Finding God’s Truth: Love, Unity, and the Healing of Our World

Dr. Habīb Boerger welcomes Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe — physician, Sufi master healer, and Chancellor of the University of Sufism — for a profound conversation about healing, truth, and divine unity in a polarized world. Together they explore how to discern God’s comprehensive truth amid conflicting narratives, how personal healing mirrors global healing, and why mercy, compassion, and love are the only paths to peace. Dr. Jaffe shares Sufi insights and spiritual practices for awakening the heart, cultivating self-awareness, and living as instruments of divine love — both in our personal lives and in our collective healing as humanity.

Transcript

Beyond Names: Spirituality for Anyone and Everyone

YouTube Channel: Beyond Names with Dr. Habib Boerger

YouTube handle: @BeyondNamesPodcast

Episode: 19

Host: Dr. Habib Boerger

Conversation Partner: Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe

Title: Finding God’s Truth: Love, Unity, and the Healing of Our World

Description: 

Dr. Habīb Boerger welcomes Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe — physician, Sufi master healer, and Chancellor of the University of Sufism — for a profound conversation about healing, truth, and divine unity in a polarized world. Together they explore how to discern God’s comprehensive truth amid conflicting narratives, how personal healing mirrors global healing, and why mercy, compassion, and love are the only paths to peace. Dr. Jaffe shares Sufi insights and spiritual practices for awakening the heart, cultivating self-awareness, and living as instruments of divine love — both in our personal lives and in our collective healing as humanity.

Transcript:

