I was quite certain that I should not openly film them, so I began zipping my phone through a mesh on my bag so that I could still record. All I thought about, was whether anything of this will come through, be translatable, be meaningful. Searching around was my moving head, to each and every glow of the room.
I listen back to the recording, from my spot in the corner, the observatory.
“First time?”
“Yes, I got lucky, I had no idea.”
“Yes, you did.”
I first started actively searching for the Sufis a year ago now, I guess initially much in the same way that one might hunt down a hidden café. Indeed, I also found a hidden café the afternoon that I stumbled into the Sufis in Istanbul. But I was not searching for that hidden café, and likewise, I had no clue what I was searching for.
The Café was on a corner northern point just outside of the Grand bazaar. I had walked around the visual haven for some time, and at each nook I found another person thinking they had been the first to find this nook too. I walked into another market, one in decay and silence. I walked up the stairs saw a woman taking photos through and of the shadows. I was close to stealing some fine metals, as I had snuck up the stairs of a workshop, and the craftsman hammering below had not seen me ascending, but I refrained. I fell through the shadows of this upstairs square ring of workshops and rubble. I found a room under construction, some panes of stained glass and stones which I began putting in my pockets. Inside was almost claustrophobic, until a man came into my space and in and behind my shoulders foreign words of Turkish were sent, which I assume would have said “What are you doing here?”
I listen to the cough and splutter of the lost man amongst the singing men.
I first heard of Sufis whilst in Kolkata, India 2017, where, a few lucky travellers went and met with a small local group, smoked chillums and swept themselves to bliss, through chants and dance, away with this everything, we, formless, float into trance.
In years further, I was scouring Iran for those who revered Rumi, the forefather of Sufism. I had a bunch of contacts saved as “Sufi Dude” & “Sufi Expert”, as I thought of narrowing in on this intimate experience into mystical Islam. The closest I came this time were simply those numbers, and smoking opium in an art hostel with musicians; perhaps this is as close to it as it were far away.
I remember the groan of that day which began at 3pm. But I was armed with the knowledge of a Sufi Tekke location, where I could witness a genuine ceremony, not one of the 100€ tours around the cities Sufi shrines. I attempted to visit Sophia Mosque for the 3rd time, it was closed again. So, I would ride these slow streets forever, amble with an inner smile along the tram tracks, knowing the experience tree would soon bear fruit.
I listen to my favourite part, where the pause in music sucked all of us in, the drumming returns, the crash symbols held together, the “Daf” laughing in the shrill of it’s perpetual brilliance.
For I have tasted the nectar before, we all have, haven’t we? Staring up at and into the stars, swept away into an inner smile by such distance. Alone but staring with them into the mountains that surround you. Being around peaceful people, feeling not the words rush out of your mouth. And you lie next to them, beaming at what wisdom they so easily clicked over for you, that this all may be horribly beautiful, drifting away, the relaxation caused in another’s absolute perfection. The stars and the friend. To the Sufis, it is Allah and Mevlana.
I remember feeling that I was quite certain that this were it. That as I left through the night’s streets, cycling through the maze the cars create, it was all reverberating, surprise is good. I found the Sufis.
Seeing is all the very same yet shies away when shimmering phenomenology explodes and the resin which permeates your marrows is utter feeling.
In searching one ventures and sieves though all grains of glass and sand, stumbling through the forest turning over crumbling stones and fingering the decaying capillaries of lifeless leaves; in discovering, one returns through their ruse and chuckles in the unblinking brilliance of a journey’s end.
Thinking was once droplets falling, now rushing, streaming and pouring down the myriad of river bends, realising then and there the perpetual dance between ocean, glacier and the air.
Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi
I arrived, walked past the windows of the tombs, found where the men split away from the women. I took off my shoes, and walked around the many men in White Hats, serving tea, smoking in dark rooms, handing out biscuits. Eventually, my horrible odour of tourist curiosity was taken note of, and I was taken to Baba Shems. He was seated next to what looked like the main chair in the room. The room filled with timber and golden picture frames of ornate verses from the Quran.
He spoke English, American English. He was the right-hand man of the Sheikh of this Tekke. “So, you found a website, from 1999, which said at this Tekke, every night on a Monday you can find a traditional Sufi ceremony and the whirling Dervishes?” He had taught art at a University in Cairo and had been a practicing Sufism through this Tekke for 30 years. He explained that not all Muslims are Sufis, but all Sufis are Muslims, “you can’t be a Sufi and not believe in Mohamed.” Damn, I thought.
