Love All

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

Love all.

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand.
Love every leaf and every ray of light.

Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants,
love every separate fragment.

If you love each separate fragment,
you will understand the mystery
of the whole resting in God.

–Dostoevsky

Ya Haqq!

What Love Demands – Eid al-Adha Mubarak :)

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

Eid Mubarak!

May Allah bless you all this Eid al-Adha, dear Brothers and Sisters, with generosity of hand, sincerity of speech, kindness in action, and love and joy in remembrance of HU, the Source of all Generosity, Sincerity, Kindness, Joy, and Love.  Ameen!

“O Lord! Let not our hearts deviate now after You have guided us, but grant us mercy from Your own Presence; for You are the Grantor of bounties without measure.” (Quran: 3:9)

This is the time of Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, which celebrates the faith of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice even his beloved son as God had commanded.

Now what are we willing to sacrifice in order that our prayers may be accepted?

That is the question I ask myself every year. Jesus (as) kissed the leper, the whore, and the thief, out of love and forgiveness and healing. Because of the great expansiveness of his heart, miracles were possible. What have we done, what can we still do, to be worthy of the love and forgiveness and healing we ask of God? The answer that comes to my heart is always the same:

Do what love demands.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. -1 Corinthians 13:4-8

According to a hadith, the Prophet (peace be unto him) once said, “A true believer is one with whom others feel secure. One who returns love for hatred.”

Alhamdulillah! Indeed, Love is the greatest miracle of God. There have been Spiritual Masters who would not let an aspirant be initiated until they had gone to everyone whom they had wronged in their life, and begged forgiveness, making amends in any way that was required. And until they had gone to everyone that had wronged them in their lives, and granted them forgiveness without asking, and with a whole heart. Only then could such a one be initiated on the mystic path.

And so we come to the great task of our lives, brought into focus on this day of Eid al-Adha: To sacrifice our fear and hatred, our envy and greed and all the other works of the fearful and self-absorbed nafs, in the certain knowledge that anyone who forgives a debt will be repaid tenfold by God, and anyone who forgives a wrong will be forgiven by God a hundredfold, and anyone who returns love for hatred will make of this life a paradise. That is what love demands.

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

Ya Haqq!

In such a person resides God

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

One who is not perturbed by misfortune, who is beyond comfort, attachment and fear, who considers gold as dust.
He neither speaks ill of others nor feels elated by praise and shuns greed, attachments and arrogance.
He is indifferent to ecstasy and tragedy, is not affected by honors or humiliations. He renounces expectations, greed.
He is neither attached to the worldliness, nor lets senses and anger affect him.
In such a person resides God.
– Guru Tegh Bahadur, Sorath 633

Ya Haqq!

Saint Francis and the Teachings of the Birds

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

Francis and his companions came upon a field where they were drawn to some beautiful trees filled with birds. Francis lifted up his eyes, surprised with the multitude and with their beautiful variety. “O my beautiful sister birds,” he spoke to the ones on the ground when suddenly all those on the trees also came around him to listen.

Brother Masseo recounted how Francis went among them giving thanks to the Creator, even touched them, and how none of them moved. They did not fly away until he blessed them. The blessing took the form of a sermon.

“My little sisters the birds, you owe much to your Creator who gives you liberty to fly about to all places; and though you neither spin nor sew, he gives you beautifully colored clothing and wings. Though you neither sow nor reap he feeds you, and gives you fountains and rivers to quench your thirst, mountains and valleys for refuge, and trees to build your nests. Your Creator loves you much and sent you with Noah on the Ark that you might not be lost to the world. You have not fallen into the sin of ingratitude but kept your mouths open with your singing praise to God that gives great joy. O my little sisters, we all must beware of ingratitude, and study always to give praise to God.” Then he moved his hands in a blessing over them.

All the birds opened their beaks in song, stretched their necks, spread their wings with joy and rose up into the air singing. They divided themselves into four groups, one group flying towards the east, another towards the west, one towards the south, and one towards the north, moving out with their praise to all parts of the earth, singing wonderfully, signifying that the humble companions, like little birds, should possess nothing in this world but the song of gratitude, and should cast all the care of their lives on the providence of God.

– adapted by Barbara Flaherty from The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi, by Brother Ugolino

Ya Haqq!