at My creations, My arts-work. None of My creations can nourish you as I do. I am the secret. I gave you food when you were inside, and I will be the One to feed you when you are outside. The One who gave you life will feed you; He will not forget. Understand Me through this show, through this story.

Believe in the One who gave you your soul; believe in your Father.” Upon telling you this, God displayed the world to you as a show. But did you believe Him? No! You believed what you saw in the world. That was merely God’s art. You believed in the tree of God’s art, saying, “It will give me fruit. This is my life.” This is what you trusted. You invested your belief in this, acknowledging this as your wealth. You considered this to be God. You believed this to be heaven. You thought this was the world.

This is the state you described—this wisdom, these things you heard and studied. But they are only words written on water. You should have trusted the One who placed you in the dark room, the One who placed and fed you in the world of souls earlier, and the One who sent you into the world saying, “Understand the world and understand Me.” This same One will invite you back, saying, “Come, it is over, your limit has been reached, come.” Had you trusted Him, none of these things would have happened to you. If you had studied that wisdom, these things would not have occurred.” If that had entered, these words would not have emerged from you. If that had been uncovered, you would not have believed in this. You would not undergo this suffering.

You have been raising a cow and depending on it for its milk, but its milk has a limit. When the milk stops, what can it do? Nothing! Then your faith is destroyed. You raised a cow and believed its milk to be yours. But the milk is depleted, its limit has been reached, and there is no more milk. Then you suffer. Now the only place left for the cow is the supermarket. The butcher shop takes the cow, everyone gets a pound of its flesh, and it goes to hell. Its remains enter the earth as fertilizer. Trusting in this was your mistake. You thought this was your life; that was a mistake. Had you believed in the One who is not subject to these changes, you would not have reached this state, and you would not say that your life is finished.

When fire and iron merge, there is only fire. When the iron is in the fire, it is fire. It is no longer iron, and if you touch it, it will burn you. However, if the iron stays outside the fire but says, “I am fire,” it is not fire, just iron. As iron, it can be hammered many times, it can be broken, it can be cut, and it can be bent in many different ways, but it will not burn. Nevertheless, there is fire within the iron. You must understand this. You should either be in the fire, or you should realize the fire within. If iron is rubbed correctly, heat is generated and it will burn when touched. In the same way, if you had at least rubbed and polished what is within you, the heat would have emerged. The heat in the iron would have emerged, and you could have touched it and felt the heat.

Even a piece of wood will burn after being rubbed vigorously. When you do this, you will realize that there is heat within the wood. Similarly, if you had scoured and polished yourself, you would have perceived the warmth of God. If you had fallen into the fire with faith, you could have been the fire. A little rubbing and polishing of yourself would have, at the very least, made you realize, “O, this is the Power. This is God. I feel the heat.”

You have neither polished nor examined yourself. If you had examined yourself, the fire would have blazed. If you had examined your mind, you would have understood. But you have not done any of these things. You are not in the fire, you did not polish yourself, and you did not examine yourself. You continue to be iron and think, “This is life!” But iron can be bent in many different ways, and it can be attached to many things. It can be put into cement and into the ground. It will also grow rusty and be destroyed by the corrosion. If it is not in the right state, it will be corroded by rust and consumed by earth. You trusted the iron that can be consumed by earth, experienced what it had to offer, and thought it was your life. Is this wisdom? Did you study this? Did you hear this? Did you understand this? Think about this. It is wrong.

This is parrot-learning. The parrot repeats the same thing over and over. This learning does not differentiate right and wrong. The parrot can be taught to say, “Here comes a thief, here comes a thief,” and it will screech, “Here comes a thief!” even when a good man arrives. When a man enters, the parrot will say, “A woman is here, a woman is here, a woman is here!” When a woman enters, it will say, “A man is here, a man is here, a man is here!” When a thief enters, it will say, “A good man is here!” Why does it do this? Because it lacks analytic wisdom (pahuth-arivu). This is similar to the parrot-learning and book-knowledge that you have acquired. You understood that kind of knowledge but did not discriminate between right and wrong or good and evil, and so you speak of what you have heard and what you have learned.

These are letters written on water, not real learning. Two things are dangerous: if a good man is called a thief, and if a thief is called a good man. If a man is called a woman, that is dangerous, and if a woman is called a man, that is also dangerous. This is what the parrot says. In the same way, your current perception of life is wrong and dangerous. Think about this, think about true learning.

You have a limit. There are various things in you—faith, soul, stomach, body, vision—each one separate from the other. And what your husband has is different from what you have. He has a different eye, and you have a different eye. He has a different stomach, just as you have a different stomach. He has a different section, and you have a different section. As he has different judgment, you have different judgment. He has different ears, and you have different ears. He has one nose, and you have another nose. He has a certain mind, but you have a different mind. This is how it is. The two are not one. But you have lived your life believing in those eyes. That is astonishing! You lived your life believing in those ears, nose, body, stomach, hands, and legs. This is wrong.

[The woman interjects that she still does not have the will to live.]

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: Even a beautiful apple tree has a limit, does it not? Think about this. If you look at an apple tree you will understand.

An apple tree bears fruit, and from a single seed come many branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. As the tree grows and is laden with more fruit, its burden increases. The branches bend down, but it continues to bear the weight of the fruit. The tree neither eats its own fruit nor blames the fruit for its burden. Birds come to eat the fruit, cows and goats relish the fallen apples, and finally the farmer comes and picks the apples. If the farmer has guarded the tree, he may pick the apples. Otherwise a thief, a “satan,” comes and takes them away. Therefore, the farmer must guard the tree. Then he can pick the fruits and distribute them to others. The tree bore the weight of all the apples and yet does not eat even a single fruit.

Reflect a little about what an apple tree does. If you live your life in that manner, if you do your duty like that, it will be very good. I never married. I have no children, yet I have many thousands of children. I have many brothers and sisters, younger and older. I did not give birth to any children, but I have so many children. I did not get married, but God gave me many, many children. God is One. I married Him. I married this one God, and He gave me so many children and so much work. I have to feed a child on one side, give milk to another on the other side, carry one child on my back, and lift another onto my shoulder. One kicks my back, one kicks my chest, one bites my hand, and one bites my nose. But what does it matter? It does not hurt at all. I am not distressed, troubled, or saddened. When their teeth grow, children bite, but I just brush that aside and carry them again.

[The woman asks, “Is there any hope for me in the future?”]

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: Once I asked God (my own Father, Husband, Brother, and Soul), “You have placed a limit on everything. Everything in creation has a limit. Everything comes to an end, and people call it fate, destiny. What is this destiny (nasïb)? What is its conclusion?” I asked this question one hundred and fourteen years ago. To this He replied, “I have given you My kingdom, My purity, My light, and My wealth. I have given you the kingdom of God, the kingdom of hell, and the kingdom of the world. I have given you My soul. I have given you everything. I have given you death and birth, that which is deathless and that which is birthless. I have given you every wealth. I have given you wisdom. I have given you grace. I have given you darkness. There is good and evil, and I have given you everything. You have to understand these things. If you do understand, it will be good. You are the cause of death, and you are the cause of birth. You are the cause of grief, and you are the cause of joy. You are the cause of deathlessness and the cause of birthlessness.

“The limit you garner for yourself is your destiny. That is your limit, your destiny. You are the one to do this. I gave you everything, and you implement these things yourself.

You should know what dies and what does not die, what is born and what is without birth.

You should understand and distinguish what is good and what is evil.

You must understand who I am and who you are.

You must understand what is eternal and what is perishable.

You have been given the destiny of understanding this comprehensively.

This is destiny!

You understand it, and you tally up the accounts! When you discover your profit, when you know what is productive for you, you will attain the benefits. But if you do not discover this, it will be your loss.

Calculate this limit and these accounts. This is your destiny!

