Omid Safi discusses how modern myths like Star Wars can connect us to Sufism and the mystery of the universe.

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This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi has a discussion on:

• The story of Moses in the Qur’an
• Moses’ teacher, ‘the green one’, and Yoda from Star Wars
• How myth-makers revive spiritual traditions
• The mythic language found in music and movies
• How Taoists, Muslims, Christians, and more see themselves in ‘the force’
• Everything as animated and the energy that flows through all things
• Recognizing that we are made of the elements and of God
• How George Lucas asks beautiful questions in subtle ways
• Considering the mystery rather than having all of the answers
• The many forms that Allah may appear in and finding saints in ordinary people
• How movies fill a gap when we mistrust formal religion

“Luke and Obi-Wan, apprentice and master, this is the very stuff of the Sufi tradition, This is part of that re-enchanting that Star Wars is trying to accomplish. It’s trying to remind us that there are these mysterious ways of the heart, of the soul, of the universe, that we can still learn.” – Omid Safi

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Sharing insights from the path of love, Omid Safi discusses the teachings of Sufi philosopher, Hazrat Inayat Khan.

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In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid Safi explores:

• The universality of love
• Coming back to the center
• Experiencing God directly
• Signs of God in scripture, nature, and our own souls
• Having an open heart for all of humanity
• Practicing love as a religion
• Going into our breath for full presence and communion with God
• How vast God is, yet how close we are to God
• The singular focus of God as the beloved
• The necessity of our ancestors’ wisdom
• The path of the mystic vs. ordinary religion

“The center is where we come to have that direct, immediate, unmediated experience of God, which is to say, the heart.” – Omid Safi

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Examining how mysticism hides in plain sight, Omid Safi describes God as love, the lover, and the beloved with guest host Kelly Deutsch.

This episode was originally recorded for the Spiritual Wanderlust Podcast, with Kelly Deutsch. Learn more about this series that explores the wild, untamed frontiers of our interior life at spiritualwanderlust.org/podcast 

 This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi speaks with Kelly about:

• Discovering Islamic Mystics
• Sufism and having a pure heart
• Omid’s life in Iran and exposure to masculine displays of emotion
• The mystery of being human, the mystery of God
• Heartbreak and experiencing the heart breaking open
• Sacred Eroticism and using our senses to experience loveliness
• What we can learn from the type of love a mother provides
• Radical love and going into the roots
• Linking together love and justice

“The Sufis explicitly say something that of course we find also in the Christian mystical contemplative tradition. Mischievously, they almost say there is a holy trinity, a language which most orthodox Muslims would avoid and all Jews would have avoided. But they say the trinity is love, lover, and beloved. God is love, God is the lover, and God is the beloved.” – Omid Safi

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