Beloved Family,

Greetings from California where Spring is unfolding her beauty daily!

Doves, and ducks and swans mating, apple, pear, avocado, and peach trees all blooming. Some tomatoes already in the ground, along with broccoli and cauliflower and an abundance of kale and chard. Still eating avocados from the previous harvest as you only pick them when you are ready to eat, so the tree generously keeps them from spoiling for you.

On a medical note, after many years of alternative measures to overcome painful knees, I am having replacement surgery on my left knee May 14th and then on my right knee September 17! Naturally I will feel the abundance and beneficence of your prayers.

It is very moving to feel the worldwide activities of our Ruhaniat family. To name just a few, Murshid Allaudin Ottinger just taught in the UK, the Czech Republic and now Germany. Murshid(a)s Halima and Abraham met with some seventy folks, 20 coming from Russia where it is not possible for us to visit, some from neighboring countries all in Turkiye. Now this Friday I travel to the mountains of Colombia to Ecovillage Atlantida, where I will join senior leaders from all over South America to be with some 200 folks mostly under 40! And you all should see some of the Colombian bird pictures next month on this newsletter!

In June 25-29, please join us for the Annual Jamiat Aam at Lama Foundation, especially highlighting some of our finest younger leaders. In July we have the 51st Mendocino Sufi Camp.

I can feel that the insanity of the world can naturally bring some of ur own fears and wounding to the surface. Naturally, we can realize that any time we feel out of sorts, even though it may be caused by circumstances, the “yogi” is the being whose condition is no longer based on outer circumstances but lives in the Great Equanimity that is our True Nature. Understanding life that way, while we do our best to mitigate circumstances to our vision of Love, Harmony and Beauty, all the while we apply the realization that our being upset is on us - not the world.

As a way to heal our wounding and the wounding of the world let us recite YA RAUF ~ YA RAHEEM.

Much love,

Shabda

P.S. I read this poem by Hazrat Inayat Khan at our Monthly Zikr Circle and agreed I would include it in the monthly blog

Wazifa Practice  

Recite 101x

YA RA'UF ~ YA RAHIM

YA RA'UF YA RAHIM (yaa ra-ʻOOF) (yaa ra-ḤEEM)

Ya Ra'uf 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 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 deeply within.

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

Text and Commentary to Study

This month we begin studying the Gatha: Kashf: Insight, Series II of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan with commentary by Murshid Samuel Lewis. Read pages 5 - 14

Click below to download

Kashf: Insight, Series 2

BIRDS IN OUR GARDEN