Quotessence
Home / Authors / Kabir Edmund Helminski

Kabir Edmund Helminski Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllSufi WayMindfulnessSufismAwakeningLiving PresenceEnlightenmentTreshold SocietyIslamKabir HelminskiMathnawiRumiHeartfulnessThe Great WorkTradition Of RumiThe SoulHolistic IslamLovePerennial PhilosophySpiritual TransformationSpirituality

Famous Kabir Edmund Helminski Quotes

“The state of emancipation toward which we are journeying can be described as freedom from the fear of loss. It is understood that Life flows to us from an unstinting Source of grace that will never lessen its giving as long as we are open to receiving. The people and things that are so precious to us are embodiments of qualities, and these qualities are derived from this beneficent Source. What we are so afraid of losing are qualities that we have invested in the particular forms we are attached to. We have confused these qualities with the forms we have discovered them in. Their beauty is like the beauty of sunlight that falls upon a brick wall: „Sunlight fell upon the wall; the wall received a borrowed splendor. Why set your heart on a piece of earth, simple one? Seek out the source which shines forever.“ Rumi, Mathnawi II: 708-09 The wall may crumble or be torn down, but the sun will always return to shine. To be spiritually mature is to be free of the fear of loss, knowing that we are connected to the Source of all generosity. (p. 161)”

GraceMindfulnessTransformationAwakeningRumiSufi WayMathnawi
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“As long as human beings are unconscious and dominated by selfish and illusory desires, there is no god who will force us to change. But as the history of revelation on earth testifies, guidance has come to all communities and nations. Through masters, saints and prophets, through sacred texts and oral tradition, humanity has been reminded and warned. Cosmic intelligence has continually been in communication with us; now the burden of responsibility rests on each human heart. (p. 164)”

MindfulnessAwakeningRevelationSufi WayPerennial PhilosophyCosmic IntelligenceTradition Of Rumi
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“In Sufism we understand the human being to be composed of three aspects: self, heart, and spirit. Self is the experience of our personal identity, including our thoughts and emotions. Heart is something deeper, experienced through an inner knowing, often with a quality of compassion, conscience, and love. It can ultimately lead to the recognition of the deepest part of ourselves - our inmost consciousness, or Spirit, the reflection of God within us. If we simply say that souls is our inner being, then the quality of our inner being, or soul, is the result of the relationship between self and our innermost consciousness, Spirit. The self without the presence of spirit is merely ego, the false mask, which is governed by self-centered thoughts and emotions. The more the self becomes infused with spirit, the more „soulful“ it becomes. We use the words presence and remembrance to describe the conscious connection between self and Spirit. The more we live mindfully with presence, the more we remember God, and the more soulful we are, the more we drop the mask. Care of the soul, then, is always the cultivation of presence and remembrance. Presence includes all the ways we mindfully attend to our lives. Soul is the child of the union of self and spirit. When this union has matured, the soul acquires substance and structure. That is why it is said in some teachings that we do not automatically have a soul; we must acquire one through our spiritual work. (p. 75)”

MindfulnessEnlightenmentAwakeningSufi WayThe SoulLiving Presence
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“The mirror of pure awareness is obscured by layers of emotional and mental conditioning. Just as polishing transforms a mineral or stone into a reflective object, regularly wiping clean the mirror of awareness will allow a human being to reflect the light of Being itself. The spiritual process can be understood as learning to consciously reflect more and more of this Being. If we would clear the inner mirror, the light of Being would be reflected outwardly, pouring out of our eyes. (p. 100)”

MindfulnessAwakeningSufi Way
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“EVERYDAY MAINTENANCE OF THE SOUL What does it mean to care for your soul? Care of the soul is the constant practice of bringing loving attention to the problems, conflicts, and longings of our lives. Emotional suffering is something to be attended to, not split off from. We can learn to read our life as a story, rather than as a clinical case. Moreover, if the story we have been telling ourselves is a melodrama or tragedy, we need to rewrite the story. Every human life, when seen from the perspective of the unrelenting Divine Mercy, is the story of grace unfolding. Love is revealing itself in the precise details of each human life, if only we do not impose the script of self-pity, bitterness, and fearfulness. The soul is where the divine attributes of God may be awakened from their latent state to be integrated into our character. These qualities are the soul's natural inheritance from the Divine. It is through communion with the Divine that the soul takes on the spiritual attributes of kindness, generosity, courage, forgiveness, patience, and freedom.”

MindfulnessEnlightenmentAwakeningSufi WayThe SoulLiving PresenceThe Tradition Of Rumi
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“Realization, in its fullest meaning, is not merely knowing something, but making it real in oneself. We come to this essential Self through a process of deconditioning, reconditioning, and unconditioning. This can also be described as minimizing what is negative, increasing what is positive, and, ultimately, opening to Spirit.”

MindfulnessEnlightenmentAwakeningSufismSufi WayLiving PresenceHeartfulnessSelf Realizationali
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“A Seed has no energy of its own, but it can respond in the right environment. Every form of life has a capacity for response but none so much as the human being. In an infertile environment this capacity for response may be dormant. The cultivation we need to provide is through conscious awareness. This makes the difference between nominally being alive and being alive abundantly. Life is not just this bioenergetic vitality, but a spiritual vitality that is eternal, and we are that. This life span that we know on earth is said to be one chapter in the story of Life. This eternal Life reflects through us. With awareness we can develop all our faculties. The body, mind, spirit, and ecology form an interconnected whole. When a harmonious relationship exists among all of these, we have abundant life.”

