The Path of Love: Inconvenient Inner Work and Service with Jamal Rahman

What does it mean to live from the heart in a world full of hardship, division, and longing? In this soul-nourishing episode, Dr. Habīb speaks with beloved Sufi teacher and interfaith minister Jamal Rahman about the mystical path of Islam, the sacred work of transforming the ego, and how laughter, silence, music, and service can all become gateways to the Divine. Together, they explore “the inconvenient inner work,” how to polish the heart, the power of unity across difference, and why telling your own heart “I love you” might just be the most powerful spiritual practice of all.

Transcript

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Welcome to Beyond Names — I’m Dr. Habib.

This is a space for spiritual seekers and soulful misfits, for the curious and the committed, for those grounded in a tradition and those who aren’t sure what they believe.
 Whether you call the Divine Allah, Yahweh, Elohim, Brahman, Higher Power — or you’re still searching for language that fits — you are welcome here.
 Together, we’ll explore the intersection of spirituality and daily life, the wisdom of many traditions, and the ways we return to our True Selves, to our Source, to the light we carry within.
 I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s begin.

To start us off, I'd like to introduce Brother Jamal. Jamal Rahman is a co-founder and Muslim Sufi minister at Interfaith Community Sanctuary in Seattle. He is a former co-host of Interfaith Talk Radio and travels nationally and internationally, presenting at retreats and workshops. Jamal is also widely known and respected for his collaboration with Rabbi Ted Falcon and Paster Don Mackenzie, the three of whom formed the Interfaith Amigos. Jamal has authored and co-authored many books, his latest of which is Fragrance of the Qur’an. You can learn more about Jamal at jamalrahman.com. Brother Jamal, thank you for being here.

Jamal Rahman: Well, thank you so much for the invitation. I'm delighted to be here, brother Habib.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Could you tell us a little bit about your spiritual journey and your spiritual story as a way of introducing yourself and letting us know where you land in the spiritual landscape.

Jamal Rahman: Oh, thank you. You know I come from a country called Bangladesh, which is more than a few blocks away, quite far, and in my family lineage, my ancestors were very interested in what is called Sufism. Which is, you might say, the mystical spiritual side of Islam, focusing not so much on theology, but on living the spirit of the tradition.

It so happened that my parents, they were diplomats. So my father chose this rather than to stay on and become a spiritual teacher. He had the spiritual learnings, but he chose to sit for the competitive exam. In our country, where you join the civil service. This is in South Asia. I'm from Bangladesh in those days, Pakistan. So he became a diplomat, and so he traveled the world, and he was posted in many Middle Eastern countries -- among them Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi, Arabia, Sudan, and I'm saying that because I learned my Islam, my Sufi studies with my parents. And then with some teachers from those countries my father was posted in. So he was posted in Iran and Turkey, where Rumi studied with great devotion, besides Hafez in Iran, that 14th century sage and poet. So a lot of my understanding of the Quranic verses have been because of my parents, postings in Iran and Turkey through the lens of Mawlana Rumi, the 13th century sage and mystic.

I'm giving a very long answer to a short question. So that has been my background.

When I came to America, I started a community called Circle of Love. We would meet in different people's homes. This was in 1992.

And then in 1997, that community grew. But it met in people different homes, in houses of different people. And then we were in need of a larger center. And this building, you can see this background. This is the prayer room of a church building which was given to us for free.

So, Brother Habib, it's a long story. But we prayed and prayed for a center, and our prayers were answered, and here we are. Ever since 1997. This church building is now called Interfaith Community Sanctuary, and we believe that all religions are a path to a shared universal.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you for telling us the story of your Interfaith Community Sanctuary, that starting with the Circle of Love. I'd like to go back to – you mentioned Sufism specifically as the path of mysticism and the path of [Islamic] spirituality.

As you know from our conversations, part of my intention with the podcast is to open the door to spirituality. So people have a greater understanding of what spirituality means to different people. So they can approach it wherever they are, and not feel like, “Oh, I have to be a follower of a particular religion, or a particular place,” like I don't have to be in this synagogue, or I don't have to be in that church or so on, that the spirituality is really in their heart. I wonder if you could tell us just a little bit about what spirituality is to you? What does that mean for you?

