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The Empty Bell Volume 7 The Lectures of Irina Tweedie The Empty Bell Volume 7 German Lectures: Bern, Switzerland April, 1987 Translated, Compiled and Edited by Harvey L. Stahl Make your heart Like an empty bell, And wait… In stillness. During the time that Mrs. Tweedie was with her teacher, she was ordered by him to write a book based on the daily experiences of her training. That book, “Daughter of Fire” and its abridgement “Chasm of Fire” has since proved an invaluable help to many people at all stages of the spiritual journey. Since that time, Mrs. Tweedie has clearly and repeatedly refused to write anything more, saying that her duty to write was fulfilled with this one book. And yet, those of us who have had the privilege to spend time with Mrs. Tweedie in her group in London, know that over the years she has spoken on many themes that are not in her book. It is to make some of this material available to others that I have compiled dialogues based on her lectures. I have focused on her German lectures because these have been especially inaccessible to the English reader. I wish to make it clear that although these pages are based on Mrs. Tweedie’s lectures, and that I have tried to convey this material in something of her own style, that ultimately they are my own words, and alas, are limited by my own understanding. I would like to thank the many people who have given me support and encouragement in this undertaking, especially Liselotte Treytl, from Vienna who took the time and care to meticulously review all of the translations in this volume for content and context and to correct my limited German, And Gillian Stokes for her final review of volume’s contents. And lastly and most of all, I wish to express my deepest respect and gratitude to my teacher. Contents The Legend of Garuda........................................................ 3 Sufi Healing......................................................................... 13 The Relationship between Teacher and Disciple................ 27 Questions and Answers...................................................... 37 Pregnant with God.............................................................. 51 No Other Way to Go............................................................ 67 Dryness of the Brain............................................................ 75 Cover Photograph: Chinese Bell, Chou Dynast, 5th century BC. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Copyright © 1997 H. L. Stahl. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopy recording or any information storage system without the written permission of the publisher. Edited for digital formats: July 2019 Email contact: [email protected] 3 The Lectures of Irina Tweedie Bern Seminar of 1987: Part 1 The Legend of Garuda Based on a Series of Lectures given in Bern, Switzerland In April of 1987 (Mrs. Tweedie begins the seminar as if from far away, in a deep and living state of peace and communion.) And we feel love in our hearts – the love for the Great Beloved, our only friend; the friend of our soul – just for a few minutes … just to bring us into the right attunement. (There is a period of deep silence.) May deep, deep peace be with you. Thank you. You know, Sufis often begin with a story or a legend or a fairy tale, and so I would like to tell you a beautiful legend: a story about the bird Garuda. Actually, there are several legends about this great bird – I think that there are six different ones all together. There are several Hindu stories, but this one seems to have a Persian influence and is particularly lovely. Some of the tales of Garuda are rather gruesome, but this is a very beautiful one. You might ask, “What does this have to do with the theme of this seminar?” I have said that I would speak about the relationship between the teacher and the disciple, and this might not seem to fit. But it is somewhat connected, because I will have to speak about sound – Sufis work with sound – and this story is related to that. So, now I would like to tell you this story. We all know that the Hindu Trinity has three aspects. The first of these aspects is Shiva the destroyer – one must always destroy to be able to build something new. You can never build without first destroying, at least something. Even if you begin fresh – if you begin, so to speak, with nothing – you must still, as if rake up that nothing in order to build something, just as in the way you must disturb