What does it mean to you to walk with God?  We invite you to share your thoughts, feelings and inspirations as you allow this message from Sidi al-Jamal to nourish you.

How do we return to know ourselves as the truth and purity of a newborn?

The Holy Qur’an offers a gift to answer this question.

Have you not seen that Allah created the heavens and the earth by the Truth? If He wills, He can do away with you and bring a new creation in your place. Surat-l-Ibrahim 14:19

This ayat (passage) tells us that God can bring a new creation, meaning He can replace the creation inside you.

Think about this for just a moment. Where in your being is a new creation needed?

God can replace your negative thinking with positive thinking

The Most High can replace negative feelings so you feel good and happy, and inspired. He gives us beautiful thoughts and feelings that are full of Light.

The newborn can teach you great spiritual lessons. Let EVERYTHING in this universe talk to you and tell you the secrets of your Lord. In Allah, you can find everything.

What are your thoughts? What things teach you about your Lord? Post your comments on our blog here.

Relationships are about merging as one in love, which requires us to purify our hearts. The person you are in relationship with mirrors back to you everything about yourself. When you love someone, the person touches deep within you and can trigger places that need to “come out,” be healed and purified. For example, you may find you have issues of jealousy and possessiveness as it is mirrored back to you from something said or done by the person you are close to. In this way, you see the aspects of yourself that aren’t connected to Divine Love and you have an opportunity to grow by learning to return these parts of yourself to God.

Relationships show us how to imitate God’s Divine Qualities

Relationships also are a vehicle to express real compassion, mercy and love. It is through the caring and support of mercy and compassion that you deepen your love together. When one of you is in pain, you deepen your mercy towards the other. In this way you are learning about the divine qualities and how to hold your Beloved when he or she is angry and give your partner a divine quality.

Relationships help us find ecstasy

In beloved relationships, one of the greatest gifts is to know the oneness with the relationship. This is the epitome of ecstasy. Know the oneness within the secret heart of your beloved. Learn to find, relate and then be with the highest truth, the divinity within your beloved. When your divinity and their divinity is witnessing and merging, it brings a togetherness that is a state of ecstatic union. In time that turns into amazing beauty that is reflected from the inside-out.

When you are in a divine relationship you cannot run or hide from these human emotions. In fact, these feelings can be the catalyst to find love in the MIDST of the strong negative emotions. True love will always take you to the truth.

As Dr. Jaffe teaches,

“Love is the river that takes you to Oneness and opens up the deeper reality of love within you.”

If you are not currently in a love relationship (Beloved) and would like to be, we invite you to join Dr. Jaffe in our upcoming telecourse – Seven Steps to Finding Your True Beloved in 2012.

Click here for more information.

According to USHS President and Master Sufi Healer Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe, MD,

“The key to finding a Beloved is to open your heart, which ignites the love inside you. When the love is ignited you begin to see love reflected everywhere around you and as that happens you’ll find your Beloved very easily.”

The trouble is if you have hurt from past relationships, it may be difficult to open your heart. The truth is, we create partners in love relationships from the inside-out.

Dr. Jaffe teaches us common internal reasons people remain single:

1. Pain from a past relationship isn’t dealt with; there is no healing from the hurt.
2. A person doesn’t believe he/she is worthy or ready for love because of past memories or belief systems.

How to Prepare Your Heart for a Beloved

Here are three steps Ibrahim recommends to prepare your heart to receive a Beloved relationship:

1. Clear away past memories and hurts from previous relationships. Sufi spiritual healing and prayer practices can be very effective in creating a clean, open space in the heart.

2. Become willing to say YES to love. You believe you are valuable enough to have love.
3. Become willing to RECEIVE the love.

Ibrahim says,

“When you’re clear, you’re willing to step into love. When you’re willing to receive it and you’re willing to be worthy of it, love will show up for you. God is sending the love each moment to every person. There are infinite possibilities for love. When one steps into the light and the river of love and allow it to enter them, it just opens like a flower. The possibilities that have been sitting around you every moment simply just show up. They were always there, but you didn’t see them. The minute we accept the flame of love, it enters our heart immediately, opens our doors and then love flowers right next to us.”

Is your heart ready for your Beloved? Click here to learn about our new teleclass starting on February 6.

But is it of God and Divine Love?

Are you acting out of fear or have anxiety in your heart or thinking? Are you in remembrance of God, Divine Love and Truth?

