An Interesting Play

Heresy 

The Spanish Inquisition is at its height. 

Two men, both searching for meaning in their lives, but whose paths have led them in different directions- one to the Church, the other, to the Cathars, and both with the same woman in their hearts.

5 years later in Granada the extraordinary happens. 

Three strangers have appeared whose presence touches all whom they encounter, and a new Inquisitor General has been appointed. 

A meeting that will challenge belief to its core…

Inspired by Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor’ from ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, ‘Heresy’, a new play by Tilo Ulbricht, produced by Questioning Productions and directed by Daniel Zappi and Rachael Maya for its UK and World premiere at The Tabard Theatre. 

Heresy

4 March - 22 March 2014

Tue - Sat 7:30pm

Tickets £16/£14

Tabard Theatre

Act One: 1hr 15mins

Interval: 15 mins

Act Two: 45 mins

http://www.tabardweb.co.uk/heresy.htm

Loving Seeker

Ibn Arabi (1165-1240)

Mysterious and subtle are the ways by which the Beloved One looks for us and loves us. Yet we must let the senses open, so that we can listen, and let our heart melt through the pain of longing, the sorrow of life, the beauty that leaves us without breath, wondering in awe, responding as an echo of our true Essence, when the seeker and the sought are revealed as one and the same.

The following poem was written by a great Sufi mystic born in Spain, Ibn Arabi, and it is a delicious expression of that search coming from the Deep, not from our small, self-concerned selves that never seem to be really satisfied:

Dearly beloved!

I have called you so often and you have

not heard me.

I have shown myself to you so often and

you have not seen me.

I have made myself fragrance so often, and

you have not smelled me,

Savorous food, and you have not tasted me.

Why can you not reach me through the

object you touch

Or breathe me through sweet perfumes?

Why do you not see me? Why do you not

hear me?

Why? Why? Why?

For you my delights surpass all other

delights,

And the pleasure I procure you surpasses

all other pleasures.

For you I am preferable to all other

good things,

I am Beauty, I am Grace.

Love me, love me alone.

Love yourself in me, in me alone.

Attach yourself to me,

No one is more inward than I.

Others love you for their own sakes,

I love you for yourself.

And you, you flee from me.

Dearly beloved!

You cannot treat me fairly,

For if you approach me,

It is because I have approached you.

I am nearer to you than yourself,

Than your soul, than your breath.

Who among creatures

Would treat you as I do?

I am jealous of you over you,

I want you to belong to no other,

Not even to yourself.

Be mine, be for me as you are in me,

Though you are not even aware of it.

Dearly beloved!

Let us go toward Union.

And if we find the road

That leads to separation,

We will destroy separation.

Let us go hand in hand.

Let us enter the presence of Truth.

Let it be our judge

And imprint its seal upon our union

For ever.

______________

Quoted by Lewellyn Vaughan Lee in his wonderful work Catching the Thread, p-145, and by Henry Corbin in Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi, pp. 174-175.