And then as the beloved one feels the response to life or the response to one's own actions. And then the other is in our relationship with the world. Which is the openness to see the beloved is always there. That openness, just to hold that openness that the beloved is always there. And then out of that openness, the willingness to look or to respond to the beloved.

[01:10]

And by that I don't mean that you just try to see life through kind of tinted rose-colored glasses. Or that you seek to deny certain feelings that you have or what's actually maybe psychologically transpiring in the moment in a relationship. To honor that and also look for the beloved. Now the last thing that I would offer is something of the framework in which I have attempted to offer the teachings. Many of the teachings are drawn from the Sufi tradition centuries old. And in the past it would have been unthinkable for those teachings to be presented in this kind of environment.

[02:26]

And I think that that is really the particular gift, let us say, of teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Pir Vilayat, is to offer the essence of that tradition and attempt to see how it is relevant to the time in which we live and the paradigm in which we live. So it's not an attempt to return to the past, shall we say. But to live the essential truth in that tradition, in a way it can be lived in our life, in our time. And it's why Hasidina Khan said, what the Sufi order hopes to convey, a person is welcome to take back in whatever religious path they are deeply connected to.

[03:49]

With the hope, with the intention that it may be of some benefit to understand the depth of your own tradition. And the other thing that he said, which I would offer in terms of whatever I gave today, take what's of value to you, what isn't of value, don't worry about it. You don't have to take it. And the final piece is the sense from the teaching of Ibn Arbi and from Hazar Dina Khan in particular that that the divine is seeking to be manifested or revealed to come to life through your own heart.

[05:23]

So the practice of the heart is also to inwardly listen very deeply to what is it that's seeking to be born. Thank you. Danke. Ich glaube, um das Wichtigste zusammenzufassen, kann ich nur sagen, es ist wichtig, ruhig zu sitzen und dann ganz sanft sich hin und her zu bewegen.

[06:50]

And I hope that it is something that will take hold with you. Thank you. I've tried in a couple of different ways to sum up some of the basic teachings of the Hasidic path of Judaism. On the one hand, we talked about this very basic idea On the one hand, loving your neighbor as yourself.

[07:58]

On the very sort of humanistic foundation of interacting and honoring all people. And the balance of that of bringing in the divine philosophy of seeing everyone, yourself and everyone, in the image of God. Now it's one thing to be told it, to learn it, And another thing to remember. So our practice has three main parts to it. The part of learning, that we call Torah.

[09:20]

But we don't just mean reading a book or reading a scroll. But we talk about the ways of reading a book and reading life. Wir haben darüber gesprochen, nicht nur Bücher, sondern auch das Leben zu lesen. Dass wir die Dinge in ihrer einfachen Interpretation sehen können, aber auch in ihrer symbolischen. In einer tieferen Ebene, wo wir uns wirklich einarbeiten in die Texte. And really pursue a secret hidden meaning. So that every situation I'm in is an invitation to sit and learn. And to penetrate into deeper levels of what's going on in this situation.

[10:40]

Or in this relationship. So learning is one of the pillars of Jewish practice. Der zweite Pfeiler ist Dienst oder Hingabe. And there it's recognized how important it is that we take time out. Times during the day and special time during the week. We recognize the importance of special times in the cycle of the month and of the year.

[11:52]

So we don't leave it up to chance to come to that devotional connection place. So we have our practices of prayer during the day. We have the practice of the Sabbath where we take a whole day out in each week. We have the cycle of the moon, which gives us a focus at the new moon and the full moon. And the cycle of holidays during the year. And these are times to take time out.

[12:54]

To connect to the beloved within us. to switch to that place like we did in the songs of feeling the beloved really reaching and speaking and filling us. And all of these practices of learning and of devotion Und alle diese Übungen des Lernens und der Hingabe führt uns dazu, dass wir unseren Nächsten lieben können wie uns selbst.

[13:59]

Dass wir das Göttliche in uns selbst und in allen anderen sehen können. So that our practice of serving others And so our practice of serving others and our actions of kindness, of well-being become something that is strengthened. It's possible to say that really all of our work is in the name of what we call Tikkun Olam, which really means a fixing of the whole world. We don't feel that the world is something we just pass through.

