February 2022 Message

Beloved Family,

Greetings to each of you as the world is experiencing the grim shadow of a region and what seems like a useless war with so much suffering! My heart cries tears of sadness for all involved, from the innocent citizens of Ukraine to the political victims and perpetrators and all the living beings and plants whose lives will be interrupted or end due to this ego-driven conflict.

It emphasizes the extraordinary importance of transforming ourselves and educating all who we can of the necessity for our actions to be governed by Loving Kindness and Compassion. Let us all commit again and again to challenge our own wounds and unskillful actions that hurt others and create strife and serve to relieve suffering and bring joy wherever we can.

All of this is unfolding and overshadowing what seems to be the gradual decrease of the long shadow of the pandemic we have all lived through these past two years. Thank you all for your generosity to the Mureeds Pandemic Fund which served many people and brought some slight relief from financial suffering and gave all who received a warm feeling of the blessing of being in a worldwide community.

I have slowly begun to travel again. Near the end of January, I was supposed to teach in Costa Rica for the locals. That never manifested but I went to Costa Rica anyway along with a dear friend/birder/biologist/ornithologist Kara Nelson Hagedorn, hosted by our dear friend PamAllah Dussault who is currently living in Costa Rica and spent 8 days traveling through different ecosystems and meeting our winged friends in one of the most biodiverse countries of the world. Obviously, many pictures are below!

At the end of March, I will travel first to Germany for the annual Ruhaniat Jamiat Ahm and then joined by Murshida Rahmana Dziubany to the Czech Republic for a Retreat in the countryside after visiting the famous and lovely city Prague.

Wednesday, June 29 - Sunday, July 3 we will lead a Sufi Sesshin at Lama Foundation under the rainbow of Murshid Sam’s Dargah, joined by Murshida Darvesha and Sheikh Gayan Long. Details and registration will be published within the next month.

Two years ago I was scheduled to lead the Summer Camp at the Southwest Sufi Community land, sharing the teaching post with our dear Bryn Morgan. Now, inshallah, it will happen August 16-21, detail will also be soon forthcoming.

For our next wazifa practice let's invoke a pair connected with Protection and Safety, for all those suffering in war, for protection from disease, and protection from the nafs of the adapted notion of separation - Ya Mu’min ~ Ya Muhaimin.

For our next reading we will study the text Murshid Sam was offering teachings from in his last few classes in December 1970 before his demise; his Commentaries on Hazrat Inayat Khan’s text Akibat - Life After Death.

Much love

Shabda

<>><>><><><

Wazifa Practice

Recite 101x

YA MU'MIN ~ YA MUHAIMIN

6. Ya Mu'min (yaa MU'-min)

Al-Mu'min is the one who offers to us a real faith and a trust that is free of all fear, craft, and deceit. From its root we learn that al-Mu'min is a divine gift that allows us to feel safety, confidence, and security in our hearts. It allows human beings to have trust in God alone and not to be taken in by secondary causes, or what appear on the surface to be the causes of conditions.

Invocation of Ya Mu'min is an antidote for hypocrisy. It is a remedy for those who only give lip service to their faith or who trust in Allah but lack the fullness of heart. And it is also an antidote for fanaticism or what is sometimes called blind faith. It shares the same root as al-Muhaimin (7) and may be combined with it in recitation.

7. Ya Muhaimin (yaa mu-HAI-min)

Al-Muhaimin is the divine quality that preserves the essence of a thing from corruption through all the vicissitudes of time. The eternal in the thing, the purity of what it is in reality, is protected from being harmed by any temporal cause. It is an attribute used to describe the Qur'an. Al-Muhaimin affirms that translation and addendum will not diminish the Qur'an’s essence. In a more general sense, what is transient passes away and therefore never truly had existence. Baqa, the eternal, is, always was, and always will be.

Thus al-Muhaimin is linked with al-Baqi (96), the eternal essence that remains. The essence of each thing, the malakut, is held in the hands of God. Al-Muhaimin describes the immutable quality by which all the 99 Names of God work in the world. A full way to invoke the protection of this sacred quality would be to recite Ya Baqi, Ya Malik, Ya Muhaimin. See Ya Baqi (96) and Ya Malik (3). See also Ya Hafiz (38), Ya Muqit (39), Ya Wakil (52), Ya Wali (76), and Ya Mani' (89), and Chapter 11, Divine Protection.

To hear the pronunciation: Ya Mu'min ~ Ya Muhaimin

<><><><>><

Text and Commentary to Study

This month we begin reading Akibayayat - Life After Death, an unfinished commentary by Murshid Samuel Lewis

Read pages 1-10

Click here

to download the document Akibayayat - Life After Death

<><><><><><>

BIRDS OF COSTA RICA

On the journey with Kara and PamAllah we traveled through many different ecosystems. I photographed more than 200 different species of birds. Clearly, what is below just scratches the surface of an amazing pilgrimage.

Lucky sighting of the Resplendent Quetzal