Introduction 

To grasp the Ultimate, experience must be intimate. 

Rev. Joe Miller 

What is more intimate than finding the Ultimate inside your most inside part? The sayings in this third volume of Variations on a Theme describe a relationship, not with the Transcendent Absolute, beyond the beyond, but rather an interaction with Immanent Being, within the within. 

Taj Inayat has said, “Although the Divine Presence is a reality in the depth of everyone, unless we open ourselves to its action, it remains dormant.” Contemplation and assimilation of any one of these sayings can be the catalyst for transforming potentiality into actuality. 

The non-dual practitioner may not immediately be in sync with a practice that begins in a duality: “I and Thou.” However, spirital practice is a process, a journey from one end of a line to the other.  The practice of the Presence of God progresses from “I and Thou,” to “I am not, Thou art,” and then to “I am Thou, Thou art me,” and then to simply “I am.” 

In truth, there can be no journey to God because near and far have no meaning in Unity. Can we say that the wave is far from the ocean? Nonetheless, the “joy is in the journey” and God created duality out of love–and for the chance of union. 

Habibullah Rogers 

Petaluma, 2021

You are above me.  

You are beneath me.  

You are before me.  

You are behind me.  

You are right of me.  

You are left of me.  

You are within me.  

I am within you. 

Shaykh Kalimullah 

You! The All-in-All, within, behind, beyond. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

This is all the manifestation of God, and my person is a part of that manifestation, my body, my mind, my personality, but beyond the manifestation is the Presence. 

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan 

Through my every part, I know You. 

Mansur al-Hallaj 

Every part of the Prophet Jesus loved every other part. Sufi saying of unknown origin 

Every part of me is touching You. 

Anonymous Sufi 

Let me feel Your arms around me. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

God is nearer to us than our mind and our body. Hazrat Inayat Khan 

God is closer than your own breath. 

Ibn Arabi 

God is nearer to you than your self or all the things that have happened to you. 

Jalaluddin Rumi 

God is nearer to you than what you remember, what you fear, and what you know. 

Anonymous Sufi 

Do not speak of Me as if I were not present. 

Anonymous Sufi 

Thy life is my breath. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

My body is a cover over Thy soul. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

If I am here, You must be here. 

Anonymous Sufi 

Thou art my spirit, I am Thy body. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

You are in me and in You do I live. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

To the jinn world is one step; to the angel world is two steps; but to God there is no journey: He is there. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

Why do you look for God up there? God is here! Here! Abdul Jabbar Niffari 

What we are looking for is already here. 

Taj Inayat 

If God is not here, God is nowhere. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

There is nowhere to go, nothing to do. 

Taj Inayat 

My heart and Your heart occupy the same space. Anonymous Sufi 

Always I am in Thy dazzling presence, my Beloved. Hazrat Inayat Khan 

Thou art closer to me than my self. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

Let my self turn into Thy Being. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

Thou, not I. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

God is beneath all, beyond all, within all, and without all things, covering all, surrounding all that is in heaven and on earth. God is the sum total of all that exists and which is knowable and also of the existence which is beyond human knowledge. God is the 

source of all, the beginning of all, the end of all, all pervading, omnipotent, omnipresent, everlasting, the Only Being. Hazrat Inayat Khan 

When I have become You and You have become me, when I have become body and You have become soul, then, Beloved, there is no difference between You and I. 

Amir Khusrau 

I drink the wine of Thy divine presence and lose myself in its intoxication. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

I am Thou. 

Thou art me. 

I am what I am. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan