Quest Magazine

Betty Bland, National President 

Originally printed in the Summer 2010 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Bland, Betty. "The Charter of Compassion." Quest 98. 3 (Summer 2010): 86.

The collisions and clashes of cultures and belief systems have reached epic proportions. The problem partly stems from the attitude of Christian colonialists over the last 500 years, who were so convinced that theirs was the only way that they felt totally justified in subjugating the "heathen" races. In fact they used what has come to be known as the Doctrine of Discovery to validate their territorial claims all over the world. This doctrine traces its origins to a series of pronouncements by fifteenth-century popes that non-Christian lands could be "discovered" and subdued; the original inhabitants were classified as occupants without any sovereign rights to their land. Using this idea as justification, the colonialists destroyed millions of indigenous people and their cultures. This attitude has slid to the background in recent decades, but it still colors the attitudes of many people, influencing political policies and causing immense psychological harm to the point where it has boiled to overflowing in the violent events of today.

At its founding in 1875, the Theosophical Society was the first organized effort to develop appreciation for faiths beyond that of the dominant culture. The founders of the Theosophical Society, especially those inner guides—the adepts—recognized the urgent need for humankind to learn to live together and to honor one another as brothers and sisters of the spirit—all one family interdependent and partaking of one substance, one nature, and one destiny. Again and again they emphasized the importance of our First Object: "To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity regardless of race, creed, sex, caste, or color." Their work for the formation of a strong nucleus of a compassionate brotherhood for all people was aimed at permeating and changing the culture of oppression before it was too late. This was probably the main reason that they even agreed to become as publicly visible as the forming of the Society required. The currents of conflict and violence were in motion, and they needed to do whatever possible to stem the tide.

By 1893, although some in the Western world were waking up to the presence of other faiths, Christian culture still prevailed, as exemplified by the first World's Parliament of Religions, which was held in Chicago that year. Its organizers basically viewed religions other than Christianity merely as interesting oddities, so they were quite amazed at the results. They were stunned by the popularity of the Hindu teacher Swami Vivekananda and of Annie Besant's famous oration. Reflecting a gradual shift in attitude, the second such event, held a hundred years later in 1993, was renamed the Parliament of the World's Religions in order to acknowledge that each religion has its own validity.

However, as we now so sadly recognize, humanity has not been quick enough in changing its attitudes. We have been entrenched in habitual thought and unwieldy institutions; finally the pain of abuse and disenfranchisement exploded into our consciousness with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Now we know that interfaith understanding is not just a nice thing to do, but is essential for the welfare and survival of all people. All over the planet different sects are attacking each other. No one is immune—Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and others are all the brunt of someone else's hatred.

As a continuation of the efforts to build interreligious understanding, a number of subsequent Parliament events have been held, the most recent being the Parliament for the World's Religions that David and I attended in Melbourne, Australia , in December 2009. Thousands of thinkers and religious leaders gathered to dialogue, honor the universal search for spiritual meaning, recognize the plight of indigenous people, and promote environmental sustainability as an inherent responsibility for the well-being of all. Foremost in the presenters' and participants' minds were ways to heal the rift between peoples and between people and their environment, all within the context of their religious traditions.

Notable among the presentations was the Charter of Compassion, which had been prepared by the well-known religious author Karen Armstrong in consultation with a number of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders. Signatories of note include His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson. The charter calls for the establishment of an alliance of individuals, organizations, and communities to advocate for global change. It calls for a complete change of attitude with a renewed sensitivity to all.

I urge each one who reads this piece to copy the Charter of Compassion given below and post it on your wall as a daily reminder of this global ethic of sensitivity. And I further ask that you consider promoting it in your groups, among friends, and in your spiritual communities. In doing so, we will be joining thousands of others who have been touched by this message, and little by little we can turn the tide of intolerance and move toward the Theosophical ideal of the universal brotherhood of humanity. 

Charter for Compassion 

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical, and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity, and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit, or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women

•  To restore compassion to the center of morality and religion;
• To return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred, or disdain is illegitimate;
•  To ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions, and cultures;
• To encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity;
•  To cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings, even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous, and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological, and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and peaceful global community.

by Rasoul Sorkhabi

Originally printed in the Summer 2010 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sorkhabi, Rasoul. "Garden of Secrets: The Real Rumi." Quest  98. 3 (Summer 2010): 106-109.

 Each person, of his own imagination, made me his dear friend
None sought my secrets from within me.
My secret is not far from my lament
But the eye and the ear have no such illumination.

Rumi, Masnavi Ma'navi, 1:6—7

 I first learned about Rumi's poetry in my Persian textbooks as a young boy growing up in Iran. Thirty years ago, when I left my homeland, I took a few Persian poetry books with me, and one of them was of course Rumi's. A major part of my life has been spent abroad'in India, Japan, and the United States'and in all these countries, Rumi has been a spiritual companion to me. Over the years, I have witnessed with delight the rising popularity of his poetry in the Western world. This is largely thanks to the free-verse English translations of his poems, notably by Coleman Barks, whose 1995 book The Essential Rumi has sold hundred of thousands of copies'a rare achievement for a poetry book. I am delighted to see this phenomenon not only because Rumi, this thirteenth-century Persian poet, is part of my cultural roots but also because he represents one of the greatest mystical minds in human history, and his poetry and thought provide effective spiritual solutions to many of today's problems in our materialistic, divided, and violent world. Despite Rumi's popularity, several aspects about him and his poetry are less known or misinterpreted in anthologies and translations of his work. 

The Sufism of Khorasan 

The fact that Rumi's poems reach us across cultures, languages, and centuries is a testimony to his universal love and vision. But it is important to remember that this vision was rooted in his historical, geographical, cultural, literary, and spiritual background. I have sometimes noted that Rumi's popular image, and the translations of his work, tend to uproot him from his cultural soil and transplant him to today's world with its "politically correct" language and notions. Rumi did not appear in a vacuum; he stood on the shoulders of giants spanning centuries before him.

