Kabir Helminski > Quotes

“To be fully human is to fulfill our spiritual destiny.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation

“Love is the motivation behind every yearning. In all of life, Love is seeking to discover itself. We com einto this world, and we experience a profound forgetfulness; we are asleep. Everything that happens from then on is the process of waking up to the fact that Love brought us here, that we are loved by a Beneficent Unseen Reality, and that the core of our being is Love. The whole purpose and meaning of creation is to discover the secret of Love.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski

“Furthermore, we exist in a psychologically fragmented state, a state of continuous inner conflicts among the parts of ourselves. We have lost the principle of unity within ourselves. We are not only psychological polytheists, worshipping gods of our own creation, we are “polyselfists,” because we have many selves and have not known our essential self.”
― Kabir Helminski, The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation

“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 Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The Work is to bring the outer and the inner into harmony. (p. 103)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Traditional Sufi wisdom teaches that we are the creation and manifestation of Infinite Love, and that every event and circumstance of our lives serves to awaken us and remind us that true happiness and security is to be found in the deepest center of ourselves where we are closest to that Infinite Love, where our true needs will be met.
~Shaikh Kabir Helminski”
― Kabir Helminski

“Rumi knew deep in his heart that the love he was experiencing was leading him back to the deepest levels of himself and his own intimate connection with the Divine. In the less mature stages of love we desire and want to possess the object of our love. Rumi and Shams gave themselves unequivocally to a spiritual relationship - not a relationship which one ego would feed and flatter another ego with unlimited attention and devotion but a relationship that would tear each other down to his essence.”
― Kabir Helminski

“Once the spiritual journey begins, we leave the circumference of the circle and begin to travel along the radius of divine wisdom to reach the Center. This is a journey in and through the self of the human being. The End is the experience and knowledge of yourself as infinite eternal spirit. Along the way we leave behind every identification of gender, family, nationality, race, and religion, and understand ourselves as the Universal Human Being, the Child of God. In the past, the Greek mystery religions called this Logos; the Christian Gnostics called it Christos; the Sufis call it Insani Kamil.

Some have experienced the inbreath of Holy Spirit — whether through a murshid, a realized being, a community of lovers of God, a living tradition — and this has initiated a process of transformation that, if nurtured and protected, will lead to the actualization of the divine in the human being. Such a person will relate from the Divine in himself or herself to the Divine in another.”
― Kabir Helminski

“In our tradition, God says, „The heavens and the earth cannot contain Me.“ We know there are billions of stars and galaxies. Yet the Divine is saying, „No, all of that cannot contain Me. Only the heart of my faithful servant, the knower, is expansive enough to contain Me.“ It‘s a very high truth. (p. 80)”
― Kabir Helminski, In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching

“Water says to the dirty, „Come here“
The dirty one says, „I am so ashamed“.
Water says,
„How will your shame be washed away without me?“
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 1366-67”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“When we are aware of the abundance of Life, synchronous events unfold in the continuum of time; Love brings together what needs to be brought together. (p. 217)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“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 Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Coherence comes from a deep center, which is the heart. Ultimately it‘s the heart of the human being connected to Infinite Spirit. When the self is connected to the heart, and the heart is connected to God, you have coherence. It‘s really that simple. The practice we call „the remembrance of God“ is the channel to that coherence. (p. 14)”
― Kabir Helminski, In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching

“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 Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“This Marriage - Ode 2667

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcome
as the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage”
― Kabir Helminski, Love Is a Stranger: Selected Lyric Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi

“In certain ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures there was often a process of initiation that young people would go through before they became adults. In some Native American traditions, for example, the initiate would be put out into the wilderness without any food or any other provisions for survival. He would have to rely on the Universe and his own soul. During the experience, the initiate would fast. He would experience himself confronting the Universe alone. He would be out there for a number of days. This would open up the initiate to a direct experience of something beyond the usual egoic mind and all of its concerns. The initiate would be thrust into an experience that would take him beyond his small, limited self. Such a process existed in our own Tradition going back to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. What was Muhammad doing in a cave when the first revelations of the Qur‘an began if not going through what Native Americans would call a „Vision Quest“? He received direct revelation and inspiration through this practice. (p. 12)”
― Kabir Helminski, In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching

“A drop that knows itself, knows the Ocean. (p. 80)”
― Kabir Helminski, In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching

“The mirror of pure awareness is obscured by layers of emotional and mental conditioning. Just as polishing transforms a mineral or stone into a reflective object, regularly wiping clean the mirror of awareness will allow a human being to reflect the light of Being itself. The spiritual process can be understood as learning to consciously reflect more and more of this Being. If we would clear the inner mirror, the light of Being would be reflected outwardly, pouring out of our eyes. (p. 100)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Let the Jesus of your Spirit ride the donkey;
Don‘t make your Jesus carry the donkey.
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 1853-5”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“All life is one and everything that lives is holy. Holiness is Reality. (p. 80)”
― Kabir Helminski, In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching