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Welcome to Beyond Names, I'm Dr. Habib. This is a space for spiritual seekers and soulful misfits, for the curious and the committed, for those grounded in a tradition, and for those who are not sure what they believe.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Whether you call the Divine God, Yahweh, Allah, Elohim, Brahman, Great Spirit, Higher Power, or you are still searching for language that fits, you are welcome here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Together, we'll explore the intersections of spirituality and daily life, the wisdom of many traditions, and the ways we return to our true selves, to our source, to the light that each of us carry within.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm so glad you're here. Let's begin with introduction of our conversation partner for this episode. Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe is a physician, a Sufi master healer, and a Murshid, which is a spiritual guide.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Murshid Jaffe is pioneering spiritual healing, which he defines as the integration of Western medicine and spiritual practice to heal disease and improve health and well-being.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Murshid Ibrahim is the author of God's Way: Sufi Spiritual Healing. He also serves as the chancellor of the University of Sufism. To learn more about his work, please visit https://drjaffemd.com/.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Murshid Ibrahim, welcome, thank you for being here.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It's my pleasure to be here, Habib. Is that the correct name I should call you by?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes, Habib is perfect.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, yeah. I'm happy to be here with you, and happy to talk about these topics with everyone.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Alhamdulillah (Praise God). So, would you please tell us a bit about your spiritual story as a way of introducing yourself?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Oh, it's a very long story. I don't know how much time we have for it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Take all the time you like.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, where does it all start? You know, actually, it starts very early, when I was about 3 or 4 years old.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We had a little beagle, and one day I was putting my hands on her hips, and I noticed there was this large, bulging mass on her hip.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And, I went to my parents, and I said, look, you know, there's something not right here.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And, they felt it, and they said, no, you're absolutely wrong, the hips are fine.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, 7 years later, that bulge appeared, and it turned out to be bone cancer.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And the dog died from it, but what I learned was that actually, even at an early age, I was sensing what was developing in people's fields, let's say their energy fields, before it had manifested in the body. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, I had picked up that tumor 7 years ahead of time and had talked about it, but was, you know, because people didn't sense it, they felt like I was… I was, you know, wrong in what I was seeing. So for me, my life has very much been about being aware of subtle realities like that in all different levels.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And that's always been the case with me, and then in the last 30 years as a Sufi, as I went through the Sufi path, I would say that that was… has really developed and refined itself at a much, much higher level than I had as a child.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So today, a lot of my work is really about understanding the subtle nature of things, whether it's healing, or whether it's someone's, you know, path to enlightenment, or… whether it's world events, and understanding the deeper lights that are moving that may not have appeared yet, but are actually functioning and sometimes causing the very issues that are at fault, that are causing the problems to occur. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So…that's kind of my… my world that I live in. My goal is to bring love, healing, peace, goodness on the planet.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But if we don't address the deeper, unintentional, and often hidden places in situations and people, civilizations, global situations, those hidden places play out.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And they actually end up leading to illness, disease, war, conflict, and things like that. So, that's basically, I guess, in a nutshell, my story.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That was… that was very condensed, very concise.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: I can open it up a lot longer, but that's probably enough for you, but as you wish, whatever you like. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, could you give us… you mentioned world events, and…. Could you give us an example of what you were talking about in terms of… I believe you used the term subtle lights, or…what's behind, something that you're…that's happening in the world, and your way of…perceiving that or relating to it.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, we have a lot of war on the planet, right? And if you listen to what people are saying, it's very confusing.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, one side says one thing, another side says another thing. So, if you listen to it, who's telling the truth?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, what is the truth? And, and, and I think a lot of… Unfortunately, what we see globally is that media is designed to invoke reaction.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, it's not about telling the truth, it's about invoking reaction that moves people in the direction that whoever the media is wants them to move.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, and so what we're really looking at is not, you know, stories of truth where we as the human race can decide what's true and kind of come together.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But we're being… we're being, in certain ways, controlled by the media, by the narratives that are being brought out that cause us to react and to choose things that aren't necessarily what the truth is.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So my personal desire is we have to get underneath the narratives to know what's true.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You see, and to figure it out, and… There's a lot of information out there that many, many things over the last two- or three-thousand years have actually followed the same pattern where, you know, narratives have been changed to fit agendas so that the truth has been hidden, and we have to kind of get to understand what the truth is. So the first thing we have to do is discover how do we know what truth is? How do we find the truth? 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And how do we not, get caught by what I call illusions that cover up the truth.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's a perfect segue to one of the topics that I was hoping that you would address.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Just to give you a little bit of background, many folks.… I've encountered this in every setting that I've been in, whether it's teaching spiritual formation classes, whether it's been in a Christian university, or whether it's been in a Muslim setting, regardless of where I've been, I have found that there are people who are very injured by…have been… many people have been very… been injured by their experience of childhood church, childhood synagogue, childhood mosque, cultural Islam, as opposed to what you might call a true Islam. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: People… people have been injured in a way that many folks turn away from religion, or anything to do with spirituality. And so one of my intentions with this podcast is to open the door, so to speak, to say, you can be a college student whose thing is activism and social justice. And you can open the door to your own spiritual path by making a connection between spirituality, and your social justice work.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Or you can be into nature, and you can open the door to taking your spiritual path by bringing your spirituality and nature together. Like, to make these intersections, intentional and purposeful as a way of taking the path through the heart, to the True Self to use the most inclusive language. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, I'm hoping that one of the things that you can talk about and unpack a bit more is this intersection between spirituality and how we are in this world today in which we…how do we first… how do we find the truth? I think that's the first beginning of the answer. But how… how do we function in a way where we can bring spirituality together with -- how we be with world events, how we be with the horrible atrocities that are happening in the world, how we are in relation to the, the extreme polarization, how we are in relation to protests on one side versus, you know, pushing this a different agenda on the other side. Can you… can you unpack that a little bit for us?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yes. I mean, first of all, in all the major religions, I mean, it almost… they all basically start with the same understanding, which is, in the monotheism, meaning Christianity, Islam, Judaism, it starts out, and it says, in the Name of God, the Merciful and the Compassionate.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, if you look at the monotheistic side of it, it's really saying that there is God. God has a name. And that the nature of God is mercy and compassion.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And then if you go into other religions, you know, the other major religions on the planet, or what, Buddhism, Hinduism.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And then there's, you know, smaller ones, or Zorastrianism, things like that. But if you look and read all of them, they basically are teaching the same concepts, which are mercy, compassion, love, unity, oneness.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And they're asking people, even in Buddhism -- Don't do ... don't do any harm, be compassionate, be merciful with how you create reality. So all the major religions are basically teaching the same principles.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Whenever we look at what's going on in the world, we have to address the world through those principles. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, if you look at what's going on in Gaza and Israel, or Ukraine and Russia, or Somalia, and Iran, or any of these places, the question that always has to be asked is, is compassion, mercy, and love, and unity being addressed in the actions and the principles and the belief systems of those groups, or is something else going on?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Which is, what, violence, aggression, separation, hatred, protection, things like that. What's the underlying functioning of what goes on in those groups?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, for me, at a global level, you know, for example, is Russia operating from love, mercy, compassion, and unity?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Or what is it operating from? Is Ukraine operating from that?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, we have to look very deeply at those things to know.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay. And for me, that's the first place I go when I look at any situation, whether it's global, whether it's religious, whether it's groups, whether it's even conflict between two people -- Are the people operating from reaction? Are they operating from violence? Are they operating from hatred? Are they operating from separation? Or is there intention to bring unity, to find love, to find mercy, compassionate ways of dealing with the situation?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, if they both are, there's always an answer.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It's when one side or the other, or both, choose not to go, now we have to deal with other things, which is how do we deal with a group of people that have moved into violence or hatred, or…or destruction or negativity, you know, how do we deal with that? And the issues generally come down to the same thing, which is that the issues that are driving people into those situations need to be addressed.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, like, why is that happening? What's going on with it?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So first is, how do we find the truth? Second is, are the actions and the intentions of the various parties involved mercy, compassion, love, unity, peace or not, or violence, hatred, separation. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then…And then I… I suppose the next step is to act on that, right, act on that knowledge?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yes, yeah, I think, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So before we get to acting on that knowledge, how would you advise someone to bring together their spiritual path, you know, whatever it might be, with finding the truth. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Like, I don't know that…people are necessarily adept on the outer or the inner in today's society at discerning the truth.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, how do… how do you… what suggestions do you have for those first two? Finding the truth and in looking at…the inner, if I may say so, to see, or both, outer and inner, to ascertain whether the actions and intentions are in accordance with these characteristics that you mentioned as going, as being common amongst all the traditions, the peace, the love, the mercy, the compassion, the….