[15:10]

A testing ground or a training program Ein Testprogramm, ein Lernprogramm. There should always be poverty so I can experience how I interact with poverty. Ja, in dem Sinne, dass es vielleicht nötig wäre, dass es immerzu Armut gibt, damit ich einfach Erfahrungen machen kann, wie es mir geht mit Armut. There should always be war so I can experience how to deal with war. Dass es immer Kriege geben sollte, damit ich einfach erfahren kann, wie ich mit Kriegen umgehe. We come to this world to improve and change and fix and elevate this world. But this is the most important thing.

[16:47]

When all else fails. When you don't know what to do. You don't know the answer. Just rock out. Rock around the clock. And it doesn't hurt to sing a song while we do it. Take a mantra. And just rock back and forth. This way we engage the body while working the mind.

[17:53]

Auf diese Art und Weise geben wir auch dem Körper etwas zu tun, wenn wir den Geist üben. And I would just close by saying that there are some beautiful teachings in the Hasidic path that the whole Torah the whole Bible, all of our wisdom literature, is just a love letter from the beloved. A love letter from God. Saying, I want to see you. You need a microphone?

[19:26]

No, I can't. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. It's all been said. I'm here for the first time, and I think it's, I just want to testify that the work for my brothers here, who didn't give up on me, I would be sitting here tonight. So never give up. And I've learned to take it easy but not be lazy. It just doesn't work in your heart to have fear.

[20:32]

So you just don't really have a choice when the fear comes in. You just have to say, okay, with your will, replace it with the faith mind. This is like the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. It just can't be in the same exact place at the same time. So I just want to bless us all with whatever we choose to do. We dig a well and dig it deep. And just allow those living waters And just allow that this clear water, this life water can nourish us all.

[21:37]

When I get really confused, I go by the Shlomo Kalbach's mantra, what do we know? What do we know? Open up to what's here. So, you know, it's wonderful to be with you. And, you know, there's no questions, no students, and there's no teachers. So, you created us. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm talking too much anyway.

[22:52]

Thank you. Good still. No. But thank you. offer one thing just to thank you all. Just don't forget that stillness is medicine. Ich möchte euch doch auch noch was sagen und euch auch danken, dass ich so mit euch zusammen sein konnte. Vergesst einfach nicht, dass stille Medizin ist. One thing that we have shared among ourselves and also a number of the staff people have said to us is they don't remember in the experience of the camp ever having a group that has brought together this kind of depth and this kind of maturity in the camp.

[24:12]

And we're just deeply, deeply appreciative of what you've created because that's also It's what you create that then draws something out of us in response to that. Ich möchte auch noch etwas mit euch teilen, was wir untereinander schon besprochen haben und was auch der Staff gesagt hat, dass sie es noch nie erlebt haben, dass hier eine Gruppe war, die irgendwie so viel Reife mitgebracht hat und so eine besondere Atmosphäre erzeugt hat wie ihr. Thank you. I think it's time now to answer some questions.

[25:22]

And though we received some questions in writing, we would still like to hear them expressed in the spoken question. So hätten wir es doch gerne, wenn diese Fragen noch einmal ausgedrückt werden in einer wirklich hier gesprochenen Frage. Und wenn dann einige in eurer Gruppe mit einer bestimmten Frage gearbeitet haben. Even if you wrote them down, please express them again for the whole group. There's one area which we discussed in our group, which has in particular not been addressed so far in this week.

[26:29]

which is around the spiritual aspects of partnership and sexuality. So we came up with two questions in this area, and we would like to ask you to share with you, or that you share with us, not only the views of your traditions on these aspects, but more even your personal thoughts. Auf Deutsch. Also wir haben ein in the area of our group that has not been addressed directly in this week.

[27:37]

These were the spiritual aspects of relationships, religion, partnership and also sexuality. We worked on this area for two days and we would like to ask you to share with us what the traditions say about it, or express themselves about it, because they exist, but also, of course, how it stands personally. The conservatism that triggered it sounded a bit strange. So, of course, not so personal. It's not personal in this way. It's not like that. Yeah, I'm afraid we can't compete with talk shows.