From the hagiographies that his son (Sultan Valad) and his disciples (Feridun Sepah-salar and Shamsuddin Ahmad Aflaki) have left, we know that Jalaluddin Mohammad, later to be known as Rumi, was born on September 30, 1207, and raised in the city of Balkh, which was then the capital of the Persian kingdom under Mohammad Kharazm-shah. Balkh, together with the historical cities of Neyshabur, Mash'had, Marv, and Herat, were parts of the province of Khorasan. After Afghanistan was separated from Persia under British influence in the nineteenth century, the Khorasan province shrank to its present extent within Iran, and its eastern sector, including Balkh, Marv, and Herat, became part of Afghanistan.

Khorasan is one of the major centers of religious and mystical thought in history. Its fertile intellectual soil has nurtured Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Greek, Manichaean, and Islamic traditions. It was also one of the two birthplaces of Sufism (the second being Mesopotamia). Among the earliest Sufi masters, for instance, was Ibrahim bin Adham, who was a prince in Balkh in the eighth century ad but left his palace (much like the Buddha) in search of a spiritual life. Other eminent Sufi masters, poets, and philosophers from Khorasan include Bayazid Bastami (804—874), Abol-Hasan Kharagani (960—1033), Abu-Said Abul-Khayr (967—1049), Abdullah Ansari (1006—1089), Abu Hamed Ghazzali (1058—1111) and his younger brother, Ahmad Ghazzali (1061—1126), Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980—1037), Omar Khayyam (1048—1123), Sana'i (?—1131), and Attar (1145—1221). All of these luminaries preceded Rumi.

The Sufism that emerged in Khorasan should not be understood merely as the mystical dimension of the Arabic religion of Islam (although it reflected that as well), for this would be like regarding Zen Buddhism as Indian because the Buddha lived and taught in India. Drawing on its rich mystical and literary heritage, Khorasanian Sufism has made great contributions to mystical thought. These are too enormous to be discussed in detail here, but in order to place Rumi in his proper context, I should mention the following points:

1. The earliest didactic literature on Sufism was produced by Sufi masters from Khorasan. Some of these books were systematic theoretical treatises, for example, Hujwiri's Kashf al-Mahjub ("The Revelation of the Veiled"). Some were chronicles of Sufi masters, for instance Ansari's Tabagat al-Suffiya ("Generations of Sufis"); and some were anthologies of parables narrated in poetry, such as Attar's Asrar Nameh ("Book of Mysteries"). Legend has it that Attar presented a copy of this book to the teenaged Rumi when Rumi's family stopped in Neyshabur on their flight from Balkh to avoid the onslaught of Genghis Khan's hordes. It was in this tradition of didactic literature'more specifically, writing parables in poetry'that Rumi devoted the last decade of his life to composing the Masnavi Ma'navi ("Spiritual Couplets"); in doing so, he drew from Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Indian sources. (Masnavi is a Persian pronunciation of the Arabic Mathnavi, "rhymed couplet." Rumi's Masnavi has six books, totaling about 25,000 couplets.)

2. The Khorasanian Sufis used Persian poetry as their main medium for mystical expressions. Sana'i, Attar, Rumi, and Jami (1414—1492) fall in this category. In some of his poems, Rumi views himself as heir to Sana'i and Attar (for example: "Attar was the soul, and Sana'i was its two eyes; I have come after them"; quoted in Schimmel, 37). Sufi poetry was often used in conjunction with music'a practice called sama, "listening" to music, but which sometimes also included dancing, such as the whirling dance developed by Rumi, and later institutionalized by his son Sultan Valad as a major spiritual practice in the Mawlaviyyeh (Mevlana) Sufi order (hence the so-called "whirling dervishes").

3. The Khorasanian Sufis drew a clear demarcation between the realm of philosophy and science (ilm) and the realm of esoteric knowledge and mysticism (irfan, an Arabic-Persian translation of the Greek word gnosis). They stated openly that the logic of the head was not capable of understanding the secrets of the heart. Rumi says, "The legs of argumentative logicians are wooden," implying that philosophical talk is one thing, walking on the spiritual path quite another. That is why Sufis did not seek a "scientific God" (as some of us try to do), although they appreciated the function of science in its own realm. As Rumi put it, "Water beneath the boat is life support, but poured into the boat sinks it to death." The word "heart" (dil in Persian, galb in Arabic), which frequently appears in Rumi's poetry, is not simply a symbolic organ for our emotions, but a faculty of inner knowing; it is a "garden of secrets."

4. The Sufis regarded God, not as an aloof heavenly king, but as their Beloved on this earth and in this life. They developed a rich symbolic language, full of feminine terms, by which to express their love, prayers, and ecstasy to the Divine. This language represented a shift from the masculine terms by which God had been addressed in Arabic and other languages.

Despite many translations of Sufi Persian poetry, including Rumi's, a reliable and comprehensive work in this field is yet to be published. Hence many of the nuances of the original will be lost on English-speaking readers. For instance, zulf, the beautiful, long, curved hair of the woman, symbolizes the interlinked, chainlike manifestations of God in creation, with beauty within beauty, lines and space within lines and space, and mystery within mystery. Consider this couplet from Masnavi 5:1917: 

Hundreds of chains, I cut and tear
Except the chain of my Beloved's hair.

"Chain" in the first instance refers to the attachments and desires of which the poet'the lover of God'is willing to rid himself; but grasping the chain of the Beloved's hair is like homecoming, so Rumi recommends enjoying the beauty and mystery of creation rather than renouncing it. It is akin to the famous Christian saying "Be ye in the world, but not of it." It will be difficult to grasp this couplet (and many others like it) without understanding Rumi's mystical language and background.

5. The Khorasanian Sufis are famous for their references to "intoxication" (sukr or masti) by the pure divine wine (sharab, mey, or badeh) as a metaphor for the state of mystical love, selflessness, and senselessness, or what Sufis call fana ("extinction," akin to the Buddhist idea of nirvana, which similarly means "extinction" in Sanskrit). We often encounter terms like wine, jug, grape, cup, cupbearer, tavern, drunkard in the poetry of Omar Khayyam and Rumi, and later in the works of Shiraz poets like Hafiz. Such expressions should not be understood as meaning that the poets were alcoholics! 