MindfulnessEnlightenmentAwakeningSufismSufi WayTreshold SocietyKabir HelminskiLiving PresenceHeartfulness
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“The work of presence is first to purify and harmonize our conscious and subconscious faculties, to purify the heart around a single center; and second to patiently awaken those latent human faculties that have gone to sleep or atrophied. One day the heart may reach such contact with its own Source; it will gain an intimacy with the Creative Power and know the One behind multiplicity. It will rediscover its home in the unity of all that is. This possibility exists, and human beings are destined to realize it more and more. This is the complete human being, the drop that becomes the sea. It is not difficult, as our teachers told us, because we are made for it.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningSufismSufi WayTreshold SocietyTradition Of Rumi
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“Our work is to cross a treshold into emptiness and stillness. It is like entering an empty room that proves to hold a great presence. The apparent emptiness of simple presence is richer than the crowded experience of ordinary personality. We can either be empty with Spirit or full of ourselves.”

EnlightenmentIslamAwakeningSufismSufi WayTreshold SocietyTradition Of Rumi
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“To cross the treshold from habits and conditioning to emptiness, which is the receptive quality of the soul, we must become still and patient. We must give up certain impulses and let go again and again. This is the way we come into our essential Self. We leave behind our compulsive egos, embodying the „I am“ and selflessness at the same time. The „I am“ is not the mechanical self - the role-playing, superficial personality - that feels its existence through its ordinary reactions and resistances. With the right kind of attention and observation we can see the relationship between our various thoughts and sentiments and how each of them invokes some imaginary „I“. Instead we can learn to feel our own existence through recollection and intention. A positive sense of I-ness emerges through recollection. It is the first thing we can trust: our own presence, the sacred „I am“.”

EnlightenmentIslamAwakeningSufismSufi WayTreshold SocietyKabir HelminskiLiving Presence
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“The apparent conflict between a strong sense of our own presence and selflessness can be resolved if we realize that presence helps us to be more selfless. Selflessness is the soul's own willingness to make sacrifices in the material world as well as in the artificial world of personality. The „I am“ is selfless in that it holds no special idea of itself, does not justify itself, and is not envious, resentful, or proud. Because it already feels secure in the infinitely merciful Spirit, it can accept the annihilation of what is false in the ego personality. If we are rooted in presence, we ar e capable of leting go of the demands of the ego. If we are not secure in th eemptiness of pure presence, we will cling to events and things, to lies and fears. But in a state of presence, free of the coercions of the ego, we can become our most authentic selves.”

EnlightenmentIslamAwakeningSufismSufi WayKabir HelminskiLiving Presence
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“Spiritual attainment is a fundamental transformation of the „I“ from a separate, limited, and contracted identity into a rich and infinite one. It is a movement from separation to union. One of the first steps in this process is to observe and understand the chaotic and fragmented nature of the ordinary self and to understand that a very practical integration and harmony can be achieved. This integrated self is the drop that contains the ocean. At the dimensionless center of our identity is the creative potential of Universal Intelligence. (p. 120)”

MindfulnessAwakeningSufi Way
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“Grace is always there. It is the Life that flows from the Source of Life. What we need to learn is to receive it and to become aware that grace is flowing from Life all the time. This Life is within us. All the qualities we might need are available if we can form the right connection. The three unlocking keys to the Source of Life are humility, gratitude, and love. When these qualities begin to prevail in our inner life we become receptive to grace. (S. 144)”

MindfulnessAwakeningSufi WaySpiritual Transformation
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“What is most characteristically human is not guaranteed to us by our species or by our culture but given only in potential. A spiritual master once expressed it this way: A person must work to become human. What is most distinctly human in us is something more than the role we play in society and more than the conditioning, whether for good or bad, of our culture. It is our essential Self, which is our point of contact with Infinite Spirit. This Spirit is not to be understood as a metaphysical assertion requiring belief, but as something we can experience for ourselves. What if you, as a human being, represent the final result of a process in which this Spirit has evolved better and better reflectors of itself? If the human being is the most evolved carrier of the Creative Spirit – possessing conscious love, will, and creativity – then our humanity is the degree to which this physical and spiritual vehicle, and particularly our nervous system, can reflect or manifest Spirit. That which is most sacred in us, that which is deeper than our individual personality, is our connection to this Spirit, this Creative Power. Whereas conventional religious belief has the tendency to anthropomorphize God/Spirit, this process consists of the human being becoming qualified by the attributes of God. It could be called the „sanctification“ of the human being. Our human nature is realized through the understanding and awareness that the essential human Self is a reflection of Spirit. To become truly human is to attain a tangible awareness of Spirit, to realize oneself as a reflection of Spirit, or God. The education of the Soul is the Great Work. The beginning of this Work consists of awakening a transcending awareness...”

SpiritualityMindfulnessEnlightenmentAwakeningSufismSufiLiving PresenceHeartfulnessThe Great Work
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“This presence is like a passport to greater life. It is our connection to that Greater Being to which we belong, but which is often buried beneath mundane concerns, bodily desires, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions. Through knowledge, practice, and understanding, this presence can be awakened. Eventually, we will not be without it – whether in speaking or moving, whether in thinking or feeling. Awakening this presence is the most reliable and direct means of cultivating our essential human qualities, of activating everything that we need to meet the conditions of our lives. Presence is the point of intersection between the world of the senses and the world of the Spirit. May we never cease to discover its beauty and power.”

EnlightenmentIslamAwakeningSufismTreshold SocietyKabir HelminskiLiving PresenceHeartfulnessLiving Tradition Of Rumi
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image

“There is a knowledge and a practice of connecting ourselves with cosmic Life. It has nothing to do with belief; it is learned. It is increased by our consciousness of it, by our increasing awareness of the abundance of cosmic energy. Life is infinite, and this infinity can be tapped. The only limitation is one of awareness. (p.13 Soul Work, Reflecting Spirit)”

EnlightenmentAwakeningSufismTreshold SocietyLiving Presence
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
Create image