Baba Kadiri !
May wonders never cease ! What a miracle ! That was most gracious of you. Suddenly, I am a good-hearted person! I should be indifferent to blame or praise, but I will sleep tight tonight. You are and as far as I have known you have always been a good-hearted person even if overzealous in your anti- corruption, what Adepoju would call your anti-corruption "ethos" and your commitment to keeping Nigeria ONE…
You say that, " Sentimentalists think with the heart and realists think with the brain."
I am tired and want to go to bed.
Generosity, generosity,
What do you think that Mister Hitler was thinking with?
Now, please bear with me about this, "The heart, not the head is the seat of the intellect" It's difficult enough explaining the most simple things to Oyibos who believe that if it is from "Egypt" and not from Holy Mt. Zion then it must all be juju and " witchcraft. I tell a Pakistani Muslim Nationalist about Kundalini Yoga and he does not want to hear; he says It's from the devil! and that the Hindus drink the cow's urine as a medicine.
I'm talking to you, but not only to you...
There are many varying traditions about the heart being the seat of the intellect. I am mostly acquainted with the Hindu and Sufi traditions about this. In my Hindu Baba's autobiography " Chitshakti Vilas" - he details his phenomenal/ spiritual experiences on his path to self-realisation and Satguru-hood.That journey in Siddha Yoga, (based on Kashmir Shaivism) a rather traditional one follows the path of the Kundalini from Muladhara to the Sahasra Chakra. In Baba's case the journey terminated in the Sahasrara - somewhere above the top of his head. I lived in Baba's Ashram for several months in New York in 1976 and 1979 and in India in 1977 in perfect celibacy/ Brahmacharya ( to attain to the status of Avadhut - when the seminal fluid flows upwards - to nourish the brain), worked in the Ashram kitchen / Guruseva) in New York and in the Garden , in India - around the time that Diana Ross visited. The daily practice was chanting slokas in Sanskrit from the Shiva Mahimna Stotra and the Guru Gita , ajapa- japa mantra repetition and of course lots of morning and evening meditation. It would interest you to know that Baba visited me (in the spirit in Nigeria in 1981 ) - a very real experience - after he took Mahasamadhi. A few days later I was sitting at the dinner table with my neighbour Mr. Prasad , a very dark Skinned Telugu, a Physics teacher ( from Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh) when he told me that he had been reading The Hindu that afternoon and Lo and Behold had found Baba's obituary there - so my Baba had departed from this world realm - then I understand that's why he had visited me, it was just to say Goodbye.
Baba Muktananda's teaching was quite simple: "See God in each other. Honour your Self. Worship your Self. Meditate on your Self. God dwells within you as you"
It may interest you to know that a years later when I read Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell - his astral experiences of the lower worlds were close to some of what baba describes in his own autobiography. Last week I attended a book event at NK Ernst Brunner's freshly penned book Darra - about Swedenborg and was quite depressed to hear him tell us that towards the very end of his life Swedenborg had believed himself to be the Messiah…. When I got back to Sweden there were all kinds of missionary rumours about Baba, in my opinion, not to be taken seriously….
But back to this head versus heart business. One of Baba's students - at the time by the name of Bubba Free John , had apparently completed his own personal journey and it was his wont to publicly contradict Baba, that the journey did not end at the Sahara - but once again curved down , back to the heart ( the anahata chakra) and that that's where the journey terminated and according to him is supposed to terminate for those on that path. There he was , setting himself above his teacher. And also said somethings that he was not supposed to have said about some of some of the female "angels" that he has met on the way.
Fortunately for me, Dr, Bajpai ( a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Port Harcourt, had explained it all to me)
Now when it comes to Sufism, the heart is definitively the seat of the intellect. I think that the accomplished fakir/ Sufi , thinks with ( for lack of a better word, with his " heart-brain"
About love poetry, the last line of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella 1: Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show gives the answer
From poetry to the very sensitive part of your enquiry about the milk of human kindness., Chesed
"
In the Judgment of Solomon also dramatised in Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle the real mother, as with most sweet mothers is thinking with her "heart-brain"
In Luke,11: 11 Jesus asks, ""Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?"
And in Matthew, he asks, ""Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?"
Last but not least, let's take Ojogbon Falola as an example, an example that's near, at hand: Reading Ojogbon Falola's many eulogies and fulsome praise , acknowledgement and encouragement of others, I intuit that he is a highly developed being, on many occasions, writing and thinking from the seat of his intellect, from the enormous resources of his "heart-brain"
On Sunday, 24 September 2017 00:01:50 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:
Rabbi Hamelberg,
Thank you for your explanation. You are a good-hearted person!!
However, I am puzzled to read the following from you: N.B. The heart, not the head is the seat of the intellect. It follows that a sentimental person that thinks with the heart will attempt to hug a person hanging a living cobra as a necklace around the neck. The consequence would be the sting of cobra and death of the sentimentalist. Whereas, a person that thinks with the head (brain) will rather greet a person with a life cobra necklace at distance so as to avoid being stung into six feet deep down the earth. Sentimentalists think with the heart and realists think with the brain.
S. Kadiri
Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 23 september 2017 23:02
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's QuoteBaba Kadiri,
Really, this is getting tedious. I don't crave that you respect me, but please, PLEASE, please respect yourself. First of all, I am a strong believer in Ahimsa, and just like Danny Glover, I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't want to execute, hang, lynch, kill or drown anyone, not even your baboon or Ogun's sacrificial animal man's best friend, the dog, in yon Lagos Lagoon.
Second of all, I don't masturbate. As to "intellectual", I am not one.
