Spirit Matters December 2022

4 Message from the National Representative

6One Without a Second by Karim

9These Fish The Mystics by Karim

12Prayer, (a Poem for Ritual & Reset) by Faisal Mohyuddin 13Stages on the Path of Self-Realisation by Hazrat Inayat Khan 20 The Story of My Mystical Life by Hazrat Inayat Khan 23 National Representative’s Annual Report 25Glasshouse Mountains Centre Report 26Northern Rivers & Universal Worship Report 28 Sydney Report 29Canberra Report 30National Activities 31Contacts

Photo Credits:

Cover: Photo by Navi on Unsplash Silhouette of mountain under nebula. Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash Mountain range. Photo by Pipe A on Unsplash Footprints in sand. Photo by Eric Deschaintre on Unsplash Raindrops on leaves. Photo by Nikolay Zakharov on Unsplash Dry salt pan. Photo by Glenna Haig on Unsplash Man and girl praying. Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash Mountains in Slovenia. Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash

Editorial

The Four Doors of Sufism are explained as shari’a (the exoteric path), tariqa (the esoteric path), haqiqa (mystical truth) and marifa (final mystical knowledge). Marifa has been interpreted by some as union with the Divine, unio mystica, Self-realisation, God-realisation and enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the theme for this newsletter, inspired by a beautiful article One Without a Second written by Karim on page 6. Karim has kindly contributed an additional article in a similar vein, These Fish the Mystics on page 9.

During one of Nuria’s online Inner School meetings recently Azad recited a beautiful poem by Faisal Mohyuddin, author of Displaced Children of Displaced Children. It is on page 12.

In Volume IV, The Alchemy of Happiness, Hazrat Inayat Khan talks of the third stage on the path of self-realisation:

In the third stage the beloved becomes the self, and the self is there no more. For then the self, as we think it to be, no longer remains; the self becomes what it really is. It is that realisation which is called self-realisation.

Stages on the Path of Self-Realisation by Hazrat Inayat Khan is on page 13.

The Story of My Mystical Life by Hazrat Inayat Khan follows on page 20.

The annual reports for the Sufi Movement in Australia are also included in this issue. I hope that you find this offering enlightening!

Yaqin

Beloved Sisters & Brothers Summer 2022

Spring has not felt like spring at all here in Melbourne. It has been mostly cold and wet – I think we only had one week of spring weather. Not only have I struggled with this, but I think the plants and bird life have as well. I have been feeding some very bedraggled parrots. However, the garden has loved the rain, and Azad has only had to water the pots.

I have been struggling with the transition from writing to something else. This has been very difficult for me, and I find myself quite depressed sometimes. However, it does look like my book on Gilgamesh will also be published, and I am very excited about this.

In the meantime, our financial year end has come about (30th September), and we are in the midst of having our AGM virtually. The meeting itself will be on the 5th of December via Zoom. Our new process of sending out requests for SMIA fees and sending receipts is working very well, and we have more members than ever. We have also increased our fees from $75 per annum to $100 per annum. This has increased our income which is good. Last year's finances have not been good, but this year will hopefully be better.

Our retreat with Pir Nawab is going ahead in 2023. Our retreat will be from the 14th to the 20th of April 2023 at Amberley. Amberley costs have risen steeply, but we all (including Nawab) want this retreat to go ahead. We must continue to meet and practice with Pir Nawab. We are determined to keep the retreat cost down, so we have decided that SMIA will cover overhead costs such as Nawab's airfare and retreat stay, printing and other overheads from our SMIA savings account. These costs have always been factored into the cost of individual retreats in the past. We want as many people to attend this retreat as possible. Thus we are happy to allow full payment of the retreat to be paid in instalments - even after the retreat is over. I have been very involved in understanding a series I watched on Netflix (The Sandman), which has profoundly affected me. The writer has been influenced by Jung. I thus began to investigate ‘Hope in Hell’ and have used this in our Zoom meetings over the last few weeks. In addition, I found myself partaking in a course on Unveiling the Soul by Dr David Tacey, which fed into my understanding of Hope in Hell. Synchronicity again!

As a result of Dr Tacey’s reference to evil in Jung’s Answer to Job, I am now in the process of preparing my own Answer to Job. Another long article in process.

There has been a fascinating talk on ‘A Dialogue between Sufism (Ibn Arabi) & Jungian Psychology - ‘The Way Up and the Way Down are One and the Same’. This demonstrates that Jungian structure is a step toward understanding Sufism. There seems to be growing interest in Sufism in the Jung Society, which I would like to get involved in.

So as you can see, I seem to be diverted into other channels and am enjoying the process.

Wishing you all a happy and peaceful Summer and holiday season. Love, Nuria

One Without a Second

by Karim

Towards the One

There is only ‘One.’ In Islam the surah al-Ikhlas (112) says, “God is One without a second”

The Perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty

Nothing on this earth or in this whole universe lasts for more than a moment, but in that moment, and the next, is the fullest expression of this ‘love, harmony, and beauty that is possible now, and now, and now again, to infinity.

The Only

Being One (without a second, always, One without a second)

United with all the illuminated souls who form the embodiment of the Master, the Spirit of Guidance

Only in and through this divine essence manifesting again, and again, and again, do we find, come to know of these “Illuminated souls,” for – as has been said in a famous Hadith Qudsi (Divinely Inspired saying of the Prophet Muhammed) – “My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am the hearing with which he hears, the seeing with which he sees, the hand with which he [grasps] and the foot with which he walks. [Related by al-Bukhari].

It is they who leave these “Tracks in a Pathless Land,” for it is they who more perfectly translate the Forms found within the Names of God into living, moving, holding, seeing, hearing, and breathing, Form (manifestations of the One)

Only in this way does the “Hidden Jewel Who Wished to be Known” come closest to the “Knowledge of Himself to Himself.”

