The word baraka means "blessing" in several languages, but also a whole range of other beautiful meanings.
Baraka means in sufism happiness or luck, a smell, a breath and even the essence of life, from which the evolution springs. Baraka is also a spiritual power, a gift of God's consent. Baraka is what temples, monasteries, pilgrimage and sacred places produce and because of which people travel to these places and what they take from them. It is love: the more of it is taken by the pilgrim, the more of it is available. The bigger is demand for this spiritual commodity, the bigger is the offer. Baraka is what spiritual seakers look for and which dancing dervishes reach. Baraka is also a blessing, a touch of the divine. Baraka is somewhat spiritual, imaginary, but not unreal field of information about the feasibility and ability of man to attune to something that transcend him by far. According to Johna Lilly, a famous American physician, psychoanalyst and writer it is divine grace, cosmic love and cosmic energy.
These explanations are taken from Czech spiritual magazine called Baraka, prepared by Czech Vlastimil Marek, a musical healer, in years of 1999 to 2002.
Baraka is also a name of my favourite film from the 1993 year. Watching this film is an experience you simply have to go through, that cannot be told but is really worthy even if you are not used to watch any such films. As authors truly describe:
Watching this film the viewer is blessed with a dazzling barrage of images that transcend language. Filmed in 24 countries and set to an ever-changing global soundtrack, the movie draws some surprising connections between various peoples and the spaces they inhabit, whether that space is a lonely mountaintop or a crowded cigarette factory. Baraka is an experimental documentary film directed by Ron Fricke, cinematographer for Koyaanisqatsi, the first of the Qatsi films by Godfrey Reggio. Often compared to Koyaanisqatsi, Baraka's subject matter is in fact similar, including footage of various landscapes, churches, ruins, religious ceremonies, and cities thrumming with life, during which the frames are sped up to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity. Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on "where," but on "what's there."
I have also looked through the internet and collected this:
For example in Sufi the word Baraka means blessing; in Arabic it should be "bariki" and it is the same thing as barak in Hebrew; the Swahili word baraka also means blessing, and is maybe derived from Arabic. The word "baraka" undoubtedly appears in the Quran a lot of times and became also a personal name; but "Baraka" has at the same time as many claim precisely the same root as the Hebrew name "Baruch". Sometimes the word "baraka" means also "odor of the holy," "fragrance of the divine," "saintly," etc. Sometimes it even seems to be a palpable substance, measurable in terms of increased charisma or "luck." The shrine produces baraka too.
If you know any other meaning, appearance in other language or you are sure about correcting some of the claims copied here, please feel free to do so. I will be happy to learn more about this beautiful and universal word.
Dalibor
