Teachings of Rumi edited by Andrew Harvey

Jelalludin Rumi (1207-1273) led the quiet life of an Islamic teacher in the central Anatolia (modern Turkey) until the age of thirty-seven, when he met a wandering dervish named Shams Tabriz—through whom he encountered the Divine Presence in a way that utterly transformed him. The result of this epiphany was the greatest body of mystical poetry the world has ever seen, and the establishment of a spiritual movement that would eventually stretch from Africa to China, enduring to our own day.

This collection of versions of Rumi by Andrew Harvey contains some of the master’s most luminous verse, along with selections from his lesser-read prose works, with the aim of presenting a balanced view of his teaching that includes both the high-flying love of God and the rigorous path of discipline essential for those who seek it.

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Andrew Harvey

Interview with Andrew Harvey, world leading scholar and translator of 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi

Deepak Chopra – Religion of Love

Deepak Chopra, with Andrew Harvey, Rabbi David Ingber and Banafsheh Sayyad, celebrate the Sufi poet, Rumi. At ABC Home & Carpet, NYC. In association with CitizenGlobal, Lora O’Connor Executive Producer By The Creative (Re)Directors: Producer/Director: Jonathan Pillot Photography: Nat Prinzi, Guy Shahar, Chris Vernale Sound: Andrew Finkel Editor: Kala Mandrake

Teachings of the Hindu Mystics – Andrew Harvey (Editor)

This anthology offers the lyrical, passionate writings of the Hindu tradition. Andrew Harvey, an esteemed scholar and editor, has selected excerpts from ancient and contemporary sources, including the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and other key texts; the words of such venerable spiritual teachersas Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi; and the devotional poetry of Mirabai, Ramprasad, and many others. The scope of this anthology makes it a marvelous introduction to Hindu mystical traditions, while the power and beauty of the language will inspire those already familiar with Hinduism and its literature.

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Radical Passion: Sacred Love and Wisdom in Action by Andrew Harvey

This culmination of award-winning author Andrew Harvey’s life’s work bridges the great divide between spiritual resignation and engaged spiritual activism. A manifesto for the transformation of the world through the fusion of deep mystical peace with the clarity of radical wisdom, it is a wake-up call to put love and compassion to urgent, focused action. According to Harvey, we are in a massive global crisis reflected by a mass media addicted to violence and trivialization at a moment when what the world actually needs is profound inspiration, a return to the heart-centered way of the Divine Feminine, the words of the mystics throughout the ages, and the cultivation of the nonviolent philosophies of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Dalai Lama.

Harvey’s concepts of radical passion and sacred activism fly in the face of restraint, of pessimism, of denial, of all that is inhumane, fusing the mystic’s passion for God with the activist’s passion for justice and for healing the division between heaven and earth, heart and will, body and soul, prayer and action. Sacred activism asks that we engage deeply on a personal, spiritual, and political level so as to become a fully empowered, fully active, and contemplative humanity that can turn tragedy into grace, and desolation into the opportunity to build and co-create a new world.

Unlike many spiritual books, Radical Passion does not veil the dark with artificial hope. It explores the catastrophes of our current times and celebrates the ecstatic hope and divinity that is possible—right now and in the future.

The author of more than two dozen books, Andrew Harvey began his study and practice of Hinduism in 1978 after meeting a succession of Indian saints and sages. He has studied with masters such as Thuksey Rinpoche and Father Bede Griffiths for more than 30 years. Harvey was awarded the Christmas Humphrey prize for A Journey in Ladakh, the Humanities Team Award (an award previously received by Desmond Tutu) for his 2010 body of work, and a Nautilus Award for The Hope. He is founder and director of the Institute of Sacred Activism.

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We Are Only One – 011 – Andrew Harvey, Spiritual Teacher Part 1 of 2

Uploaded on Dec 12, 2011

Andrew Harvey discusses his new book “The Hope”
…and the reasons for sacred activism.
Andrew believes that our survival depends on Sacred Activism, a fusion of profound mystical awareness, passion, clarity and sacred practice with wise, dedicated, radical action.

