22 August 2020

Paul and I arrived in the early afternoon. The atmosphere here is electrically peaceful. After meeting David, Mary and later Aaron, we went for a walk with the dogs Zita and Zulfi.

SFH appeared halfway through our stroll and we joined him. His first comment to me had to do with people looking for enlightenment, or some kind of attainment. There is none to be had.

He said that our age is not about your colour or creed or community: it is about you. Which is deeply selfish, but what is most selfish is also selfless, and this is the first key he offered me. Having realised this, there is simply peace. And with that peace comes both beauty and majesty, and a cautious awareness born of the unification of your selfish outlook with the realisation that there is no you.

We continued on our walk and SFH told us some of the history of the farm, as well as his own involvement with it. We meandered between the pecan nut trees and he had us harvest as many as we could find lying on the ground. He was incredibly sharp and attentive: much better at finding the camouflaged nuts in the dusk light than I was. He spoke a little about his family and how the children dispersing left him with less motivation to keep working on the farm.

As he leant down to pick up another pecan he opened his eyes widely, looked directly at me and said, “It’s all about honesty. 100% honesty!” It was like being hit by lightning.

Who are you going to lie to if you don’t exist?

We carried on walking and he shared some generous words with Paul about being missed and how happy he was to see him again. He noted how kind Paul was to let SFH “nag” him all these years, “Which is really a kind of self accusation anyway”. He asked us to complete a project for him by researching some Quantum Mechanics and the most modern discoveries in order to use them as a gate for young people to understand Oneness. While discussing this he noted how the void, the emptiness, the nothingness is really inexplicably and utterly full, “buzzing with life”.

We began to round the house, now well after sunset; the horizon still red and gold, but the wider sky navy blue, moving into black. The new crescent moon was clearly visible above us, smiling in her silent rounds.

SFH spoke a little about how they manage water - “water is really the heart of it, at the very core of any farm” - and then looked up and greeted the moon.

“It is a dark rock, and yet it shines! How is that so?”

The question was directed at me. I was tongue-tied and had to admit ignorance. Why does the moon actually shine? I had never thought to ask such a simple question. He laughed, joked about how he was “seeking knowledge” and what help were we? He pretended to be disappointed. We continued up and around the house to take in the vista over the valley where the sun had set, the whole world purely and vibrantly and brilliantly alive.

He enquired after our families, laughing about “our poor parents” who had raised us with such care just to find we are renegades who only want truth. “There is no you!” We all laughed.

SFH spoke about double perfection and double joy. To see how things connect within the world of cause and effect and exercise the mind in order to most optimally align with them, and then to see with another eye how everything is always already aligned; how there is the touch of perfection within everything, and behind everything, and before everything, and after everything, and right now.

We can constantly calibrate with this and recharge ourselves with and in silence.

We cannot deny our humanity: living it fully is the only way to recognise divinity and remember what it is that this whole story is really about.

Having said this, we stood in silence for a precious and timeless moment on that hill, some palm trees softly swishing behind us, the horizon lit up before us, the first stars blinking through above us, the shining rock smiling at this serenity.

We slowly turned back and made our way towards the house again. We shared a few more small and perfect words, I complimented the dogs and SFH gave each of us a single pecan he had gathered earlier. It was still warm to the touch.

“He said: What is the hidden letter?
I said: Knowledge that leads to reality.
He said: What is the act?
I said: Sincerity.
He said: What is reality?
I said: That through which you disclose yourself.
He said to me: What is sincerity?
I said: Toward your countenance!
He said: What is self-disclosure?
I said: What you encounter in the hearts of your friends.”

-- Muhammad Niffari