Rumi the Poet 

Rumi was connected with the mystical tradition of Khorasan through several important persons in his life. The first was his father, Baha Valad, who was a Muslim preacher and teacher. Fortunately, we have a collection of Baha Valad's discourses and writings, the Ma'aref Baha-Valad ("The Teachings of Baha Valad"), which clearly shows affinities with mystical doctrines as well as devotion to God and to a pious spiritual life. The young Rumi was very fond of reading this book.

In 1216, fleeing the Mongols, Baha Valad, along with his family and disciples, left Balkh and journeyed westward. Ultimately they settled in the city of Konya in Anatolia, which was then ruled by the Seljuq dynasty. Baha Valad spent his last years teaching in a religious school built for him by the Seljuq king, Sultan Alaleddin Kaygubad.

While growing up in Balkh, Rumi had a tutor, Burhanuddin Muhaggeg Tirmazi, who was himself a disciple of Baha Valad. After Rumi's father died in 1231 (at the age of eighty) and left his school to Rumi, Burhan came to Konya and took on the responsibility of training the young Rumi. Again we are fortunate to have an extant book of Burhan, which shows strands of mystical thinking that resemble those of Baha Valad. On Burhan's orders, Rumi spent several years in Aleppo and Damascus (in Syria) to study with the great Islamic scholars living there. While in Damascus, Rumi probably also attended the discourses of the renowned Sufi master Ibn Arabi, who taught the doctrine of vahdat al-vojud, "the Oneness of Being," which is also the philosophical basis of Rumi's poetry: the One Divine Reality is the source, manifestation, and point of return for the All.

Rumi was thus highly educated in both Persian and Arabic language and literature, and in Islamic scriptures, philosophy, and law. We also know that Burhan trained him in Sufi practices such as forty-day solitary retreats (chelleh). In this way, Rumi became a reputed teacher and master in Konya, based in his father's school.

On November 29, 1244, Rumi (then aged thirty-seven) met perhaps the important person in his life'a wandering dervish, probably aged sixty, named Shams ("Sun") of Tabriz (a city in northwest Iran). Shams is a mysterious figure, often believed to have been illiterate, and it puzzles Rumi's fans to think how a person like Shams could have transformed the great scholar Rumi into a passionate poet. What went on between these two? Who was the master and who was the disciple? To answer these questions, we need to consider two facts. First, Shams was not an illiterate beggar dervish. True, he was not a scholar, but he had studied with scholars and Sufi masters, and the extant book of his discourses (Magalat Shams, "The Discourses of Shams," written down probably by Rumi's son) shows him as an insightful and learned man. Second, Rumi was ready for Shams: he had been prepared by his father and teacher to take on the Sufi path of love, enlightenment, and ecstasy. Shams simply opened the mouth of a fiery volcano, and thus poured out all the beautiful, insightful, and ecstatic poems of Rumi. 

The Relationship of Rumi and Shams 

If Shams and Rumi had not met, neither of them would have remained in history. Such was the significance of the meeting of these two souls. But what was the nature of their relationship?

We know that after meeting Shams, Rumi began singing his lyric poems collected in the Diwan Shams ("Book of Poetry Dedicated to Shams"), also known as the Diwan Kabir ("The Great Book of Poetry"). This book contains about 3500 lyric sonnets (ghazal) and close to 2000 quatrains (rubaiyat), totaling over 42,000 lines. The book is full of passionate love poems, some of which specifically mention Shams's name. One consequence of uprooting Rumi from his mystical tradition is the misinterpretation of these poems as homosexual expressions (this theory has been articulated in the West as Rumi's poetry has become popular in recent years). Here I do not mean to criticize or praise a particular sexual orientation, but only to reflect on Rumi's love poems as he meant them. Several points are noteworthy in this regard:

1. In Rumi's original biographies, we do not find evidence that he or Shams were homosexual.

2. Shams stayed with Rumi in Konya for no more than four years (1244—47), while Rumi worked on the Diwan Shams for the rest of his life.

3. It is misleading to interpret the custom of another culture by the norms of one's own. For example, in the Middle East, when people greet each other, women kiss women and men kiss men on the cheek. To do so in the Western countries today would imply homosexuality. In Western societies, on the other hand, a man does not kiss his male friend but may kiss his friend's wife on the cheek, which in turn is a taboo for people living in the East. In Japan, kissing in public is very unusual: during my years in Japan, I seldom saw even a mother kissing her own baby in public, but that does not mean that Japanese mothers do not love their children!

4. Rumi was not the first Persian Sufi poet to write love poems, and this history should give us a context in which to analyze this issue. In the majority of Rumi's love poems that mention Shams, the expressions of love are for God, the Creation, the All, the soul, and the Beloved (much as in the poems of Persian mystics before and after Rumi). Shams's name appears in the last line. This way of ending the ghazal with a name was (and is) a common practice in Persian poetry, but while other poets usually use their pen names, Rumi used Shams's name out of love and devotion. Rumi also has many ghazal poems which he ends with his own pen name, Khamoosh ("Silent").

5. There is a Sufi tradition called soh'bat ("conversation"): two seekers, loving and respecting each other, regularly meet and share their experiences and wisdom; the pair could be a master and a disciple, or even two masters. This practice is believed to strengthen the spiritual wayfarers. Rumi treasures Shams as his ham-soh'bat ("conversation friend") because a spiritual friend of that caliber does not come by easily in one's life. Shams also has many sayings in praise of Rumi. These men were like two mighty rivers that flew and merged in the ocean of love.

Having mentioned these points to clarify the Rumi-Shams relationship, I should add that Rumi, like other mystic poets, was not oblivious to human love. For Sufis, God's love is the fabric of the entire creation. Sometimes we experience this love in relationship with the Source, the Divine; this is what Rumi calls ishg hagigi, "the true source of love." And sometimes we express or receive love in the creation and in humans (ishg mojazi, "love derived from the Source"), which is a reflection of the divine love. What is important is the quality of our love'whether it is selfish or "intoxicating and illuminating." 

