Show notes
Stories of The Awliya, Purifying the heart, Storytelling, Worshiping Allah, Nature of Humans, Tawba. We touch on all of this with Michael Sugich. Michael Sugich has studied Sufi doctrine and practice with spiritual masters across the Arab and Islamic world. He has been a professional writer and communications advisor for forty years and has written three books, including Signs on the Horizons and also his latest book release is Hearts Turn: Sinners, Seekers, Saints & The Road to Redemption. He is the co-founder of a successful public relations practice and has advised corporate leaders, senior religious figures and politicians. Hosts : Tanzim & Peter Gould Please email us your comments, feedback, and questions at: info@boysinthecave.com, and leave a review and 5-star rating on iTunes! Check out our website - boysinthecave.com Follow us on: Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/boysinthecave/ Instagram – @boysinthecave Twitter - @boysinthecave Become a Patreon today! https://www.patreon.com/boysinthecave -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buy Michael Sugich's Book 'Hearts Turn'. https://www.amazon.com/Hearts-Turn-Sinners-Seekers-Redemption/dp/0989364003 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shownotes Michael Sugich: 00:00 If you understand that you're supposed to be in Tawba, that this is the, this is part of your nature, is this, this sense of turning. Um, it's, it's an essential part of any kind of spiritual life you have to be in Tawba. It's it turning, it's not the, the repentance, you know, uh, this idea of repentance is like, you know, repent, you know, of all of your sins. Yes. Ideally you would be great if you could stop doing all the stuff that is keeping you back. But that isn't how things work. It's a constant process. And if you can accept that and, and the, the way that you, you achieve that is through remembering our law, returning to our law. Remember Allah, uh, you know, uh, Illah be Dhikri, Lahita, Atman Qulub. If the remembrance of Allah makes the heart peaceful. So if you remember Allah constantly, that's your tool for getting out. You know, Islam is Islam. When you die, you don't have Islam anymore as, as a practical tool that's, that's done. Islam is for your life. So use it. It's a, it's like a tool box. And if you don't use the tools, you won't build anything. But the, and the, the primary tools are remembering them. Tanzim: 01:41 [inaudible] welcome back to another episode of boys in the cave. My name is tanzim your solo cohost. Actually, sorry, not solo cohost was meant to be, but Alhamdullilah we actually have a very special, um, cohost with us. So Peter, Gould for you guys who've checked out our previous episodes. Peter, we actually interviewed him, designer, um, runs a firm, does his amazing stuff. So he's actually joining me in the cave today, but humble la. In terms of our special guests, we have Michael [inaudible]. So Michael Souk CGH has studied a Sufi doctrine and practice with the spiritual masters across the Arab and Islamic world. He has been a professional writer and communications advisor for 40 years and has written three books including signs of the horizons and also his latest book release his heart turn sinners seekers, saints and the road to redemption. He's the cofounder of successful public relations practice and has advised corporate leaders, senior religious figures and politicians. So asalamu walaykum Peter Gould and Michael Sugich and welcom to boys in the cave. [inaudible] anytime. Alhamdullilah, I know you've, I think you landed about two days ago here in Sydney. So would this be your first time in Sydney, Australia or have you personally I've never been here before. Paula. And what's been your experience so far? Michael Sugich: 03:01 It's lovely. It's very relaxed. Uh, I enjoy it very much. It, it has a, there's a certain, it looks a little bit, if you look at the street level and it looks like America, then you start looking at the houses and the architecture and it's different. So it's a kind of an interesting mix of uh, uh, styles. I feel very comfortable here. Some all of the weather too. It's great. Tanzim: 03:27 Yeah. It's um, yeah. I want to actually ask you about the weather cause it's a bit unique compared to, um, wherever we've tried. Maybe I think you, you said you went to UK previously. UK is a lot different to here. Michael Sugich: 03:39 Yeah, very much, very much. I um, the UK is a kind of second home for me, so I'm very used to it. But the weather systems there are very, it's very, in the winter it's very dark and closed in. What's beautiful about Sydney so far in my experience is the skies stunning. You know, it's huge. You've got this vast sky and you, it's, it's beautiful. It's really, really beautiful. Peter Gould: 04:10 You, you were welcomed with a really beautiful big sunset, you know, the whole sky, which is pretty unique. I mean, we don't see that often. So it was, it was waiting for you? I think Tanzim: 04:21 subhanAllah. Um, I know you, um, you actually had a invent last night. It was in regards to your book