1
" Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. (p. 191) "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
2
" In Sufism we understand the human being to be composed of three aspects: self, heart, and spirit. Self is the experience of our personal identity, including our thoughts and emotions. Heart is something deeper, experienced through an inner knowing, often with a quality of compassion, conscience, and love. It can ultimately lead to the recognition of the deepest part of ourselves - our inmost consciousness, or Spirit, the reflection of God within us.
If we simply say that souls is our inner being, then the quality of our inner being, or soul, is the result of the relationship between self and our innermost consciousness, Spirit. The self without the presence of spirit is merely ego, the false mask, which is governed by self-centered thoughts and emotions. The more the self becomes infused with spirit, the more „soulful“ it becomes. We use the words presence and remembrance to describe the conscious connection between self and Spirit. The more we live mindfully with presence, the more we remember God, and the more soulful we are, the more we drop the mask.
Care of the soul, then, is always the cultivation of presence and remembrance. Presence includes all the ways we mindfully attend to our lives. Soul is the child of the union of self and spirit. When this union has matured, the soul acquires substance and structure. That is why it is said in some teachings that we do not automatically have a soul; we must acquire one through our spiritual work. (p. 75) "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
3
" EVERYDAY MAINTENANCE OF THE SOUL
What does it mean to care for your soul? Care of the soul is the constant practice of bringing loving attention to the problems, conflicts, and longings of our lives. Emotional suffering is something to be attended to, not split off from. We can learn to read our life as a story, rather than as a clinical case. Moreover, if the story we have been telling ourselves is a melodrama or tragedy, we need to rewrite the story. Every human life, when seen from the perspective of the unrelenting Divine Mercy, is the story of grace unfolding. Love is revealing itself in the precise details of each human life, if only we do not impose the script of self-pity, bitterness, and fearfulness. The soul is where the divine attributes of God may be awakened from their latent state to be integrated into our character. These qualities are the soul's natural inheritance from the Divine. It is through communion with the Divine that the soul takes on the spiritual attributes of kindness, generosity, courage, forgiveness, patience, and freedom. "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
4
" In Sufism we understand the human being to be composed of three aspects: self, heart, and spirit. Self is the experience of our personal identity, including our thoughts and emotions. Heart is something deeper, experienced through an inner knowing, often with a quality of compassion, conscience, and love. It can ultimately lead to the recognition of the deepest part of ourselves - our inmost consciousness, or Spirit, the reflection of God within us.
If we simply say that soul is our inner being, then the quality of our inner being, or soul, is the result of the relationship between self and our innermost consciousness, Spirit. The self without the presence of spirit is merely ego, the false mask, which is governed by self-centered thoughts and emotions. The more the self becomes infused with spirit, the more „soulful“ it becomes. We use the words presence and remembrance to describe the conscious connection between self and Spirit. The more we live mindfully with presence, the more we remember God, and the more soulful we are, the more we drop the mask.
Care of the soul, then, is always the cultivation of presence and remembrance. Presence includes all the ways we mindfully attend to our lives. Soul is the child of the union of self and spirit. When this union has matured, the soul acquires substance and structure. That is why it is said in some teachings that we do not automatically have a soul; we must acquire one through our spiritual work. (p. 75) "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
9
" The apparent conflict between a strong sense of our own presence and selflessness can be resolved if we realize that presence helps us to be more selfless. Selflessness is the soul's own willingness to make sacrifices in the material world as well as in the artificial world of personality. The „I am“ is selfless in that it holds no special idea of itself, does not justify itself, and is not envious, resentful, or proud. Because it already feels secure in the infinitely merciful Spirit, it can accept the annihilation of what is false in the ego personality. If we are rooted in presence, we ar e capable of leting go of the demands of the ego. If we are not secure in th eemptiness of pure presence, we will cling to events and things, to lies and fears. But in a state of presence, free of the coercions of the ego, we can become our most authentic selves. "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
10
" In the world of the Spirit, the human being is a witness. The mirror is for witnessing not only the outer, visible world, but the inner, invisible worlds where spiritual qualities abide. Through the sensitive screen of our own awareness, we behold moment by moment and flash by flash the manifestation of infinite beauty, and that beauty need never be absent from the mirror. What may appear in the mirror at a given moment is a gift and should never be underestimated or taken for granted. As we polish away conditioning, concepts, and the false, reacting self, wherever we turn there is the face of Reality. „There is a polish for everything“, said Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, „and the polish for the heart is the remembrance of God“ (Bukhari) "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
14
" The Work of the Soul is the greatest satisfaction in life. It is a long journey with many stages of realization. If you want to know how close you are to living the life of the soul, simply ask yourself: how much of my life energy is devoted to complaining about my circumstances, blaming others for my own unhappiness, controlling others to achieve my desires, deceiving others to make myself look good, or promoting myself? The remedy for all these spiritual diseases is the same: contact with your true inner being, which is a reflection of the Divine. After all is said and done, after all our spiritual practices and all the esoteric knowledge that might be acquired, the real measure of soulfulness is simply the degree of our humility, gratitude, patience, and love. "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
17
" What is most characteristically human is not guaranteed to us by our species or by our culture but given only in potential. A spiritual master once expressed it this way: A person must work to become human. What is most distinctly human in us is something more than the role we play in society and more than the conditioning, whether for good or bad, of our culture. It is our essential Self, which is our point of contact with Infinite Spirit. This Spirit is not to be understood as a metaphysical assertion requiring belief, but as something we can experience for ourselves. What if you, as a human being, represent the final result of a process in which this Spirit has evolved better and better reflectors of itself? If the human being is the most evolved carrier of the Creative Spirit – possessing conscious love, will, and creativity – then our humanity is the degree to which this physical and spiritual vehicle, and particularly our nervous system, can reflect or manifest Spirit. That which is most sacred in us, that which is deeper than our individual personality, is our connection to this Spirit, this Creative Power.
Whereas conventional religious belief has the tendency to anthropomorphize God/Spirit, this process consists of the human being becoming qualified by the attributes of God. It could be called the „sanctification“ of the human being. Our human nature is realized through the understanding and awareness that the essential human Self is a reflection of Spirit. To become truly human is to attain a tangible awareness of Spirit, to realize oneself as a reflection of Spirit, or God. The education of the Soul is the Great Work. The beginning of this Work consists of awakening a transcending awareness... "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
18
" This presence is like a passport to greater life. It is our connection to that Greater Being to which we belong, but which is often buried beneath mundane concerns, bodily desires, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions. Through knowledge, practice, and understanding, this presence can be awakened. Eventually, we will not be without it – whether in speaking or moving, whether in thinking or feeling. Awakening this presence is the most reliable and direct means of cultivating our essential human qualities, of activating everything that we need to meet the conditions of our lives. Presence is the point of intersection between the world of the senses and the world of the Spirit. May we never cease to discover its beauty and power. "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
19
" 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. "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
20
" The faithful, the believers, are those who recognize, both through reflection and through the heart, that an unseen beneficence exists. On the other hand, the unbelievers, those in denial of the spiritual nature of Reality, follow only the god of their egos. Their wills create disharmony and injustice; their actions spread corruption upon the earth. Dominated by their illusions, they are fated to suffer being out of harmony, at the same time that they contribute to the objective suffering of the world. Those in denial exist in a world of self-created illusions, rarely glimpsing the real world, the world the heart knows. Beyond the concatenation of absurd and meaningless facts created by the false self, there is a world of abundant generosity and mercy. (S. 164) "
― Kabir Helminski , Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self