Once more a hadith (saying of the Prophet) comes to our aid:

I was a hidden treasure and I wished to be known, so I created a creation (human kind) in order to be known.

“Truth,” the seer Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “Is a Pathless Land, no-one can take you there,” and he was right, however he makes clear also that there is a way that this Truth can be made known, approached, by anybody willing to climb the mountain to find It. He put it this way (in a famous speech he gave in Holland in 1929 made when he dissolved the “Order of the Star,” the movement within the Theosophical Society created to launch him as “the World Teacher”):

“Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley…”.

Clearly this idea of “Truth” belonging on the mountaintop is a metaphor which attempts to translate in yet another Form something which is ultimately indescribable , but it effectively tells us something very, very, important. For those willing to put in the required effort, to shut out the noise of this world as the only form they attend to in their lives, this ascent is possible if they have this burning desire to know, to reach beyond the wall, so-to-speak, and for those few – necessarily few because one must be willing to give this degree of effort, one’s whole life – the mountain can be climbed, these “paths” do manifest to them, and they can reach out and touch, know, hear, see, and walk with this “Truth”.

Thus we are brought back to Inayat’s “Invocation”

United with all the Illuminated souls who form the embodiment of the Master, the Spirit of guidance.

And then we may be said to begin to walk more closely into being (embodiment) this “One without a second.” The “Hidden Jewel Who wished to be known.”

Never, never, perfectly, for we are still yet human beings – not God – but drawing ever closer to this ideal

These Fish The Mystics

by Karim

May the rivers keep on running to the ocean. Rivers, rising in the mountains, running to the oceans, and back again. In Australia they don’t always do that. There was a myth that they run to a great lake somewhere in the centre. Indeed, early explorers sought to find this ‘place’ so the heart of Australia could be opened up for the ‘pastoralists’ that would surely follow such a discovery.

More recently the occasional flooding of Lake Eyre, a massive salt lake roughly corresponding to that “heart” place became a tourist magnet, as it had ‘always’ been for migratory water birds, such as pelicans and ducks. Tens, hundreds of thousands of them, flocking towards this place chasing the opportunity to breed and raise their offspring. Then this great lake dries up again under the burning sun of summer; all that is left are the carrion of the young the old, insufficient to the task of return to the ocean that lies elsewhere. And the mirages of course, reflections ow water somewhere, anywhere, but here. and the seasons move on, waiting for the next ‘big rains’, or the next, somewhere “up-north”.

Many years ago now, sitting in a dry creek bed of gravel and sand, somewhere near the real ‘heart’ of Australia with a bunch of traditional aboriginal women and kids, I recall one old woman beginning to dig with her hands in the ‘river’ bed, so long dry.

As she did so I can’t recall her singing softly to herself but she may well have done. What was she searching for? As I watched fascinated close by, the hole began to fill with water. Then she stopped digging and waited. Within what seemed like only a few moments a small fish started jumping about in the bottom of the hole she had just dug! What? How can this be? Fish need to breathe oxygen. Air they take through their gills from the water in which they live, move, and have their being. How then, in this long dry water course; this dried out “river” bed could it be there, never mind alive, and awake, and jumping?

Is this Lake Eyre too? Do long dormant water creatures lurk in this dried out salt pan, waiting for the next deluge to spring to life? Is this what these water birds know and respond to? The cycle of life.

Last night I had a dream. This one I, we, for there were ‘others’ with me, were swimming in great rivers, or searching for them, trying to follow them up to their source (oddly for we were swimming with the flow which surely must carry us away from the source). On and on it went, this searching. River after river, stream after stream, sometimes barely a trickle but always searching, looking, finding, continuing this search.

Where is this source? Where is this ocean to which we must return? Can you tell me? Lassitter found, lost, and supposedly re-found, and died, somewhere out there, close to this “heart”, his “reef of solid gold.” Others have spent lifetimes in this searching. Seeking. Restlessly moving trying to find what is right in front of them. Of us. Of you and me. What then, do we need a picture. A ‘drone’ image perhaps? A ‘bird’s eye view’ of all the rivers running to the heart? What will make us stop. Sit. Dig. Right where we are? Here and now. Jesus is symbolised by a fish. Khidr is pictured sometimes standing, riding on the back of a fish. The Green Man. The Verdant one.

Many, many years ago now, long before Sufism. Before I “believed” in anything really, other than a silly little technique of mantra meditation, I awoke into a dream/ experience swimming with the fish people! ‘Clothed’ in beautiful colours, these men (perhaps there were women too, but the ‘gender’ wasn’t important) swam “In an ocean of grace” (to use Rumi’s words) “somehow still longing for it”2. Years were to pass , and sufism to come into my life before I encountered the image reproduced above in Lalleh Bhaktiar’s beautiful little book on Islamic Sufi imagery. Make of this what you will, but keep digging, for – again in Rumi’s words –

“Water is there somewhere”3 And remember the fish. Always. Remember the Fish!

Rumi:

And:

Every thirst gets satisfied except That of these fish, the mystics, Who swim in a vast ocean of grace Still somehow longing for it! (The Reed Flute’s Song)

I have a thirsty fish in me That can never find enough Of what it’s thirsty for! Show me the way to the ocean!