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yeah. Well, I think this is where the intersection between spirituality, religion, and global understandings need to come together. In other words, the people, you know, it's….

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: For example, somebody I know once said, you know, how would the U.S. try to bring peace in the world when we have generals who are promoting war are trying to bring peace? In other words, only people who know peace in their heart can really find a way to bring peace. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And if you put people who don't know peace, who've been…you know, climbing up the ropes of power and control to become peacemakers, but really they're about power and control. They're not going to be able to bring peace.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Peace is going to come when people who have reached peace, which are people who are deeply spiritual, deeply loving, deeply kind, who know that, are there to kind of promote the peace process. We need those people. Yes, do we need to set limits? Of course. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But at the same time. We also need to work with people who really understand and promote love and peace as their core nature.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Does that makes sense, what I'm saying?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Absolutely, yes.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, that's the problem. You know, people in power and control are trying to bring peace, they don't know anything about peace.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: The people who know peace, but people who've walked the spiritual path, who've cleaned their hearts, who have found love inside of their own beings, who have mercy and compassion in their hearts, who can recognize when things are operating from qualities other than those places. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Those are the people, that's the groups of people who need to be working together, not to be asking people who…you know, maybe spent, you know, a couple years and millions of dollars getting into a position of power or control, and then asking them to bring peace. Doesn't work. And that's what we're seeing, that people don't actually know how to bring peace.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, to paraphrase, you that -- In order to bring peace, in order to bring mercy, in order to bring love, in order to bring unity, what we need is to walk our spiritual paths, purify our own hearts, until our own hearts are hearts that know and carry peace and love and mercy and compassion and… Oneness.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yeah. That's right, and the people who are negotiating peace, you know, have to be able to have realized that in themselves as well.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: I mean, are they acting from a place of peace? Do they understand peace in their own heart? Do they know love in their own heart? And can they help to bring that?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, and that's what we need to see more of.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And, you know, until…. You know, when you have two… if you're a parent and you have two children fighting, what do you do? First thing you do is you separate the children. Right?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And then you try to teach them how to be.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But you separate them. But what you don't do is you don't take one child and just start beating it up, and then…you know, or take the other child and start beating it up. You know, if you do that, what you end up doing is creating two very aggressive children who are going to end up being… becoming more violent at the end of the time.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, if you have two children that are fighting, you separate them. And then you try to understand what's moving in them, that they're… that violence is happening in them, you know? Are they jealous? Are they… is one of them seeking power? Is one of them feeling victimized, you know? Is one of them bigger? You know, you start looking at what the forces are inside the child that are forcing those children to fight with each other, but you first separate them.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Now, that's not what's happening in the world. When there's troubles, what we do is we go in and we go into war. We actually go into the fire of war and conflict, and we make it worse.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And the world is complicit. All of us are allowing this to go on. When… if there's a problem, you separate it, and you bring a group together to work out the issues. And there is a truthful way to work out the issues. There is always a way through in God's way. Always there's a way through. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But you separate it, and then you find what the truth is, and then you work out the truth. If you have alternative agendas, and you're not working out the truth, then, then you hide it, which is what we're seeing in the world, that the hidden agendas are not being brought out. And so then we end up battling, because it's really not about peace, it's really about agendas.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: That's what we're seeing worldwide today.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: One of the things that I…. One of the things that I think a lot of people experience is overwhelm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: When they… they find the…. Just in conversation with people, I think that there's a general sense of being overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: There's overwhelm by a sense of the scale of atrocities that are occurring, and the scale of suffering.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then there's also, on the other hand, a very small definition of what is the in-group.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: In-group?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: In-group, yeah, like, the… a very small definition of tribe, or family, or community, such that the… the caring is reserved for this very small group rather than caring for the broader community, whether that's a localized community or a worldwide community.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: What would you… What would you advise in these different situations?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I can't help but wonder, when you have people who are overwhelmed by pain, people who are overwhelmed by powerlessness. You know, like, there's such a… it's a difficult time.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I'm wondering if you have things… I almost wonder, like, if you were given a person who… given Jane Doe and John Doe, what would you say to Jane and John, who are at home, and they're watching on the news, and they're in tears, versus what would you say to Jane and John who are at home, and they have isolated themselves to the point that they only care about what's happened to their immediate family members, and beyond that is… is almost as if they're non-human. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know, like the… the neighbors are non-human, like… How would you speak to each of those?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: This is why I say that… that ultimately, if we separate into what you're calling, sort of, almost non-human, you know, personal, it's, you know, protection, you know, it's our family against another family, we don't even think about them, then we're going to destroy ourselves. There's no question, as humanity, we're going to destroy ourselves.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: The answer has to be in understanding, caring, loving, finding compassion, finding understanding, listening.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And responding with love and mercy and compassion to the other neighbor, to the other people.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, if… And so isolating, which is what a lot of the world is doing right now, is only going to end up in trouble. When we isolate and we pull out, and we don't deal with the things, or we close down and we segregate or separate, so now it's our group against their group, which we see going on all over the world today, in every different area, we're back into polarization and polarization only leads to conflict, we know that.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: The answer which has eluded humanity is mercy, compassion, and love.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: That is the answer, and that's what people have to be taught, which is, You have to start with mercy and compassion and listening, whatever's going on, whatever the groups are. Ukraine needs to listen to Russia, Russia needs to listen to Ukraine.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: NATO needs to listen to…. Whatever is going on. You know, Iran needs to listen to Israel. Israel needs to listen to Iran.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We have to listen to what people are really hearing, really saying. And we have to say, well, what's the mercy? What's the compassion? How do we deal with this with love?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And have we even heard what the issues are? What are the real issues going on? Have the issues been addressed?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: That's what has to happen today, where we can no longer hide in the shadows, we can no longer hide and polarize and segregate.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, it's… we have the internet, everything is out there, you can't really hide it anymore.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We have nuclear bombs, hydrogen bombs that destroy our planet. We're at a phase of human evolution that what has worked in the past does not work anymore. It doesn't work.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We have to come to the table.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We have to learn to negotiate, we have to learn to talk to each other, we have to learn to understand it. And negotiation, you know, works, you know, from the level of the deal. You know, we can kind of figure out, okay, I'll give you this, you give me that, but that doesn't mean we've understood the conflict.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: What's the conflict? What's really behind these conflicts? What's really going on? What's really needed?