In 1989, an 8.2 earthquake almost flattened Armenia, killing over 30,000 people in less than four minutes. In the midst of utter devastation and chaos, a man left his wife securely at…
-
-
Christmas tale: The pine tree in St. Martin
On Christmas eve, the parish priest of the little village of St. Martin, in the French Pyrenees, was getting ready to celebrate Mass when he began to smell a delicious perfume. It…
-
If I had only one year to live, how would I live differently?
Anthony Burgess was 40 when he learned that he had only one year to live. He had a brain tumor that would kill him within a year. He knew he had a…
-
We are already God
Rabiya (also Rabia) , a great Sufi mystic, was passing…. It was the street she used to pass every day on her way to the marketplace, because in the marketplace she would…
-
A heap of skulls
This is a story about Bayazid, a Sufi mystic. Once, he was passing through a cemetery and he came upon a heap of skulls. Out of curiosity he took one skull. He…
-
Identification is misery
Junaid, a famous mystic, was going through the market-place of the town with his disciples. And it was his way to take any situation and use it. A man was dragging his…
-
People are just the way you are
A man was sitting at the gate of a town, an old man. A rider stopped, a horse-rider, and asked him, “What are the people of this town like?” The old man…
-
Scissors or needle?
It is reported in the life of a great Sufi mystic, Farid, that once a king came to see him. He brought a present for him: a beautiful pair of scissors, golden,…
-
Couple buys a piece of rain-forest and transforms it into a paradise
Pamela Malhotra and her husband Anil have found a special calling in life: together they run the Sai Sanctuary, the only private wildlife reserve and conservation area in India. When they bought the piece of…
-
A living message
Noted Dutch post-impressionist painter, Vincent Van Gogh, was not always an artist. In fact, he wanted to be a church pastor and was even sent to the Belgian mining community of Borinage in 1879.…