A Bird from the Celestial Garden 

Rumi died during a Sunday sunset, December 7, 1273, and since then his tomb has been a shrine for his lovers and spiritual pilgrims. The poet known in the West as Rumi (because he lived in "Rum," as the Persians called the Byzantine kingdom in Anatolia) is in the East respectfully called Mowlana (Mevlana in the Turkish pronunciation; meaning "our master").

As a final note, I would like to contrast two popular images of Rumi in the West. At one extreme, some view him simply as a poet of love and praise him as an artist, "much like Shakespeare and Beethoven" (as one of Rumi's modern translators once remarked). At the other extreme, Rumi is viewed merely as the originator of a Sufi order, and thus remains far from our ordinary life. While there are elements of truth in both of these popular images, neither is, I believe, how Rumi would have regarded himself. The first camp looks at the fruit of his poetry without paying any attention to the tree, ignoring the fact that Rumi was a deeply religious person, a man of faith, who prayed, fasted, and meditated within the Islamic tradition (facts that some may find uncomfortable given the often negative image of Islam in the West). The second camp confines Rumi to a particular sect and puts this vast tree in a box. The spirit of his poetry is both vast and deep, rooted in rich mystical traditions, ancient wisdom, and Persian literature. The more we delve into these roots, the better can we connect to the flight of this "bird from the celestial garden" (as he calls himself) in the expanse of the spiritual sky. 

Annotated Bibliography 

Aflaki, Shamsuddin Ahmad. Manageb al-Ârefin ("The Virtuous Acts of the Gnostics"). Edited by Tahsin Yazici. 2 vols. 2d ed. Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimeri, 1976-80 (reprinted, Tehran: Donya-ye Kitab, 1983). Partial English translations include James Redhouse, Legends of the Sufis (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1976 [1881]), and Idries Shah, The Hundred Tales of Wisdom (London: Octagon, 1978). A recent complete translation is John O'Kane, The Feats of the Knowers of God (Leyden: Brill, 2002).

Rumi, Mowlana Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi. Kulliyat Shams Tabrizi: Diwan Kabir ("Poetry Collection Dedicated to Shams Tabrizi: The Great Book of Poetry"). Edited by Badi al-Zaman Foruzan-far. 10 vols. Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1957—1963. Rumi's ghazals have been translated into English by Nevit O. Ergin from the Turkish translation of Abdolbaqi Gulpinarli and published in twenty-two volumes (various publishers, 1995-2003). Rumi's rubaiyat have been translated by Ibrahim Gamard and Rawan Farhadi, The Quatrains of Rumi (San Rafael, Calif.: Sufi Dari Books, 2008). Partial translations of the Diwan include Reynold Nicholson's Selected Poems from the Diwan Shams Tabrizi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), and A. J. Arberry, Mystical Poems of Rumi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

Masnavi Ma'navi ("Spiritual Couplets"). Edited by Reynold Nicholson. Tehran: Amir Kabir Press, 1957. Complete scholarly translation and commentary in eight volumes by Reynold Nicholson, London: Luzac, 1925—40. Partial translations include E. H. Whinfield, Teachings of Rumi: Masnavi (London: Octagon, 1979 [1898]); and A. J. Arberry, Tales from the Masnavi and More Tales from the Masnavi (London: Allen & Unwin, 1961-63).

Schimmel, Annemarie. The Triumphant Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Sepah-salar, Feridun. Risaleh dar Ahwal-e Mowlana Jalaluddin Moulavi ("Treatise on the Life of Master Jalaluddin Mowlavi"). Edited by Sa'id Nafisi. Tehran: Igbal, 1946.

Tirmazi, Burhanuddin Mohaggeg. Ma'aref ("The Teachings"). Edited by Badi al-Zaman Foruzan-far. Tehran: Ministry of Culture, 1961.

Tabrizi, Shamsuddin Mohammad. Magalat Shams Tabrizi ("The Discourses of Shams Tabrizi"). Edited by Mohammad Ali Movvahed. 2 vols. Tehran: Kharazmi, 1990. A partial, biographically arranged translation from the original Persian is William Chittick, Me and Rumi: The Autobiography of Shams-i Tabrizi (Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae, 2004). A complete version (made from the Turkish translation) has been recently published: Refik Algan and Camille Adams Helminski, Rumi's Sun: The Teachings of Shams of Tabriz  (Louisville, Ky.: Moonlight, 2008).

Valad, Baha. Ma'aref ("The Teachings of Baha Valad"). Edited by Badi al-Zaman Foruzan-far. 2d ed. 2 vols. Tehran: Tahouri, 1973. A partial translation is Coleman Barks and John Moyne, The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2004).

Valad, Sultan. Valad Nameh ("The Book of Valad"). Edited by Jalal Humai. Tehran: Igbal, 1936.

Rasoul Sorkhabi, Ph.D., a native of Iran, has lived, studied and widely traveled in India, Japan, and the United States. He is currently research professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he coordinates the Rumi Poetry Club. He has published numerous articles on Rumi and other spiritual masters. This article is part of a book on Rumi he is currently writing.

by Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Sheikh Jamal Rahman

Originally printed in the Summer 2010 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Mackenzie, Don; Falcon, Ted: Rahman, Jamal. "Meeting on the Shores of Healing: The Journey of the Interfaith Amigos." Quest  98. 3 (Summer 2010): 91-95.

Today the three of us'a rabbi, an imam, and a Christian minister' work together so closely that we have come to be called "the Interfaith Amigos." But when we met, we had no idea how our work together would shape our lives. Ted knew Jamal and Don in different contexts in Seattle , and while each of us had interests in interfaith activities, we came to those pursuits from different places. Jamal's parents and grandparents taught him that Islam was hospitable to dialogue and collaboration with people of different faiths. Ted, as a rabbi, discovered and practiced Hindu and Buddhist meditative teachings and led retreats at Christian centers. Don grew up in a house where the dynamics of interfaith were honored, even though the word itself may never have been used.

