Posted in Richard Grossinger, Wilber, coherencies, consciousness, integral, metaphysics, mythology, phenomenology, speculations, sufism on Jul 26th, 2008 No Comments »
The Integral Spiritual Center lands a come-on in my email box every week. Yesterday’s gave me a whack on the side of the head.
Modern science has given us a compelling picture of the evolution of our universe, from its first moments: quantum fluctuations—i.e. the “Big Bang”—led to a massive inflation, followed by “the dark […]
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Posted in Rumi, sufism, web media on Jun 15th, 2008 No Comments »
Reader: Coleman Barks
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Shaikh Abul Janaab Najmuddin al-Kubra (may Allah favor him,) in his book Fawatih ul-Jamaal, wrote “Dhikr is flowing in the body of creatures by the necessity of their breath, because through their breathing, the […]
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Posted in Rumi, poetry, sufism on Oct 4th, 2007 No Comments »
I’m so close to you that I’m far apart,
So completely merged that I’m separate,
So vastly exposed that I’m concealed,
So whole and sound that I’ll never be healed.
#1121, from Rumi’s Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi
Edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar (Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1988).
From translations of Rumi by Zara Houshmand
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Posted in Rumi, poetry, sufism on Jul 20th, 2007 No Comments »
The friend to whom flower and thorn are one,
In whose faith, Koran and Cross are the same –
Why should we worry? To him it’s all one:
The swiftest horse or a donkey that’s lame.
#454: From Rumi’s Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi
Edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar (Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1988).
Translated by Zara Houshmand
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Mullah Nasrudin had obtained a part time gig as the agricultural adviser to the village. There wasn’t much to do but answer the queries of gardeners and farmers. One man was struggling with his lawn and, so, one day he knocked on Nasrudin’s door.
“My lawn is beautiful except for the pesky dandelions!”
Nasrudin stroked his beard […]
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Teaching Cartoons is a concept for a workshop. It’s easy to describe. Participants learn how teaching stories used in spiritual traditions, such as Sufism and Buddhism, may be translated into cartoon form. Then, after being appraised of some of the constituent tropes, operations and procedures utilized in these forms of teaching, they are also revealed […]
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I added the emphasis in the following clipping. …food for reflection. I’ll follow up with a teaching cartoon shortly.
Excerpt. The Wisdom of Sufic Humor, Idries Shah; originally published in Human Nature; April 1978
Sufis see many traditional prayers and processes, today more familiar than ever to most Westerners, as relics of specific, scripted, and measured formulas […]
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If you could give up tricks and cleverness, this would be the cleverest trick!
Rumi was one of the great lanterns of experiential spirituality and Sufism. Today, not only is Rumi the most read poet in the world, his work imbues many spiritual ’schools’ with important psychological, esoteric and yogic principles and methods.
Who was Rumi? What […]
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