Kristiane Backer

“Purify your intentions, your inner being, your heart and be sincere in your actions,’ he wrote. ‘God looks into your heart, not at your outer form. He looks at what lies behind the clothes … He looks into your private sphere, not at your public show.”
― Kristiane Backer, From MTV to Mecca: How Islam Inspired My Life

“Then Gai told me about the famous cup of the heart, which I should now begin to empty. The Sufis compare our spiritual heart, the seat of God within us, with a cup into which the love of God flows. This cup, however, needs to be emptied before it can be filled with Divine love. This emptying is a long process that requires courage, strength of character, determination, and, above all, sincerity. It is a process of reining in and eventually extinguishing the ego, of letting go of material needs, bad and unhealthy habits and emotional attachments in order to make room for God. Sufis often likened it to the process of dying and being born again. ‘Die before you die’ is a famous Sufi saying. This was the essence of every spiritual path, Gai told me.”
― Kristiane Backer, From MTV to Mecca: How Islam Inspired My Life