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“What is most characteristically human is not guaranteed to us by our species or by our culture but given only in potential. A spiritual master once expressed it this way: A person must work to become human. What is most distinctly human in us is something more than the role we play in society and more than the conditioning, whether for good or bad, of our culture. It is our essential Self, which is our point of contact with Infinite Spirit. This Spirit is not to be understood as a metaphysical assertion requiring belief, but as something we can experience for ourselves. What if you, as a human being, represent the final result of a process in which this Spirit has evolved better and better reflectors of itself? If the human being is the most evolved carrier of the Creative Spirit â€� possessing conscious love, will, and creativity â€� then our humanity is the degree to which this physical and spiritual vehicle, and particularly our nervous system, can reflect or manifest Spirit. That which is most sacred in us, that which is deeper than our individual personality, is our connection to this Spirit, this Creative Power.

Whereas conventional religious belief has the tendency to anthropomorphize God/Spirit, this process consists of the human being becoming qualified by the attributes of God. It could be called the „sanctificationâ€� of the human being. Our human nature is realized through the understanding and awareness that the essential human Self is a reflection of Spirit. To become truly human is to attain a tangible awareness of Spirit, to realize oneself as a reflection of Spirit, or God. The education of the Soul is the Great Work. The beginning of this Work consists of awakening a transcending awareness...”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“In Sufism we understand the human being to be composed of three aspects: self, heart, and spirit. Self is the experience of our personal identity, including our thoughts and emotions. Heart is something deeper, experienced through an inner knowing, often with a quality of compassion, conscience, and love. It can ultimately lead to the recognition of the deepest part of ourselves - our inmost consciousness, or Spirit, the reflection of God within us.

If we simply say that souls is our inner being, then the quality of our inner being, or soul, is the result of the relationship between self and our innermost consciousness, Spirit. The self without the presence of spirit is merely ego, the false mask, which is governed by self-centered thoughts and emotions. The more the self becomes infused with spirit, the more „soulful� it becomes. We use the words presence and remembrance to describe the conscious connection between self and Spirit. The more we live mindfully with presence, the more we remember God, and the more soulful we are, the more we drop the mask.

Care of the soul, then, is always the cultivation of presence and remembrance. Presence includes all the ways we mindfully attend to our lives. Soul is the child of the union of self and spirit. When this union has matured, the soul acquires substance and structure. That is why it is said in some teachings that we do not automatically have a soul; we must acquire one through our spiritual work. (p. 75)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Let the Jesus of your Spirit ride the donkey;
Don‘t make your Jesus carry the donkey.
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 1853-5”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“EVERYDAY MAINTENANCE OF THE SOUL

What does it mean to care for your soul? Care of the soul is the constant practice of bringing loving attention to the problems, conflicts, and longings of our lives. Emotional suffering is something to be attended to, not split off from. We can learn to read our life as a story, rather than as a clinical case. Moreover, if the story we have been telling ourselves is a melodrama or tragedy, we need to rewrite the story. Every human life, when seen from the perspective of the unrelenting Divine Mercy, is the story of grace unfolding. Love is revealing itself in the precise details of each human life, if only we do not impose the script of self-pity, bitterness, and fearfulness. The soul is where the divine attributes of God may be awakened from their latent state to be integrated into our character. These qualities are the soul's natural inheritance from the Divine. It is through communion with the Divine that the soul takes on the spiritual attributes of kindness, generosity, courage, forgiveness, patience, and freedom.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The One (the Uncreated or the First Being) is the high source of the Pleroma. The One is Infinite. Infinity is integral. Integral means whole, intact, undivided, full and unbroken. Infinity cannot be divided against itself. The One is also coherent. Coherent means clear, consistent, sonorous, intelligible. All Divine Reality is present in each and every point within itself. This spirit that dwells in us also inhabits all existence. There is a living presence dwelling in everything. The final substance from which all forms are created.”
― Laurence Galian, Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!

