A Walk Down Identity Lane

Lately I've been asking myself questions about identity: can I call myself as 'ashiq of the Bektashi path, even though my connection with the tariqa is just at the beginning? Could I, equally, apply for membership to the Religious Society of Friends and call myself a Quaker, even if my personal beliefs are not traditionally Christian? Would that even be appropriate, or would I be diminishing the value of Friends' Christian heritage and equally diluting my own Bektashi faith? Could I say that "There is one, even Haji Bektash, who can speak to my condition"? Can I bear witness to the Peace testimony while remaining affiliated with the official order of the Jannisaries (even if they dispersed in 1826)?

The question has been reflected in my, er, reflection up a blog post about koans on a 'conservative' Quaker blog, as well as questions raised in Cat Chapin-Bishop's post on what it means to be a Christian in her, er, also Quaker (but from a pagan point-of-view) blog.

In the former, the blog-author questions the utility of words used by other Friends that are outside the purview of Quakerism, especially when terms exist within Quakerism that convey the idea. Can one speak of a 'Christian koan', for instance?

My gut feeling was to jump in with 'Well sure you can', but as I turned the idea over in my head I realized there was a problem. Beyond the idea of co-optation and cultural imperialism that would represent, it's a misuse of the term 'koan', which is deeply embedded in Zen Buddhism and, in fact, represents a particular outgrowth of the pairing of Yogacara and Madhyamika within Zen thinking. Trying to divorce the idea from that background cheapens it, makes it senseless, in the same way that 'meditation for relaxation' is like using a diamond-tipped saw-blade to slice bread. Or...

... New Age pseudoscience. Like: What the Bleep Do We Know?, The Secret, or Masaru Emoto's water crystal 'work', including the idea that Eastern mysticism somehow 'explains' quantum physics, or at least that they draw the same conclusions. To me, this is equally - if not more - insidious than meditation for relaxation; it's backdoor Creation Science, only because it's 'Eastern' and 'mystical', which somehow makes it OK. The Vedas, I am sorry, are no more scientifically valid than Genesis.

The great human tendency is to try to unite disparate pieces into a consistent whole. The desire for unity, cohesion, is a good thing: I do not mean to denounce it, but instead suggest that believing there is a connection between two disparate things does not mean that such a connection exists.

Which presents a certain problem, or at least a certain tension, when it comes to dual membership in religious bodies, which is what the latter blog post seems to be about (to me).

Can one be, as it were, a 'Christian pagan', or a 'Pagan christian'? Being neither myself, I can't speak about such a question with experience. So instead, I ask myself the question of whether I can be a 'Muslim christian' or a 'Christian muslim'.

The short answer - the answer the beloved Prophet, peace and blessing upon him and his family, would most likely give - is that the two are in fact the same. A true Muslim is really a true Christian, and vice versa. The Qur'an, which as a Muslim I take to be the Word of God (in the same way a Johannine Christian takes Jesus, peace be upon him, as the Word of God), says:

2:62

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ وَالَّذِينَ هَادُواْ وَالنَّصَارَى وَالصَّابِئِينَ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحاً فَلَهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَلاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ

"Inna allatheena amanoo waallatheena hadoo waalnnasara waalssabieena man amana biAllahi waalyawmi alakhiri waAAamila salihan falahum ajruhum AAinda rabbihim wala khawfun AAalayhim wala hum yahzanoona"

"Those who believe - and those who follow the Jewish, [or] the Christians [or] the Sabians - who[ever] believes in God and the Last Day, and does good, shall be rewarded by their Sustainer: no fear shall overcome them, nor will they grieve."

But such universalism seems to fall into the same trap described above; also, taking this particular ayah (verse) of the Qur'an out of the context of the entire Qur'anic message would belittle or completely ignore much more numerous Qur'anic ayat which serve as polemic against Judaic and Christian doctrine, such as excluse salvation in Judaic doctrine and tripartite Godhead and the theory of incarnation in the Christian.

In other words, by saying that Christian and Muslim are, in fact, interchangeable terms, then neither have any real meaning. They become empty, hollow concepts. Which would seem to render the idea of a 'Bektashi Quaker' or 'Quaker Bektashi' meaningless as well, doing disservice, ultimately, to both.

