Teacher versus Preacher
The Difference
by Fazeel Chauhan
11-23-16
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
At a Protest Against American Imperialism
At a protest against
The Military Industrial Complex of White Supremacy
Los Angeles
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10829153@N04/1944863870/in/pool-pakistanpolitics/
Poetry Reading and Songs: Fazeel Chauhan at the December 2017 show in Anaheim, California
Poetry Reading and Songs
Fazeel Chauhan Show
12-29-17
Fazeel Chauhan Art Exhibit: 2007 Xenophobia Leads to War
Fazeel Chauhan Art Exhibit: 2007
http://vizualeyezart.blogspot.com/2007/11/fazeel-chauhan-fazeel-chauhan-fazeel.html
1) Xenophobia Leads to War (Graphic Art / Found Art)
2) Profiles in Racism (Graphic Art)
3) Religious Epicenter (Mixed Media)
Naya Hukamnama: The New Ordinance: Javed Akhtar's Poem translated by Fazeel Chauhan
Javed Akhtar's Poem translated from Urdu to English
by Fazeel Chauhan
The New Ordinance, Naya Hukmnama, By Poet Javed Akhar, With Subtitles, Translation Fazeel Chauhan
the new ordinance, naya hukmnama, by poet javed akhar, with subtitles, translation fazeel chauhan. revolutionary. beautiful poetry by well known poet javaid akhtar naya hukm naama kisi ka hukm hai saari hawayein humesha chalne se pehle batayein ke unki simt nayahukmnama
someone has decreed that all the winds must first announce their direction before blowing—a poem by javed akhtar. poem: naya hukumnama written by: javed akhtar.
Interview for: Art ‘Portal’ Connects LA With Iraqi Refugees – in Real Time
Fazeel Chauhan interviewed for the article:
Art ‘Portal’ Connects LA With Iraqi Refugees – in Real Time
by Matt Reynolds
4-21-17
https://www.courthousenews.com/art-portal-connects-la-iraqi-refugees-real-time/
As news of the U.S. action filtered through, Fazeel Chauhan, 53, an analyst from Pomona, emerged from the darkness of the gold container into the mid-morning sun.
They had just been talking to three young men at the Harsham camp who were in a portal that had been converted from a disused pumping station. Some 1,500 Iraqi families who fled Mosul live at the camp.
Pakistani-born Chauhan gestured to two bulletin boards in the park where people had left post-it notes. One of them struck a chord. The writer noted that if people talked more often it could lead to world peace.
“I know with Trump it seems impossible because he just dropped the biggest bomb like it’s nothing,” Chauhan said. “If American people in general had more interactions with Muslim people or they knew about Islam, then they would not be easily manipulated by ideas like Muslims are trying to implement Sharia law or hate their women, or they’re violent, or they’re terrorists.”
At the ITA Luncheon
Fazeel Chauhan
At the ITA Luncheon
http://aliveemployeesclub.com/wp-content/uploads/ARCHIVE/2006/200603-Alive-airports-street-fair.pdf
On the Sweet Gum Tree
On the Sweet Gum Tree:
A few months ago, I started riding my bicycle in a suburb of southern california, near Pomona. And keep getting punctures from these thorns. It is frustrating to be stranded or to keep having to patch the punctures. But yes, Your article reminds us that the tree and leaves are beautiful.
posted on 4-30-18
https://www.gardeningandsuch.com/blog/sweetgum
Translation of Qawali: Ni Me Jana Jogi De Nal
Qawali: Nee May Jana Jogi Day Naal
by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, lyrics by Bulleh Shah
Translation from Punjabi to English, by Fazeel Chauhan
Also published in 2013 on:
https://www.sikhchic.com/poetry/heer_ranjha_the_epic_lovepoem_by_bulley_shah
Going to Mecca is not the ultimate
Even if hundreds of prayers are offered
Going to River Ganges is not the ultimate
Even if hundreds of cleansings are done
Going to Gaya is not the ultimate
Even if hundreds of worships are done
Bulleh Shah, the ultimate is
When the “I” is removed from the heart
[He] read a lot and became a scholar
But [he] never read himself
[He] enters the temple and the mosque
But [he] never entered into his own heart
He fights with the devil every day for nothing
He never wrestled with his own ego
Bulleh Shah, he grabs for heavenly flying things
But doesn’t grasp the one who’s sitting at home
Religious scholars stay awake at night
But dogs too stay awake at night, higher than you
They don’t cease from barking at night
Then they sleep in yards, all higher than yours
They [dogs] don’t leave the beloved’s doorstep
Even if they’re beaten hundreds of times, higher than you
Bulleh Shah, get up and make up with the beloved
Otherwise dogs will win the contest, better than you
O friends, don’t call Ranjha a shepherd
I shy away from calling him one
I am like a thousand Heers to him
Who am I, like countless others
He’s the ruler of Hazara’s throne
And I forever the plain Heer
Bulleh Shah, may God hear my wail
That I become shepherded by the Shepherd
Ranjha became a jogi and arrived
He exchanged into a unique disguise
He changed his name from Ahad to Ahmad
I’m going to be with Jogi
Someone’s with someone else, this one’s with that one
