Sufi Heart with Omid Safi

Omid Safi and mythology expert Joshua Michael Schrei explore the shared threads of spiritual traditions, discussing ecstasy, discernment, and the courage to cultivate a heart that becomes a refuge for others.

This episode was originally recorded for The Emerald, a podcast that explores the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. Brought to life through the wise, wild, and humorous vision of Joshua Michael Schrei — a teacher and lifelong student of the cosmologies and mythologies of the world — the podcast draws from a deep well of poetry, lore, and mythos to challenge conventional narratives on politics and public discourse, meditation and mindfulness, art, science, literature, and more. Subscribe to The Emerald on your favorite podcast app for more conversations like this!

In this episode, Omid and Joshua navigate:

• The connecting thread between different faith traditions
• The mythic, the ecstatic, and the embodied
• Making contact with the mystery
• Building spiritual rhythm through daily practice
• Real friendship: holding up the mirror to one another
• Staying consciously open but maintaining wise boundaries
• Spiritual naivety, working on discernment, and being aware of self-justification  
• Political activism and taking accountability for our own roles
• Making our hearts a garden in which others can seek shelter

About Joshua Michael Schrei:

Josh Schrei is a podcaster, myth teller, teacher, and a lifelong student of the cosmologies and mythologies of the world—in particular the Indian subcontinent.  Throughout a lifetime of teaching, study, meditation, and yogic practice, wilderness immersion, art, music, and public speaking, Josh has sought to navigate the living, animate space of the imagination and advocate for a world that prioritizes imaginative vision. Josh has taught intensive courses in mythology and somatic disciplines for more than 20 years. Keep up with Joshua on his website and stay tuned for fresh episodes of The Emerald.

"When we re-find that ecstatic thread, then we find that thread unifies so many things that we once thought were disparate. The divine has always been accessed musically, through story, through art, in so many different ways, through mythic study. All of this is a different way of getting out of agitated consciousness and into a place where we can find that ecstatic experience."  –Joshua Michael Schrei

About Omid Safi:

Omid Safi is a teacher in the Islamic mystical tradition of Radical Love, and serves as a professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. Omid’s passion for teaching has been recognized by his ten nominations for Professor of the Year awards. Omid has published extensively on the foundational sources of Islam and Sufism. His Memories of Muhammad is an award-winning biography of the Prophet Muhammad. His most recent book is Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition. He teaches online courses through Illuminated Courses on topics ranging from Rumi to the mystical dimension of the Qur’an.  Lastly, he offers for the general public Illuminated Tours , spiritually oriented contemplative journeys and retreats which have brought more than 2,500 friends from over twenty countries to Turkey, Morocco, Andalusia, and now Umrah since 2002. 

"There is such a thing as the dark side of the force and there is tremendous power in it. There are people who derive their reason to live and ability to get up in the day from that very negative energy. I don't think it's the healthiest one, I don't think it's the most beautiful one, but to pretend that it's not real and merely an illusion I think that's setting yourself up for a very rude awakening. Maybe what you want is to hold up the mirror and say yes this has power, but is this the most beautiful way to live?   –Omid Safi

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Focusing on the feminine side of religion, Omid Safi and Willow Brook express how divine love and connection transcend all binaries. 

This episode was originally recorded for the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook - a podcast that explores divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. Learn more: Wild Heart Podcast | On Youtube

This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi chats with Willow Brook about:

• Navigating this mass global suffering 
• Tapping into love while going through crisis 
• Remembering that the self and collective are wrapped up together
• Connecting to the lived experience of others
• What it means to make love and beauty real
• Lessons from great activists like MLK Jr. and Malcolm X
• How essential black women have been in the civil rights movement
• Expanding our notions of love beyond the romantic
• The divine mother and feminine wisdom within Islam
• Deeply knowing that we are never apart from God
• How we are all living in the same spiritual ecosystem, the same divine womb
• The dichotomy of form and formless, body and spirit 
• Love as embodied service

About Willow Brook:

