Name: Ammon Haggerty
Price range: $

Dearest Family,

Blessings on the New Year! As we unfold our aspirations into action for 2025, may our motivation continue to refine itself and may each of you be granted the strength, wisdom and joy needed to continue to unfold.

The clarion call for our commitment to daily practice and the generation of long kindness and compassion are highlighted by all the turmoil in the world rooted in hatred, fascism, inequality, environmental degradation and from a positive note, helping manifest the New Age.

For me the New Year is unfolding with a new location for our local Zikr Circle this Thursday night, January 9th. Next celebrating Murshid Sam’s URS locally on Jan 15th. Then our 20th Annual Sufi Sesshin in Healdsburg January 19-24.

I feel very inspired and grateful to travel to Tunisia Jan 29th, for the first time, to serve the local community. I’ll be joined by Munira Reed and Dakini Warrior. We will have a “Sufi and Dance Leadership Retreat” followed by visiting Sufi shrines and viewing the local birds. At the tail end of my travels, I will break journey in Istanbul to lead a daylong retreat, February 9th, for the local Türkiye community, flying home February 11th.

For our next wazifa practice, let’s go to the root of fana and baqa, YA WARITH ~ YA BA’ITH; "Die before Death" and “Resurrection,” deconstructing the notion of a separate self and merging in Union.

Much love,

Shabda

Wazifa Practice

Recite 101x

YA WARITH ~ YA BA'ITH

97. Ya Warith (yaa WAA-rith)

Al-Warith expresses the aspect of God that is the inheritor of all. Everything will return to Allah. The Qur'an says, "We (Allah) give life and we give death, but We are the inheritors (warithun)." Al-Warith manifests the divine activity of leaving your limited self behind. From the human standpoint, it means to "die before death." It is a process of letting go of the transient (fana) and identifying with what does not die (baqa).

The physical meaning of the verb warratha is to put out a fire, to stir around the ashes to kill it. Even from the physical point of view, the heat of the fire disappears but the light continues, just as the light of an extinct star continues. Al-Warith shows that Allah is the ultimate inheritor of whatever of value is left behind at death, a legacy of light. It puts a different emphasis on the process of annihilation, for death is not simply a disappearance. That which has been awakened returns to Allah in the end. We recommend that Ya Warith be paired together with its divine opposite, Ya Ba'ith. Together, these Names point to a cosmic process that manifests the great return to unity of all separated entities.

49. Ya Ba'ith (yaa BAA-'ith)

Al-Ba'ith is the one who fully sends forth the message of God and the messengers of God. It removes all blockages to the divine flow. It is the quickener. It means to throw off death-like sleep or inertia to fully wake up. Al-Ba'ith is the power that resurrects all souls, and it is the power that revives dead hearts so that they can be open. Ba'atha, a form of the same root, means to remove that which restrains you from free action. Another form means to remove the barrier from a stream of water so that the water can flow forth.

The story of Jonah and the whale gives a vivid example of a similar physical meaning. "He would certainly have remained inside the stomach of the fish until the day when he was spewed out." Spewed out (sent forth) is yub'athun. It means the day or time for being sent forth. Ya Warith and Ya Ba'ith are divine opposites that are most beneficial when recited as a pair. Their realization enables you to become unstuck in the spiritual process of dying before death and awakening into what is more enduring.

To hear the pronunciation: Ya Warith ~ Ya Ba'ith

Text and Commentary to Study

This month we begin studying Perfection of the Heart, by Murshid Samuel Lewis.

Read pages 1-11.

Click below to download

Perfection of the Heart

Upcoming Events and Teachings

Murshid Sam's Urs in El Cerrito CA January15

Northern California Sufi Sesshin January 19-24

Retreat Camp in Tunisia January 31-February 2

Istanbul Retreat February 9

Save the Date