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“You didn't succeed. Well, what of that? There's nothing to prove, you know, and the revolution's not a question of virtue but of effectiveness. There is no heaven. There's work to be done, that's all. And you must do what you're cut out for; all the better if it comes easy to you. The best work is not the work that takes the most sacrifice. It's the work in which you can best succeed.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays

“The Work is to bring the outer and the inner into harmony. (p. 103)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“We can't tell you the origin of the experience. But we can tell you the brain does appear to be built to have these [mystical] experiences. There are examples of people reaching similar states, spontaneously. But for the most part, it takes work. Meditation and these powerful prayer experiences require dedication and practice. But people have figured out how to do this, and the question is, 'What is the source of that experience?' The answer is, 'We don't know.' Science doesn't really have an answer for you.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable-And Couldn't

“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

“The education of the Soul is the Great Work.”
― 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

“When [God] is moving you toward a new consciousness, you need to recognize the winds of change at once, move with them instead of clinging to what is already gone.”
― Stephen Cope, The Great Work of Your Life