“Cherry Blossom Heaven”
“Rumi led them down a narrow pathway that looked to be the sunlit entrance to heaven. The ground was completely covered by brilliant white snowdrops. Interspersed with their white blooms were delicately green stems. The sunlight streaming down on this natural carpet of flowers caused it to gently undulate, to ever-so-slightly pulse, and to quiver […]
Continue reading“The Turkish Market”
“They walked down a narrow market alley with high, vaulted, stone ceilings. Cooing doves serenaded them as they passed stalls piled high with figs, oranges, dates, and raisins; with elaborately decorated shoes and simple slippers; with heaped spice mounds of red and black pepper, thyme, mint, cumin, sumac, bay leaf, and cinnamon; with candies of […]
Continue reading“Sufi Wisdom”
“Rumi scanned the faces of all his guests. He smiled in an utterly childlike, innocent manner. “It is unimportant for us to put all these labels, these words, on things. The labels are, after all, the problem in the first place. We separate ourselves from God’s Being by constantly attaching words to what we ought […]
Continue reading“Meeting Rumi”
“Rumi, for it was indeed him, wore a simple brown woolen cloth robe, the ‘suf’ from which ‘Sufi’ is derived, and a white turban. But the man’s face was the pure distillation of love. His small mouth was as delicately sculpted as a masterpiece miniature; his nose, long and narrow. Rumi’s eyes, shaded by thick […]
Continue reading“Nothing is Everything”
Skylar Seequn observed an immense hall, every inch of which was filled with objects and furnishings of all imaginable sizes, colors, and shapes. The hall was cacophonous and its air replete with odors. But there was no room to sit or dance or pray. “This is everything!” someone told him. He then came to an […]
Continue reading“Mountain Rescue”
“But then something extraordinary occurred. The woman in white, whom they had earlier encountered at Love’s Travel Stop, appeared a few feet away from Dev. She pointed to Amante and Dev. Two powerful angels, blue in color and glowing with radiance, took hold of the poet by her shoulders. She felt the oddest of sensations: […]
Continue reading“Vairochana”
“Once again, they saw Vairochana come to life. And this time he communicated with them, sending each one specific, though extremely subtle, messages. They felt as if their subtle essence had been drawn into that of the Buddha. Floods of compassion and tenderness inundated their souls. They became aware of hierarchical worlds that existed above, […]
Continue reading“The Mandala”
“Somewhere below their intellects, the friends understood that Gyatso was creating a divine order in the mandala, a reminder to them of the perfect grace, balance, and beauty that existed in the hidden world that lay behind this visible one, which was, quite to the contrary, often notable for its crudity, distortion, and ugliness. From […]
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