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Sufi Way Quotes

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Sufi Way Quotes

“The heart is the center of the human microcosm, at once the center of the physical body, the vital energies, the emotions, and the soul, as well as the meeting place between the human and the celestial realms where the spirit resides. How remarkable is this reality of the heart, that mysterious center which from the point of view of our earthly existence seems so small, and yet as the Prophet has said it is the Throne (al-‘arsh) of God the All-Merciful (ar-Rahmân), the Throne that encompasses the whole universe. Or as he uttered in another saying, “My Heaven containeth Me not, nor My Earth, but the heart of My faithful servant doth contain Me.” It is the heart, the realm of interiority, to which Christ referred when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), and it is the heart which the founders of all religions and the sacred scriptures advise man to keep pure as a condition for his salvation and deliverance. We need only recall the words of the Gospel, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8) […] In Christianity the Desert Fathers articulated the spiritual, mystical, and symbolic meanings of the reality of the heart, and these teachings led to a long tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church known as Hesychasm, culminating with St Gregory Palamas, which is focused on the “prayer of the heart” and which includes the exposition of the significance of the heart and the elaboration of the mysticism and theology of the heart. In Catholicism another development took place, in which the heart of the faithful became in a sense replaced by the heart of Christ, and a new spirituality developed on the basis of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Reference to His bleeding heart became common in the writings of such figures as St Bernard of Clairvaux and St Catherine of Sienna. The Christian doctrines of the heart, based as they are on the Bible, present certain universal theses to be seen also in Judaism, the most important of which is the association of the heart with the inner soul of man and the center of the human state. In Jewish mysticism the spirituality of the heart was further developed, and some Jewish mystics emphasized the idea of the “broken or contrite heart” (levnichbar) and wrote that to reach the Divine Majesty one had to “tear one’s heart” and that the “broken heart” mentioned in the Psalms sufficed. To make clear the universality of the spiritual significance of the heart across religious boundaries, while also emphasizing the development of the “theology of the heart” and methods of “prayer of the heart” particular to each tradition, one may recall that the name of Horus, the Egyptian god, meant the “heart of the world”. In Sanskrit the term for heart, hridaya, means also the center of the world, since, by virtue of the analogy between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the center of man is also the center of the universe. Furthermore, in Sanskrit the term shraddha, meaning faith, also signifies knowledge of the heart, and the same is true in Arabic, where the word îmân means faith when used for man and knowledge when used for God, as in the Divine Name al-Mu’min. As for the Far Eastern tradition, in Chinese the term xin means both heart and mind or consciousness. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Chapter 3: The Heart of the Faithful is the Throne of the All-Merciful)”

Sufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisHorusWisdom Of The HeartSufism And The Christian EastThe Christian Mystical TraditionSeyyed Hossein NasrThe Heart Of The World
Book:Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East
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“Four thousand years before God created these bodies, He created the souls and kept them beside Himself and shed a light upon them. He knew what quantity each soul received and He showed favor to each in proportion to its illumination. The souls remained all that time in light, until they became fully nourished. Those who in this world live in joy and agreement with one another must have been akin to one another in that place. Here they love one another and are called the friends of God, and they are brothers who love one another for God’s sake. These souls know one another by smell, like horses. – Sheikh Abu-Said Abul-Khayr”

SufismSufiSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi Gnosis
Book:Travelling the Path of Love: Sayings of Sufi Masters
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“God placed within the heart the knowledge of Him, and so the heart became lit by God’s Light. By this light He gave the heart eyes to see. Then God spoke in a parable and said, “Compared to a niche wherein is a lamp.” The lamp of the Divine Light is in the hearts of those who believe in the Oneness of God. – Al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi”

SufiSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi Gnosis
Book:Travelling the Path of Love: Sayings of Sufi Masters
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“So then where is the kingdom of God in man? It is in the heart. That is heaven. That is God. The heart is the station of God. All that matters is there. This is where God, the soul, and the light of wisdom exist. This is a temple of God which is formed as an atom within an atom, heart within the heart, the qalb within the qalb. It is within what is within. It cannot be destroyed by the five elements. You must understand this. It can never be destroyed...(p. 96)”

SufismSufiSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi Gnosis
Book:To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life
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“Ibn ul Farid, the thirteenth-century adept in practical and theoretical mysticism, lived in Cairo. He attained to permanent union with his real self (the Beloved) by getting rid of the dualistic illusion of two selves. "It is like a woman possessed by a spirit," he said. By casting off his self-existence he had found the Beloved to be his real self. "Naught save otherness marred this high estate of thine," the Beloved said to him, "and if thou wilt efface thyself thy claim to have achieved it will be established indeed!" (Among Sufis otherness is equivalent to thinking of one's self as something other than God.)”

OnenessNondualitySufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisPaul BruntonPerennial Philosohy
Book:Advanced contemplation: The peace within you
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“Iraqi became a work of art before producing works of art. If he sang the love of God in verses of great beauty, it is because his soul had itself become a song of God, a melody in harmony with, and a strain of, the music issuing from the abode of the Beloved. Iraqi was a gnostic who spoke in the language of love. For him, as for Sufism in general, love is not juxtaposed to knowledge. It is realized knowledge. The Truth, which is like a crystal or a shining star in the mind, becomes wine when it is lived and realized. It inundates the whole of man‘s being, plucking the roots of his profane consciousness from this world of impermanence and bringing about an inebriation that must of necessity result from the contact between the soul of man and the infinite world of the Spirit. But Iraqi was a Sufi gifted particularly in expressing the „mysteries of Union“ in the language of love. (p. xi)”

SufiSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisSpiritual PhilosophyFakhruddin IraqiSufi Way Of Being
Book:Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes
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“Once we see the world for what it is, we see that it is nothing but dhikr Allâh—a reminder of God, a mention of God, a remembrance of God. Our response to the world can only be to follow its lead—to mention and to remember God. “Everything is accursed,” says the hadîth, “except dhikr Allâh.” But everything is dhikr Allâh, so nothing is accursed. The alchemy of dhikr transmutes the accursed into the blessed. The place of that dhikr, where God becomes truly present and man becomes truly blessed, is the heart. – William C. Chittick (On the Cosmology of Dhikr, p. 63)”

SufiAlchemySufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisRemembrance Of GodDhikr AllahThe Alchemy Of Dhikr
Book:Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East
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“The more we are illuminated, the more we want others to experience that also. We can't help but be generous and giving, because self and other is one, and the nature of self and the nature of other is one; it is true nature giving itself to itself. (p. 9)”

EnlightenmentAwakeningOnenessIlluminationTrue NatureSufi WayPhilosophy Of EnlightenmentThe Philosopher Stone
Book:The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers' Stone and the Secrets of Existence
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“Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. (p. 191)”

LoveMindfulnessOnenessNondualitySufi WayAgape
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
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“A famous aphorism tells us, „The Sufi is the child of the moment“ (as-sufi ibn al-waqt). One of its meanings is that the true Sufi lives in the constant awareness that his self is nothing but what he is at the present moment. And since each present moment is unique, each moment of the self is unique. In some Sufi texts, each moment is called a nafas, a „breath.“ The Sufis are then called „the folk of the breaths“ (ahl al-anfas), because they live in full awareness of the uniqueness of the nafs at each nafas, each breath, each instant. (p. 55-56)”

EnlightenmentAwakeningSufismPresenceSufi WisdomSufi WayThe Child Of The MomentThe Folk Of The Breaths
Book:Sufism: A Beginner's Guide
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“And the day when the soul realizes itself, that day a new life begins, a new birth. It is the self-realized soul which grows, which expands. So long as the soul has not realized itself, it does not develop, it does not grow. Therefore it is at the moment when the soul begins to realize itself that a man really begins to live in the world. But it must be understood that the magnetism of the selfrealized soul is greater than any magnetism one could ever imagine. It is power, it is wisdom, it is peace, it is intelligence, it is all. It is this magnetism that heals, heals bodies and heals minds; and it is this magnetism that raises those fallen into difficulties, in pain and sorrows. It is this magnetism that brings others out of their confusion, their darkness. It is by this magnetism that the illuminated souls spread out their love, thereby attracting all beings. It is of this magnetism that Christ said to the fishermen, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” It is with this magnetism that the great ones, such as Buddha, such as Moses, Christ, Muhammad, came and attracted humanity. And humanity during the ages has not forgotten. It is their magnetism which, after their having left this earth, has held millions and millions of people in one bond of brotherhood, of sympathy, of friendship. The immense power that the soul-magnetism gives shows that it is divine magnetism. It is a proof of something behind the seen world.”

