On a recent trip to Turkey led by Shaikh Kabir and Camille Helminski, our group was lucky enough to be invited to the Sefik Can Foundation, under the direction of Nur Artiran, one of Turkey's most respected spiritual teachers. It gave us a valuable insight into Sufism as practised by modern Mevlevis in Turkey.
The Soul is a work of art. The child of the marriage of self and Spirit. In this new video talk on Threshold Society's YouTube channel, Shaikh Kabir reflects on the development of soul in daily life.
From the very beginning of my own training I was led to ask the question: If Mevlana were alive today, would he teach in the same way that he taught in Konya in the 13th century? So many aspects of his teaching and thought seem strikingly contemporary and this is not merely the result of translations that try to make him appear contemporary. His transcendence of his immediate culture is intrinsic to his message.
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Fearless Tenderness - Huddersfield Circle, Tue 26th Feb, 2013
Sohbet held in the Huddersfield circle, reading is taken from chapter 26 of Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self.
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The States of the Soul - London Circle, Thu 28th Feb, 2013 See also the follow-up Q&A session
The States of the Soul cont - Q&A, London Circle, Thu 28th Feb, 2013 Follow-up to previous sohbet
Conversations with a Saint - Mawlana Asad Ali London gathering, Sat 2nd Mar, 2013 View the transcript of the conversation
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.
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.