The world’s major religions teach retreat as a spiritual practice. All the great spiritual teachers spent time on retreat—Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and many others. The Sufis’ main practice is to remain in the world, fulfilling all our duties and trying always to remember God and serve God’s creation. …
Feb 24, 2011, Robert Frager, PhD, and Pegge Bernecker talk about spiritual guidance in the Sufi tradition; Frager offers a blessing for spiritual guides and seekers.
“Adam was the first Sufi. Allah taught Adam all the Names. In the Dhikr we are painting the image of the beautiful Names of God and tracing the Creation of the Universe, its development, its breakdown and destruction, and finally its joy.
In Sufism shukr, or gratitude, means to use our bodies, abilities, feelings, and thoughts to fulfill the purpose of our creation: being thankful to God for the blessings we have received. Gratitude for our intelligence, strength, empathy and other qualities means to use these traits to serve others. We can express gratitude for the achievements we have been blessed with by being humble. We can try and express our gratitude in all our daily actions. We can learn to feel gratitude in our hearts by remembering that life itself and all the other blessings we have received come from God.