Self RealizationIlluminationSufi WisdomSufi WaySpiritual PowerHazrat Inayat KhanThe Heart Of SufismSoul Magnetism
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“When the healer thinks he is healing, his power is as small as a drop; when he thinks God is healing, and when owing to this thought his own self is forgotten and he is only conscious of the Self of God, then his power becomes as large as the ocean. (Inayat Khan's advice to healers)”

HealerSufi WisdomSpiritual HealingSufi WayHazrat Inayat KhanThe Heart Of SufismHealing PowerArt Of Healing
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“What is religion to the mystic? The religion of the mystic is a steady progress towards unity. How does he make this progress? In two ways. In the first way, he sees himself in others, in the good, in the bad, in all; and thus he expands the horizon of his vision. This study goes on throughout his lifetime, and as he progresses he comes closer to the oneness of all things. And the other way of developing is to become conscious of one’s own self in God, and of God in one’s self, which means deepening the consciousness of our innermost being. This process takes place in two directions: outwardly, by being one with all we see, and inwardly, by being in touch with that one Life which is everlasting, by dissolving into it, and by being conscious of that one Spirit being the existence, the only existence.”

IlluminationSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisHazrat Inayat KhanSelfrealizationThe Heart Of SufismDivine Oneness
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“Christ says, “If anyone asks you for your coat, give him your overcoat also.” A worldly man will say, “It is not practical; if someone asked this of me every day, I would be continually buying new coats!” Yet, at the same time, it is more than practical from the point of view of the Master, for according to his view we cannot give anything, in whatever form, without getting it back in some way or other. Pure thought, goodwill, our service, our time— whatever we give—is never lost. It comes back to us according to our willingness to give; it comes back to us a thousandfold. That is why one is never the loser by being generous; one only gains. The mystic sees the law in all things, and this gives him an insight into life. He begins to see why this misery has come upon him, why that pleasure has come; why one person is prospering and another not, why one is progressing and not the other. All these things become clear to him, because he sees the law working in all things. The law of the mystic is not the law of the people. It is the law of nature; it is the real law.”

Law Of AttractionSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisHazrat Inayat KhanCosmic Law
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“The way to perfection for the mystic is by the annihilation of the false ego. He understands that in man there is a real ego, that this ego is divine, but that the divine ego is covered by a false ego […] The mystic on the spiritual path perseveres in wiping out this false ego as much as he can, by meditation, by concentration, by prayer, by study, by everything he does. His one aim is to wipe out so much, that one day reality, which is always there buried under the false ego, may manifest. And by calling on the Name of God, in the form of prayer, or in zikr, or in any other form, what the mystic does is to awaken the spirit of the real ego in order that it may manifest. It is just like a spring which rises out of the rock and which, as soon as the water has gained power and strength, breaks even through stone and becomes a stream. So it is with the divine spark in man. Through concentration, through meditation, it breaks out and manifests; and, where it manifests, it washes away the stains of the false ego and turns into a greater and greater stream, which in turn becomes the source of comfort, consolation, healing, and happiness for all who come into contact with that spirit.”

Sufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisHazrat Inayat KhanThe Heart Of SufismThe True SelfThe Divine Ego
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“There are many things in the life of a Sufi, but the greatest is to have a tendency to friendship; this is expressed in the form of tolerance and forgiveness, in the form of service and trust. In whatever form he may express it, this is the central theme: the constant desire to prove one’s love for humanity, to be the friend of all.”

FriendshipSufi WisdomSufi WayHazrat Inayat KhanThe Heart Of SufismTo Be The Friend Of All
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“Your love has wrested me away from me, You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave. Day and night I burn, gripped by agony, You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave. I find no great joy in being alive, If I cease to exist, I would not grieve, The only solace I have is your love, You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave. Lovers yearn for you, but your love slays them, At the bottom of the sea it lays them, It has God’s images-it displays them; You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave. Let me drink the wine of love sip by sip, Like Mecnun, live in the hills in hardship, Day and night, care for you holds me in its grip, You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave. Even if, at the end, they make me die And scatter my ashes up to the shy, My pit would break into this outcry: You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave. “Yunus Emre the mystic” is my name, Each passing day fans and rouses my flame, What I desire in both worlds is the same: You’re the one I need, you’re the one I crave...”

