Speaker 1: In order to love God, we have to love God's people,
Speaker 1: which is all of us. If you want to get
Speaker 1: to that beloved, then we've got to learn to love
Speaker 1: the beloveds around us. Welcome to the one you feed.
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think, ring true. And yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Ohmaed Safi. He's one of the leading American
Speaker 1: Muslim public intellectuals Ohmed is a professor of Religious Studies
Speaker 1: at the University of North Carolina, and for the past
Speaker 1: seven years he has led the Study of Islam section
Speaker 1: at the American Academy of Religion. His new book is
Speaker 1: Radical Love Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition. Hi Ohmaed,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you, it's good to be
Speaker 1: with you. I am really happy to have you on.
Speaker 1: We're going to spend most of our time talking about
Speaker 1: your most recent book called Radical Love Teachings from the
Speaker 1: Islamic Mystical Tradition. But before we go into that, let's start,
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the parable. There is a
Speaker 1: grand father who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. It's a beautiful parable, and it's one that
Speaker 1: I've used in some talks, and I think at least
Speaker 1: once and something that I wrote, UM, I think what
Speaker 1: I'm most like about that particular parable is that it
Speaker 1: really returns moral and spiritual agency back to us. Instead
Speaker 1: of a conversation that talks about our spiritual path as
Speaker 1: being something that is destined up in heaven, which it
Speaker 1: very well might be, UM, it talks about the fact
Speaker 1: that the world is not divided between good nations and
Speaker 1: bad nations, good religions and bad religions, good communities and
Speaker 1: bad communities, or even good people and bad people. That
Speaker 1: every single one of us is somehow a work in progress,
Speaker 1: that every single one of us has these tensions inside
Speaker 1: of us, and it's a matter of which garden with water,
Speaker 1: which tendencies in us we're going to be feeding in
Speaker 1: that sense, uh. And so I like the fact that
Speaker 1: it calls us back simply to where we are human
Speaker 1: beings with a sense of agency and the ability not
Speaker 1: to control anybody else on the planet, but to say,
Speaker 1: my spiritual journey begins with me. I am in charge
Speaker 1: of the actions that I take. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a really powerful starting point for any kind of a
Speaker 1: process of transformation. I agree and it makes me think
Speaker 1: of something that I got a lot of in your
Speaker 1: book Memories of Mohammed, Why the Prophet Matters, And it's
Speaker 1: just something I hadn't heard. I mean, I learned a
Speaker 1: lot in that book. But you talk about how in Islam,
Speaker 1: love and justice are seen to be intrinsically connected. You
Speaker 1: say that um In other words, before there can be
Speaker 1: a social movement, there has to be a spiritual awakening.
Speaker 1: In fact, one could say that attempts to ameliorate the
Speaker 1: lives of human beings by forgetting about the spiritual need
Speaker 1: to uplift humanity simultaneously or doomed to be counterproductive and
Speaker 1: in fact lead to the further fraction of humanity. One
Speaker 1: must upload all of the human being, including the heart
Speaker 1: and soul. But it was really that love and justice
Speaker 1: being so tied together in the tradition that was really
Speaker 1: revealing to me. Yeah, And as is the case with
Speaker 1: so many other beautiful teachings on the planet, no one
Speaker 1: has a monopoly on them. So of course we encounter
Speaker 1: the same teaching as you know, in the heart of
Speaker 1: the Jewish faith, the Christian faith. I think all of
Speaker 1: us who are students and participants in the great American
Speaker 1: freedom movement known as you know, the black led civil
Speaker 1: rights movement. UM. You know, we all know that all
Speaker 1: that we mean by justice is love when it comes
Speaker 1: into the public spaces. Uh. And not surprisingly in the
Speaker 1: Islamic tradition, that very same UM teaching is contained in
Speaker 1: the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad. UM by linking
Speaker 1: together the notion of justice and the idea of how
Speaker 1: do we live a life that makes beauty real, that
Speaker 1: make love be something that we actually do with one
Speaker 1: another towards one another UM. And I think what it
Speaker 1: has to do for me in terms of the conversations
Speaker 1: that I see around us in so many different parts
Speaker 1: of the world is UM. I see a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are rightly and beautifully engaged in the process
Speaker 1: of spiritual transformation, right go into all kinds of retreats
Speaker 1: and maybe listening to podcasts like yours, UM. And and
Speaker 1: then I also see many people who have a sense
Speaker 1: that something is fundamentally broken in our social fabric, that
Speaker 1: the way that our society is dividing up our finite
Speaker 1: resources is neither good nor just, nor sustainable nor beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I think what the heart of the Islamic tradition
Speaker 1: has to offer us is that these two attempts at
Speaker 1: transformation have to be brought together because they're actually part
Speaker 1: of one and the same movement that in order to
Speaker 1: transform the self, we have to have an understanding of
Speaker 1: ourselves that's already integrated with the world. And if we
Speaker 1: want to change the world, right, everybody wants to save
Speaker 1: the world, we are already embedded in the world. So
Speaker 1: a rotten self embedded in a transformed world is going
Speaker 1: to lead to a rotten world. So somehow this is
Speaker 1: what our Jewish friends would call tikun olam, right, It's
Speaker 1: that healing of the world, which is also involved with
Speaker 1: the process of spiritual transformation. And I think this is
Speaker 1: really one of the great gifts that these wise and
Speaker 1: ancient spiritual traditions have to offer us. It's a topic
Speaker 1: that has definitely been on my mind more so lately.
