In Yoke

from "Living Presence"- Kabir Helminski. According to Attar's "Remembrance of the Saints", a group of prominent Sufis were denounced as blasphemous heretics before the Caliph of Baghdad. The Caliph ordered them to appear before him.  Without trial the Caliph ordered these five pious men-Abu Hamza, Raqqam, Shebli, Nuri, and Junaid-- to be immediately slain. The executioner was about to slay Raqqam when Nuri thrust himself fearlessly into Raqqam's place. Laughing with joy, he cried, "Kill me first!" "It's not your turn yet, said the executioner, "and a sword should not be wielded to hastily." "I wish to die first. I prefer my friends to myself. Life is the most precious thing in this world, and I would like to give the last minutes to serving my brothers. I do this even though one moment in the world is dearer to me than a thousand years in the next. For this world is the place of service, while the other world is the pla...

---excerpt from Fr. Richard Rohr, explaining what he believes to be true about the Perennial Tradition. Rami Shapiro illuminates his teaching. Very instructive in my own spiritual and metaphysical understanding. Finding the One in the Many Sunday, August 5, 2018 Over the next several weeks, I will explore the divine image and likeness in many spiritual streams throughout history and around the world. I can’t even attempt to give an exhaustive study—there are so many wonderful examples from the Perennial Tradition. I’ll simply focus on the religious expressions which have most influenced and broadened my own life. The Jewish mystical teacher Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes: To me, religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say as well in another; and the more languages you speak, the more nuanced your under...

A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing that he says, thinks, or does is without consequences.                                                                          – Norman Cousins Galatians 6:7-9 (KJV) "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.  And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." This Judeo-Christian scriptural truth, illustrated by the concept of photosynthesis and growth of vegetation from the Letter to the Galatians, by the founder of Christianity, Saul of Tarsus, nee "Paul", is also...

Be my mirror, able to sort out the thoughts and intentions of my own sullied and sinful heart. Please Lord Christ, liberate me from my own self. By your spirit, help me not to evaluate, judge, or act. Help me to be nothing, so that I may receive something. Save me, Lord, from my own tyrannical ego, my own self, my own tyrannical ego/self -From my own judgments -from my own opinions -from my own feelings about everything, about anything Through your Spirit - enable me to allow your love to guide and control my seemingly always undisciplined emotions. May my own tyrannical emotions, and ego, my own self, may it die.  Like the mystics say, may I “die before I die”.   So that my life and my motives may be “born again”. May my personhood and my “personality” be in direct continuity with your life, your love, your “mind”. For I am created in Your Image.  Who “I am” is a further breathing forth of the eternal and perfect “I AM WHO I A...

God has given us a dark wine so potent that, 
drinking it, we leave the two worlds. God has put into the form of hashish a power
 to deliver the taster from self-consciousness. God has made sleep so 
that it erases every thought. God made Majnun love Layla so much that
 just her dog would cause confusion in him. There are thousands of wines 
that can take over our minds. Don't think all ecstacies
 are the same!
 Jesus was lost in his love for God.
 His donkey was drunk with barley. Drink from the presence of saints,
 not from those other jars. Every object, every being,
 is a jar full of delight. Be a connoisseur,
 and taste with caution. Any wine will get you high.
 Judge like a king, and choose the purest, the ones unadulterated with fear,
 or some urgency about "what's needed." Drink the wine that moves you 
as a camel moves when it's been untied, and is just ambling about. ---------------Mathnawi IV, 2683-96
The Essential Rumi, Coleman Bark...

Living in Wisdom The Bhagavad Gita Passages for Meditation Arjuna : Tell me of those who live in wisdom, Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna; How do they talk, how sit, how move about? Sri Krishna: They live in wisdom Who see themselves in all and all in them, Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed Every selfish desire and sense craving Tormenting the heart. Not agitated By grief or hankering after pleasure, They live free from lust and fear and anger. Fettered no more by selfish attachments, They are not elated by good fortune Nor depressed by bad. Such are the seers. Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, The wise can draw in their senses at will. Aspirants abstain from sense pleasures, But they still crave for them. These cravings all Disappear when they see the Lord of Love. For even of those who tread the path, The stormy senses can sweep off the mind. But they live in wisdom who subdue them And keep their minds ever absorbed in me. Whe...

  Fr. Richard Rohr expresses the almost indescribable meaning of "The Christ". It is Universal. I resonate with his insight into how he views the second coming of Christ. Fr. Rohr:   Christ is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of God’s nature, sustaining the universe by God’s powerful command.  —Hebrews 1:3, Jerusalem Bible Christ is not Jesus’ last name. The word  Christ  is a title, meaning the Anointed One, which we so consistently applied to Jesus that to us it became like a name. But a study of Scripture, Tradition, and the experience of many mystics reveals a much larger, broader, and deeper meaning to “the Christ.”  Frankly, it is a metaphysical concept more than a religious one, although almost all people today would see it as a religious name for Jesus. The above passage from Hebrews says that Christ “sustains the universe.” Christ is a religious concept because it can be used to describe rea...