I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments […]
The spiritual life justifies itself to those who live it, but what can we say to those who do not understand? This, at least, we can say: that it is a life whose experiences are proved real to their possessor, because they remain with him when brought closest into contact with the objective realities of life. Dreams cannot stand this […]
Do not await the fulfillment of the divine cause you serve, but know that none of your efforts are fruitless, for they all advance the cause. Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910)
Someone once asked Dhu’l-Nun, “When does the Sufi reach his goal?” He said, “When he is as he was where he was before he was.” Dhu’l-Nun (796 – 859)
So God most high has said, “When I love a servant, I am his ear, so that he hears by me; I am his eye, so that he sees by me; and I am his tongue, so that he speaks by me.” Dhu’l-Nun (796 – 859)
A kind of waking trance I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has generally come upon me through repeating my own name two or three times to myself, silently, till all at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to fade away […]
Allah possesses a drink which is reserved for his intimate friends. When they drink they become intoxicated, when they become intoxicated they become joyful, when they become joyful they become sweet, when they become sweet they begin to melt, when they begin to melt they become free, when they become free they seek, when they seek they find, when they […]
When he tries to extend his power over objects Those objects gain control of him. He who is controlled by objects Loses possession of his inner self. If he no longer values himself, How can he value others? If he no longer values others, He is abandoned. He has nothing left. Zhuang Zhou (369 – 286 B.C.E.)
The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep. Zhuang Zhou (369 – 286 B.C.E.)
Shade said to Shadow, “A little while ago, you were moving, and now you are standing still. A little while ago, you were sitting down, and now you are getting up. Why all this indecision?” Shadow replied, “Don’t I have to depend on others to be what I am? Don’t others also have to depend on something else to be […]
