#pilgramage

A history of Hajj - Hajj is one of the 5 pillars of Islam, a duty upon all Muslims and a tremendous blessing from Allah. We all must try our very best to make Hajj, if we are able. Many who undertake the journey spend weeks or months preparing for it. Studying the different rites, obligations and sunnah that make up the entirety of Hajj. But, in a more practical sense, what do we know of Hajj and it's history? Was Hajj only instituted after the advent of Islam? Apparently not, as Hajj has been a part of Makkah and it's people for quite a long time.

Related: Hajj and Tawheed

Hajj literally means ‘to set out for a place‘. Islamically however it refers to the annual pilgrimage that Muslims make to Makkah with the intention of performing certain religious rites in accordance with the method prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad (Sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa Sallam). Hajj and its rites were first ordained by Allah in the time of the Prophet lbraaheem and he was the one who was entrusted by Allah to build the Ka’ba – the House of Allah – along with his son Ismaa’eel at Makkah. Allah described the Ka’ba and its building as follows: “And remember when We showed Ibraaheem the site of the House : Associate not anything with Me and purify My House for those who circumnavigate it and those who stand up for prayer and those who bow down and make prostration .”  After building the Ka’ba, Ibraaheem (alayhis-salaam) would come to Makkah to perform Hajj every year, and after his death, this practice was continued by his son. However, gradually with the passage of time, both the form and the goal of the Hajj rites were changed. As idolatry spread throughout Arabia, the Ka’ba lost its purity and idols were placed inside it. Its walls became covered with poems and paintings, including one of Jesus and his mother Maryam and eventually over 360 idols came to be placed around the Ka’ba. During the Hajj period itself, the atmosphere around the sacred precincts of the Ka’ba was like a circus. - Men and women would go round the Ka’ba naked, arguing that they should present themselves before Allah in the same condition they were born. - Their prayer became devoid of all sincere remembrance of Allah and was instead reduced to a series of hand clapping, whistling and the blowing of horns. - Even the talbeeyah was distorted by them with the following additions: ‘No one is Your partner except one who is permitted by you. You are his Master and the Master of what he possesses’. Sacrifices were also made in the name of God. However, the blood of the sacrificed animals was poured onto the walls of the Ka’ba and the flesh was hung from pillars around the Ka’ba, in the belief that Allah demanded the flesh and blood of these animals. Singing, drinking, adultery and other acts of immorality was rife amongst the pilgrims and the poetry competitions, which were held, were a major part of the whole Hajj event. In these competitions, poets would praise the bravery and splendor of their own tribesmen and tell exaggerated tales of the cowardice and miserliness of other tribes. Competitions in generosity were also staged where the chief of each tribe would set up huge cauldrons and feed the pilgrims, only so that they could become well-known for their extreme generosity. Thus the people had totally abandoned the teachings of their forefather and leader Ibraaheem (alayhis-salaam). The House that he had made pure for the worship of Allah alone, had been totally desecrated by the pagans and the rites which he had established were completely distorted by them. This sad state of affairs continued for nearly two and a half thousand years. But then after this long period, the time came for the supplication of Ibraaheem to be answered: “Our Lord! Send amongst them a Messenger of their own, who shall recite unto them your aayaat (verses) and instruct them in the book and the Wisdom and sanctify them. Verily you are the ‘Azeezul-Hakeem .”  Sure enough, a man by the name of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullaah (صلى الله عليه و سلم) was born in the very city that Ibraaheem (alayhis-salaam) had made this supplication centuries earlier. For twenty-three years, the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم) spread the message of Tawheed – the same message that Ibraaheem and all the other Prophets came with – and established the law of Allah upon the land. He expended every effort into making the word of Allah supreme and his victory over falsehood culminated in the smashing of the idols inside the Ka’ba which once again became the universal center for the worshipers of the one True God. Not only did the Prophet rid the Ka’ba of all its impurities, but he also reinstated all the rites of Hajj which were established by Allah’s Permission, in the time of Ibraaheem (alayhis-salaam). Specific injunctions in the Qur’aan were revealed in order to eliminate all the false rites which had become rampant in the pre-Islamic period. All indecent and shameful acts were strictly banned in Allah’s statement: “There is to be no lewdness nor wrangles during Hajj.”  Competitions among poets in the exaltations of their forefathers and their tribesmens’ achievements were all stopped. Instead, Allah told them: “And when you have completed your rites then remember Allah as you remember your forefathers; nay with a more vigorous remembrance.” 

Just like

Rick grimes does in the walking dead

Originally published on healthtian.com

This article was adapted from Dharma Ocean Podcast 239, a talk given by Dr. Reggie Ray at the November 2016 Meditating With the Body Retreat held at Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England. Dr. Reginald “Reggie” Ray is the Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, dedicated to the evolution and flowering of the somatic teachings of the Practicing Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

Good morning, everybody. We have this wonderful opportunity to be together for a few days and to do the most important thing in the world. And that’s a very rare thing in human life. Most of the time, we spend our time doing things that are not the most important thing in the world.

We spend our time doing things that don’t touch the depths, and more and more in modern culture, our lives are set up, so we never touch the depths. Many people don’t even know there are such depths within. Hence we spend our whole lives trying to feed ourselves dust and ashes, eating sand and drinking brackish water while we’re starving and dying of thirst.

But there is a different way, even though the modern world has almost entirely lost sight of it. This is a different way in which humans were born to be connected with what is timeless in ourselves. We were born to go to the full depths of life and live from that place because that’s actually where life is found.