(A Thirsty Fish)

1 “Fantasy on marbled paper”, Turkish School, 16th century, by courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard… in Mystical Dreams, Ruya ‘ha, p116, in Laleh Bhaktiar, “Sufi: expressions of the Mystic Quest”, Thames and Hudson, Great Britain, 1976)

2 Rumi The essential Rumi, Trans. Coleman Barks with John Moyne, New York, 1995, The Reed Flute’s Song, p17-19, A Thirsty Fish, p19

3 Rumi, ibid, The sunrise Ruby, pp100-101

PRAYER (a Poem for Ritual & Reset)

You cleanse the uncovered regions of your body, then stand at the foot of prayer mats facing the qibla, Unfasten your cluttered mind from the tangible hold of secular trances, Bow down, before the cascading glow of God’s mercy, Submit to a centripetal course towards the gates of a more perfect emptiness. Here, now, you can plunge into the most secluded chamber of the soul, Commune with your share of the universe’s initial burst of light, eternal light, housed within the lamp of mystery, waiting to be beheld five times a day.

Faisal Mohyuddin author of Displaced Children of Displaced Children

Stages on the Path of Self-Realisation

by Hazrat Inayat Khan Volume VI - The Alchemy of Happiness

We see that in the words of philosophers, mystics, sages, thinkers, and prophets, great importance is given to self-realisation. If I were to explain what self-realisation is, I would say that the first step to self-realisation is God-realisation. The one who realises God in the end realises self, but the one who realises self never realises God. And that is the difficulty today with those who search after spiritual truth intellectually. They read many books about occultism, esotericism, and mysticism. And what they find most emphasised is self-realisation. Then they think that what they have to do is to attain that self-realisation and that they can just as well omit God. But in reality God is the key to spiritual perfection. God is the stepping-stone to self-realisation, God is the way which extends over the knowledge of the whole of creation. And if God is omitted then nothing can be reached. There is a wrong method in use today in many so-called cults, which often proves to be a failure, and which consists in teaching the beginner on the spiritual path to say, 'I am God': a thoughtless phrase, a word of insolence, a thought which has no foundation. It leads him nowhere except to ignorance. To the prophets and thinkers, to the sages who taught their followers the ideal of God, it had a meaning, a purpose. But today people do not recognise these, and being anxious to find a shortcut, they omit the principal thing in order to come to the realisation of self.

Once a man went to a Chinese sage and said to him, 'I want to learn the occult laws. Will you teach me?' The sage said, 'You have come to ask me to teach you something, but we have so many missionaries in China who come to teach us.' The man said, 'We know about God, but I have come to you to ask you about occult laws.' The sage said, 'If you know about God you don't need to know anything more. God is all that is to be known. If you know Him you know all.'

In this world of commercialism there is a tendency, an unconscious tendency, even for a person who wants to promote the spiritual truth, to cater for the taste of the people. Either because of a commercial instinct, or with the desire to have a success, there is a tendency to cater for what people want. If people seem to be tired of the God-ideal, those who have that tendency want to give them occultism. They call it that or mysticism, because the God-ideal seems so simple. And as there is a fashion in everything there is even a fashion in belief. Man thinks that the ideal of God is oldfashioned, something of the past. In order to create a new fashion he abandons the method which was the royal road trodden by all the wise and thoughtful of all ages, the method which will surely take men to perfection. Safety and success are sure in that path.

There may be a man of devotion and of simple faith, religious and believing in God, who calls Him the Judge, the Creator, the Sustainer, the Protector, the Master of the Last Day, the Lord, the Forgiver, and so on. And there may be another man, perhaps an intellectual who has studied philosophy, and he says, 'God is all, and all is God. God is abstract and it is the abstract which is God.'

In point of fact the one has a God, even if only in his imagination, but the other has none. He has only the abstract. He calls it God because the others say God, but in his mind he has only the abstract. For instance when you say 'space,' there is no personality attached to it, no intelligence recognised in it, no form, no distinct individuality or personality. It is the same thing with time. When you speak about time you do not imagine time to be something or somebody. You say it is time, which means a conception, which you have made for your convenience. A man who says that the abstract is God, has no God. By this I do not mean to say that one or the other is right. What I wish to explain is that from a mental point of view the one has a God, even if it is only a God of his imagination, but the other has none, whether he admits it or not. Both are right, and both are wrong. One is at the beginning, and the other is at the end. The one who begins with the end will end at the beginning. And the one who begins with the beginning will end at the end.

We might think, why in this short life should we create for ourselves a kind of illusion, why should we only arrive at the truth at the end? Why not begin with it? But if truth were such that it could be spoken of in words, I would have been the first to give it to you. Truth is a thing that must be discovered; we have to prepare ourselves to realize it, and it is that preparation which is called religion or occultism or mysticism. Whatever we may call it, it is that preparation. We prepare ourselves by one way or the other in order to realise truth in the end. And the best way, which all the thinkers and sages have adopted, is the way of God.

The next question is belief in God. There are four stages of belief in God. Each stage is as essential and important as the other. And if one does not go stage by stage, gradually evolving towards the realisation of God, one does not arrive at anything. It must be remembered that belief is a step on the ladder. Belief is the means and not the end. It leads to realisation. It is not that we advance towards a belief. If a man's foot is nailed on the ladder, that is not the object. The object is that he should climb upward on the ladder step by step. If he stands still on the ladder he defeats the object for which he journeys on the spiritual path. Those therefore who believe in a particular creed, in a religion, in God, in the hereafter, in the soul, in a certain dogma, are no doubt blessed by their belief and think they have something. But if they remain there, there will be no progress. If the only thing necessary was to have a religious belief, then thousands and millions of people in the world today who have a certain religious belief could have been most advanced people. But they are not. They go on year after year believing something that people have believed perhaps for many generations, and still they continue with it and remain there just like a man standing on a staircase, which is a place not made for him to stand on but to climb up. When he stays there he comes to nothing.

The first belief is the mass-belief. If someone says, 'There is a God,' then everyone repeats after him, 'Yes, there is a God.' One might think that today, at this stage of civilization, people are too advanced to have mass-beliefs, but that would be a great mistake. People are the same today as they were a thousand years ago, perhaps worse if it comes to spiritual questions. Someone who is called 'the man of the day' in a nation, is for the time being supported by the whole nation. Thousands and millions lift him up, hold him high. But for how long? Until some still more powerful person says, 'No, it is not so.' Then the whole country lets him down.