Each of us was on a path that intersected at 9/11. On that day, when the negative uses of religion were tragically apparent, Ted called Jamal and invited him to be a part of worship on that next Shabbat at Ted's Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue in Seattle . Six months later, they invited Don, whom Ted knew from a Jewish-Christian dialogue group, to join them for an event marking the first anniversary of 9/11. He readily agreed, and the all-day event was held at University Congregational United Church of Christ, also in Seattle .

After it was over, we realized that we could not stop there. We had no idea where we were going together, but we felt a kinship, and we knew that the boundaries of our separate Abrahamic traditions were naturally permeable. As we listened to each other, we discovered a deep trust evolving. Sharing from the resources of our own traditions, we found ourselves understanding the healing function of our faiths. It wasn't long before we saw that our association was having significant consequences for our personal lives, the ways we grow spiritually, and the ways we lived in community. We were learning ways that could bring people together to support rather than hurt each other. We saw political consequences of our work that could bring greater compassion to public policy. What we were discovering gave us energy, and we supported each other as spiritual companions, learning more about our own as well as each other's paths, and sharing more about our personal experiences. As time went on, we began to sense that our association was not accidental; we had been called together to share this deepening work of interfaith dialogue and collaboration.

With that in mind, we helped to organize events at which we could share our traditions with audiences and congregations from different traditions. We were trying to put into practice Gandhi's admonition: "Each person must develop an appreciative understanding of the faith of others." Soon, however, these attempts at interfaith worship seemed more like a collection of separate contributions from different traditions than a coherent worship experience. Eventually we discovered that there was more profound worship when each service was led by one of us. The others would bring insights and teachings from their own traditions, but each service would focus on one tradition specifically. We evolved a form that honored the interfaith approach while still supporting the uniqueness of our spiritual paths. Thus our interfaith experience has led not to a homogenization of our traditions but to a deepening of our own faiths.

We began meeting weekly, and our friendship grew along with our understanding. There were many moments when we could see how far we had moved together. We were far beyond simple tolerance; we were beginning to celebrate a spiritual space of true appreciation and thanksgiving. We were discovering a shared territory spiritually deeper than any of us had imagined. We realized that we were developing a message, and we began to explore writing a book together.

In November 2005, we embarked on an interfaith pilgrimage to the Middle East. We journeyed with forty Christians and Jews to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other sites in Israel and the Occupied Territories . Jamal, the only Muslim, often reminded us that " Israel is not seen as a vacation spot for Muslims." But his own experience there was very comfortable, even if the trips into the Occupied Territory were painful. At each stop along the way, each of us contributed teachings from his own tradition that helped all of us understand the spiritual significance of that particular place.

Not long after we returned from the Middle East, we were offered the opportunity to host a weekly radio program where listeners could call in and ask questions about interfaith dialogue. We had guests from different traditions, and we learned to think more quickly "on our feet" about the issues relating to our work. The year with that radio program sharpened our thinking and helped us to develop a sense of new possibilities for the interfaith approach. While we felt that we were making up our work as we took each step, we were awed by the response we received and by an emerging vision of what interfaith could contribute to the world. The signals on the horizon were becoming clearer.

In the summer of 2008, a cover story in the Christian Century magazine mentioning that we were writing a book generated a call from Skylight Paths, an interfaith publisher in Woodstock, Vermont . Getting to the Heart of Interfaith: The Eye-Opening, Hope-Filled Friendship of a Pastor, a Rabbi, and a Sheikh appeared in June 2009. We hired a publicist, and because of the book, we received invitations to speak in various parts of the country. After we went on a full speaking tour in the fall of 2009, The New York Times published a feature article about us. That in turn led to a number of radio and television interviews, including a brief spot on "CBS Evening News" on December 26 of that year. All this attention has deepened our need for spiritual direction and for a clearer sense of what we are learning. 

What We Have Learned 

What have we learned throughout this process? At the top of the list, we agree with M. Scott Peck's statement in The Road Less Traveled that "life is difficult." While this may be an obvious truth, much of our culture is geared toward obscuring it. Yet it explains why ministry exists. We need help in the midst of the difficulty and conflict we experience. This reality frames our work and points to the need for interfaith dialogue and collaboration.

Furthermore, we realize more profoundly the role of the ego, the separate individual identity, in conflicts. The ego perceives itself as separate from others, and this perception is radically different from that of spiritual awareness. Spirituality, by its very nature, is inclusive; the more spiritual our awareness, the more aware we are of our interconnectedness with others and with all being. As a team, we seek to balance the needs of the separate self with this greater spiritual awareness, appreciating that everyone is in this together. Our experience of difficulty and our celebration of healing are things we do together. We seek to create loving communities, supporting individuals in the context of an inclusive spiritual consciousness.

The story of Moses in the wilderness reveals the essence of the meeting of separate self with spiritual Self. When awakening to his call to lead a people from enslavement to freedom, Moses asks, "Who shall I say sent me?" And Moses hears the response, "I am as I am. . . . Tell them I am has sent you." (Exodus 3:14). God's "Name" is "I am," the first-person singular form of the verb "to be," indicating Being beyond limit of space or time. This is the absolute universal "I," which is the foundation for each of our lesser "I"s. But if we confuse our separate self with the shared Self, we find ourselves in great difficulty. We are the One expressing itself as the many, and we are challenged to remember the truth of our being. In various ways, each authentic spiritual path reveals this same teaching. We are living One Life. We are sharing One Being. We are trying to remember in order to heal the fragmentation and the separateness of our ordinary experience.

