Operationalising Ziraat - page 4

page 4 - Operationalising Ziraat - Firos Holterman ten Hove

And conversely, we need untouched nature so that we can recharge our magnetism.

If our consciousness is high, we sanctify the earth as hierophants and shamans have done since the beginning of time. If we commune with her soul rather than extort her yield, she sanctifies us, making us whole, and therefore holy and healthy.

We have to know how to communicate with her, grasp what „transpires beneath that which appears“ (as the Sufis say). Or, like the Zoroastrians, ask her soul whose body is the water of the river, for example, permission to bathe. Ask the soil, which is the body of the archangel of the earth, for permission to cultivate and prevail upon her produce. Make a tryst of mutual respect with her, as villagers do in Southern India with the cobras. Humans promise not to kill cobras, and the cobras refrain from killing humans; and it works!

Hierophants are the Greek high priests of the mystery schools. The term means: those who make the sacred appear, bring it to light, reveal it.

The invisible becomes visible, the inaudible audible, ambrosia is tasted, the skin of the beloved is touched. Rather than a show, this is an experience with all the senses. Murshid has taught that enlightenment can take place when all sensory perceptions coincide. Pir Vilayat liked to speak of ecstasy in this respect. Is this about an inner experience? Not only, it is also about an experience between souls. It is about communion between earth and man. It is about Tantra between farmer and field. This communion can be operationalised by the farmer by communicating with his counterpart and making agreements: "if you feed me ..., then I will feed you ...". And vice versa. An exciting perspective on a completely new way of farming. But do we dare to do that? Can we believe it?

Pir Vilayat challenges us with the example of the cobras. It is not meant as a nice story of a thousand and one nights. He encourages us to try it out.

Let's share our practical experiences so that our confidence can grow! I will try this method with the voles in the next Gardener Year. So far I have set traps without much success. This year the animals have ruined my plot of beetroots. I would like to share about this method in a group. Who wants to participate?

The soil is glad to bestow upon us her produce providing we release some of it to her as compost or organic waste or even in the form of seaweed.

The word "glad" is to be taken literally. Somehow we humans have completely forgotten that the earth likes to feed us. We have lost the confidence to be fed in time and satisfactorily. We think we must force the earth to keep us alive.

Probably few people know the talk Murshid gave about compost. For the process that the modern organic gardener calls composting, he uses two terms: "decomposing" for the disintegration of a body, and "composing" for the assembly of a body. He says: "there is even some pleasure in the composing and decomposing of the physical body.”

This is a key statement: both eating and being eaten go hand in hand with enjoyment.

A plant grows by preparing the soil with its roots in such a way that the individual active ingredients needed by this specific plant are released. The soil is „decomposed“ so that the plant can be put together, "composted".

And vice versa, it works the same way: when the plant is decomposed at the end of its life, the soil benefits from its composting.

This explains how the farmer can help ensure that the soil "likes" to give us its products. He/she does this by creating a balance between giving and taking. The soil is happy to be decomposed so that plants can grow. The plants are happy to be decomposed so that the soil can build up. The farmer can consciously promote these processes by putting both at the centre of his activity. Imagine: the compost heap right next to the carrots and no longer in a hidden corner. And what's more: imagine the pleasure the farmer can get from being absorbed (decomposed) by his work! And even more: what a pleasure it is to eat a carrot, which in its creation has experienced the pleasure of the soil and the farmer engaging themselves for it!

Murshid: "there is a process of covering and uncovering. The soul, so to speak, throws off its garment on the same plane from which it borrowed it, when it has no more use for it. Then what becomes of these bodies? Earthly bodies are composed of physical atoms, and so all that has been composed decomposes and returns to its own element; breath to air, heat to fire, liquid to water, and matter to earth. In spite of all the diverse ways in which the body may apparently be absorbed-- various insects may eat it, birds may share it in their food, wild animals may devour it, or it may be swallowed by a fish, in time it may turn into the soil, or it may be used to nourish a plant or a tree ...”

In the Sufi practice of dhikr, the Ziraat farmer can familiarize himself with these processes of life and death.

