 |
| By Mariam Choudry |
I recently accompanied my murshid on a spiritual retreat in Turkey,
along with a group of dear friends and seekers. We sat in the presence
of sufi teachers and visited shrines, including the House of the Virgin
Mary in Ephesus and the tombs of Mevlana Rumi and Shams of Tabriz in
Konya.
One of the lessons that resonated with me was the idea that we can relate to prophets and saints like Muhammad, Jesus, Mary, Buddha or Rumi not merely as historical figures, but as sacred personalities who belong to all humanity, rather than a particular religion, ideology or nationality. They represent transcendent qualities accessible through the collective human consciousness.
We open ourselves up to a direct experience with these sacred figures when we bring our lower selves or egos (called nafs in sufi terminology) into alignment with our hearts. In sufism, this is achieved by cultivating consciousness of the Divine Reality, or Allah, through zikr, or remembrance. Over time, such practices heighten our spiritual radar and we grow more and more into our greatest humanness, where direct experiences with the Beloved permeate all circumstances of life.
As Mevlana Rumi says:
One of the lessons that resonated with me was the idea that we can relate to prophets and saints like Muhammad, Jesus, Mary, Buddha or Rumi not merely as historical figures, but as sacred personalities who belong to all humanity, rather than a particular religion, ideology or nationality. They represent transcendent qualities accessible through the collective human consciousness.
We open ourselves up to a direct experience with these sacred figures when we bring our lower selves or egos (called nafs in sufi terminology) into alignment with our hearts. In sufism, this is achieved by cultivating consciousness of the Divine Reality, or Allah, through zikr, or remembrance. Over time, such practices heighten our spiritual radar and we grow more and more into our greatest humanness, where direct experiences with the Beloved permeate all circumstances of life.
As Mevlana Rumi says:
Our body is like Mary.Understanding that prophets and saints reside in the potentiality of every human’s experience opened a deeper dimension of intimacy and connection for me. It’s also obliterated the cultural and religious divisions that I’d grown up believing separated people.
Each of us has a Jesus inside.
If a pain and yearning shows up inside us,
the Jesus of our soul is born.
If there is no pain, no yearning,
the Jesus of our soul will return to its origin from
the same secret passageway he came from…
If there is no pain, no yearning,
we will remain deprived
not benefiting from that Jesus of the soul.
(Translated by Omid Safi, in Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition)
