In Baghdad, dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, dreaming of Baghdad

11:38 and I have not yet begun to move out of the just-got-out-of-bed stage. Wishing should've-showered-yesterday was a did-shower-yesterday.
To make a conscious effort on my part to do anything has required months of preparation, but now there is nothing to go after. Or perhaps there is, but I do not have the foresight to see it through. To forget about the future would be a great great help right now. Maybe something would be accomplished. I suppose things are being accomplished, but it's difficult to see them as they are. In other words, it's easier to look back and see an accomplishment (usually done by nothing of my own actual ability) than it is to witness something in the moment.
A passionate prayer is perfect honesty. One is admitting their own wrong doing and/or realizing their own power is far too small for something. Their also allowing help from a source they would not care to admit was in their life beforehand, or at least to much a degree, and they are asking for genuine guidance with anything that they feel needs correcting. One is also asking for a love that can only be given by the root source of all love, instead of a more tainted love by which most humanity lives. When someone is given what they have asked for in prayer that they felt was necessary to ask for for their own well-being or growth, that person may see it as an ecstatic celebration, a quiet joyful gratitude, or in a worse case, "coincidental". This has always frightened me that when something is given to me after I have asked for it in prayer that I would see it as "Well things seemed like they were going that way anyway, so I suppose it was going to happen regardless of my faith." This has not happened, but it is something that has only recently been acknowledged by myself as something I could think. I do not permit myself to think in such a way, because my life as a whole has been an exuberant affirmation (or quiet joyful gratitude) of my communication with God.
In childhood one holds the teachings of their parents at a great height, not necessarily because they believe their beliefs, but more from blind faith. This was my case as a younger person, but not the case toward the dreadful start of teenage years. My own curiosity and questions were answered by my willingness to see, or perhaps Gods willingness to present them to me. My naive state of mind at the beginning of this (what will certainly be) lifelong Q&A session has been junked over the past couple of years to what is in creation itself as an affirmation of my belief. I am constantly and powerfully given answers but I still need them always. Why? I could answer that myself if I were more awake. I ask myself to be silent. Be silent because God answers the questions you have, but if you talk, you drown him out, for he has a voice softer than your love for others. He will shout and awaken you in the most unexpected time, but you have to be willing to listen.

"What Jesus Runs Away From

The son of Mary, Jesus, hurries up a slope as though a wild animal were chasing him. Someone following him asks, "Where are you going? No one is after you." Jesus keeps on, saying nothing, across two more fields. "Are you the one who says words over a dead person, so that he wakes up?" I am. "Did you not make the clay birds fly?" Yes. "Who then could possibly cause you to run like this?" Jesus slows his pace.
I say the Great Name over the deaf and the blind, they are healed. Over a stony mountainside, and it tears its mantle down to the navel. Over non-existence, it comes into existence. But when I speak lovingly for hours, for days, with those who take human warmth and mock it, when I say the Name to them, nothing happens. They remain like rock, or turn to sand, where no plants can grow. Other diseases are ways for mercy to enter, but this non-responding breeds violence and coldness toward God. I am fleeing from that.
As little by little air steals water, so praise dries up and evaporates with foolish people who refuse to change. Like cold stone you sit on a cynic steals body heat. He doesn't feel the sun. Jesus wasn't running from actual people. He was teaching in a new way.
Christ is the population of the world, and every object as well. There is no room for hypocrisy. Why use bitter soup for healing when sweet water is everywhere?"-Rumi

Practice has been on a slope, and my hopes to attain it again were realized somewhat last night. The feeling of union of a person to their instrument can't be expressed in even the smallest fraction to someone who has not experienced that union before. A greater part of oneself is recognized in that moment and it has no equal between one person to another. Rather, it has equal, but it is not the same. A love from one person to another is inexpressible. The love between human and muse is another being altogether. A love between between two people does not need work at the start. It is simple, yet so complex that we can't explain it in words. This is why silence is necessary when in the presence of one that is greatly loved. Words fall short, no matter how articulate someone is, so the voice has to stop so the love can be cared for. In the same light the relationship between muse and person has to be cared for with silence from time to time so the muse can speak. This relationship requires a great deal of work from the very beginning, because the muse does not fall into our arms as a loved one might. We have to prepare, work on our patience, our timing, our technicality, our hearts, our minds, our hands, and our love for the music that is being played at the moment. When this love is cared for by patience and practice the muse understands that the individual is ready (a bold statement) to commit to that moment, if only very very briefly. This moment is thought of as a window or a door to that world that God intercedes and greets us in a more personal way than we have ever experienced, aside from the honest love from one person to another. This is what a musician strives for and suffers for. Without this the ego steps in. The ego can build skill, fame, false happiness, and may even give the impression of a real musical spark or two here and there. The ego will lie and cheat to get those things and fool us into thinking it can satisfy itself and still look good in the process. When the ego suffers and is beaten down, then the real work can begin. When this suffering begins, that's when we begin to pray honestly. We recognize our own faults and disabilities and understand our own weakness. Then and only then can God intercede for us. He is the only one that has the key to that door, and we have to be willing to knock when the rain starts to pour on our lonely street.

"...The Prophet has said that a true seeker must be completely empty like a lute to make the sweet music of Lord, Lord.
When the emptiness starts to get filled with something, the one who plays the lute puts it down and picks up another. There is nothing more subtle and delightful than to make that music.
Stay empty and held between those fingers, where where gets drunk with nowhere.
This man was empty, and the tears came. His habitual stubbornness dissolved. This is the way with many seekers.
They moan in prayer and the perfumed smoke of that floats into heaven, and the angel says, "Answer this prayer. This worshiper has only you and nothing else to depend on. Why do you go first to the prayers of those less devoted?"
God says, "By deferring my generosity I am helping him. His need dragged him by the hair into my presence. If I satisfy that, he'll go back to being absorbed in some idle amusement. Listen how passionate he is! That torn-open cry is the way he should live."-Excerpt from In Baghdad, dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, dreaming of Baghdad, Rumi