[28:47]

Since you're the trans... Since you're the translator, Ulrike, could you translate for all of us? Of course. So, okay, one question was, which is the role of sexuality for the personal spiritual development? And the other question, yeah, maybe up the board. Okay. What role does sexuality play in the personal and spiritual development? Another question is, how do traditions, but also the new development that we all see in the creation of partnerships, That is, in the past the lifelong community of life and today a tendency to be contemporary togetherness, to be completely free together.

[30:08]

How do you stand on the question of marriage? What forms of guidance, of accompaniment for couples, how to do that? I think it would be necessary to have a whole other week to deal with all with this. So... Maybe let's focus on just, is there in each tradition a connection between sexuality and the practices? Also ich versuche das ein bisschen einzugrenzen, weil ich glaube wir würden eine ganze Woche brauchen um weitere Wochen mit diesen Fragen uns zu beschäftigen und möchte es ein bisschen fokussieren vielleicht auf was ist das Verhältnis von Sexualität Okay? Okay. Start rocking. Okay. Okay. The rocking that is done often in prayer.

[31:42]

One of its images is of a flame moving gently And one of the images is of sexual movement, relationship. That there is this movement to become close, to become one. So it's not so bad, this rocking. I mean, just briefly, sexuality is very, very important in Judaism. And much of the imagery is between the relationship of the infinite and the finite.

[33:03]

Of God and the world. The beloved and the beloved. What can they do without the microphone? It's about the recording. Fixing of the world. So everything of a coming together of the opposites is a fundamental practice

[34:09]

So it's there in this cosmic sense. And it's there in the human relationship. So in our tradition, marriage is very much stress. It's a very important part. In our tradition, marriage is quite stressful. I mean, it's very important. And within the relationship, there is a very important discipline of times when we can be together and times we can't. So that we relate to each other, not just sexually, but also in the relationship. so that we have relationships with each other, not only sexually, but also in other areas.

[35:56]

Hannah, Sarah will also say something, and Rep. David will say something soon, so don't be so personal. So this practice of separation, called nida, is very basic to establishing purity in the family. From the beginning of the period until the end and then counting seven days after, no touching. Not in the same bed, no touching. And I think this is incredibly important. profound law that really understands the importance of a time apart to gathering your energies when you're very sensitive and falling apart.

[37:14]

And it takes the ego out of, not tonight, honey, why? God said so. Thank you. But it's really a very wise practice because it honors being a brother and sister, friend, other ways of relating, giving over more energy to your children. And it's a very wise practice because the other aspects of the relationship are also appreciated. The relationship as friends, the relationship as brother and sister, that you have more time for your family, and so on. Then you can renew the sparks and the romance.

[38:34]

It gives you a chance to look forward, to not be bored. It's a dance part together. And then you can just look forward to reliving the romance, to letting the sparks spray. And yes, it's a dance. But as for sexuality, it's always a problem. But I think it's important to say there aren't any. But I mean... Oh, no, no. No, and then, you know... But having sexuality and children are totally wonderful and considered a blessing.

[39:56]

It's part of life. It's not a problem. And having sexuality and children is part of life. It's not considered a problem. was that basically in the tradition, it's not that sexuality is some unfortunate thing we have to do and get it over with, which is often communicated in many religious traditions, that it's this, well, we have to have children or somehow, but so, you know, but when we are in that phase where it's allowed, it's allowed and it's enjoyed and it's a gift. It's not some, you know... What I tried to say here somehow is that it is not the case with us that sexuality is considered as something that is defended or something that one brings behind to testify against children.

[41:02]

No, it is like this, if it is allowed, then it is allowed and it is really something very enjoyable and something that is an important part of our lives and not something that one simply brings behind. I've been looking forward to what you might say. Okay. Three or four years ago, Baker Roshi was asked the same question at the camp, and he said, may I quote you? I guess. He said something like, I really like food, and I really like to have a good time, and I like to have sex.

