Sufism

Recently my Royal Winnipeg Ballet friend told me she was learning to dance the dervish. It was part of the Sufi tradition she was studying. I immediately thought of Cat Stevens (http://catstevens.com) now Yusuf Islam and his mystical "Moon Shadow" song. I'd first encountered Sufism reading turn of the century accounts of British Army surgeons studying the feats of Fakirs decades ago. Sufism was the spiritual essence of Islam. The great political religion of Christianity encircles Christian mysticism like the Moslem religion encircles Sufism. Evelyn Underhill wrote well of mysticism but I like Aldous Huxley's Perenial Philosophy best. A sufi poem I read once was similiar to Song of Songs of the Old Testament and the Carmelite tradition of likening the relationship of God and Disciple as Lover and Loved. I think sometimes of the playful child's game of "hide and seek" as so often that seems to be my own experience of my beloved God. Paramahansa Yogananda the Indian mystic said something to the effect that the leaders of each religion would likely find more in common than their apathetic followers. I think that the essence of religions collectively is the mystical or spiritual path. God is one. God is all. It is only at the outer edges of the spiritual, the material , where light is most frozen, hearts most hard. I believe we are spiritual beings having a material experience. I was sad when I heard Saddam Hussein was killed. I don't believe in Capital Punishment by the State. There is always so much that I don't know but I do know that States make terrible mistakes. Every life is precious. When I become too busy with the world, I feel like a whirling dervish looks. Jesus said of Martha and Mary that Mary chose the better part. Only when I meditate and seek to be with a loving God who cares for each and all, then and only then do I feel at Home. Love.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi