Light within Light Institute

This is a very beautiful opportunity to savor intimacy, under the luminous and warm shelter of Mevlana Yelal Od-Deen Rumi, who always calls us to the knowledge of Truth through poetry, music and the disposition of like-minded hearts.

When you are invited into Sufism, you become a guest of Love, the alchemical threshold of adoration stealthily welcomes you and guides you into the secrets of lovers. Now that we have set sail into this space, we can feel our breasts swollen by this brilliant fragrance, the perfume of the rose surrounds us and we feel light and receptive.

In our days it is very difficult to create this intimacy, to appreciate it and to encourage it, because we are slaves to the vertigo of productivity and we ride unbridled towards activity, disconnecting from the center of our being. Therefore, it is very important to refresh ourselves with the call of Mevlana, master of all ages.

Tells us:

Since time immemorial you have come and gone
courting that deceptive mirage
Since time immemorial you have fled from pain
and you have lost the right to ecstasy
Come then,
return to the root of roots
which is your own soul

We are invited to live this ecstasy and simultaneously take on the pain that life brings us. Since time immemorial, as Mevlana says, this elixir, the philosopher's stone, the holy grail has been sought… until the great mystics showed us that these treasures lie within our being.

As an oral tradition of Islam says

“I was a hidden treasure and I wanted to be known for that, so I created Creation”

Divinity is that hidden treasure, which seeks to be revealed. In every human being beats that divine spark. The mission of lovers is to live each moment from that sacred molecule, called Love, from which all questions find an answer.

Our Master Sheikh Muzafer Efendi tells us:

As human beings created and brought to this transitory world, we have the obligation to discover why we come, where we come from, where we are going, who brought us here and who will take us back.

That is, the questions that any traveler would ask and if you have not realized, you are a traveler and your destiny is to die. The mystics and poets have found the answer to these questions, and have bequeathed us the maps of existence. Their codes are verses. As the famous Sufi, Niyazi says:

With the wisdom hidden in the being of truth you know us
In the endless ocean of secret knowledge you know us
The nightingales of this ephemeral Rose Garden will not hear us
The lovers of the beauty of his Eternal Face will know us
We do not care to rebuild this world or the next
Those who are ruined and stagger will know us
We abandon the senses
and the cloak slipped from the shoulders
Strip, and be left with nothing to know us
Those who do not know that sorrow and joy are one suffer
The sultan who was saved from torment knows us
The hermit who remains sober will not understand us
He who is drunk with the last drink of the wine of purity will know us
! Oh Niyazi!
We are but a drop that fell into the ocean
What knowledge can a drop have?
Only the ocean knows us!

In Sufism, alchemy and prophecy are sisters, that is to say, Revelation, the prophetic word needs to be experienced by a heart, this is alchemy, the purifying transmutation, thanks to which a human being can die before dying, that is to say live only as a divine spark.

Alchemy is one of the oldest sciences in the world. There is a legend that says that an angel introduced this knowledge to Adam so that he could return to Eden. In any case, alchemy is the science of transformation. Curiously, alchemy is an Arabic word, الكيمياء [al-kīmiyā]); It is a philosophical discipline that combines elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism and art.

All this knowledge can be witnessed in the Sama, the ritual of the whirling dervishes displaying the alchemical power of devotion. Each whirler simultaneously represents an atom and a planet, circumnavigating divine reality from the micro and macrocosm. The Semazen becomes a column of light ascending towards God. At each turn the Semazen is annihilated in the ocean of truth, it is a way to die to the limited and re-emerge in the infinite.

It is about the process of refining the human being, so that through the inner struggle we are capable of loving, and becoming the most sublime divine attributes such as tenderness, generosity, forgiveness, nobility, wisdom, beauty and peace, among others, and at the same time being able to eradicate from us the lowest qualities, such as hatred, revenge, envy, lust and greed, defects that we all share, at different levels.

At the end of the journey the answer is, who dominated you, your soul or your ego?

Sufism tells you that you cannot live unconsciously, you cannot blame others, take your life, recognize your treasure.

However, human beings contain both poles, from which you can see the world ... highest to lowest, so our nature is both animal and heavenly, if you don't realize that you have an ego and at the same time a soul, that both are in constant friction, then you run the risk of making this journey between life and death blindly.

As the truth-lover Hafiz, another great Persian Sufi poet of the 14th century, says,

The only problem with not neutering a giant ego is that it will become insatiable and will foster a hundred vociferous ideas, children that will soon grow up to manage the debts and complications that the mind conceives.