the soil to lay a foundation. So there is Shiva the destroyer, and then there is Vishnu, the sustainer, the protector. This aspect of the protector is the principle of Christ within us. And there is Brahma the creator. And everything in the universe has these three aspects. Now, as a small interesting aside, there are hundreds of thousands of temples for Shiva and for Vishnu, but only one single temple that is dedicated to Brahma. It is somewhere in the middle of India, but I do not remember exactly where it is. Brahma is the mysterious, the unknown: the Creator. And it is very difficult for the ordinary human to pray to such a being. Somehow, Shiva and Vishnu are closer to us. Now to come to the story about Garuda. Garuda is the vehicle of Vishnu. Vishnu rides Garuda, and he rides him through time. So Garuda is the bird of time. Look at how interesting this is. Vishnu is Irina Tweedie The Empty Bell Volume 7 4 the sustainer and the protector, and one of his incarnations is Krishna, the God of Love, so he is also the God of Love. That means that everything, even love, develops and works in time. I find that these Indian legends are incredibly fascinating So Vishnu rides on the bird of time. And all of Vishnu’s abilities are limited by time, just as love is limited by time. You see, the love of this world – even when you love terribly, when you love with your whole being – this love will one day end. Sometimes love turns sour, sometimes one is forsaken or abandoned. And even if you love someone perfectly, they will still die. One of the partners will die, and usually one dies before the other. So, as I have said, Vishnu rides in time. Now, Garuda is very large, larger than an albatross, and one says that an albatross or condor can have a wingspan of more than fifteen feet. Garuda is snow-white and flies faster than the wind. “Garuda laughs at the wind,” according to the Hindu scriptures. His feathers are so soft that he flies without a sound. And he only flies in the night, and no one is able to see him: no human can see him with these earthy eyes. Now, Garuda has brown, human eyes, and he sings very softly – you see how beautifully poetic all of this is – he sings so very softly, and this song is completely primitive. There are only two different tones, two different vowels: ‘Ah’ and ‘Uu’. They are the original sounds, the source sounds. Everything in nature is either an ‘Ah’ or an ‘Uu’. The first cry of a newborn child is an ‘Aaaaaaa’, and the last sigh of a dying man is ‘Uuuuuu’. ‘Ah’ is the sound of life, of being; ‘Uu’ is the sound of departing, of ending, of death. You see, every animal, everything in nature is either ‘Ah’ or ‘Uu’. The fox sounds like ‘Aa-uu aa-uu aa-uu’. Deer and dogs and cats say, ‘Bowow’ (B-Ah-Uu Ah-Uu) and meow. (Me-Ah-Uu) You see. Almost every animal makes these ‘Ah’ or ‘Uu’ sounds. And the wind sighs: ‘Uu-uu-uu’. ‘Ah’ is the sound of affirmation, of joy. ‘Uu’ is – or can be – the sound of sadness, of fear, of longing. For example, dogs and hyenas and wolves howl at the moon in the night: ‘Uuuuuuu’. It is just as it is with writing. One always begins with a single point. When you set pen to paper, you always begin with a point. And in a similar way, every language has found its beginning with these two source sounds, ‘Ah’ and ‘Uu’. One says, “Allah.” That is joy; that is saying ‘yes’ to life. That is the ‘Ah’. And the ‘Uu’ signifies the departing from life: the last sigh. Even ‘Om’ is comprised of these. When you write ‘Om’ in Sanscrit, it is not ‘Om’ but rather ‘Ah-o-u-m’. And the ‘M’ brings this emotion into manifestation and fixes it here. “Ahhoouuummmmm” “Ahhoouummmmm.” The ‘m’ must come from the hara, to fix this state here, in this world. So, there is an ‘Ah’ and an ‘Uu’: the beginning and the end. When the Sufis want to create a special atmosphere in their meetings – their own atmosphere, that is very strong – one that no one can penetrate who is not a Sufi – perhaps someone who wants to create a disturbance – then the entire group will say: “Ah-uuu ah-uuu ah-uuu ah-uuu ah-uuu ah-uuu ah- uuu ah-uuu ah-uuu ah-uuu …” (The sound gets quite sharp and intense, and one can clearly feel something of its power.) Let us try it. We will create the atmosphere for our five days together. Perhaps one side of the room can say ‘Ah’ and the other side of the room can say ‘Uu’. Or should we all say both? How shall we do it? (Everyone wants to do both.) So we will all say it together.
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