Just before the war I was visiting Russia. In every shop one saw a picture of the Czar and Czarina, held in high esteem. It was a sacred thing for people. There was a religious ideal attached to the emperor, as he was the Head of the Church. And they used to be filled with joy when they saw the Czar and Czarina passing in the street. It was a religious upliftment for them. But not long afterwards they themselves had processions in the streets when at each step they broke the czarist emblems. It did not take them one moment to change their belief. Why? Because it was a mass-belief.

It is a very powerful belief. It changes nations. It throws them down and raises them up. It brings war. But what is it after all? A mad belief. And yet no one will admit it. If you ask an individual, he says, 'I am not one of them.' Yet at the same time all move together when an impulse comes for good or bad.

Then there is a second step towards belief and that is belief in an authority, as with people at the time of a dictatorship. They believe in a leader. They say, 'I will not believe in the ordinary man, in my neighbour, in my colleague. I believe in that man whom I trust.' This belief is one step higher, because it is a belief in somebody in whom one has trust. When a person says, 'I am a Christian,' it means a belief in Jesus Christ and his teaching. It is a belief in someone, not in an abstraction. One might think that people do not believe in authority today, but this is not so. For instance everyone accepts a discovery made by a scientist before having made investigations about it. Investigations come afterwards. When somebody comes forward and says he has discovered something, everyone accepts it. Perhaps another scientist will produce something else one may believe, but the one who says a thing with authority is believed by the multitude.

Then there is a third stage of belief a further stage, and this belief makes man still greater. It is the belief of reason, and it means that one does not believe in any authority, nor in what everybody else believes, but that one has reasoned it out. That one sees reason in it. This belief is stronger still; for of the beliefs I have explained before one cannot give proof, but in this case one can stand up and say, 'Yes, I have reasoned it out.'

This, however, also has its limitation. Since reason is the slave of the mind, reason is as changeable as the weather; reason obeys our impressions. If we have an impulse to insult a person, or to fight with him, we can produce many reasons for it. It may be that afterwards there will be contrary reasons. But at the time, while we have this impulse, right or wrong, there is always a reason which supports it. Have the criminals put in jail committed crimes without a reason? No, they have a reason too. It does not fit in with the law perhaps, it does not satisfy society, but if we ask them, they have a reason. The reason we have today we may perhaps change next week, but nevertheless this third belief makes us stand on our own feet, for that moment if not always; and it gives us a greater power to defend our belief

And then again there is a fourth belief. That belief is a belief of conviction which stands above reason. There is a sense of conviction in man which is not discovered for some time in life. But there comes a time when it is discovered; and that is a blessed day. Then there arises an idea, an idea which no reason can break, a feeling which is not a passing feeling but is a conviction. However high the idea may be, one seems to be an eyewitness of that idea. One is as strong, as confident, as a person who has seen with his own eyes. One can be convinced of ideas so subtle that they cannot even be expressed in words, and one is more convinced of them than if one had seen them with one's own eyes. It is this belief which is called by the Sufis and Persian mystics Iman, which means conviction.

I remember the blessing my spiritual teacher, my murshid, used to give me every time I parted from him. And that blessing was, 'May your Iman be strengthened.' At that time I had not thought about the word Iman. On the contrary I thought as a young man, is my faith so weak that my teacher requires it to be stronger? I would have preferred it if he had said, may you become illuminated, or may your powers be great, or may your influence spread, or may you rise higher and higher, or become perfect. But this simple thing, may your faith be strengthened, what did it mean? I did not criticise but I pondered and pondered upon the subject. And in the end I came to realise that no blessing is more valuable and important than this. For every blessing is attached to a conviction. Where there is no conviction there is nothing. The secret of healing, the mystery of evolving, the power of all attainments, and the way to spiritual realisation, all come from the strengthening of that belief which is a conviction, so that nothing can ever change it.

And now we come again to the question of God. Because this is the important question we must first make it clear in our minds before we take a further step in spiritual progress. Since to analyse God means to dethrone God, the less said on the subject the better. But at the same time, the seekers for truth who want to tread the spiritual path with open eyes and whose intellect is hungering for knowledge, should know something about it.

There is a Hebrew story that once Moses was walking near the bank of a river. And he saw a shepherd boy speaking to himself. Moses was interested and halted there to listen to what he was saying. The shepherd boy was saying, 'O God, I have heard so much of You. You are so beautiful, You are so lovely, You are so kind, that if You ever came to me I would clothe You with my mantle, and I would guard You night and day. I would protect You from the cruel animals of this forest, and bathe You in this river, and bring to You all good things, milk and buttermilk. I would bring You a special bread. I love You so much. I would not let anyone cast his glance upon You. I would be all the time near You. I love You so much! If only I could see You once, God, I would give all I have.' Moses said, 'What are you saying!' The boy looked at Moses and trembled and was afraid. 'Did I say anything wrong?' he asked. Moses said, 'God, the Protector of all beings, you think of protecting Him, of giving Him bread? He gives bread to the whole universe. You say you would bathe Him in the river. He is the purest of all pure things. And how can you say that you will guard Him who guards all beings?' And the boy trembled. He thought, what a terrible thing I have done! He seemed to be lost. But as Moses went a few steps further there came a voice, 'Moses, what did you do! We sent you to bring our friends to Us, and now you have separated one. No matter how he thought of Us, he thought of Us just the same. You should have let him think the way he was thinking about Us. You should not have interfered with him!' Everyone has his own imagination of God. It is best if everyone is left to his own imagination.