[42:07]

I did? Yes. Excuse me a moment. And sex for me is like having a wonderful meal. And your daughter was in the kitchen helping you. She said, Dad, do you really think that? My daughter was in the kitchen. She was what, 14? Yeah. To get out of the trap, I will quote Baker Roshi, what he said three or four years ago at the camp, when they were asked this thing. And he just said, yes, I like to eat and enjoy eating and I enjoy having a good time and I enjoy sex. And what is the whole drama about? And his daughter was in the tent and listened and said, really, daddy, do you think so?

[43:12]

Okay. I really don't think I could say anything that after our Jewish teachings on this, this seems pretty complete. But I think if I respond in terms of Buddhism, Buddhism is a practice to discover how the world exists and to, through that, realize what, for the lack of a better word, let's call enlightenment. Everything that's not about that, for the most part, isn't included in Buddhism.

[44:34]

Buddhism leaves to society most things having to do with medicine, sexuality and so forth. There's some practices of dancing and so forth, but in general, dancing, singing, sex, this is all society's business, not Buddhism. And I suppose Buddhists would hope that they live in a liberal society. Now, it does come in in some ways, which I'll mention. One is there's certainly lots of practices which emphasize the wisdom side.

[45:45]

Which is a way you could take a phrase, just now is enough. That you find a state of mind so fulfilling that you barely need to eat or have sex or do anything. And as a practice you could call this, and this is more the southern schools of Buddhism, the Buddha position. The Buddha position. Each person is so complete in themselves that they don't need anything. This is a very powerful way to practice.

[46:52]

Now the schools which emphasize more the ideal of the bodhisattva, the faces of the divine which interact in various ways in society. Now in this practice we emphasize, and Zen is more on this side, though it shares both. I talked quite a bit this week about the space body, implicitly and explicitly. Which sounds like a big deal, but it's really not much different than when you're meditating, as I said, and you feel a loss of boundaries, where your hands are, you don't know quite where you end.

[47:53]

Now, the more you have this experience of melting your body image into space, when you bring that image then back into your body, and there's no ambivalence, because ambivalence and conceptual thought always draw that... wholeness away. So this space body when drawn in is experienced as bliss. And that bliss is very tangible, or pleasure, bliss, but bliss is probably the best word. Your breath itself is just unbelievably pleasurable.

[48:54]

And your whole body feels moment after moment complete. Now, this is a time in which you can develop the chakras from inside. And this bliss is so close to sexual pleasure. Sometimes sexual pleasure is used as an image to give more energy to the opening up of the chakras. Now a third aspect in the way it comes in is a more ecstatic tantric side of practice. And if we look at the three functions of self.

[50:15]

Separation, connectedness and continuity. Separation is now transformed into rubbing against the world. So the separation is experienced not now as separation, but rubbing against the world, rocking even against the world. Yeah. Anyway, so... No, no, it's fine. So it doesn't mean that you have to be touching everything, but you feel that you're rubbing against the world.

[51:20]

And that's the mind of sensuousness. And the second now, connectedness, is the connectedness of a conjugal interpenetration. So you feel a mutual interpenetration going on in every situation. So the first would correspond to intimacy or sensuousness. And the second to conjugal sexuality. And the third to pure eros. And the third would be like the look in the eyes of your lover when he or she in the middle of orgasms is all human beings. And that feeling is understood to be the same as when you really are transported by the subject-object dichotomy disappearing in unison.

[52:42]

So that feeling of climax is also the feeling of subject-object disappearing. So that's a kind of parallel to sexuality, which is a more tantric way of looking at the functions of self transported into an ecstatic body of Buddha. Okay. I haven't told her everything yet. Something to look forward to.

[54:06]

I hope. The very metaphors or language that I've used this weekend, for this week rather, The whole use of the image of lover and beloved obviously lends itself to relationship. And to sexuality. The root image, the root embodied experience of union of lover and beloved is the act of making love. So what I have to say is fairly simple. I would see relationship and the sexuality within the relationship as the practice of the heart.