Click Here For More of Andrew Harvey’s book – “The Hope”

We Are Only One – 012 – Andrew Harvey, Spiritual Teacher Part 2 of 2

Occupy Wall Street, facing the crisis & Sacred Activism – Andrew Harvey

“A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic, and social institutions, a holy force – the power of wisdom and love in action – is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism.” – Andrew Harvey

What is Sacred Activism?
Sacred Activism is a transforming force of compassion-in-action that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual knowledge, courage, love, and passion, with wise radical action in the world. The large-scale practice of Sacred Activism can become an essential force for preserving and healing the planet and its inhabitants. The Institute for Sacred ActivismTM SM (ISATM SM) is an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary crises in order to become inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability.

Why is Sacred Activism crucial for our future?

The economic, political, spiritual world crisis that we currently find ourselves in is a call to action. It is an opportunity for us to understand the realities around us and to rally together to do something different. We now have before us the possibility of using this current crisis to empower ourselves, and others, to actually get the planet to work. Embracing an uncertain future, we need to support leaders, who are inspired, courageous and effective to rise up. We need to renew the energy of people who are burnt out and apathetic in institutions and corporations. If we point individuals to an inner compass that renews their passion, there is hope for real solutions and inspired creativity. All that we need is already there, in the currency of people, and it only needs to be tapped into.

Both contemporary spiritual seekers, and activists have not been connected to a vision of action that is inspiring, hopeful and rooted in deep spiritual wisdom and compassion. Some spiritual seekers, for instance, use spiritual knowledge as a subtle way of dissociating from hands-on realistic social, economic, and political engagement in the world, thereby ensuring that the world and its people will be abandoned in its hour of extreme need.

Activists, on the other hand, are prone to complete exhaustion, burn out, and debilitating and divisive rage and are often cut off from the healing and transforming wisdom of the spiritual traditions and the simple techniques, prayers, and practices that could sustain, inspire, and nourish them in their heroic endeavors.

We have seen that in the very heart of the chaos of the modern crisis, an extraordinary lineage has arisen of ordinary people who have fused deep spiritual knowledge, experience, and practice, with wise, incessant action for justice and peace. Having emerged against all odds, they accomplished the unimaginable.

The vision of Sacred Activism is dedicated to honoring and continuing the tremendous work of extraordinary ordinary people such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks and Desmond Tutu. Each of these individuals rose up to meet the challenges of their time with great spiritual grace and integrated inner contemplation with decisive action. The work of Paul Ray and Paul Hawken reveals to us that there is in our contemporary world an arising of different groups of concerned people anxious for change. Sacred Activism provides these people with a system of thought and traditional wisdom practices to help support the kind of transformative change that is necessary for the world to be preserved.

Occupy Wall street, facing the crisis & Sacred Activism – Andrew Harvey

Andrew Harvey – “Passion and Evolution”

Andrew Harvey believes that the central, fundamental, and most urgent meaning of our world crisis is to call us all to a new way of being and doing in the world.

This is why he has dedicated his life to Sacred Activism. Inspired in part by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, Andrew believes that the birth of a new divine humanity is trying to take place from the depths of our contemporary crisis, and that it depends upon a radical union of all the opposites that have traditionally been kept separate: a radical union of transcendence and immanence, heaven and earth, mind and heart, body and soul, mystical awareness and radical action.

On Mother’s Day, 2011, Andrew Harvey appeared as Terry Patten’s guest on Beyond Awakening. He passionately and eloquently described the devastating crisis of the planet, saying that the reality of impending collapse must break our hearts and transform our consciousness. Out of that “Dark Night”, Andrew said, we must come alive as Sacred Activists.

Terry agreed, praising Andrew’s mystically vision and awakened eloquence. And yet he also challenged Andrew’s seeming certainty about collapse, emphasizing the Mystery, the fact that we don’t and can’t know exactly what is ahead.