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, for example, if…if what's said, that Israel's decision is that really they want, the Holy Land from the Jordan to the ocean, from the…you know, from Lebanon, Syria, down to parts of Egypt. And that's become… and that's the driving force behind the war, and that's really the driving force behind the war, then that has to be addressed. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: If it's really that there's just, you know, Muslim terrorists, then that has to be addressed. But if it's really both going on, then both of these things really need to be addressed.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: In other words, if… if it is about expansionism, and it's not being… and people are being driven out of their homes that has to be addressed by a world situation. It cannot just be… have our eyes turned on it and say, okay, it doesn't exist.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, at the same time, you know, whoever's killing each other isn't right.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But if the world turns a blind eye, and we don't even look, and we don't even know, and we don't even react, then we're complicit in the situation ourselves. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And that's what's happening. We know that International Criminal Courts have said one thing, you know, the United States has vetoed it, the only one that's vetoed it. Sometimes England.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, the whole world is saying one thing.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And then one small group, which is the people in power, are vetoing it, and that leads to war.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Where is the understanding? Where… what is the truth… you know, what do we need to do with that? What needs to happen with these situations? We need to listen to each other, okay? If Israel really feels that they have a right to that land, What's the truth of that?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, are the people who are being displaced, do they have a right to stand up for themselves? What's the truth of that? What is the truth? We need to get to the truth of these things, and really understand it, and try to work it out, and not allow, you know, any one group to dominate a narrative. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It has to come into a global situation of all of us in the entire world looking at what is the truth of the situation and what's right. And that's going to be how this thing responds, and how it's answered. It's starting to happen.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But it's cost a lot, and there's a lot of lives that have been lost now, throughout the world, because of it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Is… spiritual awakening, if I may use that term, or an awakening of consciousness, is that… necessary for getting to the truth in the way that you're speaking of?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: There's… there's many truths, you know, there's an old story about the elephant and the blind… the seven blind people. You know, there's… the story is… I can’t remember, it might even be a Hindu story, but there's seven blind people, and they're walking across a river, and they run into an elephant.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And one of them grabs the tail, one of them grabs the trunk, and one of them grabs the tusk, and one of them grabs the leg, and…and each one of those, you know, says, well, one says, well, the truth is, an elephant is this long, skinny tail, you know, with this little fur on the end. Another one says, no, an elephant is this big, powerful leg. Another one says, no, it's this trunk that moves around. Another was like, no, it's hard as a rock, like a tusk.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Those are all truths. But they're not the truth. The truth is that it's an elephant that has all those pieces.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Right? So, when people are engaged on a spiritual path, they're learning to get to the truth of the elephant, which, by the way, we call God's truth, versus the smaller truths, which are actually the truths of the individuals who are involved.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You see? So, spirituality, what spirituality does is it opens you to the larger picture of the truth, of God's truth, of the elephant.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And from that truth, you say, oh yeah, there is a tail, and there's a tusk, and there's a trunk, and there's a leg, and all those things exist, and they all have purpose, and they all have movement, but the big truth is it's an elephant.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And those are parts of it, and we can't separate and just say, okay, well, the tail is the elephant. That's not true. The truth is that it's all the elephant, and it fits together in some way. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: That's what true spirituality does. It opens us to the larger truth of what is. So when you have groups, you know, which are generally countries, saying, well, my group is right. No, my group is right. No, we know what's right. No, we know what's right. What we have are the seven people, the blind people, who don't see the elephant, you know, standing for their truth.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You see, and if you don't engage in the spiritual practices, remembrance, meditation, dhikr, which is recitation of divine names, things that lead you to God's larger, comprehensive understanding, you will continue to stand for your own personal truth.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, mine's a tail, and yours is a leg, and then we're going to fight each other because they're opposites, and we both have the truth. And we're fighting for our truth.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yeah, but the truth is that you're not really fighting for the truth, you're polarizing in tail and leg, and now you're having war against each other because of the differences in your truths.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: The way out is the comprehensive truth, which is knowing what God's reality and God's truth is, and that's what we have to teach people. It is not about polarizing off of smaller truths.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It's about understanding the comprehensive understanding of larger truths. What is really going on?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: What is really going on? Is it true that God has promised the Jews that the from Jordan River to the sea belongs to the Jewish people, and therefore, it is their land, and they have the right to displace anybody on that land and make it their home? Is that the truth? I would say that that is the tail.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And is it true that the Palestinians who were there, you know, who were living there, and, you know, were farming and living for centuries on land, which sometimes didn't belong to them, that they have a right to stay on their land, because that's where they started? Well, that's the leg.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And those two conflicts are coming together and ending up in war. And when you have war, and you have helplessness, you create evil. It forms evil, and that's what we're seeing. We're seeing evil operating through this conflict in the name of righteousness. And that's… this is the problem. It's… it's…it's not right. What's the truth? What does God want for both?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And I think the answer is very simple. God wants the children of Abraham to be beloveds.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: To care for each other.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: To love each other.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: That's what He's seeking. That's what God is looking. How do these two brothers come together in love, not how does one kill the other? You know, and unfortunately, that's been the story since Cain and Abel. It's been going on for the very beginning of time.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So…the answer is not going to be, well, the tail rules the leg, or the leg rules the tail.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: The answer's going to be, what's the truth, which I believe is God saying, love each other. You are brothers. You both come from your father Abraham, find a way to coexist in love, and understand what needs to happen out of that love. That's the answer, that's the comprehensive truth.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm pausing to give myself a moment to…to breathe, because I, you know, when you say that, it brings up a lot of emotion for me, just, you know…God wants the children of Abraham to coexist in love.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Look, Jesus said, you know, love each other.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It's in the Bible, it's in the teachings of Jesus. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, if you go to the Quran, it says, I created many tribes so that you could know each other.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It didn't say I created many tribes so you could kill each other. They said I created tribes to know each other, to help each other, to learn from each other.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, in Judaism, there's great, many, many teachings about… about bringing peace and love, and if any group has been persecuted on the planet, it's the Jewish people.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So if any group knows about persecution and oppression, it's that group.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, so all these religions know that persecution, oppression, is wrong.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And yet, we continue to act from that. We're not following Christ, we're not following Moses, we're not following Muhammad.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And we're certainly not following God.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: What we're following is human selfishness.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And that's causing conflicts that are destroying the planet.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So… One…If you were to… It's a two-part question. If you were to recommend a spiritual practice, and if you were to give a word of advice… 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yes. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: ...so if you were to recommend a spiritual practice and give a word of advice to someone who is just beginning to explore spirituality....