That led me to another question. I identify myself as an 'ashiq of the Bektashi tariqa; the 'definition' of an 'ashiq, however, is broad. According to J.K. Birge in his The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, an 'ashiq "... is attracted by and feels a certain loyalty to Bektashi principles and practice but who has not actually taken the nasip [sic]". (The nasip is formal initiation)

Such a definition is pretty wildly open; in fact, it felt too open for my tastes. By such a definition, it would seem, anyone could consider themselves an 'ashiq, even if that person were not Shi'i, nor Muslim, nor even a monotheist, nor even a theist! How in the world could that make sense?

I took the question to some Bektashiyya I know. Could one speak of a pagan 'ashiq? The reply I got:

Brother- the answer to your question is most certainly "Yes". All "Ashik" really means is "Lover"- in this case of the human orientated and liberal outlook- as well as deep mysticism - of Hunkar Haji Bektash Veli. We revere all truths of all religions and philosophies. Anyone who fixes their belief has put the Truth (Hakkikat) in a little box of their own imagination. They can never directly see the truth..Mohammed said-"Those who are blind in this world will be blind in the next." & " Seek knowledge, even in China". Look up al Khidr a.k.a. hidir a.k.a. hizir to see that a knowledge exists outsıde of any holy book (of pagan roots probably.) outside of all prophecy.

Not precisely the sort of wanted, if I'm to be honest. My affiliation with Bektashism is incredibly precious to me; it is where all the crazy mixed-up notions and beliefs I hold in my head and heart finally feel as if they have found expression. It feels as if I finally have not only a name to give to that inchoate mess, but an identity, and with that, a path and a community. It's not something I want to 'share' with anybody and everybody who, on a whim, affirms an affiliation like some Spiritual Scout merit badge. I feel like that cheapens something incredibly precious to me. How dare they!

Looking at that, then, I can see from where fear and discomfort with universalism comes. You've found something deeply precious to you; perhaps you don't even mind sharing it; but if you're going to share it, you want to set rules and limitations on what can be done with your precious.

I've cautioned against just that to those who see me as their teacher. I tell them that if they're going to give something, anything, to somebody else, they cannot set limitations. You don't 'give' expecting something in return: that's an exchange, a contractual transaction, an economic interaction. It implies that: idem, if the party of the second part should fail to comply with the terms of the transaction as stipulated by the party of the first part, then the party of the first part has recourse to redress of said grievance with the party of the second part. Such transactions have their place in the world, but they are not conducive to fostering a loving relationship between people.

... And, of course, there's the rub. Love.

Because in a relationship predicated upon love, such as that which exists between God and humankind, the fundamental principle is that of giving wildly without thought of return. God gives to us... well, this: the incredible and majestic universe, and furthermore to each of us individually this precious life, without any desire for return.

On our end, we have the choice of giving what we have to God. Doing so is its own reward, as the reward of love is the happiness of the beloved, and nothing more.

Now, if I really believe what I believe - that there is 'that of God' in everyone, to phrase it Quakerly; or, that God is expressed through everyone, to phrase it (clumsily) in a Bektashian sense - then in order to be an 'ashiq (meaning 'lover', you'll remember), I should be willing to give the name and identity of 'ashiq to anyone. Everyone. Being a lover requires loving.

In fact, to refuse to give the name and identity to anyone is to refuse to give to God - to set requirements - which means that I do not love God, which means, really, that I'm not an 'ashiq.

Couched in such a way, that'd mean that I'm definitely not an 'ashiq right now, since I definitely do not love each and every person as I love God. Which means the whole point is moot.

Because really? It's by doing that one is. Not vice versa.

My 'Christocentric' Identity

I have a confession to make: I'm afraid of my Meeting.

I've received a warm reception in Hartford Monthly Meeting, and I get a little thrill every time I park outside, early, to drink my coffee. The normal amused smirk on my face turns something beatific when I get to sit in silent dhikrAllah (that is, Remembrance of God) surrounded by others doing likewise. But I'm afear'd, often, of speaking with others, spending time around them for any definite period.

Some of that is a question of diversity: I'm the youngest (of the adults) sitting in Meeting. Always. While I'm remiss to blame a lack of youthful vitality for my personal reticence, there's a certain feeling of being of the wrong age-group to find social cohesion. Part of my decision to regularly attend Meeting was, in part, due to the hope of finding people of a similar age engaged in spirituality of a similar flavor to my own; and while I doubt my ability to find many youthful Bektashis worldwide, let alone in Connecticut, I felt more confident of finding some Quaker youth locally. Guess not.

