August 2023 Message

Beloved Family,

I want to start with a message mainly for the locals. We have our monthly Zikr Circle this Thursday, August 10^th at 7:30PM with special guest Ramona. She is our main Dances of Universal Peace leader in Iran and her group gathers once a month in countryside of Iran with some 100 folks to share the Dance! I will ask her to share story about her experiences and the extraordinary challenges she faces to share the Dances!

Sheikh Muiz will also be a guest, as well as Zardusht van Wert who is heading up the Murshid Wali Ali Archive project, pulling together all of Wali’s writings, letters, videos, talks, photos, etc. If you have anything you feel would be of value to put in the archive please write <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>. And to add to these riches, Pirani Tamam's new book, Across the Difficult, was just released and we will get to hear a few words from her. At a later date we will have her present at a Ruhaniat Family ZOOM Gathering.

A few weeks ago, we had a powerful 49th Mendocino Sufi Camp. I had felt the fragility of coming back after three years off, also because of the aging of many in the Mendocino Sufi Camp family. I am delighted to report that the next generation of leaders showed up with grace and strength, along with many children, and I now feel this treasured once a year rhythm will live on.

On Sunday and for the week following, Tamam and I join some 50 DUP dancers in Chicago at the Parliament of World Religions to present the Dances of Universal Peace on three different afternoons, along with some “pop up” sessions along the way. I will also offer a presentation on Friday morning at 8AM - a very Godly hour! For me, one of the gifts of these dances is the immediate experiential realization of the Universality of Religious Ideals and Human Ideals, the power of community, of working together and serving together. It feels like the Dances are a revelation and a revolution and that even after over 50 years in existence, they are just beginning to serve their purpose in the world. Gratitude to all dance leaders all over the globe.

As I am writing you, the doorbell rang, and I received my German Passport. I now have two Passports - American and German! This was granted to me because I am a child of survivors of the Holocaust. All my previous generations were from Germany. My mother made it out of Germany to New York in 1936 and my father in 1941. They met and married in 1942. And I was born 5 years later in 1947 in New York. Their stories of bravery and ingenuity to survive are remarkable.

Opportunities to get together: September 19-24 at the Southwest Sufi Community, October 20-22 in Madison, WI, November 17-19 in Seattle, WA area, Dec 1-3 in Maui and then on Pilgrimage to Mother India Feb 1-10, 2024.

Our wazifa pair for this month YA QUDDUS ~ YA JAMI combines the path of purifying and deconstructing to arrive at our True Nature along with welcoming every part of our being.

Much love,

Shabda

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Wazifa Practice

Recite 101x

YA QUDDUS ~ YA JAMI

Ya Quddus (yaa ḳud-DOOS)

Al-Quddus is the ever-purifying one. It requires us to take leave of what we cling to in order to experience intimate union. Al-Quddus allows the spiritual traveler to transcend the lower self and keep going toward the one. Al-Quddus is a force that constantly cleanses us from the conceptual mind and its differentiations. It is continuously purifying our experience of the world through inward intimacy and union with the absolute.

A variation of the root of this name means to return home to one's village. Al-Quddus is always purifying and always distancing, in the sense of leaving behind the ephemeral to go fully into the eternal. What is constantly moving toward Allah is al-Quddus. The union given by al-Quddus is one of continually becoming the eternal reality. See Ya Jami, which is its opposite name, especially when viewed in the context of divine ecstasy.

Al Quddus suggests the process of the goldsmith purifying the dross to have only gold remain.

Al-Jami has the quality of gathering everything together into a whole, and al-Quddus has the quality of leaving behind everything but the essence. They appear as opposites. Sobriety enters after ecstasy is experienced.

Ya Jami (yaa JAA-mi)

Al-Jami is the gatherer. It means to come back together, to bring all the parts into a whole. Al-Jami is to return home, to return to the real self. It is a constant process of becoming reconnected with wholeness. It is sometimes called the grand synthesis, the joining of all joinings. Al-Quddus is an opposite of al-Jami, especially when viewed in the context of divine ecstasy. Through al-Quddus you are continuously purifying yourself of remnants of the nafs.

The two pathways of realization complement each other. Al-Quddus offers purification of nafs, while al-Jami' offers integration of the various aspects of nafs. Classically these paths would be called the via negativa and the via positiva. When all the aspects of the nafs begin to gather together, through the action of al-Jami, a quality of ecstasy enters.

As this continues, the nafs begins to merge with the ruh, or soul. It is an ecstatic union. Then, varying aspects of the higher self or soul manifest into the lower self, or nafs, and reintegrate. With al-Quddus, sobriety enters after the ecstasy of union. To receive great benefit from these names, we recommend invoking Ya Quddus and Ya Jami together.

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Text and Commentary to Study

This month we continue reading Hazrat Inayat Khan's Gatheka on Mental Purification with commentaries by Murshid Samuel Lewis and Murshid Moineddin Jablonski

Read and contemplate Chapter 8, The Power of Thought, pages 116-128

Click here to download the document

Mental Purification Commentary

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Upcoming Events and Teachings

Southwest Sufi Community Sufi Camp

Madison, WI Sufi Retreat

Seattle Sufi Retreat

Maui Sufi Retreat

Mother India Pilgrimage

September 19 - 24

October 13-15