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I think let's take them one at a time. So, if you could start with that one.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, again, what we're seeking at the deepest level is to understand quote, the truth of, let's say, the truth of God, or the truth of the elephant, or the truth of the comprehensive understanding of what's really going on.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Once we have the understanding of what's going on, then maybe we can fix it. You know, but when we don't know, when we polarize, we end up in war, and conflict, and hopelessness, and hopelessness. So, there are many practices that lead to that situation. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: In Sufism, contemplation of God. Remembrance of God's name. Certain vibrational things, such as the A, just the ahhh sound brings in the heart, it brings in the love of God. So there are practices. In Sufism, we remember the name Allah.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Allah is a name that has been given for God. But as long as it has the A in it, the ahhh sound, it can work. So you can… God has the A sound, it can work.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yahweh has the A sound. It can work. So you can use different names to trigger that whole truth. The A sound triggers the divine truth. That's just the bottom line of it.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Secondly has to do with awareness. You have to be aware of yourself. Are you aware of your own judgment? Are you aware of your own hatred? Are you aware of your own fear? 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Because most of what happens on the planet and in conflicts comes out of two basic forces, fear and rage.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: They're mostly emotional situations, and those fear and rage come out of belief systems.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, so the awareness of what is our belief systems, are we aware of what we believe?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, are we aware of, you know, what we think our rights are? You know, if we think that we have the right to destroy somebody else, and we have a belief system, and then people fight against it, and then we hate them, now you have the seed of war.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, so awareness and… connection to God. And the practices that bring the love are the three basic practices that have to happen whatever your religion, whatever your culture, whether you're….

