Advertise on podcast: Sufi Heart with Omid Safi

Omid Safi discusses Sufi teachings from one of the greatest muslim mystics, an Andalusian sage named Ibn ‘Arabi. "When Ibn 'Arabi comes, he sits with all of himself. When he's listening, he listens with all of himself. When it's time to go, he gets up with all of himself. All of him is here, so I can give him all of the love. That's such a practice, and it's such a challenge for all of us who are always distracted. A lot of Sufi practice is really this art of being present." – Omid Safi This week on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi illuminates: The life of Ibn ‘Arabi from Andalusia, to Morocco, Turkey, and Damascus The prayer of opening and Ibn ‘Arabi’s text, Futuhat al-Makkiyya (openings of the heart)Removing that which veils you from direct presence with GodExperiencing Kashf—the unveiled revelations that arise from intimate communion with GodThe paradoxical ‘yes and no’ response that Ibn ‘Arabi often gave to philosophical questions and finding beauty in the paradoxRemembering that we do not see God, we are seen by GodPresence and mindfulness as a core feature of Sufi spiritual practiceHow Ibn ‘Arabi’s life teaches us what it means to have a teacher and blurring together seeker and masterA commentary on all in the natural realm that is made beautiful Dissolving the illusion of separation between lover and belovedA poem from Ibn ‘Arabi on alchemy and the Prophet “Most people translate it as ‘I become’ then ‘I become the sight by which you see’. Ibn ‘Arabi says ‘it’s not I become, I am’. It sounds really different, it hits different. I am the eye by which you see. I am the hearing by which you hear. I am the hand by which you touch. I am the tongue by which you speak.” – Omid Safi About Omid Safi: Dr. Omid Safi is the director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King and Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Illuminating Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teachings on radical love, Omid Safi leads listeners down the Sufi path of love, harmony, and beauty. Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. This time on Sufi Heart, Omid provides a lesson on: The Sufi tradition of radical love, universal harmony, and experiencing beauty  Hazrat Inayat Khan’s timely and timeless teachings Music as a sacred bridge between cultures and a channel for divine connectionThe universality of love across religions and wisdom traditionsSeeing the unity in the multiplicity and the multiplicity in the unity The reduction of love to romantic ideals and reclaiming its divine essenceRadical love, loving all beings, and the claim that love is GodThe mystical poetry of Hazrat Inayat Khan and RumiThe ultimate unity of love, lover, and beloved Seeing each one of our faculties—sight, sound, breath, as a portal to see and be seen by GodThe symphony of creation and what it may sound like if we operated in harmonyHow global disharmony—social, political, and ecological—reflects spiritual/inner disconnectionHarmony as one of the keys that connects the human realm to the divine realmThe divine light of God which is hidden in each of our soulsSurrendering willingly to beauty and allowing it to connect us to the divine mystery of GodThis episode was part of a longer conversation with friends over at Spiritual Wanderlust. Omid encourages listeners to check out that offering, part of their series on “Mystics and Prophets”, HERE. About Omid Safi: Dr. Omid Safi is director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King, Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone, from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours. "The path of radical love makes an extraordinary claim. The claim is fundamentally the notion that there is no ultimate divide between the love of God and the love of creation. Love is one. Love is not merely a quality of God, love is God. It is the very being, very essence, very heart of God." – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Re-enchanting the world with God, the beloved, Omid Safi and teacher Joshua Michael Schrei explore the push-and-pull relationship we have with the divine.  Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. This week on Sufi Heart, Omid and Joshua get into: The many types of love we experience with the divine How the seeker was first being sought by GodThe possibility of tying together the sensual and the spiritual Nature as a living saint and master of seasons/cycles Remembering the greater picture that we are all a part of Balancing transcendence and imminence Considering how we relate to lack and longing Being in ecstatic union with the beloved Knowing that God is present both within and without moments of consummationHow the treasures of our lives are often related to the hardships we have enduredWhat activism could look like in the political and social climate we are living inRe-enchanting the world and suffusing it with divine love The ripple effect of global events and how everything is interconnectedPontificating how we can build a just, loving society