“The expressions of his intimate moments with the Beloved are like a powerful thunderstorm that sweeps the heart with terrifying power and yet brings serenity, life-giving water, freshness, and renewal to the heart, and occasionally a rainbow upon the horizon.” […]
To embody patience is, at the least, to show no haste in matters that require time. This requires a presence that is fully in the moment and, simultaneously, outside of time. Only in this way can we give each thing its proper time. But the mental awareness alone is not sufficient to induce a holy patience. Something else is required—a sense of the Divine Presence.
Imagine yourself standing with millions of other human beings at Arafat, stripped-down to bare essentials, wearing a simple sheet of white cloth, all distinctions of wealth, position, and national identity erased. All you have is the sum of your life's thoughts, feelings, and deeds, the net result of your relationships, your loves and hates—all these things that have shaped your soul, what you are. The people on Hajj are experiencing that today. We all will experience it one day, on the day of conscious recognition.
This theme is an advanced teaching. It presumes that we have to some extent developed a healthy capacity for will. By will we mean the capacity to choose consciously; and will power is the capacity to follow through on what we have consciously chosen. Only then can we glimpse the meaning of “Claim nothing, let the Divine do.” A healthy will is a will that more often than not chooses what is good for the soul and is independent of the whims and desires of the lower self. It is at this stage that this theme becomes applicable.
Ramadan has so many dimensions: purification, sacrifice, community, the still and subtle emptiness of the heart. It reorients us in so many ways. Ramadan is less something that we do—instead it is a force field we enter and are transformed by. But it does take intention and effort on our part. If we can, we participate in the fast. Perhaps we also find other intentions, new aspects of awareness that become part of this sacred time. I’d like to share something I’ve learned.
Every human soul is in the process of acquiring experience. Does it matter that we acquire experience? Does it serve any purpose? Yes, the Divine has sent souls into the world in order to share in its ecstasy and love. If we go through life relatively unconscious, numb, unappreciative, ungrateful, and absorbed with our petty desires, we are forfeiting our chance to share in God’s ecstasy and love.
In mid-June of 2011, I was a guest of Camille at the Snowmass Inter-Spiritual Dialog, held in the lovely setting of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. The Dialog is an on-going process with more than a 25 year history in seeking to promote communication and exchange among many of the world’s spiritual or contemplative traditions and to identify “points of agreement” among them. Each of the core members or “mentors” of the group, of which Camille is the current Islamic/Sufi representative, invited several guests.
We are living in the midst of very challenging times. Shams and Mevlana also lived in the midst of very challenging times, yet what a possibility opened with the example of being they unveiled. They invite us into the garden of seeing God’s beauty and abundance in the midst of everything, seeing the Unity, and encouraging souls to be people of Paradise now, here.
Islam and Human Values by Kabir Helminski (with input from leading scholars) was written to address the urgent questions, misunderstandings, and distortions of Islam that are all too prevalent today. The need for a document like this seems to grow daily in the face of Islamophobic propaganda and extremist versions of Islam. Islam and Human Values makes the case that there is an intrinsic Islam with the Qur’an as its reference point that stands for religious pluralism, freedom of conscience, human dignity, social justice, and the spiritual transformation of human beings.
It has been a privilege and an honor to be associated with this Mevlevi tradition. It has shaped our thoughts, values, perceptions, and prayers. We draw upon the inspiration of Hazrati Mevlana and we are also grateful for the centuries of wisdom and beauty that true Mevlevis have left as a legacy. We have been following the Mevlevi Path since we took hand with Suleyman Dede in 1980 and he gave us permission to teach and lead zhikrs. In 1990 the honorable Celaletttin Celebi gave us permission to wear the Mevlevi Destar and specifically to “teach the mystic path of the Mevlevis.” Our journey on this path continued with the kind support of the noble and generous Celebi family, and along the way was strengthened by many friendships with beautiful Mevlevis, including the faithful and humble Sefik Can Efendi.