1.   See if you can land somewhere without changing your approach or environment.
2.   Not needing to move--starting to have a deep well.
3.   Pain is the rationalization for why I can't go further.
4.   How does one soften one's heart and get out of one's mind?

1.   Boundaries are not about love, they are about protection.
2.   Surrender is all or nothing; this does not mean there isn't still a process one goes through.
3.   We "burn our house down" by associating and identifying ourselves with something greater
      than ourselves: it is not a mental process, it is a process of "burning."
4.   Difference between opinion and judgment.
5.   To be whole, healthy and to know one's real boundaries.

1.   Loving is hard when we take someone's behavior personally.
2.   The Community is a place to practice loving.
3.   Business hides itself in interpersonal relationships.
4.   Love is for love's sake; love is for God's sake; if you love someone this way they will
      generally start to change.
5.   It is incumbent upon the student to demonstrate their intention.

1.   Faith and Trust; faith calls on us to exercise our faculties in a new way.
2.   Developing intuition.
3.   Taking risks.
5.   There are no accidents; your life has brought you here.

1.   1) having evidence and the experience (taking risks); 2) seeing the interconnectedness
      of all things; 3) each moment is a custom designed lesson, a custom course work for
      my life; and 4) by putting all the lessons together, we have the insight that the whole
      system, God, is perfect.
2.   You cannot have blind faith when you are on a path of enlightenment.
3.   Maintaining faith in face of suffering and "evil."
4.   The al-Fatiha (the Opener) calls us to Faith; the prayer basically says "lay it on me."

1.   For most of us, it's hard to "hang out" and just "be."
2.   Nothing I can articulate about myself satisfies me.
3.   We are conditioned by the impression of life.
4.   Personal practice of self inquiry "Who am I?"
5.   Spiritual practice releases attachments, releases our identity that keeps us separate from
      the whole.

1.   There are two kinds of knowledge - knowing about something and knowing it directly.
       The study is the making of our intention to have the direct experience.
2.   How are we to become mystic lovers and at the same time undertake the disciplines
      and obligations of this life?
3.   Has the study about God become our God?
4.   Example of the garden and the gardener-knowing God requires effort. Developing love
      for the practice that brings the knowledge of God.
5.   For the Friends of God, God provides them everything they need to know.

1.   Present your whole self, fully and honestly.
2.   For the relationship to be real you need to feel; we need to get in it.
3.   People can hide out in scripture.
4.   The spiritual teacher is where Divinity meets humanity.
5.   The student doesn't have anything to give the teacher.
6.   Are you full regardless of the waves of your personality?
7.   If a teacher is a True Teacher, the teaching is going to get you back to the basics.
8.   A True Teacher will send you away if you can't get it here.

1.   The spiritual process teaches us that there is a way by which we transcend the fruitless
      process of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.
2.   What is pleasure? A congenial mental feeling.
3.   What does it mean to be one-pointed? God is beneath the waves; waves are the manifestation.

1.   The Spiritual Community is established in order to support each person individually
      as well as provide a place for the individual person to give back to the collective in a form
      that serves the furtherance of Truth and Purpose.
2.   The lower-self multiplies its cravings by taking on countless attributes as the ego argues for
       its self-importance. Now the individual is tracking on something totally different than the
      Truth. We need the Community for support.
3.   As one increases one's intention, the ego may rebel even more intensely than it did before.
      The community brings to the surface the negative aspects of our selves.
4.   Darshan is, 1) the sight of that which we are moving toward and 2) the Master is seeing you
      and there are no corners in which to hide out.

1.   Empowering Leadership: true leadership does not hang back and wait for someone else to
      get fired up. If you have a real calling you fulfill your calling no matter what.
2.   Encouraging personal responsibility.
3.   Wiping out inferiority complexes.
4.   The vision is our honorable work; our privilege.

1.   What keeps us from commitment is fear.
2.   Commitment starts with the Trust that God/Allah has given us upon our birth.
      The "Trust" is to use this life to fulfill our purpose. This allows us to see through the many
      forms masquerading as life's other activities.
3.   How can we strengthen the commitment to the Self?
4.   These are the elements that build physical, mental and spiritual integrity. a) physical, mental
      and spiritual attributes; b) thought, word and action; c) experience and environment
5.   The more integrity, the more we can hold. With Allah in the pole position, everything
      becomes oriented around that.