The third thing we have learned in our explorations is that there is an important difference between religion and spirituality. Each is necessary, but the two are often confused, and their different purposes are not always clear. Religion refers to institutions created to support a more spiritual way of understanding so as to help with personal, social, political, and environmental healing. Religion is like the glass that holds the water of Spirit. Water is an amorphous substance that would be unable to effect transformation without the glass to hold it. But religions, formed to contain that spiritual essence, tend to focus more and more on the glass than on the water until the needs of the institutions eclipse their primary purpose. This shift happens unconsciously, motivated by the needs of the institution to expand and strengthen itself. Nevertheless, the more empty of essence the institution becomes, the more dogmatic are its utterances. It becomes easier to focus on the outer structure of the institution than on the ineffable spiritual reality that it was founded to share. Since we need both of these elements, we need to monitor institutions to make sure they remain true to the purposes for which they were created. This refers to churches, synagogues, mosques, and governments as well as to the private individual institution called the ego.

There is a shadow side to every human being. That shadow consists of the "disowned self," the parts that we do not wish to own as ours. To heal ourselves requires us to own our shadows and integrate their energies. The same is true of religious institutions. Understanding the particulars of a shadow side can be painful, but it can also invite growth and healing.

Theologically, we three share an appreciation of a more mystical approach to religion and spirituality. Ted is a teacher of a Kabbalistic approach to Judaism, and Jamal is a Sufi. Don has deep sympathies for such a mystical approach to religion because of his parents.

Going deeper into our own traditions, we have discovered that orthodoxies come into being in an attempt to protect the spiritual substance of religion. At the same time, those orthodoxies often inhibit the intense work of awakening to the inclusivity needed to support each other as we grow. Interfaith dialogue and collaboration can reclaim the substance of orthodoxy in the service of more dynamic spiritual growth. 

What We Teach 

These ideas form the basis of much that we have included in our book. We recognize universal core teachings that are expressed in each of our traditions but which transcend those traditions and contribute to the enrichment of all spiritual paths. In our three Abraham traditions, oneness is the core teaching of Judaism, unconditional love is the core teaching of Christianity, and compassion is the core teaching of Islam. While we believe these teachings to be true, we do not wish to be dogmatic ourselves. We invite others to think about whether or not these truths are truth for them, and to discover their own paths that will support the dialogue and collaboration needed to confront the major issues of our time.

As a team, we find particular texts and practices in each of our traditions that support our universal core teachings. We call these particulars the "blessings" of each tradition. For example, in Judaism the idea of Shabbat or Sabbath is a blessing. It is a celebration of Creation that nurtures our spiritual awareness by increasing our experience of Oneness. In Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus is a blessing that supports the celebration of unconditional love, the love that is beyond conditionality. Whether understood literally or figuratively, the resurrection points to the fact that God can always make everything new. It is possible to start over, to change our way of being in the world. But if the resurrection is understood only literally, the blessing in it can be lost, and it can become a tool for promoting exclusivity. Ilm is a blessing of Islam. Ilm, which means "knowledge," is the word most frequently used in the Qur'an except for Allah. The Prophet Muhammad explained that true knowledge emerges when we move from "knowledge of the tongue" to "knowledge of the heart." Ilm points to activities that require us to "make our souls," to grow spiritually and reach higher and more healing levels of spiritual awareness.

But all religious traditions contain difficulties as well as blessings. Gandhi taught that each religion contains both truths and untruths. How could it be otherwise? Our institutions reflect our own natures, so it is no surprise that the shadow side shows up in religious institutions. These untruths are reflected in the awkward verses and practices that need special interpretation in order to have them support rather than undermine the core teachings of our faiths.

For example, there is the teaching in Judaism that Jews are God's "chosen people," distinguished above all others. Ted says that Jews are indeed chosen, but they are chosen for the way of Torah. They are not the only chosen people: Christians are chosen for the way of Jesus and the New Testament, and Muslims are chosen for the way of the Prophet and the Qur'an. All of us, so to speak, are God's favorites. Don notes that the verse from the Gospel of John, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), is an example of how an exclusive sensibility is expressed in Christianity: understood in a crudely literal sense, Jesus is the "only way." In Islam, the Qur'an says that some Jews and Christians corrupted the divine revelations sent to them. To assert that the Qur'an is therefore superior to the previous scriptures, Jamal explains, is a reflection of the untamed Muslim ego. He points out the Qur'an also refers to Jews and Christians as "People of the Book," suggesting that the Qur'an is not meant to supersede but to complement these earlier revelations.

It is not helpful to ignore or repress such difficulties, because they reflect aspects of our own natures that require growth and healing. Our egos tend to compete with one another, seeking to be seen as special, better than, more powerful or more successful than others. Our egos can insist that we are right and others are wrong. Our egos seek to protect ourselves and our communities against perceived threats from others. The three of us believe it is necessary to identify and pay attention to these forms of exclusivity in order to reach greater spiritual understanding and healing.

Along the way, we have identified five stages of interfaith dialogue and collaboration. The first step is to venture across the boundaries of the familiar into the unfamiliar. We must get to know one another. The second step is to learn about the substance of another's journey of faith. Third, as we acquire more confidence, we can share any discomforts we have with awkward parts of our traditions (or the others). Fourth, using these steps, we can venture into places of conflict between traditions and foster mutual understanding. Fifth, and finally, we can invite one another to experience the sacred through our own spiritual practices. These five stages constitute the frame and substance of our book. The interfaith journey can strengthen our own faith identities and enable us to join in a journey toward healing and peace. 

