A (3:36)

It's remarkable. Tell me what sensations or perceptual shifts signal that something real is happening? Rather than symbolic belief, there's a.

B (3:45)

Do you ever have that sense of sort of goosebumps when you hear something that's true or aha. Moment in your life that changes your perception? Or for some people that can see into the unseen, they may experience flashes of brilliant white light or an overall sense of pure unconditional love that just is like a warm hug to your being.

A (4:15)

Tell me, in your personal journey, was your transformation gradual regulation or sudden reorganization?

B (4:22)

It was very gradual. I those sudden, beautiful experiences, but they weren't abiding and they weren't lasting. They came and they went. They were beautiful and they were ecstatic and they gave me confidence that there was something more. But I wasn't able to live it as a living reality until I went through a gradual process of purification and transformation through an ar Sufi way, what we call the 28 stations of the soul. And in each of those stations you are given an opportunity to look deep inside and to see where am I holding any place of separation? Where is my being? Not in a place of peace and love. And begin to, through a variety of different Sufi practices, begin to wash and purify or cleanse those places so that what you then perceive is the true reality.

A (5:26)

Would you share more about your personal journey, how you arrived here and where you've come from?

B (5:31)

Sure. I came from a Jewish background and a very happy Jewish background. It was cultural as well as religious. And my parents were from an immigrant family, so it was a very close knit family. But I always had a feeling inside that there's something more to life. There's something bigger than myself in the way that I perceiving things. So I was always on a sort of search for truth, if you will, even as a young child and in high school, discovered the whole world of meditation and really enjoyed the world of meditating. And that's when I had those what you might call peak experiences and gave Me hope that there's something more to life than just sort of my normal day to day experience and gave me a sense of purpose in my life through those meditation experiences. But I still had this longing for something more. And I didn't know exactly what that something more was until I moved from the world of special education as a principal and a teacher into the world of alternative healing. And as I moved into that world and really worked with young children as well as adults who were at that transition from this life to the next life, different things were opening in my being. And I started to recognize sort of a healing gift, if you will, within myself. And as I explored that more and traveled around the world actually to different healers, studying and learning about this whole world of spiritual healing and alternative healing, it came across a Sufi guide and a Sufi master from Palestine, and he literally rocked my world. What he did was break down all the preconceived perceptions that I had, preconceived perceptions that I had about Muslim shaykhs, for example, when he gave me a big hug instead of as I was in India and namaste. Opening up a perceptual world that in Sufism we call. There's like four different stages. The world of Mulk, which is the world that we live in. The world of Malakut, which is the world of the angels and the unseen beings. The world of Jabirut, which is where all the sort of beautiful divine virtues and qualities come that make up our being in its most pure form. And then the world of what we call Lahut, the world of divine intelligence, where, if you believe in God, where God would reside in its creative form. And as I traveled through each of those different worlds, through his guidance, I changed and I transformed the part of me that was at strong, activist and needing to fight in the world for what's right, realize that there's a divine order, that even though in my physical eyes I might see something that doesn't appear to be what I would believe, right, that there's another place where everything is in its divine order and there's a purpose behind everything, and a mercy and a love behind everything. And I noticed that when I was working with people who were dying because some of the last words that they would say to me as they were taking their last breath is, I now realize all there is is love. And to. To recognize that while we're still alive and to live from that place while we're still alive was my journey and my transformation.

A (9:27)

That's fantastic. To that End. You often speak about the heart as an organ of knowing. How should we understand that metaphor neurologically or psychologically?

B (9:35)

Psych. The heart is where we feel our emotions. And in that place, we can either feel wounded, hurt, or feel comforted or contented. And it's the understanding of how the heart regulates not only our nervous system, but has a wisdom beyond what our mind knows. And when we allow our mind. And I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so my mind and my intellect were very alert. So to make that switch from your mind's wisdom and your intellect to the intellect of the heart's wisdom is something that requires a deep surrender of our being. Because we want. We want our brains to rule things. And our heart, by its nature, wants to harmonize things. Our brain has its function in that it helps us discern. Right. I know that you're a man and I'm a woman through what my brain signals will tell me. But my heart tells me that there's a unique unity that goes beyond male and female. And that unity is a oneness between us where I can't make a separation between you and I. All I can experience is the divine love between us that we were created from.