Jamal Rahman: You know. Let me start by saying we are very focused on what is called interfaith. And what is interfaith? Interfaith is not about conversion. Interfaith is about completion, becoming a more complete and developed human being.

So the best way I can describe this is in the words of that wonderful professor of religion, Huston Smith, who said, “You know...” and he actually said it, You have the Quran as a Muslim. You can read the Quran, understand the Quran. But if you also study other religions, you can see the Quran from different perspectives and this gives you a much deeper, more complete understanding of what the Quran is about. So for me, spirituality is about really living the core, the spirit of what is in every single tradition, and not getting bogged down in theological disputations or differences, and every tradition says there is love, there is compassion, and the reason we are here on planet Earth is to become a more developed human being, more Christ-like, Buddha, like Elohim-like, Krishna-like, and also to be of service to God's creation, so becoming a more complete human being and being of service to God's creation. To me that is the core of spirituality.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I love that you that you mentioned not getting bogged down. 

Jamal Rahman: Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Those of us who've gone through PhD programs are very, very familiar with getting bogged down. I feel like that 6 years of my life was in the bog. I'm going to have to change how I refer to it now -- that was my time in the bog. So in thinking about the same question that I posed to you, I just thought about letting go of all of those different definitions of spirituality that theologians have and just thinking about, What does it mean for me? And I thought, “it's heartfulness. It's experiencing the tastes. You know the Sufis are all about the tasting. It's the tasting of that unitive of love, that love where there is no separation.

Jamal Rahman: Absolutely.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That sense of oneness, and then living in a loving way. So I really appreciate what you're saying about how you're defining spirituality is that -- part two of that definition is service. You know that that's the living in a loving way, that what happens in your own heart is so transformative that you want to be different in the world. You want to be better in the world, you want to do better. You want your actions, your words, everything.... Yeah. 

Jamal Rahman: I love the wonderful saying of Mawlana Rumi, who says, love is in every religion, but love has no religion. And love is the cause and essence of everything. So I totally agree with you. It's you know. I've heard many of our congregants say, what is life about?

Life is really about loving. It's about being loved, not being loved, and yearning to be loved.

This describes my life journey, and hopefully your life journey. It's all about loving, being loved, not being loved, and really yearning to be loved.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. So you know -- because I told you shortly before we started recording -- how much I appreciate one of the phrases that you use, which is the inconvenient inner work. 

Jamal Rahman: Yes. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So would you talk about spirituality in terms of part one and part two -- part one being doing the work of transforming the self and your relationship to the ego and part two being service. Can you spend a little more time on part one, and tell us, or talk to what you mean by the inconvenient inner work.

Jamal Rahman: Yes, and to do it with love and compassion for oneself. That is the key. This is where love and compassion comes to do the inner, inconvenient work or inconvenient inner work. The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he was asked about that, and he said, “Know thyself, and you shall know thy Sustainer,” meaning get to know yourself, your personality, your ways of thinking. And then the second thing he said was, “die before you die.” Die to all that is false within you before you die a physical death.

And the Quran explains, you know, goes deeper and says it's also about purifying your heart and opening your heart. So this inconvenient work is about every moment of my life being a witness to who I am like Prophet Muhammad, said, he said, every day, actually, he said, every moment of your day you're either ennobling, enriching your soul, or you're diminishing your soul by the choices you're making at every single moment. So I'm becoming a more complete human being or a less complete human being, as I work on -- the work would be called transforming the ego through compassionate self-witnessing, transforming the ego from a commanding master into a personal assistant.

It requires a lot of compassionate self, witnessing and making all those exertions. And then the Quran says that you know when you have unwholesome thoughts and you engage in unwholesome behavior, the Quran says you're creating a rust on your heart which separates you from your Creator, from the light. And then, Prophet Muhammad said, “for every rust there is a polish.” Excuse me, and the rust for the polish of the heart is remembrance of God, meaning, use God's solvents of patience, love, compassion, graciousness, generosity to polish the heart, so that you can bring a heart which is polished and reflects the face of God.

