Beloved Family,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Murshid Sam b. Oct 18, 1886! We will celebrate him tonight at Zikr in San Rafael!
It was a great joy to be with so many of you at the Mureeds Retreat on the edge of the Pacific Ocean near the Golden Gate. And to have another 50 of you join the ZOOM gathering was delightful and a new experiment for me, which I hope to do again in the future.
At the beginning of November, I will join our annual Murshid Circle Retreat, followed but the Jamiat Khas Leaders Retreat, followed by the in-face Ruhaniat Board of Trustees meeting.
At the end of November I have the joy of teaching in Maui.
Hoping many of you will join us to bring in the New Year at the 16th Annual Sufi Sesshin. If you register soon you will benefit from the Early Bird discount.
For our next wazifa practice, I have chosen from the group called the "opposites". Ya Muhyi, Ya Mumit. Invoking God as the only bringer of life and the only bringer of death supports us in experiencing the hand of the Sacred in everything, rather than some things good and some things bad. Everything arises in the form of the Friend, Life is the Teacher. It wouldn't be uncommon to add YA HAAY at the end to experience that both the temporal life and temporal death are included in the essence of LIFE/VITALITY/EVER-LIVING.
Much love,
Shabda
PS: We reposted the links to the Mureeds Retreat, audio and video, below the photos.
Wazifa Practice - Recite 101x YA MUHYI ~ YA MUMIT
60. Ya Muhyi (yaa MUḤ-yee)
Al-Muhyi is the one who gives life, the one who is the only cause of life. It quickens. Nothing that is living is outside of al-Muhyi. It is the opposite of al-Mumit (61), which is the giver of death. Both these divine Names are about causation, and serve the function of taking us beyond secondary causes. Sperm and egg cause life; disease and old age cause death, but God is the ultimate cause of both. Repetition of these two Names together is recommended.
When Ya Muhyi is paired with Ya Mumit, you are inwardly directed toward the realization of the one who bestows reality on what we call life and death. By invocation of these qualities as a pair, you are led to a transcendental Name, al-Hayy (62), the perfection of everlasting life. Al-Hayy includes both these divine opposites in its meaning. Reciting first Ya Mumit, Ya Muhyi and then gradually adding Ya Hayy is also recommended as a way of approaching grief.
Recitation of Ya Muhyi is helpful for those who have lost vitality or who are so depressed they want to die. Al-Muhyi is related through its root to al-hayawaan, the gradation of nafs called the animal soul.
61. Ya Mumit (yaa mu-MEET)
Al-Mumit is the only one who causes death. It is the other side of al-Muhyi (60). Ya Mumit should be paired with Ya Muhyi to bring a person to equanimity about the life and death of individual beings, and to rise above secondary causes, as described above. There is a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad where we are invited to "die before death."
Essential to Sufism is the teaching that physical death is a symbol for fana, the dissolving of the egoself. When God sends you a type of death-spiritual, mental, or physical-it is a mechanism for spiritual transformation. The lover realizes with every death of the self that they are being drawn in toward the Beloved. It is a process that leads to liqaa', the union of lovers. A person's death day, or 'urs, is seen as a wedding day.
In the Qur'an, al-Mumit and al-Muhyi are described as temporary states, when viewed from the infinity of God's being. See Ya Hayy (62), and Ya Muhyi (60
To hear the pronunciation: Ya Muhyi ~ Ya Mumit
TEXT and COMMENTARY to STUDY
The text THE MYSTICAL LIFE OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD by Hazrat Inayat Khan only surfaced recently. I received it from Shaikh-ul-Mashaikh-Mahmood Khan, son of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s brother, Shaikh-ul-Mashaikh-Maheboob Khan.
It is a short Biography of Prophet Muhammad written by Hazrat Inayat Khan while living in London between 1917-1919.
He was likely uncomfortable making the document public because of the West’s prejudice against the Prophet he loved so dearly. I may be more accurate to say he was so often in fana-fi-Muhammad, that it was very painful when people reacted to what his direct experience was.
Click here to download the document.
Giving Teachings at the Mureeds Retreat
Early Morning Raga Class
We enjoyed delicious food facilitated by Sheikha Pegeen and Sheikh Latif
Mureeds Meeting on Zoom
A Great Horned Owl visited us- pic by Sierra
Breathing the Fikr YA HAYY YA HAKK to the ocean
Continuing the walk
Dancing on Rodeo Beach
Aerial drone pictures of Murshid Sam’s Dargah
Sunrise Over Murshid Sam’s Dargah
Local Birds
Red-tailed Hawk
Northern Harrier in the fog
Canadian Geese reciting Ya Malik
House Finches
Northern Mockingbird\
Visiting birds to our backyard
Northern Flicker
Acorn Woodpecker
Scrub Jay
Band-tailed Pigeon
White-breasted Nuthatch
Anna’s Hummingbird
Red-shouldered Hawk
Pir Shadba Mureeds Retreat October 5-8, 2018
Talks and Raga Classes Available Online Video and Audio
Beloved Family,
It was a great joy to be with some 50 mureeds at the Mureed Gathering at the Marin Headlands Oct 5-8, 2018. And we had another 50 people who joined us on ZOOM for a "love fest" and a two hour talk, all recorded on both video and audio.
The Audio can be found on https://soundcloud.com/shabda-kahn. Not only is the audio for the Saturday morning ZOOM talk there, but also the other talks I gave, as well as the early morning Raga Class recordings.
The Video of our ZOOM can be found on Youtube at the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YX76K1wSM
We would be grateful to receive donations for these recordings to cover subscription fees to SoundCloud, all the equipment needed and the teachings. All donations can be made at PayPal.Me/ShabdaKahn
Much love,
Shabda
For upcoming Events and Teachings, see Shabda's calendar for more information.