If you look around, you can find a face of God in each thing, because He is not hidden in a church, in a mosque, or a synagogue, but everywhere. As there is no one who lives after seeing him, there is also no one dying after seeing him. Who finds Him, stays forever with him.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the divine presence can be found in all aspects of life, not confined to religious institutions.
Shams Tabrizi emphasizes that the essence of God is not limited to traditional places of worship but is woven into every aspect of the earthly experience. The quote implies that a true encounter with the divine offers a transformative experience that transcends life and death, suggesting a profound interconnectedness of existence with God. It invites individuals to seek the sacred in the mundane and realize that recognition of the divine leads to eternal connection.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire a gathering focused on spiritual awareness and finding divinity in everyday life.
God is busy with the completion of your work, both outwardly and inwardly. He is fully occupied with you. Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexplicably moving toward perfection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is a fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire picture.
Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair. Even when all doors remained closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.
If you are insulted, if you are accused, if they gossip about you, don't say anything bad. Don't be the one who sees the shame, be the one who corrects it.
Be sure that someday you'll praise and thank God for your unanswered prayers that once you had wept for them.
Remove all the walls and curtains so you can get closer and purely love. Have principles but do not use them to exclude or to judge the others. Stay far from idols, specially from those you made from your own principles. Have a powerful faith, but do not play the powerful.
You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover.
I just miss - I miss being anonymous.
When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals.
The theologian who labours without joy is not a theologian at all.
Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
Many things I might not write today because I no longer believe them, but I wouldn't change them, since I believed them at the time.
I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but it's never happened yet.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.