Sufi and Mystic Intuition

Traditional Islamic Doctrine

The following are from: SUFI LIGHT, THE SECRET OF MEDITATION by Ahmad Javid MD  

Similarly, Sultan Bahu beautifully explained the superiority of love over faith: Everyone asks for firmness in faith, but few for firmness in love. They ask for faith and are ashamed of love, such arrogant hearts. Faith has no idea of the place where love can transport you. I swear by my faith, Bahu, keep my love firm. Similarly rhapsodizing about love, the great poet Rumi has said to this effect, “If in thirst you drink from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.
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According to Sufi metaphysics, the creation of the cosmos is explained in light of the famous hadith qudsi which states, “I was a hidden treasure; I loved to be known; therefore I created the creation so that I might be known.” The whole universe came into being through the interplay of the Divine Names and attributes. The Names of God are not just words, but actual realities corresponding with particular aspects of the Essence. Everything in the cosmos is a mirror in which God’s face (determinations of the Essence) can be seen. This is why those who have esoteric vision can see God everywhere and in everything. By creating the universe, God causes multiplicity to appear from the chamber of unity. The universe of multiplicity is thus a magnificent display of His Names and attributes exhibiting the infiniteness of God’s creative capabilities and perfection. According to the above-mentioned hadith, God’s mercy and love are the causes of all creation. In fact the existence of the universe in itself is an act of kindness and infinite mercy that flows from God.
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“When you love somebody you talk about them.” This is achieved by constant dhikr, which is the practice of reciting His Name
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As already mentioned, out of His ninety-nine Names mentioned in the Quran, the greatest and the most supreme one is His personal Name, Allah. All the other attributive Names are contained and hidden in this one. The whole Quran—which is the uncreated, pure, and living word of God—is summarized in the Al Fatiha or “Opening Chapter” of the Quran. This “Opening Chapter” itself is contained in the Quranic phrase, “Bismillah Ar Rahman Al Rahim” (“In the Name of Allah, the infinitely Good and the boundlessly Merciful”). The Bismillah phrase, in turn, is condensed in the word Allah. Therefore, Allah is the most powerful and the greatest name for dhikr (meditation) and commemoration, for all Sufis.
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The word Allah is derived from Al-Ilah, meaning “the One God....

Removing one letter at a time yields the following Divine Names: ALLAH- LILLAH- LAHU- HU

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“There are different levels of remembrance and each has different ways. Some are expressed outwardly with audible voice. Some are felt inwardly and silently from the center of the heart. It then rises to the soul; then reaches the realm of the secret, further to the hidden; and to the most hidden of the hidden. How far the remembrance permeates, the level it reaches, depends solely on the extent to which Allah in His bounty has guided us.

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When someone recites and commemorates the Name Allah, he or she directly establishes a link and a relationship with the Named, because the Name and the Named are essentially the same. He or she therefore, invokes all the attributes contained in the Name Allah. Constant recitation and commemoration releases God’s favors, blessings, and love.

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The following are from: Hymns to the Beloved: The poetry, prayers and wisdom of the world's great mystics by Richard Hooper 

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Ghandi

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Meditation is not the means to an end. It is both the means and the end. J. Krishnamurti

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Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away or become something better. It’s about befriending who you are already.

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Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road he must learn to desire God intensely, but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength. Aldous Huxley

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When you have entirely surrendered, everything you do will be meditation.

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If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God. Meher Baba—Sufi

 

Love sets on fire the one who finds it. At the same time it seals his lips so that no smoke comes out. (Meaning, shut the hell up :-))

 

The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.

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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. . . . So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Paul, I Corinthians—The New Testament

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Whoever we love, in that person we find our own soul in the highest sense. And the final truth of our existence lies in this. The supreme Soul is in me, as well as all others. Rabindranath Tagore—Hindu

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All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? The Buddha

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Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, generous, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and never seeking her own will; for where one seeks her own will, she falls from love.

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Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. The Dalai Lama—Tibetan Buddhist

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The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton—Roman Catholic

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The will is not free—it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect—but there is something behind the will which is free. Swami Vivekananda—Vedanta-Hindu

 

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart. Speech is born out of longing. True description comes from the real taste. The one who tastes, knows; the one who explains, lies. How can you describe the truth of Something in whose presence you are blotted out? And in whose Being you still exist? And who lives as a sign for your journey?