Neil Douglas-Klotz is an internationally known scholar in the fields connecting religious studies (comparative Semitic hermeneutics) and psychology as well as a poet and musician. He is the author of Prayers of the Cosmos, Desert Wisdom, The Hidden Gospel, and The Genesis Meditations as well as coauthor of The Tent of Abraham with Sr. Joan Chittister and Rabbi Arthur Waskow. He is the past chair of the Mysticism Group of the American Academy of Religion and is active in various international colloquia and conferences dedicated to peace and spirituality.
Sufi mystic and visionary Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri is an enlightened spiritual master. His life and works serve as a reminder that spirituality is a science and an art vitally relevant to our times. Shaykh Fadhlalla grew up in an environment where religious scholars, as well as Sufi and mystics, were part of his formative experience. His love and understanding of the universality of the Qur’anic message have imbued him with respect for other religions and spiritual paths.
Seeing the underlying sameness in different cultures and religions.
Not being satisfied with earthly comforts.
Integrating individuality with universality, inner with outer, physicality with spirituality.
Luck and good fortune vs. divine orchestration.
Life as preparation for infinite life.
Nature provides the most amazing flow of guidance, but we are not attuned to it anymore, and our material fears and anxieties consume everything.
Calibration between the physical reality and the ‘quantum field’ makes a “huge difference in the quality of life and the ease of flow”.
Different kinds of ‘mind’: Low, Normal, Super, and Supra.
Shaykh Fadhlalla’s shift from occasional to abiding awakening.
Awakenings can be dramatic (abrupt) or subtle (gradual). In any case, refinement is ongoing. Life’s challenges may still touch you, but won’t overwhelm you.
We are moving very rapidly to greater universality, acceptance, tolerance, and respect.
The benefits of contemplating the vastness of the universe.
Shaykh Fadhlalla’s two highly spiritual fathers – his biological one and his guru, Swami Chinmayananda.
The 3-day limit for grieving in the Muslim tradition.
All religions come from the same light.
“The arc of the rising consciousness is clear.”
Love of nature as a spiritual path.
“You are essentially a cosmic being on a short journey on this earth.”
Suffering can be an incentive to see God.
Karma and reincarnation in Islam and Sufism.
Spiritual and other forms of leadership is shifting from male to female. Female saints in Islamic history.
Liberation within limitations.
Some quotes:
“The ultimate treasure, without measure, is your own soul”
“Every home needs its own inner ashram.”
“Within every human being, there is sacred light. If I don’t interfere too much, if I put my shadow away then the light will lead me.”
“The master within, my own soul, the divine presence.”
Annette Kaiser was born in Zürich, Switzerland in 1948. She is a spiritual teacher, founder and spiritual director of the retreat center Villa Unspunnen in Switzerland. Under her guidance, this place has become a gem of peace and light, that inspires many people in their spiritual work. She is a visionary of a Universal Spirituality and has written more than ten books. After completing her studies in economics and sociology at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), she worked for many years in the field of development cooperation. Her special fields were the women`s cause and intercultural dialog. During 17 years, she was a student of Irina Tweedie, an Anglo-Russian Sufi-teacher (author of Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master). In the late 1980s, Annette Kaiser opened her Tai Ji DO-School, training teachers for over 30 years. Since 1998, she is authorized by Mrs. Tweedie to continue the Naqshbandiyya Mujaddidiyya Sufilineage, guiding human beings on the path of love. In the year 2000, she developed the „DO-path“, which she continues to develop and which enhances a deep transformation of the heart as a way of living in a non-dual, cosomocentric understanding. In 2017 she started teaching the art of spiritual dreamwork.
She is particularly devoted to transconfessional and transcultural evolutionary spirituality, which implies an open aware state of being as the natural expression of an integral way of living in a very deep sense. This way leads to Universal Spirituality and Universal Cooperation as Not-Two. In both areas, Annette Kaiser initiates and participates in many ways (retreats, workshops, conferences, audio-conferences, etc.) with different groups, centers and human beings in Europe and worldwide. She sees the 21st Century as a call for humanity to recognize itself as inseparably One, co-creating a new culture in collective wisdom and love of One Heart.
In addition, she engages herself also on a very practical level, always in the spirit of what Universal Spirituality means for her – ONE World – ONE Humanity – ONE Consciousness – locally and globally: e.g. recently by initiating the Co-creating Europe movement, or supporting the project of “Lebensraum Belmont” next door. And for over 30 years she is president of the not-for-profit association “Open Hands” that supports projects in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Furthermore, projects like “The path of Love – A Meditation path” and the meditation “The Golden Thread – for ONE WORLD” have been inspired by her.
She is married, mother of two adult children and grandmother.
Neil Douglas-Klotz is an internationally known scholar in the fields connecting religious studies (comparative Semitic hermeneutics) and psychology as well as a poet and musician. He is the author of Prayers of the Cosmos, Desert Wisdom, The Hidden Gospel, and The Genesis Meditations as well as coauthor of The Tent of Abraham with Sr. Joan Chittister and Rabbi Arthur Waskow. He is the past chair of the Mysticism Group of the American Academy of Religion and is active in various international colloquia and conferences dedicated to peace and spirituality.