And the Quran goes on to say, yes, you purify the heart, and you also have to open the heart and that means many things. But one lesson my teachers taught me is, this is a world of opposites. There is joys, there is sorrows. Your difficult feelings are also sacred, so embrace not only your 10,000 joys of life but also your 10,000 sorrows of life. And that requires some spiritual practices. The closest I come in western psychology is Carl Jung, who says, would you once in your life have the courage, the grace, to kiss the demons and dragons within you. That is how they turn into a prince or princess.

So this inner, inconvenient work is really about transforming the ego, purifying the heart, and opening the heart. It's a lifelong work of becoming a more complete, developed human being, and it happens in the daily aspects of life we are involved in at every moment we're doing this work whether we know it or not.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: You use the phrase, compassionate self-witnessing...

Jamal Rahman: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: ...and I'm just, I'm aware of how many folks today find that self-awareness very challenging, and how difficult it is for people to be still. Excuse me, the inconvenient inner work...

Jamal Rahman: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: ...it requires sitting with what is, and it requires awareness, and it requires being with yourself and being with.... When you're compassionate self-witnessing, you need to be honest with yourself, like, what did I just think, what did I just say, what just came out of my mouth. And that seems to be very challenging for a lot of people. So I'm wondering if you have any particular wisdom to help people overcome their -- I don't know if it's fear -- maybe it's fear -- but overcome that barrier that keeps them from sitting down and listening within and settling and being honest with themselves about what they're saying and doing. And do you have any encouragement, insight, wisdom, inspiration that would help the people overcome that fear -- overcome that resistance.

Jamal Rahman: First of all, you know in Taoism and Buddhism they have the same insight that, you know, Jamal, when you get to know others you become wise. But when you get to know yourself you become enlightened.

And so the whole point is, every tradition says, if possible, you know, whenever possible, or in the course of your life, learn this, that the practice of silence is essential, critical. You know this is one of the core teachings of Buddhism, Taoism. Rumi, or in Islam, they say, let me first tell you, says Rumi, what is silence? Silence is not the absence of sound, it is the absence of the little self. Then he goes on to say, Silence is the language of God. Everything else is a poor translation. Therefore, says Rumi, be silent, so that the Lord who gave you language may speak for as He fashioned a door and a lock, He also made a key.

And we get one more quotation from the Islamic mystics. In silence, the branches of your intelligence grows new leaves. In silence, the branches of your intelligence grows new leaves. I encourage you my friends, my congregants, in any way they can, even if just for a very short time, just to become still. And according to the personality, I prescribe different techniques of meditation. It could be a guided meditation. Some like to repeat a mantra. But, as you said earlier in Sufism, there is a wonderful insight, he or she who tastes, knows. So if I can somehow convince them by encouraging them. That's number one -- to practice silence -- even if it's just for 1 minute.

And one more thing I want to say about this. I found through my experience, if you tell a colleague, Okay, just practice silence whenever you can, it never happens. Because I'm always too busy doing this doing that. So what I say is just make it make it 1 minute or 3 minutes at a certain time. You just practice silence, whatever that means to you, and make every part of your schedule rotate around that. Then they do the silence. And once they do the silence they taste it. They begin to realize that from that there are many other spiritual practices that can grow. But the practice, I would say, of silence, is absolutely critical.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you for that.

Jamal Rahman: Thank you.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I also want to bring to our discussion today what's going on in the world today. It seems to me that we are in incredibly turbulent and difficult times, whether it's whether we look worldwide or whether we look in our own communities. There are so many people who are unemployed, who have been laid off. There are so many people who are truly suffering. There are people, there are children, there are babies who are starving at home. There's a lot of difficulty in the world today.

Jamal Rahman: Absolutely.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So I was wondering what wisdom from the Quran, or wisdom from Sufism, from mysticism, from any of the traditions, what wisdom can you share for just being in times of such difficulty, whether it's personal difficulty, or whether it's communal difficulty. Do you have any advice or any suggestions, for just being with that.