[55:07]

And like any deep practice, as we enter into it, we meet layers of ourself. And layers of the other. Well, what comes to me is relationship and sexuality, I think is, to use a Christian image, is the Holy Grail. It's communion. And it may not always reach the depth of that experience, but that is the potentiality or the doorway within it. I think what we tend to have in the Sufi order is a lot of the language of lover and beloved, but not much that's said about personal relationships.

[56:47]

And I think in part that's because the context of traditional Islamic Sufism in terms of the form of relationship is so different. The way it is lived out culturally is so different than the experience of most people in the Sufi order. And I think in our time also the whole re-looking at what is masculine, what is feminine, what is man, what is woman, we live in a whole time of re-examining some of the very things that have gathered around relationship.

[58:09]

And the other difficulty I find is there's such a longing in people to see a relationship that I my wife and I find a danger about teaching it because the projection that comes back onto you is so huge because there's such a longing to see, quote, an idealized relationship. And then you can very easily end up living out other people's projections onto you rather than an authentic relationship. And what I also notice is that most people who come have such a deep longing for a relationship, that when my wife and I often talk about it, that we also have to deal with a lot of projections, that we might have such an ideal relationship and that it is simply difficult to withstand such projections of an idealized relationship for us.

[59:25]

And I know in the men's group that I've been really blessed to be a part of, the German men's group, I was asked, why don't I speak more personally about my relationship with my wife? Because people are really searching to understand about relationships. One is I wouldn't want to present myself as a teacher in that area. And the other is I think one really has to guard the soul of a relationship and not make it public property. Our relationship is for us.

[60:38]

And I would certainly have to say that my relationship with my wife has been the living practice of the teaching. And by that I don't mean, you know, every time we look at each other there's the look of the lover and the love, but that's not what I mean. All that it means to have lived with someone for 20 years through various stages of life, the knowing that arises out of that, the shared growing together. I'm just laughing because

[61:49]

It's just funny that I should hear the moment because there's a private joke between my wife and I about the sound of a cowl. I find it difficult in some ways to teach about it without eliciting projection and also the value of protecting the soul of our own particular relationship. I think I'd like to think... What I would like to say at this point is that I understand more and more, especially through working with young people, that the whole topic of sexuality and relationships is absolutely overrated in our society.

[63:27]

A time that we spend with ourselves without relationship and without sexuality, through a decision and not because we don't have a partner, that doesn't represent any value at all. in our society and it is actually an incredible claim and almost a burden for young people to somehow find a natural access to their sexuality and to make experiences with first relationships. For me it was also very, very important and it is always important, and I would like to agree with Hannah and Sarah, to have a time where you have all your strength for yourself, all your strength for your practice through a decision and not because you don't have a partner right now or the partner might be somewhere else right now. And that you really transform this force, also the grief that it is not there or that it is not the way you want it to be, that you transform it and turn it into a force that you create for yourself.

[64:46]

This is a wonderful experience in practice. and incredibly strengthening, also incredibly nourishing, to know that sexuality is something that is deeply within me and belongs to me, regardless of a partnership or the expression of it. And in this sense, for me, sexuality is deeply spiritual. Thank you. I just try to make it short. I'd like to really say how I more and more see also working with young people that our times are totally oversexed and emphasis on relationship is far too heavy what a burden it is to especially young people. How little time they have and patience to really discover this on their own and in a kind of slow pace to enter these areas in their lives.

[65:57]

And what I can say about my own past and my own life, the times in my life where I have been without sexuality and without a relationship by choice and not because of lack of a partner, have been deeply transforming me, making my practice deeper. And the discovering that sexuality, first of all, belongs to me and is a source for my own energy and for myself. And in meeting the world, it's really such a deep experience. And I would really, I just want to hold this position, you know, that... Just don't always look for relationships or expression of this. I mean, you are you with all this energy. And it can unfold. And it will unfold. Just give yourself all of this way of practice and time. And in that sense, I very much agree with what Hannah Sarah said, how she experienced these times, you know, where there's no sex and time with sex by choice.

