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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Rashid Minhas: 38th Anniversary

Tomorrow, August 20, is the 38th anniversary of the martyrdom of Rashid Minhas Shaheed, N.H. Following is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to younger brothers at the age of eighteen.
Why can’t we be like animals? You must be knowing already that it is just because man wants to know the truth, the truth about himself, about the world, about everything. This is what they call the eternal quest for truth or truth through knowledge. Of course religion gives it all to you in a concise form but it does not stop you from finding out for yourself and strengthening your belief. That is how it must be with you. YOU MUST FIND OUT THE TRUTH YOURSELF.

6 comments:

  1. Today I'm reading "The Beast and the Lion" and recognizing for the first time the depth of insight Rumi, Iqbal and now Khurram Sahib have provided as a great gift not only for the understanding of literature whether of constructive effects or fruits in our political/social actions yet also in our own inner transformations.

    Celebrating Rashid Minhas at this time while on edge with Afghanistan/Pakistan/US interactions and "hard places" is a perfect time perhaps for many of us to be reading and discussing this deceptively "small" booklet.

    For others who are novice in these studies like I am, here are a few "teasers":

    "I can fulfill the need of all of you, with one and the same piece of money. If you honestly give me your trust, your one coin will become as four; and four at odds will become as one united."
    Mevlana Rumi

    At last I'm beginning to understand Iqbal's understanding of knowledge as: "sense perception regulated by understanding" and the process of introspection applied to "things as they are" becoming-expanding into : 1)Inquiry 2)Discovery 3)Transcendence and that Resurrection can be seen as the discovery of new values...and I know I'm going to love Iqbal's understanding of freedom from the "tyranny of time" (which I have too oft allowed to control my views of the life around me as well as my own potentials and values)...

    Surely the moment has come to be listening to Iqbal who surely was called by Rumi for our time which is now...

    Thank You, Khurram Ali Shafique Sahib for your faithfulness in bringing these beauties of insight alive to such as me! And a special thanks for this little/BIG booklet to help me not feel so overwhelmed by so much richness and to feel deeply, personally that I am understood by Rumi,lqbal and ultimately Allah and not at all in a condescending way...

    Thank You, Rashid, for calling us to light each our own candles...

    So at last we will understand and become as One...

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  2. YOU MUST FIND OUT THE TRUTH YOUR SELF.

    I simply love this line and would like to share my favorite paragraph from one of my favorite book SIDDHARTHA by Hermann Hesse, which elaborated this idea of finding ones own truth. The below quoted passage is where Siddharatha meets Buddha and after receiving his teaching has this to say:

    “Do not be angry with we, O Illustrious One, I have not spoken to you thus to quarrel with you about words. You are right when you say that opinions mean little, but may I say one thing more. I did not doubt you for a moment. Not for one moment did I doubt that you were Buddha, that you have reached the highest goal which so many thousand of Brahmins and Brahmins’ sons are striving to reach. You have done so by your own seeking, in your own way, through thought, through mediation, through knowledge, through enlightenment. You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. The teachings of the enlightened Buddha embrace much, they teach much-how to live righteously, how to avoid evil. But there is one thing that this clear worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself experienced-he alone among hundreds of thousands. That is what I thought and realized when I heard your teachings. That is why I am going on my own way-not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrine and all teachers and to reach my goal alone-or die."

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  3. Akhtar Wasim Dar Sahib's new blogpost carries a lot of these concepts and challenges in these teachings into depth. Don't miss them. I hope that he will someday be willing to also share a Story he has written.

    By the way, I just left a most heartfelt comment on the previous post re. literature.

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  4. Connie and Akhtar, thanks. And ALL CAPS in that sentence were by Rashid himself. Interesting, I guess.

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  5. Khurram Sahib, things always look more interesting whenever you comment.

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  6. What Akhtar Sahib has just spoken is my experience as well.

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