A (10:53)

Fantastic. Across contemplative traditions, we see rhythm, breath, and repetition. In standard practice, what's happening to attention and identity.

B (11:02)

During Sufi devotional practice, your identity as a male or a female, your ego as we know it, generally dissolves into an ocean of divine love. So it becomes a drop in that ocean. So whatever your ego thinks is important, Whether it's prestige, whether it's pride, whether it's this sense of safety or trust, it literally annihilates itself, if I can use that word, into an ocean of love where those become totally unimportant. So we say that in Sufism, you die before you die. So your ego dies to what it thinks it needs, to a higher consciousness, a God consciousness, a unity consciousness where you can see everything as part of a whole. Where diversity no longer becomes threatening, but becomes beauty in that unity.

A (12:00)

So if these practices obviously are intended to dissolve narrative self structure. Tell me the defining line between healing absorption and standard dissociation in the practices themselves. The way they might mechanically be undertaken by a participant.

B (12:13)

Yeah, in disassociation, we leave our body. And oftentimes that was the experience that I had in meditation, that I often felt like I was leaving my body. In these Sufi practices and purification practices that we do, it's really about being grounded in the earth, feeling the roots of your being deep in the earth. And Feeling those branches in the heaven so you're not disconnected to what's happening inside you. I often say to my students, you can't experience and know what your heart is saying to you if you're not in your body. So the practices actually take you deep into your body. Sometimes that may bring up some past experiences that aren't so pleasant in your life. But if you recognize they're coming up so that they can be healed, then they're not so frightening to you and you don't need to disassociate or leave your body for safety.

A (13:13)

Very insightful. You've worked with thousands of individuals in states of deep suffering. From your observation, what's the first internal shift that signals real healing has begun.

B (13:23)

People begin to feel that they can love themselves again, that there's a self love that happens that's not based on anything from the outside anymore, but a feeling inside that I'm okay, no matter what happens, I'm okay and I will be okay. And that's the signal for me that things are starting to open.

A (13:44)

So is it relief from pain, restoration of meaning, or an increased relational openness? You, you recognize in these individual all

B (13:52)

three actually, that oftentimes there's a strong release of pain. I just had a student that we were working with that had a heart arrhythmia. And through the Sufi practices and the repetitions that we do of sacred names, her heart arrhythmia stopped completely and is now norm in a normal rhythm. And it was maybe took an hour of a repetition of a sacred name for God.

A (14:21)

Walk me through that. Is this a mantra based meditation or is it something different?

B (14:26)

So let me walk you through it because that's probably the easiest and we can only do a little taste of it, but I'd like to give you that taste. So the first thing is to put your hand on your heart so you can feel the beat of your heart, feel the resonance of your heart. And just let your awareness move out of the thinking brain into that gentle beat of your heart into that kind of ah of your heart. And just take a couple of deep, deep breaths, Just letting go. Just be present in this moment together, knowing that everything is okay, whatever happens. And another deep breath, breathing in and breathing out there, letting it all go. And then one more deep breath and just notice what's happening in your body. Is there any tingling, any feeling in your belly? And just be aware of it. Don't need to do anything other than just notice, just be aware. And then we work with sound Vibration in Sufi meditation. And the sound vibration starts with the ah, because the ah opens the heart and then the law grounds it. So we're going to put it together now. Ah. And you would continue to do that for about 20 minutes. We don't have time in your show for the whole 20 minutes. But that begins to open up a deeper consciousness for your audience. We have a little gift. It's called the five C's of Sufism, of inner truth. And it takes you through a longer version of this. Remembrance is what it's called. And it helps you remember who you are in truth. And it starts with consciousness and then connection.

A (16:39)

Excellent. How can listeners find the five Cs?

B (16:42)

It should be at the end of this session. It's Sufi5 the number5.com and you just type in Sufi S U v s u f i5 the number5.com and we will send you the the series. There's five different videos to watch and exercises in each video to walk you through the components of beginning the practices of Sufism for change, transformation, purification, and finding what we call haki, hakika, the reality.