Speaker 1: We had a guest last week. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with his work. His name's Terry Patton, and
Speaker 1: he just wrote a book called A New Republic of
Speaker 1: the Heart, and it really is one of the best
Speaker 1: writings about this idea that we have to do both
Speaker 1: these things simultaneously. I thought it was really good, and
Speaker 1: he was. He was a great guest. So your latest
Speaker 1: book is called Radical Love, and it's a translation of
Speaker 1: a lot of I don't know if you'd call him
Speaker 1: poems or teachings from the Islamic mystical tradition. And you
Speaker 1: did the translation on all these, Is that correct? I
Speaker 1: did um. I went back to the Qoran, the words
Speaker 1: of Muhammad, as well as some of the beautiful teachings
Speaker 1: and poetry of great lovely souls like Rumi and hafez Um,
Speaker 1: whom many people have heard of, but also many mystics
Speaker 1: who might be less familiar to people. It makes me
Speaker 1: think of something else you wrote in the book Memories
Speaker 1: of Mohammed, and it's it's I just thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: And I love to bring in animals anytime I can.
Speaker 1: Into conversation. You say, an old joke about the Arabic
Speaker 1: language is that every word has four layers of meaning,
Speaker 1: a basic meaning, a secondary meaning opposite to the basic meaning,
Speaker 1: something related to camels, and a fourth obscure layer of meaning.
Speaker 1: And you're kind of talking in that around that about
Speaker 1: how fundamental camels were to that time and place in history.
Speaker 1: But like I said, I thought that was funny, and
Speaker 1: anytime I can bring a camel into the show, I'm
Speaker 1: going to do it. It's a good thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: the other thing that's really important about it is there's
Speaker 1: so many You started the show with a parable, and
Speaker 1: there's so many of the Biblical parables, which are all
Speaker 1: puns on the names of animals or other creatures that
Speaker 1: are used in scripture. So um, you know when you
Speaker 1: read some of these parables, like it's easier for rich
Speaker 1: Man to get into heaven then for a camel to
Speaker 1: pass through the eye of a needle. Right. Um. A
Speaker 1: lot of these kinds of parables involved puns in Hebrew
Speaker 1: or Aramaic or Syriac languages that Jesus spoke, or similar
Speaker 1: puns in the Arabic language, and sometimes when we translate
Speaker 1: them to English, you know, it's almost like we forget
Speaker 1: about the delicacy of that creative humor that was part
Speaker 1: of the original context. Yes, so let's jump into your
Speaker 1: new book, and let's start with a story that you
Speaker 1: tell pretty early on about a story where everybody is
Speaker 1: gathered before God and then there's a series of questions
Speaker 1: asked to them and I think you know the one
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Yeah, it's a you know, it's a
Speaker 1: lovely story. It comes up in the poetry of of
Speaker 1: Attar and Uh. Attar was a giant of Islamic spirituality,
Speaker 1: also a poem. It also someone who compiled the lives
Speaker 1: of saintly beings before him. Um. There are some legends
Speaker 1: that he might have met ROOMI when Roomie was a
Speaker 1: young boy and Attar was an old man. And what's
Speaker 1: really lovely about the story is that it takes place
Speaker 1: in the hereafter, So it's it's a saint having a
Speaker 1: dream of the day of judgment to come, and God
Speaker 1: collects all the people who have ever been and who
Speaker 1: shall forever be uh, and he says to them, you know,
Speaker 1: who here wants to have every worldly pleasure? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: nine out of ten people raised their hand and they're like, yep,
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty good. And the voice of God comes
Speaker 1: to them and says it is granted onto you, and
Speaker 1: so they leave, and then you know, they hear the
Speaker 1: voice of God come in and saying who here wishes
Speaker 1: to be spared all suffering? No more pain, no more fire,
Speaker 1: no more torments, no more hell fire. Well, you know.
