Receiving trouble is receiving grace;
  Receiving happiness is receiving a trial.

        He, who bends to himself a joy
           doth the winged life destroy
         But he, who kisses the joy as it flies,
            Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

   When God is here I am not
      When I am here, God is  not

       I can’t, God can ;
         I think I’ll let Him.

Marriage or any close committed relationship offers a grand opportunity to embrace Jihad ( the struggle with the ego).

When we live alone or spend much of our time alone, we can fool ourselves about the progress we are making, but we can never fool a partner or a close friend.

This person, so close to us, is our mirror, reflecting the consequences of our thoughts and actions.

I learned more about spirituality in my first year of living with my wife than I learned while I was in the Zen Buddhist monastery.

“You can’t know God or see God,” Bawa Muhaiyaddeen said to the people gathered around him on that first night, “but you can know the qualities of God.”

The moment I heard him speak, something clicked into place, explaining and easing my confusion. The knowledge that had been right before me like an open secret, unfolded in a wonderful way; I didn’t need some complicated spiritual technology or script to find God.

I could be close to Him by recognizing and cultivating good qualities.

Within just a few minutes of meeting me, M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen had given me the key to the mystery of life.

I find that when I make an effort and treat a person “as if” he or she were the most important thing in my life at that instant, amazing things happen.

People respond positively; sometimes they return the kindness.

The effort it takes to be kind or thoughtful or patient or simply to listen is rewarded tenfold. It is triply blessed; it brings peace to the heart of the other, it brings peace into my heart, and it strengthens God’s qualities inside me.

The more these qualities gather and strengthen, the more peace I feel and, though it may be imperceptible, the closer I am to God.