Secondly, the WASPishness, generally, of the Meeting: all-white, dominantly Anglo, and, er, Protestant by definition. Again, I'm remiss to blame ethnic centrality to my uncomfortable nature (especially given that I'm a rich white educated heterosexual American first-born male), but I do feel conscious of a lack of diversity in the group which serves to make me feel very, very white. Odd how white people make me feel more white than non-whites. Huh. Anyway...

... but the reason I feel especially out of place is the fact that I'm not actually Christian. I'm an Ithna'ashari Shi'i Bektashi Muslim.

So what am I doing in a Quaker meeting? Well, the reasons given above: feeling a need for spiritual community, folks with like-values and a similar way-of-life. I ended up deciding upon a Quaker meeting at least in part because of their theological liberality as well as - for me the biggest draw - corporate silence. I liked the idea, and ended up loving the practice, of sitting with other people and not talking. Or not much talking. The various Quaker testimonies served only to cement things for me.

Never-the-less, I do feel an intruder, someone spying on and/or stealing someone else's home, society, culture. The result of that is an ongoing personal fantasy, in which I am called upon to demonstrate why I should be allowed to become member of the the Religious Society of Friends. It's not a grand fantasy; it's not a fantasy in which I stand before, say, Yearly Meeting and am called upon to defend my position, but it is a fantasy in which I am called to do so in front of Monthly Meeting, at least, and of course involves some grand speech and ministering, during which I state my creed, as best I know it: the short poetry by Yunus Emre to the right

Mystic is what they call me;

Hate, my only enemy.

I harbor a grudge against none:

to me, the whole world is One.

Such a credo (or more appropriately, aspiration, since I do not dare to claim to live up to such sentiment fully) is of course the basis of my path, my tariqa, but also the path of Jesus, I should think.

Like most Muslims, of course, I would claim that Jesus was a prophet of God; I would also say that he was the 'Spirit of God', the RuhAllah, as the Qur'an states unequivocally. I challenge the idea of a virgin birth, though, as well as the other miracle stories: I see them as allegory and metaphor, symbols of deeper spiritual realities. I would also challenge a belief that Jesus was God exclusively; I wouldn't deny him divinity, but I would deny Jesus was, is, and will be the sole human manifestation of the divinity, or that he might claim the totality of the Divine expression (there is more to God than His form in the world, exalted is He above all we might ascribe to Him).

In other words, Jesus was a teacher, neither the first nor the last, but an important one none-the-less.

I would argue, then, that what was important was not who Jesus was, but rather how he was, because while we can never really know what it was like to be Jesus, certainly we can attempt to act in the way he acted and espoused in order to what that is like.

My understanding - though I admit it could be wrong - is that this was part of the original design of Quakerism, the various testimonies, the core values of this quiet but active corner of Christianity. I know, certainly, that such was and is the path of the Pir of my order, Haji Bektash Veli, and the quiet but active corner of my Muslim faith. In this, we share the same values and even beliefs, to a certain degree.

These are my 'Christocentric' credentials.

I do not want or wish for controversy; my sole desire is to live, worship and serve amongst a community of fellows aspiring to the same calling.

Am I welcome still? Probably; at least by some, I think I would be welcome. But fear still sits inside, the fear of not being allowed a place at the table, fear of being the Outsider all over again.

All I can do, really, is to sit in and befriend that fear, until it changes - like all other fears - into a palpable excitement. Then, maybe, I will find what I seek.

The Missing Class; or, No Country for Honest Men

A few years ago, I moved to Connecticut and began looking for a job. I thought that I would be fairly successful at this; although my work record has some holes, it's not all that bad, and anyway, I'm a college grad and I interview well and I'm a good, hard worker.

It took me 9 months to successfully find work, and only part-time at that. In the intervening period I ended up blowing through most of my savings to survive, to pay back various people and companies for the goods I had stolen from them, and to help out others who were in even more dire straits than I was.

It wasn't that I hadn't spent those nine months furiously searching for employment; on the contrary, I spent those months repeatedly applying to every job that I could find, only I kept being turned down. I was even turned down for a position as a cashier at a local health-foods grocery store.