A (17:19)

Run those through one more time.

B (17:20)

5 Connection. Consciousness. Connection, clarity, commitment and communic. And each of those will have a video, a little worksheet for you, a practice to do to take you through a purification, a transformation and a beautification of your spirit and soul.

A (17:40)

That's wonderful. Do most people recognize the shift immediately or more in retrospect?

B (17:46)

Most people recognize it almost. What did you notice?

A (17:49)

It felt immediate? Yeah, I would say it felt immediate. Very, very confident. Calming, to be sure.

B (17:54)

Exactly. Yes. Most people experience a sense of peace and calm, sort of worries start to disappear. I was probably a queen of the warriors. Not warrior, but warrior. My personality liked to worry. It was very dramatic in that sense. And I can't find a worry bone in my body these days.

A (18:17)

That's excellent. You are the picture of peace. To be sure, most listeners probably seek spiritual practices as tools for anxiety. Right. Circulation. Can Sufi methods function as physiological stabilizers rather than purely devotional acts?

B (18:32)

Yes, and that's the beauty of it. As I said, you know, to be without worry in a world today that is so anxious and unpredictable is such a gift, you know, to release the traumas of just for most people, daily life today and all the wars and everything else that's going on in the world, and to find that inner sanctuary and live your life from that place is. Is a gift.

A (18:58)

It is. Which practices do you feel are most regulating for an overstimulated Contemporary mind, the

B (19:05)

practice of remembrance, that I just gave you a little taste of that, that that practice contains everything within it. And if you look at it and sorry, we don't have a visual here, but if you. If you take a cross section of your heart, you'll see that there's a symbol in the cross section of your heart. It's almost like God has his name within your heart. So it starts to, as you repeat this remembrance, this. It starts to regulate your nervous system to return to peace, to return to that divine love. And then the other practices work with different divine qualities. So, for example, if you were worried about something, you might work with the quality of salam, which is peace. There's another quality. If you were working with trust, for example, and not feeling quite trusting, you would work with a quality called mukmin. In each of those, the syllabic phrase of it has a resonance within the bodily energetic system of our being and begins to literally calm your being down and help your being regulate itself. We say that there's a healer within and you're awakening that healer within to heal yourself.

A (20:28)

You've been through quite a few, a few styles of meditation before you settled where you are. Have you found that there are risks in approaching sacred practices instrumentally?

B (20:38)

I think the risk is if you. And that's why commitment is so important on this Sufi path. It's the story I'd like to share. It's an old Sufi story, is about a man who was looking for water and he went into his yard digging a hole. And he was digging a hole, like putting a shovel in and digging a shovel full, and then saying, whoops, snow, water. And then going to another place and digging a hole and whoops, no water. And he did this probably for about 25 holes in his yard. Very curious, wondering why he's not reaching water. And a Sufi master came along and said, Instead of digging 25 shallow holes, pick one and dig deep. And that's for me, I would say, if anybody's interested in Sufism as a spiritual and healing practice, take the commitment to dig deep. Sometimes we say it's the difference between, between dating and getting married. You can date, you know, all around and check out different people, but when you want to get. When you're looking at getting married, you want to make that commitment to one person to have as your lifelong partner.

A (21:49)

It's profound. Most mystical traditions describe unity consciousness in experiential terms. What distinguishes genuine unity from emotional projection or wishful thinking?

B (22:00)

The experience that you have that tells you that it's real. So it's a direct experience that's hard to describe because it's not your mind thinking that, oh, gee, it would be. We call that false unity. Gee, I really like to be in love with everybody, or gee, gee, I really would like to see the tree praising. It's my praising God. I'd like to hear the. The frogs in my pond singing praises. When you're in a unity consciousness, you actually do hear, hear that in the sounds of nature. So it's not just a wishful thinking, but a direct, actual experience.

A (22:41)

So then how would one remain functional in ordinary life after such states?

