Sufi meditation of the heart

We started looking at Sufism in one of my classes and this wonderful gem came up in in the reading: murshidsam.org/Documents/Poems/Long%20Po...Karuna_Yoga_Gita.pdf

The Sufi meditation of the heart as interpreted by Murshid Sam , an American Sufi teacher. Some of the language is heavily influenced by Buddhist and Hindu teachings but the practice itself is Sufi. It's a gradual progress from beginner to full on nondual awakening (I think) and it seems to cut straight to the point in a beautiful way.

Some of my favorite gems:

Keeping away all thoughts of self,
Maintaining fast the act with no ideas of fruits-of-action,
Pursuing inward unity with steadfastness,
The heart begins to ebb and flow, to flow and ebb,
Love seeking love, light seeking light, life seeking life

... One begins as in Concentration and then reverses it,
For instead of identifying self with ego and seeking heart,
One identifies oneself with heart and seeks ego.
Thus it is that one arrives at egolessness, not-self.
By the not-self, through the not-self contemplate heart-of-self,
Looking from outward in, no longer from inward out,
The Contemplation is the Concentration-in-reverse,
This is the first step in Contemplation.

When there is humility and lack of ostentation,
Then it is possible to bring about union of self and non-self.
For, with the expulsion of breath one supposes:
“Now I am not, verily I am not, neti, neti!”
With the indrawing of breath one supposes
“Now I am, verily I am, ani, ani!”
I am, I am not, neti, ani,
So the exhalation, so the inhalation,
So the denial, so the affirmation,
But as a pendulum cannot swing in one direction only,
So the consciousness cannot swing,
For if there is denial only death ensues,
And if there is assertion only death-in-life ensues,
So that one does not attain to mastery.
...
Then as there are two sides to a coin but one coin,
As there is swing and counter-swing to the pendulum,
So with the two aspects of breath:
Exhalation, inhalation—but a single breath-span.
Now from this singleness of breath
Realizing the two facets of one process,
Whereupon the breath joins man to God,
The breath brings God to man.
Now from this singleness of heart,
Realizing self and non-self as undifferentiated,
Different in the world of manifestation,
Unseparate in the universal life-in-God.
Seek and ye shall find; verily if ye seek, shall ye find

What do you think? Anybody wanna try this out?

Experiment (15 min) - breathing in and out at a natural rate, mentally saying "I am" on inhalation, "I am not" on exhalation.

Concentration strong right away, deepened over next few minutes, some gentle energy movement (sense of unrolling, straightening), posture straightened, passing tension in forehead area, deeper absorption. Breath became slightly more rapid and shallow (I did not try to control breath).
Sense of curiosity, then sense of "not knowing".
Thought: "What does this even mean?"
A few brief distracting thoughts here and there. Not knowing feeling continued.
Sudden sense of expansion, spaciousness, spontaneous big sigh and relaxation, breath slowed.
Continued practice.
Thought: "It's all the same!"
Big smile.
Thought: "I love you!"
Continued practice.
Thought, with sense of wonder: "It's all the same! I love you!"
Smile, joy.
Continued a bit more.
Ended.

So that wasn't very long, and it could be interesting to try again. It may be that the concentration on the breath moved me into a jhana-like state (that sudden sense of expansion and relaxation) once I had gotten absorbed enough?

Cheers, Ona

I kinda think this is supposed to be practiced in absorption. The way I understand his instruction to "identify oneself with heart and see ego" (stage 4) is an absorption in the heart/love. I think he leads into 4th jhana and beyond that in stage 5 probably into samadhi (Zen's pure awareness, pure being, etc.). The expansion-contraction reminds me of something I heard in a talk about TM which is watching the self getting reconstructed as one exits the state of samadhi to learn about the process and the difference between self and not-self. Although I guess the final development of that is exactly what you said:

Thought, with sense of wonder: "It's all the same! I love you!"

It seems like it could combine that (practice of absorption) with a sort of inquiry practice, if one continued using the text as a source for pithy pointers or paradoxical phrases.

Yeah, there's definitely some good pointers there to work with. Meditation instruction in poem form... and it works! Ha!

"It works" might be worthy of a whole thread about what exactly that means and implies. But that said, it does seem to be a relevant, lovely and thoughtful practice/pointing poem/etc.