Willow Brook is a love coach, interspiritual companion, and earth-rooted educator dedicated to helping people awaken to deeper intimacy, presence, and love. For over a decade, she has guided individuals and groups through transformational spaces around the world, weaving somatic intimacy practices, ritual, meditation, and song to support the alchemy of heartbreak into embodied and nourishing connection. Through her signature coaching program, Open to Love, Willow supports those who long for fulfilling and soulful relationships with their bodies, partners, and the divine but feel held back by the pain of the past. As co-founder of Wild Heart with Mirabai Starr, she also facilitates community grief gatherings and ceremonies rooted in the divine feminine for people of all genders. Listen to Willow's The Wild Heart Podcast to hear more about the intersections of love, spirit, and embodiment. You can also keep up with Willow on Instagram.

About Omid Safi:

Dr. Omid Safi is the director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King and Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours.

Check out Omid’s books Progressive Islam and Radical Love for more progressive perspectives on wisdom from ancient sages 

“If we are both in the same divine womb, what atrocity would I commit without it also coming back to me? How would it change our idea of environmental responsibility? Not only because this is our only home in all of the infinite galaxies, but because we are living in the same spiritual ecosystem and all of that is contained in the divine womb.” –Omid Safi

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Omid Safi discusses Sufi teachings from one of the greatest muslim mystics, an Andalusian sage named Ibn ‘Arabi.

"When Ibn 'Arabi comes, he sits with all of himself. When he's listening, he listens with all of himself. When it's time to go, he gets up with all of himself. All of him is here, so I can give him all of the love. That's such a practice, and it's such a challenge for all of us who are always distracted. A lot of Sufi practice is really this art of being present." – Omid Safi

This week on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi illuminates:

• The life of Ibn ‘Arabi from Andalusia, to Morocco, Turkey, and Damascus 
• The prayer of opening and Ibn ‘Arabi’s text, Futuhat al-Makkiyya (openings of the heart)
• Removing that which veils you from direct presence with God
• Experiencing Kashf—the unveiled revelations that arise from intimate communion with God
• The paradoxical ‘yes and no’ response that Ibn ‘Arabi often gave to philosophical questions and finding beauty in the paradox
• Remembering that we do not see God, we are seen by God
• Presence and mindfulness as a core feature of Sufi spiritual practice
• How Ibn ‘Arabi’s life teaches us what it means to have a teacher and blurring together seeker and master
• A commentary on all in the natural realm that is made beautiful 
• Dissolving the illusion of separation between lover and beloved
• A poem from Ibn ‘Arabi on alchemy and the Prophet 

“Most people translate it as ‘I become’ then ‘I become the sight by which you see’. Ibn ‘Arabi says ‘it’s not I become, I am’. It sounds really different, it hits different. I am the eye by which you see. I am the hearing by which you hear. I am the hand by which you touch. I am the tongue by which you speak.” – Omid Safi

About Omid Safi:

Dr. Omid Safi is the director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King and Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours.

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Illuminating Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teachings on radical love, Omid Safi leads listeners down the Sufi path of love, harmony, and beauty.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Sufi Heart, Omid provides a lesson on:

• The Sufi tradition of radical love, universal harmony, and experiencing beauty  
• Hazrat Inayat Khan’s timely and timeless teachings 
• Music as a sacred bridge between cultures and a channel for divine connection
• The universality of love across religions and wisdom traditions
• Seeing the unity in the multiplicity and the multiplicity in the unity 
• The reduction of love to romantic ideals and reclaiming its divine essence
• Radical love, loving all beings, and the claim that love is God
• The mystical poetry of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Rumi
• The ultimate unity of love, lover, and beloved 
• Seeing each one of our faculties—sight, sound, breath, as a portal to see and be seen by God
• The symphony of creation and what it may sound like if we operated in harmony
• How global disharmony—social, political, and ecological—reflects spiritual/inner disconnection
• Harmony as one of the keys that connects the human realm to the divine realm
• The divine light of God which is hidden in each of our souls
• Surrendering willingly to beauty and allowing it to connect us to the divine mystery of God

This episode was part of a longer conversation with friends over at Spiritual Wanderlust. Omid encourages listeners to check out that offering, part of their series on “Mystics and Prophets”, HERE.

