“The most ineffable part of Mohammedan mysticism is Persian Sufism. It has the merit of struggling against materialism and fanaticism, and against the literal interpretation of the Koran. The Sufis interpret the Koran from the esoteric point of view as we, the Gnostics interpret the New Testament.”
“What is most disconcerting to occidentals is the strange and mysterious mixture of the erotic with the mystical in the oriental religions and Sufi mysticism. Christian theology considers the flesh to be hostile to the Spirit, but in the Muslim religion, the flesh and the Spirit are two substances of the same energy; two substances that should help each other.”
-Samael Aun Weor
“Here a world, there a world. And I am seated on the threshold.”
–Jalalludin Rumi
“Miracles are only the first of the thousand stages of the Way of God. Do not seek until the you are sought, for when you find that which you seek, it will resemble you. When you give to God your nothingness, He gives to you His all.”
-Abu l’Hassan Khurqani
A disciple asked Abu Sa’id, ‘Where shall we seek Him?’ Abu Sa’id replied, ‘Where did you look that you did not find him?’
“Thy Spirit is mingled in my spirit even as wine is mixed with pure water. When anything touches Thee, it touches me. Lo, in every case Thou art I!”
-Husayn ibn Mansur
“Go sweep out the chamber of your heart, Make it ready for the Beloved. When you depart out He will enter it. In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauties.”
-Mahmud Shabistari
“When Truth has overwhelmed a human heart, it empties it of all that is not Truth. When God loves a being, He kills everything that is not Him.”
-Al-Hallaj
“There is great difficulty in knowing God because His brightness is too much for the heart of man to bear. Man knows the extraordinary brightness of the sun, which reveals in all things, yet if the earth did not revolve around the sun causing night, or if the shade did not veil it, no one would know that light exists. He is hidden by His Brightness.”
-Al-Ghazzali
“This is the fire of love which purifies, which is different whenever it occurs, which sears the marrow and makes incandescent the kernel. The ore separates from the matrix, and the Perfected Man emerges, altered in such a way that every aspect of his life is ennobled. He is not changed in the sense of being different; but he is completed, and this makes him considered powerful of men. Every fiber has been purified, raised to a higher state, vibrates to a higher tune, gives out a more direct, more penetrating note, attracts the affinity in man and woman, is loved more and hated more; partakes of a destiny, a portion, infinitely assured and recognized, indifferent to the things which affected him while he pursued the mere shadow of which this is the substance, however sublime that former experience may have been.”
-Adil Alimi
“Seventy thousand veils separate Allah, the One Reality, from the world of matter and sense…thus the child is born weeping, for the soul knows its separation from Allah, the One Reality.”
-Rifa’i
“The seed of Sufism was sown in the time of Adam germed in the time of Noah, budded in the time of Abraham, began to develop in the time of Moses, reached maturity in the time of Jesus, produced pure wine in the time of Mohammad.”
-Shahabudin Suhrawardi from the Awarif el-Maarif (Gifts of Deep Knowledge)
“No one ever suffered on the path of faith who did not find remedy for his or her pain.”
-Jami
“Music is a divine influence which stirs the heart to seek God: those who listen to it spiritually attain unto God, and those who listen to it sensually fall into unbelief.”
-Dhu l’Nun the Egyptian
“The art of healing cures the body, but the art of poetry cures the soul.”
–Ibn Sina
“There is a food other than ordinary food. This is the food of impressions. [naqsh-ha], which are penetrating into man ceaselessly from many directions of his environment. Only the elect know what these impressions are and can direct them…”
–Bahaudin Naqshband
“So long as we do not die within ourselves, and so long as we are identified with someone or something, we shall never be free.”
–Farud ud-Din Attar
“Those who are controlled by the lower self must serve it; those who control the lower self serve others.
-Sufi proverb
“When the Heart weeps because it has lost, the Spirit laughs because it has found.”
–Sufi proverb
“I carry a torch in one hand, And a bucket of water in the other: With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven, And put out the flames of Hell. So that voyagers to God can rip the veils, And see the real goal.”
-Rabia
“For thirty years I sought Allah. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality Allah was the seeker and I the sought.”
-Bayazid Bestami
“I never saw any lamp shining more brilliantly than the lamp of silence.”
-Bayazid Bestami
“I went to a wilderness, love had rained and had covered the earth, as my feet penetrate snow, I found my feet covered with love.”
-Bayazid Bestami
“I stood with the pious and I didn’t find any progress with them. I stood with the warriors in the cause and I didn’t find a single step of progress with them. Then I said, ‘O Allah, what is the way to You?’ and Allah said, ‘Leave yourself and come.’”
-Bayazid Bestami
“He who discourses of eternity must have within him the lamp of eternity.”
-Bayazid Bestami