Speaker 1: Of the ones who are left, nine out of tend
Speaker 1: raised their hand and the voice of God comes to them, saying,
Speaker 1: it is granted onto you. There's but a handful of
Speaker 1: people left, and they hear the voice of God again.
Speaker 1: Who here wishes to be given access to my loftiest paradise,
Speaker 1: a garden that no I has ever seen? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds pretty nice. And so nine out of ten
Speaker 1: people raise their hands again, and they hear the voice
Speaker 1: of God coming and saying it is granted onto you. Um.
Speaker 1: And that when those people leave, there's just four or
Speaker 1: five people left, and this time they experienced the voice
Speaker 1: of God thundering at them, saying to them, I gave
Speaker 1: you every worldly pleasure. I offered you salvation from pain.
Speaker 1: I gave you a chance at my loftiest garden, and
Speaker 1: you chose none of it. What are you here for?
Speaker 1: And these folks lower their head in humility, and they
Speaker 1: simply answer, we came for you, We came for you. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then one last time to hear the voice of
Speaker 1: God coming to them, saying, in that case, I am yours,
Speaker 1: I am yours uh. And I think the path of
Speaker 1: love at the end of the day is about a
Speaker 1: group of seekers who are in it for God's own heart.
Speaker 1: This is not about salvation. It's not about getting into
Speaker 1: heaven um, nor is it about somehow going on a
Speaker 1: spiritual high. It really is a sense of choosing to
Speaker 1: walk the path for the sake of the ultimate beloved.
Speaker 1: And they know that in order to love God, we
Speaker 1: have to love God's people, which is all of us.
Speaker 1: That if you want to get to that beloved, then
Speaker 1: we've got to learn to love the beloved around us.
Speaker 1: And that's the most difficult thing to do, is to
Speaker 1: love human beings. God is easy. Human beings are hard,
Speaker 1: indeed they are. So let's move into some readings from
Speaker 1: the book. I was thinking we could start with I
Speaker 1: was thinking we might start with page twenty eight. This is,
Speaker 1: you know, a passage that is attributed to the prophet
Speaker 1: Muhammad um and it will sound a lot like the
Speaker 1: oracle that we know from Greek thought. But at het
Speaker 1: arafa rope he um to know God intimately, intimately know yourself.
Speaker 1: He who knows his his own soul knows his Lord.
Speaker 1: And it's a favorite saying of the mystics because what
Speaker 1: it signifies to them is that the knowledge of the
Speaker 1: divine and the knowledge of our own heart and soul
Speaker 1: are actually linked up together. Just as if we want
Speaker 1: to love God, we have to learn to love humanity.
Speaker 1: If we want to know God, we have to get
Speaker 1: to know ourselves. We have to get to know what
Speaker 1: makes us tick, because if we don't, then we're drinking
Speaker 1: from a dirty cup. And we might think that we're
Speaker 1: pouring water or wine into it. But if your cup
Speaker 1: is dirty, then so will your drink be. Um. So
Speaker 1: this notion of who are we? Who are we? Where? Is?
Speaker 1: What are the dark corners of our own soul? And
Speaker 1: where are the cracks where the light pours in? I
Speaker 1: think this is one of the teachings of this tradition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes me think of something that you wrote, um,
Speaker 1: I think in one of your blog posts. But I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna read it because it really struck me, and
Speaker 1: I've never heard it articulated this well. But you say
Speaker 1: the contraction of the heart what might be called the
Speaker 1: dark knight of the soul, and Christian spirituality is also
Speaker 1: part of the path. This is one of the differences
Speaker 1: between any genuine spiritual path and New Age spiritual fluff,
Speaker 1: which promises abundant happiness and fulfillment without any parallel process
Speaker 1: of suffering, penitence and repentance. And I've never been able
Speaker 1: to articulate what it is about some of the New
Speaker 1: Age stuff. Besides some of it seeming patently absurd to me,
Speaker 1: but what else about it sort of irked me? And
Speaker 1: you put your finger on it right there. It's this
Speaker 1: something for nothing feeling that I get, which I don't
Speaker 1: think is the way life works. It's not the way
Speaker 1: life works. And it's also not the way of that
Speaker 1: I think any genuine spiritual path works. I would be
Speaker 1: extremely suspicious if I went to um a meditation session,
Speaker 1: or a Dharma talk, or a Sufi talk, or for
Speaker 1: that matter, a megachurch and the person standing up front said, um,
Speaker 1: follow me, and I promise you happiness. I promise you happiness. UM.