About Omid Safi:

Dr. Omid Safi is director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King, Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone, from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours.

"The path of radical love makes an extraordinary claim. The claim is fundamentally the notion that there is no ultimate divide between the love of God and the love of creation. Love is one. Love is not merely a quality of God, love is God. It is the very being, very essence, very heart of God." – Omid Safi

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Re-enchanting the world with God, the beloved, Omid Safi and teacher Joshua Michael Schrei explore the push-and-pull relationship we have with the divine. 

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This week on Sufi Heart, Omid and Joshua get into:

• The many types of love we experience with the divine 
• How the seeker was first being sought by God
• The possibility of tying together the sensual and the spiritual 
• Nature as a living saint and master of seasons/cycles 
• Remembering the greater picture that we are all a part of 
• Balancing transcendence and imminence 
• Considering how we relate to lack and longing 
• Being in ecstatic union with the beloved 
• Knowing that God is present both within and without moments of consummation
• How the treasures of our lives are often related to the hardships we have endured
• What activism could look like in the political and social climate we are living in
• Re-enchanting the world and suffusing it with divine love 
• The ripple effect of global events and how everything is interconnected
• Pontificating how we can build a just, loving society 

Check out Joshua's podcast, The Emerald, where you can explore more of the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. You can also keep up with the podcast via Instagram.

About Joshua Michael Schrei : 

Joshua is a podcaster, mythteller, teacher, and a lifelong student of the cosmologies and mythologies of the world — in particular, the Indian subcontinent. Throughout a lifetime of teaching, study, meditation and yogic practice, wilderness immersion, art, music, and public speaking, Joshua has sought to navigate the living, animate space of the imagination and advocate for a world that prioritizes imaginative vision. Joshua has taught intensive courses in mythology and somatic disciplines for over 20 years. He is the founder of The Emerald Podcast, which combines evocative narrative, soul-stirring music, and interviews with award-winning authors and luminaries to explore the human experience through a vibrant lens of myth, story, and imagination. Less a traditional podcast and more a multi-layered sonic journey, The Emerald aims to reawaken the lost promise of oral storytelling tradition — the transmission of the direct felt experience of wonder and awe, and the rekindling of our relationship with spirit. Keep up with Joshua on his website. 

“In any great love affair, in every great love-making, there is always that moment where you lose track of where your body ends and the beloved's body begins. There is no more notion of who is the lover and who is the beloved; there's only the moment and pure absolute pleasure and bliss. That's in some ways what the mystics are trying to get to. They're trying to get to that place where the boundary between you and I, lover and beloved, human and divine, becomes very blurred.” – Omid Safi

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Omid Safi sits down with Mike Petrow and Drew Jackson from The Center for Action and Contemplation, founded by Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, to explore how a unified approach to spirituality can deepen our faith.

This podcast was originally published on the  Everything Belongs Podcast, produced by The Center for Action and Contemplation (CFAC).

The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation—the two are inseparable. As Father Richard likes to say, the most important word in our Center’s name is neither Action nor Contemplation, but the word and. This podcast episode explores elements of a chapter in Richard Rohr’s book: “Entering the World of Another: Francis and the Sultan of Egypt.”

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

Hosts of the Everything Belongs podcast, Mike and Drew, enjoy a conversation with Omid Safi about:

• Love as a representation of God in action
• The heart of the Islamic tradition
• Seeing the soul of the divine in all humans
• Coming from love and returning to love
• Considering how we want to spend our lives
• The genocide and pain happening in our world
• Remembering the core roots of religion as kindness and love
• Traversing across many different traditions and seeing the beauty in it all
• The importance of language and art in our experience of life and religion
• Saint Francis and the Sultan as a model for compassion
• Combining the mandates of contemplation and action

“What if we come to see the human heart as the highest shrine of God? How would it change the way we live together? How would it change the way we treat one another? How would it change the way we walk on the earth? The more our ethics and contemplative life feed into each other, the more luminous all of it becomes.” – Omid Safi

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Getting down to the basics of Sufism, James Cooke and Omid Safi discuss the mystery of love and our enmeshment with God.

