Rumi’s Four Essential Practices: Ecstatic Body, Awakened Soul

Will Johnson
Inner Traditions (2010)
ISBN 9781594773105
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (08/10)


I’ve seen Sufi mystic and poet Rumi’s wisdom on cards and scrolls but I had no idea he began as an Orthodox Islamic believer.  He abandoned Islam to fully realize his potential and connection to the divine through esoteric living.

The four essential practices comprise of eating lightly, breathing deeply, moving freely, and gazing raptly.  Johnson, in “Rumi’s Four Essential Practices,” gives us a glimpse on how we can also have an ecstatic body and an awakened soul through narrative and poetry.

We too can achieve enlightenment through these practices.  I encourage readers to take time to contemplate on the works presented in “Rumi’s Four Essential Practices” and go deep within for direction on our own spiritual path. Like Rumi, we can live a divinely-inspired life.

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