Check out Joshua's podcast, The Emerald, where you can explore more of the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. You can also keep up with the podcast via Instagram. About Joshua Michael Schrei :  Joshua is a podcaster, mythteller, teacher, and a lifelong student of the cosmologies and mythologies of the world — in particular, the Indian subcontinent. Throughout a lifetime of teaching, study, meditation and yogic practice, wilderness immersion, art, music, and public speaking, Joshua has sought to navigate the living, animate space of the imagination and advocate for a world that prioritizes imaginative vision. Joshua has taught intensive courses in mythology and somatic disciplines for over 20 years. He is the founder of The Emerald Podcast, which combines evocative narrative, soul-stirring music, and interviews with award-winning authors and luminaries to explore the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. Less a traditional podcast and more a multi-layered sonic journey, The Emerald aims to reawaken the lost promise of oral storytelling tradition — the transmission of the direct felt experience of wonder and awe, and the rekindling of our relationship with spirit. Keep up with Joshua on his website.  “In any great love affair, in every great love-making, there is always that moment where you lose track of where your body ends and the beloved's body begins. There is no more notion of who is the lover and who is the beloved; there's only the moment and pure absolute pleasure and bliss. That's in some ways what the mystics are trying to get to. They're trying to get to that place where the boundary between you and I, lover and beloved, human and divine, becomes very blurred.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Omid Safi sits down with Mike Petrow and Drew Jackson from The Center for Action and Contemplation, founded by Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, to explore how a unified approach to spirituality can deepen our faith. This podcast was originally published on the  Everything Belongs Podcast, produced by The Center for Action and Contemplation (CFAC). The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation—the two are inseparable. As Father Richard likes to say, the most important word in our Center’s name is neither Action nor Contemplation, but the word and. This podcast episode explores elements of a chapter in Richard Rohr’s book: “Entering the World of Another: Francis and the Sultan of Egypt.” Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. Hosts of the Everything Belongs podcast, Mike and Drew, enjoy a conversation with Omid Safi about: Love as a representation of God in actionThe heart of the Islamic traditionSeeing the soul of the divine in all humansComing from love and returning to loveConsidering how we want to spend our livesThe genocide and pain happening in our worldRemembering the core roots of religion as kindness and loveTraversing across many different traditions and seeing the beauty in it allThe importance of language and art in our experience of life and religionSaint Francis and the Sultan as a model for compassionCombining the mandates of contemplation and action“What if we come to see the human heart as the highest shrine of God? How would it change the way we live together? How would it change the way we treat one another? How would it change the way we walk on the earth? The more our ethics and contemplative life feed into each other, the more luminous all of it becomes.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Getting down to the basics of Sufism, James Cooke and Omid Safi discuss the mystery of love and our enmeshment with God. This time on the Sufi Heart podcast, Omid Safi and James Cooke discuss: Sufism and mystical IslamGetting closer to a divine realityTypes of love within SufismRecognizing that we are interwoven with all thingsPure love as the antidote of egoHow we are enmeshed with GodMaking our daily life our practiceThe diversity within traditions of IslamMisrepresentations of Islam in mainstream mediaExtending love to absolutely everyoneSelf-love and growing in our practice of lovingAbout James Cooke, PhD: James Cooke started the Inner Space Institute with the aim of helping greater numbers of people to access spiritual growth, without any of the unscientific beliefs that are common in spiritual circles. James trained as a neuroscientist after an awakening as a teenager that showed him the reality of spiritual states of consciousness. He holds three degrees from Oxford University (a PhD and Masters in Neuroscience & a BA in Experimental Psychology). He has conducted scientific research for over a decade at institutions such as Oxford University, University of California, Berkeley, University College London, Trinity College Dublin, and Riken Brain Sciences Institute in Tokyo. James is the author of The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive (coming December 2024), which synthesizes science and spiritual insight to offer a radical solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. “I feel like for some people, this emphasis on love can be quite healing to hear, because I grew up in a time where there was a kind of grotesque, simplified caricature of Islam…it’s healing to have contact with the reality of these traditions.” – James Cooke, PhD See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Exploring what it means to practice Islam in a world filled with evil, Omid Safi explains how strangeness can bring us back home to God. Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. In this episode, Omid Safi holds a talk on: Sacred sounds and the movement of the heavenly spheresHeavy hearts from global suffering and genocideThe counterculture of Islam when it beganLooking into our own communities to consider what seems strangeNot being afraid to veer from traditionWays that we can become strangers to our own religionStanding with those who are vulnerableReturning home to the loving presence of GodRemembering what it means to be a SufiTaking care of the poor, the needy, the strangers, the lonely“We want to become re-acquainted and return to our original home which is the very loving presence of God. That’s where and when we’re going to be at home.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Omid Safi discusses how modern myths like Star Wars can connect us to Sufism and the mystery of the universe. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi has a discussion on: The story of Moses in the Qur’anMoses’ teacher, ‘the green one’, and Yoda from Star WarsHow myth-makers revive spiritual traditionsThe mythic language found in music and moviesHow Taoists, Muslims, Christians, and more see themselves in ‘the force’Everything as animated and the energy that flows through all thingsRecognizing that we are made of the elements and of GodHow George Lucas asks beautiful questions in subtle waysConsidering the mystery rather than having all of the answersThe many forms that Allah may appear in and finding saints in ordinary peopleHow movies fill a gap when we mistrust formal religion“Luke and Obi-Wan, apprentice and master, this is the very stuff of the Sufi tradition, This is part of that re-enchanting that Star Wars is trying to accomplish. It’s trying to remind us that there are these mysterious ways of the heart, of the soul, of the universe, that we can still learn.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sharing insights from the path of love, Omid Safi discusses the teachings of Sufi philosopher, Hazrat Inayat Khan. Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid Safi explores: The universality of loveComing back to the centerExperiencing God directlySigns of God in scripture, nature, and our own soulsHaving an open heart for all of humanityPracticing love as a religionGoing into our breath for full presence and communion with GodHow vast God is, yet how close we are to GodThe singular focus of God as the belovedThe necessity of our ancestors’ wisdomThe path of the mystic vs. ordinary religion“The center is where we come to have that direct, immediate, unmediated experience of God, which is to say, the heart.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Examining how mysticism hides in plain sight, Omid Safi describes God as love, the lover, and the beloved with guest host Kelly Deutsch. This episode was originally recorded for the Spiritual Wanderlust Podcast, with Kelly Deutsch. Learn more about this series that explores the wild, untamed frontiers of our interior life at spiritualwanderlust.org/podcast   This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi speaks with Kelly about: Discovering Islamic MysticsSufism and having a pure heartOmid’s life in Iran and exposure to masculine displays of emotionThe mystery of being human, the mystery of GodHeartbreak and experiencing the heart breaking openSacred Eroticism and using our senses to experience lovelinessWhat we can learn from the type of love a mother providesRadical love and going into the rootsLinking together love and justice“The Sufis explicitly say something that of course we find also in the Christian mystical contemplative tradition. Mischievously, they almost say there is a holy trinity, a language which most orthodox Muslims would avoid and all Jews would have avoided. But they say the trinity is love, lover, and beloved. God is love, God is the lover, and God is the beloved.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pushing beyond the bare minimum of religiosity, Omid Safi inspires listeners to deepen their faith into an ecstatic adoration of God. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid Safi elucidates : Islam and the unity of AllahIman as faith and Ihsan as virtueSpirituality and AestheticsDoing what is required of us through religionHow Habib (the chosen one) inspired a deeper level of faithHow we can aspire to be in a state of love and adorationThe eyes of the heart versus the eyes of the headWorshiping God for more than just salvationIslamic Saints and their stories of experiencing Allah through beautyRecognizing the unwavering divine presence of GodThe eternal now and present moment awarenessUndivided attention as an act of loveCourtesy and recognizing our individual journeysBeing a beautiful witness“God is to be found here and now…the divine simply is not to be experienced in the afterlife, in the heavenly realms, in the celestial realm. Here and now where you are, where we are, we can come to experience Allah.” - Omid Safi You can join Omid on one of his heart-centered and spiritually-focused educational tours of: Mecca and Medina Umrah program: December 14-21st, 2023. [For Muslim participants]Morocco: April 13-22nd, 2024.Turkey: somewhere in late May to early June, 2024.Further information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours where you can also find information on virtual courses, spiritual talks, and more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this interview from the 2023 Mystics Summit, Omid Safi joins Taya Ma for a conversation about Rumi, his main teachings, and how he’s situated on the wider Path of Radical Love. This interview is part of the 2023 Mystics Summit a free online event. For more information, please visit mysticssummit.com. This recording is a copyright of The Shift Network. All rights reserved. In this episode, Omid Safi and Taya Mâ talk about: Rumi’s background and why his real legacy is more than just his poetry, it’s his beingHow the Path of Radical Love keeps us rooted and grounded, and how we can cultivate those rootsPractices that can guide us towards onenessHow we can interpret Rumi’s work both on its own accord and through the context of the time in which it was writtenAbout Taya Mâ Taya Mâ Shere plays passionately in realms of transformative ritual, embodied vocalization, and ancestral healing. She is a professor of organic multireligious ritual at Starr King School for the Ministry, founder of the emergent online mystery school From the Deep, and co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. Learn more about her at taya.ma You can join Omid on one of his heart-centered and spiritually-focused educational tours of: Mecca and Medina Umrah program: December 14-21st, 2023. [For Muslim participants]Morocco: April 13-22nd, 2024.Turkey: somewhere in late May to early June, 2024.More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours. “Approach the teachings of the Path of Love, or of Islam, or of Sufism, or whatever tradition it is that draws you closer to God, in an interactive model. Don’t look at it purely and simply as receiving the teaching, but also keep a journal of your responses to the teachings, to the stories. And when something touches your heart, write that down. And write down what it was and what it made you think because sometimes those momentary realizations are like a lightning bolt in a dark sky, and for one minute everything is clear. You see your own self clearly, and then it may be gone.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Omid dives into the ocean of love, contemplating how the nature of the waves washing ashore and receding back mirrors the human experience. This special episode is from Sharon Salzberg's Living an Authentic Life Summit and is hosted by Andres Gonzalez from the Holistic Life Foundation. Lifetime access to the full summit, featuring all 30 speakers and five days of content, is available here: Living an Authentic Life Summit: A Journey to Inner Peace, Freedom and Joy In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid is interviewed by Andres Gonzalez exploring: - The journey of living a spiritually luminous life - Anger as a path to higher consciousness - Expansion and contraction as the rhythm of life - Breaking the callousness of the heart - Being true to the inner child within - An expansive and contractive breathing exercise - To explore more on the topic of expansion and contraction, listen to episode 186 of Heart Wisdom. “Every heart has to break and not every heart that’s broken breaks open. We want a heart that opens up. Opens up towards God, opens up towards all, opens up towards our fellow human beings, and opens up to that ultimate mystery of what we are. And what an awesome encounter that is, and how terrifying that is.” – Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Omid returns with a timely and flowing discussion on the connection between spirituality and conflict transformation. Join Omid on a heart-centered and spiritually-focused educational tour of Turkey coming up in June 2023: Illuminated Tours - Turkey See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid Safi discusses the spirituality of seasons. We learn to look at Islamic cultures for inspiration on attuning to the sanctity of nature. “We have gained a lot in terms of productivity, but we have also lost a lot in terms of the rhythm of our life, the attunement to nature, and the ability to live a harmonious life”. —Omid Safi See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Omid Safi offers us a sense of the significance of Christmas, the birth of Jesus, and the sacred experience of Mary in the Islamic tradition. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.