MSI Press Blog

At its core, Sufism is a path of love and remembrance. The Arabic word tasawwuf (Sufism) comes from suf , meaning “wool,” recalling the simple garments worn by early mystics who renounced luxury to live in spiritual poverty before God. But the simplicity was never about clothing — it was about purity of heart. Sufis have always understood that the real journey is interior. The world may swirl with noise, ambition, and distraction, but the heart can be trained to become a quiet, luminous chamber. The work is to polish the mirror of that heart until it reflects divine light clearly — not distorted by ego, fear, or the restless stories we tell ourselves. This polishing is not a one‑time act. It is a rhythm of life: remembering, forgetting, and remembering again. Sufis call this dhikr — the practice of remembrance. It is the steady turning of the heart toward the One who is always present, even when we are not. And the goal is not escape from the world but awakening within it. Sufism doe...

Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -10-   The heart of most spiritual practices is simply this: Remember who you are. Remember what you love. Remember what is sacred. Remember what is true. Remember that you will die and that this day is a gift. Remember how you wish to live. Wayne Muller In May of 1995, actor Christopher Reeve was taking part in an equestrian competition in Virginia when his horse abruptly stopped before a jump, throwing him forward onto the ground. Unable to break his fall because his hands were entangled with the reins, he landed on his head and suffered a broken neck. The former Superman, Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down for the remaining nine years of his life. In the immediate aftermath of the injury, Reeve considered his profound disability and told his wife, Dana, that “maybe we should let me go.” Her response was, “You’re still you, and I love you...

Excerpt from  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star Memory, Forgetting, and Lapses   Just to reinforce the matter—or in case you are skipping around in this book and did not see the earlier memory discussion; there are three stages to memory: awareness/attention, encoding/storing, and recall/retrieval. In this section, we are focused on what happens after you have learned something and need to use it. When you want to remember, you will need to recall the information you have learned. One of three things he can happen, and we have all experienced all three: we remember it perfectly (yippee—hope that happens always, but it does not), we remember it imperfectly (oh, too typical), or do not remember it all (even if we remember having spent time studying it). Knowing what has happened in each case, brings us to a point of orienting our study and actions for better recall, as well as teaching us not to beat ourselves up when we have a glitch or lapse. Reme...