May 2022 Message

Beloved Family,

As I write to you, I am feeling time shortened as I leave in a few hours to teach in Tucson through Saturday, then Sunday fly across the pond to the Hague for our International Peace conference “Water for All” at the International Peace Palace, back home in a week. I will be teaching on Friday, June 2, at the Sufi Centre in the Hague, please join if you are close!

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to Washington State, hosted by Khalid Paul Kramer, photographing Eagles! Pictures below!

Just as the warmth, kindness, and compassion of your being affect those directly around you, we can infer that the same warmth will spread to all parts of our being, all manifestations. Some of us have a longer reach with those we can touch, but we all have the opportunity, starting with exactly where we are.

Looking forward to being with many of you at the Lama Sufi Sesshin at the end of June. If any of you are coming and are willing to help with broadcasting some of our sessions live, please let me know. Mid-August we will dance, sing and be together at the Southwest Sufi Community under the new temple/Dance Pavilion that is just being finished.

In September I will join Murshid Allaudin Ottinger for the “Caravan” in Turkey!

I am deeply ashamed of the United States which somehow allows gun violence to be unchecked in the reach for political power. Naturally, we all make prayers for the Onward Journey of those killed by gun violence, tenderly hold the grief of those left behind, and extend our prayers to those suffering in the senseless invasion of Ukraine.

On a positive note, I will teach a course for three Sundays - June 12, 19, 26, 10PDT for the River of Guidance on:

Cultivating Resilience:

Strength, Stability, and Compassion in these Challenging Times

Much love,

Shabda

Here is a poem of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s I’ve been enjoying:

I asked for strength

and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom

and God gave me problems to learn to solve.

I asked for prosperity

and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.

I asked for courage

and God gave me dangers to overcome.

I asked for love

and God gave me people to help.

I asked for favors

and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted.

I received everything I needed.

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Wazifa Practice

For our next wazifa let's recite a wazifa I received for daily practice directly from Murshid Sam:

Recite 101x

YA 'AZIM

33. Ya 'Azim (yaa 'a-ḌḤEEM)

Al-'Azim actualizes the divine presence. It involves feeling this presence in the depth of your soul, literally in your very bones. Al-'Azim comes from al-'adaam, which means to grow strong in the bones. It is the experience of the infinite in your deepest, essential self, as well as in the world outside. Al-'Azim means to embody the divine presence in a complete way, a physical way. A most difficult part of human actualization is reaching the stage of being able to bring the structure of your inner realization into balance with the structure of your outward manifestation in the world.

The invocation of Ya 'Azim is a very helpful practice for all who pay attention to realization in an abstract sort of way, but who cannot bring their realization out and function with it in daily life. It is a divine quality that is called on for the accomplishment of extraordinary aims. There is an awesome or overwhelming feeling connected with this Name. The root of 'Azim alludes to the hundredth or greatest Name of God, the unknown Name.

To hear the pronunciation: Ya 'Azim

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Text and Commentary to Study

This month we finish reading Incense From Roshis, by Murshid Samuel Lewis

Read pages 11- 20

Click here

to download the document Incense from Roshis

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Upcoming Events and Teachings

Lama Foundation Sufi Sesshin June 29 - July 3

Annual Southwest Sufi Community Camp August 16 - 21

2022 DUP Turkish Caravan September 12-24