Terry spoke to the moral necessity of hope, and also pointed to the positive, emergent dynamism of our current moment in the evolution of consciousness and culture. The discussion soared, ignited, and stirred a great deal of discussion and acclaim among people all over the world.

About Andrew Harvey:

Andrew Harvey is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, and spiritual teacher. Harvey has published over 20 books including The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism and Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism. Harvey was a Fellow of All Souls College Oxford from 1972 to 1986 and has taught at Oxford University, Cornell University, The California Institute of Integral Studies, and the University of Creation Spirituality, as well as, various spiritual centers throughout the United States. He was the subject of the 1993 BBC film documentary The Making of a Modern Mystic. He is the founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism in Oak Park, Illinois, where he lives. His website is http://www.andrewharvey.net

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The Mystic Vision: Daily Encounters With the Divine ` Andrew Harvey & Anne Baring

THE MYSTIC VISION -
Daily Encounters with the Divine

The mystics tell us that life is Divine, that we, in this dimension, are in the eternal embrace of the Divine. They show us that our sole purpose in life is to open our heart to this Divine Presence, to know it and love it as the essence and ground of our own lives and as the life of every creature and every aspect of creation. They invite us to recognize its longing to be known in our own longing for relationship with what seems so far from us yet is closer to us than our breathing. Ruysbroeck expressed this with perfect clarity:-

When love has carried us above all things…we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, if it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, and an intuition of Eternity? We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold; because our being, without losing anything of its own personality, is united with the Divine Truth.

Ramakrishna said that the sensitive mother cooks fish differently for each of her hungry children – plain and bland for one, rich and spicy for the other. In exactly the same way, the Mother of the Universe reveals various spiritual approaches to the Divine. Whether you follow the idea of a personal God or the impersonal Truth, Ramakrishna said, you will certainly realize the One Reality, provided that you experience passionate longing for it.

—– There are an infinite number of perspectives and each one of them is a path to God. Each individual is unique and follows a unique path. With the longing to discover it, the way unfolds in the rhythm of the life of each separate being. Forcing the pace can block the opening of the heart. Each one of us will know the flowering of consciousness as it returns to the Source or Ground of Being. As Ramakrishna said, some will receive their meal early in the morning, others at noon, still others not until evening. But none will go hungry. Without exception, all living beings will eventually know their own true nature to be the Great Light.

—– The Alchemists knew their work of transmuting the base metal of ignorance and separation into the gold of union would best be done gently, patiently and with great delicacy. As the windows of the heart are opened, the light pours in, revealing what was previously shrouded in darkness. Insight, wisdom, compassion grow with the experience of communion with the Divine.
—– In this book, we have gathered together from many different cultures, past and present, the magical, quickening words which guide and help us on our own journey of transformation. They transmit the vision of those women and men who discovered within themselves the quintessential treasure of the Divine. In a time as dark as ours they inspire and ennoble us all, giving us the hope, courage and strength to follow them into the heart of life.

Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey

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The Return of the Mother by Andrew Harvey

(excerpted from The Return of the Mother by Andrew Harvey)

AT THE END OF HIS LIFE, the great Indian mystic Aurobindo is said to have said, “If there is to be a future, it will wear the crown of feminine design.” Unless we awaken to the mystery of the sacred feminine, of the feminine as sacred, and allow it to glow into, irradiate, illumine, and penetrate every area of our activity and to create in them all harmony, justice, peace, love, ecstacy, and balance, we will die out and take nature, or a large part of it, with us. Unless we come to know what the sacred feminine really is—its subtlety and flexibility, but also its extraordinarily ruthless, radical power of dissolving all structures and dogmas, all prisons in which we have sought so passionately to imprison ourselves—we will be taken in by patriarchal projections of it. The Divine Mother, the fullness of the revolution that she is preparing, will be lost to us. We must understand that comprehending the sacred feminine is a crucial part of surviving the next terrible stage of humanity….