Jamal Rahman: Yes. Let me deal with the communal difficulty. You, in such a heartfelt way, you mentioned children being killed, innocent people being killed, children, women and so many wars that are happening. And the question people ask all the time is, Where is God in all of this? Oh, God, you’re Allah or Yahweh, whatever you call God, Rahman, where are you? You know, God, where are you? So I love this story, which is in many traditions, of this very pious person who travels to so many different countries, let's say, goes to Ukraine, to Gaza, to Sudan, and sees so much of cruelty, oppression, and finally sees this orphan child dead on the street. Nobody cares, and that pious person breaks down and just cries out, God, where are you? Where are you? Please do something, do something, God. And that night God appears in a dream in a vision, and says, “beloved one, I did do something. I created you.” So for me, that meaning is, I don't have to go to Gaza, or Ukraine, or Sudan, or wherever the conflicts are. Let me start in my own family. Am I being kind? Am I being compassionate? Am I being equitable? Am I being just with members of my nuclear family, my extended family, in my community? Do I care about those who offer me no material advantage? How do I treat them? What am I doing among the homeless in my own little way. It doesn't have to be dramatic. But what acts of service, righteous deeds am I doing in the here and now in my own circle right here, and I think that will make a huge difference. Those little acts, those little vibrations of service. They will overwhelm all sorts of tyranny, oppression, injustice as long as I am where I am right here and now being loving, being compassionate, being equitable, being just, and being of service.

Jamal Rahman: One more thing, Brother Habib, I want to tell you, these things matter. These grassroots-level things matter. You know I always think about this -- Had I ever imagined in my lifetime that the Berlin wall would come down, apartheid would be dismantled, an African American would be in the White House for two terms. This didn't happen suddenly. This is the result of this, you might say, the waves of the ocean. These grassroot level programs continuously, relentlessly doing all this work at every single level. So yes, I believe in miracles.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And you believe in laughter. Do you want to say something about laughter?

Jamal Rahman: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you know I love the words of that 14th century sage Hafiz, who says, What is this love and laughter bubbling up from within you? He said, listen to my answer, it's the sound of a soul waking up. So laughter is the sound of a soul waking up. Another verse he has, which I like, he says, God wants to see more laughter, more playfulness in your eyes, for that is your greatest witness to God. Which is why, Brother Habib, I love the teaching stories of Mullah Nasruddin. You know that fictional 13th century, a character who through his foibles, you might say, through his humorous stories, through laughter, has so many teachings to convey. And you might know one of the fastest growing spiritual movement in the world today is laughter yoga.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes. Yeah.

Jamal Rahman: You're familiar with that.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes.

Jamal Rahman: Wonderful, that, doctor, I forget the exact name, [Dr. Madan Kataria] from India, who's still alive, you know. He would give prescriptions to his patients, but then also tell them a joke. By them, laughing, they would get better. Until he ran out of jokes. Then he wondered how should, how could I continue this? Then he realized, we can just laugh. The first time he started this he went into a park and brought all his friends there, and all they had to do was put their hands up in the sky so they wouldn't be self-conscious, not be looking at one another. They looked at the sky, and just laughed and laughed and laughed, and it became so contagious that everybody would just carry on that momentum of laughter. And the people around, at first they were like this, like this respectable doctor, What is he doing? And then the laughter became so infectious. Those hands went out of their rigid pose, and they began to laugh and laugh and laugh. And today we have hundreds, in fact, I think a few 100 kinds of different laughter yoga, which is also used in hospitals here in Seattle. I guess it's the world. But doctors do it with their patients. Laughter.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's wonderful. Well, you know the Spiritual Literacy Certificates Program. Every year we would have one session that we would do some laughter yoga.

Jamal Rahman: Oh, yes, yes, I'm so glad I'm so glad! Yes, yes. So you're pretty familiar with that.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I should be more familiar with it. I think I need to practice it more than....

Jamal Rahman: We do that in our congregation sometimes, and every service we say, put your hands up like this, and just laugh, and some are skeptical, but they also, once they start laughing, it becomes infectious.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It definitely is a great way of transforming energy. Personal energy. Yeah, yeah.

Jamal Rahman: Absolutely. It is.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So we talked to laughter. And we mentioned hardships, and how we might approach that. You mentioned silence. I also want to just touch on....

Jamal Rahman: Brother Habib. May I say one thing? You mentioned...

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Of course. Yes, yes.

