MIDWEEK MESSAGE – October 21, 2020

The Sufi poet Rumi, wrote, “Love is the whole thing. We are only the pieces.”

For me, what he is saying is similar to saying that we are like drops of water in the ocean that is God. I believe that most of our difficulties come from the lack of our belief in a God that is Love. If we truly believed that God was Love and that Love was within us and we were within it, we would not fear because we would know that Pure Unconditional Love could not do anything that was not Love.

In Sufism, the Sufi believes they are a traveler on the path of Love, 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.

Think about how believing in God as Beloved could change our way of being. Too often we look for God outside of ourselves, which by its very nature is a belief in the separation of us from God. We see that outside God as something that punishes us, that we have to beg to be heard, that we are either blessed or abandoned based on what we do, what prayers we say, etc.

Most mystics have one thing in common, a deep love connection with the God of their understanding. If we think of God as Love, we begin to live as Love personified. To get there we must go within, to our hearts, to touch that Love which has always been within us.

Imagine a world in which everyone believed they were Love and their purpose in life was to love? I don’t know about you, but I think we would then be in heaven.

Quote of the Week

“True knowledge of God is gained when the lover comes in contact with the Beloved
through secret communion with Him.”
Traditional Sufi Saying