Returning to India this year to perform at the Sufi Sutra Festival fills me with happiness. We will be performing our show ZIK’R first in Dhaka, then in Goa and Kolkata. We are very honoured to be taking part in this long standing event and look forward to sharing experiences with all the wonderful performers from all over the world that we will meet during our journey to this beautiful land.
Yes, I feel I will learn so much during this trip to India…
My soul is that of a devotee, of a being dedicated to her spiritual search. Going to India is like digging more deeply into layers of earth that lie within me, bands of knowledge that have built up during my life: And digging the soil, I’ll discover other deeper layers, those laid down during all my lives in many worlds, both those I can imagine and those that remain unimaginable.
These might be worlds that I have set foot on with my physical force, or perhaps only with spiritual force, or maybe they are virtual worlds, who knows! But it is certain that we all are an accumulation of these moments, these spaces of experiences in the self, these bits of wisdom that belong to us or to the cosmos – to this consciousness. It’s a consciousness to which we all belong and that we ceaselessly seek throughout ignorant lives.
We fight this ignorance in us, imposed on us by our civilisation.
Why do we all have to live in this ignorance, the belief that we are all separate? – Why must we always wake up in the midst of pain and suffering, believing in the misfortune this ignorance brings us? It leaves us feeling so far from happiness, so far away from fraternity, from that energy that gathers us into happiness and love. Why must we believe this strong creed of disconnection, that all is separation? Why do we believe that nothing resembles ourselves, why do we always seek the protection of a mother/a father far away from our selves?
We have all forgotten to love, to believe in our ‘self’, to look inside the self and find that we are all connected because we are all joined in our hearts to one another. The heart of all the world remains in peace in each of us.
But only few understand …
Think of our children who are shocked by life when they are so young – we inflict on them the belief that they are alone. And so left lonely they seek emotional comfort all their lives. And then some religions, the most manipulative belief systems absorb all these saddened beings, who are completely blinded by their suffering. And by claiming that their way is the only way, these religions reinforce our feelings of separation from each other, and from the divine within us and beyond us.