Journey Through the Heart Video Series with Ibrahim Jaffe:
How do I LIVE from my heart?
If you’d like to go deeper we invite you to explore our Foundations course which will help you heal yourself or others, find or improve relationships, expand your spiritual growth, open your heart + connect you to the Divine.
Video Transcript:
A lot of what is being taught today in the West is about setting limits. In the Western consciousness, you learn to have very strong limits, and if somebody crosses that line you learn to put them in their place. That gives you a sense of authority and empowerment that allows you to open your heart when you want. So, that’s kind of the Western approach to learning about your heart.
Personally, I actually don’t like that one so much because what I find is that people actually start to like the power of using the limits. A lot of people actually they start liking that they can hurt people, and there’s a meanness that sometimes comes up. And frankly, I don’t often see the heart really opening when I see people stopping with the limits, so I’m not a big fan of that one.
In the Sufi way, we recognize that being vulnerable is not an easy place to be, because you feel like you can be hurt, you don’t feel very strong. And maybe someone’s going to jump on me or hurt me, so you’re afraid of it. But we have a different way of approaching vulnerability, which is we keep the presence of God – we say Allah – we keep the presence of God with us in our vulnerability. You have God’s light with you.
God has 99 names we use. One of those names is Al Hafiz, Hafiz means the protector; and Ar-Rahim, the mercy; and Al-Wadud, the love. So when you’re with Allah’s light – and Allah is the one God, it’s no different, it’s the same God as the Jewish Jehovah, or the father, we’re talking about the same light, the same presence, the one God.
And when you’re with that God, the attributes of divinity support you. So, if you’re vulnerable by yourself, without God, it’s a little bit scary. You know you’re out there and you have to be really brave, you have to learn how to be vulnerable and be truthful like, “Wow, you really hurt me when you said that,” and, “I’m just trying to please you,” and, “I really love you and I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want you to hurt me.” These things are actually scary to say to somebody, especially if they’re hurting you. But when you have Allah’s light with you, this light surrounds you and then when you’re vulnerable, the first thing you’re vulnerable to is Allah’s light.
Your heart is saying, “I’m open and I’m with you, God.”
And when you do that, the light of God comes around you and creates a force field, as a protection. And then when you’re open and you start allowing your heart to open, there’s a wisdom, first of all, like, “This is actually not a place that I would really want to share my vulnerability because I’m going to get hurt, someone’s going to go after it, or try to hurt me.” Allah will show you that right away.
Another thing is, as you start to open, Allah will say, “Yes, this person is somebody you can trust.” The moment you open your heart, you see this person just loves you because you’re being authentic and vulnerable and they give you all the love.
Sometimes, Allah might guide you. As you’re with Allah, you’ll be walking down the street and you don’t know why, but Allah says to you, “Why don’t you go talk to that person over there,” and you kind of slowly work your way up because you’re a little bit vulnerable. You stand next to them and all of a sudden you have the most amazing conversation you ever had in your life, it’s just incredible, and you realize, “Wow, I just love talking to that person!” You just made an amazing friend.
You see, that’s Al-Hadi, the guide. God will guide you. So, vulnerability is, first, you learn to know what it is. And you can learn to open your heart, by the way, without God, but it takes a lot of courage, and you will get hurt. You have to learn how to deal with the hurts. An easier way is to be vulnerable in the presence of God and have that connection and that support and then you’ll see just what an amazing life you can have each moment.
If you’d like to go deeper we invite you to explore our Foundations course which will help you heal yourself or others, find or improve relationships, expand your spiritual growth, open your heart + connect you to the Divine.
