With respect to things which can be said, this trilogy is one of the most revealing excursions into the nature of the Sufi path that has been written in the last 736 years. There are four kinds of people ... within and without.There are those who know and know that they know. These rare dimensions of the Self are spiritually realized, and one should seek them out and learn from them.There are those who know but don't know that they know. These individuals are asleep and should be woken up.There are those who don't know and know that they don't know.These souls are able to learn and should be taught.There are those who don't know and don't know that they don't know. These are the ignorant ones, and they should be avoided.

With respect to things which can be said, this trilogy is one of the most revealing excursions into the nature of the Sufi path that has been written in the last 736 years. There are seven kinds of people ... within and without.There are those who know and know that they know. These rare dimensions of the Self are spiritually realized, and one should seek them out and learn from them.There are those who know but don't know that they know. These individuals are asleep and should be woken up.There are those who don't know and know that they don't know. These souls are able to learn and should be taught.There are those who don't know and don't know that they don't know. There are the ignorant ones, and they should be avoided. There are those who know that they don't know but who, for a variety of reasons, attempt to induce seekers of truth to believe that the former know what they do not. These are the charlatans ... and there are many of them amongst us. There are those people who even when they are shown the truth cannot bear to live with the implications of what has been disclosed and choose to live their lives in various states of denial that become the doorways through which further evil enters into their lives. There are those who seek the truth and try, to the best of their ability, to act judiciously with respect to what has been realized no matter where such truth may take them ... and who, therefore, also are prepared to accept the possibility that truth may be other - in part or in whole -- than what they believe it to be and, therefore, make accommodation for this possibility through their thought and behavior.

The heart in the Islamic understanding is the expression of a human being's spiritual existence. It is a Divine gift and Divine subtle faculty bestowed upon humanity. It is a polished mirror reflecting God. Like a general, the heart commands all other bodily organs and faculties, which are its troops, Everything that comes from a human being, whether good or bad, is a product of the heart. Mehmet Y. Seker, a scholar of Sufism and tasawwuf, studies the concept of the heart in the Islamic tradition looking at how it is approached by three prominent scholars and thinkers of Islam: Ghazali, Said Nursi, and Fethullah Gulen. Being the first in English to take as its focus the human heart from an Islamic spiritual, this book comparatively analyzes classical and modern age interpretations and evaluations on the concept and adds to the rich literature of spirituality in the Islamic tradition.

The current volume explores a variety of topical themes within the general field of religion -- defined as the search for the truth concerning the nature of one's relationship with Being/Reality. Among the topics explored are: Evolution, the origins of faith, conceptual viruses, suffering, irreligion, the new atheism, nihilism, sacredness, the nature of the self, mythology, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, free will, epistemology, and spiritual abuse. All of the foregoing topics are critically examined against a backdrop that helps orient the discussion. More specifically, most human beings wonder, in one way or another, about the nature of reality ... that is, they seek to deal, as best they can, with the reality problem. The Final Jeopardy challenge refers to the task of trying to work toward providing a best-effort final response to the reality problem that resonates with, and reflects to varying degrees, the character of reality, before the sands in the hourglass of time run out in a person's life.

In Sufism East and West, the contributors investigate the redirection and dynamics of Sufism in the modern era, specifically from the perspective of global cross-cultural exchange. Edited by Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh, the book explores the role of mystical Islam in the complex interchange and fluidity in the resonance spaces of “East” and “West.” The volume challenges the enduring Orientalist binary coding of East-versus-West and argues instead for a more mutual process of cultural plaiting and shared tradition. By highlighting amendments, adaptations and expansions of Sufi semantics during the last centuries, it also questions the persistent perception of Sufism in its post-classical epoch as a corrupt imitation of the legacy of the great Sufis of the past.

Exploring Gurdjieff's teaching of the Fourth Way - the way of transformation in ordinary life.

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This book demonstrates that the most forceful contribution to George Gurdjieff's world-view is Sufism, understood as the tradition of seeking truth wherever it can be found, especially at the meeting place of the world religions. Gurdjieff's masterpiece, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, is philosophically analyzed in its use of literary devices to jolt the reader into radical transformation.

A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Book of 2020 A Padma Lakshmi Favorite Read of 2021 The captivating story of the valiant Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of an Indian Sufi mystic and unlikely World War II heroine. Raised in a lush suburb of 1920s Paris, Noor Inayat Khan was an introspective musician and writer, dedicated to her family and to her father’s spiritual values of harmony, beauty, and tolerance. She did not seem destined for wartime heroism. Yet, faced with the evils of Nazi violence and the German occupation of France, Noor joined the British Special Operations Executive and trained in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance. She returned to Paris under an assumed identity immediately before the Germans mopped up the Allies’ largest communications network in France. For crucial months of the war, Noor was the only wireless operator there sending critical information to London, significantly aiding the success of the Allied landing on D-Day. Code-named Madeleine, she became a high-value target for the Gestapo. When she was eventually captured, Noor attempted two daring escapes before she was sent to Dachau and killed just months before the end of the war. Carefully distilled from dozens of interviews, newly discovered manuscripts, official documents, and personal letters, Code Name Madeleine is both a compelling, deeply researched history and a thrilling tribute to Noor Inayat Khan, whose courage and faith guided her through the most brutal regime in history.

This book explores the life and ideas of the enigmatic twentieth century philosopher, mystic, and teacher of esoteric dances George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, performing a hermeneutic textual analysis of all his writings to illuminate the place of hypnosis in his teaching. Foreword by J. Walter Driscoll.