I’m together with Jogi
Since I have become Jogi’s
I have no “I” left in me
Repeating ‘Ranjha Ranjha’
I became Ranjha
Call me Ranjha now
No one need call me Heer any more
It’s not me, it’s he himself
He amuses his own self
The one with whom I connected my heart
I became just like him, O friends
Jogi is with me
I am with Jogi
I’m together with Jogi
After putting earrings in my ears
Decorating my forehead with Tilak
Hey, he’s not [a] jogi
He’s some form of God
He’s disguised as Jogi
This jogi has attracted me
This jogi now resides in my heart
I swear by the Quran it’s true
Jogi is my belief and faith
This jogi has marked me
Hey, I belong to him
Now I’m of no value to all else
I’m floating, I’ve drifted across, O people
My eyes inter-meshed with Jogi’s, O people
Call me Jogi’s female Jogi
Heer is dead, O people
In Khayrray they talk
I have to listen to accusations
I don’t know anything about anyone else
If I know anything, I only know Jogi
No one has attained what he has attained
His shadow is on both worlds
His fame is celebrated in both worlds
His shoes were kissed by heaven
This Jogi is full of wonders
In his hand is the rosary of “There is Nothing But One God”
Hey, his name is “The One With The Shawl”
If Jogi comes to my home
All your fights will end
I will embrace him
And celebrate a million praises
Bulleh Shah, a Jogi came
To our door …
He stole away Heer of Sayal
He came in disguise
(Published October 22, 2013)
Old Blogs of Fazeel Chauhan
Old Blogs of Fazeel Chauhan
1) Fazeel's writings
https://www.angelfire.com/poetry/sweets/
2) Fazeel's writings
https://www.angelfire.com/my/arms
3) Some links to Bulleh Shah, etc.
https://qawali.tripod.com/hybridaccents/id15.html
4) Men's groups and family of women:
https://www.angelfire.com/apes/sterling/
https://csulbsocialworkers.blogspot.com/
5) Wordpress site (under construction)
https://globalzebra.wordpress.com/tag/fazeel/
6) MySpace website, before there was Fakebook
https://myspace.com/qawali/photos
Reference to the 1996 articled: What Can I Do?
My article
"What Can I Do?"
Published in Pakistan Link. November 22. 1996. p. 5.
had this quote cited in the following research paper:
The trend toward medicine is so pronounced that an activist, who advises his fellow Muslims what they should do in America, tells them: "Teach the children to be leaders in government, media and community. Don't only become rich doctors."
refernce # 55
on page 13 of the following article:
Demographic Characteristics of the American Muslim Community
by Khalid Duran
https://archive.org/details/demographic-characteristics-of-the-american-muslim-community
It's All Uphill From Here - After Obama's Election
It's All Uphill from Here
By Fazeel Chauhan
as published in Pakistan Link 11-14-08
https://pakistanlink.org/Opinion/2008/Nov08/14/06.HTM
On this historical moment of hope and change, congratulations! "It's all uphill from here," a colleague said this morning.
The right-wing will make attempts to create obstacles for the Obama administration. So please stay politically active. There is a chance that change will be minor, and in that case also, keep the pressure on your representatives to demand what you need.
Violence vs. a Healthy Conscience
Violence vs. a Healthy Conscience
by Fazeel Chauhan
as published in Pakistan Link, December 28, 2012
https://pakistanlink.org/Opinion/2012/Dec12/28/07.HTM
In the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, one wonders how does a person know the difference between right and wrong? We are born with certain traits and tendencies and also parts of our personalities are developed through learning. Some say it is a person’s conscience which reminds him to do the right thing and restrains him from doing the wrong thing. We teach our babies to protect themselves. “Don’t put your hand in the fire, don’t go out in the cold without a jacket, don’t stick your finger in the power outlet, don’t talk to strangers, stand up for yourself against bullies”, we unfailingly tell them. Many beliefs and ideas become cemented in our minds through childhood indoctrination. If those imprints come from a dysfunctional family, it can take decades to undo that flawed early programming. Thus the role of parents to nurture and shape a child’s behavior and belief system is very important.
In our lives, what we don’t know gets us in trouble, and more suffering is caused also because we have forgotten valuable lessons we had already learned. So it is important to keep that knowledge alive through reminders including re-enforcement of ethical ideas. The true character of a person is how he behaves when no one else is watching. Perhaps at that moment he is cognizant, or not, that God is still a witness. We are faced with moral dilemmas every day: should I pickup this wallet someone dropped, and keep the cash, no one will ever know. Perhaps the moral compass is located in the conscience, and it has to be kept lubed and tuned up through repetition of learning. Otherwise, like the heart, the moral compass can become jammed and the conscience could deaden.