Today, we invite you to think about the thoughts you “think about” and notice what is moving in your heart. Several times throughout the day, stop and ask yourself, “What have I been thinking and doing over the last few hours? What is my heart witnessing-God’s love or something else?”

Keep a journal and write down any patterns you notice. Here is a meditation to support you:

Thoughts on Worship from Sufi Guide Sidi al-Jamal:

If you know your own reality you will know the reality of God (“Allah”).

Allah will make you see yourself as an essence, and that you are not established but by Allah.

You are not seeing, acting or hearing but by God.

Then your walking becomes worship,
your sleep, worship
your standing, worship
your sitting, worship
your eating, worship
Allah will never be absent from you, even for just the twinkle of an eye.
~from “Secret of the Spirit”

We share these beautiful words from Sidi as a prayerful gift to start the new year. We hope you will say these words like a prayer over your month, enriching your heart and life, filling your mind, heart and soul with deep Divine Love!

Do you know the truth about who you REALLY are?

You were created in the Divine Image and when you live from this place of Truth, it is one of beauty and love. In reality, we forget this truth too often. Below you will find one of Sidi’s teachings to help you open your heart to Divine Truth.

Print Sidi’s teaching below and read it daily to yourself over the next month. The more you are able to receive the light of this teaching, the easier it will be for you to let go of false illusions and stand in the beauty of who you really are.

The Truth About Me:

Do not think that you are a small star.

Do not think of yourself as one from the realm of forgetfulness.

You can always be in the station of excellence and beauty.

Do not think that you are lost.

Within you are all the real meanings.

Look at your heart.

You will not find anything but Him.

He is the One Talking.

He is always talking to you through every tongue that is talking to you.

He is the One Speaking everywhere and always.
(from “Secret of the Spirit”)

Read this every day and allow it to sink deeply into your heart so you may start 2012 in a more beautiful way, God willing!

• What if you saw your children and family members as people who carry God’s spirit rather than perhaps, the child who doesn’t obey or the person who doesn’t listen to you?
• What if you began to see the world through the eyes of the divine and instead of seeing what “is not?” What if you saw what is possible and true and give from this place?
  

Our families, friends, and communities need people who know themselves as reflecting divine qualities, giving from this place and seeing others in the truth of who they REALLY are.

As you make a fresh start for the year, give yourself the time to receive and reflect on the Truth of what is alive within you and ask for guidance and help to live and give more from God’s beauty and love.

There is some powerful wisdom in those simple words!

“I need to lose weight.”
“This year I’m going to finally write that book.”
“I going to get a new job this year.”

Why do so many people stay stuck setting the same goals over and over only to fall short or make little progress?

One reason you can stay stuck is when you base your goals off of your needs and wants without consulting God first.

Creating Your Spiritual Map in 2012:

A good place to start is to clarify from what place you are creating your goal or intention. The “map” for our goals can originate from our personality/ego/nafs, from darkness, or from Higher Divine wisdom. If the map used isn’t “right” (or pure) your journey will likely have less desirable inner or outer outcomes. We may achieve our goal but inner peace is lacking, for example.

This is not to suggest we have to do it perfectly, because we won’t. Mistakes are part of the Master plan. The key is to create the “map” and goal from spiritual principles, truth, and knowledge, to the best of our ability,  and move from this place which is very different from setting out to accomplish a goal because we think we want it or need it.

When we are in need or “stuck,” it’s very easy to assume that we have the “right” goal.

However, if we want to move with spiritual principles, the place to start is seeking Divine help and to set the “map” from this guidance.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again- great time for reflecting, goal-setting, starting fresh and re-aligning.

How do we wash the slate clean from goals unmet and disappointments so that we can focus all our heart upon the Highest purpose for our life?

Many times disappointments come from unmet needs and expectations or mistakes. Dealing with these disappointments and mistakes spiritually is central to starting with a clean slate.

Sufi guide, Sidi al-Jamal teaches that mistakes are part of the master plan and bring us closer because we realize we need God. He says, “He does not regret mistakes because Allah, (God) says, ‘Oh My People! If you did not make mistakes, how could you know me? I am the Forgiver. I want to hear your voice calling me for Forgiveness, Mercy and Guidance. The mistake is a gate to righteousness. Through the gate of the mistake, most of my beloveds come to reach me.”

Sidi teaches us to not waste our time on the past. Recognize a mistake, turn to your Lord, ask for help and receive Divine mercy and compassion.