1.   After Murshid's Ummrah and the rights of the pilgrimage.
2.   The story of Hagar running between the hills of Safa and Marwah.
3.   This symbolizes the running back and forth between the things of the world, and finding that
      we must surrender at the feet of innocence

1.   The return to Unity from our attachments and impressions; surrendering these to Divine Unity
      is return to essence.
2.   Metaphor of the sculpture and the marble. The willingness to allow life's impressions to
      return back into balance, to reconcile, is the process of "letting go."
3.   Living under our impression of who we are is a guaranteed formula for suffering.
4.   It all goes. Inspect the system of the ego's defenses carefully.
5.   The difference between form and essence; do we look deeply enough?

1.   Remembrance on two levels: a) recovering what has happened to us; memories
      and impressions; b) Dihkr: Divine Remembrance; returning to our true nature
2.   Recognition on two levels: a) first I must see what's in the way, see my stuff clearly "as it is"
      b) recognizing where I'm going and what I want to be c) comparing my actual condition
      with where I want to be.
3.   Realization requires that one is extinguished in the process of direct experience.
4.   In this process you'll sort through the many layers of ideas and projections about yourself.

1.   Lifestyle choices at the turn of the millennium.
2.   Sustainable self-reliance is the realization that I am completely and utterly dependent upon
      God and God's creation; and that God's creation is the only sustainable Reality, as I
      am completely reliant upon God.
3.   Sustainable is a certain way of being, of behaving and of taking action. It is a way in
      which thoughts, words and actions have positive regenerating effects.
4.   The ego is capable of taking even the grandest idea and coveting it for its own comfort
       and pleasure. Personal comfort and pleasure are not the purpose for Allah's creation.

1.   In the wake of the passing of Andy and Leah
2.   The words of Qutub ad-Din, Abdul Qadr al-Jilani (ra). The work quoted is on "being tried
       and tested."
3.   Tests serve as a noose for the selfish nature, checking the tendency to drift away from the
      true goal and to place confidence and trust in others besides Allah. Do men think that they
      will be left alone on saying, "We believe," and that they will not be tested? (Qur'anic quote)
4.   Life delivers us perfect lessons; delivered to the limits of one's faith. On no soul doth Allah
      place a burden greater than it can bear (Surah al-Baqara 2:286)
5.   Patience and perseverance defined - it implies trust because we are caused to rely
      upon something.

1.   Our prayer is to return to the uninterrupted state of remembrance (dhikr-ullah).
      Through constancy (sabr) and certainty (yaqin) leads to realization (marifat)
2.   Self-worship: what about me? I, me and mine are the three idols collectively known as the ego.
3.   What is the highest priority? The spiritual aspirant will say "God!" of course. Then it is
      incumbent upon the seeker to align every thought, word, and action to That which we
      have proclaimed most important.
4.   The deepest part of the ocean has no confusion where to go.

1.   If a person is going to be guided on the straight path between Halal (permissible) and
      Haram (forbidden), they must be able to "hear" the guidance of the heart.
2.   Willingness to abide by the Shari'ah is known as "obedience."
3.   Shari'ah applied is called Fiqh as defined by the schools of jurisprudence.
4.   May our method of movement raise our spiritual station to the permanent engaged realization
      of Haqqiqah.

1.   The intent of spiritual practice is to reduce the barrier that exists between our self and
      our Beloved God/Allah.
2.   Adab makes us self-aware. To have what we really want we must become Self-aware:
      God/Allah is awareness. Our respect or adab is for God/Allah.
3.   Colored Water example - Self-awareness is realizing the water is colored. Then the
      distillation process begins. A true Sufi is blemishless and without color.
4.   The practice of adab emphasizes serving another; someone besides yourself.
      Adab challenges the lower self. When we follow adab we become servants.
5.   We begin refining our Self-awareness by practicing our adab with the Sheikh or Master.
      To raise our level of self-awareness will raise our level of attention.

1.   All things grow and prosper in stages.
2.   However, we would like to bypass the stages and have what we want immediately.
3.   The mention of Allah softens the heart.
4.   When the heart is unstable, the mind is unstable. A blemished heart keeps us far away.
5.   Talks about the honor of being "subservient" to his master.
6.   Let us be jubilant and secure in knowing that we take steps.

