In the Footsteps of Abraham:Learning the language of the heart

Awaken to PresenceTransform your life

workshop series

http://www.nurspirituality.org/

Dr. M. Omar

October 2012, Orlando

Hajj and the Feast of Sacrifice bring Abraham (p) to our life.

The father of unity of God

KhalilullahThe intimate friend of

God

Khalil literally means intimate friendship in solitude…

Abraham is the symbol of the “natural way” (fitrah).

He showed us that surrendering to the Loving Creator is the most basic human innate disposition

It is not something extra to us…

Not surrendering is going against our nature…

All revelations are sent as a reminder…We are to discover who we are, to awaken what is within…

Abraham shattered the false gods…

Shattering the external idols was the easy pursuit..

How about the false gods in my heart?Our attachments to everything other than The One.

Through shattering all the false gods, Abraham became

attached only to the Loving One.

How did he do it?

Through contemplation, he received this graceful news:“I love not those that set” (Quran 6:77)“I love/adore/worship not those that set”

At our deepest level, our hearts are only to the One

Our imaginations skew this realityOur hellish states are the

result of this

Why do we love a baby?CompassionBeautyPurity

Or, sometimes we reject to love the baby

We stop ourselves from coming too close to anything, because it may hurt to love.

We say “What is the point?”

This is another proof that we in fact love the child but choose to deny our emotions intentionally.

Which part of us loves the baby?

Do we think about love in our mind?Or do you smile naturally when you hug a baby?

This response comes naturally from the center of our being…

From our heart

What does my heart love in the baby?

CompassionBeautyPurity

Does my heart feel any limitation to these qualities that it loves?

Does the language of the heart have limitations?

What our hearts are attached to all along is the presence of these attributes in the baby…

Our hearts are always attached to these attributes…

In Islamic Spirituality, it is said:

“The heart is the mirror of the One”

OK, so what are we saying here?

Our hearts love these attributes that do not set…

Our hearts are in fact only attached to these limitless attributes…

This is what our hearts are after all the time…

“To God belongs the All-Beautiful attributes” (Quran 7:180)

Our hearts love the One all along…

OK, but why aren’t we aware of this love?

Because of our imagined reality that clouds this truth…

We choose not to live from our heartsWe put barriers to this messageIt is an after the fact barrier…It is not the reality our hearts witness…

We say, for instance:The child is the source of her

attributes…I am the source of my attributes

The inevitable conclusion of this: we suffer, now…

Because our hearts is attracted only to the limitless attributes, nothing else satisfies it.

But my wrong beliefs force this imagination

My heart shouts, says no…

The cries of my soul are this sacred message from my heart telling to see the boundless reality…

Abraham, the intimate friend of God, breaks these false gods through this inspired truth:“I do not love those that set”

Which idols?The baby is the source of her attributesMy false expectations from the childI am the source of this love I feel

Owning my attributes…My false identities

These idols that we build by limiting the message of the heart and skewing its meaning

This is the source of my hell…

They are nothing but constraining the limitless attributes in a small jar…

What do we need to do?Once we become aware of the jar, we pray to the Light of the universe to penetrate

through it.

Once I recognize what I have been doing to myself, I can surrender to the truth.

I can surrender to my heart’s callAnd live a life from the heart.

What happens when we surrender?We start to live from our heart…Not with a pretense, but with authenticity

Until we have one identity left:The servant of God…

With this reality:– We live in the presence of the Loving One…– We limitlessly love the baby in the name of the

Loving One– We love every creature in the name of its Creator

This is the real feast…– To celebrate life as a grace from God, mirroring

the attributes of the Loving One.– To praise the One who is making himself known

and loved by our hearts every moment.– For this, we want to feast, in infinite gratitude!

Like Abraham (p) breaking the idols Like Muhammad (p) breaking the idols around the ka’bah

We need to break the idols around our heartsThrough opening ourselves to the Limitless Light (surrendering)

Hajj and the feast of sacrifice symbolizes this act.

“Feast of Sacrifice”

Abraham saw in his dream that he was to sacrifice his son…– And he did. He sacrificed his “son” that he viewed

as an independent entity.– The moment when he sacrificed his false

attachments to his “son”, he received his “son” in the name of the Loving One.

– God taught Abraham that the solution was not to kill his son but to love love him from his heart in the name of his Creator.

When we recognize this, we recognize that the world is not an

obstacle to our relationship with God, on the contrary everything in the world is a form of speech,

in the language of the heart, explaining to us God’s divine

attributes and making Him known to us.

Now, it is the time to feastEverything becomes meaningful through my heart’s languageEverywhere becomes full with the Presence of the Loving One

It is time to glorify the the Loving OneIt is time to praise the Loving OneIt is time to thank the Loving One with limitless gratitude.

• Muhammad (p): Die before you die• Jesus (p): “Unless a man is born again, he

cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3)