Our Longing for God Is God's Love for Us

In this meditation, we see how love and understanding is expressed in two ways: the interior and the external experience or the inward- and outward-facing paths. In Sufism, there is remembrance and praise, longing and love. When unhappy we remember God; when happy we praise God. These are the only two options available to the Sufi. In sorrow, hear God's call. In joy, listen to God's song. Sinking deeper into our self, we lose the agitation acquired in experience, and come to rest as pure being – in the ‘peace that passeth understanding’. The deeper the distress on the outside, the greater the invitation to sink deeper into being. Our longing for God pulls us into itself. Our longing for God is God's love for us. God's knowledge of itself is expressed as ‘I’ or ‘I am’. There is nothing other than God's being. There were never two of us: God and ‘I’. I overflow within myself in form as the world. (Excerpt from Paradise Lost, by John Milton)