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In our daily life we may hate someone, yet the same one is loved by someone else. We may criticise, and the same one is praised by someone else. If this is so then the conception of everyone is different. The same person is considered a saint by one and Satan by another. The God we know, or can know, is nothing but our conception, a picture that we have made of God for our own self, our own use. It is the greatest mistake for anyone to interfere with the conception of God held by another, or to think that another should have the same conception of God as he has himself. It is impossible. Many different artists have painted the picture of Christ, yet each one is different. And since we allow every artist to have his own conception of Christ so we should allow every person to have his own conception of God.

We need not blame the ancient Chinese and Greeks and Indians who believed in many gods. Many gods is too small a number. In reality every single person has his own God. Besides all the different conceptions are really nothing but covers over one God. Let them call God by any name, or think of Him with whatever imagination they have: it is after all the highest ideal. And the ideal of each one is as high as his imagination can make it. Urging upon someone that God is abstract and formless and pure, and that God is nameless, all these things do not help that person to evolve. For the first step on the path of God is to make a conception of God. It is simply to help the seekers after God that the wise in all ages have sometimes made a small statue and called it a god or goddess. They said, 'Here is God. Here is a shrine. Come there.' And to the one who was not satisfied with this, they said, 'Walk two hundred times round the shrine before you enter, then you will be blessed.' When the worshipper got tired he naturally felt exaltation because he walked in the path of God.

But, one might ask, if we leave everyone with his particular imagination or ideal of God, will he then progress and one day come to the realization of the self which is the highest attainment taught by all great teachers of humanity? The answer is yes. There are three stages on the way to spiritual perfection. Those who are unaware of the possibility of spiritual perfection are greatly mistaken when they say that man is imperfect and cannot be perfect. They are mistaken for the reason that they have seen only man in man. They have not seen God in man. Christ has said, 'Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.' This shows that there is the possibility of perfection. It is also true that man cannot be perfect. But man is not man alone. In man there is also God. Therefore though man remains imperfect the God part in man seeks for perfection. That is what the world was created for. Man is here on earth for this one purpose, that he may bring forth that spirit of God in him and thus discover his own perfection.

The three stages towards this perfection are the following. The first stage is to make God as great and as perfect as your imagination can. It is in order to help man to perfect God in himself that the teachers gave various prayers, the prayers to God, calling Him the Judge, the Forgiver, most Compassionate, most Faithful, most Beautiful, most Loving. All these attributes are our limited conceptions. God is greater than what we can say about Him. And when by all these conceptions and by our imagination we make God as great as we are able to, it must still be understood that God cannot be made greater than He is. We cannot give God pleasure by making Him great, but by making God great we ourselves arrive at a certain greatness; our vision widens, our spirit deepens, our ideal reaches higher. We create a greater vision, a wider horizon, for our own expansion. We should, therefore, by way of prayer, by praise, by contemplation, try to make God as great as we can possibly imagine.

The truth behind this is, that a person who sees good points in others and wants to add what is lacking in others, becomes nobler every day. By making others noble, by thinking good of others, he himself becomes nobler and better than those of whom he thinks good. And the one who thinks evil of others in time becomes wicked, for he covers up the good in him and produces thus the vision of evil. Therefore the first stage and the first duty of every seeker after truth is to make God as great as possible, for his own good, because he is making an ideal within himself. He is building within himself that which will make him great.

The second stage is the work of the heart. The first is of the head. To make God great intellectually, with thought and imagination, is really the painter's work, but still more important is the work of the heart.

In our everyday life we see the phenomenon of love. The first lesson that love teaches us is: 'I am not. Thou art.' The first thing to think of is to erase ourselves from our minds and to think of the one we love. As long as we do not arrive at this idea, so long the word love remains only in the dictionary. Many speak about love but very few know it. Is love a pastime, an amusement, a drama; is it a performance? The first lesson of love is sacrifice, service, self-effacement.

To close the eyes for prayer is one thing, and to produce the love of God is another thing. That is the second stage in spiritual realization. Where in the thought of God one begins to lose oneself, in the same way that the lover loses the thought of self in the thought of the beloved.

And the third stage is different again. In the third stage the beloved becomes the self, and the self is there no more. For then the self, as we think it to be, no longer remains; the self becomes what it really is. It is that realisation which is called self-realisation.

The Story of My Mystical Life

by Hazrat Inayat Khan

‘So I gained more faith; and I devoted myself more and more to my concentration. The reward I had received did not satisfy me, but it made me more and more inclined to go further in the pursuit of God. After some days I had an experience, a feeling that I heard a word in the midst of the night, saying: "God is great" and I arose and engaged myself in meditation.

I spoke of this to a friend, saying: "What is the meaning of this? I cannot understand it." The answer was: "The meaning of this experience is that you are meant to go further along this line." I replied: "Tell me what I should do." He said: "You can go further by the help of some teacher. Direct communion with God is a good thing, but if that had been the only thing necessary, Christ would not have come on earth. No prophet or teacher would ever have come to waken mankind. Therefore, when you are inclined to have communion with God, you need to have someone to guide you on this path." So I thought to myself: "If it is necessary to be guided, then I should like to be guided."

Now in the course of my meditations I had seen a face which attracted me very much. It was always the same face that I saw. It was one I had never seen in actual life, a face gleaming with beauty, so august a presence, with so much attraction. But I felt very reticent, I could not tell anyone the things I had experienced. Though I hesitated to tell anyone else, yet I did tell this friend, who said: "I told you, you ought to become a pupil of someone, who will direct you into all those mysteries." But whose pupil I should become, how could I know? However, I went to visit saints and sages and faqirs and dervishes and people who were on this path. Never could I decide whose pupil I should become, till one day I visited a friend in Hyderabad and explained my condition to him. While in his house, it so happened that a

friend walked in who had the very same face I saw in my vision! He had such a great calm and was so quiet of demeanor with great magnetism and psychic power around him. He came in and sat down and I was introduced to him. I was sure it was the same face that I had seen!

