{"id":375,"date":"2013-07-07T14:12:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-07T22:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/?p=375"},"modified":"2020-03-29T11:51:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-29T19:51:04","slug":"path-to-inner-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/?p=375","title":{"rendered":"The Path to Inner Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the flaws of the modern materialistic life style is replacement of \u201cperfection\u201d with \u201cprogress\u201d in our daily life. \u201cProgress\u201d focuses more on the external dimension of human existence, whereas \u201cperfection\u201d primarily deals with inner growth. Authentic religions and mystic traditions invite us to enrich our soul, and not just to beautify our face but also our character. Rumi argues that the root cause of our fundamental \u201cunhappiness\u201d is our obsession and preoccupation with the \u201coutside\u201d; that is why we spend most of our energy to embellish and decorate our house, furniture, car, professional career and so forth. We are under the illusion that luxurious and conspicuous consumption leads to happiness and fulfillment in life. The starting point for curing our unhappiness is to pay more attention to our inner life. In this lecture, we will explore Rumi\u2019s teachings on inner perfection.<\/p>\n

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Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is an age-old debate about the source of human happiness and self-fulfillment. Rumi, one of the world\u2019s most renowned mystics, argues that the path to joy and happiness runs through \u2018inner perfection\u2019- by looking \u2018inward\u2019 to fully realize our humanity. In contrast, the modern lifestyle which is rooted in materialism, defines happiness in terms of finance, luxury and consumption- constantly turning our attention \u2018outward\u2019. Yet despite vast increases in material well-being in modern times, most studies show that people do not feel happy. Something is clearly amiss.<\/p>\n

Rumi would not be surprised by these modern trends. He would say that the problem lies in our looking \u2018outward\u2019, embellishing the external aspects of our life in the vain hope of feeling better inside. This is a wrong prescription.<\/p>\n

This lecture will explore Rumi\u2019s teachings on \u2018inner perfection\u2019 as a vehicle for attaining joy and happiness.<\/p>\n

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Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lectures","category-mysticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hamidentezam.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}