SufismSufi WaySufi PoetryYunus Emre
Author:Yunus Emre
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“As you journey along with Sufi Way, you will experience the knowledge that the apparent world is indeed just that: apparent. The Traveler will reach a stage in which the apparent world is temporarily dissolved or seen through. However, the stage where this is experienced is an area where many seekers of Truth are stuck. As the apparent world is experienced to be an illusion, other explanations, reality-maps, entities, and worlds rush in to fill the void and present themselves as how things actually are. These alternative explanations and so forth, are no more The Real (and no less more, that matter) than is the apparent world that they help to expose as illusion.”

RealIllusionTravelerSufi WayApparent World
Author:Laurence Galian
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“Make everything in you an ear, each atom of your being, and you will hear at every moment what the Source is whispering to you, just to you and for you, without any need for my words or anyone else’s. You are—we all are—the beloved of the Beloved, and in every moment, in every event of your life, the Beloved is whispering to you exactly what you need to hear and know. Who can ever explain this miracle? It simply is. Listen and you will discover it every passing moment. Listen, and your whole life will become a conversation in thought and act between you and Him, directly, wordlessly, now and always. -Rumi”

SufismSufi WisdomRumiSufi WaySufi PoetryAndrew HarveyLight Upon Light
Book:Light Upon Light
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“I haven't come here to settle down. I've come here to depart. I am a merchant with lots of goods, selling to whoever will buy. I didn't come to create any problems, I'm only here to love. A Heart makes a good home for the Friend. I've come to build some hearts. I'm a little drunk from this Friendship -- Any lover would know the shape I'm in. I've come to exchange my twoness, to disappear in One. He is my teacher. I am his servant. I am a nightingale in His garden. I've come to the Teacher's garden to be happy and die singing. They say "Souls which know each other here, know each other there." I've come to know a Teacher and to show myself as I am.”

OnenessSufi WaySufi PoetryYunus Emre
Book:The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems
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“Go and let it be known to all lovers: I am the man who gave his heart to love. I turn into a wild duck of passion, I am the one who takes the swiftest dive. From the waves of the sea I take water And offer it all the way to the skies. In adoration, like a cloud, I soar I am the one who flies to heavens above. He who says he sees, doesn't, though he vows; That man doesn't know if he claims he knows. He alone is the One who knows and shows. I am the man who has become love's slave. For true lovers, this land is Paradise; Those who know find mansions and palaces; Wonder struck and adoring like Moses, I remain on Mount Sinai where I thrive. Yunus is my name, I'm out of my mind. Love serves as my guide to the very end. All alone, toward the majestic Friend I walk kissing the ground-and I arrive.”

LoveSufi WaySufi PoetryYunus Emre
Author:Yunus Emre
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“We entered the house of realization, we witnessed the body. The whirling skies, the many-layered earth, the seventy-thousand veils, we found in the body. The night and the day, the planets, the words inscribed on the Holy Tablets, the hill that Moses climbed, the Temple, and Israfil's trumpet, we observed in the body. Torah, Psalms, Gospel, Quran -- what these books have to say, we found in the body. Everybody says these words of Yunus are true. Truth is wherever you want it. We found it all within the body.”

Sufi WaySufi PoetryYunus Emre
Book:The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems
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“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
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“On the road that leads to the Beloved Every stone is made of gold. Every step we take brings knowledge to us. Even what appears to be a mistake, or an error, Can bring us closer to purity and truth. Every good intention, thought and action Guides the soul toward the Goal. Every true word that is heard, Every understanding received, Every challenge met, Every station, by God’s Grace, attained Leads the traveler Through the labyrinth Of steps and tests Surely, to the One Who has left, at every turn in the Road, Signs of His Existence, Clear signs showing the Way That lead to Him. Not only do our successes show us the way, But even more deeply, our apparent failures Those moments in our journey When we are most deeply humbled And realize our limitations, Realizing that every step we take Is not due to our own power and will, But occurs by the Grace of God. The journey that leads to the Beloved Is guided by His Love. (The first part of a lovely and poetic introduction to the spiritual autobiography, Journey Through Ten Thousand Veils, by Sheikha Maryam Kabeer Faye)”

SufismSufi WisdomSufi Way
Book:Journey Through Ten Thousand Veils
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“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.”

SufismSufisSufi WayIdries ShahSecret Friends
Book:Secret Friends: The Ramblings of a Madman in Search of a Soul
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