The Union of Tragedy and Comedy 

Now we have discovered what could be a sixth step, one that will require more compassion and more effort. It is illustrated in a 2003 speech by Maurice Sendak, the famous artist and children's book illustrator. He shared the story of his visit to a hospital in London , where a ten-year-old girl was dying of cancer. Since she was a fan of Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are, the doctors invited him to visit her. He tells of walking into her room. She is sitting on the bed in glasses and pigtails, and her mother is sitting beside her. As he comes into the room, he extends his hand. She doesn't take it. He says: "I understand you like Wild Things." She says, "Who told you that?" The mother invites him to sit with them on the bed, and he opens her book and asks her if she would like him to draw a wild thing in the front. "Whatever," she says. But as he begins to draw, she inches closer to him. He goes on: 

I started to draw very slowly so that she would be drawn in and she began to relent and she leaned in on me slightly and then she started to laugh. Then when she saw more of the drawing emerge she said, "Are you sure you illustrated this book? That doesn't look like a good wild thing." I said, "Do you want to help?" and she said, "Well, OK." And she took the book and started to draw on it and I started to draw on it and now she's laughing and she has very slowly slid closer so that one hip is on my leg and she is leaning comfortably on my shoulder. She has gradually made it into a relationship. And we are laughing and I look this way and there's mom and she's smiling, smiling, smiling and she's so happy her daughter is acting decently. And now we're laughing and she's [saying], "Why don't we do this?" and gradually she has her arm around my neck and I'm acting very cool. But then I notice out of the corner of my eye something that is very terrible, which is that her mother cannot control crying, because obviously the picture she saw was the artist and her very young daughter who is going to die, having this scene, memorizing it, and it is cutting her alive. I couldn't do anything, so I took my eyes away from the mother, I went back to the girl, she's here, I'm here, and then I notice that the arm that had been around my shoulder suddenly falls away and it crawls across the bed to her mother's arm and then down onto her mother's hand and she clasps it tight. And I thought that this child was comforting the mother for something this child knew was inevitable, and the other side of her was laughing and joking with me . . . and I don't know how to end this story.

Possibly the story has no end. But it does point to a level of spiritual awareness conveyed through the imagination of a child who, in the face of her own death, can comfort her mother and laugh because of the inventiveness she is sharing with the artist. The story moves us to wonder if such a level of awareness in some way describes the place we must meet, the place on the shores of healing. In this moment, our mortality and our immortality are held together; tragedy and comedy are made one.

Perhaps there are further steps to be discovered. Ultimately this is the focus of all the world's great and authentic spiritual traditions: they support us in a quest that leads beyond ourselves so that we can discover the further reaches of our own identity. We three feel blessed that we are privileged to engage in this quest together, and to learn as we share it.

Pastor Don Mackenzie retired in 2008 from his ministry at the University Congregational United Church of Christ in Seattle and has been actively writing and teaching with the Interfaith Amigos for the past eight years.

Rabbi Ted Falcon retired in 2009 from Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue, which he and his wife, Ruth Neuwald Falcon, formed in 1993. In addition to teaching and writing with the Interfaith Amigos, Ted is available for spiritual counseling and conducts classes and workshops on Jewish spirituality.

Sheikh Jamal Rahman is co-minister at the Interfaith Community Church in Seattle and serves as an adjunct faculty member at Seattle University . In addition to his work with Rabbi Ted and Pastor Don, Jamal does spiritual counseling, leads workshops in Sufi spirituality, and speaks often to help people understand the true nature of Islam.

Further information about the activities of the Interfaith Amigos is available at their Web site: www.interfaithamigos.com.

by C. Jotin Khisty

Originally printed in the Summer 2010 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Khisty, C. Jotin. "Justice through Love: The Lessons of Vinoba Bhave." Quest  98. 3 (Summer 2010): 100-102.

 Sometime in 1951, news began reaching the outside world about a slender man of nearly sixty who walked tirelessly along the dusty village roads of India, talking about a Land Gift Mission, the likes of which very few people had ever heard of before. Walking for miles from village to village, covering every corner of the subcontinent, Vinoba Bhave collected more than five million acres of land (an area larger than that of Scotland), in the form of gifts from rich and poor alike, which he redistributed to the landless (Kumar, 13). His slogan for this redistribution was "Justice as Fairness." This extraordinary accomplishment, unprecedented anywhere in the history of the world, can only be explained by recognizing that it stemmed from the heart of a saint, scholar, sage, practical philosopher, and educator, all rolled into one.

Born in 1895 to Brahmin parents in a small village in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Vinoba Bhave took a vow of lifelong celibacy and service to others at the tender age of ten. Searching for a way of life that would embody both spiritual truth and practical action, Vinoba discovered Mahatma Gandhi in 1916 and became his ardent follower, embracing the principles of nonviolent social change.

Out of his scores of able followers, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, who became India's first prime minister in 1947, Gandhi chose Vinoba to be his spiritual successor to carry on his mission; in fact, Vinoba was the first person to offer nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) to the British Raj in the campaign of October 1940, and as a consequence was imprisoned for almost five years. Gandhi's admiration for Vinoba was limitless: "He is, next to me, the best exponent and embodiment of nonviolence" (Sitaramayya, 219). As one of the great spiritual leaders and social reformers of modern India, whose work and personal example moved the hearts of millions all over the world, from prime ministers to the poorest of the poor, Vinoba proved to be a true disciple of Gandhi.

Vinoba Bhave is best remembered for at least two major movements that he initiated and practiced. First, the principle of sarvodaya ("welfare for all"), which he advocated, refined, and put into practice. Although it was originally Gandhi's idea, Vinoba enlarged its scope. It may be recalled that while the English social philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748—1832) developed the theory of utilitarianism, which essentially stated that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the objective of justice, sarvodaya aimed for the greatest happiness for everybody. It is for this reason that sarvodaya is considered by many philosophers as one of the most original contemporary contributions to political thought (Appadorai, 127).

Sarvodaya postulates that the good of the individual depends upon the good of all and that all work, high or low, is of equal value. The sarvodaya movement contributed to the development of self-governing village communities by educating people to settle local issues through consensus or near-unanimity, by teaching villagers to practice the optimum use of limited resources, and by developing people's capacity to run their own affairs with minimum governmental control and assistance, eventually leading to the welfare and harmony of all. Vinoba strongly emphasized the true value of basic education, good farming practices, and the expansion of handicraft industries.

Vinoba's second major contribution was embodied in the Land Gift Mission. It stemmed from his observation of the vast disparities of wealth and lifestyles among virtual neighbors in the same society. How, he would often ask, can it be just or fair that a large segment of society is barely able to meet its minimum nutritional needs, while a tiny proportion of the population spends large sums of money on luxury goods, many of which are wasted? His aim was to bring about a threefold revolution: a change in people's hearts, a change in their lives, and a change in the Indian social structure. And he tried his utmost to accomplish all three through love.