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: If you're Christian, then learn to practice the love that Christ taught. Okay, if you're Muslim, learn to practice the world of unity. You know, if you're Jewish, learn to listen to the oneness of God, and the laws of God, and practice the laws that were given to Moses.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: In other words, it's all there, all these source people, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, they all got the clear understanding directly from God that were needed for their people.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But you have to be conscious. Are you practicing? Are the Jewish people practicing the laws, really, or not?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Are Christians really practicing love? Or not?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Is Islam really practicing the Quran, and the light of unity, and the oneness, and being a true servant of God that Muhammad taught? Peace and blessings upon all of them.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: What is being practiced out there? So, consciousness awareness, and Love and contemplation of God's light. Those are the three basic practices that have to happen. And by the way, consciousness is called meditation.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Contemplation, contemplation of God, self-awareness, and... 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Love.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And practices that bring the love.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Those are the three basic practices that all of us need.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: All of us, because if you miss any of them, I know people who really worship God, but they're not that self-aware.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And so they love God, and they're present with God, but they're very unaware of their own ego self, and it causes problems. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: I know people who are deeply loving but they don't really, you know, contemplate God, so they don't really have the truth, and so their love is misinformed.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You see what I mean? You have to really have all of them to… you have to work at all three levels. You have to have love. You have to have consciousness of yourself and others. And you have to understand that God is the comprehensive light that holds all of it in its right place. And we have to do all three of those.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You're welcome.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I know that your… much of your life is devoted to the intersection of spirituality and healing. And I'm wondering… when you… when you're talking about globally, world events, is it substantially different from when you're talking about individual healing? Talking about global healing and individual healing, and the intersection of spirituality in relation to those two things? Is there a substantial difference, or is it essentially the same?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: It's essentially the same.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yeah, the body is metaphorical. In other words, you know, we have a liver, and a heart, and a mind, and eyes, and….