“The word for paradise is actually „garden“ or jannah in Arabic. Paradise is not just something that comes after this earthly life. The Qur‘an says, The Garden will be brought near to all those who are in a state of Godconsciousness (Surah ash-Shu‘ara 26:90). To all those who deepen in their remembrance, deepen in presence, The Garden will be brought near. (p. 101)”
― Kabir Helminski, In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching

“The essential self is fundamentally invulnerable and at ease, because it is anchored in Being. This anchoring at the core of oneself allows the personality to be much more vulnerable, open, honest. If the essential self adopts a provisional or social identity — which may be necessary for certain reasons—it does not take it too seriously, does not become completely identified with it. The essential self does not become inflated with its identity, it lives in the humility of presence and can keep a sense of humor about itself.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation

“Love is the essence of this religion. I pray that we will approach all of our questions and concerns, especially the most difficult and intimate questions, with love, in order to be able more and more to solve our problems with love. The Sufi lives in a compassionate and passionate universe, a universe born from a spark of love. (p. 108)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Holistic Islam: Sufism, Transformation, and the Needs of Our Time

“Sufism is the reconciliation of all opposites: the outer and the inner, the material and the spiritual, the finite and the infinite, the here and the hereafter, freedom and servanthood, the human and the divine. Enlightenment in this tradition does not prevent us from functioning in a practical and humble way in life, does not entitle us to special treatment, does not exclude us from the inevitable joys and griefs of life. The Sufi’s union with God does not cancel servanthood. What I found through Sufism far exceeded my hopes. As an example, one poet said to me: “All of my reading, study, and creative writing could not have prepared me for the poetry of Rumi.” And yet all Rumi’s poetry is just the wave on the surface of the ocean of Sufi spirituality. Perhaps it is consistent with the idea of Divine generosity that it should exceed in actuality the gift we had foreseen in our imagination. The Source is not only infinitely generous, it is infinitely creative, and its gifts surpass human imagination.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation

“The mind of the poet works in this pattern of pain, a place beyond linear logic, a multidimensional world of sound, rhythm, pattern, meaning, and reason all at once. The poet shuffles all of these dimensions until he finds a shape, a structure that begins to hold the meaning and the essence of what is compelling him to communicate.”
― Kabir Helminski, The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

“The state of emancipation toward which we are journeying can be described as freedom from the fear of loss. It is understood that Life flows to us from an unstinting Source of grace that will never lessen its giving as long as we are open to receiving. The people and things that are so precious to us are embodiments of qualities, and these qualities are derived from this beneficent Source. What we are so afraid of losing are qualities that we have invested in the particular forms we are attached to. We have confused these qualities with the forms we have discovered them in. Their beauty is like the beauty of sunlight that falls upon a brick wall:

„Sunlight fell upon the wall;
the wall received a borrowed splendor.
Why set your heart on a piece of earth, simple one?
Seek out the source which shines forever.“
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 708-09

The wall may crumble or be torn down, but the sun will always return to shine. To be spiritually mature is to be free of the fear of loss, knowing that we are connected to the Source of all generosity. (p. 161)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The Sufi's book is not of ink and letters;
it is nothing but a heart white as snow.
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 159”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Love is the motivation behind every yearning. In all of life, Love is seeking to discover itself. We come into this world, and we experience a profound forgetfulness; we are asleep. Everything that happens from then on is the process of waking up to the fact that Love brought us here, that we are loved by a Beneficent Unseen Reality, and that the core of our being is Love. The whole purpose and meaning of creation is to discover the secret of Love.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation

“The essential insight and consistent point of view of Islam is tawhid: the fundamental Oneness underlying all of existence. From the perspective of tawhid, everything is emerging from God, being sustained by God, and ultimately returning to God. This has profound significance for all of our experience within this existence. All areas of human knowledge are related to this fundamental, unifying Truth. Sufism is the science, the objective knowledge, of the souls relationship to God. This science describes an Origin, a downward arc of manifestation, and an upward arc of return. In the arc of manifestation, everything is coming down from God into successive levels of ever denser realities. In the arc of return, we recognize our Origin and begin the journey back toward its light. This essentially means that we ourselves must become more conscious of the light within ourselves.

[...]

The arc of return calls us to make a journey from darkness and toward the light. The immediate darkness we face around us is the imaginary world created by human ignorance, fear, self-righteousness, and hatred. We must not succumb to the mass heedlessness and self-hypnotism which presents itself to us, mostly through the mass media, as the so-called real world.
It is our responsibility to find and act upon the knowledge that can guide us in that journey. This means establishing the truth of tawhid within our own minds and hearts.

~ Essays and talks by Kabir Helminski/Breathe And Remember”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski

“Since in order to speak, one must first listen,
learn to speak by listening.
Rumi, Mathnawi I: 1627”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self