SOUK - 26oct09 - guardian angels

26th October 2009
We continue with our teachings on the soul's manifestation towards the
earth. Tonight's topic - a recording of the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan on
the subject - talks about guardian angels and recording angels.
"There is a word known to many: 'the guardian angel'. This angel's
protection comes to some souls on earth, such souls who are walking on the
earth and yet are linked in some way or the other to the heavenly spheres.
Often one sees an innocent child being saved from several accidents; and
often a person is warned to save a child at the moment when the child was in
danger. This guardian angel also appears in the same form as angels sent to
people on different duties."
There was a question from the previous talk "Will you please tell us about
the guardian angels?"
"Guardian angels are nothing but extra light on the path, one's own light
and the light from above one is seeking. The person who holds himself closer
to Heaven, he had a guidance from Heaven, he is always guided. The one who
disconnects himself from his original abode which is Heaven, then he becomes
worldly, earthly. Just like a fruit which has broken from the tree and has
fallen on the earth. But the one who still clings to the light of Heaven,
that person has still a light with him, about him, to guide him. And at
every step that light comes, warns him, guides him, in accordance to his
desire of being guided."
There is no kind of extraterrestrial being that is assigned to us, to look
after us - the guardian angel is none other than our own light, our own
being, the light of our own being. When we are conscious of that heavenly
light, that angelic light, that light becomes the guardian angel, that light
warns you, that light acts on your behalf and helps to guide you. It speaks
in your dreams, it sometimes speaks in those moments of openness through the
mind.
Then he speaks about recording angels. But first there are two stories.
One happened after the second world war. In the second world war there were
two great conflicts, one was in Europe and the other was in the Far East.
This one concerns the Far East. It is the story of a man that was made into
a film called "The Railway Men". It is the story of a man who was an officer
in the British Army who was sent out to encounter the Japanese Army invading
Burma, and they were captured. Upon being captured they were put into
prisoner of war camps and then they were required to build a railway through
the jungle - this is the title of the book and film. In the building of this
railway many people died, and this particular gentleman for some reason was
punished. He was taken to jail and the Japanese officer who was in charge
personally took charge of the punishment. The punishment involved
considerable beatings, torture, electrocuting, drowning, bayonetting, it was
quite horrible. The reason why this Japanese soldier did that was because he
was adherents of Bushido, an offshoot of Shintoism,, they regarded if you
were an officer you had to commit suicide, that was the only honour. An
officer who was defeated and did not commit suicide they had no respect for,
no feeling for such people. That was his reason. The man suffered terribly
in the prisoner of war camp. After the war he returned home to his wife a
very troubled man because of his experiences, and of course a very angry
man. And unfortunately his wife who had been living in London who also
suffered during the war - life was very difficult here - she did not have
much time trying to understand everything that he went through, she had been
through the war too. So he did not feel received, he could not really talk
about his experiences. The marriage broke down, he ended up getting
divorced. Something happened, he realised something was missing in his life
and he decided he wished to become a priest. He became religious. While he
studied to become an Anglican priest he realised that he was carrying
enormous resentment. What he wanted to do was to offload this resentment. He
realised the only way he could would be to find the person who had done this
to him and forgive him. So he set about trying to trace his torturer.
Coincidentally at the same time the Japanese gentleman had a ft of
conscience, too. He felt ashamed, guilty, and he sought solace in Buddhism,
and he decided to become a Buddhist monk. Becoming a Buddhist monk he had to
find the man he had harmed. So these two gentlemen either side of the world
looking and with luck they managed to find each other. The English gentleman
said "I would like to meet you, because there is something I have to say to
you." The Japanese gentleman said "Yes, that is good. Where shall we meet?"
The Englishman said "Let us meet on the railway bridge we had to build." The
two walked across the bridge from either end and they met. You can imagine
the kind of feelings, thoughts, memories. The Japanese gentleman said "I
wish to ask your forgiveness." The English gentleman said "I forgive you."
That is the moment when that bridge was transformed from a scene of
dominance, torture and unhappiness and became a bridge to the angelic.
What we are about to read tonight speaks of the qualities of shame and guilt
and forgiveness. These are three qualities that link us directly to our
angelic nature. When we become sensitive to our conscience we very easily
become ashamed about the things we have done in our life. We very easily
feel guilty about things and we have that urgent sense to make reparation by
asking forgiveness. Similarly when we feel resentments most people seek
retribution as a way to balance these resentments, either through violence
or revenge or the criminal court system. These two gentlemen chose a
different path. That is what is important. These three qualities, shame,
guilt and forgiveness are extremely important. They connect us with our
angelic nature, with that light.
