Not everyone can drop all life and go live a purely spiritual life in an ashram or a monastery as I did for some years. If you are like me, even though that life has it’s appeal and the lifestyle in general is amazing, it is a stiff board in which to sleep and constantly uncomfortable for one main reason- celibacy (and lack of sleep, haha). The householder life is another spiritual practice, and no less stiff, but for different reasons, in different seasons. All life is negotiating your responses to suffering. How happy you are is an indicator of your success in doing so. Successful or not, it’s still on you. This is true whether you accept it or not. If you opt out, and choose the form of that that looks a great deal like the same thing, it’s still a form of change, and that challenge you put off today waits for your face in the mirror tomorrow.

We all wear a mask: wife, husband, father, mother, son or daughter roles all have their dharma to find. Step out of your family, another role, another dharma awaits. Dharma being defined loosely by me now as that which is the best and least violent path between the challenges of life. Deserve your challenges through your responses to them. This is spiritual life, this is your sadhana. If you find you cannot change your mind enough to endure your karma (fructified actions), find someone who can help you while forcing you to become responsible for your own present and future karma. Karma is a patient Master. It’s job is to administer the suffering you yourself have created.

Do not seek to change circumstances, change the eyes with which you see them, and they will transform like a magic trick before your eyes. Its possible to do this. You will find the resolution to all your paradoxes: The Third Alternative is right next to you right now in between the only two options you see before you.

This poem is an excellent example from an old spiritual tradition that can give heart to those in “regular” householder life and are looking for a way to see that ‘same old same old’ as something different. Please understand that one could easily switch the role of husband or wife here, and that it’s NOT communicating that women are wretched! Unfortunately, most spiritual stories are told in the frame of mind that the male aspect is always the spiritual seeker, but we all know this is not true, so current P.C. false affront is not appropriate as a response to a story such as this.

Sheikh Kharraqani and his Wretched Wife

Don’t look at me.
Fall into the safety of God.
I'm already drowned.
Do I have beard?
I cant remember.

Rescue this man from his mustache,
curling so proudly, while inside he tears
his hair. Married to God, married
to God, but pretending not!

We see distinctly what this imposture
becomes in a hundred years. A sheikh
looks into a chunk of iron like it's a mirror.
What this bushy-bearded man does not discover in his house
a boy could find so easily.

Dive into the ocean.
You're caught in your own pretentious beard
like something you didn't eat.
You're not garbage! Pearls want to be
like you. You should be with them
where waves and fish and pearls and seaweed and wind
are all one. No linking, no hierarchy,
no distinctions, no perplexed wondering, no speech.
Beyond describing.

Either stay here and talk or be there and be silent.
Or do both, by turns.
With those who see double, talk double-talk.
Make noise, beat a drum, think of metaphors!
With friends, say only mystery.
Near roses, sing.

With deceptive people, cover the jar, and shield it.
But be calm with those in duality,
Speak sweetly and reasonably.
Patience polishes and purifies.

Here's the story of a  man looking for Sheikh Kharraqani.

A certain dervish goes out from Talaquan, over the mountains
and through a long valley. the injuries and troubles he suffered
deserve mention,  but I'll make it short. The young man
arrives at the sheikh's house and knocks.
The sheikh's wife sticks her head out, "What do you want?"

"I come with the intention of seeing the sheikh."

"Oho," laughs the wife, "look at His Reverence! Was there
nothing to do where you live that you came on such an idle
sight-seeing expedition? Do you hate your hometown? Or maybe
Satan led you here by the nose?" I won't tell you all she said.

            "Still, I would like to see the sheikh."

 "Better you should turn around and go home.
Hundreds of your kind have come like Israelites
to rub their hands on this arrogant gold calf,
parasite, licker-of-platters-on-the-floor,
heavy-slumbering good-for-nothing.
          They say, O, this is ecstasy, O.
They forget any real religious ceremony
and ritual prayers."
                  
          The young man could stand it no more.
"What is this? Ive been ambushed by a night patrol
in full daylight! Your blitherings try to keep me
from the presence of a holy man,
but I know what light led me here, the same
that turned the golden calf into words in a sacred story.
A saint is a theater where the qualities of God can be seen.

Don't try to keep me out. Puff on this candle,
and your face will get burned! Rather try blowing
out the sun, or fitting a muzzle on the sea!
Old bats, like you dream that their cave-dark
is everywhere, but it's not.

My determination to be in that presence is quick and constant.
You won't stop or slow me.
A revealer of mystery and that which is revealed
are the same. Seed, sowing, growing, harvest, one presence.
The husk, old hag of nagging world,
should bow to that.

             Hallaj said, I am God, and lived it out.
What happens when the I disappears?
What's left after not?

Whoever scoffs at these questions and the experiences
they point to, his arrogant spit comes back in his face.
There is no spitting on the way we're on.
Rain itself turns to spit on those who mock
and casually show disrespect to saints."

With that he left the doorway and walked about
asking in the town. Finally someone said, "The qutb
is in the forest collecting wood." The young dervish
ran toward the forest but with a doubt,

"Why should such a sheikh have such a woman
for a wife, such an opposite, such a neanderthal!
God forgive my impugning. Who am I
to judge?" But the question remained.
How could a teacher lie with that woman!
Can a guide agree with a thief?

Suddenly Sheikh Kharraquani appears, riding a lion,
firewood stacked behind him. His whip,
a live serpent. Every Sheikh rides a fierce lion,
whether you see it or not. Know this
with your other eyes: There are thousands of lions
under your teacher's thighs and all of them
stacked with wood!

Kharraqani knew the problem and immediately began to answer,
"Well it's not out of desire that I put up with her!
Don't think that. It's not her perfume
or bright-colored clothes. Enduring her
public disdain has made me strong and patient.
She is my practice. Nothing can be clear
without a polar opposite present. Two banners,
one black, one white, and between them
something gets settled. Between Pharaoh
and Moses, the Red Sea.

You consider issues, but not deeply enough.
Your spring is frozen. Faith is flowing.
Don't try to forge cold iron.
Study David, the ironsmith, and dancer, and musician.
Move into the sun. You're wrapped in fantasy
and inner mumbling. When spirit enters,
a man begins to wander freely,
escaped and overrunning through the garden plants,
spontaneous and soaking in."

Tags: sheikh, Householder, sadhana