Referring to the Land Gift Mission during his prayer meetings, Vinoba would remind his audience that land belongs to God'it belongs to all or none. Nobody created the land, so why should anyone claim to possess it? Air, water, sunshine, forests, hills, rivers, and the earth are part of the planetary heritage. No one group or individual has a right to own, possess, spoil, pollute, or destroy it. We can receive the earth's fruits as God's gift and return what we do not need to God. With this message, Vinoba knocked at every door, persuading landlords, capitalists and communists to establish a new relationship with the earth and its people. Hardly anybody refused his request. Gifts of land, labor, money, agricultural tools, and knowledge all poured in from rich and poor alike (Kumar, 2).

Another significant act of Vinoba's'one that had never been achieved before'was his successful negotiation with hundreds of armed robbers in central India. In early 1950, soon after India gained independence, the state of Madhya Pradesh was desperately trying to eradicate bands of armed highway robbers called dacoits. With roots going back hundreds of years, these notorious robbers were known to waylay and murder travelers on the highways of central India. Even during the British Raj, no police force could round them up. But Vinoba performed a miracle.

Sometime in 1960, when Vinoba was visiting central India on a peace campaign, Tahsildar Singh, son of the notorious robber leader "Raja" Man Singh, wrote to him from jail. Tahsildar Singh had been condemned to death and appealed to Vinoba to see him before he was hanged. He also requested Vinoba to meet the leaders of his dacoit comrades in central India who were still at large. On getting this message, Vinoba was moved to the depths of his heart and immediately contacted the gangs and their leaders to come to meet him as a friend, assuring them that they would be treated justly. After many rounds of discussions with Vinoba, something happened that was quite unexpected. These hard-hearted robbers melted. People for whom armed robbery had become a means of livelihood bowed their heads in repentance and promised to abandon their former way of life.

On May 19, 1960, scores of these robber leaders and their comrades met Vinoba, laid down their guns'costly weapons, equipped with powerful sights'and surrendered themselves. Vinoba proved through his quiet diplomacy that the combination of nonviolence and love is a spiritual force of great power. Peace and tranquility has reigned in this part of India ever since (Kalindi and Sykes, 167).

Vinoba Bhave made many other significant contributions to India's political thinking and awakening, such as mobilizing people's power through the use of nonviolent and peaceful strategies, raising spiritual consciousness, introducing handicraft education in schools, advocating inexpensive agricultural innovations, and implementing water supply and irrigation projects in rural areas.

Vinoba was truly an agent of the poor, the homeless, and the destitute, because he himself lived a life of poverty. He presented their case and fought for their rights. In one of his essays on poverty he wrote: "A psychological change cannot be brought about by war and violent revolution. Ultimately it has to be the dedication of one's all for the well-being of all. Those who have must look upon those who have not as a mother looks upon her hungry child. She feeds it before she feeds herself; she starves before she allows it to starve. Let those who have the strength, the skill, and the knowledge for producing wealth and the power of holding it, dedicate themselves to the service of the poor" (Brown, 195).

I had the privilege of witnessing Vinoba in action. I was one of the fortunate people to be inspired at an early stage of my career by his silent revolution. As a civil engineering undergraduate in 1948, I met him at Sevagram, Gandhi's headquarters, and for the next four years volunteered to help him with tasks that he entrusted me with, such as helping villagers with simple planning projects, surveying parcels of land, and preparing and checking agricultural land assessment records connected with his Land Gift Mission. In the summer of 1960, I was again briefly associated with Vinoba when his Peace Campaign led the dacoits to lay down their weapons.

Many a time, when we volunteers were bogged down with a problem and expressed our frustration, Vinoba would remind us of his philosophy: "Never take any step without first going deeply into the matter and getting at the root of it." At other times, when we approached him with a formidable situation, he would say: "Don't be afraid of any problem. No matter what it is, no matter how big it is, it will eventually seem small to you, for you are bigger than the problem. After all it is a human problem, and it can be solved by human intelligence." On many other occasions he would encourage us to use our collective intelligence by pooling our resources and know-how to tackle the problem. This inspired us to think of alternative solutions and select the best one. It was his dedication, his sincerity, and above all his utter transparency that overwhelmed us and kept our spirits high. Vinoba steered us along the right path with gentle whispers.

Vinoba would remind us that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. In his view, any theory of justice, however elegant, must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions, no matter how efficient and well-organized, must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. As first principles that underpin human activities, he would say, truth and justice cannot be compromised. For me personally, it was a great privilege to learn from this "walking saint," because his life reflected his devotion to truth and his dedication to justice.

For the last seven years of his life, Vinoba relinquished almost all activities and took a vow of silence, spending his time in prayer, meditation, and contemplation. He died peacefully on November 15, 1982, at the age of eighty-seven. Millions from all walks of life, from the president of India to humble peasants, came to his cremation ceremony (Kalindi and Sykes, 253).

These words by Hallam Tennyson, British pacifist and great-grandson of the poet, capture the essence of Vinoba's lifelong mission: "Vinoba did not promise permanent solutions, he redirected our gaze to the universal good and rekindled our faith in human capacities....He did not worry about the fruits of his action. If his actions were sound enough then their influence would work on the soggy dough of human consciousness and help it to rise up to achieve something nearer to its full potential" (in Kalindi and Sykes, 11).

References

Appadorai, A. Indian Political Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Brown, D. Mackenzie. The Nationalist Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.

Kalindi and Sykes, M., eds. Moved by Love: The Memoirs of Vinoba Bhave. Bideford, Devon, U.K.: Resurgence, 1994

Kumar, S., ed. The Intimate and the Ultimate. Shaftesbury, Dorset, U.K.: Element, 1986.

Sitaramayya, P. The History of the Indian National Congress, vol. 2. Bombay: Padma, 1947.

C. Jotin Khisty, Ph.D., is professor emeritus in the department of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His article "The Marriage of Buddhism and Deep Ecology" appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Quest.