B (22:47)

Because this is what ordinary life is if you're having an experience that takes you out of ordinary life. It's, I think for me, it's one of the reasons why I'm not meditating from some of my old meditation text techniques. Because in those, it was beautiful experiences while my eyes were closed, while I was meditating. And then I had to live in the world. In Sufism and the Sufi practices, what you're doing is living in the world with your Sufi practices so that each day, each minute, each section of the day, things are becoming more alive to you in ways that help you live your life. Not ways that take you out of your life. Ways that make your life more meaningful, more purposeful. Ways that allow you to feel mercy and compassion in areas that you couldn't feel mercy, Mercy or compassion. So it helps you in your daily life rather than make it impossible to function. I remember those days when I couldn't function. They're unpleasant. You know, you go to pour water into a glass and you can't find the glass because everything is right. They weren't fun experiences.

A (24:01)

Yeah, absolutely. You have a very evolved perspective. You've been doing this for a very long time. Do you see presence being trained through stillness or through confrontation with uncertainty?

B (24:12)

Both. One of the beauties of Sufism is it teaches you how to be in the unknown and how to be in the mystery and find safety and trust and love and peace in the unknown. So it becomes less scary for people as you begin to expand your consciousness to hold both. So it's no longer either or, but an and both.

A (24:33)

Both. Now, of course, global conflict often begins in perception long before it becomes political. How can inner spiritual regulation influence collective behavior at scale?

B (24:44)

When we begin to see separation within ourselves and heal that. I'll give you a beautiful example. In my own life, I, as I said, I grew up in the Jewish tradition. I was taught in that tradition and that culture, that Arabs were my enemy. They were out to kill me. It was in every Jewish holiday that we ever had. What see, now in the Middle east, conflict is a direct result of some of that conditioning that people are our enemies. So when I had to go to Palestine to study with my Sufi spiritual master, who was a Muslim and a shaykh, and to live in his house in Jerusalem among other Palestinians, the first night, I was terrified. I was so sure they were going to find out, here's a spiritual woman who's Jewish and we have to destroy her. And that was my reaction, reality, when I arrived that first night. So when I heard a knock on the door early in the morning that said, selima, wake up now, my first thought was, oh, here it is. I'm about to go to my death. Turns out it was my spiritual master's son, whose mom was sick, whose dad told him that I was a healer and would I be willing to give his mom a healing because she's suffering. My whole perception had me in fear initially. And it's that fear that starts wars. So if we don't stop start healing that within ourselves, we're ultimately going to destroy humanity. And for me, Sufism has the prescription and the medicine that humanity needs now to heal our hearts of this separation, of the wars that go on inside of us so we don't have to face the wars outside of us, that we know that there's enough and that we're enough. I'm on a global peace initiative.

A (26:37)

Do you believe that peace is primarily an emotional contagion or a moral discipline?

B (26:41)

Both. That the moral discipline has to do with the virtues of our character. And how do we improve our character so we move from hate and distrust and suspicion into feeling feeling of safety and trust. I was in Japan a couple of years ago on a peace mission and talking to what now? The people who got the Nobel Prize. Talking to the survivors of the nuclear war and the nuclear. And the nuclear bomb. And to see how they are now, how they are so committed that nuclear war cannot happen again. They're so committed to peace, they've learned the lessons of hate, to love. And our world needs to learn that lesson to see that. You've, I'm sure, have talked to astronauts that have gone into space and looked down at our world. There aren't boundaries in our globe. There's one beautiful earth, and right now we're destroying it.

A (27:42)

Very stark and valuable point to consider. Most healing narratives frequently include moments described as grace or transmission. How should we understand these Moments without dismissing them or romanticizing them.

B (27:54)

I think the important thing to understand about any kind of transmission or grace is that it doesn't become a bypass, what I would call a spiritual bypass for dealing with the hurt, the pain, the trauma, the weaknesses within our human constitution.

A (28:16)

In Sufism, do you believe these practices are more cultivated or passively received?

B (28:21)

Both. That there's a striving and a magnetic attraction. So both are important.

A (28:27)

Can you outline both, each one for a standard practitioner?

B (28:30)

So in the beginning, there's a certain. Remember I talked about longing. There's a certain striving that we go through. I recognize. And just personally, in my own case, I recognize this place of deep separation within my being. There's a war going on inside of me. I have to be willing to face that war, to look at it before I can heal it. It's not magically just going to happen. That's magical thinking. It's not going to. I can't wish it away. I can't allow enough light, if you will, to come into my being through a transmission without doing my own personal work with it. That's the striving as we strive, drive. It's like sort of walking to. From here to the edge of the ocean, right? So I'm now at the edge of the ocean. Now I can let a wave come over me and feel that sort of magnetic attraction of that wave of light and love. But if I don't do that striving first, I'll get to the edge of the ocean. I was. I was just in Morocco recently, and we were at the beach, and one of the children that I was with, when he got to the edge of the ocean, he's like, I'm afraid. I don't want to go in. The striving helps deal with that fear. So when you dive into what we would call in Sufism, that ocean of love, you can dissolve in it, immerse in it. And then it's fun, then it's joy, then it's a inner happiness that no matter what happens in the world or in your life, nothing can take away from it. So you've moved beyond what we would call Jalal, sort of the harshness and the severity. And you've also moved beyond, beyond the softness and the severity and the softness and the beauty into what we would call a kamal, a completion within yourself. So you're no longer torn between those two poles. And that's the inner joy, if you will, and the inner happiness and peace where you're living your life in Its meaningful, purposeful fulfillment of what your destiny is here.

A (30:36)

So when passive revelations occur, when it's received, how do practitioners interpret this? At what level would they expect for it to be spontaneous?

B (30:46)

There are what we call seven different. What we call stations within Sufism. And when you cross that fourth station is when it starts to become, in your words, more spontaneous. At the first three stations, you're really working through all of the inner conflicts of what I believe is right, what I think is wrong, the separations, the places, places within ourselves that we don't hold ourselves in self, love and dignity. And those first three stations, you need a guide to help support you. They're hard to go through by yourself, which is why in Sufism, we have teachers and guides to help hold your hand, if you will, and support you through those transitions in your life. And when you hit that fourth station, it's a turning point where things become more restful, more peaceful, and you're ready to move to that next level of your completion. So that by the time, and as I said, I've spent a lot of my life working with people in the states of dying, and the one thing that I hear continually is regrets about how they live their life, looking for states of forgiveness, looking for ways that they wish they could have done things differently. These first three stations help you walk through, through that, so that you're not at the moment of your death in states of regret or looking for some forgiveness for something that you did that you feel regretful about.

A (32:22)

After decades of guiding others, particularly those at the end of their biological life, how has your own perception of suffering changed?

B (32:30)

There's a. And this may sound very strange to your audience, but there is a deep beauty in suffering. There's a mercy, if you will, and a connection, connection where the suffering becomes a doorway for people. It becomes a window into a possibility, into an unseen reality that is actually, actually the truth of your being. And helping people walk through that in their suffering. I've watched, you know, we have a lot of people that we work with and help support in Gaza, and I watch how they deal with the suffering that they're experiencing and how they haven'. For the most part, not everyone, but some have not lost their dignity in that. And that's what I've witnessed in people. So my feeling of suffering is no longer one of, oh, how awful, but, oh, what a beautiful possibility for this person to see, to open and to bow so that a radiant light fills them. And then suffering becomes nothing more than an illusion, because you've tasted the reaction, reality.

A (33:42)

What do you know about healing today that you couldn't have known at the beginning of your journey in Sufism?

B (33:48)

That I'm not the healer? I think when I began my career in healing, I very much was in the eye of the healing. And what I know now is there is no I in healing. That, if you will, God is the healer, and I am the empty, empty vessel that's allowing that to move through. And that has been probably the most valuable lesson that I've learned in my healing career. So that my ego can't get caught at all in who is. Who is the healer here. And that healing is not necessarily about being cured. Healing is about being whole. And that's something that I didn't know in the beginning.

A (34:32)

Would you be willing to share what you feel has been the most challenging adjustment you had to go through to enter this lifestyle?

