These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.
— Rumi, Essential Rumi
In the chaos that prevails around us the most authentic hope comes from Sufis whose poetry and philosophy combines the virtuous message of formal religion with the transcendental values of love and harmony. The foundation of Sufism is the life-determining belief in God. Sufis are touched and moved by Him, pervaded by the awareness of God. Their lives are centred entirely on God. They have unlimited faith in Him who cares for everyone. Sufism has been concerned with building bridges, not least between communities whose contact can be of mutual benefit. Through years of effort, Sufi masters have developed a scientific approach to achieving such refinement.
They discovered that in addition to the mind human beings have other centres of consciousness that serve as inner faculties for attaining knowledge. Foremost among these centers is the heart. With diligent practice, teachers of Sufism perfected techniques that activate the heart, cultivating profound intuition and realisation. Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing has followed the Sufi path. She explained its attraction: “Sufi truth is at the core of every religion, its heart, and religions are only the outward vestments of an inner reality.” She writes further: “They will find the word mysticism has lost its bizarre associations, and that the way of the Sufi reveals itself as a sophisticated view of life, embodied in people who through the centuries have always been in advance of their time”.
