“Only later – much, much later, and after losing all hope and undergoing a seemingly interminable Dark Night of the Soul – would Louie begin to see how Shah’s own work tied in with others. Not only among Sufis, nor in the general fields of spirituality and mysticism, nor in the work of Shah’s own family, friends of Shah, and friends of friends of Shah, and people who quoted people quoting Shah, but in diverse fields and in the town’s marketplace, mucky alleyways and smoke-clouded taverns of everyday life. That was a whole new vista, a continent beyond Shah’s own island – vast, exotic, and apparently self-contained as it had been, and yet not all and everything. Looking back, this wonderful caravanserai had been a very necessary, and much loved, step or two along the way.”
Source: Secret Friends: The Ramblings of a Madman in Search of a Soul
“For Sufis, the primary zikr, or practice of divine remembrance, is La ilaha illa'Llah, which means in Arabic, "no god but God." Azar Kayvan taught his disciples to recite Nist hasti magar Yazdan, which means in Persian "no existence but God." (p. 93)”
Source: Mingled Waters : Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions
“The Messenger said, "The human heart is the House of the All-Merciful." (p. 249)”
Source: Mingled Waters : Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions
“Anyone who investigates the revealed religions with an open mind and a discerning heart is bound to discover the truth in all of them. Of course, there are notable differences between them. Each faith is distinguished by the personality of its messenger and the circumstances of its revelation. With the passing of time, faith traditions are also subject to the proliferation of distorted interpretations. Nonetheless, to seeing eyes it is plain to see that all of the world‘s great faiths harbor at their core the same message of love […] Through whichever channel Providence pours it out to the thirsty, the divine love that flows through revelation is from first to last a single substance. All fields are watered with one water. (p. 255)”
Source: Mingled Waters : Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions
“One of the major drawbacks of being severed from the heart is that the more one is severed, the sicker the heart becomes, for the heart needs nourishment. Heedlessness starves the heart, robs it of its spiritual manna. One enters into a state of unawareness – a debilitating lack of awareness of God and an acute neglect of humanity’s ultimate destination: the infinite world of the Hereafter. When one peers into the limitless world through remembrance of God and increases in beneficial knowledge, one’s concerns become more focused on the infinite world, not the finite one that is disappearing and ephemeral. When people are completely immersed in the material world, believing that this world is all that matters and all that exists and that they are not accountable for their actions, they effect a spiritual death of their hearts.”
Source: Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart
“We may also struggle with what could be considered justifiable fears. We have fears of loss, pain, disability, and death. These can be transformed only by the human being who has come to know what it means to „die before you die“. In the discipline of transformation, this expression means coming to know our spiritual home, our eternal Self. It is not a metaphor but an accurate description of a psycho-spiritual truth. Many of those who have lived through the experience of a clinical death and have returned to life know that death is not something to fear and that life is an immeasurable gift. These people return to their lives with less fear because they have experienced their true metaphysical home. At the same time they have known that this physical body is important as a means of contact with their fellow human beings. Against the backdrop of eternity this transient human life has acquired a new beauty.
To die before death is to detach from our physical body, our thinking, and our emotions at will, as a conscious choice. This is the aim of certain forms of spiritual training. Through control of the breath, fasting, and sustained awareness it becomes possible to separate from our coarser bodies – physical, emotional, mental – and to mount the steed of pure consciousness. When consciousness is separated from the conditioned intellect and desire, it makes direct contact with the electromagnetic field of Love. The soul comes to know a different relationship to all the beings within this electromagnetic field.
When we are connected with this Love, we are free of fear and of the domination of the lower self and the thoughts it generates. As Rumi said: „Thinking is powerless in the expression of love.“ Love is reckless and does not count the cost; it expresses itself through courage and self-sacrifice. Often our fear is a lack of love. To be free of fear we must love very much. (p. 159)”
Source: Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
“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)”
Source: Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
“When you are drawn into love, your own sense of an isolated, separate self melts. When you are in love and you sit face-to-face with the one you love, you forget yourself in the beauty of your beloved. Because the beloved is a point of contact with beauty, you are filled with this beauty. Any lover becomes more beautiful through this love. This Beloved, which most people know only in the first moments of romantic love, is in fact present in many faces and guises as our capacity for love grows. This capacity transforms us and makes us more alive. We are never so alive as when we are in love, so why should we restrict this love to the almost impossible conditions of romantic love? Can't we be lovers all the time? (p. 192)”
Source: Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
“There is no greater jihad than to help the helpless.”
“Life is full of flaws. It’s what brings disparity, making one person rejoice and the other melancholy. It does not need to be fair. Only be what it is. Flawed - Huja”
Source: A King's Armour