Those who have entered the journey for some kind of spiritual understanding realize after a while that there are stations on the journey. There are steps. There are hills. There are plateaus. But in summation, you are either in a state of love or doing what you can to get to a state of love. […]
To understand love we have to take into consideration what our conception of love is. If we don’t have a conception of love, we’re going to have trouble putting it into practice and into play. So when we say love, what do we mean? Do we mean the relationship between a man and a woman?
Tasawuf is the word used in the East for the word we call Sufism. Tasawuf is a reference to coarse wool. And it was the garb of sufis in the ancient days to wear coarse wool robes. Coarse wool, of course, has the implication that they were uncomfortable. And the point being that the ones
Recently was the time of Hajj, and one of the central themes of the Hajj is the Prophet Abraham. The Hajj is a repetition of things that the Prophet Muhammad, Sallahu alaihi wa salaam, did on his return to Mecca. But what he did, much of it, was in remembrance of Abraham. The Kabba was
In each of our lives, we play a lot of different roles; and in one day we may play many different roles. If we’re older, we may be a mother and a wife or somebody in the workplace, somebody’s friend, a father, a husband, a doctor, a driver. We do many different things during the
If we look into a mirror, a mirror reflects what it sees or what’s projected into it. It gives it right back, and it gives it back pretty straight. There’s no interference with the reflection. The reflection comes back as an honest portrait of what is presented to it. Even with the immense honesty of
Recently in the news in the last few days, there have been stories about celebrities who’ve gotten dementia or Alzheimer’s, and they’re losing their memory. They’re losing their past. They’re no longer cognisant of the things that occurred to them. And they were interviewing them. And they were talking about their situation without rememberances. Now,
If you’re ever in Florence or in Rome, one of the things that you will notice is that there are an enormous number of paintings of Jesus. And many of these paintings have him on a crucifix. And what’s interesting about these paintings is that being crucified is certainly a most unpleasant experience, about as
We are in the month of Ramadan right now, and people are fasting from food from sun up to sunset. It’s a month where there is supposed to be reflection and fasting. It was said by a great sage that if during the month of Ramadan you can’t fast from anger, then Allah doesn’t need
Today is New Year’s Day, and we celebrate the beginning of a new year marked on the calendar. And we all walk around wishing each other “Happy New Year!” and we talk about new beginnings and starting again. And everyone makes their new year’s resolutions as to what they are going to do this year