Speaker 1: I think in some ways this is one of the
Speaker 1: great heresies. And I don't use that word lightly of
Speaker 1: a lot of com modified, commercialized spirituality. It's the gospel
Speaker 1: of success. Follow me, because God wants to make you rich. Well,
Speaker 1: then what do you do when your father, your mother
Speaker 1: comes down with cancer? Um? What do you do when
Speaker 1: the person that you might love the most in this
Speaker 1: world leaves you. Um, what do you do, as many
Speaker 1: people have had to do, if you have to take
Speaker 1: care of your sick child or Heaven forbid, Heaven forbid
Speaker 1: bury your own child? Right? Does that mean that at
Speaker 1: that moment God hates you, that God has forsaken you? Um?
Speaker 1: I think any real spiritual path has to be a
Speaker 1: path that takes you to the mountaintop and is also
Speaker 1: with you deep in the valley, And it has to
Speaker 1: tell you that it's the same God who is the
Speaker 1: God of the mountaintop, who is the lord of the
Speaker 1: bottom of the valley. And there are resources and teachings
Speaker 1: that you can practice deep down in the valley as
Speaker 1: you can on the mountaintop. And I think that's why
Speaker 1: when I listen to spiritual teachings, I always pay attention
Speaker 1: to Yes, there has to be the talk of love
Speaker 1: and expansion and transformation, but I also want to know
Speaker 1: is there talk of sacrifice? Right? Is there something that
Speaker 1: they tell us up front you're going to have to
Speaker 1: give up if you actually want to be transformed? Um?
Speaker 1: Is there talk of the need for some kind of ritual,
Speaker 1: because you know, getting up in the morning and having
Speaker 1: a donut and eating cheetos and surfing the web, and
Speaker 1: you know, watching twelve hours of TV a day Cheeto
Speaker 1: flavored doughnuts, fairly certain is probably not the most luminous
Speaker 1: path towards being transformed. Tell me what I need to do?
Speaker 1: Whom do I have to love? How do I serve?
Speaker 1: How do I get over my own damn self? How
Speaker 1: do I get beyond this illusory confine of the ego?
Speaker 1: And that is sacrifice, And many people actually experienced it
Speaker 1: as a kind of death. It's a death of a
Speaker 1: self centered world view, which is a necessary part of
Speaker 1: the growth where at some point we learned. And this
Speaker 1: is where love comes in. It's not all about me,
Speaker 1: it never has been. Love makes it about you. Love
Speaker 1: projects you beyond yourself, and I think any real path
Speaker 1: has to offer you that. So I would want to
Speaker 1: see ritual transformation, sacrifice and community. Now we're not meant
Speaker 1: to live alone. We're meant to be together. We're meant
Speaker 1: to have these people who mirror to us beautiful qualities
Speaker 1: that we might not be able to see in ourselves,
Speaker 1: and they mirror to us some places that we've got
Speaker 1: to keep working on. One of the other things I
Speaker 1: was struck with in the book, And we're going to
Speaker 1: move to a couple of these right now. Was you
Speaker 1: often say, when you boil a tradition down to its
Speaker 1: mystical tradition, they all start to look very much the same.
Speaker 1: But there were a couple of the readings that really
Speaker 1: struck me a lot as being in line with um,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the Buddhist idea of non self
Speaker 1: or less ego. And I thought we could start on
Speaker 1: page thirty eight and you could read that went for
Speaker 1: us as a starting place on a couple of those
Speaker 1: that caught my eye. So thirty eight is only God
Speaker 1: has the right to say I and UM. I mean
Speaker 1: this is an extraordinary statement because I think ultimately, if
Speaker 1: we keep thinking of ourselves as even a rival to God,
Speaker 1: to say that is to say that we conceive of
Speaker 1: ourselves as existing outside of God. And there is a
Speaker 1: type of humility that actually opens you up to the
Speaker 1: whole universe. Why do we think we're so small? Why
Speaker 1: do we think we are so finite? How lovely would
Speaker 1: it be if we actually say we are part of
Speaker 1: this vast tapestry. I am a drop in the osha
Speaker 1: in and I am part of the ocean. In that sense,
Speaker 1: the minute that I let go of my drop nous Um,
Speaker 1: I can see myself as being part of this ocean Um.
Speaker 1: So you know it's um. There's another saying a few
Speaker 1: pages later that says, finding my Lord, I lost my heart.
Speaker 1: Finding my heart, I lost my Lord. So I think
Speaker 1: some of these initial parts of the path where we
Speaker 1: realize that the greatest temptation, the greatest idol for us
Speaker 1: is not that we're bowing down in front of an
Speaker 1: idol or a statue out there. We worship our own self.
Speaker 1: It's it's the worship of the ego. It's um, your
Speaker 1: three favorite gods, your holy Trinity, being me, myself and I.