I understand that your problem may be that you are mostly used to reading factual literature, not fiction and there too, there's quite a range - apart from Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Teju Cole, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the other Nigerian greats. I on the other hand am fond of writing you friendly letters which you unfortunately misunderstand and of course do not find amusing. This is what I said and maybe due to your lack of comprehension or appreciation, I should translate it into your Yoruba dialect so that you may better comprehend the tone and texture of what I said as it it should be comprehended by normal users of Her Majesty's English or even the cowboy versions. Or maybe I should try to approach your Majesty in the Buckingham Palace version of Nigerian English?
Although I have previously tried to explain to you exactly what I meant, this is what you have translated to mean My FATWA - your words. " you actually sentenced me to the same fate as Ken Saro-Wiwa because of what I have been saying in the forum!! "
What I said:
"Without freedom of speech you wouldn't be able or free to say some of the things that you say in this forum and get away with it. You know that under some kinds of military rule you could have been hanged like Ken Saro-Wiwa or faced the firing squad more than once, before which hanging - God forbid - we would have heard Baba Kadiri beat his chest and proclaim like Nathan Hale, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!" or be gunned down in broad daylight in Owerri or like Dele Giwa open a parcel that explodes in your face for merely singing,
"Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny,
And in this judgement there is no partiality…"
Or for merely saying, "Biafra must be free!
gunned down in cold blood because it is "unconstitutional" or because such freedom is "non-negotiable" according to President Buhari , because of an old Lugardian decree that imposed African unity on Nigeria, on you and him, the way that some people would like to see a reunion of North and South Korea, Israel and the Palestinians under Ottoman rule, maybe North South Sudan too…
Let us be thankful to the Almighty for freedom of expression without which there would be so much locked up in our heads and yearning to be free. Let us also thank Him for the right to peaceful assembly – at least that's the way it's supposed to be, without being gunned down by the so called custodians of the peace."
Where in a court of law would you be able to persuade your lawyer that what you just read is tantamount to the sort of Fatwa that was passed on Salman Rushdie's head?
Typical: You also misrepresent me by attributing to me words that I did not write.
I wrote what you quote : " in the final analysis, it is up to the Igbos themselves, the Igbos spread throughout the Naija Federation and beyond, to decide for themselves if they want to have their Biafra or not to have their Biafra. To have a divorce or not."
You ask, surprisingly, "I don't know from where you got your information that the Igbos in Nigeria have decided to secede from Nigeria."
Where did I write that " The Igbos in Nigeria have decided to secede from Nigeria"?
Since you are such a stickler for language, truth and logic, please-read! What I said was "In other words, it may be foolish – from your point of view ( you want for your brother every good thing that you want for yourself etc) - but in the final analysis it is not up to you and Buhari and the Naija military - in the final analysis it is up the Igbos themselves, the Igbos spread throughout the Naija Federation and beyond, to decide for themselves if they want to have their Biafra or not to have their Biafra. To have a divorce or not."
Since a referendum has not yet been held, we are not yet in a position to know that "The Igbos" ( a majority of them?) have decided to leave the Federal Republic of Nigeria… for good...
True: In my dream world I may have created a chicken out of feather. You know that Jesus turned water into wine and not only that - as Leonard Cohen sang,
"And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone…" (Suzanne)
I like the lines of this love song - a lover's complaint , even better - lines from The Master Song
"And he took you up in his aeroplane,
Which he flew without any hands,
And you cruised above the ribbons of rain
That drove the crowd from the stands.
Then he killed the lights in a lonely Lane
And, an ape with angel glands,
Erased the final wisps of pain
With the music of rubber bands."
Finally , Baba Kadiri, I don't think that it has to be necessarily as you say, when you say to me, " so must it be unreasonable for you as a Saro man to love my fellow countrymen/women, the Igbos, than me."
However, it's not something that I would like to argue about.
Love? " Saro Man"? " Niger Man"? "Pan-African Man" ?
As Rumi the Sufi poet put it:
"When I come to Love, I am ashamed of all
That I have ever said about Love"
( Extracted from " In The Paradise of the Sufis)
N.B. The heart , not the head is the seat of the intellect...
On Saturday, 23 September 2017 20:58:10 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:Rabbi Hamelberg,
In your Fatwa of 11 September 2017, posted on this forum, you actually sentenced me to the same fate as Ken Saro-Wiwa because of what I have been saying in the forum!! Your Fatwa has nothing to do with òmòwé Ìjìnlè (learned Professor) Falola.
I am yet to learn how to engage in intellectual masturbation like you, therefore, I will limit myself to the issue of the Igbos secession from Nigeria in this response.
You wrote, "..... in the final analysis, it is up to the Igbos themselves, the Igbos spread throughout the Naija Federation and beyond, to decide for themselves if they want to have their Biafra or not to have their Biafra. To have a divorce or not."
I don't know from where you got your information that the Igbos in Nigeria have decided to secede from Nigeria. The main Igbo States in South Eastern Nigeria, each with a democratically elected Governor and State Assembly and Local Government Councils, are Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. None of the Igbo State's Assemblies has passed a resolution demanding secession from Nigeria and no Igbo State Governor has individually or collectively with others demanded secession from Nigeria. In your dream world, you have created a chicken out of a feather. Congratulation, chop your chicken!
While it is not up to me or Buhari or even the Nigerian constitution to prevent any ethnic group to severe relationship with Nigeria, it is my civic duty to point out that reasons tendered by the few Igbo ethnic chauvinists for secession (marginalization and persecution) are false, because Igbos are everywhere in Nigeria thrivin
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