release. I assumed that was the main reason why you came to Sydney, also to check out the views and common boys in cave. But, uh, how was your experience so far in terms of the book release, your book launch and how have you, how have, um, so you promoted at [inaudible] avenue or is it specifically, Michael Sugich: 04:48 yes, we, we, we did the, uh, reading here and, um, the response has been very positive. I, I won't know. You'll have to talk to some of the people that were there. But generally speaking, uh, worldwide, the response has been very strong. Um, I'm pleasantly surprised because when you write something, um, you, even though you may think it's good, you don't know what other people will think of it. So it was, um, it was a nice surprise to get such a strong response. And also in terms of sales, the book is selling very quickly. So that's, that's a nice, that's a sign that people are interested in that they like it. Peter Gould: 05:35 My friend at, um, who runs the Bookstore Zaytuna college and a in Berkeley was just saying that yeah, it's been really popular there and uh, I guess people are resonating with it, but it's um, it's great that we have you in here in Australia sharing it with us. Hello. Tanzim: 05:51 Hamdulillah even, um, your previous Booker's boys and Cape were affiliated with the Mad Mamluks. Uh, Mahin from the Mad Mamluks, he's a cohost there. He actually was promoting like your previous book, the signs of the horizons. He loved it alot so alhamdullilah, getting that our reception, cause it's a bit unique, I feel that people don't interact enough on a personal spiritual level with, you know, people of, um, within the spiritual path. And I think it's something that's really lacking, especially in the west, like especially me growing up, you're kind of exposed to a specific type of Islam and then it gets sort of normalized to that. But then people are sort of yearning, especially living in like a materialistic world. We're yearning for that sort of spiritual, I don't know, I don't know what to call it, like a cleansing or something of that. So, um, do you feel that that is the case with, especially with Muslims, um, living in the west, what has been your sort of, Michael Sugich: 06:43 well, I think that what's unusual about the two books that I've written so far is that they revolve around storytelling. And storytelling is something that is, is in, uh, intrinsic to, um, Islamic, um, teaching. Uh, but it's something that's been lost in the modern era. Uh, the, the tradition of the TBA cart or hagiographies of the saints is something very old and ancient in Islam. But, uh, recently there has been very little, uh, storytelling. And if you look at the Koran, the Koran is, is, is a series of stories, um, arranged in a, in a almost fragmented fashion or seemingly fragmented fashion, but they're stories. And this is one of the most effective ways of, of putting across a message of, of, of, of teaching. So, uh, what I tried to do is revive this and revive it and tell the stories of some of these people in my own experiences and so on. So both books, um, have followed that kind of format of being short in short, specific individual stories of, um, uh, various people from various walks of life. And in the case of signs on the horizons, it was the story, my story, um, of stories of encounters with these men of God and women and people, you know, very extraordinary people that I've been able to meet along the way. Tanzim: 08:36 [inaudible] and that's interesting you mentioned storytelling in particular because I think especially I think even with you, I'm Peter Good. You know that you know with your work you've been bothered with bombarded with information, um, and you don't know how to kind of process it. Whereas when you talk about storytelling, I'm sure you to do through your design work as well. Um, you try to tell a story and people are more receptive towards, they tend to remember stories more easily. And I think it's interesting, it's like you're trying to revive that nature of story storytelling in general because even me growing up in Sydney, Australia, when you're getting older, we're not as in touch with the Dean and you analyze some of the stories that you were told when you were younger. You realized that had such deep meanings to it. It was something you probably didn't pick up of Itin pickup, sorry, like when I was younger. Tanzim: 09:29 But it's like what you're trying to do with your own books in particular, you actually met because for me, you know, you hear about Musa Alayhi Salaam and his stories and the profound effect on me, but you actually met those people in general. But what makes the people that you've met more different to just say your typical kind of person that wants to heal who lives in the west and goes to work from the offset. When you met them, the was there sort of, um, you can automatically tell they're a very deep spiritual guy. Like did you have to engage with them more in order to gather, you know, their personality? Michael Sugich: 10:06 Well, the book doesn't, isn't organized in that