January 2021 Message

Beloved Family,

Since this is my first letter of 2021, I wholeheartedly make aspirations for a profound increase in Realization. In 2021 I pray for the waning of the pandemic, with an increase of Loving Kindness and Compassion being our guideposts, prosperity and excellent health for all, and the fulfillment and unfoldment of our Life’s Path.

I began the year with a two-week solitary retreat, always a blessing to have quiet time to dive deeply. Murshid Sam’s main message to me was to remind us that we are a “practice” lineage. We are encouraged to continue to dedicate ourselves to the rigorous application of our ideals through recitation, music, contemplation, and meditation as well as bringing our ideals into everyday life.

If we want the plant of Limitless Freedom to grow and flourish and be of benefit to all sentient beings, we need to:

tend the soil
attentively weed out what is not needed
make compost to add richness
use the dedication and constancy of our practice to provide the water
transform our shadow to let the sunlight in.

Several of you might know that we began a program of online teaching by our elders of the community for our Jamiat Khas Leadership under the name “River of Guidance”. My solitary retreat showed me the next step will be a River of Guidance program for all mureeds and friends, which we will begin with the Jamiat Aam Mureed Gathering - online - the weekend of April 30th (more info to come soon).

During my retreat, I would walk between practice sessions but also added a daily gardening session, mostly of clearing out and pruning, which was very satisfying. Much to my surprise, I found that our banana plants, which really don’t belong in our climate but are cooperating and thriving, had three stalks of banana’s in various stages from teenie to small and growing. The avocado trees are also producing. I wrote our dear friends Bodhi and Leilah, who we know to live in Maui, where bananas and avocados belong, saying I would call our home Twin Falls (the name of Bodhi and Leilah’s land) East!

For our next wazifa pair, let's invoke YA NUR - the Primordial Light which naturally is the same as Primordial Love sometimes referred to as Nuri Muhammed or the Light of Christ. We can combine it with YA JABBAR which has as its root the doctor who puts broken bones back in alignment, said in another way “the Healer of Fractured Existence”.

This is the final month to complete reading and studying the text below, Pir Zia’s dissertation on the Life and Message of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. I am certain, if you make the effort, you will be very happy you studied this text. My sense is that less than 25% of us actually even download the texts offered.

On a sad note, my mureed Bari Tripp, who has been around since the late 1970s died of a heart attack on Christmas Day 2020. While I was on retreat, we also lost our dear friends and colleagues, Murshid Aslan and Khalifa Kabira. Please make prayers for their continuing Sacred Journey. YA SALAAM.

Much love,

Shabda

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Wazifa Practice

Recite 101x

YA NUR ~ YA JABBAR

93. Ya Nur (yaa NOOR)

An-Nur is the essence of light, luminosity itself. A Qur'anic verse says, "Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth." An-Nur is the light of every soul and an inherent characteristic in every pore of your body. Munawwir is a form of the same root and means the one who illuminates. It is interesting that the word for "hell" in Arabic is naar, which has the same root as Nur. What makes it hell is that the burning heat there is lacking in light. That kind of burning heat is our inner condition if we don't embody God's loving mercy and compassion (rahma) and instead become full of rage.

Whatever way we may turn, we see the all-pervading light of An-Nur. Even the darkness shines from within it. All the various forms of wisdom and guidance are expressions of An-Nur. For example, Nur-ul-Haqeeqah is the light of truth and guidance on the path. What continues to live on in God when we die is also a legacy of light.

9. Ya Jabbar (yaa jab-BAAR)

Al-Jabbar is an expression of divine power that allows you to accomplish things or to act in the world. It is a healing strength. It carries the root meaning of setting a broken bone to heal it. Al-Jabbar means the strength to continuously heal all things all the time, the strength to heal brokenness. It is compelling, but only in the sense of stabilizing you in a consistent direction of movement.

When recited, Ya Jabbar empowers the sincere practitioner with an enduring strength so that nothing can shake you. Through embodying this quality your existence becomes unified. It is the mender of our fractured existence.

To hear the pronunciation: Ya Nur ~ Ya Jabbar

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Text and Commentary to Study

This month we finish reading A HYBRID SUFI ORDER AT THE CROSSROADS OF MODERNITY: THE SUFI ORDER AND SUFI MOVEMENT OF PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN, by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan

Reading Part B, chapter 6 and Conclusion, pages 276-345

Click to download

Life and Times of Hazrat Inayat Khan Part A

Life and Times of Hazrat Inayat Khan Part B

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PHOTOS

Rare sighting of a Golden Eye