Speaker 1: And that has to be shattered, that has to be broken,
Speaker 1: it has to be given up at some point. So
Speaker 1: I think it's at that stage that these mystics are
Speaker 1: encouraging us, pleading with us to rise above and see
Speaker 1: ourselves as part of this greater union. So let's go
Speaker 1: on to another one that I think speaks to this
Speaker 1: really eloquently. And of course I just picked one. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many of them in here, I just had
Speaker 1: to pick a few that spoke to me particularly, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure if I picked the book up on a
Speaker 1: different day, I'd have different ones. But this one is
Speaker 1: on page fifty four. I always love seeing which sayings
Speaker 1: and which teachings speak to different people, because I've never had,
Speaker 1: you know, two people picked the same set of teachings
Speaker 1: that speak with them. So this was that poem called
Speaker 1: this and that which is you know, really about that
Speaker 1: great ultimate mystery of how do we have a beloved
Speaker 1: who is so manifest? Um? You know, when you're walking
Speaker 1: in the woods you experienced that sense of closeness to
Speaker 1: to the divine, or when you're in the mountains or
Speaker 1: by a notion, you know, maybe holding your child. And
Speaker 1: then at the same time, God is also hidden. And
Speaker 1: it's not that God is simply um invisible to us.
Speaker 1: It's that even the most luminous of people have at
Speaker 1: least an occasional experience a feeling like they can't experience
Speaker 1: the sacredness of God. Um. You know, even in Jesus
Speaker 1: at one point says, you know, Father, why have you
Speaker 1: forsaken me? Right? So this is what this particular poet
Speaker 1: is talking about. This and that he says, you are manifest,
Speaker 1: you are hidden both not this not that yet this
Speaker 1: and that, how can you be manifest when you're always
Speaker 1: hit and how can you be hidden when you're eternally
Speaker 1: playing to see? And I'm willing to bet that you
Speaker 1: could find Hindu and Buddhist teachings of course that that
Speaker 1: that resonate with this teaching very much. And I think
Speaker 1: that's sometimes one of the greatest challenges of spiritual life
Speaker 1: is these moments where we feel so connected and we
Speaker 1: see so clearly and we're full of love, and then
Speaker 1: another day it's almost were breaft of those things, and
Speaker 1: that is such a challenging thing to deal with and
Speaker 1: knowing how to deal with it wisely it is. And
Speaker 1: that's why I think a life that is in commune
Speaker 1: with nature offers us such a way forward, because nature
Speaker 1: operates through exactly these kinds of cycles. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you pay attention to the beating of your own heart.
Speaker 1: Your heart contract acts and then it expands, and it
Speaker 1: is actually the dance between the contraction and the expansion
Speaker 1: that gets blood going all over your body. You need
Speaker 1: the contraction in order to propel the blood everywhere. Look
Speaker 1: at this story night. Yes, the north star might always
Speaker 1: be there, but the moon waxes and wanes from a
Speaker 1: full moon to a crescent, and there's a night or
Speaker 1: two every cycle that you don't see them. So I
Speaker 1: think for people who are trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to live with our spiritual life that has its own cycles,
Speaker 1: this sense of staying in commune with nature can be
Speaker 1: a really powerful way forward. Great, well, let's finish up
Speaker 1: the readings on this sort of topic on page sixty four.
Speaker 1: This is a great wonderful saintly being that I'm very
Speaker 1: fond of. Um. You know, it's one thing to translate
Speaker 1: roomy and off as that everybody has heard of them.
Speaker 1: But then you get to work on some of these
Speaker 1: people like karani Uh and he's new to a lot
Speaker 1: of people, but every bit the giant that those others are.
Speaker 1: So it's a very short passage. It says, they ask
Speaker 1: where do you see God? He said, wherever I don't
Speaker 1: see myself. So again, these are the different parts of
Speaker 1: the path. You have to know yourself to know God,
Speaker 1: that your path to God can go through you yourself.
Speaker 1: But then you also have to get over yourself. You
Speaker 1: have to be willing to transcend yourself. You have to
Speaker 1: be willing to say it's not all about me, and ironically,
Speaker 1: the less of yourself that you see the more of
Speaker 1: the divine. And I love all those because I think
Speaker 1: they speak to that da of less ego. And you
Speaker 1: can think about that a lot of different ways traditions
Speaker 1: talk about it, but it really points to the upside
Speaker 1: of lou seen that ego is, is that that ego
Speaker 1: is often what blinds us from you know, God or
Speaker 1: oneness or you know awakening or call it. Use the
Speaker 1: term that your tradition likes. Um. I just thought those
Speaker 1: were beautiful readings. So those readings all came from a
Speaker 1: section of the book called God of Love. And then
Speaker 1: you have another section of the book called Path of Love.
Speaker 1: And I thought maybe we could hop over to page
Speaker 1: seventy nine and I'll take a look at one of those.