The secret triggering off a communication with the nature spirits is invocation, an age-old practice. It is plugging into the signature tune of each being or archetype, and observing a sensitive respect for the laws and principles that they represent and an understanding concern of their wishes. Luther Burbank observed these wishes by encouraging plants to grow in accordance with their natural trend instead of forcing them to conform to the human will.

Just as the physical body composts and decomposes, so does the mental body. Hazrat Inayat Khan: "When the soul unveils itself of its mental garb this garb falls flat, as did the body of the earth, in that plane to which it belongs; for it is not the body which has strength to stand; the strength of standing belongs to the soul…The decomposing of the spirit body is used in making the bodies of the spirit world, but not in such a crude way as happens with the earthly body; in a much finer way, for this is a finer body. There is joy in the composing or decomposing of this body...”

Murshid describes here the intelligence of the natural processes. Plants work continuously in their lives and deaths to shape their experiences in a meaningful way and to use these experiences profitably for a next growth phase. The same applies to them: toward the one, the perfection of love, harmony and beauty, the only being. The soul of the plant is to be equated with the ideal of the plant. In every living being there is a soul, an ideal.

The thinking of the plant serves the attainment of the ideal. Murshid´s answers to the question whether the mind-body changes: „Yes, if it wishes to change; if the soul wishes, it can be changed according to its own ideal ...; but it must be remembered that by nature the soul becomes so attached to its form that it clings to it, and as a rule it does not like to become different.”

In voluntary cooperation with humans, plants can develop new properties. If farmers develop a feeling for the sound body of plants, they can track down their specific thinking and develop new solutions and new ways of being for the plants. The friend and contemporary of Hazrat Inayat Khan Luther Burbank, a famous plant breeder, has proven this in an amazing way. His new cactus varieties, for example, showed that they are capable of appearing without spines.

But forcing plants to change as is done in genetic engineering damages these creatures in their souls because their freedom is stolen.

Truly enough man´s intelligence and will represents a further step in evolution. As Hazrat Inayat Khan says, „Man´s creativity is the extension of the Divine creativity“, but one has to learn how to coordinate one´s will with these natural forces. This is like the surfer who takes advantage of the forward thrust of the wave to launch himself upon the next wave just as the former one is about to recede. One can harness the bountiful gifts of nature so that we will abound in still greater profusion without denaturing her, just as a horse will run faster when it is ridden than on its own, providing that the rider does not kill its spirit.

Plants like to cooperate with us humans. Together with us, they can achieve goals that they could never achieve on their own. Unexpected developments are still possible if we work in partnership with the other natural kingdoms.

If one only knew what intelligence, what emotion, what beauty lies beneath the spectacular display of life on the planet, one would realize what one misses by reducing nature, considering it just matter. So much is gained by discovering and contacting this world of the soul, which has its correspondence in us, and comes through the forms and behaviour of nature as the unwritten law of life. The silent voice of the Divine Presence, of the Divine Message, is whispered by all beings as they announce their names respectively as their contribution to the symphony of the spheres.

Every plant has its equivalent in us. Each flower and tree represents an unmistakable peculiarity in an inimitable mixture of qualities. The loss of so many species today makes us infinitely sad.

But surely the farmer of the future can help to turn the tide and instead of less and less diversity, increase the diversity on his field.

The art and science in Sufism of delving into divine qualities is an excellent approach and preparation for the plant breeder of the future. There are however in my point of view not 99 Wazaif, but as many as there are living beings.

This is the meaning of Ziraat, and consequently it is for those who have the necessary sensitivity and are moved by respect for nature as a being in whom the Divine Presence and the Divine Intention are discovered.

ya Qahr – ya Latif – ya Qadr.Hierophants are the Greek high priests of the mystery schools. The term means: those who make the sacred appear, bring it to light, reveal it.

The invisible becomes visible, the inaudible audible, ambrosia is tasted, the skin of the beloved is touched. Rather than a show, this is an experience with all the senses. Murshid has taught that enlightenment can take place when all sensory perceptions coincide. Pir Vilayat liked to speak of ecstasy in this respect. Is this about an inner experience? Not only, it is also about an experience between souls. It is about communion between earth and man. It is about Tantra between farmer and field. This communion can be operationalised by the farmer by communicating with his counterpart and making agreements: "if you feed me ..., then I will feed you ...". And vice versa. An exciting perspective on a completely new way of farming. But do we dare to do that? Can we believe it?

