Abu Yazid al-Bastami

"Nothing is better for a man than to be without anything.....When he is without everything, he is with everything." So true! In my opinion this means that once you surrender everything and cling to nothing in this world you will gain everything spiritually. So in other words...all that really matters is your spirituality and your connection with God.

"I sloughed off my self as a snake sloughs off its skin. Then looked into myself and saw that I am He." One way i look at this is basically the same idea as mentioned earlier that once you surrender everything you will be able to have a better connection with God. The second statement that "I am He" kind of confused me at first because obviously no man is GOd...haha but I thought about it more and i realize that it means He is within us...in our heart and soul. In order to see that we must shed all worldly things.

"Being in a realm where neither good nor evil exists. Both of them belong to the world of created beings; in the presence of Unity there is neither command nor prohibition." So we live in a world full of judgment...people think "oh thats good" or "oh thats bad." Well those are created judgements of this world. Who decides whats good and bad on this earth? I really like how they capitilize the word "Unity." I dont know if this is what they meant by doing that...but to me its like how they capitilize "He" or "I Am." So think of God as Unity is just amazing.

"For thirty years i used to say, "do this" and "give that"; but when i reached the first stage of wisdom, I said, "O God, be mine and do whatever You want."" I think this is such an important thing in faith. People are so quick to say God do this or give me that. Who do we think we are bossing God around (or trying to anyways haha) or commanding him to do things for us. We are just little humans with no power...lol