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We also have energy centers, you know, Hindus call them chakras, Muslims call them lataifs, you know, there are different energy centers through our system.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And, but so does the planet. You see, the planet actually has the same energy systems in it, and cultures who develop in those energy systems take on the quality of those energies, so a place that's full of love will take on the energy of love.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Probably one of the holiest places on the planet are… is probably Jerusalem, and that area. It is… it is a manifestation of the divine love.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, but there are other places that have power, there are other places that have consciousness. You know, and in the United States, if you go to Boston, you know, it's very much about the mind. You know, if you go to Chicago, it's very much about, you know, the solar plexus.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, so there are different manifestations in every country of these levels as well.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Global issues are, in many ways, are no different. They're resolving the same conflicts within the human being that we do through healing. So if I'm working on healing, somebody has heart disease, it's about the heart center. It's… it is always related to love. Always.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, if I'm working with a thyroid, it's about expression, it's about creation, it's about the word that's spoken.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, in the human being, you know, you get hypothyroidism, you get heart disease, but on the planet, what are the outcomes of conflicts in the love?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, the big one is what you see happening in Israel right now. You have conflict between Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. You know, very foundational conflicts of love going on there.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, healing of the individual is no different than healing the planet.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: In fact, the planet is… is…you know, reflecting the human individuality, and the human is reflecting the planet. They are mirrors of each other.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, and the healing, really, at the end of the day, has to start with ourselves.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: In other words, we have to… we have to, as humanity, we have to start healing the anger, the hurt, the pain, bring our hearts back to love. That's, like, the first step is bringing the heart back to love.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And the second step, well, some might say it's the first step is our relationship to God. Are we… is God…the comprehensive truth ruling… or is the separate truth ruling?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, and I'm saying that until we have that connection to God, we do not have that com… we don't even recognize the comprehensive truth. And so we're automatically in polarization.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, and polarization is healed through love, but when it's love, you'll actually end up in comprehensive truth.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Or the other side of it is go to comprehensive truth, and it will end up in love.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So you can go either direction. But it has to come together.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I feel that you've answered this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway, mostly just because I want to hear you repeat what you….

Dr. Habīb Boerger: But there's so much othering going on.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So much of…?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Othering. Of making someone else the other, making someone else the enemy. There's so much separation-making, right?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yep. So…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: How does the person who is, in fact, trying to grow their awareness of themselves and others, contemplating God in an effort to be in right relationship with God and open to awareness of the comprehensive truth, doing their darndest to be in the love.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So how does… how is that person, when faced with the…the… the… the other person who is… making the choice to… separate, seek power, of…systematic violence… supporting systematic violence -- How does A be in relationship to B?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, I think we have to start with the concept of unity, which is that…you know, in all religions, in all teachings, there is a oneness. So if you go to India, what do they do? You know, they namaste. What does that mean? I bow to the God in you that is the God in me.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, but what are they… in Sufism, we would say the spirit in all of us is the same, that it's the in-blown breath of God within all of us. So all of us carry the breath of God within our spirit. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And when we hit that place, we find the oneness between all people. And that doesn't matter who, what, where. I don't care if you're a man, or a woman, or dog, or…insect. You know, they're all carrying that breath within there. It all is moving from God, and therefore, we start by… by…honoring that, and I mean that. We start by not judging and hating each other. We start by honoring.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And so that's the beginning of what needs to happen. Once we honor it, then we need to look and try to understand what God is asking.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And if we can't get clear on that, then we need to at least operate from love. What is love asking?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So we don't judge each other, we don't hate each other, we don't destroy each other. We operate from love. There's a state higher than love, which is divine truth.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Divine Truth, well, God does have what God wants. God wants… and the core teaching of God is mercy, compassion, and love. That is the first teaching that has to operate before anything else.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: That's why when I listen to people and I don't hear the love in their hearts, I know they're operating from polarization, and out of polarization, they're going to be angry, and they're going to separate, and they're going to end up in conflict and war.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Okay, so we have to operate…. We start with love and compassion and understanding, and that's the teaching that we have to see in place… replacing otherness. You are not other. You're not other because you're a woman and you're a man.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: There's no otherness. Really, deep down, you're one.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You're one, you're the same, and you have the in-blown breath of God inside of you. So we honor the oneness, and then we respect the differences, and then we try to find, how does God want us to be with that? 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: What's the way God wants it to be, and then what do we want? Okay, maybe we want…what do we want, but is what we want what God wants? You see what I'm saying? In other words, God wants certain things. We have to understand that, and we have to honor that, because God's… God's understanding is truly comprehensive and has its… deep understandings.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, we need to honor each other, we need to respect each other, it has to start with that.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Then, after that, then we go to God to say, God, how do you want to deal with the differences?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And then we try to understand what God is asking and why, and then we try to implement that, and then you'll see that when we do that, actually, all teachings on the planet are really the same. All the religions are really teaching the same thing. There's really not a lot of differences. It's basically the same.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you for taking the time.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I appreciate you sharing your insights with us.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I'm hearing, just to paraphrase your last answer, essentially, don't make separation. Be the love, you know, from a place of connection with God. Be the compassion and be the mercy. Respect the differences, and from a place of connection to God, and from a place of love, and also seek comprehensive… the… the… the truth from God's perspective to true that up with what God is asking of each of us.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Yes, I think that's the bottom line. There will always be differences.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: But first of all, we need to understand comprehensively what God wants.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And then understand there's mercy and compassion when we don't follow that, but there's also limits to…what, you know, God will not accept.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, like, mass killing of people, things like that, that will… that ultimately, God will do something to stop that at some point.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We wish -- we know there are many stories of that.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So…we need to understand the comprehensive truth of God. We need to know there's mercy and compassion always operating.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We need to make space for that, and love each other, and respect each other, and be kind to each other. But at the same time, we have to understand what God's truth is. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: What is God wanting? And what are His limits, and what are our personal desires, and when do those things conflict? And how do we find a way to operate within a zone of peace, you could say, where God's truth is acting.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And divine laws are acting, and our own personal needs are being respected, and there's an intersection of those circles, and that's where we should be living. We need to live in that intersection.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Regardless of… of who we're faced with.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Regardless of who we're faced with, and now it's time. And, you know, from a world level, you know, I'm most interested in myself in stopping war because, you know, it breaks my heart to see people being killed all over the place. 