Pir Vilayat challenges us with the example of the cobras. It is not meant as a nice story of a thousand and one nights. He encourages us to try it out.

Let's share our practical experiences so that our confidence can grow! I will try this method with the voles in the next Gardener Year. So far I have set traps without much success. This year the animals have ruined my plot of beetroots. I would like to share about this method in a group. Who wants to participate?

The soil is glad to bestow upon us her produce providing we release some of it to her as compost or organic waste or even in the form of seaweed.

The word "glad" is to be taken literally. Somehow we humans have completely forgotten that the earth likes to feed us. We have lost the confidence to be fed in time and satisfactorily. We think we must force the earth to keep us alive.

Probably few people know the talk Murshid gave about compost. For the process that the modern organic gardener calls composting, he uses two terms: "decomposing" for the disintegration of a body, and "composing" for the assembly of a body. He says: "there is even some pleasure in the composing and decomposing of the physical body.”

This is a key statement: both eating and being eaten go hand in hand with enjoyment.

A plant grows by preparing the soil with its roots in such a way that the individual active ingredients needed by this specific plant are released. The soil is „decomposed“ so that the plant can be put together, "composted".

And vice versa, it works the same way: when the plant is decomposed at the end of its life, the soil benefits from its composting.

This explains how the farmer can help ensure that the soil "likes" to give us its products. He/she does this by creating a balance between giving and taking. The soil is happy to be decomposed so that plants can grow. The plants are happy to be decomposed so that the soil can build up. The farmer can consciously promote these processes by putting both at the centre of his activity. Imagine: the compost heap right next to the carrots and no longer in a hidden corner. And what's more: imagine the pleasure the farmer can get from being absorbed (decomposed) by his work! And even more: what a pleasure it is to eat a carrot, which in its creation has experienced the pleasure of the soil and the farmer engaging themselves for it!

Murshid: " there is a process of covering and uncovering. The soul, so to speak, throws off its garment on the same plane from which it borrowed it, when it has no more use for it. Then what becomes of these bodies? Earthly bodies are composed of physical atoms, and so all that has been composed decomposes and returns to its own element; breath to air, heat to fire, liquid to water, and matter to earth. In spite of all the diverse ways in which the body may apparently be absorbed-- various insects may eat it, birds may share it in their food, wild animals may devour it, or it may be swallowed by a fish, in time it may turn into the soil, or it may be used to nourish a plant or a tree...”

In the Sufi practice of dhikr, the Ziraat farmer can familiarize himself with these processes of life and death.

The secret triggering off a communication with the nature spirits is invocation, an age-old practice. It is plugging into the signature tune of each being or archetype, and observing a sensitive respect for the laws and principles that they represent and an understanding concern of their wishes. Luther Burbank observed these wishes by encouraging plants to grow in accordance with their natural trend instead of forcing them to conform to the human will.

Just as the physical body composts and decomposes, so does the mental body. Hazrat Inayat Khan: "When the soul unveils itself of its mental garb this garb falls flat, as did the body of the earth, in that plane to which it belongs; for it is not the body which has strength to stand; the strength of standing belongs to the soul…The decomposing of the spirit body is used in making the bodies of the spirit world, but not in such a crude way as happens with the earthly body; in a much finer way, for this is a finer body. There is joy in the composing or decomposing of this body...”

Murshid describes here the intelligence of the natural processes. Plants work continuously in their lives and deaths to shape their experiences in a meaningful way and to use these experiences profitably for a next growth phase. The same applies to them: toward the one, the perfection of love, harmony and beauty, the only being. The soul of the plant is to be equated with the ideal of the plant. In every living being there is a soul, an ideal.

The thinking of the plant serves the attainment of the ideal. Murshid´s answers to the question whether the mind-body changes: „Yes, if it wishes to change; if the soul wishes, it can be changed according to its own ideal...; but it must be remembered that by nature the soul becomes so attached to its form that it clings to it, and as a rule it does not like to become different.”