Jamal Rahman: ...a very important point. I'm finding out from the study of different traditions, but particularly articulated by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, saying that every religion says it's a world of opposites. There's going to be joys. There are bound to be inevitable sorrows. But the point I wanted to make, which, as I keep saying, the Dalai Lama and the late Desmond Tutu, they have articulated this again and again, that after you acknowledge your suffering, your hardship, you heal it. The way you respond to your suffering, the way you respond to your suffering, it shapes your character, and I'm quoting them, sculpts the destiny of your life. So, learning to manage and reframe our hardship after we've healed it, not to pass over it. You've got to heal it. But the way we reframe it, it shapes our character and sculpts the destiny of our lives, so that matters how I can glean some blessing. But it has to emerge from within me, not somebody telling me, or imposing that on me, that just coming up from within me, some blessing. In Sufism and in Native American tradition, they say, if you express gratitude, even in times of difficulties, you're expressing gratitude for unknown blessings already on their way. It's wonderful to keep on being grateful. But sorry I interrupted your flow of what you were saying.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's quite all right. I think I probably have let go of any flow at this point. I'm not sure I'm flowing anymore, because there's so many things that I want to get your take on. One is, I wanted to ask if you have a favorite story because you specifically brought up the stories and the value of the humor and learning through that, through those. But I also wanted to sort of transition a little bit to talking about how people experience spirituality today outside of what we traditionally associate with spirituality. So you may be familiar with some of the studies that have been done that, I think spirituality specifically has been looked at in the times of Covid, and then follow up studies since Covid. And there's been identification that other forms, not just prayer, it's not just praying at church or praying in a mosque or praying in the synagogue, that how we engage art is a meaningful way of engaging spirituality, how we interact with nature, being in nature, is a meaningful way of engaging spirituality. So these are all topics that I would love to get your....

Jamal Rahman: Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. So maybe the story goes....

Jamal Rahman: Yes, so I'll tell the story of the Mullah Nasruddin, which is one we, The Interfaith Amigos, whenever we go on our tour and speaking engagements, we always mention this story. It's about becoming aware of our stuck patterns. So here's the story, the Mullah, who's at work, this is a fictional character. He goes to work, opens his lunch pail box. What does he find? A cheese sandwich. Second day, third day, fourth day. It's always a lousy cheese sandwich. Tenth day. I'm getting sick and tired of this lousy cheese sandwich. So his puzzled coworkers, say, Mullah, Why don't you ask your wife, be persuasive, be kind, to make you a different kind of sandwich? I'm not married. Who makes them? I do. 

So it shows the stuck patterns. We blame this. We blame that. We forget that – we are unmindful of what I am doing to create that situation. There are a number of Mullah stories which, by the way, I wrote a book about this, Sacred Laughter of the Sufis, which I love to share in my lectures and my sermons. You know the other point you mentioned about art. Music. Nature. I find music, for example, to be such a form of deep spirituality. You know some say, Jamal, you're a Muslim, aren't conservative Muslims very much aren't Muslims against music? Not at all. In fact, Muslims love music. But it reminds me of this story of Rumi, a true story. Rumi was, in fact, every evening he would have Zhikr, just, you know, chanting and singing and the whirling dervishes. And one day there was this conservative Muslim who was among the attendees. And he said in disgust to Rumi, what is all this music, music, music, music? It's haram, it's forbidden. What is all this music? And Rumi says music is the sound of the creaking of the doors of Paradise. And that conservative, that uptight Muslim, he said, I hate the sound of creaking, and he says, Brother, that's because for you, when you hear the sound of creaking, the doors of Paradise are actually closing.

So music is a wonderful way, again, the mystics say music is the sound of the spheres, and we have been a part of this harmony before, and this bass and treble is singing. It reminds us of that time in those mysterious realms when we're part of this musical vibration of the cosmos. So for me music really connects me to the vibrations of the celestial realms. And one more I would say, nature. I love just being in nature. And of course, Islamic mystics say, if you really think about it, for example, Hazrat Inayat Khan said, the holiest of holy books is nature. If there's anything you want to learn about life, nature. So, for example, I love the poetry of Hafiz. You know the earth would die if the sun stopped kissing her. But even after all this time, the sun, the sun never tells the earth, Hey! You owe me. What happens with a love like that? It lights up the entire sky. It's all about unconditional love. 

