The Walks and Dances of Universal Peace are an exquisite vehicle for the transformative spiritual awakening to our true nature. In the Dances we overcome isolation and the illusion of our separate individual states, and join together in the experience of our shared humanity. All people have words and expressions for love, compassion, peace, and joy. The Walks and Dances offer us a medium to experience and open to these kind of qualities that are, in reality, always present.
The dance is the way of Life; the dance is the sway of Life. What Life gives may be expressed with body, heart, and soul to the glory of God and the elevation of humankind, leading therein to ecstasy and self realization. Verily, this is the sacred dance. — Murshid SAM, Intro to Spiritual Dancing
When mankind, terrorized by conflict and faced with the ruin of civilization, when the power of wealth has dominated justice… let us, in spite of what occurs before our eyes invoke that same Divine Spirit through love and beauty, that we may restore order and balance to humanity. — Murshid SAM
In this light, The Walks and Dances of Universal Peace are an active, positive, and powerful agent of change and transformation. As dance leaders, we cultivate and develop the capacity to become conduits for such transformative experience.
In this way, the Dances, and leading the Dances are a spiritual practice. When we activate our breath and hearts, when we open to compassion, mercy and love, strength, courage, joy, and peace, these energies move through us and can open in us.
We could also call this process the cultivation of effacement — the capacity to surrender our own ego, and our own sense of self-importance. Sufis call this act of surrender "fana", which is a similar state to what Buddhists call "cultivating emptiness." In this state of fana, a dance leader becomes a vessel, receptive to the ever-present flow of blessing.
— Murshida Halima Sussman