Meeting Rumi, Practicing Presence, Finding Sincerity

Who is Rumi, really, and why should it matter? Poet of ecstasy and cosmic love, literary giant, spiritual master, appreciated across many spiritual traditions, and, yes, sometimes oversimplified in Instagram cliches. What if Rumi somehow captures and conveys the most important of spiritual truths? What if behind all the brilliant metaphors, insights, and stories, there is a coherent spiritual teaching—challenging our egoism and insincerity, and yet offering everything the heart longs for.

We will enter the teachings of Rumi through the gate of Sincerity. God-willing, we will experience the purity of presence and the opening of the heart through remembrance (zikr).

Kabir Helminski is an author, a translator of the works of Jalaluddin Rumi and others, and a Shaikh of the Mevlevi Order which traces back to Rumi. His books on spirituality, Living Presence and The Knowing Heart, have been published in at least nine languages. Among his most recent books are Love’s Ripening, Rumi on the Heart’s Journey, and In the House of Remembering, The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching. He has toured as Shaikh with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey bringing Sufi culture to more than 100,000 people. He speaks widely on Sufism, often in an inter-spiritual context.

Camille Helminski is also a translator of Rumi and other Sufi texts, the author of Women of Sufism, and, most recently, Rumi’s Sun, The Teachings of Shams of Tabriz. Her latest book, soon to be published, is The Way of Mary, Maryam Beloved of God.

You can learn more about their activities at Sufism.org.