The second story is a fictional story, a Sufi story. It illustrates a point
that relates to this idea of forgiveness and bypassing retribution. It is
the story of a robber, a bandit who became a very bad man. Not only did he
commit robberies, he also killed people in the process. And one day he had a
fit of conscience and decided to leave the city of bad people where because
of the conditions they tended to influence people, and robbery and crime was
rife. He decided to leave that city and what made him decide is that he met
a holy man, a dervish on the way. Somehow, something in him made him go up
to the dervish and say "I lived a very bad life, and all my life I have been
a robber, I have even murdered people. When I die I am definitely going to
hell; even so, I still would like to find out if I can ask forgiveness for
my sins." The dervish said "We will see." And the robber left the city of
bad people, he did not get very far and he dropped dead, he expired. At that
point, two kinds of angels turned up, the baddies and the goodies. The angel
who had a record of all his bad deeds turned up and said "Well, we have a
complete record of every bad deed he had done." The tradition was that the
angel who had the longest list would claim the body, the soul. The angel who
recorded good things said "We have a very short list here ..." "That settles
the matter" said the angel recording the bad deeds. "We claim this man."
Gabriel came down and said "Just a minute. The tradition is such that you
have to also measure the distance from the body to the place he has left,
the bad place, and the distance to the good place that he is headed for, and
see which is the shortest distance." So they took a measuring rod out - a
few hundred metres from the city of the bad people. "Just do the job and
measure the distance to the other city, which is very far." And as they
measured it, a miracle happened, and the measuring rod shrank. It turned out
to be just a little bit shorter than the distance to the bad city.
What the story illustrates is that preparedness to ask forgiveness, even
though you know what you have done and what you deserve, was sufficient to
have the record wiped clean. No punishment, no revenge, no retribution. A
very important spiritual message. Some people talk about karma, that if you
have done something bad in this life you will be punished in the next life,
but it always misses on the point of compassion, that the creator is a
compassionate being and if we are prepared to acknowledge our misdeeds and
ask forgiveness we will be forgiven. What people do to us on the earth is
another matter. The earthly justice is very different to divine justice.
Divine justice operates on the law of beneficence. Earthly justice operates
on the law o retribution, or an eye for an eye.
"There are recording angels, who take a record of one's good actions and of
bad actions; but the most interesting thing is that those who keep a record
of good action, do not keep a record of bad actions. Those who keep record
of bad actions are other angels;"
"In the Sufi terms these two are called the angels of khair and khar, and
the difference is very little in their spelling: one is khair and the other
is khar. That shows how little difference there is between goodness and
badness. The ancient belief is that immediately after a person is buried,
these two parties of angels come on his grave with their records and dispute
about him. But do we not see in human nature the same thing? People wait not
even until after death; they begin to say good things and bad things about
the person they know, about their friends and foes and dispute over them.
There is also an ancient belief that after the dead is in his grave and
buried, there come two angels to ask him questions and by this
cross-examination prove their contrary arguments true. Their names are
munkir and nakir; I think there is very little difference in their names.
There is a story in the Bible that Jacob wrestled with the angel all night
and before the breaking of the morn Jacob won him and the angel asked his
name and blessed him. The interpretation of this is that the illuminated
souls of the angels coming in contact with the earthly beings, are in
conflict and that conflict ends when man had given up the earthly point of
view and had adopted the heavenly point of view. Then there is no more
conflict, but a blessing; and the asking the name is the paradox. When once
the false ego is crushed, the soul really does not know what is his name,
for the name belongs to the false ego.
"There is an old conception of nine kinds of angels; in reality there is one
kind of angel but their relation with human beings and their desire to
experience life through human beings divides them into nine kinds. Then
there is a belief that there are angels who are the inhabitants of the
Heaven and others who live in the contrary place; those of the Heaven are
called nur and of the other place are called nar. This is an extreme point
of view. In reality they can be distinguished as two kinds: jelal and jemal,
the angels of power and the angels of beauty. A question arises why the
angels who descend on earth as angels, not come as human beings, for every
human being was originally an angel. The answer is that the angels who are
related with human beings, are human souls now in the angel world, and who
keep connection with human beings because of their wish; and now that they
have come back from earthly regions to the angel world, they still keep in
touch with the earth, either being on a certain duty or because of their own
pleasure."