Speaker 1: And this gets back to the conversation we were having
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier about a genuine spiritual path not
Speaker 1: being all unicorns. That there is. You know that there's
Speaker 1: both the top of the mountain, as you said in
Speaker 1: the Valley. Well, you know, I would say, I don't
Speaker 1: know much about unicorns, but I know something about roses.
Speaker 1: I would say the path is in fact all roses
Speaker 1: as long as you remember that real roses have thorns,
Speaker 1: and that somebody who loves a row has to be
Speaker 1: willing to endure being pricked by thorne every now and then. Um,
Speaker 1: the real spiritual path teaches you how to navigate your
Speaker 1: own suffering. And this poem called pain you can also
Speaker 1: easily translated the suffering. How do you ever expect for
Speaker 1: your heart to become polished like a mirror without putting
Speaker 1: up with the pain of polish? And it's a Roomy poem.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes when he would write about this notion of suffering,
Speaker 1: he had a very vivid metaphor in mind, which was
Speaker 1: in those days when people's homes would be covered with
Speaker 1: these fantastic Persian and Turkish tribal carpets, Um, they would
Speaker 1: get dusty. So once a week people would take their
Speaker 1: carpets out into the street and they would beat them
Speaker 1: with a stick so that all the dirt that their
Speaker 1: feet had dragged in would fall off of the carpet.
Speaker 1: And as Roomy is sitting there watching these beautiful carpets
Speaker 1: being beaten, he also sees the dust coming off, and
Speaker 1: he says to himself, this is what suffering does to
Speaker 1: my own heart. A question for you, because this is
Speaker 1: a question I ask a lot of guests because I'm
Speaker 1: really intrigued by it, is that we all know that
Speaker 1: suffering and hardship can be a polishing event for us.
Speaker 1: It can be grist for the mill. It can can
Speaker 1: make us into stronger, better people, but it doesn't always.
Speaker 1: We all know people who are broken by suffering or
Speaker 1: who become bitter and closed from suffering. For you, what
Speaker 1: are some of the fundamental things that allow people some
Speaker 1: people to transform suffering into I'll just use the word
Speaker 1: positive because I don't have a better word for it
Speaker 1: off the top of my head. But do use suffering
Speaker 1: in a in a good way versus being broken or
Speaker 1: bittered by it? So I think I usually think about
Speaker 1: um too simple points into a conversation that is anything
Speaker 1: but simple. Uh. And the starting point for me, exactly
Speaker 1: as you said, is what a difference there is between
Speaker 1: people whose heart breaks, whether it is in a romantic context,
Speaker 1: it is in the context of witnessing war and occupation
Speaker 1: and poverty, um, whether it's in the context of seeing
Speaker 1: a loved one struggle with disease and that breaks a heart.
Speaker 1: There are people whose heart breaks, and there are people
Speaker 1: whose heart breaks open, and there is a huge difference
Speaker 1: between those two. So I think the first point is
Speaker 1: sometimes what might seem like the external stimulus might be
Speaker 1: the same. But somebody who goes through a sickness, goes
Speaker 1: through poverty, goes through being fired, goes through losing a
Speaker 1: loved one a divorce, comes out of it a much
Speaker 1: more beautiful and humble person than they were previously. They
Speaker 1: see in their fellow human beings of vulnerability and a
Speaker 1: suffering that maybe before they were not able to notice.
Speaker 1: I think that's the first part, and then the second
Speaker 1: part is as people who aspire to be on the path,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important when we notice someone who's
Speaker 1: hurting not to flip through our mental rolodex of spiritual
Speaker 1: teachings and to think about what do we say to them, Um,
Speaker 1: they're real. Essential first response to suffering is silence. We
Speaker 1: sit with people, we behold people, we allow them to
Speaker 1: share as little or as much, and we hold them uh.