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And…you know, that's going to… in the end of the day, it really starts with comprehensive truth. Like, what does God want? What God wants at the comprehensive level is peace, love, mercy, justice, freedom, oneness, kindness and goodness by the human beings. That's the foundational principled nature of God's comprehensive truth.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Again, thank you for taking the time. Any final words of wisdom, or particular things that you want a listener to walk away with from this conversation?

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Well, if people are interested in finding out how to reach to God, how to… understand what God's…principal truth is, if they're interested in learning how to develop love in their hearts, how to develop mercy, compassion, wisdom inside of them, then they may want to consider coming to the University of Sufism where the programs are designed to help you learn that.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And at our core, what we're teaching are people to learn to be ethically, morally, comprehensively truthful, and that is the primary teaching we're trying to bring forth for all people.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Once they go further, if they want to go further and they want to embrace Sufism or go deeper, they can. But, we're trying to help people understand, because every group needs it. Christianity needs comprehensive truth. Islam needs comprehensive truth. Judaism needs comprehensive truth.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: And that's what the University of Sufism is trying to teach.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: We're also teaching people how to live in their heart, how to open their heart, how to be the love, and live in the love. And then finally, the deepest piece is how to understand what are the hidden intentions and motivations that are moving behind everything that you may not be consciously aware of.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: You know, that may be hidden in your own unconscious that are causing, you know, suffering, or lack of success in your life, or…inability to have relationship and love in your life, or why your marriages are falling apart, things like that. Those things do need to be addressed.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: So, these are things, if people are interested, they should go to https://sufiuniversity.org/ or my website, https://drjaffemd.com/, but https://sufiuniversity.org/ is even a better one, honestly. And look at these programs and understand that I believe all of us have the obligation to refine our hearts, and to learn to love. And to learn to understand comprehensive truth, and to work for oneness on our planet, and not be moving into separation and polarization. And that's what the university's all about.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Beautiful.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Again, thank you.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes, Murshid Ibrahim, thank you for sharing your wisdom, and your insights, and your heart, and your…the sincerity of your intention. I'm always and consistently moved by the sincerity of your intention.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, thanks again for being here and for the conversation.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And thank you to all listeners for joining us on Beyond Names.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Before we go, briefly, if you would please just take one moment to pause and reflect on this conversation to see what sticks with you, what stays with you from… from it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May something you heard today help you reconnect with the light in your own heart.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May you grow in compassion and clarity and courage, and love, and mercy, and kindness, and goodness.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May you find your way again and again, back home to yourself, back home to the Divine, however you name it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: If today's conversation spoke to you, please like, share, and comment on this episode, and please follow Beyond Names.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: To make an appointment with me, please visit https://www.habibboerger.com/. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Until next time, may you be light. May you consciously participate in growing your light, and may you share your light.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Peace be with you.

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe: Peace and blessings, everyone. Thank you.