Fresh air is important for the mind, otherwise the ideas in there can become stale, which could have toxic effects on the conscience. In war, how can a person in power convince the army soldier to leave the comfort of his home, tear himself away from his loving wife and children, put his own life at risk and then go thousands of miles away to kill other human beings? Usually it requires dehumanization of the “enemy”, that they are not human beings. Also depersonalization of the “other”, that they are very different or crazy, to keep them distant, so that you don’t empathize with them. If you put yourself in the other person’s shoes, then usually you don’t want to harm them. So the military man has to be convinced by his superiors that what he is doing is morally right. He believes he’s a hero when shooting other people in a war. For some religious people, the conscience is a place where God lives, or a source which reminds the person to have fear of God. Maybe the conscience is inhabited by both angels and demons. A politician can then exploit the angels so they succumb to despair, and then he can compel the demons to take over and control the behavior of the soldier. Legal and illegal drugs are often used to deaden the angels. If the angels fall asleep, the person forgets he will be held accountable for his actions.
Religious people say they are right and claim they protect human rights and injustices. Atheists or non-religious people say that millions of people have been killed in wars in the name of religion. Religious people believe they have a strong moral compass. They go to church, temple, mosque, etc., where ethical behavior is re-enforced in their minds. But non-religious people, especially in America and Europe, can also exhibit very ethical behavior and they don’t seem to have more criminal tendencies than religious people. In the West, more people are educated, compared to poor nations, for example in Africa. If it’s not fear of God, then what is it that prompts secular people to do the right thing and stops them from doing the wrong thing?
In our daily lives, mentally healthy people can get stuck in bad habits or get lost in thoughts. Their buttons get pushed un-expectedly (or expectedly), which triggers strong emotional reactions within them. Some of these emotions can be: feeling hurt, feeling angry, feeling injured. When a person gets emotionally wounded, these feelings could overpower the moral compass in their conscience. Ethical behavior then is put on hold and fear of God becomes absent, even notions of self-defense can become suspended. At that moment, the person can burst into rage and do things he normally wouldn’t do and thus will regret later. This madness can drive him to commit heinous criminal acts. In the past some criminals would plead “temporary insanity” in court to justify their violent behavior. A stressful situation can push a mentally healthy person over the edge and turn him into a criminal. Possibly, a mentally unhealthy person might be even more fragile and have less self-control. The fears can be un-realistic, for example feeling paranoid that someone will hurt them. So that person might be over-protective of himself or be overly aggressive towards others, because the threats are exaggerated in his own mind.
Mental illness, like physical illness can strike anyone at any time. Clearly, in our country we don’t do much to address mental illness. Mostly, people are sedated with legal medications, alcohol and illegal drugs. If we call ourselves mentally healthy, we still have normal events happen which cause our minds to play tricks on us. What excuses, lies and justifications do we use on a daily basis to convince ourselves that our un-ethical behavior was okay to do?
Too many tragedies have happened in America as a result of gun violence. About 87 Americans are killed every day as a result of gun violence, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the Centers for Disease Control. In our nation’s history we have the gunslingers of the wild-west shooting each other mercilessly. As Michael Moore points out in his Academy Award winning documentary, “Bowling for Columbine”, we have a culture of violence and wars. Domestically, the war against the Native Americans, the violence against African Americans during slavery, the wars to take over California, Texas and Hawaii. On foreign lands, there have been 187 US military interventions in the last two hundred years in mostly poor countries of the world
( http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/26024.html ), which indicates a high tendency towards weapons use. Sadly, the powerful lobby of the National Rifle Association does not allow the government to ban automatic weapons like the military style machine guns. We as a nation somehow feel threatened and paranoid that there are enemies out there. The imaginary bogeyman is just around the corner every day instead of Santa Claus. Yes, there are monsters and criminals out there whom we need to stop and protect ourselves against. But how many machine guns are enough in the home? And how many military bases are enough around the world? And how many nuclear bombs do we need to feel safe? If a Martian lands here, he’ll say this culture of weapons, domestic violence and foreign wars, is very irresponsible, immature and dangerous behavior. Hopefully, the Congress will soon pass a law to prohibit all automatic weapons in our country, and some day ban all weapons at home and wars abroad.
