Safai in Praise of Pinwheels (Exhibition Manifesto)

The wise man sitting on the cushion made of hay stroked his white beard and smiled. The youngster had asked the same question, however could not have any answer some months ago. Wrestling with the question on his mind for days and nights, the young disciple had attempted once more to have the answer he had been seeking after, at last:"Master, will you not show even a tiniest example about the secrets of transcendence and perfection?"Sensing his disciples decisiveness, the wise man said to himself "The time has come.". He took an unused, thick notebook from one of the shelves just nearby him. "The crowds..." he said to the youngster opposite him "...are just as a notebook like this one."The master recalled what Mevlana said: " Do you think that the crowds get to anywhere? They walk, they go around, they wander but can reach nowhere." Wasn't the saint of the saints who uttered those words defining the great majority as spiritless, mindless, hand less, footless creatures?While tearing out a page from the notebook on his lap, "If you areinclined to transcendence, you should rescue yourself from the crowds first of all." said the wise man.Passing over the distance of six hundred years, Sheikh Bedr'uddinsuddenly became a guest to the two celled house. That faithful, deepvoice came as is bleaching the whitewash of the walls even whiter: "There are many who suggest that they want to reach God. When one of them is told that he will have to turn his back on the world, he claims that until reaching the goal he would keep his ties with the world and he resists. Such an attitude does not go along much with reason." While Simavna Kadisioglu's utterances were just echoing on the walls Mesiter Eckhart's voice tinkled on the wooden ceiling: "Virtue is the ability to break away from the created. Those whowant to keep pure and clean need only one thing: renunciation!.."Having put the paper that he had broken off on the notebook, thewise man looked for the eyes of his young disciple with his eyes. "It seems difficult..." he said; "...to attempt to live all alone at first, after a life that resembles the ordinary pages of a notebook. Moreover, the goal is not being any piece of paper nor a rowboat made of paper. To become a pinwheel is the goal of those who attempt transcendence."The face of the young disciple illuminated at a sudden. "So Jesus was trying to mean this by saying 'the front of the wedding house is always crowded. But only the lonely ones get to the bride chamber.'" he said.The wise man got pleased with the parallelism that was found. While folding the paper in his hand to transform it into two equilateraltriangles and tearing the excess part on the margin, "It's necessary to put up with the probable torments at least as much as this paper does, son." he said; "We also should be able to be purified of our excesses just as easily as these triangles get rid of theirs.""How spirited, original and ready for omnipotent effects are pinwheels when compared to characterless leaves of a notebook." was what he thought when Eckhart stood to call out again: "The more the spirit is purified of the worldly objects, the more it strengthens!"Opening the paper that formed two isosceles triangles and refolding it in the direction of the other corners, the wise man repeated a question of Buddha's to his disciple: "How can you hope for transcendence as long as you are tied to the world and to its offers with chains, collars, coils like dogs?"The young man was all ears and his eyes were wide open. He wasendeavoring to digest every word and motion of the master.Having opened the paper that he had folded for the second time, the wise man tore the folded layers of the diagonals one by one towards the midpoint of the intersection, "Watch out..." he said "...the paper should not only be satisfied with breaking off from the notebook that it was dependant on. It should be able to venture to be scattered almost utterly so as to be able to change into a pinwheel just like a saint who sees it necessary to give up all of his ego, conditioning, judgements and knowledge."The square surface had changed into four equilateral triangles with a connection only in the middle of it.The wise man put the notebook which was on his lap to its place on the shelf, and laid his hands on wooden box having a lid. He took out a pin from the box. He brought together one corner of the two corners of triangles-almost broken off- just in the middle where wholeness is provided and put all of them together with the pin."Did you pay attention, son; the middle point of the paper has aunifying wholeness in spite off all dispersions. Those who direct towards perfections should be as attentive as this carefully protected middle point even when tearing our 'Ego's into pieces, we ought not doubt the truth of the 'way'" said the wise man to his disciple.The wise man recalled the verses of the Zen Buddhist thinker Musashi, who had acquired an everlasting place both as a painter and as a sword master:"Even if it's all of a pain of hell that makes trembleTo be under a sword rising in the airSpring up ahead fearlessly;And find yourself in the land of felicity."How easily had Musashi managed to tell both the disposal of the 'ego' and the power of belief!"Look how the paper that was once stagnant as any one page of anotebook turned into a pinwheel pregnant with motion." the wise man continued. "Let the stages of this transformation be your guide. The pinwheels embody the secrets of transcendence in their essence."Giving the pinwheel he was keeping in his hand to his disciple, "Take this..." he said, "...take it and go. Look for those who are able to turn into pinwheels, who are born afresh every day. They can't easily be recognized, nor are they large in number in fact, but shall you meet with some of them unless you give up that you seek after."The years of the young disciple passed by looking for supreme wise men who had given up their 'ego's and whose spirits turned into pinwheels. When he had turned back to his master's hut, he had become a pinwheel, a pinwheel to be praised.www.safai.gen.tr.
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