Body & Mind Training Center

Hair are used as a symbol for the brain also in Persian poetry, it would be an interesting onthological research to find out the origin of the use of this symbol. The part (hair )is used for the whole (head). From the saying "Wiseness comes from China" there is a nice game of words with the sentence "Wiseness comes from chin, the brain", so it comes out from ourselves. Also Kung fu was born in China, but it was brought there by Bodidharma, the monk with blue eyes, who was not chinese. And Perto'a's white hair is also a symbol for wiseness. The key that opens the city's door is wiseness. The brain in Persian poetry is often simbolised by a kernel of a nut for its physical resemblance or maybe because it is hidden inside the shell like the brain is hidden and protected by the skull and it contains the precious fruit produced bt the tree? It is such a fascinating culture...

Dear Valentina, thank you!

As I said in the first post:
Yaromeh said. "if I use the word 'chin', I mean the wrinkles of brain"
Chinese --> probably means "wise people"


So the message of Yaromeh could be:

"Wiseness is the key to access the Temple"
"Be a Wise person"

I would fancy that the walls could be the symbol of the Body, the Temple could be symbol of the Mind, and inside the Temple we access to our Spirit.

I think his message was perfect. As Kung Fu Ka, we need to grow at 360 degree. A warrior must be also wise, or he or she would just become a stupid war's machine or a puppet.

Dear Master Jalilzadeh and Hamrahan, please allow me to try to make an abstract of the 7 Valleys described in the wonderful poem of Farid Ad-din Attar, "the conference of the Birds".

As it is already been said, the 7 valleys are:

1- The Valley of the Quest

2- The Valley of Love

3- The Valley of Knowledge

4- The Valley of Detachment

5- The Valley of Unity

6- The Valley of Bewilderment and Stupefaction

7- The Valley of Poverty and Annihilation

1-VALLEY OF THE QUEST
In the first Valley it is said that once you get in, all the most difficoult trials will have to be passed, and the Morghs that started their journey in search of the Simorgh will feel this strong desire to the search grow bigger and bigger. In his longing to know this mystery, they will not be afraid of the dragons of the soul, and once the door will be open “Faith and Infidelity” won't exist anymore, because the door erase every distinction.
In this part of the book, Attar tells the story of a fool, that ask God to open that door for him. But Rabi'a, hearing his prayer answer him that that door has always been open, and he ask him so to open his eyes and keep on his aim.

2-VALLEY OF LOVE
In this valley is said you must be as a fire, love is the fire and the intellect is like the smoke. In order to be able to see the source of love, you must have has a gift a new eye, a new sight. And when this new eye will be open, you will get to know and share all the secrets of each atom of the universe

3-VALLEY OF KNOWLEDGE
Here the body and the mind separate. In front of each way they will have to get by, everyone will have to know his own limits. The aim for everyone is to reach the perfection and the level of intimacy with the source will correspond to the level of the pureness of the spirit. When the sun of the knowledge start to shine on this way, everyone will discover the top of himself.
Of his soul, everyone will be able to see only his pulp and no more just the peel
The only laws will be blood and sacrifice.

4-VALLEY OF DETACHMENT
When you enter the valley of the detachment, you take distance from everything, No more illusions, no more reality. Everything here cease to exist, but is said you don't have to get worried.
Here everything has been, is and will be, is neither good nor evil. Every atom is merely a drop of water in the sea of the devine magnanimity.
Here every past experience won't be of aid, you will just have to maintain the detachment and the indipendence, and you will see the Universe disappear.

5-VALLEY OF UNITY
Here you will find the stations of segregation and isolation. Everything is pure unity, every duality is inconceivable and there is no sense to say “I” and “You”. The part and the whole will be indistiguishables, and every form won't be neither spirit not material.
As long as a slight signof duality will exist, only a fragile assocaition will originate.mBut when the duality disappear then will shine the sun of pure Unity.

6-VALLEY OF BEWILDERMENT AND STUPEFACTION
The stupefaction is symbol of a ancient reminiscence of a lost unity of the soul with the divine. Here when this lost reminescence takes place, begins to reign anxiety and a sting of pain, and those who has impressed in his soul the seal of unit here will loose every trace of reality and of himself too.

7-VALLEY OF POVERTY AND ANNIHILATION
Here every shadow is undone in one sun. If an Impure sink in the sea of the All, he will remain inside the boundaries of himself. If a Pure dive in this sea , he will disappear to himself too.his beauty will be perfect, having ceased to exist.
A Master gives this advide to his pupil: decrease yourself and then further reduce yourself and in this decrease disappear.

