The Natural Elements in Meditation (3): Transforming the World Around You
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How would you define the Holy Spirit?
Does this video do it justice?
Any good videos or resources that give a better definition or more exhaustive one?
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Borrowed this gem from @BlessingsDeers
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Beyond the Pale - The Limits of the Harmony of Religions | Prof. Jeffery Long
"âIn reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.â
â Mahatma Gandhi
@Bucket
Thank you dear Friend and Sibling!
This video was a Total Grand Slam!
I think its going to go down as one of my top 10 favorite Sacred Teachings, and If I could edit the OP, I would post it there! Its value is priceless and is monumentally important for any deeper diver on the Spiritual path!
This resonated so deeply with my heart and Soul, I am deeply grateful for you sharing this. At so many times throughout his speech I felt like he was reading my mind, and articulating so many of my deeply cherished beliefs.
Not sure if you listened to this vid, but had a very meaningful Synchronicity when I posted it, then the next day listening to the first 10min of your vid. (Finally got around to listening to the full speech above).
@36 min mark - 38 min
(I had not heard of the Sufi HIDDEN ESSENCE before, and really want to learn more about this)
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (Audio Book) Part 1 of 8
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Ibn Arabi - The Essence of God and the Divine Names [Part 1]
" dhat
Essence
(Dhat). The Essence. This is Allah in Himself without regard to His creations, His Attributes or His Names. The Essence is beyond knowledge or conceptualization. Allah warns us of this aspect of Himself. The Essence is Absolute Blindness, the Hidden of the Hidden, the Unknown of the Unknown. This is the World of Absolute Non-manifestation.
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" LOVER AND BELOVED:
Mystical Love in Sufism
Sufism is a mystical path of love. The Sufi is a traveler on the path of love, a wayfarer journeying back to God through the mysteries of the heart. For the Sufi the relationship to God is that of lover and Beloved, and Sufis are also known as lovers of God. The journey to God takes place within the heart, and for centuries Sufis have been traveling deep within themselves, into the secret chamber of the heart where lover and Beloved share the ecstasy of union. Through this mystical journey the Sufi wayfarer comes to experience God as a deepening experience of divine love, a love that belongs to both the created and the uncreated worlds, form and formlessness.
To love God and to be loved by God, to experience the depth and intimacy of this relationship, is a secret long known to the Sufis. Within the heart we come closer and closer to our Beloved, so close that finally there is no separation as the lover merges into the Beloved, the lover becomes lost in love, âdrowned in loveâs ocean.â Step by step we walk along the path of love until finally we are taken by love into love; we are taken by God to God, and then there is no going back, only a deepening and deepening of this love affair of the soul. This is the ancient journey from separation to union, the journey from our own self back to a state of oneness with God.
There is a story about a group of mystics, a band of lovers of God, who were called the Kamal Posh. Kamal Posh means blanket wearers, for their only possession was one blanket which they wore as a covering during the day and used as a blanket at night. As the story goes, they traveled throughout the ancient world from prophet to prophet but no one could satisfy them. Every prophet told them to do this or to do that, and this did not satisfy them. Then one day, at the time of Muhammad, the Prophet was seated together with his companions when he said that in a certain number of days the men of the Kamal Posh would be coming. So it happened that in that number of days this group of Kamal Posh came to the prophet Muhammad. And when they were with him, he said nothing, but the Kamal Posh were completely satisfied. Why were they satisfied? Because he created love in their hearts, and when love is created, what dissatisfaction can there be?
Sufism is the ancient wisdom of the heart, not limited by time or place or form. It always was and it always will be. There will always be lovers of God. And the Kamal Posh recognized that Muhammad knew the mysteries of the heart. They stayed with the Prophet and were assimilated into Islam. According to this story the Kamal Posh became the mystical element of Islam. And later these wayfarers became known as Sufis, perhaps in reference to the white woolen blanket, sĆ«f, which they wore, or as an indication of their purity of heart, safÄ, for they were also known as the pure of heart.[1]
These lovers of God followed Islam, and observed the teachings of the Qurâan, but from a mystical point of view. For example, in the Qurâan (50:16) there is a saying that God, Allah, is nearer to us than our jugular vein. For the Sufis this verse speaks about the mystical experience of nearness with God, of divine intimacy. The Sufi relates to God not as a judge, nor as a father figure, nor as the creator, but as our own Beloved, who is so close, so near, so tender. In the states of nearness the lover experiences an intimacy with the Beloved which carries the softness and ecstasy of love.