“When I gave birth to the body, I did not give you anything. When I formed your body, I did not show you this world, the Divine world, or the world of hell. I sent you in perfect purity. You were My baby, My prince, My princess. I carried you then, and when you return, I will carry you in the same way. If you come back in the same state, I will carry you, and you will be My baby once more. In the same way that I carried you before, I will carry you on your return. Know and realize this state. The way in which you went and the way in which you return determine whether I can carry you or not. If you come in a carry-able state, I will carry you. But if you change and deviate from this state, I cannot carry you. Your knowing this is your destiny. You create this.

“I created this show and formed you out of twenty-seven letters. There is one dark letter, and the other twenty-seven are light. This is your form. It is the zodiac. The twenty-seven letters are the twenty-seven stars that constitute the 12 signs of the zodiac. There is a six-pointed star with six wisdoms inside. Within this is the almanac of five letters (panjängam). This inner heart created of five letters1 has six points and six wisdoms.2 The five letters are the almanac. Think about this. Earth, fire, water, air, and ether are the five letters. This is your form.

Understand it! The sixth letter is the six wisdoms. Together they constitute the six-pointed star.

“There are twelve signs of the zodiac ( räsi), and nine planets (navagraham) that cause agitation: two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, one mouth, and two openings below. The eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and the openings below will all churn you around. They are the nine planets. Thus, you are the nine planets. Of the twelve zodiacal signs, I am in the ‘arsh [God’s throne in the crown of the head], and the Nür, My light, is here [in the center of the forehead, the kursï]. One sign is in the navel. It was cut away and sealed because of its poison. Ten of the twelve signs are sinful; they are the ten sins.3 You must understand them. If you open the gnostic eye, the kursï, and see Me, you will know that I am in the ‘arsh. There is a connection between the ‘arsh and the kursï. Avoid the ten signs and understand the two—you and I. You are the light and I am the Resplendence. Understand this. These are the twelve signs, the zodiac.

“If you look at the twelve signs, you see animals and even reptiles: a crab, a lion, a bull, a goat, a fish. You will not see a [true] human being, just animals. Ten [signs] are like this. When you become a human being, you become a light. Then you will see Me. When you become Me, you will be complete. Until then, there are twelve zodiacal signs and twenty-seven stars. I created you out of twenty-seven letters—you are the zodiac, and you are your destiny. Calculate and analyze this. This is the nujüm-calculation 4 — the analysis and calculation of your destiny. When you understand this, you will be a Nujümi. When you understand and analyze this, you are the son, and I am God.”

This is what God said. These are the twelve signs of the zodiac. The nine planets that churn you are the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and two openings below. One has been cut away and sealed [the navel], and two have to be opened [the ‘arsh and the kursï]. When you see God, you will be the son. When you reach this state you will be God. This is what He said. This is the zodiac. These are the planets. Understand this!

M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.)

Back to top

Footnotes

1. Five letters: Man’s heart is composed of five letters, alif, läm, mı¯m, hä’, and däl. Alif represents God, läm represents the light of God ( Nür), mı¯m represents the eternal messenger of God (Muhammad)Ò, hä’ represents the physical body, and däl represents the world. In the heart of a true human being these letters are transformed to alhmd which is the praise of God—All praise is to You, O God; You are the glory and greatness that deserves all praise.

2. Six wisdoms: The six wisdoms are perception (unarchi), awareness (unarvu), intellect ( pudthi), judgment (mathi), wisdom (arivu), and divine analytic wisdom (pahuth arivu). The seventh wisdom is divine luminous wisdom (perr arivu).

3. Ten sins: The ten sins are those wrought by the five elements—earth, fire, water, air, and ether—and by mind, desire, arrogance, karma, and maya.

4. Nujüm Nujüm: The Arabic word ‘ilmun- nujüm refers to the knowledge of ancient astronomical calculations through which astrological horoscopes were charted. In this context, the author uses the word to mean man’s own analysis of the zodiac within his body to calculate and chart his destiny. Trans.

Back to top