memos...

Your stream may look clean, but there's unstirred matter on the bottom.
Your Sheikh can dig a side channel that will drain that waste off.
Trust your wound to a teacher's surgery.
Flies collect on a wound.
They cover it, those flies of your self-protecting feelings, your love for what you think is yours.
Let a teacher wave away the flies and put plaster on the wound.
Don't turn your head.
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That's where the light enters you.
And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself."



A rider goes by,
but his dust of passing hangs in the air.
Look down this road
through the particles into infinity.
Always check your inner state
with the lord of your heart.
Copper doesn't know it's copper,
until it's changed to gold.
Your loving doesn't know its majesty,
until it knows its helplessness.
These gifts from the Friend,
a robe of skin and veins, a teacher within,
wear them and become a school,
with a greater Sheikh nearby.



Humble living does not diminish. It fills. Going back to a simpler self gives wisdom.



A tailor needs a torn garment to practice his expertise.
The trunks of a tree must be cut and cut again so they can be used for fine carpentry.
Your doctor must have a broken leg to doctor.
Your defects are the ways that glory get manifested.
Whomever sees clearly what's diseased in himself begins to gallop on the way.


If you want what visible reality can give,
you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living the truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven
for forgetting that what you really
want is love's confusing joy



Someone once asked a great sheikh what sufism was.
"The feeling of joy when sudden disappointment comes"
"The eagle carries off Muhammad's(SAW) boot
and saves him from snakebite.
Don't grieve for what doesn't come.
Some things that don't happen
keep disasters from happening."

It's a habit of yours to walk slowly.
You hold a grudge for years.
With such heaviness, how can you be modest?
With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?

Be wide as the air to learn a secret.
Right now you're equal portions clay and water, thick mud
Abraham learned how the sun and moon and the stars all set.
He said, No longer will I try to assign partners for God
You are so weak. Give up to grace.
The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know
You're trying to live your life in open scaffolding.
Say Bismillah, In the name of God,
as the priest does with a knife when he offers an animal
Bismillah your old self
to find your real name..




"Liberate yourself from the fetters of the Ego and surrender yourself before God.
Let the Lord be your shepherd, allow Him to attend to all your cares
And do not allow temptations to entice you.
Aspirations of this world are the cause of all concern.
Aspire to God and obtain freedom."

(Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani RA)