He asked his friend: "Who is this young man?" and was told: "He is a musician; a young man very anxious to walk along the spiritual path." At once the sage said: "I will be very glad to initiate him" and he did so there and then. His teaching, his glance of kindness, his mere contact gave me a reward incomparable with all the rewards and decorations that I had ever had from Rajahs and Maharajahs. It was like lead turning into gold. My heart was turned from its darkness and ignorance into light. Of course, he had to have great patience with me, as also a pupil in the East has always to have. For a long time I just went to him and sat in his presence and felt his atmosphere and was blessed by it. He gave me no teaching or any practices; no exercises, no theories, no doctrines. Nothing. All I did was to go to him every day and sit there before him. I gave up this mind of mine, that was always eager to dispute and discuss things intelligently, with logic and reason. My mind became quieter. I sat spellbound in the presence of this great teacher. I went to him with childlike simplicity. In his presence I unlearned all I had learned before. I became perfectly passive and was prepared to be taught whatever he chose to teach me.

In all my life I had never seen such simplicity, reality, goodness or greatness as this teacher had; there was none to whom I could compare him. So my devotion became greater and greater day by day that I spent in his presence. I found around him an atmosphere which I now breathed; there was something I took from him which raised me up and made me feel a king! The world itself began to look so different from what it had ever seemed before, until, when I looked at beauty, I could say: "you cannot tempt me"; when I looked at wealth I could say: "no, you are not very much to me"; and when I looked on great property I could say: "no". When I looked upon a poor person I could think: "you are no less than I"; when I looked on the weak, the feeble, the humble, I could think: "I feel you are no less than I," and so when before a rich person, a prince, some great personage, I could still think: "I am no less than you are." Within my heart there was produced that kind of pride, that kind of humility. The ambition for making a name for myself, a desire to make money, a desire to bow before some eminent man, nothing remained! The rich man does not differ from anyone else, so I did not bow my head before any proud head, it will only bow before the feeble, the poor, the venerable spiritual beings, never to wealth or prosperity anymore.

From that time this sage made me a king. The light and life I received from him was greater than any teachings. Then one day he began to teach me and explain some doctrines to me. When I took out my pencil and notebook, he stopped, and would not say a single word more. He knew by what I did that I was going to him only as a student. To do that the proper place is an academy! What one can receive from the silent presence of the teacher, from his kind glance, is not study. His heart was touched by my humility, my humbleness, the respect I paid him, my devotion towards him.

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As I look back, I can see that all the bliss I have today comes from that time. Later, when he had passed away, his physical form had disappeared, but his spirit can never disappear. The murshid and the mureed, the teacher and pupil, become one when there is devotion and understanding. There is no love, there is no true understanding, until it comes when the two have become one. When there is no understanding, we are still two, however near we may be related or closely associated. But between us there was that understanding, we were made one; so today I still realize that I am not far from my teacher, that my teacher is not very far from me.

After this time my life underwent a still greater test. I was then leading a life of asceticism. I could not continue to appear before the Rajah of the palace nor could I appear before the public as an ascetic. I therefore adopted the guise of a musician, keeping up the external life of my profession, while in my inner life, my life at home, I followed the life of an ascetic. The great contrast between the two lives — outwardly the one, inwardly the other — was much more difficult to carry through, than if I lived the outward life of an ascetic. This was because in such a case I would receive everything I needed — food, comforts, home. In the East they give an ascetic everything he needs.

When one is not living the outward life of an ascetic, one has to accept worldly responsibilities, just like any ordinary person. At the same time one must sleep on the ground on the skin of a deer and spend the nights in concentration and meditation. I continued all this without considering for one moment whether there would be any profit to me in it all; what would it profit me? What would I gain from it? Sometimes Satan would come to me, for instance, to tempt me to take some sleep and fulfil the desire of self. He would come during the night and say: "why do you keep awake? Do you not see that the world is asleep? Why spend your time on something no one else does? What will it profit you? Have you got all that the world is in need of? You are having to make the struggle for existence the same as other people have." But my answer was always: "you are a Satan — the ego. It is you who keeps all these people asleep. No, I will not sleep. I will fight against you. If I gain nothing for myself, at least I will have conquered you."

Years of this were my preparation for the inner injunction from God, as a fulfillment of the years of devotion, when I left home —my native land — to give the Message of Truth to the Western world.

God bless you.’

From a lecture given by Pir O Murshid Inayat Khan in Leeds, 10th June 1919.

Reported by Dr. O.C. Gruner. During the last three years the tomb of Murshid Madani of Hyderabad has been relocated to the Dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan in Delhi. ‘Nothing moves without God’s will.’ Contributed by Zubin.

The Sufi Movement in Australia

National Representative's Report – 2021/2022

by Nuria

This last year has evolved out of COVID lockdowns to be quite different from how things were before. I do not think that we will ever return to pre-Covid times. But this has not been all negative.

Zoom has played an important part and we have achieved much by using Zoom. The beauty of it is that people can join meetings no matter where they are. Some are attending Zoom who have not been able to attend actual meetings while others all over Australia and overseas can attend these meetings.

Pir Nawab has a monthly Zoom meeting with us on the first Thursday of every month (when he is not running retreats).

Pir Nawab also leads a worldwide serai on the second Saturday of every month (when he is not running retreats).

It is lovely to feel the energy and unity of all those who are involved in these meetings. There is discussion and exchange of ideas. Real teaching is happening.

