I've always been fascinated with the idea that humans have so many layers of consciousness, and reality is multi-faceted. I've studied Zen Buddhism, yoga, and for the past 43 years, Sufism. My experience of life has developed into a journey of changing difficult situations into exhilarating discoveries, finding hidden patterns in nature that delight me and tell me I’m not alone in the universe, and helping many people transform into beings of joy and gratitude. I’m beginning to see that our transformation delights and changes the Divine; we are not a passing phenomenon but contributors to new creation on a major scale.
Our spiritual research, which included reading the books mentioned here, and our transformation through years of spiritual disciplines inspired us to find ways to put into practice many of the concepts we learned from great teachers. In Awakening as a Human*Divine Beingwe describe how to use this wisdom in our daily lives. The dialogue which formed the body of our book was taken from actual classes we taught during the pandemic (see YouTube link below). There are step-by-step meditations that give hints on how to reinterpret problems into opportunities for realization. You will find ways to relate ancient concepts to metaphors from science and daily experiences of life.
This book, for serious students of mysticism, dances between the worlds of Persia a thousand years ago and the present. For me, it took the topic of creative imagination out of the realm of fantasy and established it as a cornerstone of the way we perceive and give meaning to reality, and the way we connect to God and inner worlds.
"Henry Corbin's works are the best guide to the visionary tradition...Corbin, like Scholem and Jonas, is remembered as a scholar of genius. He was uniquely equipped not only to recover Iranian Sufism for the West, but also to defend the principal Western traditions of esoteric spirituality."--From the introduction by Harold Bloom Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) was one of the great mystics of all time. Through the richness of his personal experience and the constructive power of his intellect, he made a unique contribution to Shi'ite Sufism. In this book, which features a powerful new preface by Harold Bloom, Henry Corbin brings…
As I approach a book, I live in a world of separation. In each of Rumi’s poems, I fall first into a well-told tale and then am whirled into a mystery where you and God, humble gnat and whole universe are reflected in each other. My heart can’t help but be remade in the process.
The wisdom of the great Sufi master comes to life in this compendium of 365 Rumi poems and writings for daily contemplation and inspiration
My heart wandered through the world constantly seeking after my cure, but the sweet and delicious water of life had to break through the granite of my heart.
When the words of Rumi enter your heart, something softens, breaks, and is subtly reborn. That he wrote the words seven hundred years ago in a medieval Persian world that bears little resemblance to ours makes their uncanny resonance to us today just that much more remarkable.
It is not enough to read about the existence of states of consciousness beyond what we have experienced. The practices in this book, many of which I have learned from this renowned spiritual teacher, offer a course of development to radically change your consciousness, open you to life experiences, and give you tools for further transformation.
The Ecstasy Beyond Knowing represents the distilled wisdom of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan’s long lifetime of spiritual seeking and experiences, his dialogues and deep friendships with other mystics and spiritual teachers, and his explorations into the nature of reality with scientists and philosophers.Meditation techniques are explained in detail along with the principles behind them, including practices with breath, light, energy, sound and mantram, inspired visualizations, and the Sufi dhikr. The Sufi process and stages of transformation are interwoven with those of Hinduism, Buddhism, the Jewish Kabbalah, the glorification of the Christian Mass, and the alchemical process of self-transfiguration. The height,…
This book comes to our rescue for those of us who wish to delve more deeply into the work of Henry Corbin. Cheetham helped me see that my practices cleared my heart so that inner visions would appear in their essential nature His words guided me to integrate difficult themes such as levels of being or lists of angels such that I could incorporate them into my heart.
The first book in English to synthesize the remarkable work of Henry Corbin, the great French philosopher, Christian theologian, and scholar of Islamic mysticism. Corbin, a colleague of C. G. Jung’s at Eranos, and one the most important visionaries of the twentieth century, had a seminal influence on the development of archetypal psychology, especially through the idea of the “imaginal world.” Corbin’s work bridges the gap between the philosophy and theology of the West and the mysticism of Islam and provides a radical and unified vision of the three great monotheistic religions based upon the Creative Imagination. One obstacle for…
This book is based on Middle Eastern poems from the 1300s which cuddle up close to you and turn you around, such that the world will never be the same again. You find yourself illuminated in new ways with every poem. How amazing to be so intimate with a great being from so far in the past.
Chosen by author Elizabeth Gilbert as one of her ten favorite books, Daniel Ladinsky’s extraordinary renderings of 250 unforgettable lyrical poems by Hafiz, one of the greatest Sufi poets of all time
More than any other Persian poet—even Rumi—Hafiz expanded the mystical, healing dimensions of poetry. Because his poems were often ecstatic love songs from God to his beloved world, many have called Hafiz the “Invisible Tongue.” Indeed, Daniel Ladinsky has said that his work with Hafiz is an attempt to do the impossible: to render Light into words—to make the Luminous Resonance of God tangible to our finite senses.…
The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.
Each of the sections is written from the perspective of the mythical Taurus, from the beginning at Lascaux to Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and elsewhere. This is not just a history of the bull but also a view of ourselves through the eyes of the bull, illustrating our pre-literate use of myth, how the advent of writing and the urban revolution changed our view of ourselves, and how even bullfighting in Spain is a variation on the ancient sacrifice of the sacred bull.
The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. In I Am Taurus, author Stephen Palmer traces the story of the bull in the sky, starting from that point 19,000 years ago - a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull. Each of the eleven sections is written from the perspective of the mythical Taurus, from the beginning at Lascaux to Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece, Spain and elsewhere. This is not just a history of the bull but also an attempt to see ourselves through…
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