Nature Meditations
Nature Meditations led by Khalifa Kabriya Challman
Delivered at the International Sufi Movement Summer School 2010, Katwijk, Holland. Click on the audio file link below to listen and follow the text.
Play Audio of Lecture (Length 9:24)
Nature's Religion
A Reading from the Sufi Message Volume – In an Eastern Rose Garden
Although it is no exaggeration to say that there are numberless religions in the world, and every religion has so many different sects and churches and chapels that this life is not long enough to study them indeed it would be impossible even to count them in one lifetime--yet that which should really be studied proves to be something very different, for the thinker perceives that these many different religions have sprung out of one religion. Religion may begin in the East or the West, in the South or the North, yet it will always end in many religions. The more we ponder upon how all can have come from one, the plainer becomes the fact that all are expressions of one religion. And this religion is nature's religion.
How wonderful is the sight that is given to us, how marvelous is the mind, how great a treasure is the light of the soul! [] If we only knew the value of our life, the value of our soul, we would give the precious time that is ours to keen observation with calm perception, combining the attitude of a student with the care of a scientist.
[It is then that we awaken] to the religion of nature, which is the only religion. And the more we understand it, the greater our life becomes...
The following Nature Meditations were then practiced by the group:
- I feel Thy presence in this landscape
which draws my heart so close to Thee.
- Every form I see is Thine own form, my Lord.
- In Thy nature I feel Thy presence.
- This landscape in my heart is a reflection of Thy beauty.
- The waves of joy rise in my heart
when I see Thy nature manifest in the sea.