You know, about believing in God, I love that poetry, which now I look at trees, that Christian writer wrote, oh, sister almond tree! Oh, sister almond tree! Tell me about God! And the almond tree blossomed. So you want to know about God. Be in nature. You want to know about unity, like Rumi says, the branches of the tree, the branches of the tree, they're swaying differently in the wind, but they're all connected at the roots. So just by being in nature, you connect with that which is indescribable, inconceivable, unutterable. And yet you can learn everything about life. Generosity. Look at a fruit tree. It keeps on giving fruits to anybody, rich, poor Muslim, Jew, Hindu, and it never consumes its own fruits -- generous, gracious, in every possible way. So nature and music for me are very important in that sense.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So you've mentioned, you use the word unity. And I'm just going to make again the connection with the world that we live in today. We see so much division.

Jamal Rahman: Right.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So much othering, you know, making someone ‘other’  because they don't fit in however, we define our group, or our tribe, or our family, or.... Could you say a little bit more about -- Buddhism has the concept of inner being. Obviously, there's the idea of interconnectedness that is present in many different traditions. Can you say something more about unity? When you speak to unity, can you speak to, tell us a little bit more about what unity means from the perspective or from the wisdom in the Sufi tradition and mystical perspective.

Jamal Rahman: I think the Sufis would say that if there is a lack of unity, let's say whether it's political or cultural or religious, it's because we have not practiced what the Quran says, coming to know the other. See, the verse in the Quran, which became very popular after 9/11, that Allah has created diversity in every aspect of life -- culture, religion, race, gender -- for one primary reason -- that you might come to know the other on a human level. And the Quran goes on to say, it's a tongue-in-cheek humorous verse, the Quran says, and Allah has created some of you to be a trial for others. It was not meant to be easy but this is my obligation in life. If I really understand the Quran, that God has created diversity for a primary reason, so I might come to know the other, which is why I like, I love the Sufi concept of -- If there's an adversary practice three cups of tea -- Listen, Respect, Connect. Brother Jamal, are you with someone you're angry with, or you have a difference with, whether it's religion, culture, politics. Are you listening? And I'm not listening if I have to be honest, I'm not listening. Because if, suppose it's you I have an adversarial relationship, as you're speaking, I'm formulating my defense. That's why I love the quotation by Rumi. What is listening? Metaphorically, metaphorically, he says, listening is like putting your head on the person's chest and sinking into the answer. That's real listening. We've been called to truly practice the art of listening. That's number one. The first cup of tea. Second, one is, listen, respect. I'm angry at that person's behavior, but I'm not angry at that person's being. Brother Jamal. If you really believe that we have a soul, that a person has Christ-nature, Buddha-nature, Elohim-nature, Allah-nature, which is why that great mystic Kabir says, when you meet an adversary, do what is right. Protect yourself, take the right action, but as you do, I beg you, do not keep this person's essence, the divine spark, out of your heart.

So I have to remind myself that when dealing with an adversary, take the right action. But, Brother Jamal, with what energy are you taking the right action? If I mind, I'm thinking you scum of the earth. You deserve to go to prison. No, I'm against your behavior, but I'm not against your being, and the mystics say that just keeping that differentiation, that discernment in the mind and heart, between behavior and being has the power to shift heaven and earth.

So listen, respect, and third one is connect. Rather than talk about ... you support Trump, or you support the democratic this and that, or the religious differences on abortion or this or that, on homosexuality, just connect with the other on a human level. Share stories. That's why I love that sentence by this Christian writer, this universe is made out of stories, not atoms. And I've practiced this all the time if I can really, sincerely, humbly. And it takes time. And, as I said, sincerity. Connect with that person on a human level, then the differences remain but now it becomes impossible for me to demonize or dehumanize the other.

And this is my ministry. Actually, you know, dealing with those who are Islamophobic, anti-semitic, misogynistic, and I find that if I do that, if I connect on a human level, differences can remain but now it becomes impossible to abuse the other in terms of dehumanizing. And, secondly, it gives rise to wonderful social projects. We can go to do together some wonderful social projects arise in the course of this relationship. So really for me, it's about connecting with the other on a human level. Simple but not easy.

God is good. The Quran says, God sent some of you to be a trial for others, and that is true.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes, in those cases it can be especially challenging to listen and respect and connect.