This time on the Sufi Heart podcast, Omid Safi and James Cooke discuss:

• Sufism and mystical Islam
• Getting closer to a divine reality
• Types of love within Sufism
• Recognizing that we are interwoven with all things
• Pure love as the antidote of ego
• How we are enmeshed with God
• Making our daily life our practice
• The diversity within traditions of Islam
• Misrepresentations of Islam in mainstream media
• Extending love to absolutely everyone
• Self-love and growing in our practice of loving

About James Cooke, PhD:

James Cooke started the Inner Space Institute with the aim of helping greater numbers of people to access spiritual growth, without any of the unscientific beliefs that are common in spiritual circles. James trained as a neuroscientist after an awakening as a teenager that showed him the reality of spiritual states of consciousness. He holds three degrees from Oxford University (a PhD and Masters in Neuroscience & a BA in Experimental Psychology). He has conducted scientific research for over a decade at institutions such as Oxford University, University of California, Berkeley, University College London, Trinity College Dublin, and Riken Brain Sciences Institute in Tokyo. James is the author of The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive (coming December 2024), which synthesizes science and spiritual insight to offer a radical solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness.

“I feel like for some people, this emphasis on love can be quite healing to hear, because I grew up in a time where there was a kind of grotesque, simplified caricature of Islam…it’s healing to have contact with the reality of these traditions.” – James Cooke, PhD

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Exploring what it means to practice Islam in a world filled with evil, Omid Safi explains how strangeness can bring us back home to God.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, Omid Safi holds a talk on:

• Sacred sounds and the movement of the heavenly spheres
• Heavy hearts from global suffering and genocide
• The counterculture of Islam when it began
• Looking into our own communities to consider what seems strange
• Not being afraid to veer from tradition
• Ways that we can become strangers to our own religion
• Standing with those who are vulnerable
• Returning home to the loving presence of God
• Remembering what it means to be a Sufi
• Taking care of the poor, the needy, the strangers, the lonely

“We want to become re-acquainted and return to our original home which is the very loving presence of God. That’s where and when we’re going to be at home.” – Omid Safi

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Omid Safi discusses how modern myths like Star Wars can connect us to Sufism and the mystery of the universe.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi has a discussion on:

• The story of Moses in the Qur’an
• Moses’ teacher, ‘the green one’, and Yoda from Star Wars
• How myth-makers revive spiritual traditions
• The mythic language found in music and movies
• How Taoists, Muslims, Christians, and more see themselves in ‘the force’
• Everything as animated and the energy that flows through all things
• Recognizing that we are made of the elements and of God
• How George Lucas asks beautiful questions in subtle ways
• Considering the mystery rather than having all of the answers
• The many forms that Allah may appear in and finding saints in ordinary people
• How movies fill a gap when we mistrust formal religion

“Luke and Obi-Wan, apprentice and master, this is the very stuff of the Sufi tradition, This is part of that re-enchanting that Star Wars is trying to accomplish. It’s trying to remind us that there are these mysterious ways of the heart, of the soul, of the universe, that we can still learn.” – Omid Safi

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Sharing insights from the path of love, Omid Safi discusses the teachings of Sufi philosopher, Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode of Sufi Heart, Omid Safi explores:

• The universality of love
• Coming back to the center
• Experiencing God directly
• Signs of God in scripture, nature, and our own souls
• Having an open heart for all of humanity
• Practicing love as a religion
• Going into our breath for full presence and communion with God
• How vast God is, yet how close we are to God
• The singular focus of God as the beloved
• The necessity of our ancestors’ wisdom
• The path of the mystic vs. ordinary religion

“The center is where we come to have that direct, immediate, unmediated experience of God, which is to say, the heart.” – Omid Safi

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