All sacred traditions offer you tools to purify your being, through fasting and prayer, and other ways to contain this insatiable ego.

Sufism reveals to us a powerful alchemical path, which has been travelled and carried out by its great mystics. It is the path of the fusion of lovers. It is said that the path is the other, that the believer is the mirror of the believer, that the bride only takes off her veil in front of her husband. All these teachings ponder the supreme need for a spiritual consort. Shamz of Tabriz, who was already a saint, a mature man of over 60 years, who never stayed in one place and fled from prestige and hypocrisy, preferring anonymity and servitude, offered his head to God in exchange for meeting another lover of truth.

Muhamad Yelal Od-din Rumi, the glory of faith, was that lover, or should we say, it is because both are still alive, Mevlana was that perfect mirror for Shamz and also gave his head for that love. He renounced all his titles and prestige, to merge into the luminous heart of the Sun of truth. And later he wrote:

As long as you are absorbed in yourself, you are a grain, a particle: but when you mix and unite with others, then you become an ocean, a mine.

Alchemy is about smelting, alloying, measurements and volumes. A grain of salt is worthless on its own, but when it reaches the ocean it becomes infinite, it reaches its full potential. This has been attested by the sages of all spiritual traditions, which is why Sufism, as a way of annihilating the limited self, is akin to all mystical knowledge.

Rudolf Steiner, a Christian mystic of the 18th century, says that to realize your existence you need the self, but at the same time you must recognize that the only self is God, so you realize that your existence is borrowed and your non-existence is reality.

When we practice turning, a form of devotion that Mevlana bequeathed to us thanks to his passion for God, we surrender ourselves to this principle, that is, you surrender this artificial self to the Essence of Being, each complete turn is a return to the origin, to the Primordial and timeless Source of existence, to turn is to lose yourself in the ocean of Truth, it is to surrender your head.

We are heirs to this form of worship because our teachers have lost their heads for Love, that is why we can turn, not because we have a

How could we spin without Mashun and Leyla pulsating in our chests? How could we spin without Zuleika's courage and her overflowing passion for Joseph? How could we lose ourselves in this adoration without Mevlana and Shamz, forever united in the secret of ecstatic hearts?

In the Fihi Ma Fihi, known as the inner book, Mevlana tells us: “to be loved is the essential thing, when a thing is loved it is because there is certainly beauty in it… in the time of Mashnun, there were women more beautiful than Layla but Mashnun did not love them. “There are women more beautiful than Layla. We will bring them to you,” they told him.

“In reality,” he replied, “I do not love Layla for her beauty. For me, Layla is not a carnal beauty, but rather she is like a cup, in that cup, I drink wine, and it is from that wine that I am in love. Mashún did nothing else in his entire life but love Layla, his passion was so exquisite and complete that there was nothing that made him abandon love, neither separation, nor rejection, nor condemnation nor social isolation. Like Mevlana and Shamz, their love was the object of slander and criticism of the time, until it led to the physical disappearance of Shamz.

There is a profound truth in all this. A love so powerful scandalizes the conventional world, precisely because it can take you beyond the interests and limits of your society. It can take you to the Truth. When you truly love, you are willing to leave everything for that love.

This is what happened to Zuleika, the wife of the pharaonic official, Potiphar, when she fell in love with Joseph. Being the most radiant and beautiful Prophet of all time, Zuleika sacrificed everything for him – money, reputation and position. Losing her mind, she used to give away her most precious jewels to anyone who saw Joseph and told her something about him. In this way she became a scandal for the Egyptian aristocracy – a married woman, shamefully in love with her husband's slave. It is said that Mashrun would kiss the dogs that stepped on the same spot where Layla had stepped.

Can you imagine such a love?

These are true stories and at the same time metaphors of the mystical Union, because when you love Truth and the Source of Love, everything else loses its roots in your heart, you realize that everything is vain and artificial and that only living for Love and by Love is what is worthwhile.

Steiner tells us:

“Love is the true light of heaven in everyday life. Love ennobles our right to be in its most intimate fiber. Love elevates everything that lives in us. To have a relationship of pure and devoted love with a lover of the Spirit completely transforms our soul and our life. In this higher sense, Love means to exchange our shameful selfishness for the surrender of the breath of divine life to the beloved. Before we can speak of devotion, we must recognize the sanctity of love. Let truth live. Lose your self-centeredness to find yourself renewed in the true spirit of the world.

Take the lover's journey until you see the true object in everything you contemplate.