Speaker 1: And I think there has to be that holding back
Speaker 1: of the attempt to say you're hurting, how wonderful, what
Speaker 1: an extraordinary opportunity for spiritual growth this is for you,
Speaker 1: Because that may not be what that friend needs to
Speaker 1: hear at that time. Um. So to begin with silence,
Speaker 1: with genuine empathy and compassion, um, And to let whatever
Speaker 1: teachings it is that we're in such a rush to share,
Speaker 1: let that be something that speaks through our being and
Speaker 1: our presence and our action rather than necessarily through our words. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's nothing really more annoying than someone when you're in
Speaker 1: a lot of pain, it's like, well, this is an
Speaker 1: opportunity to grow or an opportunity to learn. I always
Speaker 1: find it such an interesting balance because I do think
Speaker 1: that ultimately remembering that as a person who's in suffering
Speaker 1: can be useful at point, absolutely not as an escape,
Speaker 1: but as a perspective. Yeah. And a very related aspect
Speaker 1: of that is you see someone whose heart is broken
Speaker 1: and is suffering, and our first response is I know
Speaker 1: exactly how you feel, because let me tell you about
Speaker 1: all these things that have happened to me. And I
Speaker 1: think I myself have been guilty of that on more
Speaker 1: occasions than I would care to admit. Um. Because the
Speaker 1: person who's hurting isn't really interested in that moment about
Speaker 1: hearing your life chronicle. They want to be seen, They
Speaker 1: want to be heard they want to be embraced and
Speaker 1: they need to be embraced. I agree, and that is
Speaker 1: an easy one to fall into. A desire to empathize
Speaker 1: and share, like, yeah, you're not alone, can very easily
Speaker 1: become me, me, Me, me me. Okay, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about page eight nine. So this one says the Sufi
Speaker 1: path one could substitute any kind of a path. Is
Speaker 1: this You own nothing, nothing owns you. You own nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing owns you. Um, and I think you know this
Speaker 1: I of owning nothing. That can be a little deceiving, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are people, after all, they have clothes,
Speaker 1: they might live in a house, they have food. But
Speaker 1: I think to realize that ultimately we're not the masters
Speaker 1: of the things, and more importantly, the people around us.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a wonderful quote from Jalil Gibron. Your
Speaker 1: children are not yours, they're the universe is calling for itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great one. And nothing owns you. I mean,
Speaker 1: how ironic is it that so many of us define
Speaker 1: what it means to live a successful life to be
Speaker 1: that we live in a big enough house, or in
Speaker 1: the kind of neighborhood or in the kind of zip code,
Speaker 1: that we didn't have to work like a dog to
Speaker 1: be able to afford to live in that house, in
Speaker 1: that neighborhood, in that zip code. And in that sense,
Speaker 1: I think it's worth asking who owns whom, who's working
Speaker 1: for whom? Does the house serve us or we serve
Speaker 1: in the house? Are we serving our things, our car
Speaker 1: our life expectation and standards? So you know, I think
Speaker 1: if we're able to think of being able to perceive
Speaker 1: the universe as moving through us without the need for
Speaker 1: us to cling to them, that might be a more
Speaker 1: beautiful way of living. Yeah, I think that's a great
Speaker 1: way to say it. And I really like this one too,
Speaker 1: for the reasons you articulated. I'm not sure if I
Speaker 1: read it, if it's something that you wrote that I read,
Speaker 1: or if you know, things get mingled together for me.
Speaker 1: But this idea of you know, nothing is permanent and
Speaker 1: the recognizing there one analogy or one story I know
Speaker 1: is the Buddhist teacher an Chaw talking about a cup
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, to me, this cup is
Speaker 1: already broken because he can see that's the that's the
Speaker 1: ultimate destiny of it, that's where it's going to go.
Speaker 1: And by by seeing that, by seeing that things are impermanent,
Speaker 1: that that we don't know if they're going to stay,
Speaker 1: you know, it really helps us to realize we don't
Speaker 1: own things. Um, they're on loan to us. All right.
Speaker 1: The next section of the book is called Beloved Community,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to just pull a couple of readings
Speaker 1: from there. Also, maybe we could look at page two
Speaker 1: twenty one. Yeah, I mean this term beloved community, of course,
Speaker 1: is my homage to the civil rights tradition and the
Speaker 1: people who have embodied this particular kind of teaching. So
Speaker 1: this is a very famous roomy poem. Um, many people,
Speaker 1: of course will recognize echoes of the famous Leonard Cohen poem. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a crack in everything, that's where the light gets in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he's talking about the and the poem is called
Speaker 1: the wound is where the light enters. You trust your
Speaker 1: wound to a skilled healer. You can't see the ugly
Speaker 1: of your own wounds. Flies hover over them, your thoughts.
Speaker 1: Your wound is your heart state, unilluminated. The healer this
Speaker 1: sage puts a band aid on your wound. The pain
Speaker 1: is gone. You think you healed all by yourself. But no,
Speaker 1: this the healing was from the light. The wound is
Speaker 1: where the light enters you. Yeah, and you know there's
Speaker 1: notion of we are healed by God, of course ultimately,
Speaker 1: but also in terms of our interactions with one another.