I'm not sure if I was turned down because of the gaps in my employment history; I can only really guess as to the reasons why I was never hired. If so, I've discovered a little injustice there, namely, that if you don't work for a period of time because of health reasons - which is what led to those employment history gaps - then our society makes it that much harder for you to find gainful employment again. One is being, as it were, shunted off to the margins.

Alternatively, in some cases, it could have been my physical handicap. I might have been able to find physical labor, at the very least, if I weren't physically disabled. Or, I might have been better able to find work if I weren't a student, and thus needed blocks of time free in order to be able to attend class at a minimum.

Regardless, eventually I was able to find part-time employment at the very least; however, shortly thereafter the health insurance I received through school lapsed as I became a part-time student rather than a full-time student. Suddenly I could no longer visit the doctor without paying exorbitant amounts of money, and my medications - one of which is still on-patent - cost $350 a month, a significant portion of my paycheck.

I've taken on other part-time work, since. I have a per diem job which gives me the chance to work now and then, and I have another 'job' which adds minor income to the pot whenever I'm able to get that work. But the search for a full-time job, one with health insurance benefits, goes on.

On the advice of a friend, I applied to a position as a bank teller in a local bank. Part of the application process included a test designed, apparently, to determine one's customer service skills. Having worked in customer service, with some skill, in my previous jobs, I felt that I should know the answers to the questions fairly easily. One question, however, concerned bothering a customer via telephone in order to sell a product: telemarketing. I, like most people, have a visceral reaction to someone bothering me in my home in order to sell me something; it is uncouth, a horrible practice, which has little to do with satisfying the customer than with hoisting petard products upon them. I chose, in the multiple choice options, to make excuses and hang up.

Wrong answer. My application was instantly denied. Not even an interview.

A few days later, swallowing my pride and my honesty, I decided to retake the test and give them the answer that they wanted. Glory of glories, application accepted. Interview scheduled. Yearly check-ups, here I come.

This morning I put on the monkey-suit and headed downtown to the HR department for this bank, in a foul mood. I had, and have, no interest in 'selling products', be they financial service ones or not. I think that viewing business in such a manner dehumanizes the very real practice of providing goods and services to meet peoples needs, rather than generating wants to sell goods and services made in excess: I'm more of a capitalist (in the Adam Smith mold) than a neoliberal consumerist. Supply is meant to follow demand, not the opposite.

Never mind the monkey-suit. I've never been a fan, ever since having to put on tight, uncomfortable, unflattering shirts with iron-starched collars, necktie nooses, tapered-leg pantaloons that only highlight my chicken legs... let me wear something comfortable, something more me instead, for the love of God. Dress casual I can do, and even wear a tie now and then if I feel like it, but don't force me to wear something I despise.

Of course, I try to justify this with the old Quaker testimony of simplicity and plainness, but that's just show. Really, I'm big kid who doesn't want to wear grown-up clothes.

So anyway, I get down to the office, and am told that I should not have come down; in fact, they cannot interview me because I am not allowed to retake their customer-service quiz less than 6 months after I failed it the first time. Thank you very much; you can have your parking ticket validated on the way out.

In some ways - many ways, actually - I'm glad. Me being me, I despised the thought of having to do the sort of work I would have to do in banking, what with numbers and selling things people didn't want and dressing in monkey-suits and similar. A part of me, the part of me that I really like and try to nourish, jumped for joy at not having had to 'sell-out' to the Man. Integrity: saved.

But then: I am still without health insurance, and still quite poor. With several large and major life changes approaching - moving to Hartford, getting married next year, insh'Allah - I rather need steady full-time work. And this job is only meant to be interim work, something to tide me over until I can take on full-time work as a substance-abuse counselor, the real sort of job I've always wanted to do.

Stepping back further, though, getting out of my own shoes for a second, I have to wonder how people in my situation deal with just this sort of thing. I'm spared a great deal of the degradation because I have a car, rich parents who help me out, and I know there are many, many people like me who do not have such safety nets.