B (34:41)

Probably. My family. It's not easy to share with family rooted in family values that seemly, seemingly contradict who I am now. So I remember when I first talked to my family about I entering this Sufi path. And my aunt, who I was very close to, felt very betrayed, and that was very hard. And what I said to her, I said, I hope you understand, Auntie. I'm not betraying anybody or anything. I am tired of fighting, and I'm looking for peace. My mom could only understand it from the perspective of the change that she saw in me. And what she said was, I don't understand what my daughter is doing. I only know I have never, never seen her happier. And as a mom, what more could you want for your child than to see them in pure happiness? My. My cousin, who I grew up with, he was like a brother to me. Stopped talking to me for years until I officiated the wedding of my niece. And then he came up to me afterwards and apologized and said, I didn't realize that you're just all about love. And I saw that as you were marrying this couple. So I'm sorry. Let's be friends again. Those were hard.

A (36:03)

What of your father?

B (36:05)

My father died when I was young. My father had ms, and he was probably the one who taught me about Mind Body Medicine. Because I found out when I was a teenager, actually, that when I was three, the doctors had predicted in the way the disease was progressing that within a year he would be in a wheelchair, and within two years he'd be dead. And I was three. I didn't know what was going on, just knew my father. There was something going on with my father that I couldn't understand. But my father told the doctors, no. A loving wife, a beautiful daughter. I'm going to have more children and live as much of my life as I can, not being in a wheelchair. And he did for another 20 years. And I had, at that point in my life, wanted to be a doctor. I think because I saw my father ill when I was a teenager, went to work in a hospital and realized that medicine in its traditional form. I don't like blood, looking at blood. I don't like being. Being in the smell of a hospital. It's sort of not my career choice. So when I became a special ed teacher, my father died. During that time, I always was concerned that I disappointed him in some way. So when he was dying, I asked him, dad, are you disappointed that I never became a doctor? And he looked at me like I was lost my mind. I was crazy. I said, no, of course not. I am very proud of the world, the work that you're doing. And I love you very much. And just remember, do what makes your heart happy. It was a beautiful idea. So my father never saw this me, but I'm sure that he would have supported me through the process because that's who he was to finish.

A (37:49)

What do you feel distinguishes sophistic practice from other meditative disciplines you've studied prior to this journey?

B (37:57)

It's as I said earlier, it's a full body experience, experience that translates directly into your life. So that in many. In my meditation practices, for example, I would have to close my eyes and sit quietly. In these Sufi practices, I can dance while I'm doing them, I can walk while I'm doing them. I can do it while I'm in traffic. And that's the, for me, the beginning. Big difference that it's allowed. It's allowed my being to be present in every moment, remembering. So that when you look at as I did with you in the beginning, when you feel the beat of your heart, you feel the beat of your heart singing the praises of your Lord, singing that Allah. And it sustains you. It brings life high to your being. It helps you remember that there's more to this earthly existence and more to what we see with our physical eyes. So look beyond and look inside, and there's a whole universe to explore. The mystery is inside. The secrets are inside, just waiting to come to be treasures in your life and jewels to live your life in a richness that you've. I've never known before.

A (39:18)

That's a beautiful incentive to be sure. Thank you so much for sitting with me today. Selim, it's been a true pleasure and I look forward to possibly having you on again sometime in the future.

B (39:28)

I would love that and thank you so much. I really appreciate all the work that you're doing and spreading these messages of the unseen, the observable, to the unseen out into the world so that we live in a better, more peaceful world together. Thank you again. Appreciate you. Always a pleasure.

A (39:48)

Take care. Cheers. Encounters like this remind us that human beings have always searched for methods of restoring inner coherence. Across cultures and centuries, contemplative traditions have offered structured pathways toward meaning, connection, and psychological recalibration. Whether one interprets such practices spiritually, neurologically, or symbolically, the central question remains the same. How does a fragmented mind rediscover wholeness? If today's conversation has stirred some reflection in you, I invite you to contribute to the conversation. You can write to me at TheObservableUnknown Gmail.com or share your thoughts through the show's channels. And if this episode brought clarity or resonance, please consider leaving a review. Your engagement helps these explorations reach those who may be quietly searching for steadiness in uncertain times. Until next time, this has been the observable unknown.