When the birds realised that the burden of their mission was too heavy for their tiny shoulders,their souls became restless and many gave up their lives in the very first stage. and the rest advanced with patience and courage, and continued their march for years. Several died on the way; others were drowned in the sea. Of the millions of Birds that started the journey only 30 reahed for the final goal. They were weary and worn, they were without feathers, without hair, full of pain and agony. Heart-broken, soul-stricken.Then flashed the lightning of independence and a hundred worlds were consumed in one instant.

Then a came a messenger of divine grace. A messenger of the court was to open the doors and raised one hundred thousand veils, showing the birds an unknown world.He invited them to sit on the throne of intimacy and handed them a parchment asking them to read to the last word. In that parchment was described our painful condition. They saw that there was described every single phase of their existence.

Their souls reduced themselves to ashes, and a stupefaction opened their mind. The shining sun of the intimacy reflected on them and his rays were reflected in the mirror of their souls. In the image of the Simorgh they contemplate
In the face of the Simorgh they saw the world, and from the world they saw emerge the face of the Simorgh. They realized that “I” and “You” appears united, that everything that was seen or done never really happened, and that even the 7 valleys never existed, and they all have walked without deviating from their action.

At the end the guide and the travelers had vanished becoming themselves the Path.

It is fantastic dear Patrizia, I will add it to Simorgh section.
Thank you.

Thank you so much dear Ostad Jalilzadeh! This is a great honor and a big pleasure for me.

Now that we have an extract, I wish to analize it and to link it to Kung Fu To'a, because I see a great number of things really close to those concepts.

It has been already said somewhere that the 7 valley represent the 7 mumayies and the trials we have to pass through to become "whole", as persons and as Kung Fu Ka.

The first concept I see is in the Valley of the Quest.
We know that “To'a” is a call, a request for something more. We ask for more learning, more support, more power in our training, more happiness (see the post on “Question” # 4166). This desire and this request is very alike the longing for the research of the Simorgh that we find in the beginning of the journey. To'a should also be an invitation, and as it has been explained by Ostad Assar in the post #824, it represent the call to take the first step on this path, like someone is saying “Come” to us, and we answer back to the invitation after having it heard, inviting him to come to us. This reminds me the story of the fool, that pray for the door to be open and recieve the answer that the door is always been open, it is up to us to enter. In this sense, Anattawa means “YOU”, you as beginner of the movement. It is up to us to start the changing in our life, to take the challenge or not, to decide to take or not the first step. And this decision it taken and reinforced at the end of Anattawa when we say "Atado-Yaromeh-To'a", while we hit waima duma right to the side and the left fist is taken to the right chest.

Another concept we can find is in the Valley of Love, and can be related to Atado.
As we know,in Atado we should know ourself and the surrounding. But this knowledge has a double link. To know ouself, we need to find the world inside us, and to understand the world, we need to find ourself in it. This means that every distinction vanishes, exactly as it is said in the Valley of love, where love is the fire, and intellect is the smoke, meaning that it is something that the reason cannot reach.

In the Valley of the Knowledge we find a parallel to Suto Kung Fu Ka, the third mumay. Suto makes us brave and gain logic, and we get to know our limits. The same concept is explained in the third Valley. Here is said that everybody has the aim to reach the perfection and to know his own limits, to go upon them! But of course to do it you need to scarifice youself and to work hard for it.

The Valley of Detachment i think is also linkable to Samsamaeh, when we get to know the fastest way to the target. To do it we need to “cut” all is unnecessary, and to take distance from it. In this Valley we take distance from eveything because all the past experiences won't be of any help.

The Valley of the Unity, should be the 5th, but I wouldn't put it in relation to Mayana, and nobody ever said that Yaromeh built the Mumayies following the concept of the Poem, but anyway I see a strong conncetion with two things:one is "Bato". When we take the sash off, the Master of the class says: “Bato Kung Fu Kai”, that means “with you”. We must be as one! In the Valley of unity we see there is no sense to say “I” or “you”, the part and the Whole will be indistinguishable. And the Master and the Hamrahan must be united in the same way. This is a call also for the loyalty, and I think it can also be linked to the closing of Suto Kung Fu ka, the third mumay, when we show our loyalty to Yaromeh.

