Love Is a Fire: The Sufi's Mystical Journey Home

by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Love is a Fire is an introduction to the Sufi path of love, taking the reader into the passion and wisdom of this mystical tradition. The call of the heart and how it draws us back to divine union is one of mankind's greatest secrets, and for the Sufi this love is a fire that burns away all traces of separation. Love is a Fire is based on live talks and meetings with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, who teaches how to live this burning. He describes the stages of the path of love on the soul's journey home. This is a book for anyone drawn to the fire of divine love.

Genres: Religion, Islam, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Philosophy

249 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1998

About the author

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Sufi mystic.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee (born 1953, London) is a Sufi mystic and lineage successor in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is an extensive lecturer and author of several books about Sufism, mysticism, dreamwork and spirituality.

:: History
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee was born in London in 1953. He began following the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi path at the age of 19, after meeting Irina Tweedie, author of Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master. He became Irina Tweedie's successor and a teacher in the Naqshbandiyya Sufi Order. In 1991 he moved to Northern California and founded The Golden Sufi Center to help make available the teachings of this Sufi Lineage (see http://goldensufi.org).

:: Works
Author of several books, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee has lectured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe on Sufism, mysticism, Jungian psychology and dreamwork. He has also specialized in the area of dreamwork, integrating the ancient Sufi approach to dreams with the insights of Jungian psychology. Since 2000 the focus of his writing and teaching has been on spiritual responsibility in our present time of transition, and an awakening global consciousness of oneness. More recently he has written about the feminine, the world soul, the anima mundi, and the emerging field of spiritual ecology (see http://workingwithoneness.org). He has also hosted a number of Sufi conferences bringing together different Sufi orders in North America (see http://suficonference.org).
His initial work from 1990 to 2000, including his first eleven books, was to make the Sufi path more accessible to the Western seeker. The second series of books, starting from the year 2000 with The Signs of God, are focused on a spiritual teachings about oneness and how to bring them into contemporary life, with the final book in this series being Alchemy of Light.
Llewellyn has been featured in two films, One the Movie & Wake Up. He has also been featured in the Tv series Global Spirit and in August 2012, he was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey as a part of her Super Soul Sunday series. He also writes a blog on the Huffington Post.

:: Books
* The Lover and the Serpent: Dreamwork within a Sufi Tradition (1990: out of print)
* The Call and the Echo: Sufi Dreamwork and the Psychology of the Beloved (1992: out of print, reissued in 1998 as Catching the Thread: Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology)
* The Bond of the Beloved: The Mystical Relationship of the Lover and the Beloved (1993)
* In the Company of Friends: Dreamwork within a Sufi Group (1994)
* Travelling the Path of Love: Sayings of Sufi Masters (1995)
* Sufism: The Transformation of the Heart (1995)
* The Paradoxes of Love (1996)
* The Face Before I Was Born: A Spiritual Autobiography (1997, 2nd Edition 2009 with new Introduction and Epilogue)
* Catching the Thread: Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology (1998)
* The Circle of Love (1999)
* Love is a Fire: The Sufi's Mystical Journey Home (2000)
* The Signs of God (2001)
* Working with Oneness (2002)
* Light of Oneness (2004)
* Moshkel Gosha: A Story of Transformation (2005)
* Spiritual Power: How It Works (2005)
* Awakening the World: A Global Dimension to Spiritual Practice (2006)
* Alchemy of Light: Working with the Primal Energies of Life (2007)
* The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul (2009)
* Fragments of a Love Story: Reflections on the Life of a Mystic (2011)
* Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism (2012)

Reviews

[Maria Lancaster]

This is such a wonderful book. One of my favourites.

[Brian Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inspirational tome for persons who desire ardent devotion and loving surrender to whatever they would refer to as 'God.' The work is oral in nature, arising from settings of teaching. The content includes much repetition of themes, due to that fact. I felt, at times, I was reading the book a section at a time, more as a devotion, than for information, for the book was that powerful and inspiring, like 'hot' with the loving, transforming Fire that Vaughan-Lee writes of. Simply reading the book is a good exercise in immersing the mind and body in this transforming Power, thereby heating up oneself with this desire to welcome the pleasures and pains of this innate longing for our Beloved.

The book presents the spirit and Spirit of the author's Path, being passionate and communicating well the supreme devotion called for in moving through the veils into union with the Supreme. Provided are good quotes, stories, personal accounts, and dreams to illustrate. Vaughan-Lee includes quotes and references to other spiritual Paths, demonstrating the inclusiveness of the truths in his particular Way.

The author communicates so well the demands of this merging in the Beloved, some readers might feel this Way impossible. Some readers may wonder how they could be as devoted as the author. Yet, one will find here a Grace gracious, even if at times fierce, and that the Fire that consumes is the Fire that gives Life.

I especially was interested in the concept in 'God' needing us. And, also, that needing includes 'God' fulfilling 'God', or coming into full-knowing-with-Himself, through us. Last, I appreciated the author's work with the paradox between the immanence and transcendence of 'God.'

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a deep and very interesting read.

[Renee Legris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is hard to write, because there were parts of this book that I entirely loved, but a few parts that really set my teeth on edge.

First, what I loved. Mr. Vaughan-Lee is one of the most evocative and poetic writers I've ever found when he's describing the relationship between the lover and the Beloved. Interestingly, much of what he said resonates with aspects of Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism. Probably because at heart, all mystical paths are the same. Other readers in our group complained that he said the same thing in many different ways, but I think that's necessary when you're describing a way of thought that's so different from the dominant culture. In particular, I urge anyone who runs out of patience, but is touched by Vaughan-Lee's mystical side, not to miss the last few chapters, particular "The Veils of God" parts 1 and 2. Transcendent.

Now what I didn't care for. Sufism is essentially the mystical aspect of Islam. Islam accepts among its sacred texts the Bible and the New Testament. Both Islam and Christianity have shall we say a problematic streak when it comes to women, and there were several chapters in the middle that were like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. He did a brilliant job, for instance, talking about the particular challenges men face on the spiritual path. But please let someone else speak about the challenges facing women!! Ugh.

I guess it comes down to "when he was good he was very, very good, but when he was bad he was horrible".

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was enlightening and I think it acheives its purpose.

The hardest thing for me with the whole perspective Vaughn-Leigh puts forward is the idea of the "masculine" and the "feminine" in the relationship between the mystic and the divine. Is there no other way we can talk about these ideas than making them gendered? That the "female" is always "open" and "longing for the male," I found repugnant. I accept that the purpose of this work was to present things as the author and those he represents see them. There was so much I loved about how they saw them. But this one thing irritated me throughout. I feel like a mystical connection should completelty transcend gender.

I'll probably make some more observations later, but this is the one foremost in my mind at the moment.