Peter Samsel > Quotes

“This metaphysical understanding, the doctrine of Unity (tawḥīd), represents, at the level of human intellectual conceptualization, an aspect of human unification with respect to God, for to deeply plumb the mysteries of tawḥīd is to that extent to become one-minded and to perceive the traces of the Divine Presence in all things. Yet”
― Peter Samsel, A Treasury of Sufi Wisdom: The Path of Unity

“Sufism is a vast and varied historical and civilizational phenomenon, touching upon poetic expression and sacred art, ethics and virtue, discipleship and spiritual guidance, humble service and spiritual practice, the nourishment of the heart and the illumination of vision. Yet all these many concerns coalesce ultimately to a single concern: that of the return to God. The way of this return is, at root, a matter of the ever-deepening inculcation of the reality of Divine Unity in one’s being, as expressed in one’s understanding, one’s presence and attention, and ultimately one’s very existence. This “Path of Unity” is none other than the central course of the entire tradition of Sufism. What”
― Peter Samsel, A Treasury of Sufi Wisdom: The Path of Unity

“That “there is no god but God” may be understood simply and straightforwardly as a claim of absolute monotheism, but the Sufi tradition has further seen this as the quintessential statement of the purest metaphysics, for by extension there are not only no other gods, but more profoundly no independent reality apart from God, who is at once the sole Principle and Ground of existence.”
― Peter Samsel, A Treasury of Sufi Wisdom: The Path of Unity