Why is so important to be united? The answer is readable from Attar himself: as long as a slight sign of duality will exist, only a fragile association will originate! A strong association require Unity. Unity with the devine we are called to search inside of us, a unity that will be the result of the journey of the Morgh through the valley in search for the Simorgh, the unity of the Hamrahan on the Path.

The valley of stupefaction represent the reminescence of the lost unity of the soul and the devine.This is the 6th Valley, and it can be realted in my point of view to Kuana. In this Mumay we are looking for the contrast, to see the differences in the world. But when we see the differences, we see also the distance, the opposite of the Unity that we are looking for. I think this can be related to the sense of anxiety and sting of pain that characterizes the Valley of Stupefaction, where as I said there is a reminescence of a unity that is lost and for this reason is painful.

The last valley is the Valley of Annihilation. Easily linkable to Waima Mato and Kondraji. Here we find the union with the All. So while in Anattawa we discover the union of the Body and Mind (YOU), as in with Gado Kondrajy we are united with all the surrounding, the world and the universe itself. When this happens, every atom sink in his Sun and become one, united, and disappear as individual.

The Simorgh represent the union of the 30 Birds that started the journey and developed a ”macro consciousness”. The trials where just to make them awake from a dream where every Bird existed as individual, separated from himself, and separated from the All. At the end of the journey they become a “Whole”, united inside theirself, united with the others, united with the devine that is inside and calls for us.
So...it is a call to awake from something like a dream in which we are separate to awake to another reality where we are united. And only then, we are really awake. In this sense, I remember Ostad Assar said something alike. While we are awake we are sleeping, and we have to wake up from a "sleeping awakeness".

But there is one last concept I found, and that I wish to share, and that is related to the sash.

As we know, the sash at the beginning is white, and only after Anattawa test the student is part of the To'a family and is welcomed with the double knot. But after having learned the 7 mumayies and passed the test of the black sash, this knot is no more necessary to be done, because To'a is part of him, and he doesn't need anymore to do it.
And Attar at the end of the Poem state that the guide and the travelers vanished becoming themself the Path. This makes me think of a fusion, a unity that doesn't need any knots to seal it.

Dear Ostad Jalilzadeh, I was doing a little thinking about the birds in the poem of Attar, and I wish to share it with you and my Hamrahan.

In the poem we follow the journey of the Morgh along the 7 valleys in search for the Simorgh.
It is said that since the dawn of Creation the inhabitants of every city had had a king or a leader, but this was not true for the “feathered souls”. A meaningful interpretation of the group of travellers I found in internet describe them as an army without a general, that had to fight the battle of life without a guide.
The group was formed by the hoopoe (Hodhod), wagtail, parrot, partridge, falcon, quail, nightingale, peacock, pheasant, dove, hawk,and the goldfinch. All this birds are symbol of something that i wish to analize further in the next days.

To guide the Morgh along the path, which is symbol of the sufi pilgrimage in search for the Lord of creation (the Simorgh), is the Hoopoe. This bird is symbol of the messanger of the Truth, for the role she played at the court of Solomon, being the intermediate between the Queen of Saba and Solomon himself.

The Hoopoe reveil in the conclave that they have a king, that she is a messenger of the Divine, and have had the knowledge of the Creation and its secrets and to be willing to come back to the court, but that she has not enough strenght to start the journey alone. So she starts to describe the Simorgh and how He made his first apparence on earth.

“During the early days of Creation He passed one midnight in His radiant flight over the land of China. A feather from His wing fell on Chinese soil. Instantly there was great tumult throughout the world. Everyone was seized with a desire to take a picture of that feather, and whoever saw the picture lost his senses. That feather is still in China’s picture-gallery. ‘Seek knowledge, even in China’ points to this.”

At this point the birds are willing to start the journey and to go in search for the Simorgh, but when they realized that the travel would have been long and difficoult they started to be taken by anxiety and add excuses to avoid to start the path, and ask the Hoopoe how could they be strong enough to endure the travel.

The birds are frightened by the vision of life, the were able to see the path but not the end of the path. So they decide to start to question the Hoopoe about the rules and etiquette of the court, untill a bird asked her what made her different from them.

The Hoopoe answers that her blessing comes from the fact that she had a glance from Solomon for a moment.
This position has not been attained by mere devotion and service, or by spending silver and gold. All this good fortune is the result of a favourable glance, and she answers them that in order to be touched by his glance they should spend their life in devotion and await the grace of Solomon.