way. Sometimes you, you meet someone who has an impact on you and you only meet them for a few seconds, a minute, you know, very brief encounters that you have in other cases in the book. Um, uh, there were people that I had very long relations with, you know, that over a period of many years. And so each encounter is different. But one of the things that, um, I think, uh, one of the qualities that these people share is that they're extremely humble and, uh, they're, they, they're very beautiful character and many of them, I mean, one of the sections in Thai signs on the horizons, for example, [inaudible] it really involves, um, people, um, appearances, people who have one appearance, but they're actually there, but they're actually something else. I mean, they could look like ordinary people, but they have extraordinary inner qualities. Michael Sugich: 11:13 And I think the common thread of the people who have, um, who are saintly, let's say within our tradition, the Muslim tradition, is that they, their ego is, is extinguished. They don't have an ego. And it's very hard to imagine that if you haven't met someone like that because you think, well, how can you not have an ego? And when you meet these people, one of the things that you find is that the, they're extremely kind and humble and, uh, almost, uh, invisible in s in some senses. And they just, they don't get angry. They don't get frustrated. They don't have anxieties in the way that ordinary neurotic people have because their egos are gone or a faced. And this is through spiritual practice and that sort of thing. So that, that, that is, that's something that if, if you have the opportunity ever to meet someone like that, you, you're very fortunate. Michael Sugich: 12:21 There's a, um, there's a, um, a story of one of the saints of Islam, uh, who had a dream of the prophet Mohammed and they sent out to us and he said, Yarra Sula, what is the best thing you can do in this world? And the prophet, and they sent her to send him, said in the dream to sit with a friend of God, a saint for as long as it takes to milk a goat or cook an egg, you know? So the impact of these people is very, very profound. So when you meet them, they make an impression on you. It's almost like being irradiated in a way. So, um, that, that's really what signs in the horizon was, was to try to let people know that these people in our tradition still very much exist, but they're more or less invisible because they're so humble. Michael Sugich: 13:18 They don't really want to be known. Um, and if you, if you only know them by your intention and by the purity of your intention and your need to be, to, to meet them. Uh, the other book is really is more about the, the, um, the, the journeys of people from many different walks of life to, um, uh, to a recognition of the reality of the spiritual reality of Islam. Um, and, uh, and, and to, to the reality of is, uh, of, of faith. And so it, it signs, uh, excuse me, hearts turn is really a, consists of a series of stories of people from you who are from, they could be work. Some of them were criminals, some of them were ordinary people, some of them were our artists and intellectuals who have made a journey to faith. And so there are really interesting stories because you, you end up, um, seeing these people in the, in their transitional, you know, as they transition from being, uh, one of the, one of the stories is involves a gangster. Michael Sugich: 14:47 He was a, a heavy east London racketeer and he became a Muslim. How did, how did he get to that? He knew he was nearly beaten to death and he saw friends die. So it was the confrontation with death. Another story involved, um, a young man who was a student who was from a Brachman Hindu Bryman family and, uh, he became a Muslim after he had to, to oversee the, the burial of his, uh, his, his uncle, uh, in Benares. So, um, uh, and it sent him on a kind of a spiritual search because he was, again, confronted with death. And there were, you know, many different stories as a story of, uh, of a man who started as a Jew became a, um, a, an angle, an Anglo Catholic, then a beatnik fought with the Fidel Castro in Cuba, uh, ended up, you know, as a kind of degenerate hippy in a, in Tangier and learned his Islam through his hash connection. Michael Sugich: 16:05 So, you know, all these strange, interesting stories, um, kind of show you how the heart changes. And the point of that book is to show that [inaudible] that, that the nature of the human nature, the nature of, of people is that they're constantly turning, that the spiritually, that this idea that if you, if you sin, you're going to go to hell is not true. You see, I mean, if you sin and you die sinning, maybe you will, who knows? But the prophet Mohammed Array Serato Sonam said, if you did not sin, he was talking to his community. He said, if you did not sin, God would destroy you and replace you with the people who sinned so that they could turn to God asked for forgiveness and he would forgive them. So that's the natu…
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