February 2021 Message

Beloved Family,

With the blessing of living in Northern California, we can feel Spring easing her way into our lives and the resurgence of fresh green leaves and flowers, with sweet fragrances all around. Amazingly, the Avocados and Bananas survived our mild winter. Lots of greens have been planted in the garden along with some other vegetables.

I am pleased to have received my first Vaccine and was deeply moved at how well organized and how many people were volunteering to serve me and my community. I am also acutely aware that of the 7+ billion people on our planet, many countries have still not been able to offer the privilege of receiving a vaccine if you want one. Tamam receives her second vaccine Saturday.

Saturday, Feb 27th is also Pir Moineddin’s 20th URS which for me personally marks the beginning of a new yearly cycle beginning my 21st year in service as the Pir of our precious Ruhaniat. Thank you all for your support and prayers for this privilege to serve.

I am pleased with the unfolding development for our Ruhaniat Family of what for now we are calling the River of Guidance. It will be a continuing series of Online Classes from our “wise beings” open to all. Our first series begins with Murshida Darvesha this coming Tuesday ~ Ziraat: Our Interconnected Nature.

Like many of you, I have been moved by our last wazifa assignment YA NUR YA JABBAR, and invite you to continue if you feel inclined to do so, even though I will assign us a new pair for the coming month.

On a recent Ruhaniat Family ZOOM Gathering, Murshid Tansen shared practices from a text by Murshid Sam, “Spiritual Training Through Music” which we can study this month and is attached below.

Much love,

Shabda

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Wazifa Practice

Recite 101x

YA RA'UF ~ YA RAHIM

From our upcoming wazifa book:

Ya Ra'uf (yaa ra-ʻOOF)is a quiet, gentle in-dwelling love that nevertheless actively penetrates to the deepest and most profound place. It goes right to the essence of being human, and it helps to heal the crucial problem of our narcissistic self-identification with our perceived deficiencies and shortcomings.

Ya Rahim (yaa ra-ḤEEM) is the inner element of divine love, which penetrates into the depth of all beings and all things.

Ya Raʼuf is an invocation of quiet, gentle, profound love. One of the ways to understand ar-Raʼuf is to compare it to ar-Rahim, with which it is close in meaning. Nine of the 11 times that ar-Raʼuf occurs in the Qurʼan, it is paired with ar-Rahim to describe Allah. These divine names are close in meaning, but the sound-code embedded in the Arabic language helps to distinguish them. The sound-code makes ar-Rahim omnipresent; it spreads into every particular thing without exception. It has a very immanent quality. The sound-code for ar- Raʼuf reveals it to be a kind of love that emphasizes a deep, deep penetration into the core of being, into essence.

So Ya Ra'uf touches the deepest wounds there are. It goes to the place within you where there are sensitive hurts and wounds that you have lived your whole life defending from being touched. But this simple love can reach it. It is so quiet that it can penetrate the armor. It is even subtler than what we generally understand by compassion. It is a gentle perfume.

Ya Rahim is an antidote for beings who feel abandoned by God and who badly need to feel the healing activity of divine love reaching them deep within.

To hear the pronunciation: Ya Ra'uf ~ Ya Rahim

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Text and Commentary to Study

This next month we are reading Spiritual Training Through Music, an Original Sangatha by Murshid Samuel Lewis

Click to download

Spiritual Training Through Music

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PHOTOS

Red-winged Blackbird singing a mating call