Jamal Rahman: Yes, absolutely, but that's why you know I love that, I love that American phrase, keep on trucking. Keep at it. Keep at it. Keep at it. Eventually there'll be a breakthrough.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So before we close, I just wanted to ask if there's any particular spiritual practice that stands out to you as maybe your favorite, or your go to? What especially feeds your heart and brings you that sense of connection to the Divine as you define it? The sort of the wellspring of the love for you.

Jamal Rahman: Yes. Yes, I do have a favorite one, which I do in my meditation, as also in my waking hours. And what is that?

I focus on my heart, and I remember that wonderful revelation that came to the prophet Muhammad in a dream, where God says, I cannot be contained in the space of the earth. I cannot be contained in the space of the heavens, but I can be contained in the space of the pure, loving heart. So for me as per the Quran, and all the readings I do, and my experiences, God or Spirit, this mystery is outside of me, and but also inside of me.

So for me, one half of my practice in meditation, and also in my waking hours, whenever I can, is to focus on my heart and tell my heart I love you, I really love you, or you are loved, you are loved, I love you, you are loved -- again and again, and again and again and again, and that, I find, is magical, and I share this in my therapy, and I find, no matter what the dysfunction is, if I can really make them do that, to tell the heart I love you or you are loved, you can say literally and metaphorically, many doors open up. So that's one half of what I do every day. And the other one is, again in meditation or waking hours, focus on my heart, which is a wellspring of eternal love, compassion, because God is outside of me, also inside of me, and I make an intention to pour out light and love in an outward expansive direction as often as I can remember in the course of the day. So telling my heart I love you, or you are loved, and sending out light and love. That's my major spiritual practice. And that benefits me a great deal.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: As you know, Sufism is often referred to as the path of love, the path of purification of the heart. So I appreciate how you bring us back to the heart. And I have especially found it helpful. And this actually came from you. I don't remember exactly what I read that you had written, and in which book it came from, but there was something that you wrote that inspired me to start touching my heart every time I express gratitude.

Jamal Rahman: Right. Exactly.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So I started doing this little thing to myself every time that I noticed something to be grateful for, and it could just be clear water, or indoor plumbing, or I mean it didn't have, it didn't have to be a huge thing, but just like every time I walk past a tree, or just like all the times that I see something that I could be grateful for. I started and it, and this practice started with you. 

Jamal Rahman: Brother Habib, I'm so honored and delighted, absolutely honored and delighted that you do it.

Jamal Rahman: Thank you. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So thank you. So thank you. Any parting words or insights, or something you really hope that the listeners will carry?

Jamal Rahman: Yes, yes, yeah. There's one thing I do want to say. We touched upon that, but to really explain that there is so much joy, not only beauty, but happiness, and ultimately what is called joy, by doing service, by being of service. And it doesn't have to be major like Prophet Muhammad said, do good deeds according to your capacity. God never tires of giving rewards unless you tire of doing good deeds. The good deeds most loved by God are the ones that are done regularly, no matter how small they are. 

So to me that's very important. Brother Jamal. What are some deeds, good deeds you could be doing regularly, no matter how small they are, like expressing gratitude, smiling, offering a helping hand. And the last thing I want to say is -- this will bring us so much joy, and I love that quotation by the one you know, by Rabindranath Tagore, who said, I slept and dreamt life was joy. I awoke and found life of service. I served, and lo! Service was joy.

And that is so true. So I'd love to emphasize that, you know, and he or she who tastes knows, once we are being of authentic service, it'll bring us authentic joy.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for being here.

Jamal Rahman: Oh, thank you, thank you, Brother Habib, and I'm grateful for this wonderful conversation.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you for joining us on Beyond Names. If you would like to just pause for one breath, one mini-moment of silence, and just for a moment take in this conversation and see what stayed with you from this conversation.

May something you heard today help you reconnect with the light in your own heart.
 May you grow in compassion, clarity, and courage.
 May you find your way — again and again — back home to yourself, back home to the Divine, however you name it.
 If today’s conversation spoke to you, I’d love for you to share it, leave a review, or reach out.
 Until next time, peace be with you. May you be light, may you carry light, and may you share your light.