From the 13th to the 15th of September, we had a really lovely Hejirat retreat with morning and evening sessions. Mornings were for prayers and confraternity and in the evenings, we had Universal Worship, healing, and a talk about Hazrat Inayat Khan’s experiences when coming to the west. The sessions were truly moving and profound and the involvement of so many mureeds with the Universal Worship and the healing practice, as well as the morning prayers. It was so inclusive. Zoom is being used in new ways that really enhance our practice.

Our newsletter Spirit Matters is evolving into an international publication – we get great feedback from people overseas, especially in Canada and the Netherlands. Such a shame that we never get feedback from within Australia! Yaqin is doing a wonderful job – each year I think it cannot get better and then it does. It would be great if more people would contribute articles.

Victoria

Nuria has been running Inner School meetings on Thursday evenings when Pir Nawab does not have a meeting with us.

These used to be our Melbourne group Zoom meetings but have expanded so that others around Australia and overseas now join us. Often Inner Call teachings are used, but lately other topics have come up.

We had a one-day winter retreat on Saturday 25th June which was a lovely day of practice and meditation.

Nuria took part in an interfaith meeting at St. Michael’s church in Melbourne, where each faith leader presented a meditation practice or ritual which came from their tradition. A recording was supposed to be available but that has not happened yet.

Nuria also took part in a series of talks at RMIT University given by different faith leaders. Although the numbers were very small, as RMIT was about to close again because of Covid, we have had one man who has now joined our Zoom sessions.

We have started to hold zikr here again on the 3rd or 4th Sunday of the month at 2pm. Sundays work well as there is very little traffic and having it in the afternoon means that people do not have to travel after dark. We have afternoon tea and catch up, then we get into the zikr practice. It has been a wonderful experience being together again after so long.

Our website has yielded a man who is very interested in Sufism and Nuria is now seeing him privately. He also joins in some of our Zoom sessions. So, the year has been fruitful and has brought about many changes.

We have had a council meeting regarding the costs of the retreat (14th - 20th April 2023) as Amberley’s costs have risen steeply. We all (including Nawab) want this retreat to go ahead. It is vital that we continue to meet and practice with Pir Nawab. We are determined to keep the cost of the retreat down, so have decided that SMIA will cover costs such as Nawab's airfare, retreat stay, printing, and other overheads from our savings investment account. These costs have usually been factored into the cost of the individual retreat in the past.

We want as many people to attend this retreat as possible to also keep costs down for others. Thus, we are happy to allow the payment of the retreat to be paid in instalments - even when the retreat is over. This option has already been taken upwith one Mureed making monthly payments so that she can attend.

We look forward to our retreat with Pir Nawab in April 2023.

Glasshouse Mountains Centre Report

by Shakti Genn

The Wednesday spiritual healing circle continues with around a dozen regulars and others who join as possible. August 2022 marks two years of these weekly Zoom healing sessions. The group continues to develop in capacity with many participants active in our preparation for the ceremony. These roles may include: offering acknowledgement of country, preparing and reading texts from Hazrat Inayat Khan, leading practices, saying the Nayaz prayer, saying the names, and saying prayers (A Prayer for Peace and Khatum) to finish our session. On occasions Eqbal and Zubin each stepped in to lead the ceremony in my absence. And, over October, while I was at the dargah retreat, Saqiya and Sakina, co-ordinated the Wednesday circle and led beautifully the practices and the Healing Ceremony. Zoom works well for the circle as most of us are scattered across Australia - Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia, and we also have participants from India, Switzerland, Uzbekistan and Latvia.

The 4th Monday of the month Healing Study group also continues this year, as often as possible. It is attended mostly by members of the Wednesday healing circle and is also open to interested others. Please contact Shakti (cagenn1@gmail.com) if you are interested in the healing circle or study group.

Spiritual Healing Zooms with our Sufi sisters and brothers in the Netherlands continue through 2022, usually on a monthly basis. The Dutch healing team of Shamsher and Rabia help co-ordinate these sessions and read the text and say the names. Dutch participants appreciate Saqiya joining these zooms with me from Australia, and her contributions of singing the wazifa and Nayaz. We are all grateful for the international Sufi friendships and the opportunity to offer service in spiritual healing at a time of so many challenges to health and peace.

Over the year I have also enjoyed participating in the Zoom Urs and Hejirat programmes and Universal Worship Zooms, as well as the serai and Australian meetings led by Pir Nawab. Joining the fifteen minute Peace Prayer Zoom, now led by Nauroz, is a wonderful way to start the day, and joining the weekly Zoom Confraternity prayer session led by Zubin is also very beautiful and inspiring.

It was a great joy for me in October to return to the dargah of our Murshid, Hazrat Inayat Khan, in the Nizamuddin Basti in Delhi for a retreat, and to see and experience the addition of the maqam for his Murshid, Hazrat Sayyad Abu Hashim Madani, to the dargah complex.

Northern Rivers & Universal Worship Report

by Zubin

Dear friends,

2022 has brought increasing opportunities to participate in the Sufi community. In February, still exuberant from the international production of Pir O Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan’s play, the Bogey Man, we celebrated Urs with an international confraternity and poetry and music presentations. Many countries participated in the program, and to conclude all sent electronic greeting cards displaying roses and quotes from Murshid. People put their hearts into this celebration of Urs and the opportunity to send greetings to each other.

In March, we commenced daily Peace Prayers, horrified at the developments in Europe. This short morning meeting involves saying the Invocation, the Prayer for Peace of the Nations five times, Ya Muhaimin 101 times, a silence, and a blessing. For about fifteen minutes a dozen or so people from around Australia, US and UK share prayers for peace. These continue with awareness of their applicability to all: an excerpt: ‘We pray Thee dispel the mists of illusion from the hearts of the nations, and lift their lives by Thy all sufficient power.’ Since the middle of the year Nauroz has convened this ‘Daily Peace Prayers’ group and her style is greatly appreciated.

