Quotes from Kabir Edmund Helminski

Love is the essence of this religion. I pray that we will approach all of our questions and concerns, especially the most difficult and intimate questions, with love, in order to be able more and more to solve our problems with love. The Sufi lives in a compassionate and passionate universe, a universe born from a spark of love. (p. 108)

As spiritual seekers, we know that the objective knowledge we require cannot be constructed by human intellect alone. Intellect can perform many useful functions; it can divide, critique, and negate, but intellect is not the source of inspired knowledge about the purpose of life. Intellectual conjecture too often leads only to a labyrinth of opinion. Rather it is the heart that is the seat of true knowing. (p. 53)

The original meaning of healing was "to make whole". We can be healed of our separateness through our contact with something whole. We can know we are not separate from the whole, and we can know the universe through knowing ourselves.

Our work is to cross a treshold into emptiness and stillness. It is like entering an empty room that proves to hold a great presence. The apparent emptiness of simple presence is richer than the crowded experience of ordinary personality. We can either be empty with Spirit or full of ourselves.

Some people are granted the experience of very high states of consciousness, and yet if these states are not accompanied by a development of character through a prior education that involves every department of human experience, you might have an enlightened being whom you would not trust even to be a baby-sitter.

There is a knowledge and a practice of connecting ourselves with cosmic Life. It has nothing to do with belief; it is learned. It is increased by our consciousness of it, by our increasing awareness of the abundance of cosmic energy. Life is infinite, and this infinity can be tapped. The only limitation is one of awareness. (p.13 Soul Work, Reflecting Spirit)

Human beings stand in the rubble of former beliefs.

The education of the Soul is the Great Work.

One danger is that the person will strive very hard in spiritual disciplines as a way of avoiding or burying deep pain. Eventually, however, he or she will realize that the spiritual path must bring everything to light.

Whatever we do for the love of God benefits our souls and our lives in a way that ego-motivated actions never can. Whatever we do for the love of God is done with sincerity because it is not motivated by self-interest. We leave our concern for gain and loss, success and failure, in the hands of God. We stop considering ourselves as the sole cause of our actions and their results. Consequently, we become the instruments of a deep wisdom and love.

Any act without the fragrance of Being is lost.

What we most need is what we already are: our essential Self. There is no escape; there is only coming home [...] The submission of the lower self to the Higher Self, of the self to the Whole in each moment, becomes the central fact of existence. Submission is to live for one's Self - the eternal I - not for one's ego..." ? Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

We can bring quality into the details of life if we remember to be and act with precision. If we can consciously be at that point where the horizontal force of active choice meets the vertical force of Being, a certain "something", larger than life, will be activated. This "something" can be felt in anything produced by the hands and hearts of a conscious human being – in works of art, in a well-tended garden, in food prepared with love.

What we most need is what we already are: our essential Self. There is no escape; there is only coming home [...] The submission of the lower self to the Higher Self, of the self to the Whole in each moment, becomes the central fact of existence. Submission is to live for one's Self - the eternal I - not for one's ego...

Water says to the dirty, "Come here" The dirty one says, "I am so ashamed". Water says, "How will your shame be washed away without me?" Rumi, Mathnawi II: 1366-67

Realization, in its fullest meaning, is not merely knowing something, but making it real in oneself. We come to this essential Self through a process of deconditioning, reconditioning, and unconditioning. This can also be described as minimizing what is negative, increasing what is positive, and, ultimately, opening to Spirit.

The Sufi's book is not of ink and letters; it is nothing but a heart white as snow. Rumi, Mathnawi II: 159

THE PRACTICE OF PRESENCE invites us to a conscious relationship with God. Faith, righteous action, ethics, and social justice are all founded upon a state in which the human being remembers God. Yet, the capacity to remember God is related to the ability to be awake, to be here. To act with intention (niyah), with reflection (tafakkur), with self-vigilance (taqwa), and with beneficence (ihsan) presumes a state of conscious presence.

Grace is always there. It is the Life that flows from the Source of Life. What we need to learn is to receive it and to become aware that grace is flowing from Life all the time. This Life is within us. All the qualities we might need are available if we can form the right connection. The three unlocking keys to the Source of Life are humility, gratitude, and love. When these qualities begin to prevail in our inner life we become receptive to grace. (S. 144)

The knowing heart is receptive to the intelligence of Being and is guided by Being. When the heart is awakened and purified, it establishes a connection to Spirit; our finest and noblest capacities are unlocked, our sacred humanness is revealed. What it comes down to, the distillation of all wisdoms, is this: we can rejoin our isolated wills with Love's Will through the knowing of the heart.

Our task is to create the Civilization of Paradise here on earth. - Asad Ali

The soul is a knowing substance that knows the Reality beyond time and space. To acquire this kind of knowing is to become illuminated, to be connected to a greater intelligence that will guide every step of your life. Instead of living in fear and uncertainty, you will more and more be able to trust the unfolding of Life. (p. 78)

As faith grows, all our human faculties and attributes are absorbed in the Love of the One and the quest for Truth. As presence develops in us, so does faithfulness. Everything becomes harmonized by that presence. Finally, that presence is unified in the One.

As long as human beings are unconscious and dominated by selfish and illusory desires, there is no god who will force us to change. But as the history of revelation on earth testifies, guidance has come to all communities and nations. Through masters, saints and prophets, through sacred texts and oral tradition, humanity has been reminded and warned. Cosmic intelligence has continually been in communication with us; now the burden of responsibility rests on each human heart. (p. 164)