We all long to be loved, we all long to be nurtured, to be held, and we look for it in another; we seek a man or woman who can fulfill us. We follow it into the tangle of human relationships. But the mystic knows the deeper truth, that while an outer lover can appear to give us the love and support we crave, it will always be limited. And one day the mystic discovers that the source and answer to our primal need is not separate from us, but part of our own essential nature, our own true being. To quote Rumi:
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.Lovers donât finally meet somewhere.
Theyâre in each other all along.[2]
Only within the heart can our deepest desires, our most passionate needs, be met, totally and completely. In moments of mystical intimacy with God we are given everything we could want, and more than we believe possible. God is closer to us than ourself to ourself, and we are loved with the completeness that belongs only to God.
Another passage from the Qurâan that carries a mystical meaning is the âverse of lightâ from sura 24, which contains the phrase, âlight upon light, Allah guides to His light whom He will.â The Sufis have interpreted the words âlight upon lightâ as describing the mystery of how the divine light hidden within our own heart rises up to God, giving us the longing and light we need for the journey. God awakens the lamp of divine light within the hearts of those who believe in divine oneness. For the Sufi this light is a living reality that is felt as love, tenderness, and also the guidance that is necessary to help us on the way. This light takes us back to the Divine, from the pain of separation to the embrace of union."
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excellent video!
one day this will be taught and practiced in all schoolsâŠ
this is the base for our Buddha nature to rise! 
next week Iâm gonna watch âInside Out 2â!!!.. yehaaaaay!
also this is standing out much more in the world:
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Grand Slam Wisdom
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An interesting documentary about some well known nonduality teachers.
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My brother, who is a Christian minister sent me this. This guy is not your average preacher. He starts with some great jokes about how beer is better than religion and he challenges the dangers of Christian Nationalism in America. He also references Rumi, Taoism and Buddhist teachings.
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Certainly true of me. I donât know of any other nondualist Christians who believe in reincarnation 
. Well not any living ones. You could call Meister Eckhart a Christian nondualist.
Wow, very cool. I really enjoyed this presentation. Really love the idea of the harmony of religions. And funny thing too, the part where he said his temptation was too withdraw and ignore the world really resonated with me. Thatâs me. I also really enjoyed the lockdowns lol. I wonder if that means my path is meditation, since this is the temptation for people on that path?
Yes same here. Says it much better than I could lol.
Yeah not familiar with it either. But cool that both videos mentioned it. Unfortunately not much information in either of them.
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Beautiful sermon. What a way to begin lol! And all true too⊠whatâre we doing here? We should just grab a six pack.
Christian nationalism is part of my background. My childhood church was a Christian nationalist church. My family was able to see through it and joined a mainline Protestant church when we moved when I was in middle school. But we still remember our roots, and this topic is important to us. Just Constanianism under a different name. Itâs been tough to see how influential Christian nationalism has become in the USA recently with many politicians including the current speaker of the House being part of this movement. God help us. We need Christians to remember the heart of Christianity which is the heart of Jesus- love. Such love is incompatible with the goals and worldview of Christian nationalism.
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Donât know Hebrew, but I did look at the text. God here âelohimâ is plural. This isnât unusual, most times the word âGodâ is used in the Hebrew Scriptures it is this word. It takes singular verbs though, and the âIâ in this verse is singular, not plural âweâ. Obviously the meaning here is not âgodsâ. Thatâs why it is translated as âGodâ. This plural form for God is still a bit of a mystery, there are competing theories about this. So yeah that probably just complicates things a bit more, but it is something that doesnât come out in the translation.
I find it interesting that the preceding verses talk about God destroying implements of war and making peace. I feel a wrathful energy here, like some of the wrathful deities in Buddhism. God forcefully cutting through all the conflicts of our life that we can be still and turn inwards. The rest of the psalm confirms talks about God being a refuge during times of trouble. I feel like this psalm is saying that whatever we are going through, no matter what troubles we face, God is there and present with us, and we have an opportunity to find stillness with God despite all the chaos.
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