Reading for Sunday, September 20, 2009
Healing Papers
Volume 2, Number 1, Lesson 11
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The breath is like a swing which has a continual motion, and whatever is put into the swing, swings also, with the movement of the breath.
Fikar*, therefore, is not a breathing practice. In fikar it is not necessary that one should breathe in a certain way, different from one’s usual breathing. Fikar is becoming conscious of the natural movement of the breath, and picturing breath as a swing, putting in that swing a certain thought, as a babe in the cradle, to rock it. Only the difference in the rocking is that it is an intentional activity on the part of the person who rocks the cradle, and in fikar no effort must be made to change the rhythm of the breath; the breath must be left to its own usual rhythm. One need not try even to regulate the rhythm of the breath, for the whole mechanism of one’s body is already working rhythmically. So breath is rhythmical by nature, and it is the very breath itself which causes man to distinguish rhythm.
What is important in fikar is not the rhythm, but the concentration. Fikar is swinging the concentrated thought with the movement of the breath, for breath is life and it gives life to the thought which is repeated with the breath. On the rhythm of the breath the circulation of the blood and the pulsation of the heart and head depend, which means that the whole mechanism of the body, also of the mind, is directed by the rhythm of the breath.
When a thought is attached to the breath by concentration, then the effect of that thought reaches every atom of one’s mind and body. Plainly speaking, the thought held in fikar runs with the circulation of the blood through every vein and tube of the body, and the influence of that thought is spread through every faculty of the mind. Therefore the reaction of the fikar is the resonance of the same thought expressing itself through one’s thought, speech and action. So in time the thought one holds in fikar becomes the reality of one’s self. So the person who contemplates on God in time arrives at a state where one's self turns into the being of God.
*Editors' note: Within the context of Sufi meditative practice, Hazrat Inayat Khan used the term fikar (or fikr) to describe silent repetition of a sacred word or phrase (wazifa).
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