The journey of each talk covers many topics and weaves a tapestry of interwoven ideas, concepts, and explanations to reflect on, and inspire us to become more. Each talk is approximately 30 minutes long.
When I first met my teacher, I was sort of stunned by the information that I was getting and by his nature, by the way he was. In looking at things in the way that I was looking at them, after I met him it struck me that I was becoming more serious than I […]
A football field is different from a baseball field. You don’t play baseball on a football field and you don’t play football on things that are set up as baseball fields. They are different venues. They each have a different set of rules. They have different ways of doing things. Just because you can do
When Ali would go to prayer, people would notice that he would blanch, color would leave his face and sometimes he would tremble as if he were in fear. He was asked why this happened to him. He said “Every time I go to prayer, I go to have conversation with Allah. This is the
As we go through life, there are many dilemmas that we encounter, but there’s one particular dilemma at the core of spiritual understanding. That’s the dilemma of being made of form and yet trying to understand the formless. Of being involved in the form and all of the fascinations that the form is drawn to,
Because we don’t know ourselves. Because we haven’t gotten to the core of who we are, we identify ourselves with labels. We don’t necessarily know the definition of the labels. We don’t necessarily know the extent of their meaning, but they give us something to hold onto. They give us a way to identify ourselves
One of the things that man is capable of is rationalization. Man can tell himself that what he is doing is appropriate and correct and then come up with reasons why it is correct. To that man who is doing it, it all seems rational and in line with the way things are. That’s why
Progress is an interesting word. What does it mean to go forward? What does it mean to progress? What does it mean to change states? What does it mean to go from one place to another? What happens? How does it happen? What’s the purpose of it happening? Do you have to have intention in
If you were to travel to Konya in Turkey, you would most likely be going to see the place where Rumi resided, and his tomb. When you got there, this is what you would see. You would walk into an area that looked like a mosque, but it wasn’t. It’s actually a tomb, an indoor
What will happen next? What do we expect as we walk down the street? What do we contemplate? Do we imagine turning the corner and a tree bursting into flames and talking to us? It happened. It happened to Moses. A bush in the desert spoke to him. Could it happen to you? Could an
The saint Rabia said “I do not desire heaven and I do not fear hell, I want only Allah.” In the testaments, the holy books, the Torah, the New Testament, the Quran, there are stories of prophets. The prophets had connections with Allah. In the Old Testament, Allah spoke to Abraham, Allah spoke to Moses,
