Die Before You Die
I’ll be doing a workshop February 24-25 called Doorways to the Divine. All are welcome; it’s inclusive of all seekers, although I personally rely heavily on Sufi prayer practices in order to open healing space.
This gathering is for anyone seeking healing, and anyone wishing to deepen their relationship with the Divine, especially during difficult times and in difficult places.
The Sufis say, “Die before you die.” What they mean by “die” is an orientation of the heart, not toward the world of the senses, but toward where the heart turns to meet the Source–and if it wishes, starts taking a few steps closer to that light. There are no words for what happens when we do this. Even if we take just a few steps toward that light, it changes us very deeply, in a way that we cannot often name at first. Sufism says, “Veils burn away.” False ideas burn away. Old adhesions to identities and pain complexes that seemed incredibly important and life-defining burn away.
As we stand in front of that light, dying before we die, we ask ourselves, “If I’m done with my life, and I’m just coming home now, how much of this bullshit luggage am I going to take with me? The time that this happened, and the time that that happened, and how it still feels like a knife in my gut…?”
Or am I going to say, “You know what, on second thought I don’t care about that. I care about filling every single cell of my body with the love that made me. I just want to dissolve into that love as quickly as possible.” Except that it isn’t, actually, the moment of your death. It’s the moment of your disappearance, before your return.
Sufis call this disappearance “fana,” the surrender into Source. Fana when we are inhaled into the Divine. We may stay there a little bit, in that place where dust motes are moving in light…
Then when we are ready—when we’ve had our fill; when we’ve drunk very, very deeply—there is a moment like when a baby is finished nursing. The baby naturally lets go, and turns back to this world from the world of the breast. Perhaps it takes a nap, or perhaps it gets interested in something else. This is similar to our moment after fana as we comes back to, “Okay. And now, how shall I live my life?”
How do we live our lives, after we “die” in God, even if we were only able to “die” a little bit? Differently; very differently.
Would you like to learn more? Join us February 24-25 for Doorways to the Divine, a Sufi healing experience.
