The Mystics Speak in One Voice

Growing up I’ve had many names given by many different mentors, leaders, and sages. The first I’m aware of is Antwan Linton Penn given by my first and main teacher, mama. That wasn’t the only name I remember her giving me, in fact when I was a small child, my mom also called me Abdul. I still remember my powder-blue T-shirt with bold black letters spelling Abdul written across the front of my chest. It wasn't until my mid-adolescence that I understood (or overstood as they said back then) that Abdul was short for Abd Allah, Arabic for a servant of God. I remember feeling so uplifted by that knowledge.  

I had two friends from a quasi-military and pilot training academy I first attended at age 11 or 12, Ali and Jabril, who went to the Mosque at 20 Bradford Street, around the corner from my house in Newark, (Brick City) NJ / early-mid 90s ish. Side note, the evolution of Islam in Nwk, NJ from the time of Noble Drew Ali to the Nation of Islam to the growth of Orthodox Sunni beliefs is a remarkably interesting part of American History. During my youth, people called that area of Brick City, Lil Mecca. When Ali and Jabril came over to visit, I would watch them stop everything, pull out these small rugs and pray, with no direct prompting from an adult. I remember being so fascinated. So, I would pray with them. I remember how well-mannered and intelligent they both were, and they seem to have a silent and peaceful, yet somehow dynamic clarity and quality to their character. Even now, when I think of how I’d like my heart to be in the world, that's one of the moments I go back to. I don't know if that was the experience they had of themselves, but that was the experience I had of them, and it greatly impacted me. After prayer, I’d ask them hundreds of questions. To this day I ask everyone hundreds of questions about their choices and thoughts. I think it's because I’ve always felt like such a visitor here. Now, I realize ……we’re…… all….. visiting. 

I have lived many lives since that time. At one time in my life, 19 to be exact, I was called Esaias (Isaiah) ben Shu 'al. I went to a school called Mathias School of the Prophets. There we studied different traditions through the lens of Christian and Jewish Mysticism. It was during my time at Mathias I came to the realization that the mystics of nearly all traditions and religions spoke in one voice. It was amazing! I was hungry for it! This epiphany set the course of my life and was the main reason I was not consumed by the double dragons of generational trauma and stress. Although it is an ever-unfolding battle. This school is where I first heard the term God Consciousness. My exploration of Sufism is in reference to that one resounding voice echoed by the poets and mystics of varying faiths and traditions.   

One of my amazing teachers at Mathias introduced me to an author whose words helped to further awaken my thought life. This Author was Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon)! I've written a poem inspired by nostalgia for the boy I once was, who I am, and what's to come. My hope is that the poems along with this article together point to the perspectives I’d like to offer as contributions to Bab Al Ilm's blossoming mission.   

My poem below is called; 

"Nineteen" 

I've always been on the same journey, 

diving deep into different spiritual, mystical, and wisdom traditions 

in search of words to an experience I had throughout my youth. 

I dove deep into churches, mosques, synagogues, prophetic schools, mystery schools, casting circles, satsangs, and all things occult. 

And I've met the same characters over and over again like the same actors reading from a different script. 

They've all profoundly blessed my life, love, and understanding greatly!! 

I discovered and rediscovered the art of spiritual bypassing many times over. 

I've seen hot and cold water flow from the same faucet along with signs and wonders. 

now I yawn. 

And only fully awake in the face of my great Love. My Beloved.  

Colonial cursed. 

I remain typecasted. 

Secular kaleidoscope. 

I, As free as my awareness 

as free as the journey 

as free as the experience 

in any given moment 

I AM, in whichever sect 

Reprieve 

 Home to my Beloved. 

Now since that time, I’ve been many other names, Antonio Francisco Jr., Redhead, Red, Tony, Capt. Penn and a few derogatory names I won’t bore you with. But the lessons learned moving through these traditions, states of awareness, names, and seasons in my life point to an underline essence, a wholeness I find echoed in a quote by the educator and philosopher, Minister Lawrence Pearsall Jacks who stated;  

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between (their) work and (their) play, (their) labor and (their) leisure, (their) mind and (their) body, (their) education and (their) recreation, (their) love and (their) religion. (One) hardly knows which is which. (One) simply pursues (their) vision of excellence at whatever (one) does, leaving others to decide whether (he/she) is working or playing. To (this person they are) always doing both.” - Lawrence Pearsall Jacks  

I’ve found that there is a point in the love of God where all things nexus, a sort of neuro-heart centered enlightenment or Higher States of Consciousness, where all ingredients that have made up a person, their circumstances, and personality become pressure cooked in transcendence, and ecstatic ecstasy of passion and love for the Most High I AM that I AM, Source of All, the Beloved, that pours out into the world through the life of the Loved. Even with all our faults still resounding, we become emissaries of that devotion. By no means perfect, but rather, just in love. All the names that I encountered, worlds, traditions, religions, and experiences converge to who I am today, flaws and all, but as my most recent mentor, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is often found saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” And now increasingly I realize that each part like each, name, tradition, or religion, has a great significance and dignity of its own, and thus shall be honored in the practice and spirit of “harmony in diversity,” which funnily enough is another quote Maharishi is often found saying. 

 I wrote a poem this morning in remembrance of these personal revelations, 

 1/25/23 Wednesday 5:34am 

 “Steel Falling” 

 I allowed the death of God 

So that the God beyond God emerged. 

Which boat are you on? 

In which season? 

The no name and the All 

The no thing and the Fall 

It was painful and disorienting 

As the cracks in the shell widened 

I lost grip 

Sinking through abyss 

A mistaken intellect 

Wrecked ships 

I saw my Ancestors 

Beckoning me through 

Internalizations 

An Industrial God complex. 

 I realize now that the mystics of every tradition and religion all speak in that one voice, a quintessence, and it is this voiceless character, that my mother showed through her love for me, that pervaded my relationship with Ali and Jabril, that echoed through the voices of  all my mentors, my family and friends, through nature, and a voiceless character that I now feel in the Bab Al Ilm family and its blossoming. Even as a child, I could feel that silent voice whispering over my life, as it does for us all if perception allows it. And even when perception is not quite able to reach that frequency by either contentment, ecstasy, or pain, I know the mystics/ mystical Poet’s voice as the root of every tradition, as a birthright, and inheritance, to every human being and our planet. That voice can shed light on our way forward. 

"WE ARE IT LOVING ITSELF ETERNALLY”  

- Malcolm Minter (speaking from the Native Yup'ik Shaman Tradition)

* The title of this article is inspired by Zevi Slavin from Seekers of Unity.