Sat May 6th, 1:30-5:30 pm

SufiCorner Arts, Montclair, New Jersey

Join Sufi Corner for an afternoon of conversation and spiritual practice with Shaikh Kabir Helminski. Register here.

This will also be streamed online via SufiCorner's Instagram page.

July 1st with Mahmoud Mostafa & Khadim Chishti

Join Mahmoud Mostafa, Khadim Chishti, and other Threshold dervishes for two events at the Bradford Literature Festival.

A Dervish Guide to Reading Rumi: an interactive discussion on how the Masnavi can guide us through our everyday challenges.

Mevlevi Sema: divine remembrance, poetry, and whirling.

Please note that events fill up quickly, book your tickets online.

with Shaikh Kabir Helminski, Selçuk Gürez & friends

Join us for 3-4 days of zikr, meditation, worship, music, conversation, and community in the beautiful natural environment of Broughton Sanctuary in the North Yorkshire Dales.

A retreat is an opportunity to put aside distractions, awaken to our true yearning, and deepen our remembrance (zikr). It is also a time to deepen our understanding of the spiritual path.

How do we discover and develop our true humanness in today’s world? What sources of knowledge should we trust and rely on? How is sincerity maintained? How are human beings transformed, and what would transformation look like?

Sufism is a culture of love in which knowledge, spiritual practice, and community are all essential. At the heart of Sufi life is adab, which we might translate as “spiritual courtesy.” Adab is an ideal of respectful awareness, humility, and affection which has been embodied by those who walk the path of Sufism.

Enriched and guided by the beautiful wisdom of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, our spiritual path is one of creativity, joy, community, worship, and love.

***

Blue dervish image by Lateefa Spiker

Shaikh Kabir discusses his new book The Mysterion: Rumi and the Secret of Becoming Fully Human on the Sounds of SAND, a podcast from Science and Nonduality which contemplates and reveres the beauty, complexity, pain, and great mystery that weave the infinite cycles of existence.

May 7th

Join us for a monthly online meditation and sohbet with Shaikh Kabir and Camille, and special guests from the Threshold community. Held on the 1st Sunday of every month at 12pm Eastern Time (5pm UK).

Zoom meeting: https://zoom.us/j/435138208
Zoom passcode: threshold

Watch last month's meeting below and see all our videos here.

Extract from The Mysterion by Kabir Helminski

Because we are living within a unified, conscious Reality, with its own will, intelligence, conscious purpose, and love, everything is a sign to be read by the heart, revealing the meanings and purpose of this Reality.

In the history of human aspiration, there are traditions of enlightenment, sacred texts, and sources of true knowledge that can guide us. Some of these sources count as objective revelations from the Absolute Intelligence. If we are sincere, over time we will be shown the truth of these revelations “in ourselves and on the farthest horizon” (Surah Fuççilat 41:53). But if our hearts are diseased and hardened, if we are without humility, we cannot grasp the revelations that Reality offers.

What are the characteristics of those who have verified these revelations? They are patient. They are humble. They are generous. They are forgiving. They are loving. They are strong. They have established within themselves the Mysterion that allows these qualities to shine forth naturally and spontaneously. They have seen that these qualities are attributes of their own essence.

The most central question in human life is how to awaken and purify the heart. It is the organ of perception that puts us in touch with a qualitative reality. The heart perceives meaning and significance; it senses relationships; it reveals to us the significance of existing as a spiritual being in this infinite universe.

The peerless God has made
all the six directions a theater
for the display of signs to the clear-seeing,
so that, whatever animal or plant they look upon,
they may feed on the meadows of Divine Beauty.
And so God said to the mystic companions,
“Wherever you turn, there is the face of God.”
          (Surah al-Baqarah 2:115)

[Mathnawi VI, 3640]

Our daughter has been riding horses since she was four years old, and now she is a trainer of horses. Her sensitivity to horses, her understanding of their ways, has taught me so much about the intelligence and emotions of horses. It’s her love of horses that has enabled her to know their moods, their fears, their joys, and how to bring out the best in them. When she is among horses she has a qualitative perception that is enlivened far beyond what human beings generally have for each other.

We have all experienced that at certain times the heart is open, while at other times it is closed, insensitive, contracted. When we can awaken and purify the heart, we can come into direct contact with higher Reality and have the kind of experience that brings unity to the self, orders the inner life, and reshapes the personality.

The great beings—Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad among them—did not come to propose dogmas or establish a religious hierarchy but to show a way by which human beings could awaken and purify their hearts. These great teachers demonstrated how we might come to rely upon the authentic, free, and independent knowing of the heart. These prophets and enlightened beings issued a call to simplicity and true sanity, guided by a spiritual minimalism that teaches us to rely upon what we innately have within ourselves that can connect us to Reality.

Listen, open a window to God
and begin to delight yourself
by gazing upon Him through the opening.
The business of love is to make that window in the heart,
for the breast is illumined by the beauty of the Beloved.
Gaze incessantly on the face of the Beloved!
Listen, this is in your power, my friend!

[Mathnawi VI, 3095–97]

***

The Mysterion is available from all good booksellers.

We have come from God. Go forward in God.

We welcome your reflections on this theme.

~ Julie Sheard [Cumbria, UK]

The work is done by Allah.
So where does this mind find its accolades?
Only when the mind has surrendered
Can the beautiful complexity manifest.
Flowing through, flowing through
Moment by moment,
The will of the Holy One grows peace.
What can this little mind bring forth
But parody?
The open heart burns bright with Life
All thought is It’s thought
All Love, It’s Love -
Don’t get in the way
Grand plans and Crusades will come to dust

All passes away

But

Love

~ Julie Sheard is a mother of 3 grown up children. She has been a practitioner of Zen Buddhism for 23 years as a lay person and is now a member of the Threshold Kendal circle in Cumbria. She enjoys sewing, knitting and walking by the sea.

Fourteen of the most beloved short surahs and passages from the Qur’an, recited in Arabic by Camille Helminski.

The Threshold Society, rooted within the traditions of Sufism and inspired by the life and work of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi, is a non-profit educational foundation with the purpose of facilitating the experience of Divine Unity, Love, and Truth in the world. Sufism is a living tradition of human transformation through love and higher consciousness. Our fundamental framework is classical Sufism and the Qur’an as it has been understood over the centuries by the great Sufis. The Society is affiliated with the Mevlevi Order, and offers training programs, seminars and retreats around the world.

Each month we intend to highlight an article about our lineage and its principles. This month we offer: Suggestions for Practice Within the Threshold Society & The Mevlevi Tradition

Most people who come to Sufism have preconceptions as well as questions about what Sufism is. What does the practice consist of and how will I learn and develop? Is there a detailed curriculum? Or hidden knowledge? What should I expect of my shaikh and what kind of relationship is possible? Some people might imagine that the shaikh has a detailed, objective technical knowledge of various inner states, spiritual energies, planes of reality, spiritual powers, etc. While there is some truth in this, it has been our experience that among the best teachers these subjects are seldom emphasized or talked about directly. An emphasis on secret, privileged knowledge, or encouraging a mystique or building a cult of personality, or intimations of end-time scenarios, have proven time and time again to be counter-indicators of spirituality. In other words, the more such tendencies surround a teaching, the less likely it is that the teaching will be balanced and authentic. If we look to the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, we see a sane and balanced presentation of the Way. Our approach, therefore, places a strong emphasis on developing our capacities for presence, remembrance, service, and humility.

[Read more…]

Threshold Indonesia iftar gathering