I have often said that I think we are in the last twenty or so years (originally written 1996) of this civilization and quite possibly of the planet itself. If we don’t make major decisions—economic, political, and environmental, we will simply create an uninhabitable world and go on feeding those powers of destruction that are already threatening to ravage nature. We are certainly at the end of so-called “civilization,” and we are possibly at the end of the world. The facts of our global crisis, a crisis at once political and economic, psychological and environmental, show us clearly that the human race has no hope of survival unless it chooses to undergo a total transformation, a total change of heart. What is required is a massive and quite unprecedented spiritual transformation. There is no precedent for what we are being asked to do. Only the leap into a new consciousness can engender the vision, the moral passion, the joy and energy necessary to effect change on the scale and with the self-sacrifice that is essential to save the planet in the time we have left.

The message we are being sent by history can be summed up in four words: Transform or die out… Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Humanity is being taken to the point where it will have to choose between suicide or adoration.” I have no doubt that we are now at that point. Human survival depends on whether we are brave enough to face the full desolation of what we have done to our psyches and the planet, and wise and humble enough to turn to the divine insight inside us to learn what we need to go forward. This is not an apocalyptic scenario—not a scenario at all, in fact. It is fact. This is where we are, this is what is happening, and it is terrifying. Anyone not in a trance of denial knows it. No amount of wishful thinking or sophisticated pseudo-historical parallels can make this agony go away.

It is hard enough for a human being to face the facts of his or her own mortality. What we have to face now is not merely our own death, but the possible death of everything and everyone we love, the holocaust of nature herself, the mother we have ignored and betrayed for so long. If we do not face up to our present danger, in all its horror, without consolation and without illusion, in the full glare of Kali’s terrifying mirror, if we don’t gaze deeply into the mirror of the goddess and see our faces, we will never find in ourselves the passion and courage necessary to change. Catastrophe can become grace, and disaster possibility, only if we transform their energy by accepting what they have to teach us and acting with complete sincerity to transform ourselves.

ANDREW HARVEY, Oxford scholar and visionary, believes that our survival depends on Sacred Activism, a fusion of profound mystical awareness, passion, clarity and sacred practice with wise, dedicated, radical action. This fusion, he warns, may be the sole key to preservation of man and nature.

Om Ram Ramaya Swaha (OM RAHM RAHM-EYE-YAH SWAH-HA)

From the CD Deva Premal Embrace.

“Thomas Ashley-Farrand in “Healing Mantras,” writes that “Ram… is the seed sound for the manipura, or solar plexus chakra. Tremendous healing energy lies dormant at that chakra. Mantra can help you get at that energy. This mantra begins to awaken and activate the entire chakra. It specifically prepares the chakra to be able to handle the inflow of kundalini energy that gives the chakra its power.” Ashley-Farrand breaks down Rama into its two syllables and describes their influence. “Ra is associated with the solar current that runs down the right side of our bodies. Ma is associated with the lunar current that runs down the left side of our bodies…. By repeating Rama… Rama… Rama over and over again, you begin to balance the two currents and their activity so that they can work with the higher stages of energy that will eventually come up the spine…. Om Ram Ramaya Namaha begins to clear the two currents with a slight emphasis on the right or solar side, which is needed in this age of darkness… After the age of twenty-nine, the ending of the mantra should be changed to Swaha.”

Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism

Andrew Harvey, renowned spiritual writer, and Karuna Erickson, long-time yoga teacher and psychotherapist, have been working together for many years to birth a revolutionary approach to yoga. Heart Yoga fuses at the most passionate depth the ancient traditions of yoga with the wisdom of the mystical traditions concerning the sacred heart and the divine light. Their intention is to inspire the yoga community to become the crucible for the divinization of the body and the birth of the divine human. Heart Yoga is grounded in the universal mystical vision of the Sacred Marriage, the marriage of transcendence and immanence that is continually birthing the cosmos and irradiating it on every level with compassion, joy, sacred passion and sacred peace.