“The previous Sheikh used to say, we don’t invite visitors inside here, but we will never turn one away.”
I was about to witness a Sema and Dhikr, after the Isha’a (evening prayer).
“I think you would most enjoy, a seat in that corner over there, where you can just observe, you will enjoy the music, and still be able to see the swirling Dervishes in the other room. Go on now, our prayer has finished.”
What exactly was I searching for, I still do not know. But the closest moment to when I found it, I’ll remember, vividly. After at least being there for an hour, surrounded by the experience and all the thoughts for much longer, it was after all the stress and worry, if I were in the right place among the right crowded room, in the right corner, with, the right people, who would allow me to belong right here too. After hearing their instruments swell together, after hearing the smile and glee in my ears, after the first notes of the kandor and lute guitar, after how they slowly collected all their voices, and I were collected too, I closed my eyes and caught a glimpse at something.
It was when I sat in my cramped corner, guarding my satchel on my lap, reflexively clenching onto something whilst every other sense was attempting to clench. Reflexively trying to record it all, see it all, hear it all, feel it all.
My frantic little head was thinking “this is why we travel!”
I do like this universe, this reality, the absurdness of it. That no one truly has a concrete answer for it. That mysticism is perhaps a conscious human interest, to be drawn to the allure of and be completely absorbed into “this”; to completely dissolve into god or the universe or nothing. For me, in the meantime, it is simply laughing and living in the absurd. No one has thus far given me a suitable answer for what this is, and I do not think it will be given. How are we to proceed from such an undercutting?
In this case, in the ambiguity of Sufism, I hunted them down until it were they whom surprised me.
It was not until I stopped reflexively clenching to the novelties of the experience that I began to consciously clench; I was going super Saiyan; I was about to spiritually send it.
The unknown intersection of the interest in searching for Sufism was about to collide with the mystical me laughing and living in the absolute absurd! Are you following the trajectory? I became a God, and I have a few things to say.
Done with consciously clenching, without even realising the white flag I had risen, engulfed, I closed my eyes. I Heard it all. Hundreds of men singing praise to their Allah and my universe. I saw it all. In the back of my eyes, there was nothing to see but all of it, I knew they were all still there, the universe singing sweet serenades to the universe, about the universe and the universes place in the universe.
I, the tide, were edging slowly and surely, one-foot half asleep and one-soul half a dream, searching for Sufis or so it would seem.
I listen and remember, when the enormous man with the crash symbol sat next to us, the moment my corner of observation became somebody else’s too.
The main allure to Sufi ceremonies should be the swirling Dervishes. In the next room, soon the music was swirling six or more of them, in pure white gowns with brown woolly tall cylindrical hats. A story that spins around and around. Individually spinning, their arms making a soft and welcoming grasp, and then collectively spinning anti-clockwise. They slowly quicken their swirls, now moving in a celestial pattern, as they have become one with something they have spun.
They began to play faster and without pause between songs, the clarinets drawn and shimmer down a stream, the chorus, a quiet shuffle of the crowd together, a loud voiceless energy which said with strength though sang with grace, that this for this is real, for banging enough drums and well enough, your very heart begins to pulse and vibrate with the skin, we lose touch with what was real, enough and deep into trance emanates the new real, for better or for worse is something we created and anything we create out of love and appreciation is mystical, in my eyes.
I remember how it progressed, began to spin itself, the joy on the musicians faces, as they moved their chest and shoulders up and along, in a rhythmic jumping shuffle. Soon the whole room would, over 3 seconds, whilst sitting on their shins and hands upon thighs, rotate their head from the same side in unison, almost as if acknowledging every direction of god. By its culmination, there were youth blatantly head banging straight up and down. The lead master musician held the energy, but it dispersed itself through everyone, infectious. It was ferocious.
In these moments, you reflect in gaping wonder at what you created, or what was created for you. Where you lie on your back, a safe slight away from old rail tracks, a straw between your teeth, staring straight at the empty blue sky “Oh so blue, oh my!” and a song comes right on, the guitar and the drums vibrate and chug you to an absolute surrendering enchanting bewilderment, as to the infinite surprisingly blue possibility that may occur over these next 6 months, 6 years or 6 lifetimes.
I walked out to the cold night of Istanbul once more, peered into a tomb which had suddenly gleamed more meaning unto me than when I had first walked in.
“This is not why we travel”
And for that slow buzzing second (spiritually sending it) my search was over, as I gently opened my eyes to the dynamic equilibrium, staring at the nothing of this song and dance once more.
“This is why we live!” (Sent)
Always steal chillies 