Publisher's Synopsis
Drawing from the most authentic texts available in the original Persian/Farsi language, Vraje Abramian offers this extensive collection of stories, teachings and poetry from major saints, mystics and sages in the history and evolution of Sufism. Sufi Masters throughout the ages have always reminded seekers that the final answers lie in Silence, where the ego-mind is absent. Still, they have also been great poets and storytellers, whose words were capable of life-altering effects. This is a fresh and extensive collection that will both instruct and encourage individuals on the path of love and transformation. Readers and seekers today need such roadmaps of sanity and wisdom, pointing the way through lifes detours. Reading the works of saints and sages serves as a GPS for todays wayfarer. Includes selections from todays most well-recognised and highly acknowledged masters, like Rumi, Hafiz and Jesus. More uniquely, however, it introduces us to teachings and anecdotes of the obscure hermit, the mad but unknown dervish, the crazy naked ascetic. Many of these voices offered a shock to his or her contemporaries, jarring them from the complacency which makes automatons of humans. Others, contained a paradoxical twist on the religious life or practice of their times, but soaked with an age-old wisdom that is still vital to practitioners today. Read between the lines here! The translator instructs us. Abramian advises readers that the language adopted by Sufi teachers was designed to break the habits that normally deaden our sensitivities. He has therefore selected pieces that remind us to wake up, to take stock, to continue carefully observing. And, by careful sequencing of topics, the book gently guides readers toward the essence-truths or core-teachings of these wise ones. Translator and editor Vraje Abramian is uniquely qualified to make this offering to religious studies today. As an Iranian by birth, a lifelong practitioner of spiritual disciplines, and an accomplished teacher of English, his collection and translations are characterised by academic authority, poetic word-craft and spiritual insight.
