June, 2002 - The Threshold Society

Love is the Wine

The essence of God is love and the Sufi path is a path of love. It is very difficult to describe love in words. It is like trying to describe honey to someone who has never tasted or even seen honey, who doesn't know what honey is. Love is to see what is good and beautiful in everything. It is to learn from everything, to see the gifts of God and the generosity of God in everything, to see the gifts of God and the generosity of God in everything. It is to be thankful for all God's bounties.

The Conversations (Maqalat) of Shams of Tabriz

The Truth is the Kadim, the Ancient One; He is the being who has no beginning. Where can the one who is "created afterwards" find the one who has no beginning? How can he understand Him? Where is the soul and the great God that has created everything? It is that power that is within you, by means of which you move and attain liberation. It is the soul, but what is it when you have placed the soul underneath your arm?

The Masters of Wisdom

Sayings of Bahauddin Naqshband, from The Masters of Wisdom, by J.G. Bennett (Bennett Books, 1996; available from Threshold Books)

The Road to Mecca

An excerpt from The Road to Mecca, by Muhammad Asad (exclusive North American distributor: Threshold Books)

Poems of Rumi, tr. by Coleman Barks

Excerpts from Open Secret, Unseen Rain, Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion, & This Longing

Inspirations: on the Path of Blame

There are three steps to achieving eternal life by dying to the world. The first step is to protect oneself against the love, the ambition, the lust, the pleasures of this world, whose attractions pull us down to it and whose illusions distract us from Truth.

Awakened Dreams

When I closed my eyes, I found myself among a few hundred students seated before a teacher of majestic presence. As I shifted my position, I put my hand on my head and was surprised to feel a twisted lock of hair at the top of my head. Then I remembered that I was Chinese. Suddenly, I remembered many other things as well.

The Drop That Became The Sea

Excerpt from The Drop That Became The Sea, by Yunus Emre (Threshold Books, 1989)

Forty Days

Today for some reason I'm crying a lot again. I have also suffered a major relapse: my obsession makes itself conspicuous again, overshadowing everything else! And I really thought I'd outgrown that! But I suppose that would be too simple, such a sudden change after being stuck for so long. Hz. Mevlâna says: "There is that in me that has to be told 50 times a day, Stop hunting, step on this net". I suppose that's how it is, the relapse is something that says to me: Stop hunting, it doesn't work the way that you imagine.

The Sema Ceremony

An illustrated description of the sequence of events in Sema, the central ritual of the Mevlevi Sufi order.

Monthly Archives: June 2002