[67:01]

Sexuality is not too dangerous, but all things that are tabooized for us, they are still tabooized, and they are so burning. I can't protest that sexuality in the last thousands of years, in every religion, in every culture, has been brought down to zero. There are no textbooks on it. There is only time for it. Well, he doesn't feel our time is oversexed or emphasized and feels it's still a taboo and there are no books about it and it's not commonly shared or discussed. So he just wants to make this stress this point. There is a very big pressure, a perfect relationship, a perfect sexuality. That is the difficulty part of the way. I personally come to the conclusion that there are difficulties, or rather the sand sips the veil.

[68:15]

It is important to accept that. She would like to add to what also Hannah Sarah said and what's been said. You know, there's such a pressure in our society and among us to have this perfect sexuality, this perfect relationship. And she experiences really some kind of pressure that bogs her down. And all the sand in this experience, maybe this is really what it is about to offer ourselves to this as a step on our path. I want to know something about how you approach young people like me. I think I'm a youngster, and last week I was very, well, a lot of things happened there.

[69:18]

But for me, it would be critical to, well, I can understand it, but to really feel it in the core. I love it. And I was wondering how you . How I or young people . And also about choice . Now it's important in my life to choose what I think about things that I want to do with my life. And it's very difficult for me to find my way, things that I want to do, how I can achieve them. Yes, a very important question has been asked here.

[70:25]

What does all this mean for young people? She is the youngest here, she believes, in the camp and she asks herself, here in the adult tent, whether you can now have a special advice for the young people and especially how young people should make decisions regarding their lives. I think that was the essence of what you asked. Again, I think we need a whole Sufi camp to really do justice to your question.

[71:28]

Within that, I want to say also to your statement, And here was a country where everybody bathed in the rivers. And there were very few private toilets. And yet there was a sense of privacy and recognition of everybody's own personal space. And after a year in India, when I came back to the West,

[72:32]

I was just overwhelmed with the sexuality. I'm not saying that taboo isn't still there. In pictures, in movies, in the way people dress. So, I mean, one reason I moved to Israel. People think, oh, you went there because it's the country, religious, spiritual. And I go, no, I went there because I wanted my children to grow up the way it was back in the 50s. And one reason, as I said, why I went to Israel, is not because now, and that's what people always think, because it's a praised country and this is a particularly spiritual country, but one reason was that I wanted my children to be able to grow up in the 50s.

[73:57]

Living in an ocean of sexuality, with or without the taboo. It's so important to respect yourself. And there is nothing that you owe anyone. And that we need to learn new laws of modesty. It's not that we have to wear a cloth over our head. Though there probably are some advantages to that. But we have to find ways of feeling that we are surrounded and protected.

[75:11]

And that who you are is much more than your sexuality. Who you are is much more than your sexuality. And that the place to test out a relationship is not in bed. And the only other, what I'll say here, when I talked about the four bodies, the physical body, the emotional body, the mental body, the spiritual body, because for the most part we don't recognize that most of them exist, So that when we feel an attraction to somebody, it most often registers as a sexual, physical sexual attraction.

[76:47]

But it might be, it most likely is an emotional attraction. Or a mental attraction. Or a spiritual attraction. But the only way my spiritual body or my mental body or my emotional body can express the attraction it feels towards somebody often seems to register as a physical body. Also in einem körperlichen Sinne. Oder das einfach bemerken, erst mal auf der körperlichen Ebene. And so as much as you can, look to the emotional connections and the mental relationships and the spiritual relationships.

[78:05]

Und so weit es dir gelingt, schau einfach auf die emotionalen und mentalen und spirituellen Beziehungen. And learn to honor that. and seek company that honors them. Well, you know, I don't teach young people much. Zen practice is an adult decision. As you know, I don't teach young people much, because Zen practice is a decision, a practice for adults. The question that still came up was, when do you become an adult?

[79:12]

When you are 21 years old? But in any case, because it's an adult decision, in general, most of the people, there's a few 18, 19-year-olds, but mostly people are in their early to 20s and 30s who start practicing. What I'm... All I'm saying is that I don't have much experience with trying to work with a large number of young people. But I do have two daughters. One is now 19 and one is 34. And they both seem to have been surprisingly... responsible in all their relationships and especially their sexual relationships.