In last week’s massacre at Sandy Hook another cause is mental illness. There is another factor which brings up the old question: What is the most common and most acceptable form of child abuse in America? The answer is divorce. Children blame themselves for the divorce of their parents. These wounds may never heal and those kids grow up and become divorced parents themselves. Thus the poisonous pedagogy continues. A child would rather deal with the tragedy of both parents dying rather than dealing with the divorce of the parents. But in our society today, we are taught that divorce is normal and not harmful. We are encouraged toward instant self-gratification. “What’s right is what makes you happy”, is a common belief in our culture, which can make the standards of moral behavior very subjective. We can become very narcissistic and ruthless towards others, instead of using objective principles to guide our lives.
The mother nurtures and spends much more time with the child and teaches a tremendous amount. But it is difficult for her to raise boys, without the help of their father. A boy learns from his father how to be a man. At times, the father has to be stern and tough to discipline the boy, especially to teach him that he should not be a menace to society. Mothers can find it difficult to provide such training consistently because their natural tendency is to be nurturing and forgiving. Women are relationship-oriented and men are individual-oriented and rule-oriented. One reason men like sports is it reminds them of rules and principles in life. Without accountability to rules, men become ruthless savages. A father can teach his son to keep an open mind so that positive messages and non-violent solutions can find a way to his conscience.
The father’s voice often echoes in the chambers of a child’s mind to do the right thing. Divorce is like throwing your child under a truck. Boys who join gangs or become hoodlums often have fathers missing in their lives. One of the responsibilities of the father is to provide protection and security. So when his son does something dangerous to himself or others, the father should be there to stop it, prevent it and resolve it so that the home and the world are a safe space. As family members, and as fellow citizens, we need to take ownership when things fail, and ask ourselves: What was my role in allowing this to happen? For example, a parent should realize that they should not get divorced. A citizen should commit to civic engagement and ensure that gun violence in our country and wars abroad come to a stop.
An important question to ask ourselves is: What is my responsibility in making the world a better and safer place? The students at Penn State University serve as a good example. They came up with 40 acts of kindness and civic engagement:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/uxg3/blogs/40ActsKindness/ongoing-acts-0105/
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As always, well written article about a very interesting being. Your article is thought provoking. It reminded me of poems by Allama Mohammed Iqbal, poet / philosopher from Pakistan / India. He is known as the reincarnation or continuation of Rumi. He frequently refers to “Shaheen” in his poetry. I believe it refers to Hawk, Eagle, Falcon, because to the layman like me, they seem to be all in the same family. Some of these are well known verses or couplets, some of which we were required to memorize, from our Urdu text books. I think he wrote more in Farsi than in Urdu. In Iran he is well known as Iqbal Lahori. As he resided in the historical city of Lahore, where is shrine is, right at the entrance of the Badshahi masjid.
Shaheen kabhi parwaz say thak kar naheen girta:
The eagle never falls down because of being tired.
Tu Shaheen hay, parwaz hay kaam tera:
You are a hawk, your work is to fly.
And this one, sung by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:
Naheen tera nashayman qasr-e-sultani kay gunbad par
Tu Shaheen hay basayra kar pahaRRon ki chatano’n par
You nest (home) is not on the domes of the palaces of kings
You are a falcon, hang out in the high cliffs of mountans
The first line also refers to the crowd, most people: pigeons hang out in warmth of the crowd, at domes where they are given food, where they don’t have to hunt, and can be in the comfort zone.
Whereas, an eagle is kind of solitary, flies much higher than a pigeon. Does it’s own hunting. Chooses the road less travelled.
Iqbal, as a philosopher repeats this idea, about the nature of human beings. That it’s our nature to choose that high road. The heat which will produce gold.
He was also using these ideas to inspire the Muslims of India, to kick the ass of the British, and to no longer live in slavery, which was called colonization.
Jhapat kar palatna, palat kar jhapatna:
Iqbal describes how an eagle hunts. It does not attack the prey from behind.
The eagle approaches the prey (bird) from the front, and at the first encounter, does a close call, a fly-by. A generous move, to allow the prey to get away, if it can.
Then the eagle turns, and returns to attack again.
Iqbal lived 500 years after Rumi, but often talked to him. Iqbal calls Rumi his spiritual master. In Rumi’s masnavi, there are many amazing stories, with multiple meanings. In his story about the Merchant and the Parrot. The parrot is in a cage. Some scholars see the metaphors as: The parrot is the ego. Or the human being locked in the cage of the body. The way to freedom, is to kill the ego. Like in Buddhism they say, ego is the I, me and mine, which desires so many things. In psychology and in common language, there are many definitions of ego. In sufism, they say annihilate the ego, to be on a spiritual path. Some teachers say the ego is necessary to survive in the world, as a tool. Though any tool can be used as a weapon. Ego defined in that way, is that thing which makes a man unique, it’s what pushes him to compete, to hunt, to win, it’s what drives him. But that ego needs to be reigned in. If a man does not control his ego, his ego will control him. And that ego kills relationship. Perhaps the ego is also what makes a person selfish, confined, limited, on the ground. While generosity makes a person fly like a hawk, like Shaheen