Speaker 1: And in this context, it's the interaction with the teacher,
Speaker 1: with the healer, with someone whose very presence can bring
Speaker 1: healing to us. And then what we once saw as
Speaker 1: the wound can come to serve as a memory of
Speaker 1: the place where this healing enters us. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that one. The next couple I want to look at,
Speaker 1: I think, are they speak to the beauty of community
Speaker 1: and they're just great advice on being a friend. So
Speaker 1: page to thirty four, know the value of your friends
Speaker 1: and in their company. Forget all the good deeds you
Speaker 1: did for them, all the good deeds you did for them,
Speaker 1: forget forget. Um. This is from a beautiful book written
Speaker 1: by a Sufi named Salami. It's available in an English
Speaker 1: translation called the Book of Sufi Chivalry, and it's all
Speaker 1: about how do we live in friendship with one another? Um? So,
Speaker 1: I think you know this notion of don't keep an
Speaker 1: accounting firm responsible for all of the nice things you've
Speaker 1: done for your friends, do it and set it aside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the next one is page two thirty six,
Speaker 1: and this really spoke to me. I mean, a again,
Speaker 1: it's just a great way to live. But there's an
Speaker 1: underlying word that we hear and something that we hear
Speaker 1: a lot in the personal development space, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: I hear it in yoga classes a lot. Let go
Speaker 1: of anything that doesn't serve you. You hear, you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody causes drama in your life, cut them loose, right.
Speaker 1: And I recognize that there are people in places that
Speaker 1: are truly toxic and a distance is needed, and that's
Speaker 1: the right thing. But I think, again, back to this
Speaker 1: spiritual path that's all about me and my happiness. We're
Speaker 1: often encouraged to sort of like, well, if something is
Speaker 1: unpleasant for us, we should get it out of our lives.
Speaker 1: And I love how this reading speaks to that. It does,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, the caveats that you put
Speaker 1: in there of if something is truly dangerous or abusive
Speaker 1: kind of for us. And I think it's useful to
Speaker 1: remember that the mystics that I'm writing about, they operate
Speaker 1: in the context of a world which has that safety
Speaker 1: mechanism in place, and for them, UM, that's the notion
Speaker 1: of UM, a religious law, UM that serves as a
Speaker 1: kind of protection against murder and theft and rape and
Speaker 1: occupation and warmongering and things of that sort. So I
Speaker 1: think it's really good to avoid those kinds of abusive contexts,
Speaker 1: but understanding that human beings are difficult and that the
Speaker 1: greatest annoyances in our life come from the people closest
Speaker 1: to us. Right, someone cuts you off on the road,
Speaker 1: You're likely to forget about it ten minutes later. But
Speaker 1: something that your partner, your mother, your father, your child,
Speaker 1: your sibling to you, that could linker for years. So
Speaker 1: this one is called never leave your friends, show your
Speaker 1: continuous love and understanding, and never leave your friends because
Speaker 1: of the inconvenience they may cause. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: And again I think everything has to be taken with
Speaker 1: a sense of perspective. And I think some people have
Speaker 1: a tendency to stay in abuse of an awful situations
Speaker 1: way longer than they should. And then I think there's
Speaker 1: other people who have a tendency to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't like it, so get out, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's there somewhere in between, you know. It's that you know,
Speaker 1: middle ground. I think of being willing to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, the people around me aren't always going to
Speaker 1: make me happy, and that's not a reason to get
Speaker 1: rid of them. And there are times where there is
Speaker 1: plenty of good reason to get rid of them. Um,
Speaker 1: So the right perspective is there. But I just I've
Speaker 1: been to a lot of yoga lately and I keep
Speaker 1: hearing that let go of anything that doesn't serve you.
Speaker 1: And there's something about that that I totally understand and
Speaker 1: makes sense. But there's this other part of me that
Speaker 1: immediately thinks, but what am I serving? You know? It's
Speaker 1: that if I'm always looking at what's serving me for me,
Speaker 1: that is, as we've sort of talked about, not a
Speaker 1: very good path to be on. So you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's equally useful to ask what am I serving? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, I think Brother West, Cornell West
Speaker 1: always has this beautiful saying of every person there's only
Speaker 1: two questions worth asking, how deep is your love and
Speaker 1: whom do you serve? Well, we are at the end
Speaker 1: of our time here, um, you and I are going
Speaker 1: to continue in a post show conversation, We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about two things. We're gonna talk about some of
Speaker 1: the debates that happen in communities about whether Islam really
Speaker 1: is a religion that has fundamental problems that lead to
Speaker 1: the violence we see, and some debates that you've had
Speaker 1: with that, and I you know, there's some genuine questions
Speaker 1: I want to ask there. And then we're also going
Speaker 1: to talk about a little bit more context around the
Speaker 1: difference between Sunni and Shia and what that really means
Speaker 1: in the world. So, listeners, if you're interested in that,
Speaker 1: you can go to one you feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: support and uh you can get access to all of
Speaker 1: the post show conversations, many episodes, add free episodes, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for taking the time to
Speaker 1: come on. I've really enjoyed this and as I say occasionally,
Speaker 1: I could probably do this for another two hours. Listen,
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to be with you, and thank you
Speaker 1: for creating such a beautiful space. Thanks so much. Okay bye.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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