[80:19]

At the same time very open and free in their feelings. So I don't know if my wife and I, my wife at the time, had how much we had to do with this, but maybe it's just these two children are genetically lucky. But we had some specific ideas. One is to, from birth, totally trust them. And because in the end they're going to have to make their own decisions, so from the beginning we trusted them to make their own decisions. But we trusted them in a larger context of a shared trust throughout the whole family.

[81:22]

That's one thing we did. Another thing we did is we had no concept of childhood. I think that for child labor laws and things like that, some idea of childhood may be fine. But in the sense that childhood is some special place that you're in separate, different from being an adult until you're 14 or 19 or something. I think this is a pernicious cultural artifact. It's pernicious. It means detrimental bad. And so that neither of my two daughters went through any form of adolescent rebellion.

[82:34]

They lived from birth, basically, in an adult world. We included them in everything. answered a question exactly as I would answer the question to anybody who asked. I didn't have a special way to talk to them because they were children. But at the same time we recognized that there were no educational steps that were normal in traditional societies like puberty rights. So, for example, with Sally, when she was, I guess, 14 or so, or 13, we, with one or two or three of her friends, girls who were the same age, We got a group of women together, including their mothers.

[83:58]

But not only their mothers. We went out in the Big Sur coast in California for several days, camping, and just talking about what it is to be a woman. I don't know if any of this was good or bad, but they turned out well, and it makes me very happy. You have an army joke. Sometimes it feels like that. First of all, I'm just personally really glad that you came. And really glad that you stayed. For both of you. When I first became involved in the Sufi order, I was 27.

[85:16]

And most of the people were in their 20s. And that arose out of the kind of cultural phenomenon in America at that time. And I think there were both gifts of coming to it at that age and there were also detriments in coming to it at that age. One of the gifts was to have a peer group in which you could share that spiritual orientation. Mary and I have four children that range in age from 19 to 7.

[86:24]

And we have two teenagers at home and one who's 12. And we did live in the spiritual community for about six years. But our approach, and we have sometimes wondered about that, our approach is to really respect that each of our children has their own journey to make. And although they have met a variety of spiritual teachers, and Pirvelayat used to take our older boy for a walk, they've lived around, lived in the midst of a certain atmosphere.

[87:28]

Our general approach is to really try to support what their journey will be. With no expectation, I hope, that it has to be what our journey was. So I find mainly with my own children, especially when they become teenagers or moving into their twenties, I do a lot more listening than saying. And I really try to listen to see where they are most alive. And to me that's where the religious spiritual impulse is. So my oldest son at the moment is totally...

[88:46]

alive in a combination of existentialism and the beat movement in America, the poetry and some of the Zen aspects, the Buddhist aspects. And my eldest son has his greatest vitality in the midst of existentialism and the beat movement in America, where Zen also comes in. And what I love so much is that he shares that with me and we're able to dialogue about it. And at least what I attempt to do is to reflect back to him my experience of the aliveness, of the life, of the place of connection that I experience in him around what is meaningful. And my hope is, through that kind of reflection, that he'll know what that experience is and be able to identify it as an inner form of guidance through his life and through his decision-makings, wherever his journey may lead him.

[90:08]

I just want to pass on one remark of my daughter and her best friend Hillary. Sally and Hillary. And they came home from Tamalpais High School one day. Which is one of the most hip, drug-ridden high schools anywhere. They seemed like quite mature kids to me, my daughter and her friend. But they said, everybody in high school wants to grow up too fast. And they said, everyone in high school wants to grow up too fast.

[91:37]

And we don't want to be part of this Barbie doll culture. We want to grow up more slowly. And this entirely came from them. Okay, grow up any speed you want. And I said, okay, just leave as much time as you need. We'll break now for about a half an hour and then we'll come back and do a closure of the whole camp. You want me to ring the bell? Is that all right? I know I speak for all of us when I say how wonderful it is to be here with you this week.

[93:32]

For me. As Atum said, we should see this work as our own journey, and I've certainly had one.

[93:43]

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