It’s very beautiful here with the changing weather, the sun coming and going, the wind blowing through the trees. And this beauty is also in ourselves—a tremendous beauty and depth of feeling from being alive and feeling the sacredness of our own life.

Sometimes people make a distinction between the secular and the mystical or religious. That’s a very superficial way of thinking because if you fathom the world’s great traditions, you end up at a source of life, the eternal depth of the human person. If you fully fathom the secular world, again, you wind up at a depth of life and the timeless source of our person.

You wind up in the same place. And that’s what traditional meditation is about, whoever you are, whatever your religious or political beliefs or your culture, or your station of life. Until we discover the road back to the source, we have not become fully human, and we can’t live a fully human life.

This isn’t about individual people. It’s about a lineage that goes back hundreds and thousands of years. People come and go, nations come and go, cultures come and go. But the stream of spirituality that we are part of endures beyond all of the changes.

Public traditions and religions fall apart or become corrupt. We see this in the history of religions. The public external traditions often became corrupt, polluted, and even poisoned. But for some, the inner depth was never compromised. Especially the meditators would go to their own depths, their inner lives, their felt sense of life, their body’s unfailing intuitions and discover there the same things people discovered in the external initiations, such as going into the mysterious depths and darkness of underground places.

There’s a very famous person in our tradition from the 5th century in India named Saraha. One day he was meditating in his little hut by the river Ganges. Somebody came along and said, “we’re going to go on a pilgrimage.” A pilgrimage is when you go to sacred places, perhaps because your life isn’t working and you’ve lost track of yourself, and you’re living too much on the surface.

“We’re going to see all these wonderful sacred places; there will be all kinds of colorful experiences, it will be so much fun. Why don’t you come with us?” Saraha declined—he said the greatest place of pilgrimage on the planet is my own body because within my own body is the holy river Ganges and all the sacred sites in India as well.

He was saying that by exploring my body, by exploring my inner world, I can make a much more profound and transformative pilgrimage than you people can by wandering around and looking for it somewhere outside. And that’s very much our tradition. That’s what we’re doing here. Our embodied, or “somatic meditation,” is a Vajrayana tradition from the Eastern regions of Tibet, a region called Kham—a total backwater.

If you saw pictures, you wouldn’t understand how people could live there. These little rundown huts and stone houses and tremendous open territory with not much happening. And this is where this tradition survived for 1,000 years. That’s what we’re doing here. We have taken off the Tibetan cultural trappings, which are very heavy and really get between us as modern people and the teachings that we seek. And they’re not necessary.  But what is left is stunning, and it is what all of us have most deeply longed for, forever.

About Dharma Ocean

Deity: Tyr, god of True Valor 

Hear me, young warrior. There is no glory in slaughter, no honor in conquest, and no such thing as a just war. These childish indulgences should be put down when we first pick up the sword. Instead there is only a chance, a chance to do the right thing when the opportunity presents itself, a chance to make the world a better place than we found it, a chance to spare the innocent their scars by bearing them ourselves. Follow if you see the truth in my words, if you don’t: well, you found your way up this mountain, I’m sure you’ll be able to see yourself down. 

Setup: It is the rare wargod that acknowledges that war, and violence in general, is by and large a necessary evil, a burden to be taken up by the brave and the desperate and put down again when their is no more need for it. This is the true valor spoken of by the faithful of Tyr, a unique coalition of hardened warriors, pacifists, and fighters by necessity. 

Tyr offers strength to those who must defend themselves in the most dire of circumstance, and a path of peace and redemption for those who’s lives have been stained by blood. Eschewing temples and a formalized priesthood, Tyr’s most faithful are itinerant healers, veteran commanders, or holders of ancient vigils, all of whom seek to safeguard peace, defend the innocent, and hasten the end of conflict.  Shrines to the marred god are often constructed alongside battlefield memorials, or are simple stone cairns in the center of villages where weapons can be stored for times of necessity. 

As a mythological figure, Tyr is often cast as an aging warrior who’s body bears many long healed wounds, most notably the amputation of his sword hand. Many sagas can be told about the adventures of a younger, more foolhearty Tyr which highlight the warrior’s many hardwon lessons, leading up to his sacrifice of his hand in an attempt to stop an apocalyptic event (though sources debate on which one). 

Adventure Hooks: 

To avert their own apocalyptic event, the party is told to seek a relic of Tyr that just so happens to be in the possession of a semi-retired adventurer. Said oldtimer happens to be a bit of an isolationist coot, and wants test the party’s character by seeing how they manage in the harsh environment he’s chosen to sequester himself in. If they force the issue, they’ll likely have to duel one of the greatest swordsmen of the age in a blizzard, but if they cooperate, they’ll have made an ally for life and gain a mentor in the process. 

Now in possession of a cursed enchanted blade that drives them to glory and danger, the party hears tell of a shrine to Tyr that collects such objects in the hopes of purifying them. Said shrine happens to be in the depths of some haunted moorlands, the site of a vast and ancient battle that still draws scavengers and specters to this day. 

An undead warrior haunted by a lifetime of misdeeds stumbles into town, repeatedly denied the rest of any afterlife. Taking hostages, he demands that the party take his blade to the local shrine of Tyr (up in the rocky highlands) and make offerings for him so that the god will relive him of his burdens. After a hard trek to the shrine, the hermit who keeps vigil there points out that Tyr would never take such a dishonorable soul into his service. Blessing the blade with the power to slay undead, the hermit sends the party back to defeat the drauger and become champions of their village, planting a seed of valor that might one day grow into legend. 

Titles: The Marred god, Warden of Peace, Foremost among the Valorous 

Signs: Clusters of old weapons buried in the earth, cold wind, things that have been broken and remade.