SUFI Journal of Mystical Philosophy and Practice
SUFI #104 is now out!
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NEW — HIGHLIGHT from SUFI Archives
From SUFI ISSUE 93
IS REALITY REAL?
A Conversation with Evolutionary
Game-Theorist Donald Hoffman
Interviewed by David Wright
Donald Hoffman is a renowned cognitive scientist working in the new field of evolutionary game theory. Using mathematical tools, he challenges the idea that our senses report the truth, pointing to our perceptual language of space, time, and physical objects as grossly
inadequate to describe reality as it is. Hoffman proposes a theory that consciousness, made up of innumerable “conscious agents,” is the fundamental nature of reality. In this remarkable discussion, Hoffman reveals his aspiration for a “scientific spirituality”—combining “the openness to a non-physical reality of the mystical spiritual traditions with the non-dogmatic method of science.”
Photo ©Barry Underwood
SUFI JOURNAL ISSUE 104
This issue of Sufi presents discussions about the inner and outer dimensions of spiritual traditions and the dynamics of the relationship between them. In his discourse “Mindfulness without the Mind” Dr Alireza Nurbakhsh introduces the increasingly widespread practice of mindfulness with examples of changes in behaviour that result from an increased awareness of one’s consciousness. He further stresses the importance of a spiritual objective for mindfulness, which in and of itself is a neutral skill that can serve diverse aims. An increased experience of oneness with the divine, facilitated by one’s relationship with one’s guide, and increased compassion towards others are among the distinctive objectives highlighted for Sufism.
Mindfulness without the Mind
by Alireza Nurbakhsh
Mindfulness is a practice which originated from the Buddhist concept of Sati, and it has been developed as a meditation technique in both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. Mindfulness has been popularised in the west for the last several decades as a way to overcome the stress and the pressures of modern life and to enhance one’s attention and concentration in dealing with daily tasks. It has also been adopted now by many health practitioners, including the National Health Service in the UK, which actively promotes mindfulness as a practice that is beneficial to our mental health.
The Mind Is an Inlet
by Mark Nepo
In essence, the mind is an inlet, not a container. The mind doesn’t author reality. It participates in reality. The mind doesn’t create life. It comes alive by joining life. The relationship of our perception to the rest of life opens us to this paradox: to truly be ourselves, we have to learn from everything we are not. A bird is born to nest and fly, and so a bluebird is compelled to enter the sky and not stay in its little house. And salmon are meant to leave their place of birth and return, transforming physiologically along the way. And a caterpillar is meant to spin a cocoon around itself, not to stay there, but to transform in time into a butterfly.
There Are No Homeless People in God
by Paul W. Jacob
My wife, Jess, and I were living in Gainesville, Florida, during the spring of 2019 when I started feeling an interior call from The Beloved to get ready to be on the move again. I know this call well. My spiritual practice is dubbed Nomadic Devotion because throughout my adult life I have felt Divine Spirit has constantly called me, and now us, to different places.
I look upon Abraham as the first practitioner of Nomadic Devotion. “At God’s command he had to separate himself from the ‘establishment,’ to go he knew not where, to find he knew not what. He did not know when or whether or how he would again have a home or a land of his own”.
Reading Rumi in Colonial India
by Gregory Maxwell Bruce and Ali Altaf Mian
Jalaloddin Rumi’s Masnavi entered the cultural consciousness of Islamicate South Asia as early as the fourteenth century. Speculative evidence suggests that the Masnavi served as an exemplary model for the lyrical texts of the Indian mystic Sharafoddin Bu ‘Ali Qalandar (d. 1344). Since then, Rumi and his masterpiece have inspired devotion and longing in countless souls in the Indian subcontinent. In the words of Annemarie Schimmel, “the imitations, translations, and excerpts from the Masnavi were almost innumerable.”1 The broader story of Rumi’s significance in South Asia, from the time of the Delhi Sultans to the Age of the Internet, is yet to be told (our friend Shariq Khan, a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago, is rigorously pursuing this ambitious project). What concerns us here is a slice of this reception, namely, how Muslims in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries read Rumi’s parables and poetics.
Book Interview: Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi
Sophia Rose Arjana
Interviewed by: Jairan Gahan
This interview is a conversation with author Sophia Rose Arjana about her most recent book, Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi: Orientalism and the Mystical Marketplace, published first in 2020. Dr Sophia Rose Arjana is associate professor at the department of History at Western Kentucky University, with a specialization in Religious Studies and Asian Cultures. We sat with her to probe into the rise of spiritual markets and increasing commercialization of spirituality in the West. In doing so, we addressed a myriad of topics including the search for enchantment, the Burning Man festival, the burdens of modern life, and pop spirituality to better understand what is lost when spiritual quests are commodified under globalizing neo-liberal economies.
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