In their book, Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism, Andrew and Karuna ground the splendor of the vision of the marriage in an unfolding of the five great joys that radiate from it: the joys of transcendence, creation, love for all beings, Tantra, and service. For each of these joys, Andrew and Karuna offer precise and beautiful combinations of classical asanas with sacred poetry, meditations, and visualizations drawn from the classical mystical traditions. These enable each joy to be experienced simultaneously in the illumined mind, ecstatic heart, and increasingly conscious and spiritualized body.

What they have discovered over their years of practice and study is that when yoga practice is infused with the inspiration of sacred texts and poetry, and with precisely tailored mystical meditations on the heart center and on the chakra system, yoga becomes a holy way of experiencing the greatest mystery of all—that of the embodiment of the divine in the human.

Andrew Harvey and Karuna Erickson are both longtime devoted Sacred Activists who believe deeply that the challenges of our times call for a fusion between profound spiritual wisdom and compassion with clear focused radical action in the world. They also believe that in order to act from sacred consciousness in the demanding circumstances of our world crisis we will need not only illumined minds, passionately compassionate hearts, and wills surrendered to the Beloved, but also bodies that have been opened tenderly to the all-empowering energies of the Divine. Heart Yoga is a yoga that can tremendously help this creation in a human being of a unified force-field of embodied divine energy and love.

Andrew and Karuna have already taught this yoga in Canada, the US, and Europe, to mystics, activists, and yoga students of all levels, and have been awed and humbled by its power. It both grounds and inspires the kind of living faith and radiant energy that we are all going to need to co-create with the Divine a new world out of the ashes of the old one. They have also been awed and humbled by the extraordinary response to their new book from many of the world’s major spiritual teachers and leading teachers of yoga. What they have created is an embodied prayer for all human beings to enter into the fullness of the birth of the divine human.

Please join Andrew and Karuna for an experience of Heart Yoga that will deepen and inspire your yoga practice, fill your mind with the wisdom of the Divine, open your heart to the compassion of the Beloved ,and strengthen and infuse your body with the radiance of the Mother’s all-transforming shakti.
Andrew Harvey is a renowned and distinguished mystical scholar, Rumi translator and explicator, poet, novelist, spiritual teacher and writer, and architect of Sacred Activism.

Andrew Harvey – The Seven Headed Beasts of the Apocalypse & the Seven Stars

Andrew Harvey, Oxford scholar and visionary, believes that our survival depends on Sacred Activism, a fusion of profound mystical awareness, passion, clarity and sacred practice with wise, dedicated, radical action. This fusion, he warns, may be the sole key to preservation of man and nature.

Harvey envisions what he calls The Seven Heads of the Beast of the Apocalypse as:

1. population explosion
2. environmental pollution
3. religious fundamentalism
4. proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
5. separation from nature through technology
6. corrupt conglomerations that own and create mass media
7. societies that multitask, which makes it “impossible to concentrate on our divine nature.”

A grim list, until Harvey counters with the Seven Stars:

1. the current world crisis that compels us to strip away false agendas and “to look deeply into the shadow of humanity”
2. the emerging technologies of wind, solar and hydrogen power
3. the birth of the Internet, a popular, affordable global means of communication
4. the mystical revolution of the past 20 years
5. the rise of compassionate non-violence as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, and evidenced in the collapse of the Berlin wall
6. the return of the “Divine Feminine,” which is reflected in the growing recognition of mankind’s interconnectedness
7. the birth of “divine humanity,” or the growing belief that God is within each of us.

Harvey counsels as he dances from theme to theme that the five ways to become a “mystical activist” are:

* to serve the divine, to make a space for God in your life
* to serve yourself, so that you will be grounded in reality
* to serve others
* to serve your local community
* to serve your global community.

He believes that each individual can become a mystical activist by “becoming conscious at every level and conscious of all choices.”

In turn eloquent, threatening, exuberant, enlightening and spiritual, Andrew Harvey draws the audience in through his fervent belief in the “Divine Mother,” the mother of all beings, and he calls on each individual to “burn like her with meaning, strength, joy and sacred passion.”