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Sufism Quotes

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Sufism Quotes

“Spiritual knowledge is not in learning something; it is in discovering something, so to speak, in breaking the fetters of the false consciousness and allowing the soul to unfold itself with light and power. What does the word spiritual really mean? Spiritual is spirit-conscious. When a person is conscious of his body, he cannot be spiritual. He is like a king who does not know his kingdom. The moment he is conscious of being a king, he is a king. Every soul is born a king—afterwards he becomes a slave. Every soul is born with kingly possibility—by this wicked world it is taken away. This is told in symbolic stories, as in the story of Rama, from whom his beloved Sita was taken away. Every soul has to conquer this, has to fight for this kingdom. In that fight the spiritual kingdom is attained. No one will fight for you, neither your teacher nor anybody else. Yes, those who are more evolved than you can help you, but you have to fight your battle, your way to that spiritual goal.”

EnlightenmentAwakeningSufismIlluminationSufi WisdomSufi WayHazrat Inayat Khan
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“I f anybody asks what Sufism is, what kind of religion is it, the answer is that Sufism is the religion of the heart, the religion in which the thing of primary importance is to seek God in the heart of mankind.”

SufismSufi WisdomSufi WayHazrat Inayat KhanDefinition Of SufismThe Religion Of The HeartGod In The Heart Of Mankind
Book:The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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“Spiritual life means learning to become one-pointed, to focus all our energy in one direction, towards Him. Through continually repeating His name we alter the grooves of our mental conditioning, the grooves which like those on a record play the same tune over and over again, repeat the same patterns which bind us in our mental habits. The dhikr gradually replaces these old grooves with the single groove of His name. The automatic thinking process is redirected towards Him. Like a computer we are reprogrammed for God. It is said that what you think, you become. If we continually think of Allâh we become one with Allâh. But the effect of the dhikr is both more subtle and more powerful than solely an act of mental focusing. One of the secrets of a dhikr (or mantra) is that it is a sacred word which conveys the essence of that which it names. This (“In is “the mystery of the identity of God and His Name” the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God”). In our common everyday language there is not this identity. The word “chair” does not contain the essence of a chair. It merely signifies a chair. But the sacred language of a dhikr is different; the vibrations of the word resonate with that which it names, linking the two together. Thus it is able to directly connect the individual with that which it names. (p. 121)”

SufismSufi WisdomSufi WayRemembrance Of GodDhikrLlewellyn Vaughan LeeThe Bond With The Beloved
Book:The Bond with the Beloved: The Mystical Relationship of the Lover & the Beloved
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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 cjalb within the cjalb. 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 GnosisThe Kingdom Of God
Book:To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life
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“The perfect mystic is not an ecstatic devotee lost in contemplation of Oneness, nor a saintly recluse shunning all commerce with mankind, but “the true saint” goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment. – Abu Said ibn Abi al-Khair”

SufismSufiSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi Gnosis
Book:Travelling the Path of Love: Sayings of Sufi Masters
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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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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)”

OnenessSufismSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi GnosisPerennial PhilosophySpiritual PhilosophyPir Zia Inayat Khan
Book:Mingled Waters : Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions
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“Knowledge of the Supreme brings immortality. "The wise one - He is not born, He does not die." For one who has died before death, the death of the body is merely a formality. To live in God is to live an endless Life. (p. 38)”

SufismSufi WisdomSufi WayPerennial PhilosophySpiritual PhilosophyPir Zia Inayat KhanMystical QuestWisdom Sayings
Book:Mingled Waters : Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions
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“The three dimensions of Sufi teaching: the Law, the Way, and the Truth; or knowledge, works, and attainment to God; or theory, practice, and spiritual realization. Knowledge of God, man, and the world derives ultimately from God Himself, primarily by means of revelation, – in the context of Islam – the Koran and the Hadith of the Prophet; and secondarily by means of inspiration or „unveiling“, the spiritual vision of the saints, or the realized Sufis. Knowledge provides the illumination whereby man can see everything in its proper place. (p. 11)”

IslamSufismSufi WaySufi GnosisSpiritual Philosophy
Book:The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi
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“The Sufi Way is to follow the model provided by the Prophet‘s representatives on earth, the saints, who are the shaykhs or the spiritual masters. Once having entered the Way, the disciple begins to undergo a process of inward transformation. If he is among those destined to reach spiritual perfection, he will climb the ascending rungs of a ladder stretching to heaven and beyond; the alchemy of the Way will transmute the base copper of his substance into pure and noble gold. The Truth or „attainment to God“ is not a simple, one-step process. It can be said that this third dimension of Sufi teaching deals with all the inner experiences undergone by the traveler on his journey. It concerns all the „virtues“ (akhlaq) the Sufi must acquire, in keeping with the Prophet‘s saying, „Assume the virtues of God!“ If acquiring virtues means „attaining to God,“ this is because they do not belong to man. The discipline of the Way coupled with God‘s grace and guidance results in a process of purification whereby the veil of human nature is gradually removed from the mirror of the primordial human substance, made in the image of God, or, in the Prophet‘s words, „upon the Form of the All-Merciful.“ Any perfection achieved by man is God‘s perfection reflected within him. (p. 11-12)”

IslamSufismSufiSufi WisdomSufi WaySufi Gnosis
Book:The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi
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“Endeavor to Make God Your Companion in Every State Intention based only in my own limited will is incomplete. All my limited will can do is make an intention to realize there is some work to be done, whatever that work may be. For us there’s the work of transformation, transformation of the self. Do we ask for it? Do we call on the Infinite for a little help? A little mercy? A little strength? A little discipline? When our striving comes from that higher level, when intention is enfolded with presence, we may understand the truth of the above passage from the Qu’ran, and in this line in particular, And it is God who has named you as those who are surrendered. You are lifted above the immediate clash of opposites and brought into a more spiritual perspective, surrendered, aware of divine support and Grace, no matter what the outcome. You can be an example of this surrender, this striving to live in the Divine Way, the Way that reflects the highest truths.”

SufismSpiritual AwakeningSufi WayThe Living TraditionWay Of Transformation
Author:Kabir Helminski
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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 soul 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)”

MindfulnessSufismSufi WayThe SoulLiving PresenceThe Great Work
Book:Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
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