1.   Willingness is the letting go into the "Divine design."
2.   For those who run after the world, the world runs away from them. For those who give up
      the chase of this world, by letting go of attachments, control, self-interest, this world comes
      to bow at their feet.
3.   Eschewing evil means we make a conscious choice to confront the force of
      separation (shai'tan).
4.   The thirst for limitlessness has us always longing for more. Our willful nature does not
      satisfy human longing, but our willing nature will. Making the willing choice.
5.   Where do all things return? We are not in control.

1.   Completion is expressed in every sphere of our humanity
2.   Home holds no more aching tension to have more, to become more, to be more. Home is
      where and when we've arrived, completed. The adhan calls us to this completion,
      haya ala falah - "come to completion."
3.   Allah is the creative, initiating impetus that simultaneously is one and different; the
      creative impulse; that which calls us to return.
4.   Enlightened individuals as well as the enlightened collective; each element is expressed in
      the Six Spoke model.

1.   Linked to Murshid's Six Spokes of Progressive Development. Both correlate perfectly.
2.   The outlook of a society is the collective make-up of the individual's mentalities.
      A society also has longing just like an individual.
3.   Spiritual practices must make sense according to the rhythm of nature (din al-Fitr).
4.   The fundamental desire of all human beings is to love and be loved. Spiritual Unity (Love) is
      the antidote to fear. Every aspect of society must support and be geared in this
      supreme direction.
5.   Neo-humanism - all things, not just human beings, have the inherent spiritual right to exist.
      As human beings, we have our right, but not to the exclusion of the rights of creation as a whole.
6.   All twelve spokes (Sarkar's and Murshid's), must be present for completion. The fewer
      spokes that are present, the more imbalanced a society is; the more spokes present,
      the more a society lives in harmony. Original Islam contained all spokes.
7.   Community is necessary to complete perfection in all areas. Combine strengths together
      into a matrix where your strength helps complete my weakness.

1.   The longing for freedom intensifies to the degree that one consciously realizes that one is
      in bondage.
2.   The first key to becoming a free person is to fully realize and to fully accept that you are
      not independent. To realize dependence makes one vulnerable to each other.
3.   Freedom or peace (salaam) is the natural state of a human being. The process of coming
      to, attaining and/or returning to this state is called "Divine Remembrance."
4.   Service through unconditional love brings freedom and peace.

1.   This is a story about true faith and submission. Prophet Ibrahim (as) is an example of
       a perfected "Muslim."
2.   How can we best unearth the Peace that is within us?
3.   One must be able to discern the center of one's own being and be able to distinguish
      between the varying internal voices.
4.   Isma'il is the sacrifice of your illusion that you are a creator.
5.   It is impossible to have faith without love and there will be no trust unless there is faith.
6.   You will know your faith is increasing when you sense the feeling of tranquility in your heart.
      This state of the heart allows for better learning from life's lessons.

1.   The word "trust" in its various forms appears in the Holy Qur'an more than 120 times and
      is stressed as one of the highest virtues.
2.   In order to complete our trust we must realize the Trust that Allah has placed upon humanity,
      free will and self-reflection.
3.   Three facets of trust: 1) on that which we should trust upon, 2) that with which we are entrusted,
      and 3) on that one who is trustworthy.
4.   Hypocrisy is the opposite of trust and is the direct violation of one's intention.
      It is something that lurks within all of us and must be rooted out.
5.   Allah is the sole object of our trust. The full realization of this single message makes one
      trustworthy.
6.   The Prophet Muhammad (saws) was known as "al-Amin," trustworthy due to exemplary
      character. Immeasurable trustworthiness during the ascension of the night journey to willingly
      come back to earth and serve humanity.
7.   The first step of re-establishing trust between people, nations and religions is to develop a
      universal trust in Allah.

1.   A commitment to a whole spiritual life requires that we learn to balance the desires
      and demands of the personal with the interpersonal, as well as the interests of the individual
      with the collective.
2.   Community is the outer expression of our inner personal longing. Just as we want our inner
      world to be a better place, so we want the outer world that is equally better for all.
3.   The degree that an individual is able to commit to one's respective spiritual practice;
      one's degree of enlightenment or Self-realization grows.
4.   The word commitment is a synonym for "surrender." In order to change, one must be committed.
5.   When you commit, that's when you discover the true nature of your fear.
6.   The degree of our collective commitment, as a Community, is the sum total of each other's
      commitment to our vision.
7.   As you do whatever is necessary to make a commitment and then honor it by following through,
      you become stronger and healthier. If you back off and become distracted, you will fall back
      into the behaviors that initially made you sick.