Sufi Heart with Omid Safi

By: Be Here Now Network
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  • Summary

  • The Sufi Heart podcast with Omid Safi features teachings and stories about a sacred tradition of love, one that manifests outwardly as justice and inwardly as tenderness. Drawing primarily on the wisdom of the Islamic tradition as well as the legacies of the Civil Rights movements and other wisdom teachings, Omid invites you to a meditation on the transformative power of love and recalling the necessity of linking healing our own hearts with healing the world.

    Omid Safi is director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King, Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice.

    Omid is the past chair for the Study of Islam at the American Academy of Religion. He has written many books, including Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism; Cambridge Companion to American Islam; Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam; and Memories of Muhammad. His forthcoming books include Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Traditions and a book on the famed mystic Rumi.

    Omid is among the most frequently sought out speakers on Islam in popular media, appearing in The New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, CNN, and other international media. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone, from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Tours.
    © Be Here Now Network
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Islam Spirituality
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Episodes
  • Ep. 32 – Star Wars, Yoda & Sufism

    Ep. 32 – Star Wars, Yoda & Sufism
    Jun 6 2024

    Omid Safi discusses how modern myths like Star Wars can connect us to Sufism and the mystery of the universe.

    This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

    This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi has a discussion on:

    • The story of Moses in the Qur’an
    • Moses’ teacher, ‘the green one’, and Yoda from Star Wars
    • How myth-makers revive spiritual traditions
    • The mythic language found in music and movies
    • How Taoists, Muslims, Christians, and more see themselves in ‘the force’
    • Everything as animated and the energy that flows through all things
    • Recognizing that we are made of the elements and of God
    • How George Lucas asks beautiful questions in subtle ways
    • Considering the mystery rather than having all of the answers
    • The many forms that Allah may appear in and finding saints in ordinary people
    • How movies fill a gap when we mistrust formal religion

    “Luke and Obi-Wan, apprentice and master, this is the very stuff of the Sufi tradition, This is part of that re-enchanting that Star Wars is trying to accomplish. It’s trying to remind us that there are these mysterious ways of the heart, of the soul, of the universe, that we can still learn.” – Omid Safi

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    56 mins
  • Ep. 31 – Hazrat Inayat Khan and the Sufi Path of Love

    Ep. 31 – Hazrat Inayat Khan and the Sufi Path of Love
    May 10 2024

    Sharing insights from the path of love, Omid Safi discusses the teachings of Sufi philosopher, Hazrat Inayat Khan.

    Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

    In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid Safi explores:

    • The universality of love
    • Coming back to the center
    • Experiencing God directly
    • Signs of God in scripture, nature, and our own souls
    • Having an open heart for all of humanity
    • Practicing love as a religion
    • Going into our breath for full presence and communion with God
    • How vast God is, yet how close we are to God
    • The singular focus of God as the beloved
    • The necessity of our ancestors’ wisdom
    • The path of the mystic vs. ordinary religion

    “The center is where we come to have that direct, immediate, unmediated experience of God, which is to say, the heart.” – Omid Safi

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    50 mins
  • Ep. 30 – The Lover and The Beloved with Kelly Deutsch

    Ep. 30 – The Lover and The Beloved with Kelly Deutsch
    Jan 23 2024

    Examining how mysticism hides in plain sight, Omid Safi describes God as love, the lover, and the beloved with guest host Kelly Deutsch.

    This episode was originally recorded for the Spiritual Wanderlust Podcast, with Kelly Deutsch. Learn more about this series that explores the wild, untamed frontiers of our interior life at spiritualwanderlust.org/podcast 

     This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi speaks with Kelly about:

    • Discovering Islamic Mystics
    • Sufism and having a pure heart
    • Omid’s life in Iran and exposure to masculine displays of emotion
    • The mystery of being human, the mystery of God
    • Heartbreak and experiencing the heart breaking open
    • Sacred Eroticism and using our senses to experience loveliness
    • What we can learn from the type of love a mother provides
    • Radical love and going into the roots
    • Linking together love and justice

    “The Sufis explicitly say something that of course we find also in the Christian mystical contemplative tradition. Mischievously, they almost say there is a holy trinity, a language which most orthodox Muslims would avoid and all Jews would have avoided. But they say the trinity is love, lover, and beloved. God is love, God is the lover, and God is the beloved.” – Omid Safi

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    1 hr and 13 mins

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Profile Image for Our Joyful Family

A Thrilling Find

After reading The Rumi Prescription by Melody Moezzi, I am thrilled to discover a podcast featuring Professor Omid Safi, the man in her book who led Melody Moezzi's family on a tour that included Rumi's home land and gravesite. Omid Safi is filled in both mind and heart with love and knowledge of mystics. This first episode is gorgeous. I'm overjoyed to discover his teachings are available here. Thank you and may peace be with you.

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Sufism is one of the better mystical traditions

I find the thoughts of the Sufis like this writer to be interesting even though I don't always agree with them.

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