Initially the Australian Cherag Circle held Universal Worship on the first Sunday morning of each month. Whether the numbers were small (4) or large (12), the service or discussion touched us profoundly. Sabura, Bhakti, Shakti, Saqiya, Yaqin, Thamir, Farhan, Haniyya and I have had opportunities to deepen in the roles in Universal Worship even through our online meetings. The Cherag Training Manual is an excellent reference for use with one’s interest and experience. It has a comprehensive benefit for Australian cherags, many of whom had their primary cherag development opportunities at the annual Australian retreat, which has been postponed for three years due to COVID. A Universal Worship development and discussion commenced on the third Sunday of the month often referencing the Cherag Training Manual. Also, after a few discussions and trials, a vision for podcasting with connections to Spirit Matters is evolving.

The International Confraternity meetings continue weekly with minor adjustments for the change of daylight savings times causing a bit of juggling for the people from US, UK Netherlands, Germany and Australia who attend. The prayers are shared between the approximately twelve attendees according to the needs of the day and

over the last two years friendships have increased. This gave confidence when Zubin Van Besselar sang the suras and I said the confraternity prayers at Summer School in Katwijk in July. It was very joyous to experience the hospitality of the International Sufi Movement in Holland, gathering again after a few years of COVID lockdowns. The subject was the Ocean of Truth and Pir O Murshid Inayat Khan’s biography, an account of his Personal Experience, in which he talked to the trials and blessings of his life in the west. In particular his belief that he had been called to spread the sufi message, his trust in God and his sublimation of his self were emphasized.

By June it became clear that my role in the Northern Rivers was coming to an end, and I returned to life in Adelaide in July, to be welcomed by many friends. In particular, Bhakti and Karim keep a borrowing library from their Sufi Centre in Milang, and Karim continues to write his blog and newsletter contributions ‘Tracks in a Pathless Land’

In September Hejirat was focused by drawing together the precious activities which Sufi Movement in Australia have collectively been involved in throughout the year to provide a successful three day retreat program.

The growth of friendship, collaboration and support for the continuation of all Sufi activities indicates a national community which will pull together and in particular for Pir Nawab’s return for a retreat at Amberley in 2023.

Those who patiently show up and allow the sounding out of new ideas, provide other support which seems boundless, and continue their journey in the Sufi message are friends beyond measure.

On a monthly basis, a Gathas class considering Murshid’s talks on superstitions, customs and beliefs, insight, symbology, breath, morals, everyday life, metaphysics, and zikr will commence in the new year.

Sydney Report

by Nauroz

In 2022 the Sydney SMIA Monday night 6.30pm weekly service became fortnightly (on the first and third Mondays of the month) with Hamida and Robyn as faithful coordinators.

A WhatsApp group was set up for the Sydney weekly - fortnightly outdoor Dawn Prayers for Healing, on Coogee beach cliffs in Sydney's eastern Suburbs, to confirm weather and availability. Changes (reductions) in public transport impacted some attendees. We await the return of a Labor government in the state. This group regularly involves Thamir, Sakina, Hamida and Nauroz, with visitors... It was lovely to have Eqbal rejoin us on the cliffs this year for a while.

Nauroz currently facilitates the daily morning Peace Prayer Zoom Group - 15 minutes of Murshid's Peace Prayer, a wazifa for Ya Muhaimin, the protector of the world, and a period of quiet meditation, specifically praying for an end to the war in Ukraine but also applied to other sites of conflict. We have regular visits from Sabura in the USA and Farhan and Haniyya in England. It's a very sweet meeting. ALL are welcome to this - 7.30am AEDT. Details below.

Sydney SMIA members are also active in Shakti's Wednesday night healing circle, Zubin's Universal Worship, and some attend Nuria's teachings, and of course Nawab's monthly meet-ups, all very much appreciated.

Daily Peace Prayer Zoom Group: 7.30 - 7.45 am AEDT Join Zoom Meeting. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2650336615? pwd=VW1xcjFTRXhNaDdTTlhKMllrdVVBQT09

Meeting ID: 265 033 6615. Passcode: Garden

Canberra Report

by Saqiya

Tonight is the blood moon Nature in her throbbing beauty The three stars hold each other’s hands Nature beautiful and cruel Challenges our existence

Zoom blessings are akasha Prayer for Peace

The healing ceremony The connection with teachers An evolving universal worship

Zikr is a circle of one, sometimes two and sometimes three Always a celestial blessing A plunge into the heart A holding together

The cold wind breathes into the prayer flags

The willuma drips amber cones

The companions seek a retreat Hand in hand across the time zones There is more to share

Perhaps at the retreat

National Activities

On the first Sunday of each month Zubin hosts a Cherag Circle via Zoom.

All are welcome. Enquiries: zubin.shore@sufimovement.org

Cherag - Farsi chirāgh, charāgh: lamp, light; guide, director. The term cherag is also used to refer to one who is ordained in the work of the Universal Worship of the Sufi Movement.

The Sufi Movement in Australia holds a Zoom Spiritual Healing Circle every week on Wednesday evening from 7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. AEST and a monthly Zoom Healing Study Group on the 3rd Monday of each month, also at 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. AEST. If you would like to learn more about the Healing Activity or would like to join the Healing Circle or Study Group please contact Shakti: shakti.genn@sufimovement.org

Nuria’s Melbourne Group meets online every Thursday at 8 p.m. via Zoom. If you would like to participate please contact Nuria for further information: irenenuriadaly@hotmail.com

Nauroz currently facilitates the daily morning Peace Prayer Zoom Group 7.30 - 7.45 am AEDT Join Zoom Meeting. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/ 2650336615? pwd=VW1xcjFTRXhNaDdTTlhKMllrdVVBQT09

Meeting ID: 265 033 6615. Passcode: Garden