(All quotes: Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan - Lecture "The Soul towards
Manifestation" given at the Suresnes Summer School on 15th August 1923 from
the Complete Works of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan - Original Texts:
Lectures on Sufism, 1923 II: July-December)
Angels of beauty and angels of power - the two aspects of our angelic
nature. The angels that are awesome or powerful are those angels that warn
us, that aspect of our being that looks upon what we are doing. Then there
are the angels of beauty. They express their nature through love, harmony
and beauty. In Sufism we have a term for it, there are two kinds of lights,
the light of beauty and the light of power. Lights of power are very
overwhelming. Lights of beauty of course are very beautiful, very
attractive. They represent two aspects of our angelic nature. Sometimes
there are impulses that lead us into very different directions when they
become distorted through the mind. In one case the angels of power -
sometimes the mind tries to subsume that aspect of our nature t become
all-powerful, or to become the judge and judge people. When that happens is
we end up as a very harsh judge. Then there is the other aspect, the angels
of beauty are very gentle, very loving. When that becomes distorted it leads
to a very childish innocence in people, willing to believe anything. They
become very easily led, very easily persuaded or confused. So originally
those are two aspects of our angel. We need balance between the two. The
other aspect is the idea of angels that are angelic lights, they have no
interest in the human world. They are embraced in the heavenly light. But
there are angelic souls who have returned from this world to the angelic
state. They retain an interest, they retain the ability to connect with us,
warn us, speak with us, particularly those who have a prophetic message to
give. The last point is this question of judging. Shall we be judged. Is
there a day of judgement. It is a very controversial point, and a key point
in many religious teachings, as a warning to people. In the Sufi tradition
we say yes there is a judge, but you are the judge yourself. It is your own
heart that judges. No-one else, nothing else. In other words, there comes a
state when we have left this world and a re free of the mind and we remember
our angelic state. Then we look at what our life has been, and we see good
things and bad things, and we are the ones to decide how to correct them. It
is looking at your life, what you created, like a patchwork quilt, you see
all the different seams, woven into each other. Some of the quilts patches
are rather nasty looking, others are beautiful looking, and the whole idea
is to actually un-stitch and re-sow everything, so it becomes a beautiful
patchwork quilt. That is what we call karma. This is a metaphor to
illustrate how we see ourselves, how we judge ourselves, and how we correct
ourselves. The strange thing is that in this world, if we can realise what
it is that troubles us, what troubles our conscience, and we can be honest
with ourselves, and be prepared to put that right or ask forgiveness, the
matter is finished, closed. There is no retribution. You have actually
created something beautiful in yourself. A very important spiritual
teaching. Many people say "Some people have done terrible things - shouldn't
they have a bit more to do than others who have just done one or two
things." We are thinking quantitatively, we always want to measure. I have
more right to et into heaven than that person.
This is a wonderful practice that addresses the whole idea of conscience, of
guilt, of shame, of anger, resentment and forgiveness. It is a zikr
practice. It is the invocation of the angels of mercy and compassion.
Invoking this angelic state in us we become sensitive of this conscience.
The heart becomes sensitive to what is going on in us and around us. Even
though sometimes we cannot change the world, we cannot change certain
things, but if we begin to invoke such angelic presences and we focus our
mind on particular place in the world, or a state in the world, or sometimes
praying for a person that is suffering, it has some kind of effect. It may
not have the full effect you may want to see immediately, but it has an
effect. And similarly if we do this practice because we wish to try to
purify our hearts of resentments and jealousies and fears, it is a wonderful
practice for cleansing the heart. The practice is a zikr practice where we
first move the head around in a circle, and as we do so we say ya-rahman,
calling on the angel of mercy, then we bow and say ya-rahim, calling on the
angel of compassion. Let us connect with something in our own life that we
might feel ashamed about, feel guilty about, or it may be something you feel
deeply troubled about. It might be to do with a friend, neighbour, relative,
it might have to do with a community or a situation on the planet that we
are deeply troubled about in our heart. Just tune into this. Now we begin
the practice, keeping the concentration on whatever the issue is, and we
invoke the presence of compassion and mercy.
Ya-Rahman, Ya-Rahim.
This practice together with the teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan helps us to
remember not only our conscience, but our angelic state. If we are sensitive
to that state, that condition, this helps us to re-experience it. The great
tragedy of life is to manifest on the earth and then one forgets who one is,
one forgets one's nature. One gets so sucked up into the world, so impressed
by the demands of life that we forget why we came here in the first place.
It is a very important practice to remember, like remembering that original
pledge that you made in the heaven, to be faithful in this incarnation, to
remember God. There is the famous phrase "Oh Lord, will you remember us as
we have remembered you in our prayers." The answer is: Yes. You only have to
remember yourself, remember who you are. It becomes the most important
spiritual practice in one's spiritual life. It is a practice of the heart.
It is a practice that enables us to be in the world, to experience life, but
to not become lost in the world, to remember your nature, be true to that
nature as you walk through life.