I think about what happens to them, and I realize: of course. They are all those people who look so incredibly miserable at their jobs. They're telemarketers, DMV bureaucrats, bank tellers, supermarket clerks... people who work to survive and for little other reason. They're barely able to make ends meet, surviving just above the poverty-line, ineligible for a lot of the programs which are meant to service people in need but unable to purchase or otherwise receive the same benefits those programs are meant to cover for those without them.

It makes you wonder how many are out there, working multiple part-time jobs with all sorts of variable hours during the day which prevents them from seeing their kids, making appointments with doctors or banks (or to find another, better-paying or more full-time job) or other professionals who have the benefit of definite and clear working hours. People without health insurance, frozen in fear of getting sick at all because of the enormous expenses. And because every penny must be saved in order to make various ends meet, they have no room for 'luxury' items, and so probably find credit cards alluring, with their promise of deferred payment, in spite of 25% or more interest rates.

Of course we're a debtor nation.

I suppose none of this seems terribly 'spiritual', and so does not seem as if it belongs in such a blog as this one, but... these are the injustices and inequities I see in our society. Sure, we have a class of terribly poor, but I think much worse is the class of indentured citizens we have created here, able to survive but little else, without any friends or compassion.

There is something rotten to the core about the American Dream.

Striking Ordinariness: Redux

There is a line in the central text of my Fellowship which reads: "Deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God... in the last analysis, it is only there that He may be found."

I've found that, as a part of my spiritual path, that has been perhaps the single most difficult notion to remember - 'God' is within, an inner experience, not without, an outer, objective experience.

My tendency in spite of abundant experiential and indirect knowledge to the contrary, is always to assume He's 'out there', that if you found the right apparatus or the right methodology you could see Him in a physical sense. And this of course leads to all sorts of problems, all the problems (in fact) that come from anthropomorphism: what does God look like? Is He really a he or a she or an it (which sounds too impersonal) or does God appear to each individual as he or she wish to see God? What does Heaven, or Paradise, actually look like, or Hell for that matter? What is the metaphysic of the soul, and how does it relate to the body, etc etc.

Such questions can be interesting in that how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-end-of-a-pin way, but the reification of spiritual concepts and realities becomes problematic when one starts to take such things too seriously. One runs the danger of 'eating the menu', as it were, treating Heaven and Hell as actual physical localities rather than concepts, notions, or states of mind.

Thankfully I tend not to make that mistake with these things; but sitting in Meeting this morning, I realized that I've been making a rather continuous mistake in the way I think about spirituality and the spiritual life, period.

I sat in Meeting for Worship, trying to find that 'light within', holding this mental construct of a layer of thoughts and thinking on top, a layer of subtler, quieter thoughts underneath, a layer of moods and emotions below that, and my 'self', trying to sink lower and lower and see this light...

... and while I was thinking about all this, for some reason the following phrase from a Qur'anic ayat floated into consciousness and got stuck on a loop:

Qaf (50):16

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهِ نَفْسُهُ وَ نَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ

Wa laqad khalaqna al insana wa na-'alamu ma tuwaswisu bihi nafsuhu wa nahnu 'aqrabu ilayhi min habli alwareedi

And verily We created humanity, and We know what whispers in [humanity]'s essence, [for] We are closer to [him] that [his] jugular vein. (My own translation/interpretation)

... and that's when it dawned on me that I once again was turning spirituality and the spiritual experience into something other, something other-worldly, rather than something very simple and direct and here-and-now. I was separating out the experience of God from the experience of day-to-day life, treating it as something special and different, reifying that experience, setting it on a pedestal in a fiberglass case and setting an alarm to go off if anyone tampered with the case, and then standing back and looking at it and thinking "Man, I wish I could get inside that case and touch that thing again."

Which is when I began to smile, and realize that the alarm, the case, the pedestal and the thing didn't exist: I had just thought them all up. What I was looking for was right underneath my nose.

Out of that grew a deep appreciation for my immediate experience, what was happening to me in that moment. I opened my eyes and stared at the whorls in the wood of the bench in front of me, and felt real gratitude for it. Then I began to think about my life, this life, all the experiences that I've had and everything that I've learned and done and felt and seen, and I felt love for that. I saw it as a gift, or more precisely, an offering to Allah, something for which - because He is me and I am Him - He also felt love and gratitude. Life, my life, was not a gift from Him to me, as I had previously thought; instead life, my life, was my gift to Him, the eternal Watcher.

