Understand How Your Perceptions of Suffering Shape Your World – and Begin to Heal & Reframe Them

In our created world, things often exist as opposites. Sages say that everything is made clear by polar opposites.

High can be defined by low, long by short. Joy and sorrow exist side by side.

Messages from mystics about suffering teach that the way you acknowledge, heal, and reframe your suffering shapes your character — and sculpts the destiny of your life.

Their collective wisdom is a reminder — don’t run toward pain and suffering, and don’t run away from them.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover the 5-step technique of “sacred holding”
• Learn to be compassionate with difficult feelings
• Expand the awareness that all of us carry the pain of suffering — everyone has a story
• Understand the major causes of suffering

Transform Your Ego Into the Flow of Presence to Reignite Your Divine Spark

To invite joy into our lives, we have to tame and transform our ego from a “commanding master” into a “personal assistant.”

Explore how layers of ego separate you from your divine spark or higher self through pride, greed, jealousy, and unrestrained anger — and how diminishing your ego traits moves you closer to your higher self where you can experience what sages call “the flow of presence.”

The Buddha, on his deathbed, offered invaluable advice: “Be a lamp unto yourselves… work out your salvation with diligence.”

The Prophet Muhammad said, “Know thyself and you shall know thy Sustainer,” and “Die to what is false within you before you die a physical death.”

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn the practice of compassionate self-witnessing
• Become aware of your conditioned biases
• Deepen your relationship with self
• Feel the joy of closeness to Divinity

Re-discover Love & Compassion as Keys to Transformation for Greater Peace, Connection & Happiness

Mystics explain that love is the cause and essence of everything. Our life stories circle around love — about being loved, not being loved, and yearning to be loved.

Enlightened teachers posit that the key to happiness is to become aware of the inhibitions and obstacles we have unconsciously placed on the path of love. Not surprisingly, says Rumi, love is in every religion but love has no religion.

Discover how compassion is love manifested. To expound on the astonishing power and beauty of this divine trait, teachers use the metaphor of water in nature.

Water is soft and yielding — yet over time, it can wear away the hardest granite. Also, wherever water falls, life flourishes.

Being gentle and merciful with yourself and others demonstrates authentic strength and is life-affirming and life-bestowing.

In this module, you’ll:

• Practice “Sacred Naming” to develop a loving and compassionate relationship with yourself
• Discover the meditative practice of radiating light and love from your being, which opens your heart to creation
• Explore a way of dealing with adversaries by differentiating between behavior and being
• Learn to forgive yourself and others

Purify & Open Your Heart for Deeper Connection With Divinity & Contentment

The world’s scriptures teach that to grow in consciousness and to experience authentic joy and inner peace, you must purify and open your heart. This critical work is inconvenient but essential.

Spiritual teachers point out that everything that you possess comes from Divinity. What can we offer to God in return? Sufis encourage us to bring to God a polished heart so that Divinity’s face is reflected in it! This work of purification fills our beings with indescribable contentment.

Jamal will share how opening your heart requires that you embrace not only your ten thousand joys, but also your ten thousand sorrows of life.

When you allow your heart to break open, you can experience an expanded inner spaciousness that allows an abundance of joy to flow into your being. Any suffering in that larger space will feel less overwhelming.

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn the “Art of Heart” meditation
• Consult the heart for guidance in life
• Feel a deeper connection with your higher self
• Discover a Sufi writing practice to heal and empower your heart

Learn to Be of Authentic Service to Comfort Your Soul & Invite Blessings Into Your Life

The world’s scriptures offer four criteria to make charitable giving meaningful.

Give freely of what you love… give to those who ask, don’t ask, or cannot ask… give quietly, without being ostentatious… and give without attachment to the prizes, prestige or acclaim it brings you.

This last insight is critical. If you are charitable for the sake of divinity and your giving comes from the goodness of your heart, this will comfort your soul and invite blessings from those mysterious realms.

The holy books also ask, in the cause of service, that we remove injustice and oppression in our families, communities, and nations. These acts of service require courage, compassion, grace, and collective action.

Teachers insist that we engage in regular self-care. Be mindful of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. Self-care increases your capacity to be of authentic service to creation.

In this module, you’ll discover:

• How being of authentic service helps you fulfill a major purpose for your existence on Earth
• How service fills your being with joy
• The art of balance in service — contemplate, “A hand always open is as paralyzed as a hand always closed”
• How to prioritize acts of service

Build a Community of Truth Seekers to Nurture Your Inner True Self & Become Comfortable With Other Perspectives

To survive, flourish, and experience happiness, you need a community.

Poets wax eloquently on this need — “A wall standing alone is useless. Add to it other walls, and it can support a roof!”

They also exclaim, “Only when ink joins with a pen, can the blank paper say something!” Take note, say the sages. Even prophets needed companions!

From the world’s scriptures, teachers have gleaned three gateways for making meaningful community.

The first gateway is love — choose friends and family members for whom you feel love and affection. The second gateway is trust — without trust, there is no vulnerability, and without vulnerability, relationships are not genuine. The third gateway is love of truth — The Buddha famously said, “Find friends who love the truth”

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover how the mystical meditation of “Inner Circle of Love” nourishes your soul
• Explore the practice of sharing “3 cups of tea” — and how this helps you connect with those outside your comfort zone
• Learn to bond with yourself — realizing that all of our relationships are a reflection of our relationship with ourselves

Spiritual Meditations & Practices to Raise Your Consciousness & Support Your Growth

We need to engage in regular spiritual practices to raise our consciousness and evolve into developed human beings.

This is essential if we aspire, individually and collectively, to heal the social injustices and planetary degradation of our times.

To overcome divisiveness, conflicts, and inequities in our families and communities, we have no choice but to come face to face with our conditioned biases, prejudices, and stereotyping of the other.

About the abuse of Mother Earth, it is said that the biggest environmental problems are not loss of biodiversity, climate change or ecosystem collapse. The biggest problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy.

In this module, you’ll:

• Explore a variety of meditation techniques for raising consciousness
• Discover the practice of sacralizing mundane moments
• Recognize how to see God in everyone and everything
• Learn to be grateful in times of adversity

Wisdom for the Inner Journey
PDF Chapter From Imam Jamal Rahman’s Book Sacred Laughter of the Sufis

Rumi & the Quran
Video Heart Meditation and Lecture With Imam Jamal Rahman

Making Spiritual Practice a Way of Life
Chapter From the Book Finding Peace Through Spiritual Practice

Inequality of Men & Women: The Patriarchal Stranglehold on Power
Chapter From the Book Religion Gone Astray