“This presence is like a passport to greater life. It is our connection to that Greater Being to which we belong, but which is often buried beneath mundane concerns, bodily desires, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions. Through knowledge, practice, and understanding, this presence can be awakened. Eventually, we will not be without it â€� whether in speaking or moving, whether in thinking or feeling. Awakening this presence is the most reliable and direct means of cultivating our essential human qualities, of activating everything that we need to meet the conditions of our lives. Presence is the point of intersection between the world of the senses and the world of the Spirit. May we never cease to discover its beauty and power.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“There is a knowledge and a practice of connecting ourselves with cosmic Life. It has nothing to do with belief; it is learned. It is increased by our consciousness of it, by our increasing awareness of the abundance of cosmic energy. Life is infinite, and this infinity can be tapped. The only limitation is one of awareness. (p.13 Soul Work, Reflecting Spirit)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The education of the Soul is the Great Work.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Realization, in its fullest meaning, is not merely knowing something, but making it real in oneself. We come to this essential Self through a process of deconditioning, reconditioning, and unconditioning. This can also be described as minimizing what is negative, increasing what is positive, and, ultimately, opening to Spirit.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“A Seed has no energy of its own, but it can respond in the right environment. Every form of life has a capacity for response but none so much as the human being. In an infertile environment this capacity for response may be dormant. The cultivation we need to provide is through conscious awareness. This makes the difference between nominally being alive and being alive abundantly. Life is not just this bioenergetic vitality, but a spiritual vitality that is eternal, and we are that. This life span that we know on earth is said to be one chapter in the story of Life. This eternal Life reflects through us. With awareness we can develop all our faculties. The body, mind, spirit, and ecology form an interconnected whole. When a harmonious relationship exists among all of these, we have abundant life.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“To cross the treshold from habits and conditioning to emptiness, which is the receptive quality of the soul, we must become still and patient. We must give up certain impulses and let go again and again. This is the way we come into our essential Self. We leave behind our compulsive egos, embodying the „I amâ€� and selflessness at the same time. The „I amâ€� is not the mechanical self - the role-playing, superficial personality - that feels its existence through its ordinary reactions and resistances. With the right kind of attention and observation we can see the relationship between our various thoughts and sentiments and how each of them invokes some imaginary „Iâ€�. Instead we can learn to feel our own existence through recollection and intention. A positive sense of I-ness emerges through recollection. It is the first thing we can trust: our own presence, the sacred „I amâ€�.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The apparent conflict between a strong sense of our own presence and selflessness can be resolved if we realize that presence helps us to be more selfless. Selflessness is the soul's own willingness to make sacrifices in the material world as well as in the artificial world of personality. The „I amâ€� is selfless in that it holds no special idea of itself, does not justify itself, and is not envious, resentful, or proud. Because it already feels secure in the infinitely merciful Spirit, it can accept the annihilation of what is false in the ego personality. If we are rooted in presence, we ar e capable of leting go of the demands of the ego. If we are not secure in th eemptiness of pure presence, we will cling to events and things, to lies and fears. But in a state of presence, free of the coercions of the ego, we can become our most authentic selves.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“We can bring quality into the details of life if we remember to be and act with precision. If we can consciously be at that point where the horizontal force of active choice meets the vertical force of Being, a certain „somethingâ€�, larger than life, will be activated. This „somethingâ€� can be felt in anything produced by the hands and hearts of a conscious human being â€� in works of art, in a well-tended garden, in food prepared with love.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The Work of the Soul is the greatest satisfaction in life. It is a long journey with many stages of realization. If you want to know how close you are to living the life of the soul, simply ask yourself: how much of my life energy is devoted to complaining about my circumstances, blaming others for my own unhappiness, controlling others to achieve my desires, deceiving others to make myself look good, or promoting myself? The remedy for all these spiritual diseases is the same: contact with your true inner being, which is a reflection of the Divine. After all is said and done, after all our spiritual practices and all the esoteric knowledge that might be acquired, the real measure of soulfulness is simply the degree of our humility, gratitude, patience, and love.”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“In Sufism we understand the human being to be composed of three aspects: self, heart, and spirit. Self is the experience of our personal identity, including our thoughts and emotions. Heart is something deeper, experienced through an inner knowing, often with a quality of compassion, conscience, and love. It can ultimately lead to the recognition of the deepest part of ourselves - our inmost consciousness, or Spirit, the reflection of God within us.

If we simply say that soul is our inner being, then the quality of our inner being, or soul, is the result of the relationship between self and our innermost consciousness, Spirit. The self without the presence of spirit is merely ego, the false mask, which is governed by self-centered thoughts and emotions. The more the self becomes infused with spirit, the more „soulful� it becomes. We use the words presence and remembrance to describe the conscious connection between self and Spirit. The more we live mindfully with presence, the more we remember God, and the more soulful we are, the more we drop the mask.

Care of the soul, then, is always the cultivation of presence and remembrance. Presence includes all the ways we mindfully attend to our lives. Soul is the child of the union of self and spirit. When this union has matured, the soul acquires substance and structure. That is why it is said in some teachings that we do not automatically have a soul; we must acquire one through our spiritual work. (p. 75)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self