So I was able to feel God's love for me, and my life; which is something I have been missing, something I seem to omit from my day-to-day experience usually. Intellectually I enjoy and love my life, but for quite a while now it's been a hollow statement, just something you say because you're supposed to say it.

And this brought back memories of one of my more primary and wonderful 'root' spiritual experiences, which happened during and after I had suffered a major illness. I was in the hospital for it, and in the recovery process, and I felt so alive, so full of real joy, as if I were truly blessed. During that time, which lasted about six weeks, I woke up in the morning with thankfulness and fell asleep with gratitude. Being kind and compassionate, forgiving the few faults I saw and utterly overlooking the rest, connecting to other people in a very simple and basic way... telling the truth, letting wants and desires and needs and cravings slip by, intuitively handling conflicts within myself and without... it was a grand ol' time. It was only after discharge, when I returned to 'normal life', that I for the first time began to notice what I did not have, latched onto that thought, and sank into one of the deepest pits of depression I have ever faced (and, being a severely depressed person normally, I want to stress how much of a doozy this one was).

I think, now, that was the character of that experience, a certain sense of knowing that living my life, and the way in which I lived my life, was a gift, a present, an offering to Allah. This precious, tenuous thing called an 'existence' was both something given to me and something which I could give without ever giving-away. Or, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett in one of my favorite books, Small Gods: to die for a cause is easy. To live every day of your life for one, that's the real challenge.

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. What is enlightenment? Chopping wood and carrying water.

Answering That of God in Everyone

Last Sunday, I went to a Quaker Meeting, my first.

And I liked it. A lot. It was held in a simple, small building, the inside furnished with wooden benches (with cushions, alhamdulillah). There was no iconography, no paintings, just the bare walls. Someone was kindling a fire in a large fireplace, which turned to a full blaze shortly thereafter. We all sat in silence, for one hour, except for three times when someone stood and spoke. I don't remember what they said, I just remember the silence, the simplicity, and also the warmth of my welcome, when it came time for me to speak myself and tell everyone my name, and why I was there ("Curiosity... thank you" was what I said, to plenty of laughter).

Where, exactly, the idea to go to a Quaker meeting came from, I cannot say. Perambulations (if I might use that word) on the Internet led me to it, and I decided to give it a shot; I figured I might as well go, and see. Nothing to lose. There was a small measure of fright involved - I hadn't set foot in a church for worship in years - but reminded myself that I had set foot in meetings of my own Fellowship with greater trepidation, after which the fears subsided.

I now feel a calling - I guess you could call it that - to go back, to go regularly, to become a member. I remember, especially, the feeling of lightness, calm and joy I carried with me when I left, a sensation I haven't felt in a long time.

I used to feel that way in my own Fellowship. It used to be a place I could go where I felt a sense of community, of shared effort in a common goal, a place I would visit and from which I would return to the world with a springier step. Now that I think about it, actually, I haven't felt that way about my Fellowship in a long time. Why that is, I don't rightly know. I'm willing to guess, though, that it's the repetition; hearing the same things spoken by pretty much the same people, watching the same melodramas unfold again and again and again. The feeling arises that there is nothing new under the sun, and I'm tired of the lack of... I want to say 'success', but it would be more accurate to call it, simply enough, 'change'.

Maybe that's why I look forward to getting up early on a Sunday morning (unheard of, for a person like me) rather than meeting with my own Fellowship tonight.

Meanwhile, I begin the very indefinite and hazy plans of a trip to Michigan this Spring, on or around Nowruz, to meet with another community, another Fellowship, another path. I'm hoping to pay a visit to the Bektashi tekke in Taylor, to become acquainted with some dervishes in the tariqah, and perhaps to pay a visit to Baba Arshiu. I'm hoping to begin my association with the Bektashi tariqah in a more formal manner, this way; at the moment, it's a very loose connection simply because of the limits of time, space and linguistic barriers, though not from a lack of desire for more proximate affliliation.

One thing which does concern me, however, is that I'd like to formalize my ties to both the Quaker Meeting I attended as well as the Bektashi tariqah, and I'm unsure as to how either will accept this dual affiliation. I find "that of God" in both homes; I find the fellowship of seekers I seek in the Meeting, and the path towards realization I seek in the tariqah.

We shall see what happens.